What you need to know on Wall Street today
Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.
On March 23, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer was the keynote speaker at a Brookings Institution dinner in Washington, DC. There, he gave prepared remarks on regulatory policy and the Fed's response to the financial crisis, in addtion to taking questions from the audience on the highly market-sensitive topic of interest-rate policy.
Federal Reserve officials give speeches all the time. What makes this one notable is that it was closed to the public, Fischer's prepared comments have not been made available, and the fact the speech took place at all was not widely known.
Fischer's secret speech shows the Fed has learned nothing from its leak scandal, according to Business Insider's Pedro da Costa.
In Wall Street news, hedge fund manager David Einhorn just accused GM of sabotaging him. A top trader at Credit Suisse just quit to take a role at JPMorgan. And a Barclays exec who went to prison for LIBOR-rigging has broken his silence.
"Traders have been served up as fall guys to protect these more powerful senior bankers," he told Business Insider.
Ray Dalio, the founder of the hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates, is cautious about the effects of coming changes to fiscal policy and regulations. And there's not going to be another 2008-style crash, but there will be "a gradual noose tightening," according to Dalio.
The creator of Wall Street's "Charging Bull" is criticizing "Fearless Girl" for the same thing he once did.
The United Airlines debacle continues. Here are the headlines:
- Man dragged off United flight breaks his silence, says "everything" is injured
- UNITED CEO: "This can never, will never happen again on a United Airlines flight"
- United Airlines ignored an easy solution before dragging a customer off the plane
- There's a simple economic reason why the United Airlines incident happened - and why it will probably happen again
- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway lost up to $58.5 million after the United debacle
- A "Fight Club" meme slamming United captures a disturbing truth about airlines and people who fly coach
- Emirates is trolling United Airlines' CEO in a new commercial
- The White House is now required to address the United Airlines incident due to this petition by an 18-year-old student
Meanwhile, in President Trump news:
- TRUMP: "We're doing a major elimination of the horrendous Dodd-Frank regulations"
- TRUMP: "It's been very much misreported that we failed with healthcare"
- Carl Icahn made a big bet against biofuel credits right before advising Trump on regulations
- Trump's budget chief thinks fears about the consequences of a looming government shutdown are "blown out of proportion"
In other news, retailers are filing for bankruptcy at an alarming rate that's quickly approaching recessionary levels. And we took a look inside L'Oréal's New York office, where employees of the $103 billion company can relax on a roof terrace and test products before they're on the market.
The New York Auto Show is symbolic of everything dominating the car business right now. In related news, Lincoln just revealed an all-new Navigator SUV at the show.
New York's Financial District has become one of the most exciting places to eat in the city - here's why. And lastly, here are the 28 most expensive homes for sale in the US right now.
Here are the top Wall Street headlines from the past 24 hours.
CREDIT SUISSE: A merger between 2 stock market behemoths makes a lot of sense - The London Stock Exchange's search for a buyer hit a wall last month when the European Commission put the kibosh on a merger between the London Stock Exchange and Germany-based Deutsche Börse.
Whole Foods shares jump on a report that Amazon had considered a bid - Whole Foods is up again Wednesday morning, higher by 1.5%, after a pair of analyst upgrades and a Bloomberg report that Amazon had considered a bid for the company last fall but never followed through.
Even doctors are getting priced out of San Francisco's housing market - Medical practitioners from anesthesiologists to surgeons occupy the top nine spots in the Bureau of Labor Statistics' ranking of the highest paying jobs in America. But by comparing doctors' annual median salary to the median house price in San Francisco, Trulia found that only 41.6% of homes are affordable.
TransferWise CEO: 'If I was setting up TransferWise today, I probably would not choose London' - The CEO and cofounder of $1 billion fintech startup TransferWise is calling for "action not just words" from the British government to protect the fintech industry in the wake of Brexit.
Analysts think Synaptics is the company most at risk of being ditched by Apple next - Apple is increasingly ditching its suppliers and moving elements of its production in-house, and analysts have identified the company they think is most at risk of being "insourced" next: Synpatics.
Delta's profit drops 36.3% - Delta Air Lines Inc on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit and forecast passenger unit revenue, a closely watched revenue measure, to increase 1-3 percent in the second quarter, citing healthy demand.
Mark Carney: Blockchain could 'transform' payments, clearing, and settlement - Bank of England governor Mark Carney thinks the technology first developed to underpin digital currency bitcoin could "transform" crucial parts of financial infrastructure.
A payment business backed by Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey made $1.4 million in revenue for each employee last year - Dutch payments business Adyen doubled revenue last year to $727 million (£583 million), the company announced on Wednesday.
The best US beaches to visit in your lifetime - No matter where you are in the US, you don't have to travel far to find both surf and sand.