Stocks Fall After Joe Biden Plan, Weak Retail Sales  – Wall Street Journal, 1/15/2021

• U.S. stocks fell after President-elect Joe Biden unveiled a $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief plan and the December retail-sales report came in weaker than expected, underscoring the coronavirus pandemic’s continued effect on the economy.
• The size of Mr. Biden’s plan, even if Congress eventually shrinks it, took some by surprise.
• Markets have for weeks cheered Democrats’ plans to expand government spending and bolster the economic rebound, and Friday’s retail-sales report underscored the need.
• U.S. consumers cut back on spending in December, the peak of the holiday season, as the country confronted a surge in coronavirus infections.
• In corporate news, JPMorgan Chase fell 2% after the bank reported its highest-ever quarterly profit, though its full-year earnings fell 20%. Shares of Wells Fargo fell 7% after its revenue fell more than forecast, with lower interest rates weighing on net interest income. Citigroup slid 4% as it reported fourth-quarter results.
• In bond markets, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note ticked lower to 1.103% from 1.128% Thursday.
• Yields fall when bond prices rise.
• Trading in Asia ended on a mixed note.
• China’s Shanghai Composite was largely flat, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.3% and South Korea’s Kospi slid 2%.
• In Hong Kong, shares in Xiaomi, a consumer electronics company that focuses on mobile phones and household appliances, closed 10% lower after the U.S. Department of Defense added Xiaomi to a list of companies it says support China’s military.

Coronavirus Live Updates: U.S. Hospitalizations Decrease – Wall Street Journal, 1/15/2021

• The number of people hospitalized in the U.S. because of Covid-19 fell below 130,000 for the first time in days, while newly reported coronavirus cases remained above 200,000.
• Hospitalizations were at 128,947 as of Thursday, the lowest level since Jan. 4, according to the Covid Tracking Project. Intensive-care units, though, remain under stress, with 23,891 patients. The number of Covid-19 patients in ICUs across the country has surpassed 23,000 every day since Dec. 29, according to the Covid Tracking Project.
• The U.S. reported more than 229,000 new coronavirus cases for Thursday, the 10th consecutive day the figure has topped 200,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
• The U.S. death toll again surpassed 3,000 on Thursday, with more than 3,700 fatalities recorded, according to Johns Hopkins.
• The nation’s total death toll is more than 388,000.
• Reported vaccinations appear to be picking up speed, with 11.1 million total doses administered as of Thursday morning, including 1.3 million second doses, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
• Arizona has the highest Covid-19 infection rate in the U.S. and is on the brink of running out of space in crowded hospitals, according to public-health and hospital officials.
• The state hit a record for new infections last week, with 11,324 in a single day. It has the highest per capita rate of new Covid-19 infections in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the highest rate of Covid-19 hospitalizations, according to the Covid tracking project.
• As of Wednesday, 7% of Arizona’s ICU beds were available, according to state data. Nearly 60% of all people hospitalized in Arizona have Covid-19 and close to 65% of ICU beds are being used for Covid-19 patients.
• A steady increase in coronavirus cases has pushed France to bring forward its national curfew and tighten travel restrictions.
• French authorities late Thursday announced a 6 p.m. curfew across the nation starting Saturday. Much of France has been subject to an 8 p.m. curfew, except for particularly hard-hit areas, where the curfew was already 6 p.m.
• France will also require all foreign travelers from a non-European Union country to have a negative coronavirus test that is less than 72 hours old before getting on a plane or a boat bound for France.
• In Germany, the number of confirmed coronavirus infections since the start of the pandemic reached two million on Thursday, according to the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases.
• Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet state leaders next week, a week ahead of schedule, to discuss a further tightening of restrictions amid concerns about the spread of the more contagious U.K. variant.

Wells Fargo records rare profit beat as credit costs fall – Reuters, 1/15/2021

• Wells Fargo posted a small rise in quarterly profit on Friday that beat Wall Street estimates, as stabilizing credit costs helped offset the hit from low-interest rates meant to prop up the ailing economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Total revenue fell 10% to $17.93 billion. Net-interest income at Wells Fargo fell 17% to $9.28 billion.
• Wells Fargo paid $321 million in customer remediation costs in the quarter, despite bank executives repeatedly signaling that the worst of the fallout, which has cost it billions, is in the past.
• The company also booked $781 million in restructuring charges as Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf takes tough measures to shift fortunes at the bank that he joined in 2019.
• Costs associated with bad loans, however, were a bright spot, falling $823 million compared to last year and remained far below the level seen in the first half of the year when the bank racked up more than $14 billion in provision expenses.
• The San Francisco-based bank reported net income of $2.99 billion, or 64 cents per share, for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with $2.87 billion, or 60 cents per share a year earlier.

JPMorgan profit surges on lower loss reserves, investment banking strength – Reuters, 1/15/2021

• JPMorgan Chase reported a much better-than- expected jump in fourth-quarter profit on Friday as it released some of the cash it had built up against coronavirus-driven loan losses and benefited from continued strength in its trading and investment banking units.
• Revenue rose 3% to $30.2 billion.
• Investment banking revenue surged 37% to $2.5 billion, driven by higher advisory fees across all its products.
• Three of JPMorgan’s four operating units reported higher revenue, with the consumer & community banking unit recording an 8% decline.
• JPMorgan’s net interest income fell 7% to $13.4 billion.
• JPMorgan’s net income rose 42% to $12.1 billion, or $3.79 per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from $8.5 billion, or $2.57 per share, a year earlier.
• During the quarter, it released credit reserves of $2.9 billion, adding 72 cents to its earnings per share.

Higher costs, weak revenue cloud Citi’s quarterly profit beat – Reuters, 1/15/2021

• Citigroup reported fourth-quarter profit that beat market expectations on Friday, but that failed to impress Wall Street as higher costs and a fall in revenue across its consumer business weighed on the results.
• Overall, the bank’s revenue fell 10%, while expenses rose 2%.
• Revenue from its global consumer banking fell 14% as growth in deposits and wealth management were more than offset by weak card volumes and lower interest rates across all its regions.
• Fees in the North American branded cards business, once the growth engine of the consumer bank, tumbled 13% on lower purchase sales and higher payments.
• Total loans fell 3% to $676 billion, while deposits rose 20% to $1.3 trillion as customers, faced with economic uncertainties, borrowed less and saved more.
• The New York-based bank reported profit of $4.63 billion, or $2.08 a share, down from $5 billion, or $2.15 a share, a year earlier.
• Analysts on average had expected profit of $1.34 per share, according to Refinitiv data.

U.S. Moves to Block Telecom Tech from China and Others Deemed Foes – Wall Street Journal, 1/15/2021

• With its days in power numbered, the Trump administration’s Commerce Department moved ahead Thursday with rules to let the U.S. block purchases of communications technology from China and five other countries deemed foreign adversaries.
• The rules wouldn’t take effect for 60 days, leaving a decision on how and whether to go ahead with the effort to President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.
• Along with China, Commerce named Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and the Maduro government of Venezuela as foreign adversaries.
• Shipments of communications hardware, software and other gear from those nations could be blocked under the new rules as posing a national-security risk.
• The Trump administration, for instance, also said it would add a subsidiary of Chinese oil company Cnooc to its blacklist. U.S. companies need to get a waiver to ship to firms on what is known as the entity list, and such waivers are rarely granted.

Americans Banned from Investing in Xiaomi as U.S. Expands Blacklist – Wall Street Journal, 1/15/202

• Smartphone giant Xiaomi became the latest Chinese technology group to be targeted by the Trump administration, with its surprise addition to a U.S. investment blacklist sending its shares sharply lower.
• On Thursday, the U.S. Defense Department added Xiaomi to a list of companies it says support China’s military.
• Under the terms of an executive order issued by President Trump, the designation means that after 60 days, U.S. investors won’t be able to buy Xiaomi stock, and they have a year to sell existing holdings.
• Xiaomi’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell almost 14% Friday before closing 10% lower.
• In addition to Xiaomi, Shanghai-listed Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment, state-owned passenger-jet maker Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, or Comac, and six other companies were added to the list Thursday.

Walmart E-commerce Boss Marc Lore to Leave – Wall Street Journal, 1/15/202

• Marc Lore, the e-commerce entrepreneur who ran Walmart’s counter attack against Amazon.com, is leaving the retail giant after much of the online operations had been absorbed into the rest of its business.
• Mr. Lore, who founded Jet.com and joined Walmart in 2016 after it bought his startup, pushed the bricks-and-mortar giant to increase its online offerings, including adding more web inventory and distribution centers.
• Walmart said Mr. Lore, its U.S. e-commerce chief, will retire on Jan. 31 and stay as a consultant through September.
• The company said it unified its U.S. store and e-commerce operations in 2020.
• Following Mr. Lore’s exit, the business will continue to report to John Furner, the company’s U.S. chief executive.

Tesla asks U.S. safety agency to declare speed display issue inconsequential – Reuters, 1/15/2021

• Tesla filed a petition with U.S. auto safety regulators saying that 612,000 vehicles produced since 2012 do not fully comply with federal safety standards because displays can be switched from miles per hour to only metric measurements, documents released on Friday show.
• The automaker asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to declare the noncompliance issue inconsequential to safety, according to the agency’s filing.
• Tesla said it corrected the issue in production in September and that more than 75% percent of the affected U.S. vehicles have accepted the firmware update released in September.