#585
Private Assets, Meet ETFs

Rocket to buy mortgage firm Mr. Cooper in $9.4b deal - The combined company will service a book of $2.1t of loans and nearly 10m clients. With the deal, Rocket is expanding its reach into the mortgage-servicing market and cementing its position as a one-stop shop for many parts of the homebuying process. Rocket has recently leaned into artificial intelligence to streamline that process, which has saved the company’s underwriters thousands of hours of manual work. Read more

Traders fear global FX market may be less liquid than it appears - The global arena for foreign exchange appears on the surface to be a giant pool of cash in constant churn, generating $7.5t of transactions per day — more than all other major asset classes combined. But lately key names from the industry have begun to fret about just how deep the pool really is. Read more

The dark money behind Duke basketball - The Blue Devils have a Final Four roster that takes millions of dollars to assemble, but exactly who is paying for it remains a mystery. That’s no accident. Read more

Stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO showing revenue gains - The company reported net income of $156m on revenue of $1.68b in 2024. The company, led by Jeremy Allaire, has steadily increasing revenue and is the biggest competitor to Tether, with $60b of its dollar-backed USDC stablecoin in circulation as of March 28. Read more

Your credit report now knows when you buy stuff with the ‘pay later’ option - If you buy a pair of shoes or makeup and choose the option to pay later, it could show up on your credit report. Affirm will begin furnishing all new loans to Experian, similar to how a mortgage or car loan shows up on your credit report. So far, the change to this fast-growing form of consumer debt only applies to Affirm loans and Experian credit reports. But other lenders and credit bureaus may soon follow suit. Read more

Visa offers Apple roughly $100m to take over credit card from Mastercard - The Apple card is up for grabs because Goldman Sachs, the bank behind it, is getting out of the consumer lending world. For months, big banks have been vying to take over as issuer. What hasn’t been known is the equally fierce fight playing out between the networks to win Apple. Read more

The day Trump’s tariffs shook Wall Street and corporate America - Trump unveiled 10% across-the-board tariffs, and even higher levies on a swath of countries including Japan, Europe, South Korea and Vietnam. The new levies on China will push up the costs of many goods from that country—from toothbrushes to televisions—by more than 50%. The 10% tariffs kick in on April 5 and the higher rates on April 9. Read more

How Mastercard is building the Venmo of crypto - As political tailwinds lift the crypto industry, Mastercard hopes to cash in on a bet it started years ago. The payments giant is looking to replicate its massive card network for the blockchain world to create a way for consumers, merchants, and financial institutions to transact digital assets. Read more

Amazon launches AI agent that can shop online - Amazon has unveiled an AI agent trained to independently perform actions, such as order and pay for things, within a web browser. Read more

Justice Department will not block Capital One acquisition of Discover - This decision would allow the two banking regulators that must approve the deal — the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — to approve the transaction. Staff at the Justice Department were divided about whether the merger should be challenged, and the new antitrust division chief, Gail Slater, made the decision that there was not enough evidence to do so. Read more

Crypto executives push congress to allow stablecoin issuers to pay interest - Currently, stablecoin issuers earn interest on the U.S. Treasuries and other cash equivalents they hold to maintain a peg on the dollar, but don’t pass any interest along to the tokens’ holders. Proponents of the change argue that issuers should be allowed to do so because they already hold the assets and earn interest and that it is not fair that banks can share interest with consumers while crypto companies can’t. Read more