Financial giant State Street Corp. is vacating its two New York City office locations.

Executives at the Boston firm told New York staffers they won’t be returning to its Midtown Manhattan offices, according to people familiar with the matter. It expects to sublease the two offices near Rockefeller Center to other companies.

Many of State Street’s New York employees have worked remotely since the pandemic’s early days. The financial firm, like others, sent staffers to work from home when infections started surging across the country. Later, U.S. employees who needed an office could go into work if they followed safety protocols. The firm’s New York offices remained sparsely occupied.

In May, State Street told New York staffers to prepare for the closure of their offices. More than 500 employees across the firm’s custody bank and money-management businesses will be affected, some of the people said.

State Street is...

I get uncomfortable when I can’t understand what’s going on in the markets, and I’m not really happy with my explanation for the weirdness of the Treasury market over the past few months. Given that pretty much everything else rests on Treasurys behaving sensibly, my level of discomfort is high.

The core of the problem is that as inflation soared, bond yields fell, creating an instant contradiction: Inflation is poison to bond investors, so they would normally be expected to sell. I have an explanation, but it isn’t perfect.

My take: Investors came to the realization that the huge post-pandemic debt burden will keep rates lower than in the past, while they kept faith that inflation will be manageable. There is little to indicate investors fear a recession-inducing mistake by the Federal Reserve, and they aren’t expecting runaway inflation either.

The market response from March to the start of this month can be thought of as pricing in a repeat of the...

Companies are sitting on a record amount of cash amid lingering uncertainty about disruptions from Covid-19, defying expectations earlier this year that a waning pandemic would unleash a spending spree.

Cash and short-term investments on corporate balance sheets globally are at an all-time high of $6.84 trillion, according to data from S&P Global, extrapolated from second-quarter earnings reports. That is 45% higher than the average in the five years preceding the pandemic and a 2.6% increase from the previous quarter.

In April, analysts at Goldman Sachs had lifted their 2021 forecast for spending growth by S&P 500 companies to 19% from 10%, “as uncertainty continues to fall and global economies continue to reopen.”

But global capital expenditures are expected to slow in the third quarter after a strong start to the year, according to an Aug. 6 report by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Corporate spending growth is forecast to decline to 5.8% this...

China’s July economic data was expected to be bad, and it delivered on those low expectations: industrial output, retail sales and investment all slowed markedly.

Much of that weakness is almost certainly related to recent catastrophic flooding in Henan and the continuing Delta variant outbreak, which now appears to be slowly coming under control in the country. But not all of it is tied to temporary factors, and that means more economic policy support is probably imminent: Just don’t expect it to be on last year’s scale. To see why, look past the volatile headline figures to the things the government cares about most: jobs and financial stability.

Although the travails of heavily indebted property developer Evergrande have punished its dollar bonds, there is little sign so far of the kind of broad contagion in domestic credit markets that would prompt large-scale intervention by the central bank. But there are some jitters, which is one reason to think that a...

A little-known organic garden center supplier has outpaced the likes of Amazon and Netflix on the stock market throughout the pandemic. Knotty cannabis laws should continue to fertilize its growth.

Nasdaq-listed GrowGeneration owns a chain of 58 stores across the U.S. that sell “hydroponic” equipment including the heat lamps and trays needed to grow plants indoors without soil. The gear can be used for trendy organic vertical farming. But most of GrowGeneration’s business is done with cannabis growers, including everyone from big U.S. cultivators to home-grow enthusiasts.

Demand for hydroponic equipment is booming as more states legalize cannabis. Connecticut, New Mexico, Virginia and New York all gave adult-use marijuana the green light this year. Cannabis sales have been exceptionally strong throughout the pandemic as dispensaries were allowed to stay open during lockdowns and stimulus checks put extra cash in consumers’ pockets. In the second quarter of...

Small investors are piling back into the cryptocurrency market, helping drive prices higher even as traders face uncertainty over proposed tax regulations in Washington.

Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, ether, dogecoin and other altcoins have rebounded in recent weeks from their midyear pullback, returning to levels not seen in months. Bitcoin on Friday traded at $47,544, its highest close since May 15, giving it a 64% gain for the year. Rival currency ether is up 344% for the year, while dogecoin—the joke cryptocurrency beloved by retail investors—traded at 28 cents, up more than 5,500% for the year.

Behind the recent moves, data show, is a resurgence in interest from individual investors, who have waded back in after cryptocurrencies received a jolt of momentum in late July. At the time, Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk said while speaking at “The B Word” conference co-hosted by the Crypto Council for Innovation that he and his rocket company, SpaceX,...

Oil prices fell on Monday, extending a recent stretch of turbulent trading after data showing that China’s economic recovery slowed more than anticipated last month.

U.S. crude prices slid 2.9% to $66.43 a barrel, dropping to around their lowest levels since late May and about 12% below last month’s multiyear high. Prices have retreated as cases of the Delta variant of the coronavirus surge around the world, fueling fears that a new wave of travel restrictions will soften demand for fuel.

The spread of the Delta variant and extreme weather contributed to a larger-than-expected slowdown in China’s economy in July, figures released Monday showed. Indicators of industrial, consumption and investment activity all showed growth retreating faster than expected and decelerating from June’s yearly growth rates.

The data are a concern for commodity traders because China is the world’s largest importer of oil and a huge consumer of other raw materials such as...

A few years ago most investors had never even heard of “air taxis.” Now they need to decide whether to board early movers with a high-altitude but low-definition view of the potential market, or else wait for the technology to land somewhere more specific.

On Wednesday, California-based Joby Aviation completed its merger with a special-purpose acquisition company. Its shares initially popped 40%, confirming that investors were counting the days until the first air-taxi company reached the stock market. They will soon get more options: Archer Aviation, Vertical Aerospace and Lilium Air Mobility also focus on electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles, or eVTOL, and are scheduled to close similar deals. Others may be waiting in the wings, such as the lesser-known Swiss startup Dufour Aerospace, which is putting a special focus on air ambulances.

For eVTOL vehicles, the most feasible road to success is to become a replacement for the world’s 23,000 commercial...

Online used-car dealer Carvana Co. , known for its vehicle vending-machine towers, has a secret sauce to its business success: a way of handling car loans that turbocharges revenue.

The company has become a market darling during the pandemic, benefiting from huge demand and high prices for used vehicles. Its stock has skyrocketed more than 1000% since the depth of the Covid-19-related selloff in March 2020 and is now valued at more than Ford Motor Co. at about $63 billion.

Part of the attraction to investors: selling cars is only part of what makes Carvana money. In the second quarter, around 36% of the company’s gross profit per unit came from selling loans it made to customers to buy the cars. Retail sales accounted for 39% of gross profit per unit, Carvana’s preferred earnings measure. Other types of income, including from vehicle-servicing contracts, made up the rest.

Last quarter, the loan surge helped Carvana earn its first ever quarterly...

The latest Chinese market to buckle under pressure from Beijing’s wide-ranging corporate crackdown: junk bonds.

Companies from China make up the bulk of Asia’s roughly $300 billion high-yield dollar bond market, thanks to a surge in borrowing by the country’s heavily indebted property developers. But the investor optimism that drove that borrowing has collapsed.

Stress has been building following a string of debt defaults and growing concern about a few large issuers, including property giant China Evergrande Group . Sharp price declines in its bonds and those of a few other large Chinese companies, plus concerns about tighter regulation aimed at reining in speculation and soaring housing prices, have pushed the market over the edge.

“There’s a confidence crisis in Chinese high-yield debt,” said Paul Lukaszewski, head of corporate debt for the Asia Pacific region at Aberdeen Standard Investments in Singapore.

The average yield of...

Crude prices are dropping after the weak Chinese data, and that is in turn dragging oil stocks lower. Occidental Petroleum was down 2.6% premarket, Halliburton shed 1.7% and Exxon Mobil slipped 1.3%. Paysafe shares dropped 6% ahead of the bell after it reported quarterly earnings and reaffirmed its outlook. Shares of electric-vehicle makers were losing their spark. Tesla fell 1.7% premarket, U.S.-traded shares of Chinese competitor Nio were 4.6% and Lordstown Motors shed 2.8%.

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Small-business confidence dropped in August to its lowest level since early spring, as the rise in Covid-19 cases due to the highly transmissible Delta variant put a damper on expectations and turned entrepreneurs more cautious.

Thirty-nine percent of small-business owners expect economic conditions in the U.S. to improve in the next 12 months, down from 50% in July and 67% in March, according to a survey of more than 560 small businesses for The Wall Street Journal by Vistage Worldwide Inc., a business coaching and peer advisory firm.

The measure is one part of a broader confidence index that also tracks metrics such as small-business owners’ outlook for their companies and their investment and hiring plans. That overall figure remains positive, but fell to its lowest level since March.

At Wizard Studios, an event production company with 25 employees, bookings jumped in May after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted mask mandates. The...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average eked out a modest gain as of 4 p.m. ET for a new record as investors drew confidence from a blockbuster round of earnings.

The blue-chip index added 16 points, less than 0.1%, to close at 35515. The S&P 500 climbed 0.2% for its 48th all-time closing high of 2021. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged higher less than 0.1%.

Stocks have ground higher in thin summer trading, bolstered by a rapid pace of earnings growth at the biggest American companies, even as the spread of the Delta variant threatens to sap some speed from the economic recovery. Companies including Walt Disney and Tyson Foods posted a big jump in profits this week, and 86% of S&P 500 constituents that have filed quarterly reports have beaten analysts’ expectations.

“There’s been a lot of reasons for people to remain optimistic,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Advisor Alliance. “I do think the stock market moves...

The hacker or hackers that plundered over $600 million of cryptocurrency assets from a decentralized finance platform have now returned almost all of the money.

The assets were transferred back to blockchain addresses controlled by Poly Network on Friday, according to an emailed statement from the company. Still outstanding are $33 million of tether tokens that were frozen in the hacker’s address.

Poly Network is also still waiting for the hacker to provide access, known as the final key, to the wallet containing the returned crypto.

On Tuesday, Poly Network posted on Twitter that it had been hacked and cryptocurrencies including ether, tokens backed by and Shiba Inu coins had been taken. Blockchain security company SlowMist said the missing assets were valued at $610 million.

The hacker or hackers, who haven’t been publicly identified, then began returning the assets, with the first $260 million arriving by Wednesday, saying in a series of posts...

Walt Disney Co. now has to pull off the difficult balancing act of entertaining people at home while also drawing them back out. The entertainment giant proved adept at both in its latest quarter.

Disney’s results for its fiscal third quarter ended July 3 showed both an acceleration in growth in its vital streaming business and a strong recovery trend for its theme parks.

The first reporting period to mirror last year’s full shutdown created an easy comparison; combined revenue for domestic and international parks soared 867% year over year to nearly $3.2 billion. That also exceeded Wall Street’s forecast, with the additional surprise of domestic parks eking out a small profit for the first time since the start of the pandemic. The period included the reopening of the company’s Disneyland resort in Southern California.

Early signs of the parks’ recovery were evident in the company’s last report three months ago. But that report also included...

This column is part of the Heard on the Street Stock Picking Contest. You’re invited to play along with us here.

In the 1993 comedy film “Groundhog Day,” Bill Murray has to wake up several times on the same day to realize tomorrow isn’t coming so soon. Online travel investors need to be quicker than that.

As of Thursday’s close, shares of homestay giant Airbnb are down 30% from their February highs this year. They are now trading just 21% above lows seen last December amid pandemic lockdowns. This is despite the fact that Airbnb’s bookings were already growing as of the first quarter relative to pre-pandemic levels. And on Thursday, the company said its second-quarter gross booking value was up 37% over the same period in 2019. For investors, that presents an opportunity.

Contrast those results with those of online travel agent Expedia Group , whose stock is now well above where it traded before anyone saw Covid-19 coming, even though it reported...

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Vaccination is increasingly a requirement to be hired, as employers ranging from accounting and software firms to schools and restaurants are asking applicants to be inoculated against Covid-19.

The share of job postings stating that a new hire must be vaccinated has nearly doubled in the past month, according to the job search site Indeed. The total number remains low, roughly 1,200 postings requiring a vaccination per million in the first week of August. But that is well up from about 600 in early July, and about 50 per million job postings in early February.

Many of the postings don’t explicitly name Covid-19 as the vaccine required for employment, said Indeed economist AnnElizabeth Konkel, who wrote the report, but broader context of the job descriptions suggested most employers were referring to the coronavirus vaccine, as opposed to other shots. Early this year, before Covid-19 vaccines were widely available in the U.S., very few job postings outside of...

Chime Financial Inc. raised $750 million in its latest funding round, in a move that values the financial-technology startup at about $25 billion and sets it up for an initial public offering as early as next year.

New Chime investor Sequoia Capital Global Equities led the funding round, Chime officials said. Others participating include SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2 as well as existing investors General Atlantic, Tiger Global Management LLC and Dragoneer Investment Group LLC.

The funding round positions Chime for a potential IPO in the first half of 2022, a person familiar with the matter said. In a step that helps lay the groundwork for a listing, the company on Friday announced three new independent board members: Cynthia Marshall, chief executive of the Dallas Mavericks NBA team; Jimmy Dunne, vice chairman of investment bank Piper Sandler Cos.; and Susan Decker, who is also a board member at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

San...

First Guangdong, and the port of Yantian in Shenzhen. Now Jiangsu, and the port of Ningbo in neighboring Zhejiang. China is battling its second outbreak of the hyper-contagious delta coronavirus variant since late spring. The latest wave, which apparently began at the airport in the Jiangsu provincial capital of Nanjing, has spread to more than half of China’s provinces.

The economic damage is already becoming apparent as tourism withers again and exporters face new logistics bottlenecks during the peak late-summer season. Goldman Sachs has cut its 2021 growth estimate to 8.3% from 8.6%, while Morgan Stanley dropped its forecast to 8.2% from 8.7%. Those are significant downgrades, but still aren’t the real worry.

China may well bring this latest wave under control—as it has all the others—with a potent combination of mass testing, targeted lockdowns, quarantines and contact tracing. But what is now becoming clear is that this cat-and-mouse pattern could go on...

Brazilian meat conglomerate JBS SA said it has proposed to buy the portion of chicken processor Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. it doesn’t already own, during a boom time for the often-cyclical chicken industry.

The offer for the roughly 20% stake is valued at about $1.3 billion, based on Pilgrim’s Pride’s 243.7 million shares outstanding, according to FactSet. At $26.50 a share in cash, the offer represents a nearly 17% premium to Thursday’s closing price of $22.68 for Greeley, Colo.-based Pilgrim’s Pride. The offer comes as surging demand for chicken breasts, wings and other products has propelled poultry prices while restaurants reopen.

JBS, which already owns about 80.2% of Pilgrim’s Pride, on Friday said its proposal is subject to the approval of a special committee of Pilgrim’s Pride board members.

The São Paulo company said it is only looking to buy the rest of Pilgrim’s Pride and it has no interest in selling its stake in the chicken processor. JBS agreed...