Opening Bell: 3.16.22
Stock Pickers Watched the S&P 500 Pass Them By Again in 2021 [WSJ]
Fueled by rip-roaring corporate profits and easy monetary policy, the benchmark S&P 500 notched a total return, including price gains and dividends, of 28.7% last year. That was a stronger showing than that of 85% of U.S. large-cap stock-picking mutual funds, according to data from S&P Dow Jones Indices.… 2021 was the 12th consecutive year in which the majority of actively managed funds of large-cap stocks watched the S&P 500 pass them by.
JPMorgan Adds to Fintech Holdings With Deal for Global Shares [Barron's]
The bank is acquiring all of Global Shares. The deal, which is expected to close in the second half of this year, is valued at $750 million, a person familiar with the situation said. Global Shares will become part of JPMorgan’s asset- and wealth management business.
Raskin withdraws as Biden’s Fed nominee [Politico]
Biden, in a statement Tuesday, said Raskin “was subject to baseless attacks from industry and conservative interest groups” and noted the broad support for her nomination from former central bank officials, consumer advocates, economists and the financial industry…. Four other nominees, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, were also being held up because of the impasse over Raskin.
G.O.P. Senate Hopeful Faces Scrutiny Over Handling of Teacher Pensions [NYT]
“We’re stuck with a half-a-billion-dollar bill while he and his colleagues got half a billion in fees,” Dr. Oz said outside the Harrisburg headquarters of the pension fund, the Public School Employees Retirement System, known as PSERS. He addressed a small group of supporters with a large prop check made out for $500 million.
“The fact that no one knows this story,” he added, is “shameful.”
A Wall Street Lifer’s Quixotic Quest to Build a Nonracist Bank [Bloomberg]
The way [Alex] Ehrlich saw it, banks with thousands of workers are too big to remake their cultures in any reasonable time frame, even if they really want to. His imagined company would be unencumbered by its size. It would be, to the best extent possible, inclusive and nonracist in its practices and impact, even as he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t fail or unwittingly exacerbate the problems he’d set out to solve.
Ricketts Family Join Hedge Fund Billionaire Ken Griffin to Mount 'Blockbuster' Chelsea Bid [SI]
The sale has been allowed by the UK Government despite Roman Abramovich's sanctioning, with a deadline of March 18 set by Raine Group…. The Raine Group, the bank trusted with the task to sell Chelsea, have a working relationship with the Ricketts family and knowledge of 'small circle investors' with the money to make a deal happen.
