The Biden administration will award $6 billion to a pair of high-speed train projects in the west, marking the strongest federal support to date for a technology that has struggled to get off the ground in the U.S. “The dream of American high-speed rail is about to become reality,” Ray LaHood, former U.S. Secretary of
Municipal experts say buying attractively priced tax-exempt securities in the final weeks of 2023 could benefit portfolios well into 2024. With only a few short weeks left until year end, investors still have time to lock in value and historically attractive yields in the municipal bond market, according to analysts. Even with the latest rally,
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. BlackRock plans to roll out generative artificial intelligence tools to clients in January as part of a larger drive to use the technology to boost productivity, the $9.1tn asset manager told employees on Wednesday. The
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is seeking applications to fill three positions, two public representatives and one regulated representative, for its board of directors for the 2025 fiscal year. The application window will be open from Jan. 2 until Feb. 9 and can be submitted through the MSRB’s Board of Directors Application Portal. “Ensuring the
Remember when a second home connoted a dwelling owners used occasionally, on the limited times annually when the family traveled from their primary residence for a vacation? That paradigm is being supplanted by the concept of “bi-residential” living, in which the modern second home rises to the status of an equal or near-equal of the
Real bipartisan legislative efforts are rare in Washington, DC, these days, but Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren and Joe Manchin and Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Roger Marshall have managed to come together to co-sponsor a bill focused on crypto crime. According to the senators, the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2023 aims to close
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Conservatives are right. They had no choice. It is neither politically nor socially sustainable for the UK to continue with immigration at the levels seen in the last two years. A glance back at
The potential approval of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), the looming BTC mining reward halving and major regulatory and enforcement actions have a profound psychological effect on market prices. This is a key takeaway from the Next Block Expo conference in Berlin, just as Bitcoin tipped past $42,000 for the first time in over a
The North Carolina Local Government Commission has approved the North Carolina Turnpike Authority’s request to issue up to $1.1 billion of revenue bonds and secure a Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan. At its Tuesday meeting, the LCG approved the authority’s plans to finance over $1 billion of work on Phase 2 of the
Boris Johnson has admitted the UK “vastly underestimated” the dangers posed by Covid-19 in early 2020 and did not take the scientific evidence seriously enough in testimony to the public inquiry into his government’s response to the pandemic. The former prime minister on Wednesday said his administration “may have made mistakes” but that before late
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the US foreign policy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. You can get insurance for almost anything nowadays. It is next to impossible, however, to insure against Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The time for America’s allies to hedge against Trump 2.0
Homes in Hercules, California, US. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images After surging over 8% in October, mortgage rates are falling back toward 7% again, and that is jump-starting the refinance market. Last week, the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) decreased to 7.17% from 7.37%,
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Interpath Advisory, KPMG’s former UK restructuring division, has fallen to its second consecutive annual loss since breaking away from the Big Four firm, despite a rise in companies in distress. Pre-tax losses at the private
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. High interest rates and a slowdown in housebuilding have driven a contraction in UK construction activity for the third month in a row, according to new data released on Wednesday. The S&P Global/Cips UK construction
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. UK investors returned to equities for the first time in six months, as asset managers looked to reorientate their portfolios to account for brighter sentiment on inflation and interest rates. Retail investors in the UK
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Private credit and leveraged lending markets remain vulnerable to “sharp revaluations”, the Bank of England warned on Wednesday, in its latest attempt to sound alarm bells about risks building up in non-bank finance. The BoE’s
Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Chinese economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. You might have seen sober and accurate Financial Times reporting of the US economy’s remarkable annualised growth rate of 5.2 per cent in the third quarter of this year. Let me give you an advanced
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Apple wants batteries for its latest generation of iPhones to be made in India, as part of the US tech giant’s efforts to diversify its global supply chain and move manufacturing out of China. The
Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. This article is an on-site version of our Inside Politics newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday Good morning. Families have been left in limbo by the
Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu is confident that a number of investments and partnerships could prove fruitful in 2024 as mainstream institutional interest in Bitcoin (BTC) gathers steam. Speaking exclusively to Cointelegraph at the Next Block Expo event in Berlin, the chairman of the gaming venture capital firm highlights some 70 investments made in 2023
Bitcoin (BTC) has gained almost 170% since the European Central Bank (ECB) warned of its impending “irrelevance.” As noted by crypto proponent Eric Wall and others on Dec. 4, BTC price action has done the complete opposite of economists’ predictions. ECB Bitcoin myopia: “What else are they wrong about?” Bitcoin traded at just $16,400 when