Brief: Banks are poised to hand investment bankers and traders their biggest bonuses since the financial crisis, with hopes the cash will stem the high levels of turnover sweeping across Wall Street. Equity and debt underwriters will be the biggest winners, with a jump of as much as 35% from a year earlier, according to a report Tuesday by compensation consultant Johnson Associates Inc. Equity traders and M&A bankers may see a 25% increase. Fixed-income traders could be the lone losers, with their bonuses potentially sinking as much as 5%. “Our clients are going to pay people well” amid concern about employee turnover, Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates, said in an interview. “The business results are terrific so there’s no holding back.” The Covid-19 pandemic was a boon for Wall Street, first with a trading surge on wild market swings and then a dealmaking boom.
Brief: As economies reopen following months of disruption, economic uncertainty remains. Interest rate rises loom, China's economy slows, and concerns grow about mounting inflation. Headlines also warn of perfect storms, black swans, and bottlenecks. While disruption to global supply-chains is serious, the news stories bely the recovery of sectors worst affected by Covid-19: sports, hospitality, and entertainment. Hotspots within these sectors present attractive opportunities for investors to start positions in solid structural winners during a moment of short-term weakness. The 'empowered consumer' investment theme offers a way to identify these opportunities, as it recognises the influence consumers have on the companies they buy from, the use of data and technology by these companies, and the vertical business models that provide a substantial barrier to entry for competitors.
Brief: JP Morgan’s billionaire leader govt Jamie Dimon used to be allowed to skip Hong Kong’s strict 21-day resort quarantine laws as a result of he runs “an overly large financial institution” with “key industry in Hong Kong”, the territory’s leader govt, Carrie Lam, stated on Tuesday. Dimon flew into Hong Kong on Monday on JP Morgan’s non-public jet, turning into the primary Wall Side road financial institution boss to seek advice from the territory or mainland China for the reason that pandemic started. Wondered about why Dimon used to be allowed to go into the territory with out complying with coronavirus laws, Lam stated: “The justification is said to financial system, as it is a very large financial institution with key industry in Hong Kong. He had to come and paintings for roughly an afternoon in Hong Kong. However there are restrictions, together with restrictions over his itinerary, so the chance is totally manageable.”
Brief: Bugcrowd, the world's first crowdsourced cybersecurity platform for multiple solutions, today released its annual Inside the Mind of a Hacker '21 report, which provides CIOs and CISOs valuable insight on ethical hackers and the economics of security research. New findings indicate a startling shift in the threat landscape with 8 out of 10 ethical hackers recently having identified a vulnerability they had never seen before. This comprehensive annual study offers an in-depth look at ethical hackers to reveal how they reduce risk, which industries leverage their expertise most, and what organizations are doing to attract high-performing security researchers to their programs. It also indicates the growing geographic disparity in crowdsourced cybersecurity investment, with continental Europe allocating 79% less budget to ethical hacking than North America.
Brief: The sweeping changes and far-reaching trade upheaval brought about by Brexit and Covid-19 heralds sizable investment opportunities for hedge fund managers, according to a new study by IG Prime. The report – ‘An Analysis of Post-Brexit Economies’ – examines the impact of Brexit on international trade, gauging potential growth areas in specific sectors, and considers the broader trends unfolding from evolving international trade patterns as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Specifically, the report probes the UK’s main exports prior to Brexit – such as precious metals, vehicles, and pharmaceutical products – as well as the main exporters of those same products in the EU and Singapore, in order to determine which countries may be set to increase exports. It also looks at the impact of the Covid-19 impact on trade over the course of 2020.