Wall Street Seems Calm. A Closer Look Shows Something Else.
The S&P 500 has climbed sharply this year, with few big swings. Below the surface, though, there’s a great deal of turmoil
By Joe Rennison
I write about different financial markets, from U.S. government bonds to global stocks, currencies and debt. I am interested in conveying what financial markets can tell us about the world, breaking through the jargon and making them more intelligible to our readers.
I have been a financial journalist for more than a decade. I began my career at a magazine called Risk, digging into the details of legislation introduced after the 2008 financial crisis, from rules around how much capital banks should hold to changes in the market for derivatives that had helped inflate the credit bubble that led to the Great Recession. I moved to The Financial Times in 2015 to cover the more complex corners of markets, such as sliced and diced structured bonds, before branching out to write about interest rates, debt and the stock market. I left the FT as the paper’s deputy U.S. markets editor and joined The Times in 2022.
I graduated in 2010 with a degree in philosophy, logic and scientific method from the London School of Economics and Political Science. A native Brit, I moved to the U.S. at the end of 2012 and now live in Brooklyn with my wife and our two cats.
The Times instills very high ethical standards that I adhere to with an abundance of caution. I do not actively trade any securities. My retirement account and personal savings are in broad-based indexes that are unlikely to be swayed by my reporting. I don’t directly own individual stocks or even narrow-sector indexes. I do not accept gifts from sources (I even choose to pay for my own coffee at meetings). I do not publicly engage with political discourse and refrain from political donations (including charitable donations that may be perceived as political), as per The Times’s guidelines.
Please get in touch if you have thoughts on how to improve my coverage of financial markets, a story you think I should dig into, or even just to say hello.
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The S&P 500 has climbed sharply this year, with few big swings. Below the surface, though, there’s a great deal of turmoil
By Joe Rennison
The chip maker’s stock price has jumped over the last year thanks to its stranglehold on the market for the chips needed to build A.I. systems.
By Tripp Mickle and Joe Rennison
Stocks have recently set records as investors bet that the Federal Reserve might opt to cut interest rates sooner than previously expected.
By Joe Rennison
The distress in commercial real estate is growing as some office buildings sell for much lower prices than just a few years ago.
By Joe Rennison and Julie Creswell
The Texas Stock Exchange, based in Dallas, has the backing of BlackRock and Citadel Securities. But challengers to the dominant New York markets have gained little traction.
By Joe Rennison
Investors seized on the latest inflation report as another sign that interest rates could be cut this year, helping push the S&P 500 past its March record.
By Joe Rennison
Prices rose 3.4 percent in April from a year earlier, a slight easing from the previous month and a positive sign for the Federal Reserve.
By Ben Casselman
A cooler-than-expected jobs report for April shifted the tone on Wall Street, rekindling investors’ expectations that the Federal Reserve may cut rates soon.
By J. Edward Moreno and Joe Rennison
This was featured in live coverage.
By Joe Rennison and Karl Russell
This was featured in live coverage.
By Joe Rennison
Two-thirds of the roughly 150 currencies have weakened against the dollar, whose strength stems from high interest rates because of stubborn inflation.
By Joe Rennison and Karl Russell
The former president is in line for a windfall after the stock price of Trump Media hit performance targets in its first few weeks of trading, raising the value of his already sizable stake.
By Jason Karaian and Joe Rennison
A rally at the start of the year has given way to worries on Wall Street about economics and geopolitics.
By Joe Rennison
The Fed chair, along with the central bank’s No. 2 policymaker, stressed uncertainties over job growth and the persistence of elevated inflation.
By Ben Casselman and Jim Tankersley
Funds that bet on a fall were set to profit as the parent of Truth Social came under renewed pressure after it registered new shares for a potential sale.
By Matthew Goldstein and Joe Rennison
Investors had been put on edge by a stronger-than-expected inflation report earlier in the week. Rising tension in the Middle East heading into the weekend gave them another reason to retreat.
By Joe Rennison
Stocks fell and bond yields jumped as investors reassessed when the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates.
By Joe Rennison
The move has puzzled Wall Street, as it comes as the outlook for the economy has improved and inflation has generally cooled.
By Joe Rennison
The parent company of Truth Social is a popular target for short-sellers, even after they lost $100 million last month betting on a decline in the stock that didn’t come.
By Joe Rennison
A rapid fall in price erased billions of dollars in the market value of the parent company of Truth Social, eating into some of the gains made in the volatile stock’s public debut.
By Joe Rennison and Matthew Goldstein
The S&P 500, rising 10 percent, set the pace as investors looked forward to interest rate cuts.
By Joe Rennison
Trump Media & Technology Group, fresh from a merger with a cash-rich shell company, started trading on the Nasdaq, adding billions of dollars to the former president’s wealth.
By Matthew Goldstein and Joe Rennison
The influx of cash reflects optimism about the economy and company earnings despite high interest rates and stubborn inflation.
By Joe Rennison
This was featured in live coverage.
By Joe Rennison
Also, Japan’s interest rate hike and M.L.B.’s season opener.
By Amelia Nierenberg
Higher inflation and rising wages suggest that the country’s economy can grow without such aggressive stimulus from the central bank.
By Joe Rennison and Kiuko Notoya
It was the S&P 500’s best day in more than a year, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 3 percent.
By Joe Rennison
The chipmaker’s high “price to sales” ratio reflects investor enthusiasm around its growth prospects. But relying on that metric created trouble during the dot-com boom.
By Joe Rennison
A shift in investors’ outlook for Japan has encouraged a flurry of cash into the country’s markets.
By Joe Rennison and Jason Karaian
Traders and strategists are thinking about all the ways that November’s election could alter the mood in markets.
By Joe Rennison