Latest news with #Goliaths
Mint
11-06-2025
- Business
- Mint
Pope Leo Inherits Cleaned Up Vatican Bank That's Making Money
(Bloomberg) -- From offices just off St. Peter's Square in the Vatican, Jean-Baptiste Douville de Franssu, a former executive at the money-management firm Invesco Ltd., and Gian Franco Mammì watch over €5.7 billion ($6.5 billion) at one of the world's most-exclusive banks. It's a pittance compared with the trillions shuffled around by the Goliaths in London or New York. But the stockpile of assets and portfolio investments is serving the higher purpose of putting a small dent in the financial strains that have squeezed the Catholic Church for years. The Institute for Works of Religion, or the Vatican Bank as it's known, provides traditional banking services and oversees investments for institutions tied to the church. Last year, it continued to draw in new cash, increasing its assets under management to a 10-year high, and is seeking to build on the record by showing it can continue to beat its benchmarks even by sticking to investments in line with the ethics of the faith. 'Financial markets have no mercy,' de Franssu, the IOR's president, said in an interview. 'If IOR doesn't deliver what it is expected from IOR, we will be in serious trouble.' The bank's profits rose about 7% to €32.8 million in 2024, according to figures released Wednesday. Those earnings, which are used to pay dividends to the church, won't make up for the hole left in the Vatican's budget due to declining worldwide donations, administrative costs and retirement bills. But it indicates the bank is making some strides toward shedding the reputation for mismanagement and secrecy that resulted in several public scandals surrounding investment losses, criminal probes and clandestine love affairs. De Franssu and Mammì — a more than three-decade employee who has been director general since 2015 — said Pope Leo XIV has indicated that he intends to continue the process started by Pope Francis to clean up the institution that effectively serves as the family office for the world's largest faith. De Franssu was brought in in 2014 after three decades of scandals, from the Banco Ambrosiano failure in the 1980s to the freezing of €23m by Italian prosecutors in 2010, tarnished the IOR's image and prompted Francis, to make financial transparency a priority. Since then, it has it began publishing annual reports and revamped its management structure, ceding more oversight to lay people like de Franssu. It also adopted regulations aimed at bringing the bank into compliance with international financial standards, which led to the closure of thousands of accounts. The IOR has also hired from investment banks including Citigroup Inc. and Intesa Sanpaolo SpA. Over the past three and five years, 10 of its 13 flagship investment funds outranked a majority of their peers, according to the report released Wednesday, and its executives are hopeful that the first American pope will encourage more US institutions affiliated with the church to shift their money to Rome. 'We have shown you can beat benchmarks with purely ethical investments,' Mammì said in the interview. 'If you want to speculate — if you want to reach that additional 2% in return — I suggest you go elsewhere.' While The IOR is not part of the Holy See's core annual budget, it is one of the key institutions in the financial management of the Vatican. It shares responsibility with the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See for the management of the Holy See's real estate and movable assets. For 2024, the IOR board proposed a €13.8 million dividend to the Commission of Cardinals, which uses it to pay for activities linked to religion and charity or as a contribution to the Holy See's coffers. In the last few years the dividends have been lower than they were before 2014, which Mammì said reflects the bank's efforts to better control its finances. While the Holy See as a whole hasn't published a full budget report since 2022, the last set of accounts for year 2024 included a deficit of about €70 ($79.8m) deficit, according to Italian daily Repubblica. 'Our job as managers is to invest, make a profit, hand out a dividend,' Mammì said. 'It is up to the Cardinals to decide how to re-direct the money.' More stories like this are available on
Finextra
04-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
BridgeWise releases market intelligence tool SignalWise
BridgeWise, the leading global AI investment intelligence platform, today announced the launch of SignalWise, a next-generation personalized alerts and insights system designed for digital trading platforms and financial advisors. 0 Unveiled at Money20/20 Europe, SignalWise enables platforms and investment professionals to deliver timely, transparent, and highly relevant market intelligence that engages clients, activates trading, and supports confident decision-making. Unlike conventional alert systems, SignalWise combines real-time event detection with first-of-its-kind AI-powered predictive analysis and deep personalization, correlating events and asset types with the right audience segments, based on their portfolios and behavior. SignalWise provides context and perspective, sharing historical analyses and insights in multiple languages for any given security, from stocks to ETFs and mutual funds, forex pairs, crypto indices, and commodities. "In the current global geopolitical landscape, where uncertainty and volatility reign, we're excited to introduce a tool like SignalWise, which leverages transparent and responsible AI to give you the speed and clarity to invest with confidence," said Dor Eligula, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at BridgeWise. "SignalWise sets a new bar by combining immediate market insights across every asset type with investors' interests. This translates to alerts that engage, contextualize, and lead to action." France-based is one of the first to partner with BridgeWise to launch SignalWise on its trading platform. "At we are committed to staying at the forefront of innovation in trading technology. Partnering with BridgeWise and adopting SignalWise is a game-changer that will set our platform apart and provide a second-to-none experience for our users," said David Cohen, CTO and Co-founder at "By leveraging SignalWise's AI-driven, real-time market intelligence, we will empower our users with personalized, actionable insights that enhance decision-making and engagement like never before. This collaboration reinforces our position as a market leader dedicated to delivering cutting-edge tools that truly add value to our clients' trading experience." Promoting Timely, Confident Decision-Making For the first time, trading platforms and advisors can fully control the trading cycle and activate investors with personalized, interest and behavioral-based alerts. SignalWise introduces a multi-tiered architecture that separates it from traditional alerting tools: • Live event detection: Identifies and broadcasts major market movements—such as price breakouts, range shifts, or volatility spikes—in near real time. • Contextual insight layer: Adds reasoning, as well as historical and statistical framing, to help investors act swiftly on market opportunities. • Deep personalization: Segments notifications and insights for relevant investors based on their interests, activity level, and behavior, optimizing for maximum impact. This intelligent stack enables trading platforms to communicate with users more meaningfully and empowers advisors to speak with confidence about market activity—even in moments not covered by traditional research desks . A Strategic Solution for Platforms and Advisors For trading platforms, SignalWise drives growth by increasing session activity, improving retention, and reactivating dormant users with intelligent, event-based triggers. Alerts are fully customizable and can be delivered via push notifications, email, SMS, or in-platform integrations. For financial advisors, SignalWise fills a critical gap between long-term strategy and day-to-day market developments. It provides scalable, compliant, and ready-to-share talking points that position advisors as proactive partners in their clients' investment journeys. SignalWise has already shown strong traction in early-stage implementations, validating that it is not just a notification tool, but a conversion and retention engine across multiple user segments: • As high as ~15% average click-through rate on market alerts • $3 in revenue per notification, driven by increased user activity • Noticeable increases in client deposits, directly attributed to alerts BridgeWise plans to extend SignalWise coverage and utility in the coming months, including its integration with Bridget, the world's first conversational AI investment tool that provides regulatory-compliant investment recommendations.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Thanks to those who won't keep their mouths shut
(Photo by Prostock-Studio/Getty Images) Our admiration goes to the Davids of the world: those who stand up, speak out and fight back, refusing to let the Goliaths intimidate or silence them. A recent example is a story by Clark Kauffman, reporter at the Iowa Capital Dispatch. He detailed the allegations in a lawsuit filed by a former certified nurse aide at a nursing home in Fonda, Iowa. The suit was filed against the Fonda Specialty Care nursing home, its parent company, Care Initiatives, and a licensed practical nurse working at the facility. You can read the April 30 story here. The suit alleges that a certified nurse aide observed an 87-year-old resident with a tracheostomy struggling to breathe. The aide sought help from the on-duty nurse to suction the resident's airway. The nurse refused to intervene despite multiple requests from staff members. The aide attempted to contact off-site management but could reach no one. She asked for permission to call 911 and was rebuffed. The resident ultimately died in a manner the lawsuit describes as 'agonizing and painful.' The suit also claims that after the certified nurse aide finished her shift, she received multiple text messages from the facility's administrator to 'keep your mouth shut and keep your opinions to yourself.' She was also instructed not to communicate with the family of the resident who died. The next day, the aide was fired. The facility cited 'resident complaints' as the reason. The nurse aide said she was fired for reporting the incident to the state. KTIV television in Sioux City posted Kauffman's article on their Facebook page, drawing nearly 600 reactions and 200 comments. Responses were candid and often angry. A small sample includes: 'I would never put my parents or anybody I know in a nursing home.' 'The fact that the nursing home tried to cover it up is just as horrible' (as the death). 'My heart breaks for the family and the aides that witnessed it.' 'This makes me sick.' This makes us sick, too. How about you? Imagine being in the shoes of the staff member who allegedly tried to do the right thing, witnessed a horrible death, was fired by her employer, and then had to decide 'what's next?' This nurse's aide chose not 'to keep her mouth shut' but instead to challenge a powerful corporation in court. Some would say that's a fool's errand. We view it as an admirable act of courage. Put this in a larger context. We live in a time where many people, including elected officials, organizations and businesses, find themselves in situations similar to the nurse aide where they are expected to do what they are told and avoid speaking out or acting on what they believe is right. Here are recent examples: Legislators who don't vote the way a governor or president demands. The student on campus who speaks up for Palestinians. The university president or corporate head who doesn't comply with diversity, equity and inclusion directives. National news organizations that write an editorial or airs programs the powers that be don't like. Foreign leaders who disagree publicly with a U.S. government representative. Law firms that challenge governmental actions. Entertainers who bring attention to social injustices. The list could go on and on. It's not a good time to be an independent thinker, to swim against the tide, or to tell the emperor that they have no clothes. The message to all the rulebreakers out there is this: Toe the line. Do what you're told. There will be hell to pay if you disobey. The fact that it's not a good time to speak out is why we need people to speak out. We applaud the certified nurse aide and all those like her who are courageously standing up for what they believe. They are making what John Lewis called 'good trouble.' Davids can and do defeat the Goliaths. Not all the time, not without great difficulty. But is the fight worth fighting? Indeed, it is. John and Terri Hale own The Hale Group, an Ankeny-based advocacy firm focused on older Iowans, Iowans with disabilities and the caregivers who support them. Contact them at terriandjohnhale@
Miami Herald
23-04-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Nike rival hits sneaker giant where it hurts
I've been wearing the same shoes to the gym since 2013. Not the same pair, of course - I upgraded with every new release. But my feet have been firmly planted in Nike Metcons for over a decade. From box jumps to sled pushes, they've carried me through it all. You could call me a Metcon diehard. I probably would've called myself that, too. That is, until now. Related: Fans of giant yoga brand are walking away: here's why About two years ago, I started noticing more lifters in the gym wearing a different shoe - bold, clean designs with that all-caps branding across the side: NOBULL. I'd seen them pop up more and more, mostly tied to CrossFit workouts and hardcore lifting sessions, but I never gave them much thought. To me, Nike (NKE) owned the gym floor. One day, I was chatting with my close friend when he casually mentioned that his uncle had acquired NOBULL. That got my curiosity going fast. That offhand comment sent me down a rabbit hole. Turns out, the brand had just been acquired by Mike Repole - the co-founder of Vitaminwater and BodyArmor - a guy who's made a career out of taking on Goliaths. In 2023, Repole's investment group bought NOBULL and quickly merged it with TB12, the wellness and performance company founded by future NFL Hall of Famer Tom Brady. What followed was a rebrand and repositioning campaign that felt loud in all the right ways. NOBULL wasn't just for the CrossFit crowd anymore. It was going after the gym generalist, the weekend warrior, the strength-curious. People who just wanted to feel strong, move better, or show up consistently. People like me. And for the first time in over ten years, I didn't buy the newest Metcons. I bought NOBULLs. NOBULL's shift wasn't accidental. Under Repole's leadership, the brand began positioning itself as the modern training shoe for a broader, more mainstream audience, while still catering to its CrossFit community. The TB12 merger added credibility and an entirely new wellness vertical. Now, NOBULL had more than just sleek footwear - it had science-backed recovery gear, nutrition, and performance coaching. Thus began the journey from a footwear company to a full-scale health and wellness brand that supports movement, recovery, mindset, and lifestyle. Related: Popular fitness tracker's latest update outrages users That kind of pivot puts pressure on Nike, whose dominance in the gym space has come from being everything to everyone, but also nothing truly personal to anyone. The Metcon line, once revolutionary, hasn't had a cultural moment in years. Meanwhile, NOBULL has grown louder, not just in product drops but in personality. The brand has collaborated with athletes, leaned into bold marketing, and redefined its customer. In short, it started acting less like an underdog and more like a contender. Nike may still dominate in numbers, but brand loyalty is emotional, and that's where NOBULL is sneaking in. For years, Nike thrived on routine. A new Metcon dropped, and the faithful showed up. But routines crack when a brand stops stepping up in the ways that matter. NOBULL, by contrast, has shown it knows its audience. It speaks to performance without preaching, leans into utility without sacrificing aesthetics, and, most importantly, listens. The result? NOBULL is landing with lifters, runners, casual gym-goers, and anyone who wants a shoe that can actually keep up. Stable for lifting, responsive for movement, and durable enough to take a beating - no athlete label required. And while Nike likely isn't sweating this one customer's switch, it should be watching the wave behind it. This isn't just about sneakers. It's about showing up every day and trying to be better than yesterday. In the gym, it's always me vs. me - and the right gear makes that battle a little easier. I am proud to say that after more than a decade with Nike, I've officially converted to NOBULL. And I'm not going back. Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Stock-market crash: the meltdown of the Magnificent 7
Generally, a stock-market crash is a drop of 20%+ from a recent peak. Similarly, a correction is a fall of 10%+, but under 20%. Currently, the S&P 500 (^GSPC) index is nearing a correction, but the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) is close to a crash. Bad news for global investors: US stocks just had their worst quarter since autumn 2022. In Q1 of 2025, the S&P 500 dipped 4.6%, while the Nasdaq Composite index — dominated by 'Big Tech' stocks — dived by 10.4%. Furthermore, from its record of 6,147.43 on 19 February, the S&P 500 has lost 8.3%. However, the tech index has fared worse, plunging 13.5% from its high of 20,204.58 on 16 December 2024. One reason for the big fall in the US tech index is the outsized influence the 'Magnificent Seven' shares have on the US market. Here are these Goliaths, showing price falls from their record highs (table sorted by market value, largest to smallest): These seven mega-tech stocks have lost between 13.8% and 45.5% since their individual highs. Worst hit is NVIDIA Corp (NVDA), whose near-30% drop has erased $1.07trn of investors' wealth. In percentage terms, the worst of the Magnificent Seven is Elon Musk's Tesla (TSLA), whose stock has almost halved from its pre-Christmas peak. This is something I predicted would happen, given this share's astonishing rise after Donald Trump's re-election on 5 November. Even so, Tesla shares are up 9.5% since closing on 4 November — but what a roller-coaster ride they've ridden. Also, the combined loss of value from these seven stocks since their respective highs totals $4.48trn — more than the entire UK stock market is worth. Whoa. For the record, my wife and I own four of these Mag 7 stocks, namely Apple (AAPL), Alphabet (GOOG) (owner of Google), (AMZN), and Microsoft Corp (MSFT). We bought into these tech Titans during the lows of early November 2022, just before all four surged in value. Reviewing the Magnificent Seven today, one stock in particular seems to me to offer compelling value. (Of course, it remains to be seen whether other investors agree with me.) This 'Silicon value' share is Alphabet, a near-$2trn giant whose shares trade on below 20.5 times trailing earnings. Notably, Alphabet's modest dividend yield of 0.5% a year is covered 9.6 times by earnings. This leaves tons of spare cash to invest in the latest technology, including artificial intelligence. For me, Alphabet stock offers the most attractive Mag 7 risk-reward ratio for value-seeking investors like me. However, there is one huge fly in the ointment: the legal ruling that Google enjoys an illegal monopoly in online search and advertising. The big question is whether this will lead to huge fines — or even a break-up of Alphabet — in Trump's pro-business presidential term. As for me and my wife, we intend to hold on tightly to our Alphabet stock. Indeed, we may even buy more in the forthcoming 2025/26 tax year! The post Stock-market crash: the meltdown of the Magnificent 7 appeared first on The Motley Fool UK. More reading 5 Stocks For Trying To Build Wealth After 50 One Top Growth Stock from the Motley Fool John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. The Motley Fool UK has recommended Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. Cliff D'Arcy has an economic interest in Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft shares. Views expressed on the companies mentioned in this article are those of the writer and therefore may differ from the official recommendations we make in our subscription services, such as Share Advisor, Hidden Winners and Pro. Here at The Motley Fool, we believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. Motley Fool UK 2025 Sign in to access your portfolio
