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The Wall Street Journal - 02 April 2021 Flipbook PDF
The Wall Street Journal - 02 April 2021
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FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2021 ~ VOL. CCLXXVII NO. 76
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DJIA 33153.21 À 171.66 0.5%
NASDAQ 13480.11 À 1.8%
STOXX 600 432.22 À 0.6%
10-YR. TREAS. À 20/32 , yield 1.680%
OIL $61.45 À $2.29
GOLD $1,726.50 À $12.70
Business & Finance PEC and an alliance of other top oil producers agreed to boost their collective production by more than two million barrels a day over coming months, betting on resurgent demand. A1
O
The S&P 500 closed above 4000 for the first time, rising 1.2% to a record 4019.87. The Nasdaq and Dow gained 1.8% and 0.5%, respectively. B1 The Archegos blowup is spurring calls for tougher regulation of the shadowy swap trades that fueled billions of dollars of losses at global investment banks. A1, B1 Factories world-wide are struggling to keep up with soaring demand for all types of goods as the global economic recovery from the pandemic accelerates. A2 Initial jobless claims in the U.S. rose to 719,000 last week but remained near their lowest levels since the onset of the pandemic. A2 TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip maker, said it would invest $100 billion over the next three years to increase production capacity. B1 Airlines that focus on offering leisure travelers cheap fares are launching IPOs as air travel shows more signs of rebounding. B1 China approved a merger between chemical firms Sinochem and ChemChina, paving the way for another giant state-run enterprise. B1
World-Wide Biden’s infrastructure plan encountered immediate hurdles on Capitol Hill, where Republicans criticized the proposed corporate tax increases as a nonstarter and some Democrats began to jockey for their own demands. A1, A4 The president has directed the Pentagon to begin removing some military capabilities and forces from the Gulf region in the first steps of an effort to realign the U.S. global military footprint away from the Mideast. A1 The sergeant overseeing Derek Chauvin on the night of George Floyd’s death testified that the former officer could have stopped restraining Floyd shortly after he quit resisting arrest. A3 Many states are broadly expanding Covid-19 vaccine eligibility this week, unleashing more demand in a time of still-tight supplies. A6 The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine remains highly effective six months after its second dose, a sign that protection could last even longer. A6 The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a regulatory rollback of federal limits on media ownership in local markets. A3 A shooting in Orange, Calif., that left four people, including a 9-year-old boy, dead and a woman critically injured was a targeted attack, investigators said. A3 Democracy advocates Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai were among seven veteran activists found guilty on charges tied to a 2019 mass demonstration in Hong Kong. A16 CONTENTS Arts in Review A10-11 Banking & Finance B10 Business News.. B3,5 Crossword............... A11 Heard on Street. B12 Mansion............. M1-10
Markets..................... B11 Opinion.............. A13-15 Sports........................ A12 Technology............... B4 U.S. News............. A2-6 Weather................... A11 World News. A7-8,16
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s 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
YEN 110.60
Infrastructure proposal draws criticism from Republicans, demands from Democrats BY ANDREW DUEHREN AND KRISTINA PETERSON
BRAD PENNER/USA TODAY SPORTS/REUTERS
Auto makers are reporting a jump in U.S. vehicle sales in the opening months of 2021, but chip shortages and other supply-chain snags threaten to derail that momentum. A1
EURO $1.1779
Biden’s Economic Plan Hits Obstacles At Outset
Baseball Is Back, and So Are (Some of) the Fans
What’s News
HHHH $4.00
WSJ.com
STANDING ROOM: The New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole pitches to the Toronto Blue Jays’ Cavan Biggio at the opening day game in the Bronx Thursday. Crowds, capped at limited capacity, returned to regular-season games for the first time in a year.
OPEC, Allies to Boost Output, Expecting Stronger Demand BY SUMMER SAID AND BENOIT FAUCON OPEC and an alliance of other top oil producers agreed to boost their collective production by more than two million barrels a day over the coming months, betting on resurgent demand as they and the rest of the world assess the economic consequences of the pandemic’s trajectory. The Organization of the Pe-
U.S. Trims Its Forces Stationed In Mideast
troleum Exporting Countries and a group of other big producers led by Russia agreed to boost output in May by 350,000 barrels a day, and by the same amount again in June, according to delegates. They agreed to then increase output by an additional 450,000 barrels a day in July. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, agreed to start easing separate, unilateral cuts of one million barrels a day that it
put in place earlier this year. It plans to end those cuts altogether by the end of July, delegates said. The agreement made public Thursday between the two groups, together called OPEC+, was a compromise between Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, and Russia. Saudi Arabia had sought to maintain cuts, skeptical of a quick return in oil demand during the pandemic.
S&P 500 Speeds Past 4000 The S&P 500 closed above 4000 for the first time, buoyed by a continuing rebound in technology stocks. The broad stock gauge jumped 46.98 points, or 1.2%, to 4019.87. B1 4000
Thursday
Russia, meanwhile, has said the world already needs more oil to feed resurgent economies in many regions. The decision is another sharp swerve in OPEC’s zigzag oil strategy over the past year, underscoring the difficulty among forecasters in the group—and elsewhere—to call the start of a sustained global recovery from the pandemic. Traders took the OPEC easPlease turn to page A8
WASHINGTON—President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan encountered immediate hurdles on Capitol Hill, where Republicans criticized the proposed corporate tax increases as a nonstarter and some Democrats began to jockey for their own demands. Mr. Biden’s plan would provide $621 billion for surface transportation, $400 billion for long-term care for elderly and disabled people under Medicaid and $300 billion for domestic manufacturing, along with hundreds of billions of dollars for other efforts. It also includes a series of tax increases on companies, including raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%, that the White House said would cover the cost of the spending over 15 years. While both parties circled around passing a major infrastructure package for years, disagreement about its scope and how to pay for it stymied previous efforts. If Democrats move to pass an infrastructure package without Republican support, its scope could be limited by Senate rules constrainPlease turn to page A4 Package aims to lift economy over the long term................. A4
Inside Archegos’s Epic Meltdown
4019.87
S&P 500
3500
Banks were eager to finance Bill Hwang’s big bets—until they realized their exposure 7/12/19: 3013.77
BY GORDON LUBOLD AND WARREN P. STROBEL WASHINGTON—President Biden has directed the Pentagon to begin removing some military capabilities and forces from the Gulf region in the first steps of an effort to realign the U.S. global military footprint away from the Mideast, changes that come as Saudi Arabia endures rocket and drone attacks from inside Yemen and Iraq. In moves that haven’t been previously reported, the U.S. has removed at least three Patriot antimissile batteries from the Gulf region, including one from Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, that had been put in place in recent years to help protect U.S. forces. Other capabilities, including an aircraft carrier and surveillance systems, are being diverted from the Middle East to answer military needs elsewhere around the globe, according to U.S. officials. Additional reductions are under consideration, officials said. Mr. Biden, a Democrat, pledged after taking office that he would recalibrate the U.S.-Saudi relationship, taking several tough steps against the kingdom, including freezing the sale of offensive weapons that Riyadh has used in its sixyear military intervention in Yemen. He also made public an intelligence report saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, approved the operation that led to the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. But administration officials also have said they don’t want to destroy the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and have said they would seek ways to help Riyadh defend against rocket and missile attacks from militant fighters. The removal of Patriot batPlease turn to page A5
First close above 3000
Bill Hwang was in trouble. On Thursday of last week, the firm managing the former hedge-fund trader’s wealth arranged a confer-
3000
2500 8/26/14: 2000.02
By Gregory Zuckerman, Juliet Chung and Maureen Farrell
First close above 2000
2000
434 1,227 trading days 1500 2015
’16
’17
’18
’19
Fastest 1,000 point milestone on record
’20
’21
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data (trading days)
ence call with executives at some of the largest investment banks in the world. The urgent topic: mounting losses at Mr. Hwang’s family office, Archegos Capital Management, from a handful
of large bets on major stocks. Because the wagers had been made in part with socalled total-return swaps— investments made by banks on behalf of clients for a fee—they had obscured Mr. Hwang’s large exposure to several companies. Archegos shocked its lenders when it told them the size of its portfolio and how little cash it was holding, Please turn to page A9 Firm’s blowup shows gap in swaps regulation...................... B1
Supply Woes Threaten Auto Sales Momentum BY NORA NAUGHTON
11.3% for the three-month period, according to industry data firm Wards Intelligence. The industry’s annualized selling pace in the quarter hit 16.8 million vehicles, according to Wards, a sign that the level of demand is about on par with what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic. The increase is in part being driven by the collapse in
Auto makers are reporting a jump in U.S. vehicle sales in the opening months of 2021, boosted by continued consumer demand and some easier year-ago comparisons, but chip shortages and other supply-chain snags threaten to derail that momentum. Overall, U.S. auto sales rose
Revolutionary War Re-Enactors Rebel Against the Pandemic i
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business at the end of March 2020, when the economy began to shut down to limit the spread of the coronavirus. Auto-industry sales in January and February were still off 3.3% and 13%, respectively, according to automotive-data firm Motor Intelligence. March sales, however, are expected to leap, with car companies posting double-digit gains for the
month compared with a year earlier, industry forecasts show. For the U.S. car business, it has been a choppy start to the year. A global shortage of semiconductors has disrupted production at many U.S. factoPlease turn to page A2 Heard on the Street: CarMax pulls into the passing lane.. B12
INSIDE
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The history buffs are coming! The history buffs are coming! BY CAMERON MCWHIRTER It’s springtime in New England, and for Steve Crosby, that can mean only one thing: Revolution is in the air. The 58-year-old carpenter heads a group of Revolutionary War re-enactors based in Acton, Mass., and, with the 246th
anniversary of the “Shot Heard Round the World” approaching, they are starting to feel a little seditious. Last year, amid statewide orders prohibiting large gatherings, he and a few friends marked the occasion by walking in uniform to the North Bridge in Concord, Please turn to page A9
MANSION A Scottish castle may be the ultimate status symbol—rare, expensive and enormous. M1
JOE MORGENSTERN ‘Concrete Cowboy,’ a drama from Netflix, rides the inner-city range. A10
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A2 | Friday, April 2, 2021
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U.S. NEWS
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Factories Hum as Demand Surges Jobless Claims
BY PAUL HANNON AND JOSH MITCHELL
The resurgent global economy, led by the U.S., will likely drive world trade higher this year, despite a series of acute disruptions to already strained supply chains, including last week’s blockage of the Suez Canal. In the eurozone, factory activity grew at the fastest pace in at least two decades, according to the forecasting firm IHS Markit. Its purchasing managers index for the area rose to 62 in March from 57 a month earlier. China, the world’s No. 2 economy and a major global exporter, had trouble keeping up with the rise in demand last month, as supply-chain disruptions impeded the flow of goods. The country’s factory-sector growth eased slightly last month, according to IHS Markit. “It’s started to really transition to an extremely strong, demand-driven economy,” said Timothy Fiore, head of the
Factories around the world are struggling to keep up with soaring demand for all types of goods as the global economic recovery from the pandemic accelerates. In the U.S., factory production and product sales soared in March, according to the Institute for Supply Management, an industry trade group. Its index of factory activity—a measure that takes into account new orders for goods, production, inventory levels and commodity prices—rose to 64.7 last month from 60.8 in February. Any figure above 50 suggests industry expansion. The expansion—driven largely by American consumers venturing out in public again armed with government stimulus money—was broad-based, with demand rising from every major industry, from restaurants to chemical companies.
panel that oversees the ISM factory survey. He said the industry is in a V-shaped recovery. “Companies and their suppliers have not been able to react quick enough to staff up.” Factory inventory levels in the U.S. are at record lows, and companies are struggling to replenish them, for two
64.7
Index of March U.S. factory activity, up from 60.8 in February
main reasons: a shortage of workers and supply-chain disruptions. Factories can’t get supplies fast enough. Pent-up demand has been so high that shippers are running low on containers in which to ship goods by sea. Despite those shortages, the
World Trade Organization expects flows of goods across borders to increase by 8% this year, more than reversing the 5.3% drop seen in 2020 as the pandemic hit factory output and shipping. The recent blockage of the Suez Canal by the Ever Given, a giant cargo ship, has delayed scores of ships that rely on the canal to ferry goods from Asia to Europe and the U.S. Delays to supplies are likely to be felt by retailers and manufacturers over coming weeks. “The fact that the Ever Given was able to cause so much disruption is a sign that global merchandise trade is relatively robust, and that global supply chains have held up through the pandemic,” said Ngozi OkonjoIweala, the WTO’s director general, at a news conference unveiling its new forecasts. The Geneva-based trade regulator estimates that just 0.38% of annual global trade flows were delayed by the
Ever Given, which was freed Monday after six days. Purchasing managers responding to IHS Markit’s monthly questioning reported strong rises in the prices they have had to pay for their supplies, even where output is relatively subdued. Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam have been big beneficiaries of the surge in U.S. demand for consumer goods, and factories there are reporting lengthening waits for the supplies they need as well as rising prices. So too are factories in Thailand and Malaysia, which are still struggling to recover from the pandemic. Before the Suez Canal accident, Europe’s factories were booming, according to the IHS Markit surveys, with Germany’s manufacturers during March reporting the fastest increase in activity in the 25-year history of the monthly poll. That was partly driven by export orders, which reached what IHS Markit said were unprecedented levels.
U.S. WATCH VIRGINIA
ervations of the Choctaw and Seminole nations, and because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the McGirt case the state lacks jurisdiction to prosecute crimes by or against Native Americans inside those historical boundaries. Combined with previous rulings about the reservations of the Chickasaw, Cherokee and Muscogee (Creek) nations, state prosecutors no longer have jurisdiction over crimes involving Native Americans in nearly the entire eastern half of the state. —Associated Press
Confederate Statues Cleared for Removal
Supplies Threaten Auto Sales Continued from Page One ries, hitting car-company earnings and leaving dealerships with lower inventory, particularly on popular trucks and sport-utility vehicles. Then, in February, winter storms in Texas further disrupted the production of plastics used in seat foam and other materials, adding to the industry’s supply-chain woes. Still, customers kept buying. “Honestly, the numbers probably would have been even higher,” said Judy
LOUISIANA
JAE C. HONG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Virginia’s highest court ruled that the city of Charlottesville can take down two statues of Confederate generals, including one of Robert E. Lee that became the focus of a violent white nationalist rally in 2017. The state Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a Circuit Court decision in favor of a group of residents who sued to block the city from taking down the Lee statue and a nearby monument to Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Charlottesville’s City Council voted to remove both. White supremacist and neoNazi organizers of the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville said they went to the city to defend the statue of Lee. They clashed with counterprotesters before a man plowed his car into a crowd of people, killing a woman. City officials praised the ruling and said they plan to redesign the park spaces where the statues are located “in a way that promotes healing and that tells a more complete history of Charlottesville.” State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Goodwyn said both statues were erected long before a 1997 state law that barred local governments from removing them and that law shouldn’t be applied retroactively. Those seeking to keep the statues in place had argued that the legislature’s intent was to do just that. —Associated Press
Rise, but Trend Is Downward BY AMARA OMEOKWE
Filings for unemployment benefits rose last week but remained near their lowest levels since the pandemic’s onset, amid signs of a broader U.S. economic recovery. Workers filed 719,000 initial jobless claims, on a seasonally adjusted basis, in the week ended March 27, the Labor Department said Thursday. The increase followed a downward revision to 658,000 initial claims the prior week, the lowest point since the pandemic hit in March 2020. The four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility in the numbers, fell to 719,000, also a low during the pandemic. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, remain well above pre-pandemic levels—the weekly average in 2019 was 218,000—but have trended downward since the start of the year. The labor market has shown other signs of gaining steam, which economists expect will be captured in the Labor Department’s March employment report that will be released Friday. Economists forecast the U.S. economy added 675,000 jobs last month, compared with a gain of 379,000 in February, and that the jobless rate ticked down to 6% from 6.2%. “Higher jobless claims in
No Damage or Injuries As Minor Quake Hits ‘Higher jobless A minor earthquake early claims...don’t detract Thursday shook northwest Louifrom the strong siana, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of the downward trend.’ WILD RIDE: Six Flags Magic Mountain reopened Thursday to members and pass holders in Valencia, Calif. The theme park had been closed since March 2020 due to the pandemic. FLORIDA
School District Faces Ransomware Attack The computer system of one of the nation’s largest school districts was hacked by a criminal gang that encrypted district data and demanded $40 million in ransom or it would erase the files and post students’ and employees’ personal information online. Broward County Public Schools said Thursday that there is no indication any personal information has been stolen and that it made no extortion payWheeler, Nissan Motor Co.’s U.S. sales chief. “Between the chip shortage and the weather—it definitely did have an impact.” Nissan reported a nearly 11% increase in U.S. sales for the first quarter. Among the U.S. car companies, General Motors Co. posted on Thursday a nearly 4% increase in its U.S. sales for the January through March period and said it expects auto demand to remain strong throughout the year. Stellantis NV, formerly Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, reported a 5% increase in U.S. sales for the first quarter, and Ford Motor Co.’s U.S. sales were near flat for the period, according to company figures. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., which weren’t hit by the chip shortage until later in the quarter,
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (USPS 664-880) (Eastern Edition ISSN 0099-9660) (Central Edition ISSN 1092-0935) (Western Edition ISSN 0193-2241) Editorial and publication headquarters: 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036 Published daily except Sundays and general legal holidays. Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y., and other mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Wall Street Journal, 200 Burnett Rd., Chicopee, MA 01020. All Advertising published in The Wall Street Journal is subject to the applicable rate card, copies of which are available from the Advertising Services Department, Dow Jones & Co. Inc., 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10036. The Journal reserves the right not to accept an advertiser’s order. Only publication of an advertisement shall constitute final acceptance of the advertiser’s order. Letters to the Editor: Fax: 212-416-2891; email: [email protected] Need assistance with your subscription? By web: customercenter.wsj.com; By email: [email protected] By phone: 1-800-JOURNAL (1-800-568-7625) Reprints & licensing: By email: [email protected] By phone: 1-800-843-0008 WSJ back issues and framed pages: wsjshop.com Our newspapers are 100% sourced from sustainably certified mills.
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ment to the ransomware gang. The Fort Lauderdale-based district said it was working with cybersecurity experts “to investigate the incident and remediate affected systems. Efforts to restore all systems are under way and progressing well. We have no intention of paying a ransom.” With 271,000 students, Broward is the nation’s sixth-largest school district with an annual budget of about $4 billion—a fact the hackers kept returning to as they demanded $40 million, to be paid in cryptocurrency. The ransomware caused a brief shutdown of the district’s com-
puter system in early March, but classes weren’t disrupted. —Associated Press OKLAHOMA
Five More Murder Convictions Tossed A state court on Thursday tossed out five more first-degree murder convictions based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision about criminal jurisdiction. Two of the rulings by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals also affirm Congress never formally disestablished the res-
Major auto makers reported strong U.S. sales. First-quarter vehicle sales
1Q 2020
1Q 2021
GM
s 4%
Toyota
s 22%
Ford
s 1%
Stellantis
s 5%
Honda
s 16%
Nissan
s 11%
Hyundai
s 28%
,
,
,
Source: the companies
said U.S. sales in the first quarter increased 22% and 16%, respectively. Meanwhile, South Korean auto maker Hyundai Motor Co.
CORRECTIONS AMPLIFICATIONS UCLA’s basketball team plays in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. A Sports article on Thursday about the NCAA Final Four incorrectly referred to the location as Westwood, Calif.
Notice to readers Wall Street Journal staff members are working remotely during the pandemic. For the foreseeable future, please send reader comments only by email or phone, using the contacts below, not via U.S. Mail. Readers can alert The Wall Street Journal to any errors in news articles by emailing [email protected] or by calling 888-410-2667.
said it was able to keep U.S. dealer inventory steady during the first quarter and reported a 28% increase in sales. New-vehicle demand is expected to grow in the coming months as the car business hits the busy spring selling season and the distribution of new stimulus checks puts more money in shoppers’ pockets. Tight inventory levels didn’t have much of an impact on buyers in the first quarter, but that is likely to change in the coming months, Cox economist Charlie Chesbrough said. Already, at the end of February, vehicle stock levels at dealerships and in transit were down 26% compared with a year earlier, according to research firm Wards Intelligence. That is near the lows reached last summer when auto makers were starting to recover from the pandemic-related factory closures in the spring. Ford said Wednesday that it would halt production in April at several U.S. factories, in-
Interior confirmed. A 3.0 magnitude earthquake struck near the Blanchard area, northwest of Shreveport, in Caddo Parish around 2:30 a.m., multiple news outlets reported. According to the reports, there was very little to no shaking. No damage or injuries were reported. A 3.0 magnitude earthquake is considered weak by the USGS. The earthquake was felt within a 2.3-square mile area around Blanchard and just north of Cross Lake. While earthquakes have grown more common in Texas and Oklahoma, they have been rare in northwest Louisiana, officials said. —Associated Press cluding its two major truck plants. Stellantis, the maker of Jeep, Ram and Chrysler, said it would halt production at five North American plants through mid-April, following other major car companies that have paused work at factories in the region because of parts shortages and backups at West Coast ports. While demand continues to outstrip supply, car companies have pulled back on deep discounts offered early in the pandemic and consumers are spending more to drive off the lot in a new ride. The average price paid for a new vehicle in the first quarter was $37,314, the highest ever recorded for the quarterly period, according to J.D. Power. Some dealers worry the extended inventory shortages could disrupt some important new-model launches this year. Joe Shaker, owner of Shaker Automotive Group, which has stores in Connecticut and Massachusetts, said he is most concerned about any delays of long-awaited vehicles such as the Ford Bronco and Jeep Wagoneer. “We’ll keep battling through and hopefully be better for it when we’re on the other side,” Mr. Shaker said of the inventory crunch. Jeff Dyke, president of Sonic Automotive Inc., a publicly traded dealership chain based in North Carolina, is more optimistic. Mr. Dyke said that while sales during the summer months could be lean as dealers restock, he is encouraged by the strength in demand throughout the pandemic. “As we roll into the third and fourth quarter, this too shall pass,” he said.
the most recent week don’t detract from the strong downward trend,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. There were about 3.79 million continuing jobless claims—a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits through regular state programs—in the week ended March 20, down from 3.84 million the week before. The fourweek moving average in continuing claims also fell. Signs of an improving jobs situation come as state and local governments have eased restrictions on businesses and activity this year. Rising Covid-19 vaccinations and federal stimulus measures have helped spur a pickup in consumer spending, particularly for services such as dining, hotels and flights. “All of this is predicated on the trajectory of the virus,” said Constance Hunter, chief economist at KPMG. “If we can really get the virus under control, then we would expect to continue strong payrolls and at least one, if not two, really strong months of upside.” Brian Vlasak, 41, said he has been out of work since March 2020, when he was furloughed from his job as a theater stagehand at a Boston-area college. He said he doesn’t yet know when the work might resume, and his search for other employment has been limited because he has health concerns that put him at high risk for contracting the coronavirus. “I’m only going to get back into the workforce as soon as I know for sure that this is under control,” Mr. Vlasak said. .5 million
.5
Filings for jobless benefits
.
Pre-pandemic record was 695,000
.75
.5
2019 weekly average: 218,000
.5
July
’
Note: Seasonally adjusted Source: U.S. Employment and Training Administration via St. Louis Fed
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | A3
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U.S. NEWS
Sergeant phoned after alert from dispatcher; girlfriend, paramedics also give testimony BY JOE BARRETT AND ERIN AILWORTH MINNEAPOLIS—The sergeant overseeing Derek Chauvin on the night of George Floyd’s death testified that the former officer could have stopped restraining Mr. Floyd shortly after he quit resisting arrest, rather than keeping his knee on his neck for more than nine minutes. “When Mr. Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers, they could have ended their restraint,” said David Pleoger, who was with the Minneapolis Police Department for about 27 years before retiring. It was the first testimony from a superior of Mr. Chauvin’s that he had used what could be considered excessive force. Mr. Chauvin, 45 years old, has been charged with second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter. He and three other officers involved
in the arrest of Mr. Floyd on May 25 last year were all fired the day after the incident. During Mr. Pleoger’s testimony, prosecutors also played part of a phone call between Mr. Pleoger and Mr. Chauvin shortly after his deadly encounter with Mr. Floyd. The sergeant had called Mr. Chauvin after being alerted to what a 911 dispatcher—who testified Monday—felt was a concerning use of force. The recording offered a rare explanation in Mr. Chauvin’s own words for how he and other officers handled Mr. Floyd. “I was just going to call you and have you come out to our scene here,” Mr. Chauvin told Mr. Pleoger, according to the recording. “We just had to hold a guy down. He was going crazy,” Mr. Chauvin can be heard saying, adding that Mr. Floyd “wouldn’t go in the back of the squad.” During cross examination, Eric Nelson, the attorney for Mr. Chauvin, asked if Mr. Pleoger had conducted a full use-of-force review of the incident. Mr. Pleoger said he had not, since it had been upgraded to a critical incident after Mr. Floyd’s death and the review
COURT TV/PRESS POOL
Supervisor Says Chauvin Had a Choice
George Floyd’s girlfriend, Courteney Ross, answering questions during the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. was handled by others higher up the chain of command. Earlier on Thursday, Mr. Floyd’s girlfriend of several years, Courteney Ross, battled tears as she testified about her relationship with Mr. Floyd, including their struggles with opioid addiction. “It’s something we dealt with every day,” said Ms. Ross, who wore a necklace that spelled Floyd. She said she last saw Mr. Floyd the day before he died. Mr. Nelson sought to establish that Mr. Floyd had been hospitalized from a drug over-
dose two months before his death. When questioned by the prosecution following Mr. Nelson’s examination, Ms. Ross said Mr. Floyd’s previous overdose had not led to any permanent impairment. The Hennepin County medical examiner has ruled that Mr. Floyd’s death was a homicide. The defense has argued that his death was caused by a combination of a heart condition and drugs he took on the day of his arrest. Ms. Ross described Mr. Floyd as a gentle man who loved to work out and play
sports despite chronic pain in his neck, shoulder and back. She also talked about his devastation over his mother’s death and his battle with Covid-19. After Ms. Ross, the prosecution questioned two paramedics called to 38th and Chicago to attend to Mr. Floyd on May 25. They each individually described receiving a nonemergency call that was upgraded to an emergency a minute and a half later. When the paramedics arrived six and a half minutes after the initial call, they found Mr. Floyd with three officers on
top of him, with no pulse and nonresponsive, they said. “In lay terms, I thought he was dead,” said Derek Smith, a paramedic who described arriving at a scene that “didn’t feel like a welcoming environment.” He said he checked Mr. Floyd’s pulse and did not find one. Mr. Smith’s partner, Seth Bravinder, described motioning to an officer to get him to move off of Mr. Floyd, so they could get him into the ambulance, he testified. “He was a human being, I wanted to give him a second chance at life,” Mr. Smith said.
California Gunman Knew His Victims, Police Say Four people, including a 9year-old boy, were killed and a woman was critically injured in a shooting at an office building in Orange, Calif., that investigators said was a targeted attack. The suspect, identified as 44-year-old Aminadab Gaxiola Gonzalez, was also injured during an exchange of gunfire with police Wednesday evening, Orange Police Lt. Jennifer Amat said. The motive for the attack is still under investigation, but the suspect and victims all had “a business and personal relationship,” Lt. Amat said during a news briefing Thursday. The suspect and the injured woman were being treated at a local hospital. The names of the deceased, which include a man, two
PAUL BERSEBACH/SCNG/ZUMA PRESS
BY JIM CARLTON
A 9-year-old boy was among the four people killed in the shooting at an Orange, Calif., office building. women and the boy, were withheld pending notification of kin. The child is believed to be the son of one of the victims. Lt. Amat said the injured woman was embracing the boy when officers arrived in a
courtyard outside the office suites of Unified Homes, a realestate firm that specializes in manufactured-home sales, according to its website. The other three victims were found inside the office suites.
Mr. Gonzalez is a licensed trucker whose name is on the deed of a mobile home owned by Unified Homes, according to public records. Lt. Amat said officers responded to multiple calls of
shots fired around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at a small office complex in the Orange County city of 138,640 about 30 miles southeast of Los Angeles. The shooting was still under way, but officers couldn’t immediately enter the courtyard because two gates had been locked from inside with bicycle-type locks, Lt. Amat said. Two officers engaged the suspect from outside, and he was injured, she said. They used bolt cutters to get in and found the victims and suspect. The suspect used a semiautomatic handgun and had a backpack with pepper spray, handcuffs and ammunition, Lt. Amat said. Orange Police Chief Tom Kisela, who is set to retire in July, called the attack the worst mass shooting in the city
since 1997, when four people were killed in another workplace attack. “Anytime something like this happens, it is a horrible event,” Chief Kisela said. “I don’t wish it on anybody.” The shooting in Orange capped a month during which there were two other high-profile mass shootings and more than a dozen smaller ones. On March 16, a gunman killed eight people at three spas in the Atlanta area. On March 22, another gunman shot and killed 10 people, including a responding police officer, at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo. The outbreak of shootings after months of relative calm during the pandemic shutdowns has prompted President Biden and other Democratic lawmakers to call for new gun laws.
Court Sides With FCC Justices Back Georgia in Water Dispute On Media Ownership BY JESS BRAVIN
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a regulatory rollback of federal limits on media ownership in local markets, a decision that could open the door to further industry consolidation. The court, in an opinion by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, ruled Thursday that the Federal Communications Commission acted reasonably in 2017 when it loosened three longstanding media-ownership restrictions. The FCC’s action came when the commission was under Republican control, led by then-Chairman Ajit Pai. Citing dramatic changes to the media landscape, the commission, split along partisan lines, made it easier for one entity to own multiple TV stations in the same market. It also removed prohibitions on common ownership of both a TV station and a newspaper in the same market, or a TV station and a radio station. Some ownership limits had been in place for decades, to prevent concentration and preserve viewpoint diversity in local markets. The rollback came after the commission concluded in 2016 that the rules were still needed. The FCC, across administrations, had been tied up in court on the rules for nearly 20 years. In the latest round of litigation, a federal appeals court in 2019 agreed with critics who challenged the FCC rollback on the grounds that the commission didn’t adequately assess whether the changes would harm ownership of broadcast media by women and minorities.
The Supreme Court reversed that ruling and sided with the FCC. “The FCC considered the record evidence on competition, localism, viewpoint diversity, and minority and female ownership, and reasonably concluded that the three ownership rules no longer serve the public interest,” Justice Kavanaugh wrote for the court in FCC v. Prometheus Radio Project. The court said the FCC had only sparse evidence to work with on minority and female ownership and made a reasonable prediction that its rollback wouldn’t harm minority and female ownership levels. The FCC and a group of media companies, including News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, had appealed the case to the high court. Other ownership restrictions remain in place, notably limits that still generally prohibit ownership of multiple top stations in the same market, and more FCC action is possible in the future. “While I am disappointed by the court’s decision, the values that have long upheld our media policies—competition, localism, and diversity—remain strong,” said FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat who voted against the rollback. “I am committed to ensuring that these principles guide this agency as we move forward,” she said. Helgi Walker, a partner at law firm Gibson Dunn who argued the case for the National Association of Broadcasters and other industry challengers, said the decision “gives broadcasters the freedom to innovate and compete in today’s highly competitive media marketplace.”
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court resolved a longrunning water dispute between Florida and Georgia on Thursday, rejecting the Sunshine State’s claim that its northern neighbor had devastated its oyster industry by diverting more than its share of the Apalachicola River. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said there was no doubt the oyster population had collapsed since 2012, when a drought struck Apalachicola Bay on Florida’s northwest coast. But rather than point fingers at the Peach State, she suggested that Tallahassee reflect on its own behavior for the oysters’ demise. “Florida’s mismanagement of its oyster fisheries” was as likely a cause, Justice Barrett wrote.
Georgia, Florida and Alabama that contains the three rivers that make up its name. Florida contended that Georgia drew too much water for agriculture, increasing the salinity of Apalachicola Bay, which in turn attracted predators and disease that destroyed the oyster population. Georgia replied that Florida overfished the bay and failed to replenish the population by replacing harvested oyster shells to house the next generation of viscous bivalves. The Supreme Court holds authority to try lawsuits between states, but in this case, as is typical, assigned the dispute to an outside lawyer, called a special master. After an 18-month deluge of discovery, the special master held a five-week trial but found few pearls of wisdom. He ultimately concluded that even if
EVE EDELHEIT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BY BRENT KENDALL AND JESS BRAVIN
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said the Supreme Court “affirmed what we have long known to be true: Georgia’s water use has been fair and reasonable. We will continue to be good stewards of our water resources, and we are proud to have obtained a positive resolution to this yearslong dispute on behalf of all Georgians.” “Disappointing,” said the Florida attorney general’s office. “We remain committed to supporting [the state Department of Environmental Protection] in protecting Apalachicola Bay and the jobs that this important resource supports.” Florida filed the case in 2013, demanding that the Supreme Court devise “an equitable apportionment” of the Apalachicola-ChattahoocheeFlint River Basin, an area of some 20,000 square miles in
The town of Apalachicola, Fla., once had a booming wild oyster industry. The Supreme Court said Florida failed to prove that Georgia’s actions were to blame for the collapse of the industry.
Georgia had overindulged in the Apalachicola, the Supreme Court could provide no remedy, as the Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the reservoirs, wasn’t party to the case. In 2018 the justices called for additional proceedings, this time before a new special master, since the first had retired. Three more years and much more evidence later, the case returned to the Supreme Court for argument in February. Justice Samuel Alito asked then how much a part of Florida’s diluvial patrimony the Apalachicola oyster beds actually were. “Was something like this present when Ponce de Leon sailed up, or is this something that oyster farmers have created?” he said. The lawyer for Georgia, Craig Primis, conceded that “the oysters do occur naturally in Apalachicola Bay,” but added that “they have to be managed and the resource has to be cared for by humans.” Florida’s lawyer, Gregory Garre, said: “It’s hard to imagine New England without lobsters or, say, the Chesapeake without crabs, but, in effect, that’s a future that Apalachicola now faces when it comes to its oysters and other species.” But Justice Barrett wrote: “Florida failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence that Georgia’s alleged overconsumption caused serious harm to Florida’s oyster fisheries or its river wildlife and plant life.” While the definitive cause of the oyster apocalypse remained the subject of scientific debate, Justice Barrett observed that Florida had authorized unprecedented harvests in recent years. “The record also shows that Florida failed to adequately reshell its oyster bars,” she noted drily.
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BY KATE DAVIDSON WASHINGTON—The Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief package enacted last month aimed to get the economy back on track fast. Now, officials are set on increasing the speed limit for the long term. The roughly $2.3 trillion spending proposal unveiled Wednesday would make investments in infrastructure over the coming decade that officials say would enhance the economy’s productivity, such as through public transportation upgrades that make it easier for commuters to get to their jobs, or rural broadband expansion that improves workplace technology. Economists say those types of changes could enable the economy to grow more rapidly over the long term and lift liv-
Biden Plan Encounters Obstacles Continued from Page One ing what legislation can advance with a simple majority. Unlike the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief measure Mr. Biden recently signed into law, lawmakers don’t face a looming deadline to pass this package. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) set July 4 as a tentative goal for passing the bill, according to a person familiar with the matter, though she indicated that timeline could slip until later in July. The White House said it would like the package to be passed by this summer. Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said
ing standards without triggering worrisome inflation. But critics, including business groups and many Republican lawmakers, say the administration’s plan to pay for the measures through tax increases will damp investment, undercutting the boost to growth. Some note the plan will add to federal budget deficits, at least temporarily. And some observers say parts of the package won’t do much to raise productivity and change the economy’s long-term growth trajectory. “It depends on the investment,” Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, said of the potential for raising longterm growth. “Anything that makes workers more productive and private businesses more productive would all seem to be helpful.”
The goal is different from the most recent stimulus package, which aimed to provide immediate, short-term aid through checks to individuals, enhanced jobless benefits and expanded tax credits. The government borrowed all of the money and is expected to spend most of it this year, ramping up consumer demand, economic output and job growth, which will taper off in 2022. The new package focuses on long-term economic goals that predate the Covid-19 crisis, including repairing roads and bridges, investing in research and development, and making new investments in clean-energy technology such as electric-vehicle charging stations. Funding for the projects would be spent over eight years, and while the benefits could be slow to materialize,
the infrastructure push would likely prove more difficult than enacting the relief, in part because of funding questions. “It has more challenges not just because of the size and scope or scale of it, but because you have two initiatives that you have to walk through how to align the payfors and getting support for that,” he said, referencing the provisions to offset the cost in the infrastructure package and the White House’s coming education and antipoverty proposal. The president’s infrastructure plan serves as a general framework that lawmakers will need to translate into legislation. Mr. Biden said at his first cabinet meeting Thursday that he tapped five cabinet secretaries including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to oversee the plan and negotiate with Congress. Mr. Biden, a Democrat, has
said he would court GOP support, with the White House saying he would reach out to Republicans as the legislation comes together over the next several months. Many GOP lawmakers torched Mr. Biden’s proposed corporate-tax increases, which
‘I’m going to fight them every step of the way,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell said. would roll back key elements of the 2017 Republican tax law, and criticized the scope of the package. Some said they supported narrower investments in infrastructure. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the chamber’s GOP leader, said he opposed Mr. Bi-
KENDALL WARNER/THE NEWS & ADVANCE /ASSOCIATED PRESS
Package Aims to Boost Economy in Long Run
A fiber-optic cable was installed in Amherst, Va., in December to expand high-speed internet access. they would likely be felt for much longer, supporters say. “We could be talking a couple of years before firms start to see the benefits,” said Harvard University economics professor Karen Dynan, a Treasury official during the Obama administration. “But of course you want to look all the way through the life of the
infrastructure [to see] what the payoff is over the longer run.” President Biden’s proposal includes $621 billion to modernize transportation infrastructure, $300 billion to boost the manufacturing industry, $213 billion on retrofitting and building affordable housing and $100 billion to
expand broadband access, among other investments. The administration intends to pay for the plan with tax increases on corporations spread out over 15 years, reversing most of the tax law changes Republicans made in 2017. The proposal would raise the top corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%.
den’s package and didn’t expect other Republicans to support it. “I’m going to fight them every step of the way because I think this is the wrong prescription for America,” he said at an event in Kentucky Thursday. Rep. Sam Graves of Missouri, the top Republican on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he was open to the administration’s proposals on surface infrastructure if they were considered on their own. “If they can work with us and compromise, then there’s absolutely a path forward,” he said. An attempt at narrowing the scope and cost of the bill to win GOP support would likely collide with progressives’ efforts. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said it should be substantially larger. To pass the proposal without Republican support, Democrats
could use a budgetary process called reconciliation to skirt the 60-vote threshold typically necessary for advancing legislation in the Senate due to the filibuster. Under the chamber’s rules, the reconciliation procedure can be used only a limited number of times a year and limits lawmakers to approving measures related to the budget. Aides for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) recently started lobbying the Senate parliamentarian, the nonpartisan adjudicator of the chamber’s rules, to give Democrats more opportunities to use the process this year. If that effort fails, Democrats could pass only one more package through reconciliation this year, meaning the party might have to combine the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package with Mr. Biden’s education and antipoverty plan. Passing the bill without sizable Republican backing will re-
quire Democrats to support it almost unanimously. Narrow margins in the House and the 50-50 split in the Senate mean Democrats can afford to lose not one vote in the Senate and no more than three in the House, empowering lawmakers to make demands on the legislation. In an early sign of the bartering to come, three Democrats from New York and New Jersey said they wouldn’t support tax changes unless they included a full restoration of the state and local tax deduction, which is now capped at $10,000 under the 2017 Republican tax law. Mrs. Pelosi cautioned on Thursday against deciding whether to oppose the bill because of it. “I’m sympathetic to their position. I would say that I withhold any comment about whether to vote for a bill or not until you see what the bill is,” she said.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | A5
U.S. NEWS
The hack of companies and federal agencies through compromised software from SolarWinds Corp. has breathed new life into an old idea: The U.S. must require businesses to report cyberattacks. Lawmakers are examining how to craft such legislation after executives and government officials told Congress in recent weeks that details on how hackers penetrated their defenses could help the government and companies thwart nation-state hacks. But structuring such requirements is contentious. While companies welcome disclosures from other organizations, some fear detailing their own incidents could fuel bad press and investor panic, yield legal trouble and give hackers information to use in future attacks. Still, said Tom Fanning, chief executive of the Atlanta-based utility Southern Co., digitized businesses and interconnected supply chains make such transparency crucial. “What’s happening to us might also be happening to finance, telecom or natural-gas pipelines,” Mr. Fanning said, adding that his company faces millions of cyber threats each day. “That’s why we need this.” Staffers for Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) are speaking with companies and cyber experts in the hope of writing a bill, an aide said. Separately, Rep. Jim Langevin (D., R.I.) is fine-tuning two proposals in a pincer-like approach to the issue, an aide said. One rule would require a broad array of businesses to report specific incidents, such as personal data theft and ransomware, Mr. Langevin’s aide said. The other would mandate Breaches can hurt a company’s public image and spook investors—or not. FireEye’s shares dropped after reporting a hack in December, but shot up in the ensuing investigation. Share-price performance 60% FireEye
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much more data-sharing from organizations that operate infrastructure deemed critical to national security. The latter proposal will likely be more politically fraught, said Mark Montgomery, former executive director of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan policy group that includes Mr. Langevin. Such a law would have to specify what constitutes an incident, what information the private sector must share and what companies it covers—a definition that wouldn’t necessarily include a relatively obscure tech vendor like SolarWinds, he said. “Where people cut the deck is a little different,” said Mr. Montgomery, who now serves as a senior adviser to the commission. Certain businesses in heavily regulated sectors, such as defense, already have detailed reporting requirements under agency rules, said Jennifer Urban, a partner at law firm Foley & Lardner LLP, whose clients include Pentagon contractors. President Biden is also considering ways to facilitate such notifications by government information-technology vendors as part of a broader executive order on cybersecurity, according to a senior administration official. The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015 allows companies to share details about threats with the Department of Homeland Security under liability and confidentiality shields. But a report last year by the DHS inspector general found that only nine of 252 participants in the program in 2018 voluntarily handed over information. At a February hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, senior executives from Microsoft Corp. and FireEye Inc., firms near the center of the SolarWinds incident, said they supported confidential reporting requirements, with liability protection against risks such as shareholder lawsuits. Microsoft declined to comment further. A SolarWinds spokesman said the company supports “transparent and responsible sharing of information.” Lawmakers have applauded FireEye’s decision in December to report a breach of its systems to both the government and the public. Neither disclosure was required by law, but they jump-started an investigation in which U.S. officials determined the attack likely originated in Russia. Moscow has denied the claim.
DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES
BY DAVID UBERTI
ROOM TO BREATHE: Cabinet members, masked and spaced several feet apart, gathered in the East Room of the White House on Thursday. The meeting took place here instead of in the Cabinet Room to allow for proper social distancing.
Cuomo Probe Extends to Memoir BY JIMMY VIELKIND
ALBANY, N.Y.—The impeachment investigation into Gov. Andrew Cuomo will examine whether official state resources were used to produce the memoir that the Democratic governor published in October, a key state lawmaker said Thursday. Democrats who dominate the New York state Assembly were already investigating accusations that Mr. Cuomo behaved inappropriately toward multiple women as well as how his administration handled complaints of faulty bolts in a bridge over the Hudson River and policies related to Covid-19 in nursing homes. Assemblyman Charles Lavine, a Democrat from Long island who oversees the chamber’s investigation, said those areas remain the inquiry’s primary focus but that it also will examine recent news reports about the production of the book, “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic.” Mr. Lavine also said the Assembly had established a hotline for members of the public to provide information relevant to the inquiry. Mr. Cuomo’s memoir describes the activities of him, his closest aides and family members during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 50,000 New Yorkers. Senior aides to the governor reviewed a draft of the book manuscript during weekend sessions at the executive mansion this summer, people familiar with the matter said. Rich Azzopardi, a senior adviser to the governor, said that Mr.
Continued from Page One teries, the permanent aircraftcarrier presence and other military capabilities means that several thousand troops might leave the region over time. As of late last year there were about 50,000 U.S. troops in the region, down from a high of about 90,000 at the height of tensions between the Trump administration and Iran about two years ago. Defense officials declined to provide specifics about the reductions in military capabilities or forces. Saudi officials didn’t respond to a request to comment about the U.S. plans. A missile defense system known as a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, which protects against the kinds of ballistic missiles used frequently by Iranian allies, was also proposed to be removed, but officials said it would remain in the region for now. The military withdrawals amount to the early stages of a Biden administration effort to further reduce the U.S. posture in the Mideast after several decades of military engagement there, officials said. Some equipment, including surveillance drones and antimissile batteries, may be redeployed to focus on what offi-
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s book describes his activities and those of his aides and family members in the early days of the pandemic. Cuomo’s aides volunteered to work on the project and “to the extent an aide printed out a document, it appears incidental.” “The Executive Mansion is treated differently than other state buildings because it is legally the governor and first family’s personal private residence,” Mr. Azzopardi said in a statement. “Anything that comes with the mansion is available for his personal use. That said, equipment used for media appearances for this project were paid for or provided privately and any staff who volunteered did so on their personal time.” The New York Times first reported that Mr. Cuomo’s staff had assisted with the book. State Attorney General Letitia James is also overseeing an investigation into accusations by current and former aides of
IMAN AL-DABBAGH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
U.S. Trims Its Forces In Mideast
CARLO ALLEGRI/PRESS POOL
Lawmakers Mull Requiring Hack Reports
Biden Cabinet Convenes for the First Time
The U.S. has removed Patriot antimissile batteries from the Gulf region, including one from a base in Saudi Arabia, seen above. cials consider to be leading global competitors, including China and Russia. Aircraft carriers in recent years have been deployed as symbols of U.S. deterrence in the Middle East. Earlier this year, the USS Nimitz left the region, and the USS Eisenhower now is headed there. However, the Eisenhower isn’t expected to stay for the duration of a normal monthslong deployment, leaving what Navy officials refer to as a “carrier gap” in the area overseen by U.S. Central Command. Amid the withdrawals, officials said, a Pentagon team is looking at what equipment and training it can share with Saudi Arabia as it continues to come under withering rocket and missile attacks from fighters believed allied with Iran. The idea is to shift more of the burden of defending Saudi territory from Washington to Riyadh. Saudi Arabia has come under what U.S. officials said is an un-
acceptable level of violence from rocket and drone attacks from Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq. Since January, there have been more than 80 such attacks, some involving multiple, simultaneous drone assaults, that have U.S., Saudi and other allies in the region on alert. “By far that’s worse than any other period since before the beginning of the conflict,” a U.S. official said, referring to the war inside Yemen. Iran has denied it controls the Houthis or sponsors attacks through other groups. As the U.S. moves toward reducing its own military capabilities there, the Pentagon in recent weeks assembled a “tiger team”—an ad hoc group of defense policy and military experts—to find ways to help the oil-rich kingdom protect its facilities and oil installations, U.S. officials said. Options on the table include sales of specific, defensive
weapons, such as missile interceptors; expanded intelligencesharing; additional training; and military-to-military exchange programs, officials said. The Pentagon effort to find additional ways to help the kingdom to defend itself hasn’t been previously disclosed. Meanwhile, the Saudis’ efforts to bolster their own defenses, including their Patriot missile systems, long considered to be undermanned and overworked, are improving, U.S. officials said. For the past several years, the U.S. military has worked closely with the Saudis to improve the systems, officials said. “The Saudis have been pretty effective at knocking this stuff down. They are doing better and better,” a senior U.S. official said, referring to incoming rockets and drones. While officials said that most attacks against Saudi Arabia emanate from the Houthi militia inside Yemen, they couldn’t explain why the Houthis have escalated at this time. The militant group has claimed responsibility for many of the attacks. “The bottom line is that the Houthis need to know that we are standing with the Saudis and we will continue to support their right to self-defense,” another U.S. official said. The defensive help is intended to make good on Mr. Biden’s promise to lend the Saudis a defensive hand, after he took a series of steps signaling his administration would deal differently with Riyadh than did former President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Mr. Cuomo that he sexually harassed them or acted inappropriately. He has denied touching anyone inappropriately and has apologized if his staff misinterpreted his behavior as unwanted flirtation. Officials at the state Thruway Authority have said issues with bolts on the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge—which crosses the Hudson River between Westchester and Rockland counties—were resolved years ago and that subsequent inspections found the bridge to be safe. The governor also has said that his administration is cooperating with a federal inquiry into how it handled Covid-19 deaths in nursing homes. Judith Mogul, a special counsel to Mr. Cuomo, sought approval for the book on July 10 of last year from the state’s Joint Commission on Public
Ethics, according to correspondence reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. State law requires that JCOPE review requests by state officers related to significant outside employment activity. JCOPE deputy general counsel Martin Levine replied to Ms. Mogul on July 17, saying Mr. Cuomo’s request was granted subject to several conditions, according to a copy of the approval letter reviewed by the Journal. One of the conditions stated that “no State property, personnel or other resources may be utilized for activities associated with the book,” the letter said. JCOPE Commissioner Gary Lavine, who was appointed to JCOPE by state Senate Republicans, said the matter was never discussed or voted on by JCOPE’s commissioners. Gary Lavine, who isn’t related to Charles Lavine, said in an interview that the governor’s book deal was approved by the JCOPE staff under an illegal protocol that bypassed commissioners’ review. “I can tell you questions would have been asked—what assistance did the governor have? Where’s the contract for the book? ” he said. JCOPE spokesman Walter McClure declined to comment specifically about Mr. Cuomo’s book, but said commission staff have reviewed and approved requests for outside activity by state officers since 2012. Mr. McClure said the authority to do so was based on existing precedent from previous state ethics agencies that were combined after the creation of JCOPE in 2011. Mr. Azzopardi deferred comment to JCOPE.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
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U.S. NEWS
Across U.S., Many More Now Qualify for Vaccine BY JON KAMP AND JOSEPH DE AVILA Many states are broadly expanding Covid-19 vaccine eligibility this week, unleashing more demand in a time of stilltight supplies by targeting the shots at millions more people. Several states, including Texas, Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana, have set eligibility requirements to ages 16 years and up this week, joining states such as Arizona and Georgia that made the move recently. New York made people 30 years and older eligible starting Tuesday. Connecticut shifted to 16 and up on Thursday, and Maine plans to do the same on April 7. In some places that have expanded eligibility, demand is still outpacing vaccine supply. It varies from state to state and even within states, but some people are reporting having a hard time getting an appointment. States are banking on a growing number of vaccine doses to meet the need. President Biden has set a goal of 200 million shots by April 30. Federal data show 73.7% of people ages 65 and up have gotten at least one shot. Overall, at least 153.6 million doses have been administered in the U.S., the data show. Texas opened up eligibility because authorities there wanted to give more flexibility
to vaccine providers nearing the end of their waiting lists, said Chris Van Deusen, spokesman for the Department of State Health Services. In parts of the state where demand still outpaces supply, providers have been asked to keep giving priority to older people and those with underlying
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health conditions, he said. “We’re still limited by the amount of vaccine coming to the state each week, so it will still take some time to vaccinate everyone who wants a shot,” he said. He added that the state was getting more than one million first doses this week and expects that level to continue. Epidemiologists say progress in vaccinating older people creates an opportunity to start shifting the focus to others, so long as states continue to make sure the most at-risk people aren’t left behind. This includes minority groups that have seen vaccination gaps despite being particularly hardhit during the pandemic.
The U.S. is facing climbing Covid-19 case counts again, often because younger people are catching and spreading infections. The rise of variants that can spread easily is another major concern. “We are in a race between infections and the variants, so the more people we can get vaccinated the better,” said Catherine Troisi, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston. In Georgia, demand hasn’t been as strong in southern parts of the state where vaccine supplies have been more abundant, while competition for shots has been fiercer in the Atlanta area and the northern part of the state, said Amber Schmidtke, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who specializes in microbiology and immunology. The expansion of eligibility created competition for appointments, at least in the short term until supplies increase, she said. “But on the other hand, there were a lot of people in the southern half of the state who wanted the vaccine but couldn’t get to it because of eligibility requirements,” Dr. Schmidtke said. “I would much rather have those doses that are in freezers in south Georgia end up in an arm.” Some available appoint-
Share of state population that is fully vaccinated 16.9%, nationally 15%
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Fla. Hawaii Note: Last updated April 1, at 4 p.m. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
ments were going unfilled before the state opened up vaccinations to people 16 and up, said Lawton Davis, health director of the Coastal Health District, which serves eight counties in the state’s south. “The majority of people who were eligible, and who wanted it, had gotten it,” he said. Demand has increased and vaccine appointments might not be as easy to find again for the next two or three weeks, he said. New York plans to allow people as young as 16 to start scheduling vaccine appointments on April 6, following the move to ages 30 and up this week. State officials cautioned that the number of qualified
people still far exceeds incoming vaccine supplies from the federal government, and urged people to remain patient. Brooklyn, N.Y., resident David Kim, 32, logged on his computer at 8 a.m. Tuesday looking to score an appointment on the first day of his eligibility. After a two-hour search, he noticed on Twitter that some people found appointments at a CVS pharmacy on Staten Island, and he managed to book one there for Wednesday. “I just jumped on it,” said Mr. Kim, who runs a music public-relations agency. “I’m just looking forward to getting things back to normal and getting back to work hopefully.” As states expand to younger
groups, there are some concerns that still-vulnerable seniors haven’t gotten shots. Many older people have struggled trying to navigate online systems to book appointments, said David Certner, legislative counsel at AARP. “We still want to make sure those who are 50-plus and those who are at risk can still get vaccinated,” he said. Growing supplies could soon help. Manufacturers were expected to have produced 132 million doses in March, nearly tripling the number from February. Maine’s governor on Thursday cited a significant increase in incoming doses while moving up the timeline for vaccinating people as young as 16.
Pfizer Shot Effective After Six Months FDA Probes Cause
For Scrapped Batch
BY JARED S. HOPKINS
BY PETER LOFTUS AND THOMAS M. BURTON
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
The Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE remains highly effective six months after its second dose, an indication that protection could last for an even longer period. The findings, released Thursday, emerged from a continuing review of how volunteers in the shot’s late-stage trial were faring and whether they contracted Covid-19 with symptoms. In the rush to introduce vaccines for a new virus, companies and other vaccine researchers were unable to determine how long shots would provide protection, or whether booster shots would be needed to ensure protection. Pfizer said it hopes to provide more information on protection beyond six months in the coming weeks. The companies said they planned to continue to monitor study subjects for two years. Some vaccines, such as the one for measles, provide lifelong immunity while others, such as for the flu, need to be given every year. The further analysis suggested the vaccine worked effectively against a variant first identified in South Africa, Pfizer and BioNTech said. And the companies said they haven’t found serious safety concerns so far. “It is an important step to further confirm the strong efficacy and good safety data we have seen so far, especially in a longer-term follow-up,” said BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin. Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said the additional results provide “further confidence in our vaccine’s overall effectiveness.” The companies said they now expect to file for full approval of the vaccine in the U.S. as early as this month. It has been cleared for use so far on an emergency basis. The vaccine was the first
A man received the Pfizer vaccine at a clinic in New York City last week. authorized in the West last year, after the late-stage, or Phase 3, trial found it was 95% effective at preventing Covid-19 with symptoms and was generally safe. In the U.S., the vaccine is cleared for use in people age 16 and older. The shot has now become a key cog in global vaccination efforts. The companies have distributed more than 200 million doses globally and plan to produce 2.5 billion doses this year. On Wednesday, the companies said the vaccine was 100% effective in children ages 12 to 15, results that could lead to the vaccine’s U.S. authorization for use in adolescents in May. The vaccine uses a new gene-based technology, named messenger RNA after the molecules that carry genetic instructions to cells to make proteins. Production of the proteins trains the immune system to recognize the coronavirus and fight it. The new analysis looked at the vaccine’s performance in 46,307 people who enrolled in
the Phase 3 trial, starting in July. Of the 927 cases of symptomatic Covid-19 observed through March 13, 850 were in people who received a placebo and 77 in people who were vaccinated, according to the companies. That corresponds to a vaccine efficacy of 91.3% up to six months after getting the second dose, Pfizer and BioNTech said. The protection remained generally consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity, as well as among individuals with underlying health conditions, the companies said. The vaccine was also 95% to 100% effective against severe disease, with the precise figure depending on whether researchers used a definition of severe disease from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or one from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Some 800 trial subjects were enrolled in South Africa, where a more contagious variant of the virus was first identified. Among those volun-
teers, there were nine cases of Covid-19, all in people who got a placebo. Sequencing confirmed six of the nine cases were of the variant. The findings, the companies said, support earlier analyses that have shown the vaccine generated a slightly lower immune response against the variant than the more common strain circulating in the U.S., but was still effective at neutralizing the variant virus. Of the 697 cases of symptomatic Covid-19 among study subjects in the U.S., 647 were in people who received a placebo, with the rest in vaccinated subjects, indicating 92.6% efficacy, according to the companies. Despite the success of Covid-19 vaccines, health authorities and vaccine experts have said it is possible that booster shots will be needed seasonally or annually to ensure protection until the virus is fully stamped out around the world. They also say the vaccines might need to be updated to address potential variants that escape protection.
The Food and Drug Administration is investigating what caused a batch of the active ingredient for Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine to be scrapped for failing to meet quality standards at a contract manufacturing plant, according to a person familiar with the matter. The FDA may send an inspection team to assess the situation at the Baltimore plant operated by contractor Emergent BioSolutions Inc., the person said. The regulatory scrutiny follows J&J’s disclosure Wednesday that a batch of the main ingredient for its Covid-19 vaccine manufactured at the Emergent plant didn’t meet standards. The batch didn’t reach the vial-filling and finishing stage, and no doses from it were distributed. J&J says the quality lapse didn’t affect vaccine doses that have been distributed in the U.S. since the vaccine was authorized in February, and the company still has enough supply to meet near-term commitments. J&J also makes the main ingredient for the vaccine at its own plant in the Netherlands. Emergent BioSolutions, of Gaithersburg, Md., said Thursday that it isolated the batch of vaccine ingredients because it didn’t meet specifications and quality standards. Emergent said it would dispose of the batch properly. The company said that discarding a batch is disappointing but occasionally happens during the complex vaccine-manufacturing process. The White House said Thursday it didn’t expect the issue to affect the promised U.S. supply of J&J’s vaccine. J&J expects to deliver about 100 million doses for use in the U.S. by midyear, under the terms of a $1 billion purchase agreement with the federal government.
“We have been assured that they expect to meet those deadlines,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a briefing. Ms. Psaki said “the issue was identified as part of rigorous quality control system checks,” and the Department of Health and Human Services notified the White House late last week. Asked if the White House should have revealed the problem publicly earlier, Ms. Psaki said the plant hasn’t yet been FDA-approved. “This is probably the process of working as it should,” she said. Drug plants can manufacture ingredients for a drug or vaccine but finished products can’t be released until the FDA authorizes them. J&J’s vaccine is the third to be authorized in the U.S., after shots from Pfizer Inc. with its
A contractor says a batch of J&J vaccine ingredients didn’t meet standards. partner BioNTech SE, and Moderna Inc. Health authorities have been counting on the arrival of the single-shot J&J vaccine to boost the overall supply of shots and to simplify vaccinations because it doesn’t require a second dose. Emergent said that it was confident in its ability to meet FDA requirements. Emergent makes the main ingredient for AstraZeneca PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine at the same plant, though that vaccine isn’t authorized for use in the U.S. An AstraZeneca spokeswoman said the company was “aware of the reports regarding the facility and we understand Emergent is investigating the matter.” —Tarini Parti contributed to this article.
BY BRIANNA ABBOTT The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the first Covid-19 tests for repeated, frequent use by consumers at home to screen for infections even if they don’t have symptoms. The FDA late Wednesday gave the green light to three tests that are meant to be used frequently or multiple times over a few days—called serial tests. Consumers will be able to buy two of them over the
counter without a prescription; the other, for use in such places as schools and doctors’ offices, requires a prescription. The FDA had previously authorized them for use among people with symptoms. For almost a year, some U.S. public-health authorities have called for rapid Covid-19 tests that can quickly and frequently screen for the virus to help control the spread of the infection among people without symptoms. The FDA has already cleared a handful of tests that
consumers can purchase over the counter and use at home. But they aren’t designated as serial tests and aren’t yet widely accessible. Wednesday’s authorizations, awarded to companies with bulk manufacturing power, add to the tests that can be purchased over the counter among people without symptoms, potentially enabling rapid, athome testing to become more widely accessible and affordable. “It’s putting control into the hands of Americans di-
rectly,” said Mara Aspinall, cofounder of the Biomedical Diagnostics program at Arizona State University. “This is a step forward. The FDA has been saying that they want to encourage more at-home tests. This is taking those words and making them very real.” The three tests search for pieces of virus protein, called antigens, to help determine whether someone is infected. They were developed by Quidel Corp., Abbott Laboratories and Becton, Dickinson & Co.
TED S. WARREN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Agency Clears Home Tests for Frequent Use
Abbott’s BinaxNOW is one of two tests for use at home. A third test is for use in schools, doctors’ offices and nursing facilities.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | A7
WORLD NEWS
U.K. Sees Gains in Covid Vaccine Gamble
Delaying second shot to get more first doses to people seems to have paid off, authorities say
LONDON—The U.K.’s bold call to delay giving people a second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine has put it out in front in the race to inoculate the world against the disease. Behind that decision: a group of 16 scientists who advocated a controversial move to overrule some manufacturers’ guidelines in order to get more first doses to people. The gamble appears to have paid off, with data pointing to durable protection against illness after one vaccine dose. But while some countries, such as Canada, have followed the U.K.’s lead, others including the U.S. are saying to do so could pose a risk to public health. The decision by British authorities holds lessons for other countries as they fight to contain the pandemic. Indeed, the dosing debate raises difficult questions about whether some governments and their scientific advisers— for instance in the European Union, where vaccination campaigns are painfully slow—are being too risk averse. In December, as a highly infectious Covid-19 variant ripped across the U.K., the group of scientists sitting on Britain’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation concluded that delaying a second vaccine dose by up to 12 weeks could save lives. “It would have been cowardly not to make that decision,” said Adam Finn, an immunologist at the University of Bristol who sits on the JCVI. “We had a certain amount of vaccine and a certain amount of time.” Faced with a crisis, the U.K. government was open to doing things differently, said former British Prime Minister Tony
HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS
BY MAX COLCHESTER AND JASON DOUGLAS
With limited vaccine doses and soaring Covid-19 infections, British officials ripped up the rule book and delayed second shots. Blair, an early advocate of delaying the second dose. “The traditional way is ‘Well, we can’t be sure, we need more data, blah, blah, blah.’ OK, fine, but you know in a pandemic you’re losing lives and livelihoods every week,” he said. Altering rules on the fly risks stoking vaccine hesitancy if something does go wrong, said Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor and epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It is hard for me to imagine the U.S. making that decision,” she said. Britain’s Covid-19 response has been marked by a series of calculated gambles. Some went wrong. It initially held off on lockdown to allow the population to acquire some herd immunity. It now has the highest cumulative death toll from Covid-19 in Europe. On vaccines, the bets have so far paid off. The government spent big and early to acquire the innoculations. U.K.
Soaring Shot Rate Drives Fall in Deaths The U.K. has injected more than half its adult population with at least one shot of vaccine, putting it ahead of the U.S. and its European neighbors. Every adult is due to have received at least one shot of vaccine by the end of July.
Daily deaths from Covid-19 have fallen to less than 100. The speed of the vaccination drive means the U.K. economy is set to reopen over the spring and summer, with the Bank of England forecasting a boom later this year that will erase the losses of the pandemic by early 2022. Still, some doctors harbor concerns about the country’s unorthodox approach, especially over the risks to the frail and
elderly if immunity quickly fades after an initial dose. The delayed-dose strategy is also set to be tested in the coming weeks, as the rate of second doses is expected to fall while vaccine makers struggle to keep up with global demand and countries spar over who gets priority for scarce shots. So far, 31 million Britons have received the first dose and just 4.1 million a second shot.
regulators signed off on vaccines before anyone else. The country doled out a British vaccine developed by AstraZeneca PLC and the University of Oxford to its elderly population despite limited data available on whether it was effective in that age cohort. The British government “took punts on things before there was data to support them,” said Jeremy Brown, an
expert on respiratory diseases who advised on the U.K. vaccine deployment. Normally, vaccine doses are administered to the public in the same way that they were during clinical trials. To change dosing typically requires further real-world trials. Going into the pandemic, the JCVI had a record of recommending dosing changes without conducting more trials, arguing
that money and time could be saved by cutting doses, with no effect on patient immunity. Unlike immunization advisory bodies in other countries, “we can advise based on core principles where data are lacking,” said Prof. Finn. In this case, the group was guided by how its members understood immune systems to work in practice. Initially, as the trial data
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came in from shots developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc. and AstraZeneca, the British government played it by the book: After quickly approving the Pfizer shot, it said there should be a three-week gap between injections. When the trial data for the AstraZeneca vaccine was published in November, scientists were flummoxed by an accidental finding. Volunteers who were given a half-dose shot followed by a full dose a month or more later had much better immune response than those who were given two full doses more closely together. The error raised questions about whether the better immune response was down to the half dose or the time between shots. “That was what got us thinking,” said Prof. Finn. The JCVI met in late December and after a short debate backed delaying the second dose, members say. Though the 12-week dosing schedule was in line with what had been tested in AstraZeneca’s trials, Pfizer and Moderna said extending the dosing interval wasn’t something they would recommend, given that their vaccine trials looked at shorter, three-to-four-week intervals to determine efficacy. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said delaying the second dose beyond the limits assessed in human trials poses a risk to public health. Data so far have mostly provided support for the doseextension call. Studies of vaccinated British healthcare workers, for instance, have shown a strong immune response after just one dose of vaccine. One analysis concluded it was comparable in potency to that obtained by previous natural infection. “We find it quite reassuring,” Susanna Dunachie, global research professor at the University of Oxford, told reporters during a recent briefing on that finding. “They are kind of getting the immune response from someone who’s had Covid already from that single dose.”
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A8 | Friday, April 2, 2021
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
WORLD NEWS
Poor Nations Fear Capital Flight The red-hot U.S. economy is drawing billions of dollars in capital from emerging markets, stirring concerns that investor flight may destabilize poor countries where Covid-19 infections remain high and the prospect of a robust economic recovery seems distant. According to figures compiled by the Institute of International Finance, a research body for international banks, developing countries saw an outflow of capital in March of $5.16 billion. This week, Turkey, which raised official interest rates to contain a rise in inflation and a drop in its currency, saw the biggest weekly outflow of capital since 2015. While modest, the March outflows were the first from emerging markets since the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion economic-support package, combined with a rapid vaccination program, dramatically raised expectations for U.S. economic growth. Economists project the U.S. economy would grow 6.5% this year, the fastest pace in three decades. Although largely good for the global economy, the torrid growth in the U.S. is straining some weaker countries. As investors rush to buy U.S. assets, they have driven U.S. Treasury bonds yields sharply higher this year. Should that continue, economists worry that the higher returns offered for riskless investments in the world’s largest economy could pull money from emerging markets, where vaccine campaigns have barely begun. “Faster U.S. recovery could cause a rapid rise in interest rates, which could lead to a sharp tightening of financial conditions, and significant capital outflows from emerging and developing econo-
MURAT CETINMUHURDAR/PPO/REUTERS
BY PAUL HANNON
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abruptly dismissed the central bank governor last month. Net flows in emerging-market stocks and bonds, weekly $10 billion
0
–10
–20
–30 2012
’15
’20
Note: Non-resident purchases; excludes Turkey and Mexico Sources: National sources, Institute for International Finance
mies,” said Kristalina Georgieva, the International Monetary Fund’s chief, in a speech Tuesday. The March outflows were the first since October. Back then, the outflows reflected a flight by investors to havens. The current exodus is instead driven by the rise in U.S. yields—a more worrisome trend. Indeed, during the past month, central banks in Brazil and Russia, in addition to Tur-
key, have raised interest rates, in part to defend against capital outflows and to support their currencies. Investors grew concerned when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan abruptly dismissed central bank governor Naci Agbal last month for his decision to raise interest rates to contain double-digit inflation. In the week after his dismissal, foreign investors withdrew a net $1.1 billion from
Turkish lira-denominated bonds, the biggest weekly drawdown since January 2015. They also pulled a net $800 million from Turkish stocks, the worst weekly retreat since January 2007. In total, the flight of foreign capital that week represented more than 40% of the net $4.6 billion investors had put into Turkish lira assets under Mr. Agbal’s roughly four-month tenure. The increase in emerging markets’ interest rates awakened memories of the socalled Taper Tantrum of 2013. In May of that year, thenFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers the central bank was considering a slowdown in its purchases of government bonds, without actually announcing such a change. To many Fed watchers, he was simply repeating a view first expressed in January 2013. But investors took fright and pushed yields on U.S. government bonds sharply higher, sending shock waves around the world, with particularly
troubling consequences for emerging markets. To stem the 2013 outflow of capital, a number of central banks in large developing countries had to raise their key interest rates, thereby slowing their economies. Should they be forced to do so again this year, it would add to an already weak recovery from the pandemic. But economists largely don’t expect a repeat of the taper tantrum. First, developing countries had seen strong economic growth and a surge in capital inflows in the years before Mr. Bernanke’s remarks. Rich countries such as the U.S. had recovered much more slowly from the global financial crisis, and international investors had placed especially large bets on faster-growing developing countries. According to the International Monetary Fund, capital flows to developing countries in the years following the financial crisis jumped to nearly 50% of the global total capital flows from 20% in the years running up to the crisis. By contrast, emerging countries didn’t see large inflows in the years before the pandemic. “This is not the death knell for developing economies,” said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. In 2013, current-account deficits—a measure of how much capital a country needs—had been large for a number of years, so it was a problem when investors became reluctant to provide more capital. Now, according to Fitch Ratings, those gaps are significantly smaller. Fitch economists estimate that current-account deficits for 81 countries they monitor will be just 2% of annual economic output this year, compared with 3.2% in 2013.
MOHAMED ELSHAHED/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Suez Canal Head Says Egypt Is Seeking Compensation for Blockage
Producers To Boost Output Continued from Page One ing in stride, with analysts saying the boost was measured. Brent, the international crude benchmark, closed at $64.86 a barrel, up $2.12, or 3.38%. The front-month contract for West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for crude oil, was up $2.29, or 3.87% to $61.45 a barrel. “There is a recognition that this is a phased return that can be fairly easily reversed,” said Helima Croft, the chief commodities strategist at Canadian broker RBC. Ahead of the meeting between the two groups, Saudi Arabia had initially backed plans to keep production unchanged, delegates said. The decision to increase output “was a complete U-turn,” one
an interview with a pro-government TV show Wednesday that the amount takes into account the costs of the salvage operation, stalled traffic and lost transit fees for the days the Ever Given blocked the canal. Gen. Rabei didn’t say who would be responsible for paying the compensation. The vessel is
of them said. Throughout the pandemic, the group has appeared to shift sharply from optimism to pessimism over the prospects of a post-pandemic economic recovery—and a strong rebound in oil demand. Saudi Arabia has pushed to stay cautious, while Russia has been eager to lift output. The divide was on display ahead of Thursday’s meeting. Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman warned the “sea remains rough” in terms of stabilizing the oil market. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said the oil markets were undersupplied by some two million barrels a day, and “it’s important not to let the market overheat.” Keeping a tight lid on output can bolster prices, but it can also suppress revenue for many of Russia’s independent producers. Oil supply lines also were disrupted recently by the six-day closure of the Suez Canal, offering another case for easing the taps. Many forecasters are bracing for a strong global recov-
owned by a Japanese firm, operated by Taiwan-based Evergreen Group, and flagged in Panama. The vessel is anchored in the Great Bitter Lake, a stretch of water half way between the north and south ends of the canal, where a probe is underway. On Thursday, the ship’s technical managers, Bernard Schulte
Shipmanagement, told the Associated Press that the crew was cooperating with authorities in the investigation. They said Suez Canal Authority investigators have been given access to the Voyage Data Recorder, the vessel’s black box. Gen. Rabie said that if an investigation went smoothly and
ery this year, but it remains an uncertain picture. Oxford Economics forecast 6% global growth in 2021, the fastest rate in almost half a century, as Covid-19 vaccine campaigns allow pandemic restrictions to be lifted and businesses to snap back in some places. In China, consumer spending at home and demand for Chinese-made goods abroad
the compensation amount was agreed on, the ship would be allowed to depart. However, if the issue of compensation involved litigation, the Ever Given and its some $3.5 billion worth of cargo would not be allowed to leave Egypt, he said. —Associated Press
added economic steam there in March. The U.S. economy is picking up, with an accelerating vaccination drive progressing relatively smoothly. Consumers are increasing their spending, particularly on in-person services that were battered by the pandemic. Still, clouds remain. Reported U.S. Covid-19 cases remain elevated and
FAYEZ NURELDINE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Egypt is seeking more than $1 billion in compensation after a cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal for nearly a week, according to the top canal official. He said the ship and its cargo will not be allowed to leave if the issue goes to court. Lt. Gen. Ossama Rabei, head of the canal authority, said in
Saudi Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman, shown in January, warned the ‘sea remains rough’ for stabilizing the oil market.
have risen steadily despite the vaccine rollout. Fast-rising cases in much of Europe are triggering new Covid-19 restrictions and threatening a deeper-than-expected, doubledip recession there. As Covid-19 started shutting down economies last year, grounding flights and closing businesses, OPEC and its allies cast aside a bitter price war and cut nearly 10 million barrels of crude a day, or about 10% of pre-pandemic demand, from their collective production. Since then, the group has agreed in fits and starts to restore a chunk of that—about 3.15 million barrels a day, including Thursday’s new barrels. Saudi Arabia surprised markets in early January by agreeing to act unilaterally and slice a further one million barrels of its own production to help stabilize markets at a time it felt earlier vaccination optimism was premature and cases in Europe and the U.S. were soaring. —David Hodari contributed to this article.
U.S. Backs IMF Bid To Ease Pandemic Poverty BY YUKA HAYASHI
WASHINGTON—The Treasury Department notified Congress of its support for a plan by the International Monetary Fund to use its reserve assets to help poor nations battle the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting economic slump. Thursday’s action by the Biden administration moves the IMF a step closer to issuing $650 billion of Special Drawing Rights, a plan that already has the support of other major economies. The IMF needs the consent of the U.S., its largest shareholder. The SDR is an international reserve asset that countries can exchange for dollars or other major currencies to make debt payments or pay for imported goods. The IMF last issued SDRs in 2009, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. “An allocation of new Special Drawing Rights at the IMF could enhance liquidity for low-income countries to facilitate their much-needed health
$650B Would be set aside from the fund for low-income nations
and economic recovery efforts,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a letter to leaders of the Group of 20 advanced and major emerging market economies in February. IMF officials have said that while the global economy is rebounding from the pandemic’s impact, the recovery is uneven. While wealthier countries have used their ample resources to fuel growth and vaccinate their citizens, poor nations are lagging behind and racking up debts. In all, more than 30.4 million cases have been reported in the U.S. and more than 552,000 people have died. World-wide, more than 128.9 million cases have been reported and more than 2.8 million people have died. The Trump administration blocked the use of SDRs for pandemic response last year, and some Republican lawmakers have expressed their opposition to the latest iteration of the plan, saying it would benefit U.S. adversaries who are IMF members. The Treasury must notify Congress of the move but doesn’t need its approval for the proposed size of the allocation. “The proposed allocation of SDRs would be inappropriate, ineffective, and a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars that would end up benefiting repressive regimes and state sponsors of terrorism,” Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), the top Republican on the Banking Committee, and three other Republican senators wrote in a letter to Ms. Yellen on March 24. Member states are issued SDRs in proportion to their stakes in the IMF, which was created near the end of World War II to oversee the global exchange-rate system and act as a lender of last resort to countries in financial distress. The U.S. has the right to refuse to exchange dollars for the SDRs of any country “whose policies run counter to U.S. interests,” according to a Treasury fact sheet. The U.S. is expected to receive about 17%, or $113 billion, of the allocation, and G-20 members including the U.S. will together get roughly 70%. That has led to criticism that the small allocations received by low-income countries will be of little help. However, the Treasury said it is working with other advanced nations to lend a portion of their SDRs to support low-income countries. The SDR is based on a basket of currencies made up of the dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen, Chinese yuan and British pound.
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FROM PAGE ONE
Continued from Page One where Minutemen repelled British troops at the start of the American Revolution on April 19, 1775. They plan a repeat march this year, pandemic or no. “We did it early, and we did it quickly,” he says, of a state holiday that normally features parades, festivities and the Boston Marathon. Since the Covid-19 pandemic forced Revolutionary War enthusiasts into a prolonged retreat, many are launching a range of counteroffensives to cope. Some take hikes dressed in their colonial clothes as well as masks— which can startle other hikers. Paul O’Shaughnessy, a Boston-area biotech engineer who usually portrays a British officer, has spent a lot of time in his basement, which he turned into a workspace. He has been teaching himself to repair replicas of Revolutionary War-era weapons. “I’ve been fixing muskets. That’s how I stay sane,” he says. The tightknit community of war re-enactors would normally be donning tricorner
JOAN JASSET/A TIMELESS COLLECTION
Minutemen Muster Patience
Thomas Tringale, center, invited friends to gather in costume in his backyard for photos. War re-enactors would normally be prepping for springtime parades. hats and long coats and grabbing their muskets to prep for springtime parades, historical gatherings, school visits and battle re-enactments—but nearly all of these events have been canceled. For a hobby rooted in heavy interaction with the public and each other, it hasn’t been easy to keep their powder dry. As the pandemic stretched on, Mr. O’Shaughnessy says he realized after gaining some weight during the pandemic that he had to work on his uniform. Clothing from the 18th century was form-fitting. “The red coat seems to have shrunk just a smidge” during the pandemic, he says. Kenneth Gavin, who heads a
re-enacting group of about 45 active members in the Philadelphia area, says he has spent the pandemic studying up on marching and battle formations in historic military manuals. Marching into battle in the 18th century often involved close ranks, with men standing shoulder-to-shoulder, which has been impossible to replicate during the pandemic. Mr. Gavin has tried mimicking the formations using Popsicle sticks on his desk. Steven Taskovics, 58, a reenactor from Framingham, Mass., plays the fife in the Middlesex County Volunteers Fifes & Drums, a group that marches in costume and performs Revolutionary War-era
music. The group has performed only a few times outside and socially distanced during Covid-19. He loves playing the fife, but like other wind instruments, it’s “a super spreader,” he says. To tackle the problem, Mr. Taskovics adapted a design for a flute guard found on the internet that limits aerosol dispersal when playing. To supplement the few performances they’ve had together, the group also has produced several synchronized Zoom video performances and posted on social media. The re-enactors in Mr. O’Shaughnessy’s groups gathered in small, masked, socially-
distanced units this fall at Lexington to practice marching, with no onlookers. His regiment recently tried singing sea-shanties on a Zoom call. “It doesn’t really work,” he says, sighing. Thomas Tringale, a 36-yearold aquatics manager at a health club, has been re-enacting since 1995 and says he misses it terribly. After events or training, his group usually goes out for beers and sings 18th-century songs. When they dress as French soldiers, they sing in French, but Mr. Tringale admits, “Our French is really sucky.” He invited about a dozen friends to gather in costume in his backyard for photos—even
Continued from Page One said people familiar with the call—not the least because they were all now facing billions of dollars in potential losses themselves. Now Wall Street is sifting through the aftermath of the biggest single-firm meltdown since the financial crisis. Mr. Hwang alone lost approximately $8 billion in 10 days, a person familiar with the matter said, in what traders and investors say was one of the fastest losses of such a large sum they had ever seen. The firm’s implosion has rippled through the financial world, eroding tens of billions of dollars from the shares of media conglomerates and investment banks. Japanese bank Nomura Holdings Inc. said it was owed about $2 billion by a U.S. client. Credit Suisse Group AG shareholders are braced for $3 billion or more in losses. People familiar with the matter said the losses were related to Archegos for both banks. The meltdown has sparked calls for greater scrutiny of the use of swap transactions and more regulation of the trading of family offices, which manage the fortunes of wealthy individuals. Family offices have soared in size in recent years and now manage more than $2 trillion. Because they don’t market to outside investors, they are far less regulated than similar vehicles such as hedge funds, which have to regularly disclose their investments.
Wreaking ‘havoc’ “The collapse of Archegos Capital Management and the billions of dollars in losses to investors and other market participants is a vivid demonstration of the havoc that errant large investment vehicles called ‘family offices’ can wreak on our financial markets,” said Dan Berkovitz, a commissioner on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Behind the enormous losses was Mr. Hwang, a 57-year-old Korean-born investor, devout Christian and protégé of famous hedge-fund veteran Julian Robertson. Mr. Hwang built his fortune swinging for the fences, often focusing his investments in just a few stocks, paying little attention to hedging his positions while borrowing large amounts of money to boost his returns. His appetite for risk extended beyond big bets. In 2012, his firm Tiger Asia Management LLC pleaded guilty to U.S. criminal charges and settled civil-fraud claims related to allegations of insider trading. Mr. Hwang was barred from managing client money in the U.S. with the right to
FROM TOP: CARLO ALLEGRI/REUTERS; EMILE WAMSTEKER/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Inside The Fall Of Archegos
Former hedge-fund trader Bill Hwang used a family office in this New York City building to place huge financial bets. apply to lift the bar after five years. A Hong Kong court separately ordered Tiger Asia to pay about $5.8 million to settle claims related to the conduct. Sung Kook “Bill” Hwang emigrated to the U.S. from Seoul with his family and attended the University of California, Los Angeles in the 1980s. The son of a pastor, Mr. Hwang became an equities salesman at Hyundai Securities Co. and so impressed Mr. Robertson, the well-known investor who ran hedge fund Tiger Management, that he hired him. At Tiger, Mr. Hwang sat near Mr. Robertson’s office, researching opportunities. Soon, Mr. Hwang was urging Mr. Robertson to buy Korean shares. Mr. Robertson scored big profits, cementing their relationship. When Tiger closed in 2000, Mr. Robertson backed Mr. Hwang as he started his own hedge fund, Tiger Asia. In 2001, Mr. Hwang’s firm started with $1.2 billion and he worked at 101 Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan with several other funds with ties to Mr. Robertson. Those funds regularly met to discuss investment ideas. Mr. Hwang and his analysts rarely participated, eager to keep their strategies to themselves, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Hwang even kept information from his own team, leaving some of them to wonder how he was forming his investment decisions, the people said. Splitting his time between the U.S. and his fund’s Hong Kong office, Mr. Hwang used borrowed money to buy huge chunks of young, growing companies, including LinkedIn. As those stocks soared, Mr. Hwang’s fund grew in size past $5 billion. Mr. Hwang was open about his faith and liked doing business with other Christians, sometimes commenting if a colleague wore a cross necklace, according to a Wall Street banker who worked
New Jersey but drove an older-model car. In 2010, regulatory investigations that would span the next several years related to allegations of insider trading had begun. Mr. Hwang has said his regulatory issues revived his Christian faith. “I had, really, a bad business problem. And I knew no matter how much money [and connections] I had…they couldn’t help me,” Mr. Hwang said in a 2018 interview at a Christian conference.
Returned money
with Mr. Hwang. He regularly discussed his charitable foundation with visitors and emphasized the importance that community service played in his life, talking with pride about various projects he and his mother had supported. Mr. Hwang owned just a few stocks, a concentrated portfolio that made his returns more volatile. He liked to focus on stocks that were heavily “shorted,” or had a high level of bearish positions, according to someone familiar with the trades, a stance that can lead to profits if the stocks rise in price. In many years, Mr. Hwang scored average annual gains of between 40% and 80% according to someone close to the firm. Once, a friend asked Mr. Hwang if he had taken profits from a stock that had soared. “No, I’m still buying,” Mr. Hwang responded, a person familiar with the matter said. As his gains piled up, Mr. Hwang sometimes viewed his profits through the prism of religion. “Do I think God loves it? Of course!” Mr. Hwang said in a video, referring to his early investment in LinkedIn. “I’m like a little child looking for, what can I do today, where can I invest, to please our God?” Working late in the night so he could trade Asian markets,
Mr. Hwang hired analysts but made all final decisions, developing a unique approach to elicit information from executives and others. Mr. Hwang liked to ask a probing question and then say little more during the conversation, waiting to hear interesting tidbits of information, according to two executives who interacted with him. In the fall of 2008, Mr. Hwang was one of a number of hedge-fund investors burned when they wagered against
‘What can I do today, where can I invest, to please God?’ shares of Germany’s Volkswagen AG, which jumped 348% over two days. A former colleague says he was struck by Mr. Hwang’s equanimity during that period, sometimes greeting colleagues with a smile. By then, Mr. Hwang was a billionaire. Sometimes, he worked on a large boat, friends say, but he lived a relatively modest life compared with others on Wall Street. He owned a $3 million home in
Mr. Hwang returned clients’ money in 2012 and turned his firm into an office to manage his family’s wealth. He named it Archegos, which, translated from Greek means “leader” or “prince of Christ.” A Christian ethos permeated the firm, with voluntary Friday morning Bible studies where a recording of Bible readings would play to music. Around 2015, Mr. Hwang ran into a new problem: Archegos, which he ran like Tiger Asia, had become so big it no longer could focus on shares of Asian companies trading in those markets, which sometimes were too small to enable Archegos to buy and sell without jolting prices. Mr. Hwang decided to expand the firm’s portfolio into larger U.S. shares. Mr. Hwang told friends he was even more comfortable with trading risks, since the firm managed his own money, not clients’ cash. By this year, Archegos had built out a network of lenders, called prime brokers, using the services of six different banks—Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Nomura, Deutsche Bank and UBS. His use of leverage and willingness to pay fees without haggling made him a lucrative client. Archegos was regularly putting up $15 of collateral to borrow $85, an amount of “leverage” that is on the high end for stock-trading firms with
though there was no audience. “It gave people a reason to dress up,” he says. For Ellie Hutchinson, a 71year-old retiree, from Sutton, Mass., re-enacting is a lifestyle. She has twice as many period clothes in her closets as regular clothes. Her car sits outside while two antique cannons are stored in her garage, next to her lawn mower. This April 19, she plans to walk from her town to the battle site—not once but twice. She says she misses the camaraderie of her group. Prepandemic, she says, “we see them and fire at them across the field, and then we go off and have a beer together.” similar strategies, say banking executives. Some of his lenders balked at those terms, but Mr. Hwang found other willing counterparties. For most of the past year, Mr. Hwang was on a roll. Stocks owned by Archegos, including ViacomCBS Inc., Discovery Inc. and a U.S.-listed Chinese tutoring company GSX Techedu Inc. soared, making the fund billions of profits. As the shares rose, the fund added to its top performers, often using derivative trades called swaps agreements. Achegos effectively owned 25% of some companies, according to a person familiar with the matter. Archegos’s lenders say they were unaware of the extent of trades he was making with other banks, information that would have encouraged them to curb their lending. Banks can ask clients for information on their loans from other banks but clients don’t necessarily have to disclose it or their positions.
The drop On Monday of last week, everything changed for Mr. Hwang. That day, ViacomCBS, one of his largest holdings whose stock price had risen more than 150% in 2021, announced it would sell new shares. The offering pressured the stock, sending it down more than 25% in the aftermath of the announcement. Because of Archegos’s highly concentrated positions, the sharp drop in Viacom hit the fund’s portfolio, and many in the market believe that Archegos started selling other stocks to cushion the blow. Those sales sent other stocks it held tumbling, including Discovery. Suddenly, the collateral Archegos had given the banks was no longer enough to back the loans. Banks hit Archegos with margin calls to back up its trades, which initially were met by the fund, but as ViacomCBS fell further on Wednesday, the firm didn’t have the money to provide its lenders, a person involved in the unwinding said. That forced the banks to sell Archegos’s collateral holdings even as they were tumbling, worsening the selloff. Archegos reduced some of its holdings on Thursday and ViacomCBS shares fell more steeply. When Archegos called its banks for a meeting, they all had different opinions on how to handle the situation. Representatives from Credit Suisse and Nomura, which faced the most extreme losses, suggested working together over a month to unwind Archegos’s trades. Representatives from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs balked at even the idea of doing so, saying that within a day or two the market would get wind of the amount of stock that needed to be sold and pummel them. The call ended Thursday night as the Asian stock market was about to open. The fire sale began.
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State Limits Use of Solitary Confinement Cuomo signs measure capping the practice in New York prisons and jails to 15 days BY BEN CHAPMAN New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed a law that places new limits on the use of solitary confinement in the state’s correctional facilities, following years of pressure by lawmakers and advocacy groups. The law limits to 15 days
the amount of time incarcerated people may spend in solitary confinement, which is also called segregated confinement or administrative segregation. Known as the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term Solitary Confinement Act, the law also defines the disciplinary infractions eligible for segregated confinement and exempts certain vulnerable populations from the practice, including young and elderly prisoners, pregnant women and people with disabilities or serious mental illness. All state prisons and local jails in New
York are covered by the law. A spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision declined to comment on the act and referred questions to Mr. Cuomo’s office. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said the new law builds on changes that his administration had previously made to the state incarceration system to reduce the use of solitary confinement. New York City had also previously reduced the use of the practice in city jails, and Mayor Bill de Blasio has
vowed to end its use. Advocacy groups and lawmakers have long pushed for laws limiting the use of solitary confinement in New York, arguing that the practice is inhumane and harmful to prisoners. Advocates for the end of solitary confinement say that the practice is mostly used on minorities and has led to deaths. State Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry, a Queens Democrat who sponsored the measure, said Thursday that the act places democratically determined limits on the use of solitary confinement. “This was
being done in our names as citizens of New York, without us having the ability to determine whether it was appropriate,” he said. Some law-enforcement groups have said that segregated confinement is useful to separate prisoners who may act violently toward others or themselves. “You need administrative segregation to separate inmates for various reasons,” said Nassau County Sheriff’s Correction Officers Benevolent Association President Brian Sullivan. “Sometimes you have
combatants.” New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman, whose organization supported the act, said that thousands of prisoners in New York correctional facilities are harmed in solitary confinement each year. According to a report by the NYCLU, prisoners were placed in solitary confinement in 38,249 instances in 2018. “This is so monumental for New Yorkers, because it will end the torture that is longterm solitary confinement,” Ms. Lieberman said.
New Jersey Woos Film Studios Amid Georgia Voting-Law Outcry
SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
BY JOSEPH DE AVILA AND ERICH SCHWARTZEL
People received food last month at a Bronx church. Food insecurity increases when the economy falters and recovers slowly.
Many Still Relying on Food Pantries BY KATE KING Economic strain caused by the Covid-19 pandemic likely will leave an estimated 1.4 million New York City residents struggling to afford adequate food this year, according to Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. Before the pandemic, in 2019, slightly more than 1 million experienced food insecurity, meaning a lack of access to nutritionally adequate food, the group said. Food insecurity is closely linked to unemployment, and while many sectors of the city’s economy have reopened, the labor market is still scarred, particularly for low-wage workers. New York City lost nearly 630,000 private-sector jobs in February compared with the prior year, according to the state Department of Labor, pushing the unemployment rate up nearly 10 percentage points, to 13%. Enrollment in food-stamp benefits among city residents has increased nearly 12%, to 1.66 million recipients as of January, compared with the same month last year, according to the city Department of Social Services Human Resources Administration. Food Bank for New York City, which distributes food and operates anti-hunger programs through 1,000 pantries and other charities citywide, has provided nearly 100 mil-
lion pounds of food since the start of the pandemic, a 61% increase over the same period the year before, said Zac Hall, vice president of programs for the nonprofit. “I don’t have a crystal ball, but I think the same level of response that we have today is going to at least be needed for the next couple of years,” he said. Food insecurity increases when the economy falters and recovers slowly. The 2008 recession pushed up nationwide food insecurity rates to 21% that year from 16% in 2007 for households with children, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It took a decade for it to fall to prerecession levels before reaching a two-decade low of 14% in 2019. Children are particularly vulnerable now compared with previous economic downturns because remote learning has made it harder for them to access free school meals, said Sherry Tomasky, director of communications and public affairs for the statewide nonprofit Hunger Solutions New York. All New York City publicschool students are eligible for free lunch and breakfast, and schools served 1 million free meals a day before the pandemic. When school buildings closed in 2020 due to Covid-19, many students lost easy access to free food. The city Department of Education is offering free graband-go meals to all residents at
1,100 locations and 260 community sites across the city. But with the majority of students still learning remotely, the school system is serving far fewer meals, about 400,000 a day, said a schools spokesman. Christiana Nichols, a pediatrician in Harlem, said picking up the free meals is difficult for families when students are learning remotely. “If you’re the only caregiver at home and you’re supposed to be homeschooling…how do you get to those lunches?” Dr.
1.4M
Number of NYC residents struggling to afford food
Nichols asked. “Take all the kids to school to pick them up? Leave kids home while you go get it? People are having to make hard choices.” Poverty Tracker, a partnership between the nonprofit Robin Hood and Columbia University that conducts quarterly surveys of 4,000 New York City households, found that a third of respondents got free groceries or meals from food pantries, churches and other services last year compared with about 10% before the pandemic. Last spring, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration started
an emergency home food-delivery program, which provides fresh and frozen meals to New Yorkers who can’t leave their homes to get food themselves, don’t have anyone who can get food for them and can’t afford food delivery. The program delivers, through contracts with food vendors, about 60,000 meals a week at a cost of about $14 million a month, said Kate MacKenzie, director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy. The city expects to be fully reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In July, Mr. de Blasio’s administration signed a $50 million contract with Driscoll Foods to ensure that the city would have a food reserve during the crisis. When it became clear the pandemic wasn’t disrupting the city’s food-supply chain, officials began dispersing the reserve to emergency food programs and community organizations. “We’re spending more than we ever have to make sure our food pantries continue to be stocked,” Ms. MacKenzie said. On the federal level, a new program provides money for food via debit cards to students who were eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. Despite the influx of resources, many people who lost their jobs or income are still struggling to put food on the table.
New Jersey is trying to poach movie and television studios from Georgia after the state passed a voting law that has drawn criticism from business leaders and some major corporations. Gov. Phil Murphy sent a letter Thursday to major studios including Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. and Netflix Inc., offering them tax credits on up to 30% of production costs— equal to what Georgia currently offers. He also proposed a 40% subsidy for bricks-andmortar studio development, according to the letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The governor’s tax credit offering is the same as what is included in New Jersey’s economic-incentive package that the state Legislature passed last year. In his letter, the governor drew a contrast between voting rights in Georgia and New Jersey. He signed a law on Tuesday authorizing early inperson voting to begin 10 days before Election Day for general elections. Georgia currently allows three weeks of early in-person voting conducted Monday through Friday, as well as two mandatory Saturdays and two optional Sundays, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Mr. Murphy, a Democrat, called Georgia’s new voting law an “un-American” attack on people of color. “They are going in one direction, and we are going in the opposite direction,” he said in an interview. Georgia’s law, signed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week, includes stricter identification requirements for voters to use absentee ballots. The law also puts new limits on how parties and voting groups mail out absentee-ballot request forms and limits the number of ballot drop boxes to one per county except for large counties, which can set up one box for every 100,000 registered voters. In New Jersey, voters don’t need to provide a copy of their identification to cast votes by mail except in certain circumstances for first time voters. Voters in New Jersey can also request a ballot to vote by mail for any reason. Each county in
the state must maintain at least 10 drop boxes for ballots. Mr. Kemp has defended the new law as a necessary measure to give voters confidence in the state’s electoral system and to ensure that it is free of fraud. No court or legislative body has found evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. “While New Jersey just passed a law with these reforms, Georgia already has online voter registration, automatic voter registration and no-excuse absentee balloting,” a spokeswoman for Mr. Kemp said. “We also have a minimum of 17 early voting days, while they have nine.” Several voting-advocacy groups have sued Georgia officials over the new law, and multiple Georgia-based businesses have spoken out against it, including executives from Delta Air Lines Inc. and Coca-Cola Co. The film companies didn’t respond to requests for comment. Among the major production companies, only ViacomCBS Inc. has commented on Georgia’s new law. The company didn’t address whether it would pull productions from the state. It said it would “continue to educate the public on the importance of an open and fair voting system through our programming and extensive partnerships with grass roots organizations.” Over the past decade, film and TV production has departed Los Angeles for some states and countries offering lucrative tax credits. Georgia’s package, which offers producers a credit up to 30% on production costs, has attracted hundreds of productions since it was introduced in 2005, including numerous Marvel Studios epics like “Avengers: Endgame” and “Black Panther.” The years of production have established a robust supply of massive sound stages, crews of local workers who can handle big-budget jobs and the local nickname “Y’allywood.” Georgia’s politics have clashed with the largely liberal leanings of Hollywood in the past. In 2019, a state law that restricted abortion access prompted some outcry among producers and actors but did little to change studio plans to film in the state.
GLAD TO BE BACK: Temperature checks were mandatory for entry to the stadium. Fans reached for a ball thrown to them before play started Thursday. Gary Sánchez hit a tworun homer in the second inning, but the Toronto Blue Jays ended up defeating the Yankees, 3-2.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; KATHY WILLENS/AP; AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES
On Opening Day, Fans Return to Yankee Stadium After Being Shut Out by Coronavirus Last Season
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
GREATER NEW YORK WATCH Plea Deal Offered in Police-Car Torching Federal prosecutors told a judge Thursday they have offered a plea deal to two Brooklyn attorneys charged with firebombing an empty police vehicle last year amid demonstrations in New York City following the death of George Floyd. U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan set a 90-day deadline for lawyers for Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman to accept the government’s offer or proceed to trial on charges, including arson conspiracy, that could land them in prison for nearly 50 years. The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn and defense attorneys for both lawyers declined to comment on the plea negotiations. —Associated Press MANHATTAN
Life Sentence Sought For Failed Bomber
pedestrian tunnel beneath Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal. The government’s request comes a week after lawyers for Ullah argued in their own papers that a mandatory 35-year prison term is punishment enough because his attack was an aberration from an otherwise peaceful life. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 8. —Associated Press NEW YORK CITY
Fake Heiress Is Held In Federal Custody U.S. immigration authorities said Thursday they have detained Anna Sorokin, the con artist who passed herself off as a wealthy German heiress and served more than three years behind bars for defrauding New York banks and hotels. Ms. Sorokin, 30 years old, who finagled her way into the Manhattan elite using the name Anna Delvey, remained in New Jersey’s Bergen County Jail days after she was scheduled to be deported to her native Germany. The delay could mean the onetime darling of New York’s social scene is challenging her deportation, which has been in the works since she was convicted in 2019 on multiple counts of larceny and theft. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement declined to comment on Ms. Sorokin’s immigration proceedings. Her attorney declined to discuss the case. —Associated Press
MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES
A Bangladeshi immigrant who set off a pipe bomb attached to his chest in New York City’s busiest subway station should spend the rest of his life behind bars for a “premeditated and vicious” terrorist attack committed on behalf of Islamic State group, prosecutors said Thursday. In papers filed in federal court in Manhattan, the government argued that Akayed Ullah has never taken proper responsibility for the December 2017 attempted suicide bombing in a
GREATER NEW YORK
STOPPING THE SPREAD: A Covid-19 testing center in Manhattan. Several new test sites are opening as the state looks to reopen.
GREG ALLEN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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‘David Byrne’s American Utopia’ opened in October 2019 at the Hudson Theatre, one of the Ambassador Theatre Group’s venues.
Theater Owner Expands Role BY CHARLES PASSY The Ambassador Theatre Group, a British-based company that owns or operates venues in New York and elsewhere, is looking to strengthen its position on the Broadway scene, even as the industry remains shut down by the Covid-19 pandemic. In March, ATG’s parent company, International Entertainment Holdings Ltd., announced that it had acquired three U.S. theaters—the Golden Gate and Orpheum in San Francisco, and the Fisher in Detroit—for an undisclosed price from the Nederlander Company. All three venues have been home for many years to touring Broadway shows. While the theaters would retain their role as touring houses, ATG Chief Executive Officer Mark Cornell said the company is also considering using them as a stage for shows in development, including ones
it might produce itself, before bringing them to Broadway, potentially at its own venues. On Broadway, the company took over operations of the venue now called the Lyric Theatre in 2013 and established the Hudson Theatre as Broadway’s newest space in 2017. An ATG spokesman said the company’s investment in developing and renovating Broadway theaters totals more than $100 million. ATG has a global portfolio, with theaters from Boston to Berlin, plus 10 venues in London’s West End. It also operates Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre, a 3,000-seat venue that has been used primarily for concerts in recent years. The Lyric has been home in recent years to “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the two-part drama tied to J.K. Rowling’s literary franchise. The Hudson has featured a variety of shows, including rock star David Byrne’s acclaimed “American Utopia,” a theatri-
cally conceived concert presentation. Both venues have been closed since the pandemic-related shutdown of Broadway theaters in March 2020. ATG has put its pipeline-toNew York approach into practice with its Boston venue, the Emerson Colonial Theatre, where such shows as “American Utopia” and “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” have played before opening on Broadway. A revival of the Neil Simon comedy “Plaza Suite,” starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, also ran at the Colonial in early 2020 and is set to come to the Hudson when Broadway reopens. ATG’s aspirations could extend to adding more Broadway venues, Mr. Cornell said. But at issue is the fact that none are currently for sale, he noted. “If something did come on the market, we’d be extremely interested,” he said. Industry professionals said it is unlikely that any Broad-
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way theaters will change hands, at least in the short term. Still, veteran Broadway producer Ken Davenport said there might be other options, noting that a company with ATG’s growth ambitions could purchase property in New York City’s theater district and build a new venue. The city’s pandemic-depressed real-estate market “creates opportunities” for ATG, he added. Beyond Broadway, ATG could also look at Kings Theatre as a place to bring shows. Mr. Cornell said the Brooklyn venue is currently geared for concerts and would require work to be converted into a genuine Broadway-style theater, but he didn’t rule out the possibility. Given Brooklyn’s size and population of more than two million, “there’s no reason they shouldn’t have a glorious theater of their own,” Mr. Cornell said.
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ARTS IN REVIEW
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
FLETCHER STREET, LLC/NETFLIX (2)
Idris Elba and Caleb McLaughlin, right; Lorraine Toussaint and Mr. McLaughlin, below
FILM REVIEW | JOE MORGENSTERN
‘Concrete Cowboy’: Riding the Inner-City Range
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he concrete in “Concrete Cowboy” surrounds the grazing pasture of the Fletcher Street Stables, a real-life, century-old institution in North Philadelphia. That’s where a tradition of inner-city Black horsemanship survives under threat of gentrification in this coming-of-age drama streaming on Netflix. The film, a work of fact-inspired fiction with an excellent cast that includes several nonprofessionals, was a labor of love, and there is lots to love about it—moments of fleeting beauty that come and go without emphasis, as if caught on the fly. There’s also a lack of narrative clarity that might have pulled together the compelling characters and their pungent recollections into a more resonant whole. Still, this is the feature debut of a distinctive filmmaker, Ricky Staub, who identified intensely with his subject, and it was shot by a cinematographer, Minka Farthing-Kohl, with a taste for poetic images and the technique to bring them to light. The story starts briskly. Fifteenyear-old Cole (a fine performance by Caleb McLaughlin) faces expulsion from his Detroit high school; he can’t control his violent behavior. His mother, Amhale (Liz Priestley), can’t control him, so she sends him to Philadelphia to spend the summer with his estranged father, Harp (Idris Elba), a scruffy urban cowboy who figures prominently in the Fletcher Street Stables community. Doesn’t cow-
boyhood, strictly speaking, require the presence of cows? Maybe it does, but Harp and his friends draw a direct line between themselves and the Black cowhands of the Old West, while the screenplay, adapted by the director and Dan Walser from the novel “Ghetto Cowboy” by G. Neri, frames its uncommonly rich setting in a familiar drama of tough love, anger and forgiveness. As soon as his son arrives, Harp turns him over to the stable staff so he can learn the value of hard work. Along the way Cole connects not only with the father he hadn’t known, and with a supposedly un-
trainable horse, but, for the first time, with an extended family—the riders, trainers, stable hands and assorted neighbors who are glad to take him in. At the same time, he secretly explores an alternative life of criminality with a drugdealer cousin, Smush (Jharrel Jerome), who leads him into a lurid subplot that seems to have been lifted from another movie, and not a good one. Choices, choices. If you choose to watch “Concrete Cowboy,” it should be because of the horsestable setting and the beguiling people in it. Many fiction films ride roughshod over their back-
grounds. These filmmakers were clearly enchanted by the history of the place, and what was left of it when location shooting began. Many films try to whip up excitement with a hurtling pace. This one dawdles so agreeably, and observes so well, that it reminded me of the wonderful 2002 comedy “Barbershop”—not because both films have predominantly Black casts, but because both are about community, cultural continuity and the pleasures of telling, and hearing, good stories. Cole hears some of those stories, and learns the fine art of shoveling horse manure, from Paris (Jamil
“Mil” Prattis). “You ain’t rakin’ no leaves, man,” Paris tells his new mucker, as he calls him. (The Augean stables never looked so grimy. Neither did Hercules.) Mr. Prattis’s performance struck me as a study in the sort of droll understatement best exemplified by Brad Pitt, but it turns out he’s one of the locals, not an actor at all; so much for blithe assumptions. Lorraine Toussaint is quintessentially professional, meaning she plays Nessie, the neighborhood’s guiding spirit, spellbindingly well. At the start of one long sequence staged at night on the edge of the pasture, around a campfire in a 55gallon drum, Nessie explains to Cole why Black cowboys have a special understanding of horses. Others, including his dad, trade tales of their spiritual and literal forebears—from frontier days, through an era when Black Philadelphians delivered food and dry goods around the city in horsedrawn wagons, to a more recent time when inner-city stables became community centers and shelters for abandoned horses. For a movie star of such formidable power, Mr. Elba gives a performance that’s notable for its modesty—he’s part of the acting ensemble, just as Harp is one of the Fletcher Street regulars. But it’s far too modest, and the fault isn’t his. It lies with a script that doesn’t dramatize Mr. Elba’s character so much as give him a few good speeches, and doesn’t develop the evolution of the fatherson relationship so much as have Harp and Cole make occasional speeches at each other, some of them very affecting. Nor does the script establish Harp’s role in the stable’s hierarchy or connect the stable to the community; we’re never sure how it serves the neighborhood. “Concrete Cowboy” is far from perfect, but it’s vividly alive. If the choice must be between that and careful craftsmanship, life carries the day.
TELEVISION REVIEW | DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
Cold-Blooded, Venomous and Deadly
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nlikely as it once seemed, cry from any future existence he true-crime tales of serial imagined in his career as a suavely killers haven’t finally repersuasive gem dealer—a role pelled enough TV viewers to cause blood-chilling in its artfulness, as wholesale abandonment of the this eight-part drama shows. This genre, which seems to be enjoying largely thanks to Tahar Rahim, steady popularity thanks to greatly who brings a breathtaking subtlety improved subject matter. There are to the part of Sobhraj. The quintesfar fewer mutilated women’s bodsence of a calm, no-pressure jewies in the darkness of someone’s elry expert, hewould entice cusgarage. We now tomers with— have, to the conamong other trary, elegant lures—estimates The story of a serial vistas, exotic of how much backgrounds, killer who used charm, money they and serial killers could earn for deception and poison who will on octhemselves by casion talk to re- on his victims. selling the jewporters. Such is elry they bought the case with from him. And Charles Sobhraj, he was insistent subject of “The Serpent” (Netflix), on having them over for dinner. who operated in mid-’70s South The series’ portrayal of potential and Southeast Asia—a magnet, of customers reacting to the pressures sorts, for youthful travelers with visited on them by this gem dealer an appetite for exploration—and eager to educate them, and to have murdered at least 12 people with them dine with him in his pleasant the help of a female colleague. He apartment—pressures they had is, today, serving a life sentence in trouble acknowledging to themKathmandu, Nepal, doubtless a far selves—is one of the most absorbing
Jenna Coleman and Tahar Rahim in Netflix’s ‘The Serpent,’ which tells the tale of Charles Sobhraj aspects of this story. It takes time, admittedly, until the full details of the master plan Sobhraj followedsink in. He got his customers to his apartment, where he poisoned them and then seemed to nurse them back to health. But, even then, that was only part of the scheme. It’s not a story that lacks a hero. For here was one Herman Knippen-
berg (Billy Howle), a youngish member of the Dutch Consulate, who could not rest because two Dutch citizens had mysteriously disappeared and he could get no help from the local police or authorities of any kind. And, it was explained, nobody was interested, anyway, in what happened to some useless hippies. A term, it will be
remembered, in use at the time. The resolute Mr. Knippenberg, who refused to hide his contempt for the indifference displayed by the forces of law and order, is, it’s good to report, alive and well, and, one hopes, enjoying himself. The Serpent Friday, Netflix
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Friday, April 2, 2021 | A11
ARTS IN REVIEW THEATER REVIEW | TERRY TEACHOUT
Margery Lowe as Emily Dickinson
caused her to be indissolubly identified with part and play alike. While “The Belle of Amherst” continues to be performed by regional theater companies all over the U.S. and was revived off Broadway in 2014, nobody ever writes about it without making mention of Harris’s delicate, subdued performance, which is widely regarded as definitive. You’d think such a play would have been taken up as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic closed American theaters and forced them to resort to streaming video, not least because as a one-hander it presents none of the logistical challenges of an ensemble production. But Palm Beach Dramaworks’ new online version of “The Belle of Amherst,” starring Margery Lowe, jointly produced with Coral Gables’ Actors’ Playhouse and taped without an audience in PBD’s 218-seat theater, appears to be the first one to be webcast since the start of the lockdown. It is also PBD’s first fully staged webcast production, and the company is hoping to make its future shows available online after America’s theaters reopen. If that comes to pass, “The Belle of Amherst” will have made for an auspicious start. Not only is this one of the best theatrical webcasts I’ve seen in the past year, exactly comparable in artistic quality and production values to Undermain Theatre’s “St. Nicholas” and the Wilma Theater’s “Heroes of the Fourth Turning,”
IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE that human minds conceived the story line of “Godzilla vs. Kong”—not because it’s so intricate, elegant or spiritually elevated, but because it’s so incoherent and idiotic. (The film is playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max.) Apart from the battles, which are computer-generated and sometimes quite beautiful—though sometimes not—the film functions as a gibberish generator. People spew fragmentary techie phrases. (“A psionic interface!”) They commit ritual hyperbole. (“This is a power beyond our understanding!”) They discuss matters that have nothing to do with anything but filling time. (“Water. They put fluoride in it. Learned it from the Nazis. Theory is it makes you docile. Easy to manipulate.”) The sole exception to this scattershot logorrhea is Jia, a graceful young orphan with a special connection to Kong. She is deaf, and played with lovely subtlety by a deaf actress, Kaylee Hottle, making her feature debut. Since Jia signs, she’s the only one whose presence isn’t diminished by dreadful spoken dialogue that’s supposed to be funny but falls infallibly flat.
FILM REVIEW | JOE MORGENSTERN
but Ms. Lowe’s performance is superior in certain important ways to that of Julie Harris. Heresy? Perhaps, but Harris’s Dickinson was too closely tied to the outmoded view of the poetess (a loaded word I use deliberately in this context) as a tremulous recluse. Ms. Lowe doesn’t play her that way at all: Her Dickinson is witty, occasionally peppery and more than a little bit sly. She
makes no bones about being amused to think of her puzzled neighbors regarding her as “Squire Edward Dickinson’s half-cracked daughter,” and you can tell that, like Jane Austen, she has everybody’s number. William Hayes, PBD’s producing artistic director, has staged “The Belle of Amherst” in so subtle a way that you never notice his fine directorial hand at work. Every-
A Mental Mush of a Monster Mash
In a patchwork production full of bad ideas poorly executed, Jia also embodies the story’s only good idea. (Adam Wingard directed from a screenplay by Eric Pearson and Max Borenstein.)
Kong has always had a soft spot for human females. In this case the appeal is instantly clear. A native of Skull Island, where the action resumes many years after the ragtag events of the 2017 film
“Kong: Skull Island,” Jia was orphaned by a storm that wiped out the island’s indigenous population. She needs Kong’s protection, and gives him a gift in return— her sign language, which he picks
Shown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
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TWO FOR THE SHOW | By Mike Shenk The answer to this week’s contest crossword is a famous painter. Across 1 Courses with greens 7 “Heavens!” 14 King’s things 15 Make more than 16 Oxford institution, familiarly 17 Choreographer Kenny and Nicaraguan president Daniel 18 “Argo” star/ director Affleck
19 Forest in Nottinghamshire 21 Break up 23 Alley in the comics 24 LAPD figures 28 Brown quickly 29 Lot choice 31 Exclamation of epiphany 32 Big-eyed baby 34 Enter, as a passcode 36 Oil containers? 40 Getters of letters 41 Strongly connected with 42 Sense of self 43 A bunch
45 “Woo” star Pinkett Smith 49 A bunch 51 Laminated layer 52 Salutation from the sidelines 53 “Ran” director 57 Verb suffix 58 Martial arts developed by Buddhist monks 61 Holy places 63 Throw into confusion 64 Regular customers 65 Not cutting 66 Ranch herd
Email your answer—in the subject line—to [email protected] by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Sunday, April 4. A solver selected at random will win a WSJ mug. Last week’s winner: John Yochem, Corvallis, OR. Complete contest rules at WSJ.com/Puzzles. (No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. U.S. residents 18 and over only.)
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KLA KLAC 347.29 16.89 Nordson NDSN 202.38 3.70 KSCitySouthern KSU 266.98 3.06 NorfolkSouthern NSC 271.18 2.66 Kellogg K 63.34 0.04 NorthernTrust NTRS 105.63 0.52 KeurigDrPepper KDP 34.50 0.13 NorthropGrum NOC 322.24 -1.40 KeyCorp KEY 20.27 0.29 NortonLifeLock NLOK 21.42 0.16 KeysightTechs KEYS 143.79 0.39 NorwegCruise NCLH 27.72 0.13 KimberlyClark KMB 136.98 -2.07 Novartis NVS 86.08 0.60 KimcoRealty KIM 19.20 0.45 Novavax NVAX 185.82 4.51 KinderMorgan KMI 16.84 0.19 NovoNordisk NVO 67.66 0.24 KingsoftCloud KC 43.94 4.62 Novocure NVCR 133.35 1.17 KinrossGold KGC 7.02 0.35 NuanceComms NUAN 44.91 1.27 KirklandLakeGold KL 35.41 1.61 Nucor NUE 79.88 -0.39 Kohl's KSS 58.31 -1.30 Nutrien NTR 54.49 0.60 KoninklijkePhil PHG 58.20 1.17 NVIDIA NVDA 552.47 18.54 KoreaElcPwr KEP 10.40 0.14 KraftHeinz KHC 40.03 0.03 Kroger KR 35.95 -0.04 OKE 51.35 0.69 L Brands LB 61.80 -0.06 ONEOK LKQ LKQ 42.95 0.62 OReillyAuto ORLY 507.82 0.57 LPL Financial LPLA 143.43 1.27 OakStreetHealth OSH 56.82 2.55 L3HarrisTech LHX 203.62 0.94 OccidentalPetrol OXY 27.38 0.76 OKTA 229.70 9.27 LabCpAm LH 252.70 -2.33 Okta LamResearch LRCX 639.30 44.06 s OldDomFreight ODFL 243.69 3.28 LamarAdv LAMR 95.25 1.33 OlinkHolding OLK 37.20 1.20 LambWeston LW 78.08 0.60 OmegaHealthcare OHI 38.46 1.83 LasVegasSands LVS 61.85 1.09 Omnicom OMC 75.91 1.76 ON 42.89 1.28 Lear LEA 180.13 -1.12 s ON Semi Leidos LDOS 96.45 0.17 OpenText OTEX 48.30 0.59 OpendoorTech OPEN 21.75 0.56 Lennar A LEN 103.43 2.20 ORCL 71.81 1.64 Lennar B LEN.B 83.80 1.46 Oracle ORAN 12.36 0.03 LennoxIntl LII 316.74 5.15 Orange Orix IX 84.24 -0.55 LeviStrauss LEVI 23.69 -0.22 OSK 119.54 0.88 LiAuto LI 25.25 0.25 Oshkosh LibertyBroadbandA LBRDA 143.59 -1.56 OtisWorldwide OTIS 69.26 0.81 LibertyBroadbandC LBRDK 149.14 -1.01 OwensCorning OC 93.79 1.70 LibertyGlobal B LBTYB 32.00 3.30 OzonHoldings OZON 58.00 1.93 PCG 11.50 -0.21 LibertyGlobal C LBTYK 25.63 0.09 PG&E PNC 177.41 2.00 LibertyGlobal A LBTYA 25.79 0.13 PNC Fin PKX 71.58 -0.62 LibertyFormOne C FWONK 43.83 0.54 POSCO PPD 38.30 0.46 LibertyFormOne A FWONA 38.67 0.45 PPD PPG 151.96 1.70 LibertyBraves A BATRA 29.28 0.77 PPG Ind PPL 28.77 -0.07 LibertyBraves C BATRK 28.50 0.68 PPL LibertySirius A LSXMA 45.69 1.61 s PRA HealthSci PRAH 156.16 2.83 PTC 143.87 6.22 LibertySirius B LSXMB 50.01 4.80 PTC PCAR 92.03 -0.89 LibertySirius C LSXMK 45.54 1.43 Paccar LightspeedPos LSPD 64.40 1.59 PackagingCpAm PKG 135.57 1.09 EliLilly LLY 185.24 -1.58 PagSeguroDig PAGS 48.53 2.23 LincolnNational LNC 62.90 0.63 PalantirTech PLTR 23.07 -0.22 Linde LIN 280.84 0.70 PaloAltoNtwks PANW 328.05 5.99 LithiaMotors LAD 398.55 8.46 ParkerHannifin PH 316.21 0.78 PAYX 98.76 0.74 LiveNationEnt LYV 88.07 3.42 Paychex LloydsBanking LYG 2.35 0.03 PaycomSoftware PAYC 376.75 6.69 PCTY 184.03 4.20 LockheedMartin LMT 371.02 1.52 Paylocity PYPL 247.54 4.70 Loews L 52.25 0.97 PayPal LogitechIntl LOGI 107.98 3.48 Pegasystems PEGA 117.99 3.65 PTON 112.09 -0.35 Lowe's LOW 191.32 1.14 Peloton LufaxHolding LU 14.57 0.05 PembinaPipeline PBA 29.23 0.39 lululemon LULU301.07 -5.64 PennNational PENN 107.52 2.68 PNR 62.39 0.07 LumenTech LUMN 13.11 -0.24 Pentair Lyft LYFT 64.64 1.46 Penumbra PEN 274.31 3.73 PEP 141.28 -0.17 LyondellBasell LYB 105.55 1.50 PepsiCo PerkinElmer PKI 129.88 1.59 PetroChina PTR 36.52 0.37 PetroleoBrasil PBR 8.27 -0.21 M&T Bank MTB 153.17 1.56 PetroleoBrasilA PBR.A 8.36 -0.18 MGMGrowthProp MGP 33.64 1.02 Pfizer PFE 36.30 0.07 MGM Resorts MGM 39.70 1.71 PhilipMorris PM 88.06 -0.68 MKS Instrum MKSI 195.84 10.42 Phillips66 PSX 83.16 1.62 MPLX MPLX 26.12 0.49 Pinduoduo PDD 143.93 10.05 MSCI MSCI 428.55 9.27 PinnacleWest PNW 81.81 0.46 MagellanMid MMP 44.19 0.83 Pinterest PINS 77.73 3.70 MagnaIntl MGA 89.57 1.53 PioneerNatRscs PXD 164.60 5.78 ManulifeFin MFC 21.74 0.24 PlainsAllAmPipe PAA 9.19 0.09 MarathonOil MRO 11.79 1.11 Playtika PLTK 26.85 -0.36 MarathonPetrol MPC 55.80 2.31 PlugPower PLUG 35.26 -0.58 MaravaiLifeSci MRVI 34.17 -1.47 Polaris PII 134.93 1.43 Markel MKL 1156.95 17.33 Pool POOL 351.57 6.33 MarketAxess MKTX 520.28 22.36 PrincipalFin PFG 60.86 0.90 Marriott MAR 148.27 0.16 Procter&Gamble PG 134.28 -1.15 Marsh&McLen MMC 123.15 1.35 Progressive PGR 95.55 -0.06 MartinMarietta MLM 333.88 -1.94 Prologis PLD 108.50 2.50 MarvellTech MRVL 49.66 0.68 PrudentialFin PRU 92.71 1.61 Masco MAS 60.99 1.09 Prudential PUK 43.22 0.53 Masimo MASI 233.67 4.01 PublicServiceEnt PEG 59.67 -0.54 Mastercard MA 363.30 7.25 s PublicStorage PSA 251.94 5.18 MatchGroup MTCH 142.66 5.28 PulteGroup PHM 53.48 1.04 MaximIntProducts MXIM 95.45 4.08 QGEN 49.29 0.60 McAfee MCFE 23.55 0.81 Qiagen s Qorvo QRVO 192.90 10.20 McCormick MKC 89.24 0.08 Qualcomm QCOM 137.79 5.20 McCormickVtg MKC.V 88.92 -0.20 McDonalds MCD 225.21 1.07 QualtricsIntl XM 32.43 -0.48 s QuantaServices PWR 89.17 1.19 McKesson MCK 193.57 -1.47 MedicalProp MPW 21.66 0.38 QuantumScape QS 49.30 4.55 Medtronic MDT 118.19 0.06 QuestDiag DGX 129.44 1.10
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W X Y Z
T U V
Yld %
Amount New/Old
Payable / Record
Frq
Increased Camden National Eaton Vance Global Income Eaton Vance TABS 5-to-15Y
EVLMC
Q 2.7 .36 /.33 3.1 .0347 /.0312 M 1.9 .0161 /.016 M
Apr30 /Apr15 Apr07 /Mar31 Apr07 /Mar31
OXLCL
6.7
Jun30 /Jun15
CAC EVGBC
Initial Oxford Lane Nts 2031
.1406
KEY: A: annual; M: monthly; Q: quarterly; r: revised; SA: semiannual; S2:1: stock split and ratio; SO: spin-off.
52-Wk % Sym Hi/Lo Chg Stock 24.75 233.47 6.20 25.20 27.90 25.78 24.44 31.69 9.51 25.46 25.23 25.50 25.67 22.11 7.74 21.80 40.37 14.71 26.05 26.98 56.48 8.74 51.30 102.48 22.85 25.75 25.12 38.10 25.27 9.43 24.15 23.50 120.78 135.46 27.16 57.20 25.55 97.28 29.70 6.99 19.20 25.07 35.53 83.03 218.56 15.50 23.60 22.77 10.10 10.01 4.65 41.15
MMM 192.70 0.02 RegencyCtrs REG 57.62 0.91 3M TTC 105.36 2.48 RegenPharm REGN 474.93 1.79 Toro RegionsFin RF 21.06 0.40 TorontoDomBk TD 65.74 0.53 TOT 46.38 -0.16 ReinsGrp RGA 127.43 1.38 Total RelianceSteel RS 155.65 3.36 ToyotaMotor TM 154.16 -1.90 Repligen RGEN 195.44 1.03 TractorSupply TSCO 176.50 -0.58 RepublicSvcs RSG 99.72 0.37 TradeDesk TTD 658.84 7.18 ResMed RMD 194.44 0.42 s Tradeweb TW 76.00 2.00 RestaurantBrands QSR 65.55 0.55 TraneTech TT 165.44 -0.12 RingCentral RNG 305.01 7.13 TransDigm TDG 603.71 15.79 RioTinto RIO 77.98 0.33 TransUnion TRU 92.26 2.26 TRV 150.62 0.22 RobertHalf RHI 77.66 -0.41 Travelers TREX 94.79 3.25 Roblox RBLX 67.34 2.51 Trex s TRMB 80.74 2.94 RocketCos. RKT 22.55 -0.54 Trimble TCOM 40.14 0.51 Rockwell ROK 263.44 -2.00 Trip.com TFC 59.05 0.73 RogersComm B RCI 46.94 0.84 TruistFinl Roku ROKU 331.90 6.13 Tuya TUYA 23.34 2.20 Rollins ROL 34.83 0.41 Twilio TWLO 352.04 11.28 RoperTech ROP 410.35 7.57 Twitter TWTR 63.83 0.20 TylerTech TYL RossStores ROST 120.51 0.60 431.82 7.29 RoyalBkCanada RY 92.48 0.27 TysonFoods TSN 74.87 0.57 RoyalCaribbean RCL 86.67 1.06 UBS Group UBS 15.85 0.32 UDR 44.36 0.50 RoyalDutchA RDS.A 40.19 0.98 UDR UGI 41.25 0.24 RoyalDutchB RDS.B 37.46 0.63 UGI RoyaltyPharma RPRX 43.01 -0.61 US Foods USFD 37.84 -0.28 UWMC 7.75 -0.18 Ryanair RYAAY 115.74 0.74 UWM SAP SAP 125.75 2.96 Uber UBER 57.60 3.09 S&P Global SPGI 362.65 9.78 Ubiquiti UI 289.15 -9.15 SBA Comm SBAC 281.18 3.63 UltaBeauty ULTA 313.62 4.45 SEI Investments SEIC 61.91 0.98 UnderArmour C UA 18.27 -0.19 s SK Telecom SKM 27.51 0.28 UnderArmour A UAA 21.97 -0.19 SS&C Tech SSNC 71.01 1.14 Unilever UL 55.86 0.03 StoreCapital STOR 34.30 0.80 UnionPacific UNP 220.21 -0.20 SVB Fin SIVB 483.33-10.33 UnitedAirlines UAL 57.82 0.28 Salesforce.com CRM 218.72 6.85 UnitedMicro UMC 9.26 0.15 Sanofi SNY 49.36 -0.10 UPS B UPS 171.28 1.29 SantanderCons SC 27.21 0.15 UnitedRentals URI 331.71 2.40 Sasol SSL 15.07 0.58 US Bancorp USB 55.83 0.52 Schlumberger SLB 28.10 0.91 UnitedHealth UNH 367.07 -5.00 SchwabC SCHW 66.44 1.26 UnitySoftware U 101.08 0.77 s ScottsMiracleGro SMG 250.00 5.03 UnivDisplay OLED 238.14 1.37 Sea SE 236.45 13.22 UniversalHealthB UHS 134.40 1.01 s Seagate STX 78.49 1.74 Upstart UPST 144.28 15.42 VER 39.94 1.32 Seagen SGEN 143.40 4.54 VEREIT VFC 79.49 -0.43 SempraEnergy SRE 131.80 -0.78 VF SensataTechs ST 58.57 0.62 VICI Prop VICI 28.84 0.60 ServiceCorp SCI 52.37 1.32 VailResorts MTN 295.03 3.37 VALE 17.12 -0.26 ServiceNow NOW 507.01 6.90 Vale ShawComm B SJR 26.45 0.23 ValeroEnergy VLO 75.30 3.70 SherwinWilliams SHW 249.75 3.75 VarianMed VAR 176.80 0.27 ShinhanFin SHG 32.94 -0.60 Vedanta VEDL 12.71 0.14 Shopify SHOP 1155.41 48.91 VeevaSystems VEEV 267.77 6.53 Sibanye-Stillwater SBSW 18.43 0.57 Ventas VTR 54.40 1.06 SignatureBank SBNY 225.00 -1.10 VeriSign VRSN 201.90 3.14 SimonProperty SPG 115.20 1.43 VeriskAnalytics VRSK 179.81 3.12 SiriusXM SIRI 6.27 0.18 Verizon VZ 58.30 0.15 Skyworks SWKS 187.70 4.22 VertxPharm VRTX 213.04 -1.85 SlackTech WORK 41.25 0.62 ViacomCBS B VIAC 44.64 -0.46 SmithAO AOS 67.87 0.26 ViacomCBS A VIACA 47.48 0.31 Smith&Nephew SNN 38.19 0.29 Viatris VTRS 13.90 -0.07 Smucker SJM 126.25 -0.28 Vipshop VIPS 30.14 0.28 Snap SNAP 54.49 2.20 Visa V 216.86 5.13 SnapOn SNA 231.74 1.00 Vistra VST 17.72 0.04 Snowflake SNOW 236.79 7.51 VMware VMW 152.40 1.95 SOQUIMICH SQM 54.28 1.21 Vodafone VOD 18.73 0.30 SolarEdgeTech SEDG 283.39 -4.05 VornadoRealty VNO 46.39 1.00 Sony SONY 106.86 0.85 VulcanMatls VMC 166.39 -2.36 Southern SO 62.33 0.17 SoCopper SCCO 69.41 1.54 SouthwestAir LUV 61.30 0.24 WEC Energy WEC 93.32 -0.27 Splunk SPLK 138.27 2.79 WEX WEX 216.44 7.22 Spotify SPOT 273.10 5.15 W.P.Carey WPC 72.36 1.60 Square SQ 229.51 2.46 WPP WPP 64.96 1.06 StanleyBlackDck SWK 200.66 0.99 Wabtec WAB 78.99 -0.17 Starbucks SBUX 109.38 0.11 WalgreensBoots WBA 54.75 -0.15 StateStreet STT 84.95 0.94 Walmart WMT 135.62 -0.21 SteelDynamics STLD 50.97 0.21 WarnerMusic WMG 34.02 -0.31 Stellantis STLA 17.91 0.12 WasteConnections WCN 109.38 1.40 Steris STE 193.50 3.02 WasteMgt WM 129.28 0.26 STMicroelec STM 39.35 1.02 Waters WAT 284.72 0.55 StoneCo STNE 64.22 3.00 s Watsco WSO 267.22 6.47 Stryker SYK 242.95 -0.63 Wayfair W 338.00 23.25 SumitomoMits SMFG 7.20 -0.05 Weibo WB 50.01 -0.45 SunComms SUI 152.80 2.76 WellsFargo WFC 39.63 0.56 SunLifeFinancial SLF 51.04 0.49 Welltower WELL 73.25 1.62 SuncorEnergy SU 21.53 0.63 WestFraserTimber WFG 73.94 1.90 SunRun RUN 59.13 -1.35 WestPharmSvcs WST 284.77 2.99 Suzano SUZ 12.13 -0.09 WestAllianceBcp WAL 94.37 -0.07 SynchronyFin SYF 41.66 1.00 WesternDigital WDC 71.37 4.62 Synopsys SNPS 254.23 6.45 WesternUnion WU 25.15 0.49 Sysco SYY 77.99 -0.75 WestlakeChem WLK 91.55 2.76 WestpacBanking WBK 18.73 0.17 WestRock WRK 52.19 0.14 TAL Education TAL 56.31 2.46 s Weyerhaeuser WY 36.84 1.24 TC Energy TRP 46.81 1.06 WheatonPrecMet WPM 39.90 1.69 TE Connectivity TEL 130.79 1.68 s Whirlpool WHR 225.30 4.95 Telus TU 20.23 0.30 Williams WMB 23.90 0.21 TJX TJX 65.98 -0.17 Williams-Sonoma WSM 182.08 2.88 T-MobileUS TMUS 127.65 2.36 WillisTowers WLTW 233.59 4.71 TRowePrice TROW 173.96 2.36 Wipro WIT 6.50 0.16 TaiwanSemi TSM 124.80 6.52 Wix.com WIX 293.30 14.08 TakeTwoSoftware TTWO 180.15 3.45 Workday WDAY 254.97 6.54 TakedaPharm TAK 18.64 0.38 WynnResorts WYNN 128.10 2.73 Tapestry TPR 41.03 -0.18 XP XP 39.69 2.02 Target TGT 200.72 2.65 XPO Logistics XPO 127.48 4.18 TataMotors TTM 21.03 0.24 XcelEnergy XEL 66.79 0.28 TeckRscsB TECK 19.55 0.37 Xilinx XLNX 129.85 5.95 TeladocHealth TDOC 182.79 1.04 XPeng XPEV 36.95 0.44 s TeledyneTech TDY 417.43 3.78 Xylem XYL 104.64 -0.54 Teleflex TFX 414.15 -1.31 Yandex YNDX 64.97 0.91 Ericsson ERIC 13.07 -0.12 YumBrands YUM 109.80 1.62 TelefonicaBras VIV 7.76 -0.11 YumChina YUMC 59.13 -0.08 Telefonica TEF 4.53 ... ZTO Express ZTO 30.10 0.95 TelekmIndonesia TLK 23.61 -0.03 ZaiLab ZLAB 130.96 -2.47 10xGenomics TXG 185.79 4.79 ZebraTech ZBRA 491.78 6.60 Tenaris TS 23.14 0.45 Zendesk ZEN 139.80 7.18 TencentMusic TME 20.11 -0.38 Zillow C Z 133.41 3.77 Teradyne TER 128.81 7.13 Zillow A ZG 135.42 4.04 Tesla TSLA 661.75 -6.18 ZimmerBiomet ZBH 160.00 -0.08 TevaPharm TEVA 11.48 -0.06 ZionsBancorp ZION 55.41 0.45 s TexasInstruments TXN 192.06 3.07 Zoetis ZTS 157.89 0.41 TexasPacLand TPL 1600.00 10.57 ZoomVideo ZM 326.23 4.94 Textron TXT 57.03 0.95 ZoomInfoTech ZI 48.17 -0.73 ThermoFisherSci TMO 456.30 -0.08 Zscaler ZS 175.77 4.10 ThomsonReuters TRI 89.59 2.02 Zynga ZNGA 10.48 0.27
Symbol
Stock
Thursday, April 1, 2021
CapitalaFinNts22 CPTAG CavcoIndustries CVCO CharahSolutions CHRA CharlesSchwabPfdJ SCHWpJ ChickenSoupPfdA CSSEP ChimeraInvPfdA CIMpA ChimeraInvPfdD CIMpD ChipMOSTechs IMOS CodaOctopus CODA ColonyCapPfdG CLNYpG ColonyCapPfdH CLNYpH ColonyCapPfdJ CLNYpJ ColonyCapPfdI CLNYpI Compass COMP ConcretePumping BBCP Conn's CONN Core-Mark CORE CornerstoneBldg CNR CostamarePfdC CMREpC CostamarePfdE CMREpE Coursera COUR Daseke DSKE Denbury DEN DolbyLab DLB DynagasLNG PfdB DLNGpB DynagasLNG PfdA DLNGpA ENI E EPR PropPfdE EPRpE EaglePointNts31 ECCW EarthstoneEner ESTE EnerTransferPfdD ETPpD EnerTransferPfC ETPpC Entegris ENTG ExtraSpaceSt EXR FTS Intl FTSI FlirSystems FLIR FortressTransPfC FTAIpC FortBrandsHome FBHS FranklinCovey FC FreightCarAmer RAIL Frontier ULCC Funko FNKO GFLEnvironmental GFL GFL Env Un GFLU GWPharm GWPH GainTherap GANX GasLogPtrsPfdA GLOPpA GasLogPtrsPfdC GLOPpC GlassHouses GLHAU GlenfarneMerger GGMCU GoodTimesRest GTIM GraniteConstr GVA
Net Sym Close Chg
Dividend announcements from April 1.
The following explanations apply to the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Arca, NYSE American and Nasdaq Stock Market stocks that hit a new 52-week intraday high or low in the latest session. % CHG-Daily percentage change from the previous trading session.
52-Wk % Sym Hi/Lo Chg Stock
Stock
Dividend Changes
New Highs and Lows | WSJ.com/newhighs
Stock
Net Sym Close Chg
Stock
52-Wk % Sym Hi/Lo Chg
GreatAjaxNts24 AJXA GreenPlains GPRE HH&L Acqn Wt HHLA.WS HP HPQ HVBancorp HVBC HessMidstream HESM HomeDepot HD HomeFedBncpLA HFBL DR Horton DHI Hovnanian HOV HovnanianPfdA HOVNP IDT IDT Ichor ICHR IDEX IEX Inovalon INOV InvitatHomes INVH IsleworthHlthWt ISLEW iStarPfdI STARpI J.Jill JILL JoffFintechA JOFF Jabil JBL JacobsEngg J JerashHldgs JRSH JPMChasePfdJJ JPMpK KB Home KBH KKR KKR KLA KLAC Kadant KAI KSCitySouthern KSU Karooooo KARO KellyServices A KELYA KhoslaVenturesIII KVSC LGI Homes LGIH LSB Inds LXU LamResearch LRCX LandcadiaIV LCAHU LegacyHousing LEGH LibertySirius B LSXMB LouisianaPacific LPX MFAFin6.5%PfdC MFApC MI Homes MHO MKS Instrum MKSI MTBC PfdA MTBCP MainStreetCap MAIN ManhattanBridge LOAN MarathonDigital MARA Marsh&McLen MMC Masco MAS Maximus MMS MesabiTrust MSB MillerIndustries MLR MohawkInds MHK MontroseEnvl MEG
25.88 31.30 0.89 32.14 19.98 23.69 308.55 16.75 91.17 116.76 20.65 23.50 59.10 212.43 29.71 32.69 0.52 26.46 10.77 9.82 53.00 131.24 6.87 25.73 47.89 50.39 347.79 189.40 267.61 39.00 23.90 10.05 154.32 5.40 640.00 10.03 18.80 50.01 56.85 23.12 61.71 196.25 28.45 39.85 6.23 51.76 123.41 61.01 91.33 31.95 47.13 199.00 55.09
2.0 14.9 12.0 0.9 0.2 4.7 0.8 2.3 2.2 10.4 -0.7 0.9 9.2 1.4 3.1 2.1 9.3 2.4 2.1 0.4 1.6 0.5 7.9 -0.1 2.7 3.1 5.1 1.0 1.2 21.4 7.0 0.2 2.5 3.5 7.4 0.5 5.4 10.6 2.5 2.7 3.5 5.6 0.9 1.8 1.3 1.7 1.1 1.8 2.5 6.0 1.5 3.1 8.3
52-Wk % Sym Hi/Lo Chg Stock
MonumentCircleA MON Moxian MOXC Nasdaq NDAQ Neogen NEOG NescoWt NSCO.WS NewResidentialPfdB NRZpB NewResidentPfdA NRZpA NewResidentialPfdC NRZpC NewellBrands NWL NorthAtlAcqnA NAAC NovaMeasuring NVMI NovusCapII A NXU NovusCapII Wt NXU.WS NuSTAR PfdB NSpB NuSTAR PfdC NSpC NuSTARLogNts NSS OldDomFreight ODFL ON Semi ON OntoInnovation ONTO P&FIndustries PFIN PLBY Group PLBY PRA HealthSci PRAH PeapackGladFinl PGC PebblebrookPfdC PEBpC PebblebrookPfdF PEBpF PennyMacMtgPfA PMTpA PennyMacPfdB PMTpB PPlus RRD-1 PYS PriorityIncmPfdG PRIFpG PublicStorage PSA Qorvo QRVO QuantaServices PWR RLJLodgingPfdA RLJpA RaymondJames RJF ResearchAll II RACB RetailValue RVI RockyBrands RCKY SK Telecom SKM SLM SLM SMTC SMTX SafeBulkersPfdC SBpC Saia SAIA SaratogaInvt SAR SchmittIndustries SMIT ScottsMiracleGro SMG Seagate STX Semrush SEMR SkylineChamp SKY SmartShareGlbl EM SociedadQuimicaRt SQMr SouthwesternEner SWN StarGroup SGU SuperMicroComp SMCI Surmodics SRDX TTM Tech TTMI TeledyneTech TDY TexasInstruments TXN ThimblePointA THMA Tiptree TIPT Tradeweb TW Trimble TRMB
9.85 5.87 151.52 90.33 2.02 24.99 25.51 22.99 27.06 9.95 96.34 9.82 1.79 21.29 24.99 24.82 243.81 42.94 69.99 9.70 25.73 157.50 31.80 25.28 24.48 26.08 26.22 22.94 24.94 252.12 194.28 90.22 28.65 126.58 10.49 19.04 57.95 27.62 18.41 6.04 24.41 243.36 25.88 7.00 251.42 78.50 13.10 47.86 10.00 4.99 4.88 10.83 39.60 57.53 14.96 424.05 192.54 10.05 9.75 76.27 81.09
1.3 19.0 2.3 0.5 ... 0.9 0.7 2.2 1.0 ... 5.0 0.5 7.8 1.8 0.6 0.7 1.4 3.1 6.4 16.1 19.3 1.8 0.9 0.7 0.9 -1.4 0.7 0.6 0.3 2.1 5.6 1.4 3.2 3.2 2.2 1.5 5.4 1.0 1.7 0.5 0.2 1.5 1.6 17.0 2.1 2.3 7.3 4.8 0.5 37.4 4.3 2.3 1.4 0.2 3.0 0.9 1.6 4.0 6.0 2.7 3.8
52-Wk % Sym Hi/Lo Chg
TsakosEnergyPfdE TNPpE TsakosEnergyPfdF TNPpF twoA TWOA TwoHarborsPfdA TWOpA TwoHarborsPfdB TWOpB TwoHarborsPfdC TWOpC UFP Inds UFPI USA Compression USAC USA Truck USAK USCellular5.5%SrNt UZE UltraClean UCTT UnitedTherap UTHR Urstadt Pfd H UBPpH Uxin UXIN Watsco WSO WesBancoPfdA WSBCP Weyerhaeuser WY Whirlpool WHR WillScotMobile WSC WyndhamHtls WH Zhihu ZH
24.00 24.85 9.98 26.71 26.08 25.00 77.39 16.50 21.24 25.55 63.88 200.00 25.49 2.02 267.84 28.74 36.88 225.67 29.12 71.84 9.26
0.8 2.4 ... ... 1.6 0.6 2.0 -6.5 8.7 -0.1 9.6 15.0 0.6 68.4 2.5 3.2 3.5 2.2 4.4 2.8 10.9
Lows AchillesTherap ACHL AdaraAcqnWt ADRA.WS AltimarAcqnIIA ATMR CCNeubergerIII A PRPC CovaAcqna COVA ClarimAcqnWt CLRMW CrownPropWt CPTK.WS EucratesBiomed EUCR EvaxionBiotech EVAX Forian FORA Frontier ULCC Galecto GLTO GracellBiotech GRCL GrowthCapWt GCACW HudsonExecII A HCII IthaxAcqnWt ITHXW JoffFintechWt JOFFW KludeInI Wt INKAW LuciraHealth LHDX MDH Acqn A MDH MDH Acqn Wt MDH.WS MMA Capital MMAC MedTechAcqnWt MTACW Metacrine MTCR NobleRockWt NRACW NuZee NUZE Olo OLO Puyi PUYI QuantumFinWt QFTA.WS RMGAcqnIIIWt RMGCW RomeoPower RMO RomeoPowerWt RMO.WS RotorAcqnA ROT SmartShareGlbl EM TZP Strategies TZPSU ThimblePointWt THMAW ThunderBridgeIIIWt TBCPW XL Fleet XL
15.06 -3.3 0.46 -5.9 9.62 -0.4 9.70 ... 9.70 -1.0 0.54 -11.3 0.75 -0.1 9.59 -2.9 5.16 -10.0 9.63 -3.6 18.26 -0.8 5.91 -0.6 13.15 -12.6 0.48 ... 9.83 -0.3 0.56 -34.1 0.75 -3.6 0.55 1.8 11.32 -5.4 9.60 -0.2 0.59 -1.7 18.50 -11.3 1.00 -1.8 5.61 -7.6 0.64 -9.3 3.40 0.3 23.93 -0.3 4.48 -5.1 0.29 ... 1.05 -24.3 8.20 -0.6 0.08 -35.9 9.61 -0.8 8.08 0.5 9.77 ... 0.66 -30.5 0.88 -12.0 7.80 -12.1
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | B7
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B8 | Friday, April 2, 2021
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
*
MARKETS DIGEST EQUITIES Dow Jones Industrial Average
S&P 500 Index Last Year ago
33153.21 s 171.66, or 0.52% High, low, open and close for each trading day of the past three months.
Trailing P/E ratio 33.62 16.67 P/E estimate * 21.35 15.12 Dividend yield 1.81 3.05 All-time high 33171.37, 03/29/21
Nasdaq Composite Index Last
4019.87 s 46.98, or 1.18% High, low, open and close for each trading day of the past three months.
Year ago
Trailing P/E ratio * 45.45 20.11 P/E estimate * 23.12 15.82 Dividend yield * 1.45 2.41 All-time high 4019.87, 04/01/21
13480.11 s 233.23, or 1.76% High, low, open and close for each trading day of the past three months.
Last
Year ago
Trailing P/E ratio *† 38.14 23.25 P/E estimate *† 29.05 19.75 Dividend yield *† 0.76 1.15 All-time high: 14095.47, 02/12/21
Current divisor 0.15198707565833 34400
4050
14400
33200
3925
13800
32000
3800
13200
3675
12600
Session high UP Close
t
DOWN Session open
Open
t
Close
Session low
30800 65-day moving average 65-day moving average
65-day moving average
29600
3550
12000
28400
3425
11400
Bars measure the point change from session's open 27200 Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
10800
3300 Dec.
Jan.
Feb.
Dec.
Mar.
Jan.
Feb.
Mar.
*Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; † Based on Nasdaq-100 Index
Major U.S. Stock-Market Indexes
Late Trading
Trading Diary Volume, Advancers, Decliners
33167.17 32985.35 33153.21 171.66
0.52
33171.37 21052.53
54.8
8.3
11.2
Most-active and biggest movers among NYSE, NYSE Arca, NYSE Amer. and Nasdaq issues from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET as reported by electronic trading services, securities dealers and regional exchanges. Minimum share price of $2 and minimum after-hours volume of 50,000 shares.
Transportation Avg 14754.78 14617.81 14748.38 116.99
0.80
14748.38
7305.31
98.1
17.9
12.4
Most-active issues in late trading
917.38
706.01
20.6
1.7
8.3
42138.31 24860.74 978.36 500.47
66.6 90.8
7.4 14.7
15.5 11.2
High
Latest Close
Low
Net chg
% chg
52-Week Low
High
YTD
% chg
% chg 3-yr. ann.
Dow Jones Industrial Average
881.33
Utility Average Total Stock Market Barron's 400
873.95
-0.83
879.51
-0.09
42143.88 41897.48 42138.31 535.66 977.16 962.96 977.16 14.20
1.29 1.47
Nasdaq Stock Market Nasdaq Composite 13487.08 13404.18 13480.11 233.23 Nasdaq-100 13333.41 13255.82 13329.51 238.07
1.76 1.82
14095.47 13807.70
7373.08 7528.11
4.6 3.4
80.0 74.6
24.0 26.5
S&P 500 Index
4020.63
3992.78
4019.87
46.98
1.18
4019.87
2488.65
59.1
7.0
15.0
MidCap 400 SmallCap 600
2647.72 1340.30
2619.15 1324.97
2647.71 1340.30
38.47 20.95
1.47 1.59
2682.61 1397.66
1337.95 92.5 622.35 107.7
14.8 19.8
12.1 12.6
Other Indexes Russell 2000
2253.90
2225.29
2253.90
33.38
1.50
2360.17
1052.05 107.6
14.1
13.8
NYSE Composite
15752.33 15601.74 15752.24 150.50
Value Line NYSE Arca Biotech
SPY
9,945.1 401.10
0.49
0.12 401.20 400.53
Bank of America
BAC
5,782.1
39.50
0.01
0.03
39.55
AeroCentury
ACY
4,903.4
10.60
0.90
9.28
12.50
9.53
GlaxoSmithKline ADR GSK
4,503.3
35.82
...
...
35.87
35.72
iShares Core MSCI EM IEMG
4,229.1
65.96
0.89
1.37
65.96
65.03
Intel
3,845.2
64.46
-0.09
-0.14
64.60
64.24
Xtrackers USD HY Corp Bd HYLB
3,691.2
49.80
-0.05
-0.10
49.80
49.80
Tencent Music Ent ADR TME
3,541.0
20.13
0.02
0.10
20.20
20.03
INTC
Percentage gainers… dMY Tech Grp II Cl A
DMYD
AeroCentury
ACY
Avalon Holdings
AWX
754.8
19.36
3.73
23.86
19.90
15.63
4,903.4
10.60
0.90
9.28
12.50
9.53
571.6
4.35
0.25
6.10
5.10
4.11
182.6
33.01
1.34
4.23
33.01
31.67
93.7
29.84
1.14
3.97
29.99
28.70
84.3
5.24
4.75
15775.50
9880.63
56.5
8.4
8.2
662.15
328.00
93.0
14.1
5.9
5615.70
5479.34
5571.95
92.61
1.69
6319.77
4410.88
24.7
-2.9
7.3
725.03
580.21
19.3
0.4
9.4
...And losers
123.35
60.19
94.8
24.0
4.5
New Concept Energy
GBR
4.90
-0.34
-6.49
161.14
84.36
65.6
-3.0
19.9
Analog Devices
ADI
108.1 153.00
-7.38
-4.60 160.49 153.00
Horizon Acqn II Cl A
HZON
719.5
10.02
-0.41
-3.93
10.44
9.67
HighPoint Resources
HPR
71.2
4.58
-0.15
-3.17
4.85
4.55
93.5
7.10
-0.22
-2.94
7.31
7.01
692.35
-1.04 1.27
PHLX§ Gold/Silver
121.40
139.94
136.16
139.93
5.54
55.13
1.43
55.21
53.47
3242.33 18.64
3180.48 17.29
-0.15 1.05 4.12 2.67
3240.17 115.23 17.33 -2.07 -10.67
3.69
Nasdaq PHLX
63.89
24.06 122.6
3240.17 50.91
1443.04 119.7 17.33 -66.0
24.4 -25.9 15.9 -23.8
34.6 -4.6
Taylor Morrison Home TMHC Medallia
MDLA
AgEagle Aerial Systems UAVS
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data
International Stock Indexes Region/Country Index
Close
Percentage Gainers... Latest % chg
Net chg
YTD % chg
7.18 2.84 28.49 18.81
1.07 0.84 1.01 1.43
5.3 3.8 5.6 3.4
MSCI AC Americas 1560.99 18.62 S&P/TSX Comp 18990.32 289.65 MSCI EM Latin America 2280.71 –21.46 Sao Paulo Bovespa 115253.31 –1380.41 Santiago IPSA 3327.17 –8.74 S&P/BMV IPC 47246.26 …
1.21 1.55
6.3 8.9 –7.0 –3.2 16.4 7.2
MSCI ACWI 680.47 MSCI ACWI ex-USA 338.91 MSCI World 2840.19 MSCI Emerging Markets 1335.24
–0.93 –1.18 –0.26 Closed
Stoxx Europe 600 432.22 Euro Stoxx 435.38 Bel-20 3938.63 OMX Copenhagen 20 1471.77 CAC 40 6102.96 DAX 15107.17 Tel Aviv 1610.22 FTSE MIB 24710.00 AEX 708.43 RTS Index 1457.37 FTSE/JSE All-Share 67236.31 IBEX 35 8577.60 OMX Stockholm 879.01 Swiss Market 11118.03 BIST 100 1426.56 FTSE 100 6737.30 FTSE 250 21732.67
0.61 2.62 0.76 3.28 1.00 39.15 Closed … 0.59 35.73 0.66 98.83 0.35 5.60 0.25 61.44 1.23 8.58 –19.74 –1.34 1.13 751.02 –0.03 –2.38 0.64 5.62 0.64 70.66 2.50 34.83 0.35 23.67 0.99 213.96
MSCI AC Asia Pacific 205.68 S&P/ASX 200 6828.70 Shanghai Composite 3466.33 Hang Seng 28938.74 S&P BSE Sensex 50029.83 Nikkei Stock Avg 29388.87 Straits Times 3181.68 Kospi 3087.40 TAIEX 16571.28 SET 1595.12
2.11 38.03 24.42 560.39 520.69 210.07 16.34 25.98 140.15 7.91
1.04 0.56 0.71 1.97 1.05 0.72 0.52 0.85 0.85 0.50
8.3 9.5 8.8 0.5 9.9 10.1 7.4 11.1 13.4 5.0 13.2 6.2 14.4 3.9 –3.4 4.3 6.1 2.9 3.7 –0.2 6.3 4.8 7.1 11.9 7.4 12.5 10.1
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data
Company
Symbol
AeroCentury Liberty TripAdvisor B Applied Molecular Transpt Kelly Services Cl B Universe Pharmaceuticals
ACY
Nuvve Holding Earthstone Energy New Concept Energy Karooooo PLBY Group
NVVE
MingZhu Logistics Hldgs Moxian Sonoma Pharmaceuticals Cyclerion Therapeutics Greenbrook TMS
YGMZ
9.70 6.15 173.24 68.00 29.98 78.85 63.57 19.56 44.44 30.49 8.17 36.60 5.25 1.24 30.92
LTRPB AMTI KELYB UPC
ESTE GBR KARO PLBY
MOXC SNOA CYCN GBNH
High
52-Week Low % chg
38.04 0.71 708.3 134.00 3.67 1752.9 78.22 17.05 ... 90.36 10.35 168.9 11.99 3.75 ...
UXIN
SPDR S&P 500 AMC Entertainment Hldgs Universe Pharmaceuticals Apple ProSh UltraPro Shrt QQQ
SPY
ACY NIO SNDL FTFT
AMC UPC AAPL SQQQ
Symbol
Recon Technology Wah Fu Education Group Akumin Lion Group Holding ADR MicroVision
RCON
Selected rates
A consumer rate against its benchmark over the past year
New car loan
LAVA Therapeutics Target Hospitality HighPoint Resources Emergent Biosoltns Discovery Series B
LVTX
5.47 5.39 8.80 3.29 13.62
0.88 0.86 1.37 0.50 2.07
19.17 18.98 18.44 17.92 17.88
58.00 5.87 19.60 8.96 17.55
... 798.3 76.0 38.8 141.8
Liquid Media Group BioXcel Therapeutics CTI BioPharma Gracell Biotech ADR XL Fleet
YVR
3.66 0.52 4.60 2.18 5.06
t
New car loan
3.90 3.60
Prime rate
337,297 143,729 115,508 114,043 113,905
6153.0 1.97 68.38 9248.8 9.70 173.24 4.2 39.66 1.74 -78.4 1.10 -2.65 781.5 5.53 -10.89
96,783 76,655 75,832 73,177 71,931
18.0 400.61 1.08 -54.2 9.36 -8.33 869.4 5.25 30.92 -33.6 123.00 0.70 -22.9 12.44 -5.18
t
3.30
3.00 AM J J A S O N D J FMA 2020 2021
Yield/Rate (%) Last (l)Week ago
Federal-funds rate target 0.00-0.25 0.00-0.25 Prime rate* 3.25 3.25 Libor, 3-month 0.19 0.20 Money market, annual yield 0.10 0.10 Five-year CD, annual yield 0.48 0.47 30-year mortgage, fixed† 3.25 3.27 15-year mortgage, fixed† 2.50 2.54 Jumbo mortgages, $548,250-plus† 3.29 3.27 Five-year adj mortgage (ARM)† 3.13 3.18 New-car loan, 48-month 4.05 4.05
3-yr chg 52-Week Range (%) Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts)
0.00 3.25 0.18 0.08 0.44 2.83 2.32 2.85 2.85 4.02
l l l l l l l l l l
0.25 3.25 1.39 0.34 0.91 3.88 3.38 4.00 3.51 4.44
-1.50 -1.50 -2.11 -0.25 -1.19 -1.12 -1.31 -1.38 -1.01 0.38
Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largest banks.† Excludes closing costs. Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data; Bankrate.com
-20.37 -17.44 -17.30 -17.19 -16.23
0.75 230.8 1.39 577.6 1.50 70.1 1.75 ... 0.19 6922.1
9.70 21.00 4.10 8.93 24.18
-12.89 -12.81 -12.71 -12.60 -12.14
7.50 1.27 71.50 16.00 4.13 0.86 33.70 13.15 35.00 7.80
46.0 100.7 165.1 ... -20.7
BTAI CTIC GRCL XL
3.65 37.63 2.54 13.46 7.89
-0.54 -5.53 -0.37 -1.94 -1.09
Ranked by change from 65-day average*
2.02 38.04 66.99 3.96 11.29
0.72 0.71 2.22 0.14 0.90
P F Industries Cl A Sonoma Pharmaceuticals Liberty TripAdvisor B Growth Cap Acqn Cl A WBI BullBear Yield 3000
PFIN
400.67 244.59 20.36 1.91 11.99 3.75 145.09 59.23 112.40 11.76
Gl X Hlth Wellness VIA optronics ADR African Gold Acqn Cl A Medley Management Cl A TLG Acquisition One Cl A
BFIT
SNOA LTRPB GCAC WBIG
VIAO AGAC MDLY TLGA
Volume % chg from Latest Session (000) 65-day avg Close % chg
52-Week High Low
7,126 15,258 480 502 640
29617 25789 8808 5055 4714
7.66 8.80 68.00 9.68 25.43
16.06 18.44 78.85 -0.21 0.97
9.70 4.10 19.60 4.60 134.00 3.67 9.71 9.55 25.66 21.75
289 810 1,801 5,461 970
3666 2729 2249 2219 2107
26.72 13.00 9.62 7.90 9.69
0.68 0.62 0.47 12.86 0.10
27.17 14.59 15.57 7.04 9.75 9.40 27.90 2.80 9.75 9.50
* Common stocks priced at $2 a share or more with an average volume over 65 trading days of at least 5,000 shares =Has traded fewer than 65 days
CURRENCIES & COMMODITIES Currencies U.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in late New York trading
Get real-time U.S. stock quotes and track most-active stocks, new highs/lows and mutual funds. Available free at WSJMarkets.com
Tradeweb ICE Thursday Close
Forex Race
Yen, euro vs. dollar; dollar vs. major U.S. trading partners
t
1 3 6 month(s)
16%
1.50
0.50 0.00
Euro
8 0
s
Yen –8
s
WSJ Dollar Index –16
1 2 3 5 7 10 20 30 years maturity
2020
2021
Sources: Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; Dow Jones Market Data
Corporate Borrowing Rates and Yields Yield (%) Last Week ago
52-Week High Low
2358.930
0.990
0.930
1.000
0.400 –4.476 4.208
U.S. Treasury Long, Barclays 4129.410
2.270
2.280
2.400
1.090 –15.930 6.343
2218.610
1.600
1.560
1.620
1.020
Fixed-Rate MBS, Barclays 2206.760
1.820
1.760
1.850
0.980 –0.042 3.760
3345.511
3.677
3.793
9.059
3.261
Muni Master, ICE BofA
592.825
0.992
0.983
2.197
0.725
7.291 4.717
EMBI Global, J.P. Morgan
892.790
4.966
4.950
6.701
4.295
15.908 4.006
Bond total return index
U.S. Treasury, Barclays Aggregate, Barclays High Yield 100, ICE BofA
Close
Argentina peso Brazil real Canada dollar Chile peso Colombiapeso Ecuador US dollar Mexico peso Uruguay peso
Total Return (%) 52-wk 3-yr
0.920 4.764 22.549 5.791
Sources: J.P. Morgan; S&P Dow Jones Indices; Bloomberg Barclays; ICE Data Services
US$vs, YTDchg Thurs in US$ per US$ (%)
Country/currency
.00004335
Vietnam dong .0109 91.6482 9.0 .1751 5.7095 9.9 .7970 1.2548 –1.5 .001395 717.10 0.9 .000273 3661.70 7.0 1 1 unch .0493 20.2883 2.0 .02262 44.2050 4.4
Asia-Pacific
2.00
1.00 One year ago
US$vs, YTDchg Thurs in US$ per US$ (%)
Americas
2.50%
2.75% 888-763-7600
3.74% 800-513-7678
Frost Bank Houston, TX
-1.32 -2.18 -0.64 -0.76 -3.01
52-Week Low % chg
... 46.6 -42.7 41.1 304.3
Symbol
Compare the performance of selected global stock indexes, bond ETFs, currencies and commodities at wsj.com/graphics/track-the-markets
4.05%
3.37% 888-PNC-BANK
5.16 10.32 3.06 3.66 15.54
High
17.20 9.76 4.29 0.82 37.50 2.80 137.61 53.35 150.72 25.46
Company
Track the Markets
First Savings Bank of Hegewisch 2.75% Chicago, IL 773-646-4200
PNC Bank Washington, DC
Latest Session Close Net chg % chg
13.00 -2.19 -14.42 2.17 -0.34 -13.55 HPR 4.73 -0.74 -13.53 EBS 80.46 -12.45 -13.40 DISCB 111.17 -16.83 -13.15
Volume Movers
Benchmark Yields Treasury yield curve andtoRates Yield maturity of current bills,
Cambridge Savings Bank 3.24% Cambridge, MA 888-418-5626
NYSE Arca
* Primary market NYSE, NYSE American NYSE Arca only. †(TRIN) A comparison of the number of advancing and declining issues with the volume of shares rising and falling. An Arms of less than 1 indicates buying demand; above 1 indicates selling pressure.
TH
52-Week High Low
s
4.20%
First Command Bank Fort Worth, TX
MVIS
... 417.9 445.3 ... ...
notes and bonds
Bankrate.com avg†:
LGHL
22.74 9.70 9.43 1.44 30.99 0.72 39.00 28.00 25.73 9.85
* Volumes of 100,000 shares or more are rounded to the nearest thousand
t
U.S. consumer rates
AKU
27.33 25.31 22.14 21.39 19.35
CREDIT MARKETS Consumer Rates and Returns to Investor
WAFU
2.76 1.81 0.95 5.99 3.79
Volume % chg from Latest Session Symbol (000) 65-day avg Close % chg
Uxin ADR AeroCentury NIO ADR Sundial Growers Future FinTech Group
Company
12.86 8.96 5.24 33.99 23.38
Most Active Stocks Company
Nasdaq
Total volume*4,500,800,031 277,450,321 Adv. volume*2,962,980,100 232,747,337 Decl. volume*1,457,008,396 44,581,256 Issues traded 4,310 1,494 Advances 3,172 1,290 Declines 1,015 193 Unchanged 123 11 New highs 132 177 New lows 24 19 Closing Arms† 1.54 1.28 Block trades* 24,975 1,033
Percentage Losers Latest Session Close Net chg % chg
Country/currency
Interest rate
39.45
1.44
690.39
Asia-Pacific Australia China Hong Kong India Japan Singapore South Korea Taiwan Thailand
Low
SPDR S&P 500
0.96
119.80
EMEA Eurozone Belgium Denmark France Germany Israel Italy Netherlands Russia South Africa Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey U.K. U.K.
After Hours % chg High
9.24
695.21
Americas Canada Latin Amer. Brazil Chile Mexico
Net chg
648.75
121.42
World
Last
639.51
NYSE Arca Pharma
PHLX§ Semiconductor Cboe Volatility
Volume (000)
Symbol
648.75
KBW Bank PHLX§ Oil Service
Company
NYSE NYSE Amer.
Total volume* 876,524,837 27,423,779 Adv. volume* 605,344,136 22,820,858 Decl. volume* 265,300,011 4,426,805 Issues traded 3,414 282 Advances 2,664 224 Declines 666 52 Unchanged 84 6 New highs 191 8 New lows 11 1 Closing Arms† 1.93 1.27 Block trades* 5,228 149
Australian dollar .7616 1.3130 1.0 China yuan .1523 6.5654 0.5 Hong Kong dollar .1286 7.7757 0.3 India rupee .01364 73.287 0.3 Indonesia rupiah .0000688 14525 3.4 Japan yen .009042 110.60 7.1 Kazakhstan tenge .002340 427.41 1.4 Macau pataca .1248 8.0145 0.3 Malaysia ringgit .2412 4.1455 3.1 New Zealand dollar .7022 1.4241 2.3 Pakistan rupee .00654 152.825 –4.7 Philippines peso .0206 48.597 1.2 Singapore dollar .7437 1.3446 1.8 South Korea won .0008858 1128.87 4.0 Sri Lanka rupee .0050120 199.52 7.7 Taiwan dollar .03510 28.492 1.4 Thailand baht .03204 31.210 3.9
23070 –0.04
Europe Czech Rep. koruna Denmark krone Euro area euro Hungary forint Iceland krona Norway krone Poland zloty Russia ruble Sweden krona Switzerland franc Turkey lira Ukraine hryvnia UK pound
.04515 22.149 .1584 6.3150 1.1779 .8490 .003260 306.72 .007920 126.27 .1174 8.5198 .2567 3.8955 .01313 76.158 .1147 8.7148 1.0618 .9418 .1231 8.1203 .0358 27.9500 1.3835 .7228
3.2 3.7 3.7 3.3 –1.2 –0.7 4.4 2.9 5.9 6.4 9.2 –1.4 –1.2
Middle East/Africa Bahrain dinar Egypt pound Israel shekel Kuwait dinar Oman sul rial Qatar rial Saudi Arabia riyal South Africa rand
2.6527 .3770 –0.02 .0637 15.7094 –0.2 .3001 3.3325 3.7 3.3104 .3021 –0.7 2.5972 .3850 0.01 .2747 3.640 –0.03 .2666 3.7503 –0.04 .0684 14.6227 –0.5 Close Net Chg % Chg YTD%Chg
WSJ Dollar Index 87.45 –0.19–0.21
2.88
Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data
Commodities
Thursday
52-Week
Pricing trends on someClose raw materials, or commodities Net chg % Chg High Low DJ Commodity 804.73 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 186.70 Crude oil, $ per barrel 61.45 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 2.639 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1726.50
4.25 1.74 2.29 0.031 12.70
0.53 836.48 0.94 195.13 66.09 3.87 3.354 1.19 0.74 2051.50
433.70 106.29 -37.63 1.482 1625.70
% Chg
YTD % chg
70.85 49.55 142.69 70.04 6.20
10.00 11.27 26.65 3.94 -8.80
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | B9
*
COMMODITIES Futures Contracts Metal & Petroleum Futures Contract High hi lo Low
Open
Contract High hilo Low
Open
Settle
2.754 2.830
Oct Nov
Open Chg interest
2.800 2.870
3.9850 3.9840
4.0150 4.0190
3.9735 3.9435
4.0035 0.0005 2,627 3.9905 –0.0050 131,570
Gold (CMX)-100 troy oz.; $ per troy oz. 1706.80 1707.90 1709.00 1711.40 1715.20 1712.90
April May June Aug Oct Dec
1728.80 1730.40 1732.00 1733.20 1735.00 1736.00
1706.40 1705.70 1706.40 1708.80 1711.80 1712.90
Palladium (NYM) - 50 troy oz.; $ per troy oz. … 2621.50
April June
… 2666.50
… 2607.00
Platinum (NYM)-50 troy oz.; $ per troy oz. 1188.40 1191.40
April July
1211.80 1216.80
1185.00 1176.60
Silver (CMX)-5,000 troy oz.; $ per troy oz. 24.350 24.460
April May
24.935 25.045
1726.50 1727.30 1728.40 1730.30 1731.90 1733.60
12.70 8,343 12.90 1,587 12.80 374,307 12.80 37,179 12.90 12,693 13.00 17,273
2653.40 2655.80
35.90 35.90
9,963
1206.20 1208.60
17.70 17.10
1,535 62,688
24.350 24.270
24.935 24.948
59.49 59.48 59.36 58.61 57.16 53.36
61.75 61.75 61.58 60.80 59.41 55.61
58.86 58.91 58.80 58.14 56.82 53.21
61.45 61.48 61.35 60.62 59.29 55.55
1.7745 1.7779
1.8363 1.8387
1.7683 1.7716
1.8316 1.8344
1.9649 1.9577
2.0360 2.0281
1.9550 1.9483
2.0223 2.0158
2.605 2.666 2.731 2.739
2.663 2.718 2.781 2.786
2.578 2.640 2.708 2.718
2.639 2.697 2.761 2.769
1444.00 1268.00
1456.25 1285.00 s
556.50 541.00
559.75 545.25
–4.50 622,246 –2.25 422,345
370.75 366.00
372.00 369.25
–6.75 –8.50
1398.50 1253.25
427.80 429.10
May July
433.20 433.60
2,692 953
1402.00 –34.75 296,006 1263.75 7.50 215,173
407.20 409.10
410.20 –13.00 141,440 411.70 –13.10 114,946
Soybean Oil (CBT)-60,000 lbs.; cents per lb. 52.92 50.96
May July
53.29 51.20
51.73 49.91
52.13 50.52
–.79 146,114 –.24 122,714
Rough Rice (CBT)-2,000 cwt.; $ per cwt. 13.16 12.95
May Sept
13.24 12.99
13.10 12.90
13.12 12.93
–.06 –.06
8,136 686
623.00 620.00
May July
625.75 623.25
601.25 601.50
611.00 610.50
–7.00 163,304 –5.25 125,255
577.75 585.00
582.00 587.75
143.800 149.325
April May
144.850 150.400
565.00 –10.75 572.00 –9.75
120.950 122.850
April June
121.400 123.600 s
Metals
101.425 105.800
April June
101.975 s 106.725 s
1012.60
May
1022.80 s
143.250 148.725
143.875 149.225
… –.175
119.925 122.425
120.025 122.550
1724.00 1726.05 1915.92 *1685.35 *1691.05 1796.81 1814.09 1814.09 2091.09 1696.49 1814.09
Silver, troy oz. 24.7000 24.7850 30.9810 *£17.4400 *24.0000 20082
Engelhard industrial Handy & Harman base Handy & Harman fabricated LBMA spot price (U.S.$ equivalent) Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a
Other metals *1182.0 1202.0 2660.0
LBMA Platinum Price PM Platinum,Engelhard industrial Palladium,Engelhard industrial
0.7200 0.7570 *87.40 n.a. n.a.
Burlap,10-oz,40-inch NY yd-n,w Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u Cotlook 'A' Index-t Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w
Grains and Feeds Barley,top-quality Mnpls-u n.a. Bran,wheat middlings, KC-u 186 Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 5.5250 Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 179.8 Corn gluten meal,Midwest-u,w 614.2 Cottonseed meal-u,w 455 Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 175 Meat-bonemeal,50% pro Mnpls-u,w 340 Oats,No.2 milling,Mnpls-u 3.8250 Rice, Long Grain Milled, No. 2 AR-u,w 26.88 Sorghum,(Milo) No.2 Gulf-u 8.0725 SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u,w 398.70 Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 13.9450 Wheat,Spring14%-pro Mnpls-u 7.1450 Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 6.3850 Wheat - Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 5.9500
May Sept
124.95 128.65
May July
14.71 14.71
ETF
ARKInnovationETF CommSvsSPDR CnsmrDiscSelSector EnSelectSectorSPDR FinSelSectorSPDR HealthCareSelSect IndSelSectorSPDR InvscQQQI InvscS&P500EW iShCoreDivGrowth iShCoreMSCIEAFE iShCoreMSCIEM iShCoreMSCITotInt iShCoreS&P500 iShCoreS&P MC iShCoreS&P SC iShS&PTotlUSStkMkt iShCoreUSAggBd iShSelectDividend iShESGAwareUSA iShEdgeMSCIMinUSA iShEdgeMSCIUSAMom iShEdgeMSCIUSAQual iShGoldTr iShiBoxx$InvGrCpBd iShiBoxx$HYCpBd iShJPMUSDEmgBd iShMBSETF iShMSCI ACWI iShMSCI EAFE iShMSCI EAFE SC iShMSCIEmgMarkets
ARKK XLC XLY XLE XLF XLV XLI QQQ RSP DGRO IEFA IEMG IXUS IVV IJH IJR ITOT AGG DVY ESGU USMV MTUM QUAL IAU LQD HYG EMB MBB ACWI EFA SCZ EEM
120.85 74.58 169.42 50.31 34.47 116.39 98.78 324.57 143.08 48.57 73.11 65.07 71.20 402.08 263.97 110.09 92.76 114.04 114.83 91.95 69.72 163.41 123.09 16.46 130.61 87.07 109.39 108.19 96.39 76.86 73.00 53.86
0.75 1.72 0.80 2.55 1.23 –0.30 0.34 1.70 1.00 0.62 1.47 1.10 1.31 1.07 1.42 1.44 1.27 0.34 0.64 1.19 0.77 1.59 1.08 1.23 0.63 0.21 0.79 –0.04 1.30 1.30 1.61 0.97
–2.9 10.5 5.4 32.7 16.9 2.6 11.6 3.5 12.2 8.4 5.8 4.9 6.0 7.1 14.9 19.8 7.6 –3.5 19.4 6.9 2.7 1.3 5.9 –9.2 –5.4 –0.3 –5.6 –1.8 6.2 5.3 6.8 4.2
iShMSCIJapan iShNatlMuniBd iSh1-5YIGCorpBd iShPfd&Incm iShRussell1000Gwth iShRussell1000 iShRussell1000Val iShRussell2000Gwth iShRussell2000 iShRussell2000Val iShRussellMid-Cap iShRussellMCValue iShS&P500Growth iShS&P500Value iShShortTreaBd iShSilver iShTIPSBondETF iSh1-3YTreasuryBd iSh7-10YTreasuryBd iSh20+YTreasuryBd iShRussellMCGrowth iShUSTreasuryBdETF JPM UltShtIncm PIMCOEnhShMaturity SPDRBloomBar1-3MTB SPDR Gold SchwabIntEquity SchwabUS BrdMkt SchwabUS Div SchwabUS LC SchwabUS LC Grw SchwabUS SC Schwab US TIPs
100.925 105.350 1006.00
101.775 106.325
69.14 116.00 54.60 38.40 246.88 226.48 152.86 304.97 223.74 161.32 75.02 110.51 66.06 142.18 110.51 23.15 125.56 86.23 113.36 137.51 103.95 26.25 50.73 101.89 91.51 161.98 38.15 97.83 73.32 97.23 132.08 100.99 61.22
2.3 0.90 0.11 –1.0 0.00 –1.0 0.40 –0.3 2.4 1.58 6.9 1.18 0.86 11.8 6.4 1.41 1.27 14.1 1.16 22.4 9.4 1.47 1.11 14.0 3.5 1.46 0.67 11.1 ... –0.0 1.98 –5.8 0.29 –1.6 –0.00 –0.2 0.44 –5.5 1.66 –12.8 1.3 1.85 0.28 –3.7 0.01 –0.1 0.02 –0.1 0.01 –0.0 1.26 –9.2 5.9 1.41 7.5 1.16 0.55 14.3 6.9 1.25 2.9 1.77 1.32 13.5 0.25 –1.4
May July
30.70 30.90
1012.60
80.75 80.00
3.50
1,899
7.6250
Food Beef,carcass equiv. index choice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u Broilers, National comp wtd. avg.-u,w Butter,AA Chicago Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb. Coffee,Brazilian,Comp Coffee,Colombian, NY Eggs,large white,Chicago-u Flour,hard winter KC Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u Hogs,Iowa-So. Minnesota-u Pork bellies,12-14 lb MidUS-u Pork loins,13-19 lb MidUS-u Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w
204.17 195.35 0.8695 1.8450 151.25 177.50 119.00 1.1599 1.7249 1.2350 15.35 0.76 96.10 n.a. 0.9971 n.a. 162.38
Fats and Oils Corn oil,crude wet/dry mill wtd. avg.-u,w 62.5000 Grease,choice white,Chicago-h 0.5350 Lard,Chicago-u n.a. Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u,w 0.5496 Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h 0.5600 Tallow,edible,Chicago-u 0.5700
U.S. consumer price index 263.014 270.696
All items Core
0.55 0.35
1.7 1.3
International rates Latest
Week ago
52-Week High Low
Prime rates U.S. Canada Japan
3.25 3.25 3.25 3.25 2.45 2.45 2.45 2.45 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475
SPDR DJIA Tr SPDR S&PMdCpTr SPDR S&P 500 SPDR S&P Div TechSelectSector VanEckGoldMiner VangdInfoTech VangdSC Val VangdSC Grwth VangdExtMkt VangdDivApp VangdFTSEDevMk VangdFTSE EM VangdFTSE Europe VangdFTSEAWxUS VangdGrowth VangdHlthCr VangdHiDiv VangdIntermBd VangdIntrCorpBd VangdLC VangdMC VangdMC Val VangdMBS VangdRealEst VangdS&P500ETF VangdST Bond VangdSTCpBd VangdSC VangdTotalBd VangdTotIntlBd VangdTotIntlStk VangdTotalStk VangdTotlWrld VangdValue
331.45 482.30 400.61 118.74 135.48 33.60 365.97 167.63 279.44 179.75 148.09 49.75 52.52 64.01 61.45 261.38 228.63 101.60 88.54 93.14 187.36 224.53 136.19 53.36 93.53 368.16 82.12 82.39 217.38 84.80 57.15 63.55 209.28 98.57 132.12
DIA MDY SPY SDY XLK GDX VGT VBR VBK VXF VIG VEA VWO VGK VEU VUG VHT VYM BIV VCIT VV VO VOE VMBS VNQ VOO BSV VCSH VB BND BNDX VXUS VTI VT VTV
0.38 1.31 1.08 0.60 2.01 3.38 2.09 1.22 1.74 1.61 0.69 1.30 0.90 1.60 1.27 1.69 –0.05 0.50 0.31 0.31 1.11 1.44 0.98 0.06 1.82 1.06 0.02 0.01 1.54 0.10 0.12 1.36 1.25 1.32 0.50
8.4 14.9 7.1 12.1 4.2 –6.7 3.4 17.9 4.4 9.2 4.9 5.4 4.8 6.3 5.3 3.2 2.2 11.0 –4.6 –4.1 6.6 8.6 14.5 –1.3 10.1 7.1 –0.9 –1.0 11.7 –3.8 –2.4 5.6 7.5 6.5 11.1
0.1000 0.2000 0.0600 0.1000 0.1200
0.0600 0.0800 0.0000 0.0100 0.0500
0.015 0.015 0.190 0.005 0.020 0.015 0.280 0.015 0.040 0.040 0.290 0.040
Secondary market
0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10
0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10
0.00 0.50 0.10 0.25
0.00 0.00 0.10 0.10
30 days 60 days
0.02
0.02
-0.04
One month Three month Six month One year
52-Week high low
2.00
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.036 0.033
90 days
0.01 0.13
0.15
0.11
0.26
0.01
60.550 0.151 -0.008 34.200 0.169 0.002
–.20 …
1,978 3,173
77.95 77.91
–2.93 –2.19
86,477 68,409
109.95 113.25
–.65 –.45
9,043 2,044
77.75 77.52
110.25 113.55
111.20 114.25
109.75 113.00
154-200
184-130
3-06.0 1,135,760
156-070 154-230
1-20.0 1,185,154 1-20.0 15
131-135 130-175
15.5 3,892,248 16.5 712
123-177
5.0 3,583,673
110-115
–.1 2,328,900
99.9375 99.9300
166,956 132,726
5 Yr. Treasury Notes (CBT)-$100,000; pts 32nds of 100% 123-117
2 Yr. Treasury Notes (CBT)-$200,000; pts 32nds of 100% 110-112
30 Day Federal Funds (CBT)-$5,000,000; 100 - daily avg. 99.9425 s 99.9350 s
99.9350 99.9300
10 Yr. Del. Int. Rate Swaps (CBT)-$100,000; pts 32nds of 100%
June
89-275
90-055
89-275
90-050
Eurodollar (CME)-$1,000,000; pts of 100%
April June Dec March'23
99.8200 99.8250 99.7350 99.3950
99.8250 99.8300 99.7400 99.4200
99.8150 99.8200 99.7300 99.3850
Open interest
Currency Futures Japanese Yen (CME)-¥12,500,000; $ per 100¥ April June
.9027 .9035
.9047 .9052
.9022 .9027
.9041 .9046
.0010 236 .0010 164,153
April June
.7951 .7960
.7973 .7973
.7936 .7936
.7970 .7970
.0013 224 .0013 162,048
April June
1.3782 1.3786
1.3836 1.3840
1.3748 1.3749
1.3832 1.3834
.0053 532 .0053 137,780
Canadian Dollar (CME)-CAD 100,000; $ per CAD British Pound (CME)-£62,500; $ per £
Swiss Franc (CME)-CHF 125,000; $ per CHF
t 1.0576 1.0635 .0040 43,210 t 1.0604 1.0662 .0040 149 Australian Dollar (CME)-AUD 100,000; $ per AUD .7595 .7621 t .7533 .7617 .0017 171 April June .7599 .7623 t .7534 .7619 .0017 139,279 Mexican Peso (CME)-MXN 500,000; $ per MXN .04908 .04920 .04876 .04914 .00030 392 April June .04858 .04894 .04841 .04884 .00030 135,150 Euro (CME)-€125,000; $ per € 1.1731 1.1784 1.1717 1.1775 .0046 1,297 April June 1.1745 1.1798 1.1730 1.1789 .0047 633,092 June Sept
1.0616 1.0675
1.0652 1.0674
Index Futures
Treasury Notes (CBT)-$100,000; pts 32nds of 100% 130-290
Chg
Mini DJ Industrial Average (CBT)-$5 x index
Ultra Treasury Bonds (CBT) - $100,000; pts 32nds of 100% 181-150
Settle
16.0 133,228
99.8175 … 163,192 99.8250 … 1,191,466 99.7300 –.0050 931,987 99.4050 .0100 1,184,746
June Sept
32912 32850
June
3947.30
June Sept June Sept
33060 32931
32842 32737
33037 32922
139 137
90,968 275
4014.20 s
3965.60
4009.90
42.50
19,666
3967.50 3958.00
4015.25 s 4004.25 s
3964.50 3955.00
4010.00 3999.50
42.50 2,578,839 42.25 4,257
2608.70 2640.00
2647.80 2638.20
2603.50 2603.80
2643.20 2641.00
37.90 37.90
S&P 500 Index (CME)-$250 x index Mini S&P 500 (CME)-$50 x index
Mini S&P Midcap 400 (CME)-$100 x index Mini Nasdaq 100 (CME)-$20 x index June Sept
13094.50 13332.50 13087.50 13318.75
45,364 1
13090.25 13316.00 226.25 222,014 13078.00 13304.00 226.25 753
Mini Russell 2000 (CME)-$50 x index June Sept
2215.50 2214.90
2258.00 2252.50
2212.20 2209.10
2251.90 2247.70
29.40 473,745 29.20 191
June
2250.20
2261.10 s
2237.50
2261.20
27.00
9,565
June Sept
93.23 93.19
92.89 92.88
92.95 92.93
–.29 –.29
39,254 579
Mini Russell 1000 (CME)-$50 x index
U.S. Dollar Index (ICE-US)-$1,000 x index 93.37 93.33
Source: FactSet
Bonds | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks Tracking Bond Benchmarks Return on investment and spreads over Treasurys and/or yields paid to investors compared with 52-week highs and lows for different types of bonds Total return close
YTD total return (%)
Yield (%) Latest Low High
Index
-3.1
YTD total return (%)
Yield (%) Latest Low High
Index
Mortgage-Backed Bloomberg Barclays
Broad Market Bloomberg Barclays 2218.61
Total return close
1.600 1.020 1.620
U.S. Aggregate
U.S. Corporate Indexes Bloomberg Barclays
2206.76
-1.1
Mortgage-Backed
2157.34
-0.9
Ginnie Mae (GNMA) 1.780 0.290 1.840
1.820 0.980 1.850
3316.37
-4.1
U.S. Corporate
2.240 1.740 3.480
1303.09
-1.0
Fannie mae (FNMA) 1.840 1.160 1.850
3050.54
-2.0
Intermediate
1.550 1.080 3.230
1997.82
-1.2
Freddie Mac (FHLMC) 1.840 1.140 1.860
Long term
3.370 2.730 3.910
592.83
-0.5
Muni Master
0.992 0.725 2.197
665.66
-4.7
Double-A-rated
1.890 1.300 2.360
418.54
-0.8
7-12 year
1.036 0.712 2.179
886.57
-3.6
Triple-B-rated
2.470 2.010 4.300
479.41
-0.6
12-22 year
1.417 1.095 2.642
467.97
-0.1
22-plus year
1.988 1.682 3.351
4806.61 -7.3
High Yield Bonds ICE BofA 1.1
500.83
High Yield Constrained 4.211 3.955 9.878
Global Government J.P. Morgan†
Triple-C-rated
7.039 6.939 18.410
595.64
-3.2
Global Government 0.930 0.460 0.960
3345.51
0.5
High Yield 100
3.677 3.261 9.059
829.88
-3.9
Canada
1.430 0.610 1.520
451.39
0.9
Global High Yield Constrained 4.256 4.037 9.836
411.52
-2.2
EMU§
0.307 0.010 0.715
343.64
1.8
Europe High Yield Constrained 2.565 2.564 6.996
770.49
-2.9
France
0.200 -0.160 0.390
539.44
-2.3
Germany
-0.210 -0.530 -0.120
5.4
481.48
U.S Agency Bloomberg Barclays 1839.27
-1.4
U.S Agency
0.800 0.460 0.930
293.15
-0.7
Japan
0.370 0.190 0.420
1611.10
-1.0
10-20 years
0.670 0.340 0.790
600.75
-2.8
Netherlands
-0.090 -0.450 -0.010
20-plus years
2.360 1.290 2.460
1019.68 -6.9
U.K.
1.110 0.410 1.170
Yankee
1.820 1.370 2.880
892.79
-3.2
-4.4
Emerging Markets ** 4.966 4.295 6.701
*Constrained indexes limit individual issuer concentrations to 2%; the High Yield 100 are the 100 largest bonds ** EMBI Global Index
† In local currency § Euro-zone bonds
Sources: ICE Data Services; Bloomberg Barclays; J.P.Morgan
Freddie Mac
0.04
30-year fixed 15-year fixed Five-year ARM
3.18 2.45 2.84
Week ago Year ago
3.17 2.45 2.84
Yields and spreads over or under U.S. Treasurys on benchmark two-year and 10-year government bonds in selected other countries; arrows indicate whether the yield rose(s) or fell (t) in the latest session Country/ Coupon (%) Maturity, in years
0.125 1.125
Year ago
0.158 1.749
0.123 1.444
0.232 0.630
0.094
0.126
0.196
1.799
1.675
0.678
-0.642
-0.599
-0.554
-0.050
-0.091
0.005
-0.684
-0.687
l
-0.290
-0.333
l
-0.371
-0.317
0.359
0.664
0.665
1.539
-0.122
-0.119
-0.132
l
10
l
l
France 2 -0.638 s 10 -0.079 t
l
Germany 2 -0.698 t 10 -0.325 t
l
0.000
0.050 0.900 0.005 0.100 0.000 0.100
Italy 2 -0.395 t 10 0.636 t Japan 2 -0.119 s 10 0.116 s Spain 2 -0.506 t 10 0.306 t
0.125
U.K. 2
4.750
10
2
Yield (%) 3 4 Previous
Month ago
0.089 t 1.794 t
Australia 2
0.000
1
l
5.500
0.000
0
U.S. 2 0.160 s 10 1.680 t
1.500
0.000
Latest(l)-2 -1
l
l l l l
0.074 t 0.800 t
l l l
Spread Under/Over U.S. Treasurys, in basis points Latest Prev Year ago
-7.1
-6.8
-1.4
5.4
9.6
-79.4
-80.6
-76.4
-176.3
-179.5
-57.7
-84.8
-87.5
-203.5
-104.2
-53.5
14.9
10.9
-0.665 -85.4 -0.460 -200.9 -55.1
-108.1
95.7
-27.5
-28.7
-34.2
-156.8
-164.7
-57.4
-66.2
-65.8
-35.6
-141.7
11.8
-104.9
0.098
0.157
0.007
-0.494
-0.447
-0.146
0.329
0.327
0.699
-137.9
0.108
0.101
0.115
-8.2
0.847
0.757
0.314 -88.5
-5.6
-9.5
-89.8
-26.8
Source: Tullett Prebon, Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close
Corporate Debt Prices of firms' bonds reflect factors including investors' economic, sectoral and company-specific expectations
Investment-grade spreads that tightened the most… Issuer
Symbol
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Toronto–Dominion Bank Stellantis Walt Disney
SUMIBK
General Motors Travelers ViacomCBS Principal Life Global Funding II
GM
Coupon (%)
TD STLA DIS TRV VIAC …
Yield (%)
Maturity
Spread*, in basis points Current One-day change Last week
3.944 2.650 5.250 3.000
2.23 0.55 0.94 3.02
July 19, ’28 June 12, ’24 April 15, ’23 July 30, ’46
51 21 78 65
–17 –17 –16 –12
n.a. 42 103 n.a.
5.200 5.350 4.375 1.250
4.00 2.98 3.69 1.19
April 1, ’45 Nov. 1, ’40 March 15, ’43 June 23, ’25
166 62 135 27
–12 –11 –11 –10
186 n.a. 144 n.a.
0.500 0.750 0.375 1.950
0.53 0.25 0.55 1.04
Oct. 26, ’23 May 11, ’23 Jan. 12, ’24 Feb. 1, ’24
37 10 22 70
14 6 6 5
n.a. 15 26 75
0.495 2.875 4.103 1.150
0.91 1.04 1.95 1.68
Feb. 2, ’24 Oct. 27, ’25 March 8, ’27 Aug. 13, ’27
58 13 104 75
5 5 5 4
43 n.a. 109 78
…And spreads that widened the most Royal Bank of Canada Apple Cooperatieve Rabobank Boeing
RY
Credit Suisse Coca–Cola Telefonica Emisiones Toyota Motor Credit
CS
AAPL RABOBK BA KO TELEFO TOYOTA
High-yield issues with the biggest price increases… Issuer
Symbol
Transocean HCA Occidental Petroleum Sprint Capital
RIG
ADT Security Nokia Oyj
ADT
HCA OXY … NOKIA
Coupon (%) Yield (%)
Maturity
Bond Price as % of face value Current One-day change Last week
7.500 7.500 6.450 6.875
18.89 3.93 5.37 2.90
April 15, ’31 Nov. 6, ’33 Sept. 15, ’36 Nov. 15, ’28
49.563 135.225 111.229 127.000
1.94 1.48 1.05 0.96
47.500 n.a. 108.750 125.500
3.500 6.625
1.43 4.62
July 15, ’22 May 15, ’39
102.610 124.350
0.92 0.92
101.857 121.823
6.500 4.875 5.000 5.875
6.61 4.51 3.00 2.59
June 15, ’34 Jan. 15, ’25 March 15, ’23 June 15, ’24
99.000 101.250 103.750 110.000
–1.47 –0.99 –0.72 –0.50
100.000 101.625 103.615 n.a.
5.250 5.500 2.800 8.375
3.32 0.67 3.05 1.45
Nov. 15, ’22 Feb. 15, ’22 July 21, ’23 May 15, ’23
103.000 104.125 99.450 114.320
–0.49 –0.25 –0.23 –0.18
103.125 103.875 99.125 114.500
…And with the biggest price decreases
Weekly survey
2.00
Commercial paper (AA financial) 0.25
-0.607 -0.574 -0.543 -0.511
Value 52-Week Traded High Low
Latest
Call money
U.S. government rates
-0.579 -0.360 -0.549 -0.142 -0.524 -0.052 -0.493 0.008
-0.578 -0.550 -0.525 -0.499
Latest
2.00
0.10300 0.17525 0.18950 0.27588
DTCC GCF Repo Index Treasury MBS
Other short-term rates Week ago
0.98513 1.38738 1.23825 1.06013
Secured Overnight Financing Rate
2.553 2.483 2.622 1.751 2.596 2.522 2.674 1.804
2.00
Discount
—52-WEEK— High Low
Euro Libor
0.01
Latest
0.14
0.10913 0.19300 0.20388 0.28075
0.11038 0.19975 0.20125 0.28050
One month Three month Six month One year
Fannie Mae
Overnight repurchase U.S.
0.0700 0.0800 0.0200 0.0700 0.0800
Treasury bill auction 4 weeks 13 weeks 26 weeks
Week Latest ago
Libor
0.0700 0.0800 0.0500 0.0500 0.0800
Contract High hilo Low
Open
Global Government Bonds: Mapping Yields
30-year mortgage yields
Policy Rates Euro zone Switzerland Britain Australia
Effective rate High Low Bid Offer
30.75 30.85
Interest Rate Futures
2839.23
Closing Chg YTD Symbol Price (%) (%)
—52-WEEK— High Low
Federal funds
94,773 55,291
Orange Juice (ICE-US)-15,000 lbs.; cents per lb. May July
99.9400 99.9300
April 1, 2021
Chg From (%) Jan. '21 Feb. '20
–1.90 –1.90
–.06 333,314 –.05 255,784
30.70 30.90
81.52 80.39
April May
Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a guide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions. Feb. index level
62,979 66,111
14.71 14.72
Cotton (ICE-US)-50,000 lbs.; cents per lb. May Dec
110-116 110-121
Thursday
Money Rates Week Latest ago
44 31
121.60 125.40
14.68 14.67
30.70 30.90
June
Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks
Inflation
3,484 3,678
Sugar-Domestic (ICE-US)-112,000 lbs.; cents per lb.
123-127 123-210
.725 25,550 1.025 104,506
Wheat,No.1soft white,Portld,OR-u
ETF
EWJ MUB IGSB PFF IWF IWB IWD IWO IWM IWN IWR IWS IVW IVE SHV SLV TIP SHY IEF TLT IWP GOVT JPST MINT BIL GLD SCHF SCHB SCHD SCHX SCHG SCHA SCHP
–.10 .22
2,392 2,416
120.75 124.75
14.94 14.95
June
Exchange-Traded Portfolios | WSJ.com/ETFresearch Closing Chg YTD Symbol Price (%) (%)
17.50 18.45
2,352 2,388
125.45 129.20
130-315 131-175
Source: Dow Jones Market Data
ETF
919
Sugar-World (ICE-US)-112,000 lbs.; cents per lb.
June Sept
KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; E=Manfra,Tordella & Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co; M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; R=SNL Energy; S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA; W=weekly; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 3/31
Thursday, April 1, 2021 Closing Chg YTD Symbol Price (%) (%)
8.80
Coffee (ICE-US)-37,500 lbs.; cents per lb.
4009.11 -6.1
Largest 100 exchange-traded funds, latest session
897.70
17.40 18.02
2,414 2,436
5,363 19,626
–.950 30,366 –.350 150,860
Thursday
Fibers and Textiles
Engelhard industrial Handy & Harman base Handy & Harman fabricated LBMA Gold Price AM LBMA Gold Price PM Krugerrand,wholesale-e Maple Leaf-e American Eagle-e Mexican peso-e Austria crown-e Austria phil-e
2,361 2,392
154-250 156-120
Lumber (CME)-110,000 bd. ft., $ per 1,000 bd. ft.
Aluminum, LME, $ per metric ton *2212.5 Copper,Comex spot 4.0035 Iron Ore, 62% Fe CFR China-s 167.0 Shredded Scrap, US Midwest-s,m 451 Steel, HRC USA, FOB Midwest Mill-s 1343
Gold, per troy oz
May July
June Sept
Hogs-Lean (CME)-40,000 lbs.; cents per lb.
284,810 107,721 104,460 105,071
17.65 18.50
95,816 76,310
Cattle-Live (CME)-40,000 lbs.; cents per lb.
.0626 141,601 .0622 67,432
880.00
Treasury Bonds (CBT)-$100,000; pts 32nds of 100%
559.00 565.75
Cattle-Feeder (CME)-50,000 lbs.; cents per lb.
Thursday
60.900 11.900
17.60 18.17
181-290 184-180
Wheat (KC)-5,000 bu.; cents per bu. May July
903.50 s
June
Thursday, April 1, 2021 wsj.com/market-data/commodities These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical” commodities in the marketplace— separate from the futures price on an exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future months.
Coal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w
888.90
Open interest
Chg
Milk (CME)-200,000 lbs., cents per lb.
Wheat (CBT)-5,000 bu.; cents per bu.
376,380 328,849 194,508 123,239 304,490 133,641
Cash Prices |
Energy
July
Settle
Cocoa (ICE-US)-10 metric tons; $ per ton.
Soybean Meal (CBT)-100 tons; $ per ton.
.0618 121,540 .0616 73,048
.031 .030 .029 .029
381.75 379.25
Contract High hilo Low
Open
April May
Soybeans (CBT)-5,000 bu.; cents per bu.
Natural Gas (NYM)-10,000 MMBtu.; $ per MMBtu. May June July Sept
381.50 379.00
May Nov
Gasoline-NY RBOB (NYM)-42,000 gal.; $ per gal. May June
.028 130,320 .025 69,848
Oats (CBT)-5,000 bu.; cents per bu. May July
NY Harbor ULSD (NYM)-42,000 gal.; $ per gal. May June
585.00 s 566.25 s
575.00 556.00
May July
0.418 1,145 0.416 116,902 2.29 2.30 2.32 2.38 2.44 2.43
2.783 2.855
Corn (CBT)-5,000 bu.; cents per bu.
Crude Oil, Light Sweet (NYM)-1,000 bbls.; $ per bbl. May June July Sept Dec Dec'22
2.733 2.811
Open interest
Chg
Agriculture Futures
Copper-High (CMX)-25,000 lbs.; $ per lb. April May
Settle
wsj.com/market-data/commodities
3.33 2.82 3.40
Notes on data: U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks, and is effective March 16, 2020. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices vary widely by location; Discount rate is effective March 16, 2020. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as of March 31, 2021. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average for overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET. Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet; Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd.
Genworth Financial United Airlines Holdings Dish DBS Tri Pointe Homes
GNW
Royal Caribbean Cruises Netflix Teva Pharmaceutical Finance Netherlands Gap
RCL
UAL … TPH NFLX … GPS
*Estimated spread over 2-year, 3-year, 5-year, 10-year or 30-year hot-run Treasury; 100 basis points=one percentage pt.; change in spread shown is for Z-spread. Note: Data are for the most active issue of bonds with maturities of two years or more Source: MarketAxess
.
B10 | Friday, April 2, 2021
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
*
BANKING & FINANCE
Bank Faces Greensill Roadblocks
Complicated ownership structure muddies efforts by Credit Suisse to recover investments BY DUNCAN MAVIN AND JULIE STEINBERG Credit Suisse Group AG’s effort to recover $10 billion invested in loans from Greensill Capital faces roadblocks because of a complicated structure that makes it difficult for the parties to agree on who owns the loans, according to people familiar with the matter. A “double trust” structure means that investors in Credit Suisse’s funds have rights to cash flows from the loans held in one trust, but rights to the underlying loans are held in a separate trust, people familiar with the trusts say. These in-
clude loans to Greensill’s biggest borrower, GFG Alliance, the metals empire controlled by British-Indian tycoon Sanjeev Gupta. The emergence of the double-trust issue has the potential to complicate Credit Suisse’s ability to recover money for the more than 1,000 investors in its supply-chain funds. Investors include pension funds, corporate treasurers and other professional investors. Credit Suisse said it has so far returned $3.1 billion to investors. More cash has recently flowed into the funds as Greensill’s borrowers pay back some of the loans, according to a person familiar with the matter. The bank has said it would return more money to investors in mid-April. The problems with Greensill comes at a difficult time for the Swiss bank while it deals with
the liquidation of Archegos Capital Management. The bank has said it expects to take a loss on both Greensill and Archegos. Greensill, a financial startup that specialized in business lending, was founded in 2011 by former Morgan Stanley and Citigroup banker Lex Greensill. The firm specialized in supply-chain finance, a form of short-term corporate lending, and filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after it lost credit insurance that was crucial to its business. Credit Suisse suspended the investment funds. Discussions between lawyers for Credit Suisse, Grant Thornton, which is acting as administrators for Greensill, and GFG have become increasingly bogged down in recent days over the trust structure, according to people familiar with the matter.
Citigroup Inc. operates a special-purpose vehicle, called a trust by some in the industry, that collects payments from Greensill’s borrowers and forwards money on to the Credit Suisse funds, according to people familiar with Greensill’s business. This week, at the instruction of the Credit Suisse, Citigroup filed a case in a U.K. court to force one of Mr. Gupta’s commodities-trading businesses into insolvency, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Mr. Gupta said GFG Alliance is in “constructive discussions with Grant Thornton” and said it would vigorously defend any legal action. The company is taking steps to refinance its business, the spokesperson added. Mr. Gupta said on a podcast for GFG employees last week
Continued from page B1 ditional disclosure rules apply if the stakes exceed 10%. Large investment firms must also disclose their stockholdings at the end of each quarter, albeit with a 45-day delay. None of those rules apply if an investor uses swaps to amass the equivalent of a large stake in a publicly traded corporation. That appears to have helped Archegos stay under the radar until it blew up. Archegos is estimated to have had exposure to the economics of more than 10% of multiple companies’ shares. If the SEC’s disclosure rules applied to swaps, Archegos’s banks would have had more insight into the outsize positions that Mr. Hwang’s firm was taking on, said Andres Vinelli, vice president for economic policy at the Center for American Progress. That may have helped them reassess Archegos’s riskiness and limit their business with the firm, he added. “The private marketplace was not aware of the extent of the risk exposure, because it did not have enough information,” said Mr. Vinelli. “The antidote for that is more disclosure.”
KIYOSHI OTA/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Gap Seen In Swaps Regulation
Among the banks facing steep losses are Credit Suisse Group and Nomura Holdings. Critics say swaps have long been used to avoid the SEC’s disclosure rules, particularly by activist investors who prefer to acquire their positions secretly. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz—a law firm that helps companies play defense against activist investors—petitioned the SEC 10 years ago to broaden its disclosure rules to include synthetic positions created by swaps. The SEC never acted on the petition. “The Archegos meltdown amid continued regulatory shortfalls highlight the need (which we continue to think is urgent, indeed increasingly so) for comprehensive reform,” Sabastian Niles, a Wachtell partner, said in an email.
The SEC says it has been monitoring the Archegos situation since last week. The agency has opened a preliminary investigation into the matter. The SEC has said in the past that investors aren’t required to disclose positions in equity derivatives unless they have voting power over related shares. The Archegos fallout has also raised concerns about whether banks were extending the firm too much leverage— the ability to place large bets with a small upfront payment. Total return swaps can be used to place highly leveraged bets, especially if the bank doesn’t demand a significant amount of collateral from the
firm entering the trade. Some former regulators say the fact that banks allowed Archegos’s leverage to get so high could be a sign that the banks are stretching their risk appetites into perilous territory. Banks typically get into trouble when they start taking on more risk to start winning business, as in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. That can lead to excessive leverage, unless a regulator like the Federal Reserve steps in to limit risk taking. “The private sector cannot solve that problem by itself and particularly cannot in a hot or bubbly market,” said Paul Tucker, a former deputy governor of the Bank of Eng-
that he “has a defense which is ready because we had committed facilities for three years.” He said that GFG would use the defense if there were any dispute with Greensill’s administrators. Further complicating matters: Although Credit Suisse investments were backed by loans that renewed every few months, Greensill had provided GFG and some other clients with long-term commitments of up to three years, according an internal July 2020 Greensill memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal as well as people familiar with the loans. This could open the door to the argument that Mr. Gupta and other Greensill clients won’t have to pay back their supply-chain loans for an extended period. —Alistair MacDonald contributed to this article.
land who now chairs the Systemic Risk Council, a group of former financial regulators and risk experts. “The collateral requirements just gradually keep coming down and everybody thinks it’s all very sensible, or at least unavoidable.” The Dodd-Frank Act, passed in 2010, sought to prevent a repeat of the crisis by imposing a sweeping regulatory framework on swap trades. The law’s provisions didn’t apply to the swaps that Archegos used, though, because it took until December 2019 for the SEC to complete its rules for security-based swaps, and the rules are only set to take effect later this year. Starting in October, banks and other firms that trade significant volumes of such swaps must comply with several new rules, including “know your counterparty” obligations aimed at ensuring they understand the risks of their trading partners. Trades in security-based swaps will also need to be reported to giant surveillance databases that regulators could potentially use to monitor market activity, though details of the trades, such as the identity of the firms behind each trade, wouldn’t be made public. Proponents of stronger swap regulation say the Archegos mess underscores why Dodd-Frank was implemented in the first place. —Dave Michaels contributed to this article.
BlackRock’s Fink Gets 18% Raise In His Pay BY DAWN LIM BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Larry Fink earned $29.85 million last year, a 18% pay increase. Mr. Fink’s raise caps a year in which the world’s largest asset manager took in $391 billion in new money and gained ground over rivals as markets were rattled by the pandemic and a fee war roiled the investment industry. During the turmoil, the Federal Reserve tapped BlackRock for help in buying bonds and funds as part of a series of interventions to prop up markets. BlackRock, which has $8.7 trillion under management, is best known for its sprawling lineup of exchange-traded funds that trade rapidly and track indexes. It has been looking to grow in higher-fee and lucrative areas such as the private markets. It has tried to aggressively market funds that pick companies with higher environmental, social and governance scores. As BlackRock uses its control over shareholder votes to nudge companies to improve their governance for investors, it faces growing scrutiny on how it is managing its own house. The firm has battled criticism from former employees about a high-pressure office culture. Some have accused the firm of a sexist, exclusionary and discriminatory environment. Mr. Fink said in a March statement to employees that “incidents we’ve read about today and in recent weeks vary widely, but what they all have in common is that they should not happen at BlackRock.” The firm said recently it was establishing a new investigations team to handle workplace complaints and hired law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to conduct an internal review and recommend how it could improve its handling of workplace issues. Mr. Fink’s pay for 2020 included a $9.5 million cash award, $18.85 million in stock and other incentives and a base salary of $1.5 million, the firm said. That proposed executive package was disclosed in a proxy statement. A measure of his compensation package will be put up to a vote this year.
Family Offices Turn to Private-Equity Firms for Investing Talent BY PREETI SINGH Family-office investors poured more money into private companies in the quest for higher returns and greater control over investment portfolios. Now, more of these privateinvestment firms are luring private-equity talent, offering them a chance to manage expanding portfolios and promising improved work-life balance. Executive recruiters say that searches among family-office investors to recruit private-equity talent are increasing as more family offices seek to deploy more capital directly into private companies rather than solely through funds managed by outside firms. Direct investments by family offices surpassed an estimated 9,000 deals at the end of 2019, from just a few thousand at the beginning of the year, according to Russ D’Argento, founder
Mutual Funds
and chief executives of Fintrx, a family office database and research provider. In 2019, at least 49.7% of all family offices in North America made direct investments, according to a Fintrx report released in August 2020. Even family offices managing less than $1 billion in assets are searching for specialized investment talent as they seek to make more direct investments, recruiters say. “The asset levels are going down, meaning families are more quickly deciding to bring their capability in house,” said Derek Braddock, co-founder and partner at BraddockMatthews, an executive-search firm that helps family offices recruit talent. “I think that generally stems from the fact that they’d like more control.” Private-equity firms offer a pool of trained talent, often with networks of contacts and experience sourcing deals and Data provided by
Fund
Top 250 mutual-funds listings for Nasdaq-published share classes by net assets. e-Ex-distribution. f-Previous day’s quotation. g-Footnotes x and s apply. j-Footnotes e and s apply. k-Recalculated by Lipper, using updated data. p-Distribution costs apply, 12b-1. r-Redemption charge may apply. s-Stock split or dividend. t-Footnotes p and r apply. v-Footnotes x and e apply. x-Ex-dividend. z-Footnote x, e and s apply. NA-Not available due to incomplete price, performance or cost data. NE-Not released by Lipper; data under review. NN-Fund not tracked. NS-Fund didn’t exist at start of period.
Fund
Net YTD
Thursday, April 1, 2021 Net YTD
NAV Chg %Ret Fund
American Century Inv 77.22 +1.24 Ultra American Funds Cl A 41.63 +0.67 AmcpA p AMutlA p 48.28 +0.38 31.51 +0.28 BalA p BondA p 13.38 +0.04 CapIBA p 66.22 +0.49 CapWGrA 62.57 +0.78 70.20 +1.22 EupacA p 74.39 +1.05 FdInvA p 70.27 +1.06 GwthA p 10.29 +0.02 HI TrA p 47.89 +0.53 ICAA p 24.98 +0.18 IncoA p 62.68 +0.87 N PerA p 61.01 +1.11 NEcoA p NwWrldA 90.06 +1.48 SmCpA p 83.62 +1.51 TxExA p 13.55 +0.01 54.76 +0.52 WshA p
1.7 6.4 8.7 4.7 -2.7 5.7 5.7 1.2 7.8 4.0 2.7 8.2 6.8 3.6 2.5 2.4 5.1 ... 9.6
NAV Chg %Ret Fund
Artisan Funds IntlVal Inst 43.79 +0.58 Baird Funds AggBdInst 11.37 +0.05 CorBdInst 11.74 +0.04 BlackRock Funds 7.78 ... HiYBlk ... HiYldBd Inst 7.77 BlackRock Funds A ... GlblAlloc p 21.89 BlackRock Funds Inst ... StratIncOpptyIns 10.34 Bridge Builder Trust 10.43 +0.04 CoreBond CorePlusBond 10.30 +0.03 14.12 +0.18 Intl Eq LargeCapGrowth 21.44 +0.32 LargeCapValue 16.46 +0.15 Columbia Class I DivIncom I 28.25 +0.26 Dimensional Fds
5GlbFxdInc EmgMktVa EmMktCorEq IntlCoreEq IntSmCo IntSmVa TAUSCoreEq2 US CoreEq1 US CoreEq2 US Small US SmCpVal US TgdVal USLgVa
Net YTD
NAV Chg %Ret 10.89 ... 31.17 +0.19 25.85 +0.31 15.63 +0.20 21.79 +0.33 20.95 +0.28 25.50 +0.32 32.69 +0.40 30.09 +0.37 46.08 +0.70 44.08 +0.61 29.82 +0.41 43.29 +0.40
... 9.0 6.6 7.5 7.5 9.6 11.2 10.5 11.9 20.2 28.3 26.8 15.8
110.76 +0.88 14.98 +0.14 14.16 +0.04 47.20 +0.37 223.31 +2.55 9.9 DoubleLine Funds CoreFxdIncmI 11.04 +0.03
10.7 12.6 -2.2 8.0 17.2
NA -3.0 -2.8 1.0 0.9 1.7 0.3 -2.8 -2.3 5.7 4.2 12.3
Dodge & Cox
Balanced GblStock Income Intl Stk Stock
NA
managing investments. Family offices looking to attract professionals from private-equity firms often need to offer incentives such as mechanisms that allow investment staff to invest directly in deals alongside the family office or by offering them a cut of the profits generated by the deals they do, often referred to as carried interest. Increasingly, family offices are emphasizing a better worklife balance and the security that comes with investing with long-term capital, saving them from the fundraising cycle tied to private-equity firms, according to Forrest Tempel, partner at single family office Reynolds Capital Partners, which invests in private-equity funds and makes direct investments. For Kevin Chen, a principal at Strand Equity Partners, a position with the family investment firm offered an entrepreneurial approach to investing Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
TotRetBdI 10.49 +0.03 -1.2 Edgewood Growth Instituti EdgewoodGrInst 53.45 +0.91 3.2 Fidelity 500IdxInstPrem139.84 +1.63 7.4 Contrafund K6 19.59 +0.33 3.8 ExtMktIdxInstPre 91.54 +1.59 9.7 FidSerToMarket 13.91 +0.17 7.7 IntlIdxInstPrem 47.70 +0.51 4.6 MidCpInxInstPrem 29.63 +0.42 9.7 SAIUSLgCpIndxFd 21.09 +0.25 7.4 SeriesBondFd 10.40 +0.04 -3.1 SeriesOverseas 12.81 +0.20 3.3 SmCpIdxInstPrem 28.58 +0.42 14.4 TMktIdxInstPrem116.13 +1.47 7.8 USBdIdxInstPrem 12.00 +0.04 -3.2 Fidelity Advisor I NwInsghtI 38.48 +0.69 4.5 Fidelity Freedom 17.68 +0.15 3.0 FF2020 16.01 +0.15 3.6 FF2025 FF2030 20.13 +0.21 4.4 17.57 +0.21 6.0 FF2035 12.59 +0.16 7.1 FF2040 Freedom2025 K 15.99 +0.15 3.7 Freedom2030 K 20.11 +0.21 4.4 Freedom2035 K 17.54 +0.21 6.0 Freedom2040 K 12.59 +0.17 7.1 Fidelity Invest 29.86 +0.31 5.6 Balanc BluCh 171.20 +3.06 5.0 17.09 +0.29 4.3 Contra 17.13 +0.29 4.2 ContraK CpInc r 11.11 +0.05 4.4
Even offices managing less than $1 billion in assets seek specialized talent. Mr. Chen said working for a family investment firm has offered him an opportunity to explore the most rewarding aspects of investing, such as “forming relationships with founders and coming up with creative deal structures.” He
Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
GroCo 34.26 +0.59 34.35 +0.59 GrowCoK 11.57 +0.04 InvGrBd LowP r 55.94 +0.59 13.33 +0.22 Magin NASDAQ r 169.44 +2.94 OTC 18.49 +0.37 27.52 +0.34 Puritn SrsEmrgMkt 26.07 +0.41 SrsGlobal 15.05 +0.19 SrsGroCoRetail 23.81 +0.40 SrsIntlGrw 18.25 +0.31 SrsIntlVal 10.95 +0.10 TotalBond 11.00 +0.04
4.2 4.2 -2.4 15.0 2.1 4.7 5.5 5.8 4.4 5.0 4.6 2.6 8.5 -2.3
Fidelity SAI
TotalBd
that he found attractive. Mr. Chen joined Strand, a Los Angeles firm launched by entertainment and marketing entrepreneur Seth Rodsky and cable television and radio advertising pioneer Ted Schwartz, in 2017 after three years with Los Angeles-based private-equity firm Leonard Green & Partners.
10.46 +0.04 Fidelity Selects 27.95 +0.65 Softwr r Tech r 28.07 +0.59 First Eagle Funds 64.53 +0.79 GlbA Franklin A1 CA TF A1 p 7.71 +0.01 ... IncomeA1 p 2.44 FrankTemp/Frank Adv ... IncomeAdv 2.42 FrankTemp/Franklin A Growth A p 140.14 +2.09 RisDv A p 84.06 +0.59 Guggenheim Funds Tru TotRtnBdFdClInst NA ... Harbor Funds CapApInst 102.78 +2.09 Harding Loevner
-2.2 3.1 4.5 5.3 -0.7 7.4 7.5 3.5 4.8 NA -1.4
Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
29.03 +0.37 IntlEq Invesco Funds Y DevMktY 54.87 +0.97 John Hancock Instl DispValMCI 26.84 +0.35 JPMorgan I Class CoreBond 11.92 +0.05 EqInc 21.65 +0.14 JPMorgan R Class 11.93 +0.04 CoreBond Lord Abbett A ShtDurIncmA p 4.21 +0.01 Lord Abbett F ... ShtDurIncm 4.20 Metropolitan West TotRetBdI 10.86 +0.04 TRBdPlan 10.18 +0.03 MFS Funds Class I Growth I 165.72 +3.33 ValueI 49.14 +0.31 MFS Funds Instl 31.33 +0.35 IntlEq Northern Funds StkIdx 44.96 +0.52 Old Westbury Fds 18.03 +0.28 LrgCpStr Parnassus Fds ParnEqFd 58.21 +0.78 PGIM Funds Cl Z 5.54 +0.01 HighYield TotalReturnBond 14.39 +0.07 PIMCO Fds Instl NA ... AllAsset 9.84 ... ShortT
added that family offices have the ability to be more patient and flexible in their approach. More recently, the pandemic prompted an exodus of investment professionals from larger cities like New York, enabling more of them to appreciate the advantages of less expensive towns. That has made private-equity professionals more inclined to explore opportunities with family offices located outside of the big investing hubs, according to Jeff Warren, a managing director who co-heads the Americas private-equity practice at executive-search firm Russell Reynolds Associates. Demand for investment professionals among family offices surged in August after a slowdown during the initial pandemic lockdowns, according to Tayyab Mohamed, cofounder of Agreus Ltd. and president of Agreus USA, a New York- and London-based
Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
2.1 TotRt 10.25 +0.03 PIMCO Funds A 2.6 IncomeFd 11.99 +0.02 PIMCO Funds I2 15.1 Income 11.99 +0.02 PIMCO Funds Instl -2.4 IncomeFd 11.99 +0.02 10.2 Price Funds 169.55 +3.28 BlChip -2.5 DivGro 63.38 +0.54 35.63 +0.33 EqInc 0.6 Growth 101.21 +1.80 HelSci 98.99 +0.42 0.4 LgCapGow I 64.65 +1.20 118.24 +1.73 MidCap -2.6 NHoriz 82.48 +1.73 -2.6 R2020 23.63 +0.21 20.25 +0.20 R2025 2.4 R2030 29.99 +0.34 9.3 R2035 22.55 +0.27 32.53 +0.43 R2040 2.3 PRIMECAP Odyssey Fds AggGrowth r 57.90 +0.89 7.4 Schwab Funds 1000 Inv r 89.41 +1.12 5.2 S&P Sel 61.68 +0.72 TSM Sel r 71.65 +0.91 8.6 VANGUARD ADMIRAL 500Adml 371.03 +4.34 1.8 BalAdml NA ... -4.0 CAITAdml 12.23 +0.01 CapOpAdml r195.47 +2.46 NA EMAdmr NA ... 0.3 EqIncAdml 87.25 +0.51
Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
-2.8 ExplrAdml 129.83 +2.18 NA ... ExtndAdml -0.1 GNMAAdml NA ... GrwthAdml 134.51 +2.29 NA HlthCareAdml r 89.36 +0.06 HYCorAdml r 5.92 +0.01 NA InfProAd NA ... IntlGrAdml 162.10 +3.46 2.4 ITBondAdml NA ... 5.9 ITIGradeAdml 10.02 +0.04 14.4 LTGradeAdml 10.68 +0.14 4.4 MidCpAdml NA ... 0.1 MuHYAdml 11.93 +0.01 5.6 MuIntAdml 14.73 ... 4.6 MuLTAdml 12.12 +0.01 0.2 MuLtdAdml 11.22 ... 3.9 MuShtAdml 15.93 ... 4.5 PrmcpAdml r171.31 +1.97 5.4 RealEstatAdml NA ... 6.2 SmCapAdml NA ... 6.9 SmGthAdml NA ... ... STBondAdml NA 7.9 STIGradeAdml 10.94 +0.01 NA ... TotBdAdml 7.0 TotIntBdIdxAdm 22.85 +0.05 7.4 TotIntlAdmIdx r NA ... 7.8 TotStAdml NA ... ... TxMCapAdml NA 7.4 TxMIn r 15.96 +0.20 NA USGroAdml 171.13 +3.37 -0.5 ValAdml 51.55 +0.32 10.1 WdsrllAdml 77.39 +0.93 NA WellsIAdml 69.24 +0.36 10.7 WelltnAdml NA ...
8.4 NA NA 3.3 -0.2 0.1 NA 1.1 NA -3.1 -8.3 NA 0.5 -0.3 -0.2 ... 0.1 11.3 NA NA NA NA -0.4 NA -2.1 NA NA NA 5.3 0.7 11.7 12.7 1.6 NA
resourcing and recruiting company that works exclusively with family offices. A family office investment firm launched by Bob Levine, the founder of midmarket-focused Milestone Partners, L2 Capital Partners turned to recruiting private-equity talent as his firm’s portfolio of direct investments grew. Last year, L2 Capital recruited a senior associate at lower midmarket private-equity firm ABS Capital Partners to join the firm as a vice president. Another private-equity professional is set to join the team soon, he said. “If you can become part of a team building up the PE practice within a family office, you are basically on that ground floor and can use that to support your career and build a career,” Mr. Levine said, adding that private-equity jobs at well-established firms offered good pay but uncertain longterm career path opportunities. Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret Fund
WndsrAdml 81.26 +0.80 13.8 VANGUARD FDS 34.57 +0.13 DivdGro ... INSTTRF2020 NA ... INSTTRF2025 NA ... INSTTRF2030 NA ... INSTTRF2035 NA ... INSTTRF2040 NA ... INSTTRF2045 NA ... INSTTRF2050 NA ... INSTTRF2055 NA 50.95 +1.09 IntlGr NA ... IntlVal NA ... LifeCon NA ... LifeGro NA ... LifeMod 32.88 +0.32 PrmcpCor NA ... STAR NA ... TgtRe2015 NA ... TgtRe2020 NA ... TgtRe2025 NA ... TgtRe2030 NA ... TgtRe2035 NA ... TgtRe2040 NA ... TgtRe2045 NA ... TgtRe2050 NA ... TgtRet2055 NA ... TgtRetInc TotIntBdIxInv 11.43 +0.03 66.06 +1.30 USGro 28.58 +0.14 WellsI NA ... Welltn 43.61 +0.52 WndsrII VANGUARD INDEX FDS
4.6 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 1.1 NA NA NA NA 13.5 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA -2.1 0.7 1.5 NA 12.6
ExtndIstPl IdxIntl MdCpGrAdml SmValAdml TotBd2 TotIntlInstIdx r TotItlInstPlId r TotSt
Net YTD NAV Chg %Ret
NA ... NA ... NA ... NA ... NA ... NA ... NA ... NA ... VANGUARD INSTL FDS NA ... BalInst DevMktsIndInst 15.98 +0.19 DevMktsInxInst 24.98 +0.31 ExtndInst NA ... GrwthInst 134.52 +2.30 NA ... InPrSeIn 351.10 +4.10 InstIdx InstPlus 351.12 +4.10 InstTStPlus 79.47 +1.00 NA ... MidCpInst NA ... MidCpIstPl NA ... SmCapInst NA ... SmCapIstPl STIGradeInst 10.94 +0.01 STIPSIxins 25.87 +0.02 NA ... TotBdInst NA ... TotBdInst2 NA ... TotBdInstPl TotIntBdIdxInst 34.29 +0.08 NA ... TotStInst ValueInst 51.55 +0.32 WCM Focus Funds WCMFocIntlGrwIns 25.23 +0.49 Western Asset CoreBondI 13.11 +0.06 CorePlusBdI 11.97 +0.05
NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA 5.3 5.3 NA 3.3 NA 7.4 7.4 7.8 NA NA NA NA -0.4 1.2 NA NA NA -2.1 NA 11.7 1.9 -3.5 -4.1
.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | B11
* * * * *
MARKETS
Gold Prices Suffer Reversal Speculative investors have lowered net bets on higher prices.
Copper Retreats From Near-Decade Highs in February BY AMRITH RAMKUMAR Copper prices have fallen about 7% from a near-decade high hit in late February, part of a broad retreat from speculative trades even as the Biden administration pledges to pump trillions of dollars into the economy. Most actively traded copper futures edged down 0.1% to $3.99 a pound on Thursday, bringing their slide for the week to roughly 2%. The industrial metal could benefit from President Biden’s recently released $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, but some traders are skeptical the proposal will COMMODITIES pass in Congress and say any boost to demand has already been baked into prices. Copper is used to build everything from houses to electric cars, making prices sensitive to changes in the global economic outlook. They are particularly tied to demand in China, which accounts for roughly half of the world’s consumption. The recent volatility highlights how many investors have already wagered on swaths of the Biden agenda, anticipating a brighter economic outlook as stimulus and coronavirus vaccines accelerate growth. Everything from electric-vehicle stocks to shares of renewableenergy companies also soared following Mr. Biden’s victory in November. Investors have pared back such speculative wagers in recent weeks as governmentbond yields climb, underscoring how it could be difficult for “Biden trades” to rally from here. “Some of the froth had built up earlier this year based on expectations—most of the expectations have already been realized,” said Edward Meir, a consultant focused on metals at brokerage ED&F Man Capital Markets. “People are saying, ‘Now what?’” A similar dynamic played out following Donald Trump’s
S&P Passes 4000 Mark Continued from page B1 of a surge in economic growth amid widespread vaccinations, fresh spending programs from the Biden administration and earnings expectations. Still, they point to risks stemming from rising bond yields, new lockdowns in Europe and signs of excess in corners of the market. Over the THURSDAY’S past year, MARKETS stocks have risen sharply in expectation of an economic rebound, said Shawn Snyder, a strategist at Citi U.S. Wealth Management. Now that it appears to be here, investors have “Covid jitters,” he said, looking warily at inflation expectations and, ultimately, a reversal of Federal Reserve policy. “We’re exiting this Goldilocks situation [for stocks] and wondering if the porridge is too hot,” he said. Some are questioning whether this year’s rotation out of technology stocks and into economically sensitive sectors like banks and energy has gone too far. Having powered the broad market higher in 2020, the rally in tech stocks slowed in the first quarter as investors bought into companies that stood to benefit from
victory in 2016, with investor anticipation of a large infrastructure spending package eventually fading. Even if Mr. Biden’s plan moves through Congress, its impact on copper demand will still pale in comparison with Chinese economic activity, analysts say. Shares of electric-car makers like Tesla Inc. and other stocks tied to green energy advanced Thursday, paring some of their recent losses. Still, higher Treasury yields have hurt those stocks and commodities like copper by increasing investor returns from ultrasafe government bonds, making riskier trades less appealing. Other factors hurting growth-sensitive raw materials in recent weeks include a sluggish vaccine rollout in Europe and data indicating that the Chinese economic recovery might slow following a hot start to 2021. And a stronger dollar has made assets priced in dollars like commodities more expensive for overseas investors. Hedge funds and other speculative investors have lowered net bets on higher copper prices, cutting them by nearly 50% in the five weeks ending March 23, Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Many analysts view the recent pullback as a healthy correction following a period of excess optimism. Investors had piled into shares of copper miners like Freeport-McMoRan Inc., sparking nearly uninterrupted gains to start the year. Some commodity analysts have even predicted a commodity supercycle featuring a yearslong synchronous climb in prices of oil, copper, livestock and grains. Their price projections would see copper soar past its 2011 record above $4.60 a pound to new highs, a scenario that some analysts say is unlikely given that supply will likely recover following the pandemic. “There are some crazy numbers out there,” Mr. Meir said. the economic rebound. That thinking was evident Thursday. “We are entering a period of time when there is a bit more risk, and for that I want to have a more balanced approach,” said Lars Skovgaard Andersen, investment strategist at Danske Bank Wealth Management. Mr. Andersen said he thinks informationtechnology stocks such as Microsoft and Salesforce.com would provide a cushion if cyclical stocks lose momentum. Despite the sector rotation in the stock market this year, tech stocks were the biggest drivers of the S&P 500’s latest 1,000-point milestone. Five stocks—Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Facebook and Alphabet—contributed 44% of the gains, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. On the economic front, new claims for jobless benefits edged up to 719,000 last week from 658,000 the previous week, data from the Labor Department showed. Economists had expected unemployment claims—a proxy for layoffs—to decline. The figures are followed by investors 1%1seeking to gauge the pace of the economic rebound. Although U.S. investors will also be eager to see the March payrolls report Friday morning, they won’t be able to trade on the data until Monday, as the equities markets will be closed for Good Friday. The Institute for Supply Management’s March survey of purchasing managers at U.S. factories was better than ex-
Rolling 10-trading-day correlation* between daily price changes in gold and the S&P 500
The gold market has lost its glint, dashing the hopes of people who predicted that lavish stimulus spending by central banks and governments would send bullion prices to new heights this year. Gold futures on Wednesday closed their worst quarter since 2016, falling 9.5% to $1,713.80 a troy ounce. Few assets have fared worse: namely, the price of orange-juice futures, cocoa, Turkey’s lira and long-term U.S. government bonds. The precious metal has suffered since August, when prices closed at a record $2,069.40 a troy ounce. Gold has since dropped 17%. Forecasts of a rapid global economic expansion this year, powered by vaccinations and U.S. stimulus, have tarnished gold’s allure as a haven in uncertain times. “As people have got more optimistic about the world economy, interest rates have risen and the relative perception of gold to other yielding assets has become less attractive,” said Nabeel Abdoula, deputy chief investment officer at Fulcrum Asset Management. The London-based hedge fund has cut its gold investments in the past year. It still has holdings in the precious metal using futures and options, said Mr. Abdoula. Gold’s 75% surge starting in August 2018 had prompted bulls to say low interest rates and swelling deficits would debase the dollar, fueling inflation and pushing the metal higher still. Concerns about inflation have long failed to materialize: Forces including an aging population and globalization have helped to keep U.S. inflation low and stable for about three decades. Instead, robust U.S. growth has unexpectedly strengthened the dollar: The WSJ Dollar Index rose 3.1% in the first quarter. A stronger greenback makes many commodities more expensive for buyers using other currencies. The argument for holding gold as a hedge against inflation has also endured a setback this year. The prospect of buoyant economic activity and higher inflation fueled a steep rise in yields on U.S. government bonds in the first quarter. Real yields, or the returns on government bonds after adjusting for inflation expectations, also jumped, raising the opportunity cost of owning gold, which doesn’t offer income. Fulcrum’s Mr. Abdoula sees three paths for gold from here. In the first scenario, bond investors who are betting the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates sooner than it says to curb inflation may be proved right. That could send gold prices spiraling lower. In the second, Fed officials
0.75 0.25 -0.25 -0.75 1.00 0.50 0 -0.50 -1.00 2020
'21
Real yield on 10-year U.S. government bonds†
Price of most-active gold futures since 2017
1.0%
1,600
-0.5
1,400
-1.0
1,200
-1.5 2020
1,000 '21
'19
'20
'21
Sources: FactSet (correlation and government bonds); Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (gold futures)
Several banks have slashed their forecasts for gold prices. A refinery in Australia. are correct in projecting that a spurt of inflation this year will be short-lived and that the central bank will keep rates near zero through 2023. In that scenario, Mr. Abdoula reckons gold prices have fallen too far. The third possibility is that disruptions to the global supply chain for vital products such as electronic chips and plastics, or other factors, generate higher and longer-lasting inflation than investors or the Fed predict. That might depress real bond yields and boost gold, Mr. Abdoula said. Gold’s decline has knocked down shares of mining companies including Barrick Gold Corp. It has also weighed on exchange-traded funds backed by gold, which are a cheap and easy way for individual and institutional investors to bet on prices. Investors have pulled a net $7.52 billion this year from
1.5
S&P 500 1.0
Dow industrials
0 4 p.m.
Source: FactSet
pected, showing another solid month for new orders, output and employment. The March PMI came in at 64.7, higher than the projected 61.7. That is another welcome sign for the economy. On Wednesday, President Biden unveiled a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan centered on fixing roads and bridges, expanding broadband internet access and boosting funding for research and development. Semiconductor producers and others stand to benefit from Mr. Biden’s infrastructure package, Mr. Andersen said. In corporate news, shares of Micron Technology rose $4.20, or 4.8%, to $92.41 after The Wall Street Journal reported that the memory-chip maker was exploring a potential deal for Japan’s Kioxia.
Feb. 2018
*Smoothed trend. Levels above 0 indicate prices move together; below 0 indicates they move inversely. Data through March 29. †Yield on constant-maturity 10-Year Treasury inflation-protected securities
Nasdaq Composite
noon
First rate cut since 2008
1,800
0
2.0%
9:30 a.m.
Fed slashes rates to near zero.
2,000
0.5
Index performance, Thursday
0.5
Gold closes at record high.
$2,200 a troy ounce
DAVID GRAY/BLOOMBERG NEWS
BARTEK SADOWSKI/BLOOMBERG NEWS
BY JOE WALLACE
Western Digital—which the Journal also reported to be circling the Japanese semiconductor company—gained $4.62, or 6.9%, to $71.37 The yield on 10-year Treasury notes slipped to 1.680% from 1.749% Wednesday, its largest one-day drop since November. Yields posted their biggest one-quarter rise since 2016 in the first three months of the year, unsettling tech stocks whose valuations had been plumped up by low interest rates. Thursday’s moves bolstered investors who think yields are unlikely to keep rising at the same pace. “The bond market has adjusted now and is at the level appropriate for the coming inflation,” said Hans Peterson, global head of asset allocation
the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest such fund, according to FactSet. In the early months of the pandemic, the metal was a prime beneficiary of a collapse in interest rates. Analysts at banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. touted gold as an investment. Money poured into gold-backed ETFs. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. added to the excitement when it invested in Barrick. That zeal has cooled. Several banks have slashed their forecasts for gold prices. Goldman Sachs in February cut its 12month outlook to $2,000 a troy ounce from $2,300 in August. “What we got wrong is the underlying economic growth environment is far stronger,” said Jeffrey Currie, head of commodities research at the bank. Investors have switched
out of gold and into markets that stand to prosper from the lifting of lockdowns, such as industrial metals, he said. Another factor reducing the attraction of gold is that the metal has failed to act as a hedge that zigs when riskier assets like stocks zag. In recent months, the correlation between the metal and the S&P 500 has been consistently positive. Some investors remain bullish on gold and see now as a time to buy. Daniel Egger, chief investment officer at Switzerland’s St. Gotthard Fund Management, said central banks will push back against rising bond yields, giving gold a new lease of life. A sustained rise in inflationadjusted yields “would suffocate the real economy considering the enormous amounts of debt that have come to the market,” Mr. Egger said.
at SEB Investment Management. “Bond volatility is going down, which is part of feeling more confident in seeing the opportunity in growth stocks.” Oil prices rose after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and a group of other big producers led by Russia agreed Thursday to add about 350,000 barrels a day in production, with more loosening later this year. U.S. crude rose 3.9% to $61.45 a barrel. Analysts expected the cartel to keep output cuts in place to bolster the oil market after a recent slide in prices. Overseas, the Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.6%, led by tech and real-estate stocks. Early Friday, Japan’s Nikkei was up 1.1%, Hong Kong;s Hang Seng was up 2% and South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.1%. S&P futures were up 0.2%.
Coinbase Exchange Set to Go Public
AUCTION RESULTS Here are the results of Thursday's Treasury auctions. All bids are awarded at a single price at the marketclearing yield. Rates are determined by the difference between that price and the face value. FOUR-WEEK BILLS $130,751,974,200 Applications $43,140,824,200 Accepted bids $700,682,500 " noncompetitively $500,000,000 " foreign noncompetitively 99.998833 Auction price (rate) (0.015%) 0.015% Coupon equivalent 38.15% Bids at clearing yield accepted 912796F79 Cusip number The bills, dated April 6, 2021, mature on May 4, 2021. EIGHT-WEEK BILLS $148,090,242,600 Applications $43,142,088,700 Accepted bids $217,470,100 " noncompetitively $509,000,000 " foreign noncompetitively 99.997667 Auction price (rate) (0.015%) 0.015% Coupon equivalent 42.60% Bids at clearing yield accepted 912796G37 Cusip number The bills, dated April 6, 2021, mature on June 1, 2021.
BY PAUL VIGNA Coinbase Global Inc. plans to go public in a highly anticipated direct listing on April 14, the U.S.’s largest cryptocurrency exchange said Thursday. Coinbase, founded in Silicon Valley in 2012, provides services for institutional and individual clients in the crypto markets. It has grown to about 1,200 employees and 43 million customers in more than 100 countries. In 2020, it brought in $1.3 billion in revenue and turned a profit of $322 million. In private markets, shares had recently changed hands at a price that would give the company a valuation of $67.6 billion, it disclosed in a regulatory filing. Whatever it does raise will be added to the $1 billion in cash the company has on hand, giving it a big war chest to ride bitcoin’s ups and downs. Coinbase’s fortunes are intertwined with bitcoin, the digital currency launched more than a decade ago. Fully 96% of Coinbase’s revenue comes from transaction fees, which means the company benefits when bitcoin is in one of its frantic trading phases.
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B12 | Friday, April 2, 2021
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
* *
HEARD STREET ON THE
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
When Doors Open, Stocks’ Window Closes People are starting to have better things to do than invest in markets for entertainment
NICK ZIEMINSKI/REUTERS
Many on Wall Street turn to the “boredom market hypothesis” to explain the stunning rally of the past year: Bereft of travel and other pursuits, stimulus-check recipients gambled on hot stocks ranging from GameStop to electric-vehicle startups. As economies reopen, investors will need to grapple with the consequences of more people spending their checks outdoors. It has been two weeks since the Treasury Department started sending $240 billion worth of electronic payments to households. Spending on Chase credit
People turned to hot stocks like GameStop for entertainment.
cards jumped and is 1.6% below its pre-Covid trend—compared with a 40% fall in March 2020— JPMorgan Chase data showed this week. This time, though, the stimulus isn’t filtering through to the stock market. Daily equity purchases by individual investors have remained stable at around $11 billion in recent weeks on a 10-day rolling basis, data from flow tracker VandaTrack shows. This is sharply different from what happened in April 2020, when checks immediately led to a jump in retail flows, or January of this year, when the impact was clearly noticeable two weeks in. Both amateur and professional money managers need to pay close attention. In a paper published this week, researchers from the Swiss Finance Institute found that individual investors had a disproportionate market sway versus institutional ones during the second quarter of 2020 because they reacted more to price changes: Every dollar going into zero-fee investing application Robinhood caused a $5 increase in equity capitalization. Households usually make decisions about spending first and then decide how to invest their savings, rather than making a choice between going to the cinema or buying GameStop shares. But forcing people to stay indoors
Previous rounds of U.S. stimulus checks led to a surge in trading, but not this time...
...unlike in previous stimulus-check rounds, retail investors have been underperforming the market.
Net equity purchases by retail investors
Retail-investor model portfolio performance relative to the broader S&P 500, cumulative returns since the end of 2019
Checks (1)
$20 billion
Checks (2)
Checks (3)
80 pct. pts.
15
60
10
40
5
20
0
Checks (1)
Checks (2)
Checks (3)
0
Jan. 2020
’21
Jan. 2020
’21
Source: VandaTrack
turned gambling on hot stocks into a new form of entertainment. Behavioral-economics research also shows that people tend to spend one-off windfalls more recklessly. Now, thanks to vaccinations and lockdowns easing, there are more ways to spend money recklessly away from home. Chase figures suggest that the largest increases in card payments were registered in lodging establishments, restaurants and retail stores. Also, previous rounds of stimulus hit people’s bank accounts at a time when the stocks favored by individual investors were doing well. This time it happened right after a big drawdown in their
portfolios, VandaTrack estimates. Playing Wall Street trader is far less fun when you are losing. The absence of this tidal force should have consequences for how markets trade, at least in the short term. For one, much of the 2020 enthusiasm for “reopening” trades was driven by individual investors. Without them, sectors such as airlines, hotels and cruise ships offer less of an upside even if the summer season meets nowelevated market expectations. Retail money also favored electric-vehicle, space and cannabis stocks, which have all stalled lately. The impact on the wider tech sector is less clear-cut. Retail
money is very exposed to it, yet flows into tech-centered passive vehicles are still increasing. That suggests many see them as a prudent place to put long-term savings. Staples like Apple and Alphabet may be in a better position than smaller startups. The no-fee app trading boom wasn’t purely a pandemic phenomenon. Funds seem to keep flowing into online-forum darlings like GameStop, suggesting that a few organized enthusiasts are still eager to prop up individual firms. On the whole, though, the role of boredom in asset-pricing models should greatly diminish as Americans shift a chunk of their lives offline. —Jon Sindreu
Kioxia Is a Must-Have for Both Western Digital and Micron
Evergrande liabilities as a percentage of assets 90 %
85
75
70
65 2009
'10
'11
'12
'13
'14
'15
'16
'17
'18
'19
'20
'21
Sources: Capital IQ; Evergrande Group
China Evergrande Is Still Building Up Its Liabilities China Evergrande Group aims to slash its debt load at a rapid clip to meet government-mandated targets. But beneath the headline metrics, the group is still accumulating leverage in disguise. Evergrande currently finds itself breaching all three “red line” metrics for property companies that Beijing began monitoring last year, constraining its capacity to issue more bonds. With its annual results on Wednesday, the company said it intends to trim its liability-to-asset ratio to below 70% by the end of next year— from around 85% at the end of
Rebranding debtlike arrangements is central to the company’s deleveraging effort. 2020—and move the two other debt metrics out of the red zone this calendar year. On Monday, the company announced a sale of shares in subsidiary FCB Group to support that deleveraging. That raises a little over $2 billion for 10% of the online platform for home and car sales, a rather lofty valuation. If there is no IPO in the next 12 months, the investors are entitled to demand the shares be repurchased at a 15% premium. That might ring a bell for readers who have followed the Evergrande saga. Last year, the company ran into trouble with strategic investors in Hengda, a subsidiary it had promised would go public as long ago as 2016. In both cases, though the ar-
rangements are technically equity investments, they start to look rather a lot like debt—at a very high interest rate—if the subsidiaries aren’t floated. Rebranding debtlike arrangements is central to Evergrande’s deleveraging effort. Another crucial element of financing, presales of not-yet-built housing, is also excluded from the three red lines. That may explain why Evergrande’s borrowings have fallen by around 10% since the end of 2019, while contract liabilities— typically dominated by presales— rose 43%. Trade and other payables, typically owed to contractors, rose by around 16%. These are liabilities but without fixed maturities, allowing the company to perform well on debt metrics while the amount it owes actually rises. Evergrande is the white whale for dozens of funds and skeptical analysts who have decided that the company’s financial model isn’t sustainable. But the harpoons have repeatedly failed to pierce the company’s hide. The conclusion from their attempts, unsatisfying as it is, can only be that Evergrande’s financial health is a function of its political support and little else. It lives at the nexus of China’s biggest financial and arguably political frailty: the dependence of local governments on land sales, and the fact that the most household wealth is tied up in a realestate market that bears the hallmarks of speculation. As befuddling as it may be to true believers in markets, Evergrande can survive—and keep shuffling its significant liabilities around—as long as Chinese officials want it to. —Mike Bird
Go big or go home. That’s the reason for deals in the memorychip market. Memory-chip makers Micron and Western Digital are weighing bids to buy rival Kioxia, which could value the Japanese company at around $30 billion, according to people familiar with the situation. Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, is the second-largest maker of NAND flash memory, used in storage, according to Trendforce. Consolidation in the capital-intensive industry is inevitable. Total capital expenditure for the memory-chip business in 2020 amounted to $39.3 billion, more than a third of the total for the semiconductor industry, according to IC Insights. Spreading that enormous fixed investment over a larger volume helps lower costs. Fewer players in the industry means better pricing power and more disciplined spending. Similar consolidation happened in another corner of the memorychip market. In DRAM, used for processing, three companies— Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron—have nearly all of the market. Toshiba, which owns 40% of Kioxia, gained 5% Thursday, but SK Hynix went up 6%, probably because a more consolidated market benefits everyone remaining. SK Hynix’s $9 billion purchase of Intel’s NAND flash memory business announced in October
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
80
Total capital expenditure for the memory-chip business in 2020 amounted to more than a third of the total for the semiconductor industry. kicked off the wave. The combination will transform SK Hynix into the second-largest supplier in the NAND market in 2020—the two together had 21% market share in 2020. That has put pressure on smaller players like Western Digital or Micron to pursue deals to expand their scale. For Kioxia, the deal offers a price too good to refuse. The Japanese company failed to list its shares in Tokyo in September at a valuation of $16 billion. The company blamed the pandemic and stock-market volatility, but investors probably snubbed the deal because the valuation was seen as too high. Market sentiment has improved since then: Micron and SK Hynix both gained more than 60%. But Kioxia is
likely worth much more as part of a rival’s empire than it would be if it tried to list again as a stand-alone player. Western Digital, which has a joint venture with Kioxia, looks like a natural buyer. But Micron, bigger and more financially sound, could potentially proffer a better bid. Micron’s market value is five times that of Western Digital, and it is sitting on net cash and generates higher operating cash flow. Assuming some sort of deal goes ahead, whoever fails to buy Kioxia would become the smallest player in the NAND flash industry, pitted against three much bigger players—a precarious and probably untenable place to be. An intense fight for the prize is all but guaranteed. —Jacky Wong
CarMax Owners Love That Old Car Smell CarMax was practicing defensive driving against online upstarts last year. Now it has pulled into the passing lane. The used-car seller had a decent quarter ended Feb. 28, with total sales increasing 4.1% compared with a year earlier. Both revenue and net income were in line with Wall Street’s expectations—a solid performance given some challenges. Earlier in the quarter, a surge of Covid-19 cases forced some stores to restrict occupancy. In February, sales slowed because of delays in tax refunds and because severe winter weather held back the retailer’s ability to recondition used cars. The road ahead looks smoother. In an earnings call Thursday, CarMax noted that sales had grown by double digits in March compared with March 2019, which was the retailer’s last record month of sales. Selling used cars is lucrative at the moment. New car supply has been constrained since last year,
first due to Covid-19 restrictions and then a global semiconductor shortage. The latest bottleneck is the disruption in plastics production due to brutal winter storms in Texas. Wholesale used vehicle prices were 23.7% higher as of mid-March than they were a year earlier, according to Manheim. Even with a strong demand backdrop, though, CarMax is stepping on the gas. In 2020, its market share of vehicles up to 10 years old fell to 4.3% from the prior year’s 4.7%. That seemingly small drop is notable given that the retailer traditionally has the largest share of a fragmented market. Online sellers such as Carvana are growing quickly. CarMax is becoming more competitive. Last year, it completed the full rollout of online selling capabilities. This past February, it finished rolling out online instant appraisals nationwide—a feature that online sellers like Carvana offer.
Going forward, CarMax might need to sacrifice some profitability to pull ahead. In January, it announced a 30-day money-back guarantee for its used-car purchases, throwing down a challenge to competitors that offer sevenday guarantees. On Thursday, it announced it had agreed to buy the remaining stake in Edmunds, a popular online automotive research site consumers use to gauge car prices. CarMax shares are finally gaining traction, notwithstanding a 7% drop following Thursday’s call. Its shares are up more than 30% year to date compared with Carvana’s 11% gain. Its shares no longer look as cheap, commanding more than 25 times prospective earnings compared with its five-year average of 17 times. Further gains might induce sticker shock unless CarMax proves it can stop losing market share. —Jinjoo Lee
Blind Trust Buying with an LLC won’t keep you anonymous anymore. M8 HOMES
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MARKETS
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PEOPLE
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REDOS
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SALES
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Lorraine Toussaint A hard life hardwired her for acting. M10
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | M1
$4.135 MILLION
JO HANLEY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (3)
70 acres, five houses
At Home in a Scottish Castle These historic buildings are the ultimate status symbol—rare, expensive and enormous. These are some of the challenges and joys of living in, and maintaining, them. BY RUTH BLOOMFIELD
P
James Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie, and his wife Marilyn, Countess of Dalhousie, are selling Brechin Castle, which has been in the Ramsay family since 1645. They want to avoid burdening their son, Simon, with the upkeep, since he would eventually inherit it.
ortraits of James Ramsay’s forebears line the walls of his Scottish castle, and although it is 36 times the size of a typical British home, there are plenty of ancestors to fill the space. Brechin Castle has been a stronghold of the Ramsay family since around 1645. Mr. Ramsay is the 17th member to hold the title Earl of Dalhousie and own the landmark castle in the county of Angus, eastern Scotland. Soon, however, and to his great regret, Brechin Castle will have a new master. Lord Dalhousie and his wife Marilyn, Countess of Dalhousie, are selling the
family seat. The castle, plus 70 acres of grounds and five houses, is listed with Savills, for offers over $4.135 million. “My father inherited the castle from
his brother, and we moved here when I was 2 years old,” said Lord Dalhousie, 73. “All my memories are from here. It is not a scary sort of castle; it feels like a very friendly family home. I had two brothers and two sisters, and there were lots of passages for us to run about in and woods where we could build huts and muck about. At that time, the estate employed a lot more people and their children were our playmates. It was a really nice community to grow up in.” A Scottish castle is, perhaps, the ultimate trophy property. They are rare; according to the conservation organization Historic UK, there are just over 100 in Scotland. They are also very expensive. Current castle owners include Ellis Please turn to page M6
The Whitney Family’s Last Stand The family behind the Whitney Museum of American Art is selling the last piece of what once was a 1,000-acre estate BY CANDACE TAYLOR
EPM REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY
IN THE EARLY 1900s, the wealthy family of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney owned roughly one thousand acres on the North Shore of Long Island. The sprawling estate included a McKim, Mead & White-designed mansion, a horse stable with 83 stalls, a tennis house with an indoor pool and an art studio for Mrs. Whitney, a sculptor who founded New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art. Over the years, the Whitneys demolished the mansion and sold off bits and pieces of the property; the stable is part of the campus of the New York Institute of Technology, and the tennis house is part of a country
Roughly 7,000 square feet
For Life
On Long Island’s North Shore, this art studio—now a home —comes with formal gardens and swimming pool. club. Now the family is selling the last remaining piece of the original estate: the art studio, a circa 1912, Palladian-style structure with its own formal gardens and swimming pool. It will list for $4.75 million. In the 1980s, the family
added to the structure to convert it to a five-bedroom, roughly 7,000square-foot home. The original studio space and gardens remain almost entirely intact, however, down to the dolphin-shaped door Please turn to page M4
© 2021 BHH Affiliates, LLC. Real Estate Brokerage Services are offered through the network member franchisees of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Most franchisees are independently owned and operated. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of Columbia Insurance Company, a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate. Equal Housing Opportunity.
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M2 | Friday, April 2, 2021
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
* ***
PRIVATE PROPERTIES
Jerry Seinfeld Lists Home With Views, Gym, Yadda, Yadda, Yadda The main property first listed for $18.3 million in 2011.
Jerry Seinfeld is listing his Telluride, Colo., home for a second time—not that there’s anything wrong with that. The comedian and his wife, Jessica Seinfeld, are seeking $14.95 million for the main house on roughly 27 acres, according to listing agent Bill Fandel of FOR SALE Compass. A four-bedroom house MILLION guest on a separate, 12,300 sq. ft., roughly 1711 bedrooms, acre parcel is 11 full bathrooms, also for sale yoga studio asking $2.775 million. The Seinfelds first put the main property on the market in 2011 for $18.3 million, but took it off after only a few months because they decided not to sell, Mr. Fandel said. Avid skiers, they frequently vacationed at the property with their three children, he said. They are now selling because their children are older and because of the fast-moving real-estate market. “Recognizing the strong demand for properties, they felt this was a good time,” Mr. Fandel said, noting that he already has showings lined up.
$14.95
The Seinfelds paid $7.55 million in 2007 and remodeled.
luride Ski Resort, the property also includes a creek and a private trail system through aspen and spruce trees. The Seinfelds bought the circa-1991 main house in 2007 for $7.55 million, according to public records. They purchased the guest house a year later for $2.3 million, Mr. Fandel said, and have used it as a caretaker’s cottage. “After the Seinfelds purchased the property, they did a remodel and reimagined the whole place,” he added. The Seinfelds also have homes in Manhattan and in the Hamptons, according to public records. Mr. Seinfeld, 66, rose to fame in the 1990s as the star of the sitcom “Seinfeld,” which he co-created. More recently, he hosted the series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.” His book “Is This Anything?” was published in October. Ms. Seinfeld is a cookbook author and founder of the nonprofit Good+ Foundation. Mr. Fandel said the Telluride area is seeing bidding wars and record-breaking prices. This summer, director Barry Sonnenfeld closed on the sale of his home next door to the Seinfelds’ for about $13 million. Tom Cruise’s estate in the area is listed for $39.5 million. — Candace Taylor
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Modern Farmhouse in style, the roughly 12,300-square-foot main house is designed to resemble a series of connected Western ranch structures. It has 11 bedrooms, 11 full bathrooms and two half baths, according to Mr. Fandel. A vaulted great room has floorto-ceiling windows with mountain views. There is also a gym, a yoga studio and a four-car garage. Located about 10 minutes from Tel-
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Friday, April 2, 2021 | M3
PRIVATE PROPERTIES
10165 St. Augustine Avenue 5 BEDROOMS | 5 FULL AND 1 HALF BATHS | $6,325,000 This American Institute of Architects-award-winning home features lake and golf course views and pairs sustainable design with relaxed elegance to create a distinctive tropical ambience. Outdoor living is celebrated at every turn, beginning with the open-air entry atrium and loggia overlooking the pool, continuing in a spacious garden pavilion overlooking the fairways, and culminating along covered porches that wrap the second floor.
DENNIS MAYER FOR GOLDEN GATE SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY (3); NORTON PEARL PHOTOGRAPHY / SAN MATEO COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
Onetime Bing Crosby Home In San Francisco Area Lists In the San Francisco Bay Area, the onetime home of Bing Crosby is listing for $13.75 million. The late crooner bought the Tudorstyle home in Hillsborough, a treelined suburb about 20 miles south of San Francisco, in 1963 for $175,000, according to press reports from the time, moving with his then-wife Kathryn FOR SALE and their three young children from Beverly Hills. MILLION The Crosbys 10,000 sq. ft., moved to Hills10 bedrooms, borough because a heated pool, they didn’t want a library to raise their chil-
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dren in Hollywood, said their son, Nathaniel Crosby, 59. But he said they only lived in the house for about 18 months before buying a larger estate across town, where his mother still lives. Built around 1930, the Tudor-style home is about 10,000 square feet and has 10 bedrooms and two wood-burning fireplaces, according to listing agent Charles Griffith of Golden Gate Sotheby’s International Realty. The house also has a large ballroom, a dining room which opens to a terrace and a library paneled in English-pickled pine. The roughly 3 acres of grounds include a heated swimming pool and a three-car garage with an apartment above it. The home’s current owners are Paul and Suzanne Roche, who bought the property in 2014 for around $8 million, according to property records. Mr. Roche is senior partner at McKinsey. Ms. Roche said they are selling because they are getting divorced. “I loved the idea of it being Bing Crosby’s house, because I’m so into
The owners paid $8 million for the house in 2014.
old Hollywood and the American Songbook,” Ms. Roche said. The Roches extensively remodeled the house, maintaining original details like leaded-glass windows but revamping the kitchen and bathrooms, Ms. Roche said. When they moved in, they found labels in the linen closets detailing where Mr. Crosby’s washcloths and sheets should be stored, she said. Ms. Roche started hosting jazz concerts in the home’s ballroom, eventually founding a nonprofit known as Jazz at the Ballroom. The organization, which supports music education,
now holds concerts up and down the West Coast. Kathryn Crosby, Mr. Crosby’s widow, has performed in some of the organization’s concerts, said Ms. Roche. Ms. Roche said now that she is getting divorced, managing the house feels too daunting. “It’s not a place that you just live in,” she said. “It is a piece of artwork that you need to take care of.” —Candace Taylor Kayak CEO lists in Miami for $39.9 million. M9
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The Residences at The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain are not owned, developed or sold by The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. Dove Mountain Investors, LLC uses The Ritz-Carlton marks under license from The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. Access to and use of the recreational amenities of The Golf Club at Dove Mountain requires payment of monthly Club membership dues. This is not an offer of solicitation where prohibited by law. Prices, plans, amenities, availability and improvements referenced herein are subject to change without notice. Sales are conditional upon buyer’s receipt and acceptance of the Arizona Subdivision Public Report.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
M4 | Friday, April 2, 2021
MANSION
The Whitneys
The original studio space is used as a living and dining room.
served one term in Congress, frequently gives tours of his home to various groups, so his explanations are well-practiced. He deftly rattles off the names of the artists whose works are on display in the home
alongside Mrs. Whitney’s, including Charles Baskerville and Robert Winthrop Chanler. On an early spring morning, Mr. LeBoutillier wears a blue sweater over a red polo shirt, brown corduroys, and a navy pea coat. He recounts how he came to live in the house: When his father died in the late 1970s, his mother decided she wanted to live in the studio. No one had used it since his great-grandmother died in the 1940s, although as a child he occa-
sionally visited to swim in the pool. “She loved it over here,” LeBoutillier says of his mother. “It’s a beautiful place and it was allowed to go to hell. And she saw the potential to bring it back to the way it was. I guess she remembered it from her youth.” Mrs. LeBoutillier added a wing on either side of the original studio structure to make it function as a home. One of the wings contains a large, modern kitchen. But Please turn to page M5
EPM REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY (5); BETTMANN ARCHIVE (GERTRUDE VANDERBILT WHITNEY)
Continued from page M1 handles. They are hoping a buyer will continue to preserve the structure, which sits on about 6 acres. “It’s 100 years that we have kept this thing going,” says John LeBoutillier, Mrs. Whitney’s 67-year-old great-grandson who owns the property with his sister, Susan S. Humes. “We’d like someone to come along and keep it going for another 100 years.” A descendant of robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gertrude Vanderbilt was born into one of the country’s wealthiest families, and married into another one. Her husband, Harry Payne Whitney, was also heir to a fortune. Mrs. Whitney was a sculptor. Her best-known works include the Titanic Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Christopher Columbus memorial in Huelva, Spain. Also a leading arts patron, she offered her collection of works by American artists to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. When it was declined, she founded the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1930. The Whitneys, who married in 1896, lived primarily in New York City and used their Long Island estate as a country home. They hired architects Delano & Aldrich to design an art studio a short distance away from their main house. The workspace— now used as a living and dining room—has 20-foot-high ceilings and a massive northfacing skylight to provide the ideal sculpting conditions, Mr. LeBoutillier explains. He points out a hook hanging from the ceilA trap door under this rug was used to transport sculptures to the kiln. ing which Mrs. Whitney used ception rooms for enter(“toe-mah-toes”). to lower her creations taining. It also served as The studio was also the through a trap door into the Mrs. Whitney’s refuge from scene of wild parties frecellar, where they were an unhappy marriage, Mr. quented by the likes of Alloaded onto carts and pulled LeBoutillier says. He bebert Einstein, he says. For by pony through a 100-footlieves his great-grandone soiree, the Whitneys long tunnel to the kilns. emptied out the swimming mother had numerous exThe studio wasn’t just a pool to make space for two tramarital affairs. workspace. Inspired by an “Gertrude was very avantkangaroos. Italian villa, the building garde,” he explains in a Mr. LeBoutillier, a writer had a limestone facade, posh Locust Valley Lockjaw and commentator who multiple bedrooms and re-
Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, right, was a sculptor who founded the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her art studio, once part of a 1,000-acre estate, was turned into a home. Now the home—the last piece of the original estate —is up for sale.
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Circa 1912, the Palladian-style structure is inspired by an Italian villa.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | M5
MANSION Artist Howard Gardiner Cushing painted a mural for the stairwell that includes a portrait of Mrs. Whitney.
EPM REAL ESTATE PHOTOGRAPHY (4)
Mrs. Whitney’s descendants left the interiors of her studio untouched. They turned one of the reception rooms into a replica of Mrs. Whitney’s bedroom in her Paris home, below. They used furniture that had been in storage, including her bed, chaise, desk—and even a letter opener.
she was careful to make the new sections blend seamlessly into the original. “Everything was done to keep it in the spirit of the studio, but to make it a living house,” says Mr. LeBoutillier, who moved in along with his mother in 1982. The LeBoutilliers left the interiors virtually untouched. Details like the dolphin door handles and hand-wrought iron decorative screens are intact. On the second floor in what was Mrs. Whitney’s bedroom, the walls are still covered in the original black-and-gold mural by Mr. Chanler. The adjoining bathroom still has Mrs. Whitney’s sunken bathtub tiled in greenish blue, as well as the original sink, toilet and even her soap dish. A narrow spiral staircase leads from the second floor, through the back of a closet on the main floor, and down to the cellar; what Mrs. Whitney used it for is unclear. The house “really is a living museum,” says listing agent Paul Mateyunas of Douglas Elliman. He anticipates that the purchase will be “an emotional sale.” The building’s main stairwell was originally adorned by a brightly colored, 73-foot-long mural, which includes an image of
Mrs. Whitney. The artist was her friend Howard Gardiner Cushing, who Mr. LeBoutillier believes was also her lover. The original was removed at the Cushing family’s request and replaced by a copy. Outside, the swimming pool is surrounded by gardens; water flows from a fountain to the pool by an aqueduct. The grounds also include a two-bedroom caretaker’s cottage. The house also serves as a display space for Whitney and Vanderbilt family memorabilia. The walls are covered with black-and-white photos of the stylishly dressed Mrs. Whitney as well as other family members. On a table in the living rooms sits a photo of Mr. LeBoutillier’s younger sister with Mick Jagger, a friend of the family. The LeBoutilliers turned one of the reception rooms into a replica of Mrs. Whitney’s bedroom in her Paris home, using furniture of hers that had been in storage: There is a bed draped in a babyblue canopy, a chaise and a desk complete with Mrs. Whitney’s tape dispenser and letter opener. Mr. LeBoutillier says he’s not sure what will happen to the furniture and art when the studio is sold. He hopes that whoever buys the house will continue to preserve it, perhaps as a museum or an art space, and will want to keep some of the artifacts in place. “My mother said, ‘John, we live in the most special place. We ought to share it,’ ” he recalls. “So we’d like to find someone to buy it in that spirit, who would keep it going and honor her and art.” As for himself, he now lives alone in the building with his cat, Plumley, and he’s ready to pass the job of preserving the property on to someone else. “It’s time,” he says. “It really is time.”
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M6 | Friday, April 2, 2021
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Friday, April 2, 2021 | M7
MANSION
Highlands Home
ALAMY (2, TAYMOUTH; ALDOURIE); WIREIMAGE (SKIBO); JO HANLEY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2, BRECHIN EXTERIOR; BRECHIN BEDROOM); SAVILLS (3, BRECHIN DINING ROOM; EARLSHALL LIVING AREA; EARLSHALL EXTERIOR); POOLEY FAMILY (2, POOLEY PORTRAIT; FORTER CASTLE); JASON LEE (MAP)
Continued from page M1 Short, a Missouri-born private equity chief, who paid a reported $31.7 million for Skibo Castle in 2003. In 2018, John Paul DeJoria, co-founder of the haircare brand John Paul Mitchell Systems, bought 469-year-old Taymouth Castle. Danish fashion magnate Anders Holch Povlsen has extensive holdings in Scotland including fairy-tale Aldourie Castle, which he purchased in 2014 for $20.68 million, located on the banks of Loch Ness. Before Lord Dalhousie inherited his title from his father in 1999, he had worked as a banker in London and New York. He and his wife then relocated to the castle. It dates from the early 1700s and incorporates sections of a previous 13th-century castle, according to conservation organization Historic Environment Scotland. The couple are selling partly because they want to downsize. The castle has eight reception rooms, 16 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, and measures 35,843 square feet. Recent U.K. government figures found that the average British home measures 993.5 square feet. Castle living also has its challenges: Some rooms are cold in winter, the layout can be inconvenient, and it takes a lot of cleaning and maintaining. “It was built in the days when there were lots of servants, so the kitchen is a long way from the dining room, and things like that,” added Lord Dalhousie. “It is a bit like owning a yacht. There are always things that need doing and it is quite hard without a large crew.” Currently, the house has one full-time and one part-time housekeeper, and a full- and a part-time gardener. Lord Dalhousie estimates that basic running costs are about $344,000 per year. “I took the view that future generations were not going to make enough money to be able to keep it up properly,” he said. “Rather than live beyond one’s means, it seemed sensible to make the decision to do the dirty, rather than palm it off onto my son. I feel desperately sad about so many things. There is more than 350 years of history here. But it is the way things have gone.” John Bound, a partner at Galbraith estate agents, says a castle generally comes onto the market “every year or two.” Selling them is an unpredictable business. “It is a bit like selling an island,” he said. “They are slightly whimsical and it really just depends who is looking at the time. You generally get a lot of foreign interest. Castles are romantic and historical and I think that appeals to Americans in particular. And somebody who has just sold a house in London can afford to buy a castle up here. They are not expensive in terms of what you get for your money.” Castles also attract tourists eager to peak at a landmark home they have no intention of buying. “They always bring out the time wasters,” said Mr. Bound. “You always get someone who pretends he’s a multimillionaire. You can always spot them; you start asking for proof of funding and that tends to frighten them off.” Owning a castle was a lifelong dream for Paul Veenhuijzen, 76, whose career in shipping saw him travel the world with his wife, Josine Veenhuijzen, 68. Their first home together in 1973 was in Edinburgh. In the mid-1990s, the couple, who have three daughters, decided to buy an apartment there. When they started looking for a country property for weekends, they came across Earlshall Castle, close to the university town of St. Andrews. With 53 acres of grounds and three cottages, the 8,393-square-foot castle was an extravagant vacation home. But having been brought up in modern houses, Mr. Veenhuijzen had always wanted a truly ancient home. Sir William Bruce, a Scottish nobleman, began building the castle in 1546, and it was finally completed in 1620, according to the Gazetteer for Scotland, a survey of Scottish history. The Bruce family owned the castle until 1708. After that it changed hands several times, eventually becoming derelict until
TAYMOUTH CASTLE 469 years old
EARLSHALL CASTLE List Price: $6.89 million 8,393 sq. ft., 10 bedrooms, six bathrooms
Paul and Josine Veenhuijzen bought Earlshall Castle in 1998. The castle was built by Sir William Bruce, a Scottish nobleman, and completed in 1620. The Bruce family owned the castle until 1708. The Vennhuijzens are selling because they are moving back to their native Netherlands.
SKIBO CASTLE 2003 Purchase Price: $31.7 million
BRECHIN CASTLE ANNUAL MAINTENANCE
$344,000 35,843 sq.ft.
ALDOURIE CASTLE 2014 Purchase Price: $20.68 Million Brechin Castle has eight reception rooms, 16 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms. It is located in Angus, in eastern Scotland. Lord Dalhousie moved into the castle when he inherited his title in 1999.
In the early 2000s, by which time Ms. Pooley was an interior designer, she bought the castle from her father, who had run an aviation company and now manufacturers swords for the British Army. She then embarked on a fullscale, $345,000 revamp of its interiors. She replaced basic pine floorboards with oak. She had a
FFORTER CASTLE 1988 Purchase Price: $34,400 Interior renovations: $345,000 Annual electricity bill: $48,000 5,000 sq. ft.
mural painted on the ceiling of the great hall, the main living room where the family congregates when in the home. She also refurnished the whole property. To try to keep the seven-bedroom, four-bathroom castle as warm as possible, she lined the walls with cashmere fabric and added modern luxuries like en-suite showers. At around 5,000 square feet,
Forter Castle is petite by castle standards. Nonetheless, its running costs are formidable and involve the services of a gardener and a housekeeper. “It is a complete sieve of money,” said Ms. Pooley. “The electricity bills are colossal, and heating it costs £35,000 per year,” which is roughly $48,000 annually. “The water comes from a
Sound Thinking Robert Pooley, left, with his daughter Katharine Pooley, bought the ruins of Forter Castle in 1988. It was built in 1560 by clan Ogilvy, but was destroyed 80 years later.
Sir Robert Mackenzie, a bleach merchant from Perth, bought and began restoring it in 1890. He planted the stunning topiary hedges that still surround the castle, according to the book “On the Trail of Mary Queen of Scots,” by J. Keith Cheetham. “I just fell madly in love with it,” said Mr. Veenhuijzen. “It is exactly as it was when it was built, like living in the Middle Ages. It is what I had always wanted.” The Veenhuijzens bought the castle in 1998 for an amount they declined to disclose. They have lived there ever since. When they moved in, there were plenty of repairs and upgrades to tackle. They added two bathrooms, bringing the total to six, and redid the kitchen. Since then, Mr. Veenhuijzen has found running the 10-
bedroom castle manageable. He ning it. I am not particularly rich, believes the secret is to hire fullbut we bought it without a morttime staff—he and his wife have gage which helps.” three—rather than paying Mr. Veenhuijzen’s acfor lots of individual count of falling in tradespeople. love with a castle Now, after would likely resnearly 23 years, onate with BritSkibo the couple ish businessSCOTLAND have decided man Robert Aldourie to return to Pooley, now Forter their native 86. A regular Brechin Netherlands. visitor to the Taymouth Earlshall The castle is ski slopes of listed with Scotland as a Edinburgh Savills for offers younger man, over $6.89 milhe often passed lion. “I am nearly the romantic ruins 77,” said Mr. Veenhuiof Forter Castle. Set in jzen. “If I make a move now, the county of Perthshire, I think I can do one more project. about 75 miles north of EdinBut we are not in a rush. I am burgh, it was built in 1560 by the certainly not worried about runpowerful Ogilvy clan. The original
castle stood just 80 years before it was destroyed during feuding between rival clans. It lay in ruins for more than three centuries until Mr. Pooley bought it in 1988 for £25,000, about $34,400 at the current exchange rate. “It was a complete ruin,” said Katharine Pooley, Mr. Pooley’s daughter. “There was an oak tree growing inside, right where the great hall is now. But he was absolutely fascinated by history and he just saw it as a project—a mad project.” Restoring the castle meant rebuilding the walls using the original stones that lay scattered around the 1-acre site. A new roof was required and the original flagstone floors were repaired. “He built it back brick by brick,” said Ms. Pooley, 49.
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well, and we have to have a plumber come and check it every quarter,” she said. “It can be quite stressful.” Despite this, Ms. Pooley, who is married with two young children, has no intention of selling. The family live near London during the school year and spend vacations at the castle. Her sister and three brothers also bring their
families, and her father still spends as much time there as he can. When it is not in use, the castle is rented to help with its running costs. “I am just very proud of what we have done,” said Ms. Pooley. “It means our names are in history somehow. I want it to stay in the family. It is important to have roots.”
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
M8 | Friday, April 2, 2021
MANSION
C
JUMBO JUNGLE | ROBYN A. FRIEDMAN
porations, partnerships or trusts, buyers could maintain their confidentiality by using one of those entities rather than an LLC. Here what to know if you’re thinking of using an LLC to hold title to your home.
Privacy Takes a Hit
Don’t fear the LLC
Taking title to a new home using an LLC once protected the buyer’s identity. New reporting requirements make that anonymity less certain.
The Corporate Transparency Act requires disclosure to FinCEN, but there is no requirement for public disclosure. “Assuming the individual isn’t up to some nefarious purpose, they shouldn’t have any qualms about having their beneficial ownership information in a nonpublic database accessible to law enforcement,” said Erica Hanichak, government affairs director for the FACT Coalition.
Get an expert opinion
than to get a library card in all 50 states,” he said. As a result, buyers using LLCs or similar entities to purchase their homes need to be aware of state and federal disclosure laws that might impact them. The Corporate Transparency Act, enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, requires disclosure of the beneficial owners of certain entities—those who either exercise substantial control over the entity or who own not less than 25%—to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. This law requires corporations, LLCs and
“similar entities” to report the name, date of birth and address, as well as an identification number from a document such as a driver’s license or passport. Updated reports must be filed if there are any changes in beneficial ownership. The reporting requirement kicks in for newly formed entities right after final Treasury regulations implementing the statute become effective, although existing entities have a two-year grace period to file. Experts don’t think this law will affect the use of LLCs to hold title. “A significant majority of buyers set up an LLC to reduce li-
Using an LLC isn’t just a privacy issue; the way you take title can also affect estate planning, taxation and homestead exemptions. “There are implications down the road—gift tax and estate implications potentially—so buyers need to speak with a trusts-and-estate attorney or tax planner about the best way to set up these vehicles,” said Mr. Garfinkel. Mr. Krasker said he explores the reasons why a client is purchasing a particular property. For example, if someone is buying a home in Miami Beach to gain the benefits of Florida residency, he has them take title in their individual names or as a trust because the use of an LLC can prevent a homeowner from claiming the homestead exemption in Florida without a complicated legal workaround.
ability or as an investment vehicle, so they really don’t care,” about the requirement to disclose, said Neil B. Garfinkel, a real-estate attorney and managing partner of Abrams Garfinkel Margolis Bergson in New York City. “They’re not trying to hide anything. They’re using the LLC for the purpose it was created.” Since 2019, New York state has required disclosure of the name and address of every manager or member of an LLC that buys or sells any one- to four-family residence in the state. The disclosure forms are filed with the state. Since the law doesn’t include cor-
Use a trust
Dana Koch, a real-estate agent with The Corcoran Group in Palm Beach, said his clients frequently use trusts, which aren’t subject to disclosure laws, to take title to their mansions. But he said that the names of celebrities and highnet-worth buyers often leak, not from the brokers or attorneys but from contractors brought in by buyers to do renovations. “Palm Beach is a small town,” he said. “The only way you don’t figure out who bought is if they drive their car in and never leave.”
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