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Electric Vehicles (EVs) are “piling up on dealer lots” as American consumers continue buying traditional gas-powered cars at faster rates, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, despite major investments from the federal government and automakers into EVs, Americans are not warming to President Joe Biden’s green energy agenda the way the administration and the industry had predicted. The Journal reports: As a result, electric cars and trucks are piling up on dealer lots, causing auto companies to reassess their investment plans. It takes a dealership around three weeks longer to sell an EV than a gasoline vehicle,...

resident Biden's administration has begun probing the nation's largest banks to assess their plans to mitigate climate risk with their loans and business. A recent "discovery review" led by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) looked into more than two dozen banks to determine how they are accounting for climate risk in their loans and investment strategies, in addition to investigating how they manage energy finance and greenhouse gas emissions, Reuters first reported. The purpose of this review is to supervise bank activities and support the effective management of climate-related financial risks among institutions...

JERUSALEM, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Israeli authorities are investigating claims by U.S. researchers that some investors may have known in advance of a Hamas plan to attack Israel on Oct. 7 and used that information to profit from Israeli securities. Research by law professors Robert Jackson Jr from New York University and Joshua Mitts of Columbia University found significant short-selling of shares leading up to the attacks, which triggered a war nearly two months old. "Days before the attack, traders appeared to anticipate the events to come," they wrote, citing short interest in the MSCI Israel Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)...

Glenn has been one of the most outspoken critics of the use of ESG by globalist elites to force businesses to comply with their woke agenda. It turns out, not only is ESG bad political practice—it's bad for your wallet too. Global Investments in ESG Funds PLUNGED 76 percent globally in 2022 from $157.3 billion to $649.1 billion in 2021, with a 20 percent decrease in the U.S. ALONE. This marked the lowest annual net inflow for ESG funds since $69 billion in 2018. The downturn in ESG investment is largely due to the concerted effort led against ESG led...

“President Biden is prioritizing politics over his own people,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said at a signing ceremony for a bill that would nullify a Department of Labor rule that allowed retirement plan investment managers to prioritize environmental or social factors (ESG) over financial benefits when making investment decisions should it pass into law. Happening now: I'm about to sign the first bipartisan bill of the year, then send it to the president's desk. It blocks Biden's woke ESG agenda and puts workers over Wall Street. https://t.co/cXauyBoTrv— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) March 9, 2023The rule in question, established in December 2022,...

Thinking about putting your money into China?Think again. According to what respected emerging markets investor Mark Mobius described, the place has become a roach motel for investors. Money goes in, but now it can't come out.According to Asia Financial:In an interview on Fox Business, the billionaire, now 86, cautioned other investors to be “very, very careful” about investing in an economy under a tight government grip.“I have an account with HSBC in Shanghai. I can’t take my money out. The government is restricting flow of money out of the country,” Mobius, founder of Mobius Capital Partners, said in an interview...

The Florida House announced proposed legislation to protect Florida pensions and state investments from politically-driven ESG discrimination. TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA — On Tuesday, House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) announced the filing of what he calls “landmark legislation” that would protect Florida retirement accounts and state investments from financial discrimination. Eliminating the consideration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment strategies have become a focus of the upcoming legislative session after both Governor DeSantis and Florida’s CFO Jimmy Patronis announced that the state would divest from BlackRock Investments after concerns over ESG. “DRIVE UP THE COST OF LIVING”.. House Bill 3,...

Joe Biden is opening the door for the investment management companies that handle the retirement funds of 152 million Americans to no longer seek the best financial returns, but instead fund companies, like Solyndra, that pledge to advance the progressive agendas encapsulated in the expression ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance). The New York Post editorially warns us: "Don't let Biden & Co. force YOUR nest egg to be invested in woke-only companies."A new Biden Labor Department rule aims to steer the retirement funds of 152 million Americans toward companies with woke policies on climate change and other "environmental, social and...

The current size of Ensign Peak’s holdings remains a tightly held secret. The firm, based in Salt Lake City, was incorporated in 1997. Under SEC rules, it must disclose some types of investments, like U.S.-listed stocks, that it manages directly, which amounted to roughly $40 billion on Sept. 30. The remainder of the portfolio is made up of investments such as fixed-income securities, private companies or funds. Ensign Peak had an estimated $100 billion of holdings in 2019.

Waning volatility in the U.S. bond market has helped spur a rally in stock markets around the world, according to the latest research note from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid.Reid, head of thematic research at DB, pointed out that bond-market volatility, as measured by the ICE BofA MOVE Index, appears to have peaked in October (see chart), just as expectations for the terminal fed-funds rate — the level at which the Federal Reserve is expected to pause its most aggressive cycle of rate hikes since the 1980s — stabilized around 5%, where they remain.

President Biden will travel to Kentucky on Wednesday to tout infrastructure investments and his broader economic plan, and he’ll be joined by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the White House said Sunday. Biden will head to Kentucky one day after the a new GOP House majority is sworn in to speak about “how his economic plan is rebuilding our infrastructure, creating good-paying jobs that don’t require a four-year degree, and revitalizing communities left behind,” the White House said.

2022 has been a pretty dismal year for investors across assets. However, amid record high inflation and soaring interest rates, was there a silver lining around the UK markets?From commodities to bitcoin, with gold, equities and UK property in between, we take a look at how different sectors performed this year and whether they will be a good bet in 2023.CommoditiesCommodities have been the top performing assets this year, with the strong US dollar and the surge in the prices of grains and livestock driving returns, according to analysis by Interactive Investor.Commodities returned 22% over the year to the end...

Another state on Thursday announced that it would begin divesting its assets currently managed by investment giant BlackRock, accusing it of “[leaning] heavily into Environmental, Social, and Governance standards.” “As Florida’s chief financial officer, it’s my responsibility to get the best returns possible for taxpayers. The more effective we are in investing dollars to generate a return, the more effective we’ll be in funding priorities like schools, hospitals, and roads,” Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer, said in a press release. The divestment will involve “$2 billion worth of assets,” according to the statement. “As major banking institutions and economists...

Canadian banks are receiving backlash from investors for their continued investments in fossil fuels.All Canadian banks were revealed to have increased their exposure to fossil fuels between 2020 and 2021, by between 25 percent - TD and BMO - and 132 percent for CIBC.The report is the latest example of investor pressure on financial institutions to reduce their lending to fossil fuel companies.An investor group has criticized Canadian lenders for investing heavily in fossil fuels despite the Paris Agreement, noting that all of the largest Canadian banks still need to be ready for net zero.In a report titled Net Zero...

(Reuters) - President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday reversed restrictions imposed under his predecessor Donald Trump on retirement plans considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors such as climate change and racial justice when selecting investments. The Labor Department announced a final rule first proposed last year after Biden, a Democrat, ordered government agencies to assess climate-related risk to retirement and pension investments. The rule will make it easier for retirement plans to invest in socially responsible funds and companies, though it requires investment decisions to be based on traditional financial factors. The rule, which the department said covers plans...

A coalition of 19 state attorneys general from across the country launched a formal investigation into six major U.S. banks last week citing legal concerns about banks’ “ESG” investing and their involvement with a United Nations alliance fighting CO2 emissions.The banks “appear to be colluding with the U.N. to destroy American companies” and undermine the nation’s best interests, one of the AGs warned in a statement e-mailed to The Epoch Times.Another AG argued that these U.N.-inspired banking policies were resulting in jobs being sent to communist China as the regime there continues building coal-fired power plants to ensure low-cost, reliable...

For decades now we have been inundated with propaganda that insists we move away from fossil fuels to renewable alternatives.The hysteria has been escalating ever since Al Gore rebranded himself the Global Warming Ambassador at Large with the release of An Inconvenient Truth. What had been a constant but relatively muted refrain from the Left became a unstoppable roar that has only increased in volume. We have been treated to lectures about biofuels from switchgrass (remember that–never happened), the new hydrogen future (never happened), solar, wind, and unicorn farts all powering the future.We are called to save the sinking islands...

The global debt market is orders of magnitude larger than the stock market, and debt instruments across the globe have nearly reached the breaking point due to the Fed’s steady increase in interest rates this year (combined with seemingly endless money printing and other disastrous fiscal policies). Because bond values have an inverse relationship with interest rates, as interest rates go up, the value of bonds and other debt instruments already issued goes down. With each Fed rate increase, bond values are cratering, leaving debt investors holding substantial losses and leading to a collapse in the number of potential buyers...

U.S. stocks kicked off the fourth quarter with sharp gains as the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.14% appears headed for its biggest two-day rally in more than 2½ years. But as tempting as it might be to call a bottom in stocks, Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, said Tuesday that investors should brace for more carnage in the near term as several reliable historical signs of a durable bottom are still missing from markets. Valuations are still too high, Colas said, and although 2022 has seen immense two-way volatility in stocks, sharp moves higher historically tend to signal...