(Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve bought bonds issued by companies including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Walmart Inc. as part of its emergency lending program set up in response to the pandemic, according to new disclosures.On June 16, the U.S. central bank began purchasing securities of individual issuers as part of a broad index it created to include companies that were eligible for the program.The disclosures, posted Sunday, showed that of the $207 million of purchases made on the first day of buying, about 21% were of debt issued by firms in the consumer non-cyclical sector, while 15% were of consumer cyclical debt and 10% were of technology debt. Issues rated below investment grade comprised 3.6% of the securities acquired.In a separate disclosure, the New York Fed released the composition of the broad index the central bank is using to conduct the purchases. Fed officials have said the goal of...
The transactions disclosed Sunday are the first individual company bond purchases made by the Fed under new programs set up to nurse the economy through the coronavirus pandemic. The Fed also added $5.3 billion in 16 corporate bond exchange traded funds, including a newly added sixth high yield fund....
The German government plans to terminate its contract with the country's accounting watchdog after payments company Wirecard filed for insolvency last week in one of Germany's biggest fraud scandals, a government official said on Sunday. Bild am Sonntag newspaper reported earlier on Sunday that the Justice and Finance Ministries would on Monday cut ties with the Financial Reporting Enforcement Panel (FREP), a quasi-private entity that supervises the financial statements of listed firms. "We have reached an agreement with the Finance Ministry to terminate the contract," said the Justice Ministry official, who declined to be named or give further details....
A federal court ordered the discharge of student loans under an Obama-era borrower defense rule for the time on the same day that a vote to override President Trump's veto on the same rule failed in the House....
