(Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. is a leading lender to small and midsize U.S. companies, home buyers and commercial property investors, and has capacity to unleash about $384 billion of additional loans to customers trying to weather the coronavirus pandemic.But the bank can’t -- because it’s in the regulatory doghouse.The Federal Reserve remains reluctant to ease or lift its 2018 order capping the San Francisco-based lender’s assets because the company has yet to fully address concerns that prompted the unprecedented sanction, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The cap effectively prevents the bank from deploying a mountain of pent-up capital that could back a surge of lending.As the coronavirus pandemic began upending the economy in recent weeks, it quickly emerged that Wells Fargo’s representatives had privately broached the idea of at least temporarily lifting the restriction so it could help more customers. The Fed has yet to publicly...
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’s concerned oil prices have fallen too far and called Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss Russia’s oil-price war with Saudi Arabia.The leaders, who also talked about the spread of the coronavirus, agreed to discussions on oil between energy officials in the two countries, according to the Kremlin. The White House had no immediate comment and didn’t release a summary of the call.The U.S. president has earlier said he does not want to see the energy sector “wiped out” after Russia and Saudi Arabia “both went crazy” and launched into a conflict that depressed oil prices.“I never thought I’d be saying that maybe we have to have an oil increase, because we do. The price is so low,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.”Crude oil futures tumbled as much as 7.7% in New York, touching an 18-year low.The Trump-Putin call came at...
The global coronavirus case count surpassed 735,000 Monday, with more than 35,000 deaths reported, according to Johns Hopkins. The U.S. leads has the most number of affected, with more than 140,000 cases, while Italy continues to see a staggering death toll that accounts for nearly one-third of deaths, at 10,700....
Although founded less than 10 years ago, Zoom Video (ZM) has been growing by leaps and bounds. Sales over the past three years are up more than 10 times, from $60.8 million in 2017 to $622.7 million last year. In that same period, Zoom has gone from earning no profit at all, to earning $25.3 million last year, and Zoom's free cash flow is even better -- $113.8 million.Nevertheless, 5-star Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini assigns Zoom Video an $80 price target, and rates the stock a "sell." (To watch Bellini's track record, click here)As Bellini explains, "due to COVID-19, more organizations are reliant on communication tools that allow their remote workforce to collaborate effectively." Zoom is seeing "increased demand" and management is "adding capacity this year to support the uptick in both paid and free usage."While much of the traffic is currently "free usage" -- people using Zoom in 40-minute-long...
