BlackRock Financial News

If you’re working in a bank and angling for an exit, there are worse places to go than a private credit firm.

Bitcoin has fallen over one fifth since its peak earlier this month, hit after the United States approved its first spot bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF), as investors who had bought in expectation of the approval sold after the confirmation.

BENGALURU : Edtech company Byju’s warned about its ability to continue operations after finally posting its financial numbers for fiscal year 2021-22, only to report that its losses had ballooned to ₹8,245 crore from ₹4,564 crore in the year prior. Hurt by continuing losses from operations combined with debt-related risks, Byju’s said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday that a “material uncertainty" existed. “These events and conditions cast significant doubt on the company’s ability to continue as a going concern," the company said in a filing with the ministry of corporate affairs.

The Bitcoin (BTC) price just plunged below $40,000 for the first time since early December, taking its pullback from post-spot Bitcoin ETF approval highs above $49,000 to nearly 20%.

Climate alliances backed by Wall Street heavyweights have struck upon a subtle way to blunt increasingly aggressive attacks by the GOP.

In 2017, legendary investor Jack Bogle famously warned people to“avoid bitcoin like the plague.” More than six years later, Vanguard Group Inc. is still stoking the crypto world’s ire by sticking to the conservative investing approach of its late founder.

Exchange-traded funds come in many shapes and sizes. Some are plain vanilla, diversified index funds that let you invest in the entire stock and bond markets, and are excellent core holdings for the great majority of people. Then there are the quirky, narrowly focused ETFs like the Inverse Cramer Tracker, which enables you to bet against the stock picks of CNBC television host Jim Cramer. The fund is legal, approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission — and a money-loser since its inception last year. Betting against Jim Cramer just isn’t a great investing strategy. Neither is fear of missing out. Yet FOMO is the main reason for putting money into bitcoin, which remains highly speculative, difficult to categorize and without an immediately identifiable economic function. The SEC this month approved 11 new ETFs that track the price of bitcoin, and the decision has been heralded by promoters of bitcoin — and of the new funds — as an important event, legitimizing bitcoin as an asset class.

Talking with Cryptonews, three experts have shared their views on spot Bitcoin ETFs trading volumes.

The cryptocurrency landscape is poised for a major change with the recent approval of spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The mood of the global elite meeting in Davos, Switzerland, is a useful indicator for investors—as long as they do the opposite. When the elite are depressed, buy. When they’re positive, sell.

Bitcoin slid to the lowest since mid-December as the speculative demand for the token sparked by hype about new exchange-traded funds dissipates, leaving the cryptocurrency in the red since the start of 2024. The largest digital asset briefly flirted with a drop below $40,000 before trading at $41,160 as of 6:30 a.m. Friday in Singapore, a decline of 3% in the past 24 hours. Smaller tokens like Ether, Solana and Polkadot also struggled. Bitcoin surged 157% last year on optimism about the eventual Jan. 11 launch of the first US exchange-traded funds to directly hold the token. Digital assets also got a tailwind from bets on looser monetary policy. Traders are now assessing how much money the ETFs attract and paring expectations for interest-rate cuts. “This type of correction after a significant run-up is normal for Bitcoin,” said Greg Moritz, co-founder at crypto hedge fund AltTab Capital.

By Suzanne McGee

As of the end of December, total ETF assets were £987.1bn, with the vast majority coming from equity ETFs (£749.4bn), followed by bond ETFs (£2144.8bn) and money market ETFs (£9.5bn).

BlackRock’s new spot Bitcoin ETF IBIT has attracted considerable interest from both retail and institutional investors since launching last week. The fund has already amassed over 25,000 BTC, representing more than $1 billion in holdings at current prices.

Investors redeemed £32.5bn from all asset classes in 2023, surpassing 2019 for the largest outflow in absolute terms.

Bob Doll, the market strategist who’s known for his annual predictions on the markets, has been named president and chief executive of Crossmark Global Investments, a faith-based investment management firm headquartered in Houston, where he has served as chief investment officer since 2021.

Reliance Industries' financial services arm Jio Financial Services said its profit increased eight times to ₹70 crore in the quarter ended December 2023 from ₹8 crore in the previous year due to higher interest income and gains on fair value changes. Total interest income at the financier, owned by India's most valued company, increased to ₹91 crore in December 2023 from ₹12 lakh a year ago. The non-banking finance company also gained from a ₹44 crore gain on fair value changes, up from ₹35 crore a year ago. The gains were added to the company's revenue.

The exits were announced in a memo to staff from Larry Fink, chair and chief executive at BlackRock, and Rob Kapito, president on Friday (12 January).

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Devang Mehta, Director — Equity Advisory, Spark Private Wealth, says “markets are slaves of earnings. Earnings have started on a good note, more so the last quarter was also good. We are seeing margin expansion and market leaders coming back to the fore. A lot of companies like Reliance, a lot of IT participants which are huge overweights on the indices, all this confluence of factors, plus the foreign investors are still as such are still missing. Ideally, I would not get carried away by index targets. I would be more delighted if this is an earnings led rally, rather than being a rally of everything and anything or laggards doing well.” The buzz is that the Nifty will definitely cross 24,000 in 2024. Can you see that as a possibility or is that expecting too much? Devang Mehta: We probably saw 20,000, 21,000, 22,000 all coming too soon. It took the market 25 sessions to go from 21,000 to 22,000. So, it is very possible. Ideally, why? I do not want to put a figure to the index right now, but yes, if you ask me, there are a confluence of factors, be it macros, be it global macros, be it local macros, be it micros, sentiment towards equities as an asset class is great.

As the trading week begins, Bitcoin exhibits a choppy pattern, marginally up by 0.06% and hovering around $42,635. The cryptocurrency landscape is buzzing with notable developments that could shape its short-term trajectory. Ark Invest’s Cathie Wood, a known advocate for Bitcoin, continues to hold a strong belief in its potential, further influencing market sentiment.