Wall Street’s major indexes dropped on Friday as the United States set a new record for a one-day increase in coronavirus cases and bank stocks fell following the Federal Reserve’s move to cap shareholder payouts. The S&P 500 banks sub-index declined 3.9% after the Fed limited dividend payments and barred share repurchases until at least the fourth quarter following its annual stress test. In the previous session, banks stocks had powered Wall Street’s main indexes higher, helping them offset investor fears due to rising virus infections in several U.S. states, including Texas, Oregon and Utah. Cases rose across the United States by at least 39,818 on Thursday. Texas, which has been at the forefront of easing restrictions, paused its reopening plans after the state recorded its one of the biggest jumps in new infections. The uptick in cases has also threatened to derail a strong rally for Wall Street that brought the S&P 500 within 9% of its February all-time high on the back of record government stimulus measures.
Brief: A credit crunch is hitting many indebted companies, and Apollo Global Management Inc never had it so good. The private equity firm’s shares hit an all-time high earlier this month, outperforming its peers, as investors bet it can invest its $40 billion of unspent capital in cash-strapped companies that are struggling in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Central banks and governments around the world have unveiled a raft of credit support and economic programs to help businesses. However, aid is often limited for companies with weak credit ratings, driving many of them into the arms of Apollo and other private equity firms. Since the onset of the crisis, Apollo has invested $1.2 billion alongside Silver Lake Partners in Expedia Group Inc, whose online booking business was hit hard by the coronavirus-induced stay-at-home orders and travel bans. Apollo also provided $250 million to U.S. pipeline operator NGL Energy Partners LP to refinance existing loan facilities. While other private equity firms, such as Blackstone Group Inc and Ares Management Corp, are also very active in this space and have seen their shares rally, Apollo’s stock has outperformed because of the New York-based firm’s record of capitalizing on such opportunities, analysts and investors have said.
Hotel owner and developer Danny Gaekwad survived steep drops in business after the 9/11 attacks and the recession of the late 2000s, but nothing prepared him for the revenue tailspin that followed lockdowns and travel restrictions in March to stop the spread of the new coronavirus. At one hotel, a Holiday Inn in Ocala, Florida’s horse country, revenue last April was $38,000, a drop of almost 90% from the previous April. His problems were compounded by the type of loan he took out for the hotel — a $13 million loan that was bought by Wall Street investors. Commercial mortgage-backed securities loans like the one Gaekwad has for the Holiday Inn are packaged in a trust. Investors then purchase bonds from the trust using properties like a hotel as collateral. The loans are attractive to borrowers because they typically offer lower rates and longer terms. About 20% of hotels across the U.S. use these loans and they represent close to a third of all debt in the hotel industry, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Unlike banks, which have been more flexible in renegotiating loan terms to help them through the tough times, hotel owners like Gaekwad say it has been much more difficult to get any forbearance from representatives of bondholders, and they worry that their businesses may not survive because of the lack of relief.
That’s “Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” author Nassim Nicholas Taleb offering his view on the risks swirling in the market and a growing lack of clarity about the future in the era of a deadly pandemic that has created a public-health and economic crisis. Speaking during an interview on CNBC on Friday, the popular author, shared the notion that investors should be hedged against so-called “tail risk,” which refers to extreme events that have a low probability of happening in a distribution of outcomes. Taleb has spent his career chronicling so-called “tail risk” events, which have a tiny probability of occurrence, but nonetheless take place more often than one would guess, and therefore often are underestimated by the broader investment community. Taleb said the current market landscape, perhaps, has amplified uncertainties, even if the stock market has been mostly rising, despite signs of a spreading COVID-19 pandemic that is re-intensifying in places and threatening to de-rail projections for a “V-shaped,” or quick, economic recovery. “We are printing money like there’s no tomorrow,” Taleb said, referencing the Federal Reserve’s efforts to ease the financial pain of the epidemic by delivering trillions of stimulus to the market. The Fed also cut interest rates to a super low range of 0% and 0.25% back in March, and may not have a lot of room to further ease the economic pain of the viral outbreak and other problems that could arise amid this crisis. “And COVID seems to be there even if the pandemic…dies down, you will still have people cautious enough that it will impact a lot of industries,” he said.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has written to the CEO of private equity lobbying group the American Investment Council demanding more information about the organization’s efforts related to the federal government’s multitrillion-dollar coronavirus relief law. In a letter to Andrew Maloney, which was delivered Wednesday and obtained by CNBC, Warren demanded information about the group’s communication with the Treasury Department and White House officials, including Jared Kushner, whose family real estate business has financial ties to private equity firm Apollo Global Management. She also questioned how the industry plans to protect the employees of the companies in which they invest. “I am particularly concerned that the private equity industry you represent may exploit this crisis to continue extracting value out of struggling companies, lining the pockets of wealthy firms at the expense of workers and communities struggling to respond to this pandemic across the country,” wrote the Massachusetts Democrat. In a statement given to CNBC through a spokesperson, Maloney said, “Senator Warren’s home state of Massachusetts is a booming private equity success story.” “Our industry employs over 240 [thousand] workers there, invested over $31 billion in 2019 alone, and recently delivered over 18% returns for the local pension program,” he noted.
Very few hedge funds are offering investors fee discounts during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey by Seward & Kissel. The law firm, which polled alternative investment firms about the impacts of Covid-19 on fundraising and remote work, found that less than 10 percent had granted investor-friendly concessions on fees, liquidity, or reporting terms. Roughly three-quarters of respondents managed hedge funds, while the rest ran closed-end vehicles such as private equity or real estate funds. Steve Nadel, partner at Seward & Kissel, suggested that managers may be “more reticent” to grant concessions given how quickly markets have bounced back. High demand for opportunistic strategies may also contribute to why managers don’t currently feel the need to lure investors with discounts and other perks. “With opportunistic structures, because they are bespoke and because they are limited capacity, it evens the playing field in favor of managers, because demand for a particular product is often going to exceed supply,” he said.