WASHINGTON—The U.S. program to help tenants and landlords struggling with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is still moving at a slow pace and has delivered a fraction of the promised aid, data released by the Treasury Department on Wednesday show.

Since December, Congress has appropriated a total of $46.6 billion to help tenants who were behind on their rent. As of July 31, just $4.7 billion had been distributed to landlords and tenants, the Treasury said.

Wednesday’s data show that rental aid has begun to move faster in some states, though July’s $1.7 billion reflected only a modest overall increase from the $1.5 billion distributed in June.

While the program is overseen by the Treasury, it relies on a patchwork of more than 450 state, county and municipal governments and charitable organizations to distribute aid. The result: months of delays as local governments built new programs from scratch, hired staff and crafted rules for how the money...

It’s pretty unlikely Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell will announce in his speech Friday that the central bank is officially ready to start pulling back on its asset-buying stimulus effort, economists reckon.

Mr. Powell is set to speak on Friday at 10 a.m. ET as part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual Jackson Hole economic symposium. The event was moved last week to an all-online format because of the rising risks around the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Powell will speak amid broad expectations the Fed will soon be able to pull back on its $120 billion a month in Treasury and mortgage bond purchases, as the job market continues to make a solid pace recovering what it lost during the Covid crisis’s early stages.

Recently released meeting minutes from the Fed’s late July policy gathering showed that officials believed then that asset buying could start to slow down—”taper” in market parlance—by the end of this year. That view is...

Western Digital Corp. is in advanced talks to merge with Japan’s Kioxia Holdings Corp., according to people familiar with the matter, in a deal that could be valued at more than $20 billion and further reorder the global chip industry.

Long-running discussions between the companies have heated up in the past few weeks and they could reach agreement on a deal as early as mid-September, the people said. Western Digital would pay for the deal with stock and the combined company would likely be run by its Chief Executive, David Goeckeler, the people said.

There’s no guarantee Western Digital, which had a market value of around $19 billion Wednesday afternoon, will seal an agreement, and Kioxia could still opt for an initial public offering it had been planning or another combination.

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that Western Digital and Micron Technology Inc. were examining potential deals with Kioxia, which makes NAND flash-memory chips used...

Serbian artist Milos Rajkovic was floored last month when his social-media fans started touting an online sale of his animated, digital portraits as NFTs, or nonfungible tokens. Mr. Rajkovic, who goes by Sholim, had watched NFTs take over the art world, but he had never toyed with them. Horrified, he pulled up the platform OpenSea and found an impostor trying to sell off 122 of his works as NFTs for as much as $50,000 combined.

“People are getting robbed,” Mr. Rajkovic said. The phony page disappeared at one point, but another version has since popped up. “I feel responsible, because they love my work and someone is using me to steal from them. It’s so frustrating.”

NFTs are supercharging the art market, but users warn they have a dark side. Scammers and hackers are increasingly exploiting security gaps in the rapidly expanding marketplace—and artists and collectors who aren’t crypto-literate are proving easy marks, cyber-defense experts say.

Around...

Tad Rivelle, the money manager who helped turn TCW Group Inc. into a bond-investing powerhouse, will retire from the firm at the end of the year.

Steve Kane and Bryan Whalen will succeed Mr. Rivelle as investment chiefs for the firm’s fixed-income division, TCW wrote Wednesday in a note to clients. Messrs. Kane and Whalen, along with Laird Landmann, will remain portfolio managers, the firm said.

A spokesman for TCW confirmed the note’s contents and declined to comment further.

Mr. Rivelle’s departure will break up an investing team that has worked together for more than two decades.

Messrs. Rivelle, Landmann and Kane worked at Pacific Investment Management Co. before co-founding Metropolitan West in 1997. TCW bought MetWest in 2009 to replace another well-known bond manager, Jeffrey Gundlach.

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The stock-trading frenzy seems to be calming down for some of Robinhood Markets ’ customers. The same comedown could happen to its shareholders at current prices.

After an extraordinary period that helped propel the company to a public listing, Robinhood’s stock-trading activity is no longer surging. Daily average revenue trades in equities not only dropped from the huge first quarter but they were flat from the second quarter a year ago, even as Robinhood added well over 10 million accounts in that time span.

In effect, the average funded account traded stocks roughly half as often in the second quarter as it did in the first quarter, or in the second quarter of last year. Equities transaction-based revenue was down from $71 million in the second quarter a year ago to $52 million.

For now, though, cryptocurrency is making up for...

Europe is facing a natural-gas shortage just as Russia is completing a controversial pipeline to Germany, increasing President Vladimir Putin’s leverage over the continent’s energy flows.

Europe’s gas stores are at their lowest levels for years after demand rebounded from a pandemic-induced low that had led producers to slash output. As a result, prices are hitting record levels and utilities are firing up coal-fired power stations to keep their own costs down.

Despite this, Russia, Europe’s biggest gas supplier, has declined to book big additional flows through pipelines in Ukraine, which are running below full capacity.

A large share of Russian gas exports to Europe transits through neighbor Ukraine, but that is expected to change after Russia completes construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which the company running the construction expects to happen this month. This will allow Moscow to export directly to Germany and bypass Ukraine and Poland,...

This column is part of the Heard on the Street stock-picking contest. You’re invited to play along with us here.

The nice thing about being Warner Music these days is that the company still does well even when listeners go old school.

Streaming is now the main driver of the music business, accounting for about 83% of the industry’s $12.2 billion in U.S. revenue last year, according to data from the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. But the industry is also seeing a strong uptick in sales of vinyl albums, which generated nearly $620 million in U.S. sales last year—up 29% from the previous year. That is the highest sales figure for the vinyl format in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1988.

It is all good news for Warner. As still the only pure-play record label on the public market, Warner offers investors exposure across the music industry’s various distribution channels. Most of that is from streaming; digital recorded music and...

Can the acquisition of a small biotech company help turn around a disappointing year for the entire sector?

The question is worth asking after Pfizer announced a buyout of Trillium Therapeutics , a developer of cancer drugs, for $2.26 billion in cash. That price is more than three times Trillium’s market value as of last Friday. A broad index of small and midsize biotech companies rallied more than 4% on Monday.

That burst of euphoria was badly needed for a sector that has struggled even as most growth stocks are thriving. The biotech index is still down about 9% so far this year and has shed nearly 30% from February’s record.

There are clear reasons for that soggy performance. The lingering Covid-19 pandemic has been a bonanza for vaccine developers, but delays in routine care for most patients have resulted in fewer new prescriptions and a slower pace of clinical-trial enrollment.

Regulatory concerns aren’t helping matters. Budgetary...

After suffering through stock selloffs this summer, China’s internet giants are working hard to regain favor with authorities and global investors as the companies try to chart paths back to normalcy.

Shares of two large Chinese online retailers, Pinduoduo Inc. and JD.com Inc., jumped more than 20% in the past two days—recouping a chunk of their heavy losses since July—after the companies reported healthy sales increases in the second quarter and highlighted their contributions to Chinese society. Their performance took some of the focus away from Beijing’s widening regulatory crackdown, which has turned many investors off the once-hot internet sector.

Pinduoduo, a fast-growing e-commerce player known for selling vegetables, groceries and household essentials, reported on Tuesday net income of $373.9 million for the three months ended June. It was the Shanghai-based company’s first net profit since its listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market about three years ago...

Blank-check companies are booming again—in the courts.

Two law professors are aiming at high-profile targets, filing suits that question the legality of a specific type of special-purpose acquisition company. Among them are billionaire William Ackman’s $4 billion Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd. , Go Acquisition Corp , co-founded by veteran entrepreneur Noam Gottesman, and E.Merge Technology Acquisition Corp.

Another line of legal attack is more typical, focusing on SPACs whose shares suffer big falls. These are targeting once-hot companies like electric truck maker Nikola Corp. , which class-action suits claim defrauded investors.

So far this year, there have been 19 of these more typical class-action lawsuits concerning SPACs filed in federal court. Five were filed in all of 2020, according to insurance brokerage Woodruff Sawyer & Co. In 2019, before the SPAC boom lit up the markets, there were two suits.

SPACs were a more popular...

WASHINGTON— Robinhood Markets Inc. has for years given customers a free share of stock for opening an account or referring friends. The practice could soon cost the online brokerage a lot more money.

Brokerages like Robinhood are required to deliver proxy materials to a public company’s shareholders ahead of annual meetings. They are then reimbursed by the public company for the cost of distribution.

This means that Robinhood’s stock giveaways have saddled some companies with larger bills for delivering proxy statements. Now, the practice is sparking a backlash from companies and scrutiny from market regulators.

One company pushing back is Florida-based drugmaker Catalyst Pharmaceuticals Inc., which says Robinhood’s program cost it more than $200,000 last year and could be even more expensive this year.

“Catalyst has become aware that Robinhood has been giving away shares of Catalyst’s common stock at no charge as part of its promotional...

TPG has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to underwrite its planned initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter, moving the private-equity powerhouse closer to a milestone it has flirted with for years.

The Wall Street Journal reported in June that TPG was in the early stages of weighing a public listing that could value it at some $10 billion.

The firm, which at the time was considering both a straightforward IPO and a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, is moving forward with the former and has been drafting paperwork it plans to file confidentially with regulators in the coming weeks, some of the people said. That could set up the shares to start trading by year-end.

“We continue to evaluate strategic alternatives and have nothing to announce at this time,” a TPG spokesman said in a statement.

With headquarters in San Francisco and Fort Worth, Texas, and offices around the...

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As a black-box company in a technical industry, battery startup QuantumScape was always an unlikely investor darling. Chances that it can revive the early hype around its early-stage technology seem slim.

The company, which went public last fall via a special-purpose acquisition company, says it has hit on a wonder material that could, based on initial testing, enable the manufacture of “solid state” batteries with pure lithium anodes. This would be a breakthrough innovation, extending battery range, supporting fast charging and reducing costs. Electric vehicles might finally be as cheap and easy to fill with power as today’s gas ones.

QuantumScape became a stock-market sensation, with a strong following among individual investors. Valued at $3.3 billion in the deal that brought it to market, the company reached a peak enterprise value of...

Eyewear maker Warby Parker Inc. said Tuesday it plans to go public through a direct listing, making the company the latest to shirk the traditional public-offering process.

The direct-to-consumer company in June confidentially filed a draft registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public offering.

Direct listings differ from traditional initial public offerings in that companies take their shares to the stock market directly. Companies are able to save money that in a more traditional IPO would be shelled out to investment banks. This option to go public isn’t as common as traditional IPOs.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc . , data-mining company Palantir Technologies Inc . and streaming platform Spotify Technology SA went public through the direct-listing route.

For the six months ended June 30, Warby Parker had $270.5 million in revenue with losses of $20.4 million. The company generated revenue that...

U.S. companies are rushing to cash in on soaring stock prices.

It isn’t just the white-hot market for initial public offerings. Companies are returning to the public markets to issue shares and raise cash from investors at the same time that existing shareholders are tapping the public market to unload their stockholdings at a record clip.

Companies including Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. have sold billions of dollars of shares this year.

The list of companies tapping the public markets this year is sprinkled with meme stocks that have benefited from the momentum in their share prices such as AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and GameStop Corp.

There have been 556 follow-on offerings, or stock sales by companies or existing shareholders, among U.S. companies this year, the most since 1996, according to Dealogic data. They have raised a total of $133 billion.

This column is part of the Heard on the Street stock-picking contest. You’re invited to play along with us here.

The nice thing about being Warner Music these days is that the company still does well even when listeners go old school.

Streaming is now the main driver of the music business, accounting for about 83% of the industry’s $12.2 billion in U.S. revenue last year, according to data from the Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA. But the industry is also seeing a strong uptick in sales of vinyl albums, which generated nearly $620 million in U.S. sales last year—up 29% from the previous year. That is the highest sales figure for the vinyl format in inflation-adjusted dollars since 1988.

It is all good news for Warner. As still the only pure-play record label on the public market, Warner offers investors exposure across the music industry’s various distribution channels. Most of that is from streaming; digital recorded music and...

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will require employees and visitors entering its offices to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 starting Sept. 7.

In a memo to employees Tuesday, the Wall Street firm said it was also instituting a mask requirement for all common areas starting Wednesday. Vaccinations are available at many of the company’s on-site health centers, Goldman said, and employees get a half-day of paid time off for each dose. Employees who aren’t fully vaccinated by Sept. 7 must work from home, the memo said.

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday granted full approval to the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and partner BioNTech SE .

President Joe Biden, in response, urged private-sector employers to make vaccines mandatory. “I call on you to do that—require it,” he said.

In July, Morgan Stanley began requiring employees and visitors to confirm their vaccination status to enter its offices in New York City and nearby Westchester County....

U.S. stock futures wobbled Wednesday, suggesting muted trading for the indexes a day after the S&P 500 notched its 50th record close of 2021.

Futures tied to the S&P 500 wavered between gains and losses, indicating that the broader market may hover near its all-time high at the market open. Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average also saw tepid moves. Contracts tied to the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 edged down 0.1%.

Investors say they are holding off on any big new bets going into the end of the week because they are awaiting fresh insights from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell at the central bank’s Jackson Hole symposium Friday. Money managers are torn over whether the Fed will proceed with scaling back its bond purchases in coming months, given the uptick in Covid-19 cases and some signs that the economic recovery is slowing.

“It is wait-and-see because we’re getting to the point where we think we’ll get some definitive...

Meme stocks were ticking higher after a rally on Tuesday saw  GameStop  and  AMC Entertainment surge 28% and 20%, respectively, while other names including  BlackBerry ,   Koss  and  Naked Brand Group  also jumped. Premarket Wednesday AMC gained another 5.7%, GameStop ticked up 1.2% and Naked Brand jumped 4.8%.

U.S. stocks rose Tuesday, giving the S&P 500 another record as the approval of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine continued to lift sentiment.

The S&P 500 gained 0.15%, pushing the benchmark index to its 50th record close of 2021. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1%, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.5%, setting up its first close above 15000.

The full approval from U.S. regulators for the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and partner BioNTech has raised hopes that more unvaccinated people will get the shot, potentially diminishing a threat to the economic outlook.

“The more that we have people vaccinated, the more that we have a chance at seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for Covid being the dominant headline of the day,” said Beata Kirr, co-head of investment strategies at Bernstein Private Wealth Management.

Stocks have been grinding higher as investors weigh strong corporate earnings and the economic rebound...

A gap has formed between the demand for goods in the well vaccinated U.S. and the capacity of sparsely vaccinated manufacturing countries to meet it, building inflationary pressure. The outbreaks in Vietnam and elsewhere add to a long list of challenges—including outbreaks at ports, freight-container shortages and rising raw-material prices—that companies face in delivering goods at low cost and on time ahead of the holiday season.

Vietnam, which has given two vaccine doses to less than 3% of its population, has seen a surge in cases over the past six weeks driven by the Delta variant. The country’s strict Covid-19 containment policies—including locking down villages and quarantining tens of thousands of people in military barracks and other state-run centers—worked for the first 14 months of the pandemic, as it pumped out exercise equipment, electronics and pajamas for Western consumers.

But the Delta variant has slipped through Vietnam’s defenses—just as it...

WASHINGTON—The House was expected to narrowly pass a measure Tuesday locking in a late September vote on a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure bill and passing a $3.5 trillion budget framework, closing a rift with centrist Democrats over how to move forward with President Biden’s legislative agenda.

House Democratic leaders had made a series of late changes to win the support of party centrists, who had earlier balked at approving the budget blueprint without voting first on the infrastructure bill.

Approval of the budget blueprint is the first procedural step in unlocking a process to muscle through a $3.5 trillion education, healthcare and climate package in the Senate without GOP support.

House Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D., Mass.) on Tuesday changed the procedural motion, known as a rule, to specify that the House would consider the infrastructure bill on Sept. 27, if it hadn’t already done so. Democrats on Monday beefed up the rule so...

The coronavirus pandemic has heated up the long simmering debate on whether a swath of workers should need a license for jobs such as hair braiding, nursing and fitness training.

More than 1,100 occupations are licensed in at least one state, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Last year, 29 million workers, nearly a quarter of those employed full time, held a license, the Labor Department said. In the 1950s, about 5% of workers had licenses, according to researchers.

President Biden, a Democrat, and some congressional Republicans say the need to hold a license to work in many different roles blocks Americans from taking well-paying jobs. Those concerns have been raised as job openings rose to a record 10.1 million at the end of June, but 3.4 million fewer workers were in the labor force that month versus February 2020, before the pandemic took hold in the U.S.

Advocates of the requirements say licenses and regulations around...