Project Management

(Bloomberg) — The world’s biggest cruise lines have roughly doubled the number of lobbyists they’re dispatching to congressional offices and several federal agencies this year. But as they try to resume sailing from U.S. ports, one of their most effective targets has been the White House.A former adviser to the White House Coronavirus Task Force says she and other advisers fielded a stream of calls and emails from cruise line officials, including Carnival Corp.’s in-house lobbyist. Their message: Help lift a “no-sail” order from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that has banned passenger cruises from U.S. ports since March.“Whenever the no-sail order started to come up, the cruise lines would always engage,” said Olivia Troye, who was involved in the task force’s discussions of cruise lines before she left government in August. “The phone calls would start. They called all over.”Since her exit, Troye has endorsed Democratic … Read the rest

November 3 is fast-approaching, and Wall Street is bracing for a Biden win. But what would a Democrat-controlled White House mean for the markets?Even though some investors think a Biden presidency would be detrimental to stocks and put pressure on the markets, Marko Kolanovic, the global head of macro quantitative and derivatives strategy at J.P. Morgan, begs to differ. In a recent note to clients, he writes that regardless of the election’s outcome, its conclusion will remove significant uncertainty.Additionally, the strategist believes the release of a COVID-19 vaccine as well as the reopening of the economy could serve as catalysts that spur a rotation into value stocks. “We think those two catalysts will be catalysts for value, and we think it's going to have legs… The decline of COVID should be a powerful catalyst for value,” Kolanovic commented.Taking Kolanovic’s outlook to heart, J.P. Morgan analysts are offering up concrete recommendations, … Read the rest

(Bloomberg) — The White House on Tuesday appeared resigned to what most observers of the fiscal-stimulus negotiations had long concluded: there won’t be a pre-election package.“We’re confident that we can get something in the coming weeks,” White House spokeswoman Alyssa Farah said Tuesday. When pressed on Fox News about whether that means not this week, she said, “We’re hoping within weeks, I don’t want to get too ahead of any announcements.”The departure of U.S. senators from the Capitol for a pre-election break on Monday had already made the logistics for passing a bill by Election Day practically impossible.The failure of the months-long talks leaves the economy more vulnerable to damage from a resurgent coronavirus pandemic. The shape of any post-Nov. 3 package is also unclear and will likely be influenced by the results.After the latest call between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday, there was … Read the rest

(Bloomberg) — Jack Ma, the former English teacher who co-founded Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. with $60,000, is poised to become the world’s 11th richest person after Ant Group Co. priced shares for a record initial public offering.Ma’s 8.8% stake is worth $27.4 billion based on the stock pricing in Hong Kong and Shanghai. That will take the 56-year-old’s fortune to $71.6 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, exceeding that of Oracle Corp.’s Larry Ellison, L’Oreal SA heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and individual members of the Waltons, whose family own Walmart Inc. Ant’s mammoth listing is poised to boost the fortunes of a group of early investors and employees. The company has granted staff share-based awards since 2014 and at least 18 other people have become billionaires from the IPO. Lucy Peng, a director at the payments giant, is the biggest individual Ant owner after Ma, and has a $5.2 billion … Read the rest

With markets showing volatile movements in recent sessions – down one day, up the next – some of Wall Street’s analysts are showing a renewed interest in high-yield dividends. Not that they have ever shied away from these steady income generators; rather, the market boom of this past summer led the Street to focus on share appreciation as the source of profits. Market fluctuations since early September have analysts and investors both taking a closer look at defensive plays.The research analysts at JMP Securities have been searching the markets for the ‘right’ buys, and their picks bear a closer look. They’ve been tapping reliable, high-yielding dividend payers as an investment play of choice. The TipRanks database sheds some additional light on three of JMP’s picks – stocks with dividends yielding 7% or better – and that the investment firm sees with 20% upside or better. Annaly Capital Management (NLY)The first … Read the rest