BTO News and Press, John Hancock Financial Opportunities Fund From 11/30/20

With plenty of positive news about potential COVID-19 vaccines in November, financial stocks in general have outpaced the S&P 500 in the past month, with consumer finance (red line in chart below), in particular turning in the best performance.Nasdaq U.S. Small Cap Banks Index (green), th...

The Federal Reserve Board, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a statement today to encourage banks to stop entering new contracts that use USD LIBOR as a reference rate ASAP and certainly by the end of 2021, a timeline the government...

20 out of 23 CEF sectors positive on price and 18 out of 23 sectors positive on NAV last week as vaccine rally continues. November distribution changes are updated: boosts to MAV (Taxable Income holding), MHI; cuts to KIO, FSLF. We'll keep track of large annual/special distributio...

As a percentage of the S&P 500's market cap, the Financial sector fell to below 10% to 9.9% of the S&P 500's market cap this summer, down from a 20% just prior to the real estate sector being spun out of the index as its own sector in September 2016. As of last Friday, Novembe...

For the second consecutive month, equity CEFs on average posted negative returns, declining 0.41% on a NAV basis for October. While for the seventh month in a row, fixed income CEFs witnessed returns in the black (+0.03%). Only 11% of all CEFs traded at a premium to their NAV, wit...

Here's a roundup of some sell-side analyst comments on what the election and the uncertainty surrounding it means for financial names.With the odds leaning towards a Biden presidency and a Republican Senate, Glenn Schorr of Evercore ISI sees asset managers benefiting from lower rates/higher m...

Amid the uncertainty of the presidential election, financial stocks are slipping in premarket trading, after rallying in the the past four sessions.The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLF) falls 0.4% in premarket.Wells Fargo Securities analysts led by Mike Mayo advise to buy the d...

S&P Global Ratings sees global debt, as a percentage of GDP, swelling to a record 265% this year and insolvencies and defaults rising to levels not seen since the 2009 crisis.A near-term crisis, though, is unlikely, given the expected economic recovery, a COVID-19 vaccine by mid-2021, fav...

Six Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would specifically prohibit banks and other financial firms from discriminating against customers based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, in an effort to close a loophole in the Civil Rights Act of ...

Earnings have fallen more than 50% this year because of slow loan growth, lower margins, and higher provisions. The excess capital over regulatory minimums should give investors confidence banks can weather further headwinds. Future risks include lower for longer interest rates an...