News for The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GOS.F)

Oil rallied to the highest in nearly two years in New York.

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. traders are poised for significant profits from the freeze that roiled energy markets and left swaths of the U.S. without electricity last month. That is, if they can collect.

Saudi Arabia just made a high-stakes wager against "drill, baby, drill."

(Bloomberg) -- SoftBank Group Corp.’s Chief Strategy Officer Katsunori Sago is planning to quit after less than three years at the company, as other executives gain prominence at the Japanese investment conglomerate.The Goldman Sachs veteran who joined SoftBank in June 2018 will resign on March 31, SoftBank said in a statement late on Friday. The Tokyo-based company was confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.The 53-year-old is a key member of founder Masayoshi Son’s inner circle and something of a celebrity in Japan’s world of finance. Prior to joining SoftBank, Sago spent more than two decades at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., rising to become vice chairman of its operations in the country. During a three-year stint at state-owned Japan Post Bank Co., he spearheaded a portfolio shift away from sovereign bonds.But little is known about his work at SoftBank. The company has never clearly defined his role as CSO, a position that did not exist prior to his joining. Over the past few years, he has assembled a small team of former Goldman bankers and set up an investment department in April.“Sago-san dedicated himself to a variety of projects by bringing a whole new perspective as SBG transforms into a strategic investment holding company,” Son said in the statement. “He played a crucial part in expanding SBG’s potential as an investment company.”Rumors about his departure began to circulate late last year as Sago seemed increasingly adrift while other Son lieutenants, including Chief Operating Officer Marcelo Claure and Vision Fund head Rajeev Misra, began to take more prominent roles in public markets and startup investment.In November, SoftBank said Sago and three other directors will leave the board in an effort to increase the proportion of outside directors and improve corporate governance. The executive earned 1.11 billion yen ($10.2 million) in the year ended March 2020, a 13% increase from the previous year.Sago’s the latest in a string of executive departures at the group. In January, Bloomberg News learned that Vision Fund managing partner Colin Fan, a former Deutsche Bank AG banker who’d focused on technology bets, was leaving along with Jeff Housenbold, the managing partner involved in its bets on startups including DoorDash Inc. and dog-walking startup Wag. Fan had overseen the fund’s investment in troubled lender Greensill Capital.Read More: SoftBank Executive Colin Fan Steps Back From Vision FundThe Vision Fund decided to cut headcount by as much as 15% last year in a round of job cuts after the business reported an $18 billion loss because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The cuts disproportionately focused on employees who supported portfolio companies, people familiar with the matter said at the time. Claure’s SoftBank Group International arm reduced its staff by 26 out of 230, a person familiar with the matter said.(Updates with background on previous executive departures in final two paragraphs)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Oil moved above $65 a barrel after OPEC+ chose not to relax supply curbs even as the global economy pulls out of its pandemic-driven slump.

(Bloomberg) -- Gold has in little over two months gone from being a favored reflation bet to heading for its worst first quarter in almost four decades.The change of fortune comes as higher yields dent the appeal of bullion, which offers no interest. At the same time, optimism that the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines will drive a global recovery has pushed investors to switch from the traditional haven to other assets.Gold’s turnaround has been sharp. After enjoying its best year in a decade, the metal has slumped more than 10% in 2021. Investor inflows into exchange-traded funds, which supported the metal’s surge to a record above $2,075 an ounce in August, have gone into reverse. While inflation expectations are rising, which some investors say should support gold, that’s being overshadowed for now by the effects of rising yields.On Friday, the metal touched the lowest in almost nine months after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stopped short of forcefully pushing back against the recent surge in long-term borrowing costs, sending U.S. Treasury yields soaring. During an appearance in a Wall Street Journal webinar Thursday, Powell said the recent bond-market swings “caught my attention.” He said he is monitoring financial conditions and would be “concerned” by disorderly markets.“Although inflation is becoming a theme, gold is struggling,” Robert Jan van Der Mark, a portfolio manager at Aegon NV who sold his gold holdings in late November. “The recent move in U.S. yields was also mainly driven by real yields moving up, not really by break-even inflation. That’s not helping gold prices.”For some, the vaccine breakthroughs in November proved a turning point, with Bank of America Corp. dropping its previous bold forecast of $3,000 for bullion. Others are playing catch-up. Hedge funds have slashed their long positions to the lowest since May 2019, while banks from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to UBS Group AG are racing to lower their forecasts for the precious metal.Investor disillusionment with bullion is partly being fueled by the arrival of a new competitor: Bitcoin. Those fearing currency debasement now have an alternative asset whose supply is inherently limited, with the digital currency surging this year.“Some investors are clearly looking at Bitcoin and digital assets as a replacement for gold,” Aakash Doshi, an analyst at Citigroup Inc., wrote in a note. “There is a material enough overlap of retail and more importantly institutional dollars in these markets.”Still, it may be premature to write off gold, with signs of a recovery in the physical markets that were particularly hard-hit during the pandemic last year.Indian jewelry demand is rebounding from a more-than two-decade low, with prices falling below the psychologically important level of 50,000 rupees ($688) per 10 grams, which kept buyers away last year. In China, gold is now trading at a premium to London prices after being cheaper for most of 2020, another sign of recovering demand.“On a longer-term view, we see gold moving higher given supportive trends such as rising incomes in emerging markets boosting physical demand and global annual mined production continuing to decline,” said Evy Hambro, global head of thematic and sector based investing at BlackRock Inc.Still, that may be some way off as improving growth prospects mean there’s little appetite for the haven asset in the immediate-term. Holdings in gold-backed ETFs have declined to the lowest since June and spot bullion prices down 0.1% at $1,695.13 an ounce on Friday to head for a third weekly loss.“Higher rates and an improving economy are suppressing gold,” said Patrick Armstrong, chief investment officer at Plurimi Wealth LLP, who cut his funds’ exposure to the metal by half in November. “In our base case, gold won’t do well.”(Updates with price move in penultimate paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Morgan Stanley is expanding a program to recruit Black professionals into its markets business regardless of their experience in financial services, bank executives said. Last Fall, the Wall Street giant launched the Morgan Stanley Experienced Professional Program, which invites Black professionals from any field to apply, in a bid to improve diversity within the business after nationwide protests against racial inequality over the summer. The structure was meant to cast a wider net to reach qualified candidates typically missed by the traditional Morgan Stanley recruitment process, said Derek Melvin, a managing director in the fixed income division who designed the program.

(Bloomberg) -- Major oil sands producers in Western Canada will idle almost half a million barrels a day of production next month, helping tighten global supplies as oil prices surge.Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s plans to conduct 30 days of maintenance at its Horizon oil sands upgrader in April will curtail roughly 250,000 barrels a day of light synthetic crude output, company President Tim McKay said in an interview Thursday. Work on the Horizon upgrader coincides with maintenance at other cites.Suncor Energy Inc. plans a major overhaul of its U2 crude upgrader, cutting output by 130,000 barrels a day over the entire second quarter. Syncrude Canada Ltd. will curb 70,000 barrels a day during the quarter because of maintenance in a unit.The supply cuts out of Northern Alberta, following a surprise OPEC+ decision to not increase output next month, could add more support to the recent rally in crude prices. OPEC+ had been debating whether to restore as much as 1.5 million barrels a day of output in April but decided to wait.The Saudi-led alliance closely monitors other major oil producers as it seeks to manage the entire global market, and surging production in North America was its biggest headache in recent years -- especially from U.S. shale but also from Canada.“The U.S., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Canada, Brazil and other well endowed countries with hydrocarbon reserves -- we need to work with each other, collaboratively,” Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said after the group’s meeting on Thursday.Read More: Saudis Bet ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Is Over in Push for Pricier OilCanada’s contribution to balancing the market with less production, much like slowing output in the U.S., is not a deliberate market-management strategy but significant nonetheless.Even though the output cuts are short-term, the battered oil-sands industry shouldn’t be a concern for the Saudis in the long run either, judging from McKay’s outlook for the industry.“I can’t see much growth in the oil sands happening because there is going to be less demand in the future,” he said. “The first step is we have to get our carbon footprint down.”After years of rising output turned Canada into the world’s fourth-largest crude producer, expansion projects have nearly halted on the heels of two market crashes since 2014.Adding to its struggles, Canada’s oil industry is being shunned by some investors such as Norway’s $1.3 trillion wealth fund amid concern that the higher carbon emissions associated with oil sands extraction will worsen climate change. These forces help make future growth in the oil sands unlikely, said McKay, whose company is among the largest producers in the country.Oil sands upgraders turn the heavy bitumen produced in oil sands mines into light synthetic crude that’s similar to benchmarks West Texas Intermediate and Brent. Syncrude Sweet Premium for April gained 60 cents on Thursday to $1.50 a barrel premium to WTI, the strongest price since May, NE2 Group data show.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Gold Bulls Lose Steam for Now as Yields Trump Inflation Bet

By keeping a tight grip on supply at OPEC+ meet, Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman showed he’s focused on boosting prices -- and confident that this time around it won’t encourage American producers to surge back and steal market share

SPAC Froth Turns on Itself With Stocks Plunging 20% in Two Weeks

Its increasing influence means carrying out objectives becoming more fraught with political, public-relation pitfalls

The annual gathering of the National People’s Congress carries an added significance this year with the Communist Party’s unveiling of its new five-year plan

Prosecutors accused Robert Brockman, a litigious, sometimes penny-pinching software entrepreneur, of hiding $2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

Prosecutors accused Robert Brockman, a litigious, sometimes penny-pinching software entrepreneur, of hiding $2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service.

A tech-market boom has yielded huge gains for Tencent, which has invested in hundreds of up-and-coming businesses and is now sitting on a portfolio worth roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

A tech-market boom has yielded huge gains for Tencent, which has invested in hundreds of up-and-coming businesses and is now sitting on a portfolio worth roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

Citigroup has some of the deepest business relationships with the Kingdom and its massive business empire.

Compass Inc., a SoftBank-backed company that’s among the largest real estate brokerages in the U.S., filed for an initial public offering, disclosing growing revenue and shrinking losses. The New York-based startup in its filing Monday listed the size of the offering as $500 million, a…