Around the News from USA

China’s credit-rating firms are doling out more triple-A bond ratings, a trend that has continued this year in spite of the coronavirus pandemic and greater borrowing by companies in the world’s second-largest economy.As of mid-October, more than 18.3 trillion yuan, equivalent to $2.7 trillion, in outstanding yuan-denominated bonds issued by companies and financial institutions in mainland China had the highest possible rating from the country’s credit raters, according to data provider Wind and asset manager Invesco Ltd. Bonds with triple-A grades currently make up 57% of all the onshore Chinese corporate debt that is outstanding. The proportion of top-rated debt has climbed in recent years. In 2015, about 37.5% of corporate debt in mainland China was rated triple-A. In the U.S. and many other countries, triple-A corporate bond ratings are…

Signs of pressure on New York City’s commercial properties are fueling investor bets that trouble in the nation’s largest real-estate market could spread pain nationwide.Although stock markets are near records, assets whose fortunes are more directly tied to New York’s status as a heart of tourism and culture are showing acute sensitivity to the pandemic’s disruptions. Prices for debt backed by hotels and shops have fallen, new loans have slowed and lenders are more cautious, leaving bankers and the real-estate industry bracing for a hard hit. Investors watch New York closely because Wall Street slices such loans up, packages them together into bonds and sells them to pension funds and asset managers world-wide. Collapsing prices for loans backed by top-tier properties in the Big Apple, which many consider a bellwether…

Morgan Stanley MS 1.34% on Thursday said its quarterly profit rose 25% from a year ago, another big U.S. bank to skate unscathed through the rockiest economy in years. Profit of $2.72 billion, or $1.66 a share, was higher than a year ago and beat analysts’ forecasts. Revenue rose 16% to $11.66 billion. Morgan Stanley rounded out third-quarter earnings reports from the nation’s big banks, which have weathered the pandemic better than many of the clients they serve. Each posted billions of dollars in profits—and three including Morgan Stanley saw their profits grow from a year ago—despite a deep recession and an economic outlook tied to the odds of a compromise in Washington. Big changes afoot at Morgan Stanley haven’t yet shown up in its financial results. The firm struck…

U.S. stocks jumped sharply Monday, propelled higher by a surge in technology stocks that put major indexes on track for their highest close in nearly six weeks.The S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed for the fourth consecutive session in midafternoon trading. The S&P 500, which rose 1.8% for the day, was on pace for its second-highest close in history. The Dow rallied 1%, or about 285 points. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite surged 2.8%, a move up that is expected to be enough to push the tech-heavy index out of correction territory, which it entered in early September. The tech-heavy index is also on track for its third-highest close in history. Megacap companies including Apple and Amazon. com were among the strongest performers, jumping 5.8% and 4.8%, respectively.…

Endowments often go to great lengths to seek out returns. Brown University’s goes further than most.The $4.7 billion endowment has hired private detectives to investigate a money manager and backed unproven startup funds. The former endowment head has also hosted some prospective managers for dinner with his family to supplement Brown’s due diligence. The approach has paid off. Brown’s endowment over the course of Joseph Dowling ’s seven-year run has produced top-tier results. It notched a 12.1% return in the fiscal year that ended June, Brown said last week, a top rate among college endowments. The median return of U.S. endowments in the same period was 2.6%, according to Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service. It was the second year in a row that Brown’s return rate beat those of the…