Finance

In the second week of 2024 business leaders descended on Gujarat, the home state of Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. The occasion was the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit, one of many gabfests at which India has courted global investors. “At a time when the world is surrounded by many uncertainties, India has emerged as a new ray of hope,” boasted Mr Modi at the event.He is right. Although global growth is expected to slow from 2.6% last year to 2.4% in 2024, India appears to be booming. Its economy grew by 7.6% in the 12 months to the third quarter of 2023, beating nearly every forecast. Most economists expect an annual growth rate of 6% or more for the rest of this decade. Investors are seized by optimism.The timing is good for Mr Modi. In April some 900m Indians will be eligible to vote in the largest election in world history. A big reason Mr Modi, who has been in office since 2014, is likely to win a third term is that many Indians think him a more competent manager of the world’s fifth-largest economy than they do any other candidate. Are they right?To assess Mr Modi’s record The Economist has analysed India’s economic performance and the success of his biggest reforms. In many respects the picture is muddy—and not helped by sparse and poorly kept official data. Growth has outpaced that of most emerging economies, but India’s labour market remains weak and private-sector investment has disappointed. But that may be changing. Aided by Mr Modi’s reforms, India may be on the cusp of an investment boom that would pay off for years.The headline growth figures reveal surprisingly little. India’s GDP per person, after adjusting for purchasing power, has grown at an average pace of 4.3% per year during Mr Modi’s decade in power. That is lower than the 6.2% achieved under Manmohan Singh, his predecessor, who also served for ten years.image: The EconomistBut this slowdown was not Mr Modi’s doing: much of it is down to the bad hand he inherited. In the 2010s an infrastructure boom started to go sour. India faced what Arvind Subramanian, later a government adviser, has called a twin balance-sheet crisis, one that struck both banks and infrastructure firms. They were left loaded with bad debt, crimping investment for years afterwards. Mr Modi also took office at a time when global growth had slowed, scarred by the financial crisis of 2007-09. Then came the covid-19 pandemic. The difficult conditions meant average growth among 20 other large lower- and middle-income economies fell from 3.2% during Mr Singh’s time in office to 1.6% during Mr Modi’s. Compared with this group, India has continued to outperform (see chart 1).Against such a turbulent backdrop, it is better to assess Mr Modi’s record by considering his stated economic objectives: to formalise the economy, improve the ease of doing business and boost manufacturing. On the first two, he has made progress. On the third, his results have so far been poor.India’s economy has certainly become more formal under Mr Modi, albeit at a high cost. The idea has been to draw activity out of the shadow economy, which is dominated by small and inefficient firms that do not pay tax, and into the formal sphere of large, productive companies.Mr Modi’s most controversial policy on this front has been demonetisation. In 2016 he banned the use of two large-value banknotes, accounting for 86% of rupees in circulation—surprising many even within his government. The stated aim was to render worthless the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt. But almost all the cash made its way into the banking system, suggesting that crooks had already gone cashless or laundered their money. Instead, the informal economy was crushed. Household investment and credit plunged, and growth was probably hurt. In private, even Mr Modi’s supporters in business do not mince words. “It was a disaster,” says one boss.Demonetisation may have accelerated India’s digitisation nonetheless. The country’s digital public infrastructure now includes a universal identity scheme, a national payments system and a personal-data management system for things like tax documents. It was conceived by Mr Singh’s government, but much of it has been built under Mr Modi, who has shown the capacity of the Indian state to get big projects done. Most retail payments in cities are now digital, and most welfare transfers seamless, because Mr Modi gave almost all households bank accounts.Those reforms made it easier for Mr Modi to ameliorate the poverty resulting from India’s disappointing job-creation record. Fearing that stubbornly low employment would stop living standards for the poorest from improving, the government now doles out welfare payments worth some 3% of GDP per year. Hundreds of government programmes send money directly to the bank accounts of the poor.It is a big improvement on the old system, in which most welfare was distributed physically and, owing to corruption, often failed to reach its intended recipients. The poverty rate (the proportion of people living on less than $2.15 a day), has fallen from 19% in 2015 to 12% in 2021, according to the World Bank.Digitisation has probably also drawn more economic activity into the formal sector. So has Mr Modi’s other signature economic policy: a national goods and services tax (GST), passed in 2017, which knitted together a patchwork of state levies across the country. The combination of homogenous payments and tax systems has brought India closer to a national single market than ever.That has made doing business easier—Mr Modi’s second objective. GST has been a “game-changer”, says B. Santhanam, the regional boss of Saint-Gobain, a large French manufacturer with big investments in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. “The prime minister gets it,” adds another seasoned manufacturing executive, referring to the need to cut red tape. The government has also put serious money into physical infrastructure, such as roads and bridges. Public investment surged from around 3.5% of GDP in 2019 to nearly 4.5% in 2022 and 2023.The results are now materialising. Mr Subramanian recently wrote that, as a share of GDP, in 2023 net revenues from the new tax regime exceeded those of the old system. This happened even as tax rates on many items fell. That more money is coming in despite lower rates suggests that the economy really is formalising.Yet Mr Modi is not satisfied with merely formalising the economy. His third objective has been to industrialise it. In 2020 the government launched a subsidy scheme worth $26bn (1% of GDP) for products made in India. In 2021 it pledged $10bn for semiconductor companies to build plants domestically. One boss notes that Mr Modi personally takes the trouble to convince executives to invest, often in industries where they face little competition and so otherwise might not.image: The EconomistSome incentives could help new industries find their feet and show foreign bosses that India is open for business. In September Foxconn, Apple’s main supplier, said it would double its investments in India over the coming year. It currently makes some 10% of its iPhones there. Also in 2023 Micron, a chipmaker, began work on a $2.75bn plant in Gujarat that is expected to create some 5,000 jobs directly and 15,000 indirectly.So far, however, these projects are too small to be economically significant. The value of manufactured exports as a share of GDP has stagnated at 5% over the past decade, and manufacturing’s share of the economy has fallen from about 18% under the previous government to 16%. And industrial policy is expensive. The government will bear 70% of the cost of the Micron plant—meaning it will pay nearly $100,000 per job. Tariffs are ticking up, on average, raising the cost of foreign inputs.image: The EconomistSo what matters more: Mr Modi’s failures or his successes? As well as economic growth, it is worth looking at private-sector investment. It has been sluggish during Mr Modi’s time in office (see chart 2). But a boom may be coming. A recent report by Axis Bank, one of India’s largest lenders, argues that the private-investment cycle is likely to turn, thanks to healthy bank and corporate balance-sheets. Announcements of new investment projects by private corporations soared past $200bn in 2023, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, a think-tank. That is the highest in a decade, and up 150% in nominal terms since 2019.Although higher interest rates have sapped foreign direct investment in the past year, firms’ reported intentions to invest in India remain strong, as they seek to “de-risk” their exposure to China. There is some chance, then, that Mr Modi’s reforms will kick growth up a gear. If so, he will have earned his reputation as a successful economic manager.The consequences of Mr Modi’s policies will take years to be felt in full. Just as an investment boom could vindicate his approach, his strategy of using welfare payments as a substitute for job creation could prove unsustainable. A failure to build local governments’ capacity to provide basic public services, such as education, may hinder growth. Subhash Chandra Garg, a former finance secretary under Mr Modi, worries that the government is too keen on “subsidies” and “freebies”, and that its “commitment to real reforms is no longer that strong.” And yet for all that, many Indians will go to the polls feeling cautiously optimistic about the economic changes that their prime minister has wrought. ■ More

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said that 2024 is likely the year that the U.S. passes concrete laws for the stablecoin industry.
Stablecoins, which allow traders to move in and out of crypto, are a $135.3 billion market but they are for the most part unregulated.
The U.S. is yet to pass federal crypto regulation, even as jurisdictions around the world are approving new crypto-focused laws.
But Allaire hopes that things will change this year, stating that there is a “very good chance” U.S. lawmakers approve a stablecoin bill.

A picture taken in London shows gold-plated souvenir cryptocurrency tether, bitcoin and ethereum coins arranged beside a screen displaying a trading chart, May 8, 2022.
Justin Tallis | Afp | Getty Images

The CEO of Circle, the company behind popular stablecoin USD Coin, sees a strong chance that laws for stablecoin issuers like itself will come through in 2024.
Stablecoins, which allow traders to move in and out of crypto, are a $135.3 billion market — but they are for the most part unregulated. The U.S. is yet to pass federal crypto regulation, even as jurisdictions around the world are approving new crypto-focused laws.

But Jeremy Allaire, Circle’s boss and co-founder, hopes that things will change this year, stating that there is a “very good chance” U.S. lawmakers approve a stablecoin bill.
Speaking with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allaire said regulatory developments around the crypto industry were picking up around the world, and that the U.S. was more than likely to approve laws for stablecoins than before.
“I think what you’re seeing is a desire from the administration, a desire from the Treasury, from the [Federal Reserve], by both chambers of Congress, and certainly on a bipartisan basis,” Allaire told CNBC Monday.

“Digital dollars are happening around the world, other governments are regulating dollar-digital currencies before the United States. And so I think there is a very strong desire to act and assert U.S. leadership and get the right consumer protections involved,” Allaire added.  
Allaire was asked about the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act, which seeks to bring stablecoins within the same regulatory frameworks that govern traditional financial services companies.

The act was passed by the House Financial Services Committee in 2023, moving it to the floor of the House of Representatives for consideration. It has yet to be approved lawmakers in the House.
Circle recently filed its confidential S-1 registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, showcasing the company’s intention to list publicly. The firm did not give away any information on the timing of its IPO, which came the same week that the SEC approved the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs.
Allaire, asked about whether the timing of Circle’s listing was in response to the SEC’s ETF approval, said he couldn’t comment on the development due to regulatory restrictions.
Crypto had a buoyant year in 2023 with markets seeing a major recovery, and industry insiders are hoping for an even more fortunate 2024 for the industry.
“Stablecoins in particular remain the killer app for blockchain technology,” Allaire told CNBC. “We’re starting to see widening usage all around the world.”
“It’s been a really powerful time for that and we think 2024, with things like the spot ETF and world regulatory clarity, is going to open this up even wider.”
Dante Disparte, Circle’s chief strategy officer and global head of public policy, echoed Allaire’s view that 2024 would be the year that the U.S. sees rules for stablecoins coming in.
“I remain optimistic that payments stablecoin policy is a possibility early in the new year. And that is increasingly a bipartisan reality, in no small measure,” Disparte told CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos on the sidelines of Davos.

Disparte suggested that concerns around illicit usage of some cryptocurrencies could spur U.S. lawmakers on to bring stablecoin laws into place, as stablecoins provide more of a legitimate use case for everyday purchases and trade compred to their more volatile neighbors in crypto, which have been associated heavily with criminal activity.
“You’ve seen in the conflict in the Middle East, for example, the use of certain digital assets in the space as a vehicle for funding terrorism,” Disparte said.
“Domestically in the United States, you can see the use of certain assets in the space as a vehicle for funding fentanyl trafficking, and worse, all of those types of illicit actions that are bad for the U.S. dollar are bad for the U.S. economy, bad for the sector, bad for banking and payments, and bad for people,” Disparte said.
“Unless that is addressed, that would be against the interest of the country [and] the economy. So I remain optimistic that this will be a year where policymakers actually get around to doing something affirmatively on stablecoins, as opposed to through enforcement,” Circle’s policy chief added.
—CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos contributed to this article. More

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s approval of 11 spot bitcoin ETFs this week could be a turning point for cryptocurrency investing.
Ark Invest CEO and Chief Investment Officer Cathie Wood is behind one of the new ETFs. Her firm partnered with 21Shares to launch the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF.

“We really believe this is an important moment for us to help with the democratization of bitcoin access, giving more people access,” Wood told “ETF Edge” on Monday.
The first-ever batch of spot ETFs began trading Thursday. Investor interest in bitcoin leading up to the historic ETF approvals has been on the upswing. As of Friday, the cryptocurrency is up more than 125% in the past 12 months.
As financial firms begin to get more exposure through the new instruments, Wood said, the impact on bitcoin prices will be noticeable. 
“If institutions with trillions of dollars under management just put 0.2[%] or 0.5% in, that could really move the needle,” Wood said.
Ophelia Snyder’s firm 21.co is heavily involved in the cryptocurrency space. According to its website, the firm “bridges traditional finance and decentralized finance for easy crypto access.”

“It’s also very much part of a new wave of disruptive technology,” the firm’s president and co-founder told “ETF Edge.”
Snyder contended that bitcoin goes beyond being just a new asset class.

“It’s also very much part of a new wave of disruptive technology.”

Ophelia Snyder
21.CO President and Co-Founder

“There’s still quite a ways to go in terms of how this actually will interact both with the world at large and sort of our economic systems, as well as, quite frankly, how it will end up interacting with your portfolio,” she said. 
Snyder also said the impact that wider bitcoin access could have on the broader market “can’t be underestimated.”
Disclaimer More

Deflation is when prices fall outright for goods and services.
Prices declined in 2023 in categories such as physical goods, groceries and energy, according to the December consumer price index.
Supply and demand have normalized and a stronger U.S. dollar makes it cheaper to import goods.

Extreme-photographer | E+ | Getty Images

As inflation continues to throttle back across the broad U.S. economy, some consumer categories have sunk into outright deflation.
In other words: Americans are seeing prices decline for certain items.

Those pullbacks have largely been among physical goods rather than services, economists said.

Demand for goods soared early in the Covid-19 pandemic, as consumers were confined to their homes. The health crisis also snarled global supply chains for those goods. These dynamics drove up prices. Now, they’re falling back to earth.
“You have seen some [price] give-back in some categories that were most affected by the shift in consumer demand, as well as being affected most severely by some of the supply-chain issues we saw over the course of the pandemic,” according to Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo Economics.

A shift away from spending on goods

For example, average prices have declined in these categories, among others, since December 2022: toys (by 4.5%), college textbooks (4.9%), televisions (10.3%), men’s suits, sport coats, and outerwear (6%), sporting goods (2.5%), furniture and bedding (4.3%), and computer software and accessories (9.9%), according to the consumer price index.
“We bought a lot of goods because we couldn’t go out, travel, go to ballgames” early in the pandemic, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “There has been a shift from goods to things we couldn’t do when we were shut in.”

Prices for used cars and trucks have also fallen, by 1.3%, according to CPI data.
Used and new vehicle prices were among the first to surge when the U.S. economy reopened broadly early in 2021, amid a shortage of semiconductor chips essential for manufacturing.
However, price levels on used cars remain more than 30% higher than they were pre-pandemic, meaning there’s likely still ample room for a reversal, said Andrew Hunter, deputy chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.

There are other deflationary dynamics

Broadly, a historically strong U.S. dollar relative to other global currencies has also helped rein in goods prices, Zandi said. This makes it cheaper for U.S. companies to import goods from overseas, since the dollar can buy more.
The Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index is higher than at any pre-pandemic point dating to at least 2006, according to U.S. Federal Reserve data as of early January. The index gauges the dollar’s appreciation relative to currencies of the U.S.′ main trading partners such as the euro, Canadian dollar, British pound, Mexican peso and Japanese yen.
More from Personal Finance:Here’s the inflation breakdown for December 2023Deflation vs. disinflation: One is ‘the more ideal outcome’Why workers’ raises are smaller in 2024
Falling energy prices have also put downward pressure on goods prices, due to lower transportation and energy-intensive manufacturing costs, economists said.
However, attacks by Houthi militias on merchant ships in the Red Sea — a major trade route — are causing freight costs to spike, potentially leading some goods deflation to reverse, Zandi said.

Lower energy prices also put downward pressure on food transportation to store shelves.
Egg and lettuce prices, for example, have also declined significantly after having soared in 2022. Among the reasons for those initial shocks: a historic outbreak of avian influenza in the U.S., which is extremely lethal among birds such as egg-laying hens, and an insect-borne virus that raged through the Salinas Valley growing region in California, which accounts for about half of U.S. lettuce production.

How measurement quirks affect price data

Elsewhere, some deflationary dynamics are happening only on paper.
For example, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the CPI report, controls for quality improvements over time. Electronics such as televisions, cellphones and computers continually get better. Consumers get more for roughly the same amount of money, which shows up as a price decline in the CPI data. 
Health insurance, which falls in the “services” side of the U.S. economy, is similar.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t assess health insurance inflation based on consumer premiums. It does so indirectly by measuring insurers’ profits. This is because insurance quality varies greatly from person to person. One person’s premiums may buy high-value insurance benefits, while another’s buys meager coverage.
Those differences in quality make it difficult to gauge changes in health insurance prices with accuracy.
The 27.1% decline in health insurance prices last year reflects smaller insurer profits in 2021 relative to 2020.
These sorts of quality adjustments mean consumers don’t necessarily see prices drop at the store — only on paper. More

Citigroup said it was cutting 10% of its workforce in a bid to help boost the embattled bank’s results and stock price.
In November, CNBC reported that managers and consultants involved in CEO Jane Fraser’s restructuring discussed job cuts of 10%.
The company has since executed several waves of layoffs, with another round of cuts set for Jan. 22, according to a source.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 17, 2023.
Adam Galica | CNBC

Citigroup said it was cutting 10% of its workforce in a bid to help boost the embattled bank’s results and stock price.
About 20,000 employees will be let go over the “medium term,” New York-based Citigroup said Friday in a slideshow tied to fourth-quarter earnings. While it wasn’t immediately clear how long that is, the bank has previously used that term to denote a three- to five-year period.

Citigroup had roughly 200,000 workers at the end of 2023, excluding Mexican operations that are in the process of being spun out, according to the presentation.
Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser announced a sweeping overhaul of the third-largest U.S. bank by assets in September. The company has been left behind by peers since the 2008 financial crisis as Fraser’s predecessors couldn’t get a handle on expenses and is the lowest valued among the six biggest U.S. banks.
In November, CNBC reported that managers and consultants involved in the effort — known internally by the code name “Project Bora Bora” — discussed job cuts of 10% in several major businesses.

Next round of cuts

The company has since executed several waves of layoffs, beginning with the top layers of the bank, with another round of cuts set for Jan. 22, according to a person familiar with the matter. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment.
American banks have been trimming jobs all throughout the past year, led by Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, to lower costs amid stagnant revenue. Citigroup had been a notable outlier, maintaining staffing levels at around 240,000 for all of 2023, including its Mexico operations.

Citigroup said Friday it booked a $780 million charge in the fourth quarter tied to Fraser’s restructuring project, and that it may post another $1 billion in severance and other expenses in 2024. The moves could help trim up to $2.5 billion in costs over time, the bank said.

Permanent vacation

In a footnote to its presentation, Citigroup said the 20,000 job cuts could be “slightly lower” if it chooses to use internal resources rather than outsource functions.
Given the outlook for thousands of more job cuts over the next few years, some Citigroup employees are using vacation time or mental health leave to search for their next position, said the person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified speaking about personnel matters.
“People are looking aggressively,” the person said. “I know senior VPs who are on vacation now, but they’re never coming back.”

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman said Friday that he’s starting an activist organization to fight antisemitism and reform higher education.
The Pershing Square Capital CEO was one of the loudest critics of Harvard, his alma mater, as well as the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, charging their presidents with not taking a strong stance against antisemitism on campus.

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who recently fought a high-profile battle against Harvard University, said Friday that he’s starting an activist organization to fight antisemitism and reform higher education.
“It’s going to be a ‘think-and-do tank.’ It’s going to be an activist,” Ackman said in an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on “Squawk Box.” “I’m standing up an organization very shortly to focus on precisely what’s going on. … We’re going to study these issues. And we’re going to come up with solutions to problems and we’re going to implement.”

The Pershing Square Capital CEO was one of the loudest critics of Harvard, his alma mater, as well as the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, charging their presidents with not taking a strong stance against antisemitism on campus.
Harvard president Claudine Gay later resigned following sharp criticism of her testimony before Congress in early December where she and other academic leaders were grilled over tolerance of antisemitism on campus. In addition, Gay faced accusations of plagiarism in her own published work.
Ackman’s fight took a turn when online publication Business Insider posted a story that included similar accusations of plagiarism against his wife, Neri Oxman, who is an architect, designer and a former professor at MIT.
“It started with antisemitism on campus, and then I got concerned about governance at Harvard. … Then I have broader concerns about higher education generally,” Ackman said. “I think these are very important issues. And these are issues that will require resources to be focused on.”
Ackman, whose Pershing Square oversees nearly $15 billion in assets under management, said he’s going to hire a CEO and put together a board of directors for the new organization.

“This kind of activism now requires… a serious team,” Ackman said. “We’re going to go after these issues in a very aggressive way.”Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO: More

Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup, attends a hearing on Annual Oversight of Wall Street Firms before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C., the United States, on Dec. 6, 2023. 
Tom Williams | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

Citigroup reported fourth-quarter earnings before the opening bell Friday.
Here’s what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, were expecting:

Earnings: adjusted 84 cents a share, may not compare with expected 81 cents
Revenue: $17.44 billion, vs. expected $18.74 billion

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser announced plans for a sweeping corporate reorganization in September after previous efforts failed to boost the bank’s results and share price.
The bank has said it will disclose how much the overhaul will impact headcount and reduce expenses with fourth-quarter results. Wednesday evening, the company said it booked bigger charges in the quarter than previously disclosed.
Citigroup has already said it would exit municipal bond and distressed debt trading operations as part of the streamlining exercise.
The third biggest U.S. bank by assets had 240,000 employees as of September, second only to the far more profitable JPMorgan Chase.
JPMorgan and Bank of America posted results earlier Friday, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley report Tuesday.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More

Wells Fargo shares fell Friday even after fourth-quarter profit rose from a year ago, as the bank warned that net interest income for 2024 could come in significantly lower year over year.
Here’s what the bank reported versus what Wall Street was expecting based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:

·       Revenue: $20.48 billion vs. $20.30 billion expected
Wells Fargo’s stock fell 1% before the bell.
Total revenue came in at $20.48 billion for the period. That’s a 2% increase from the fourth quarter of 2022 when Wells Fargo posted $20.3 billion in revenue. The bank also posted net income of $3.45 billion, or 86 cents per share, up slightly from $3.16 billion, or 75 cents a share a year ago.
Earnings were lowered by a $1.9 billion charge from a FDIC special assessment and a $969 million charge from severance expenses. Wells Fargo also recorded a $621 million, or 17 cents per share, tax benefit.
“As we look forward, our business performance remains sensitive to interest rates and the health of the U.S. economy, but we are confident that the actions we are taking will drive stronger returns over the cycle,” said Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf in a release. “We are closely monitoring credit and while we see modest deterioration, it remains consistent with our expectations.”

Wells Fargo said net interest income fell 5% from a year ago to $12.78 billion, and warned that the figure could come in 7% to 9% lower for the year from $52.4 billion in 2023. The decline in net interest income was due to lower deposit and loan balances, but offset slightly by higher interest rates, the bank said.
Provisions for credit losses rose 34% to $1.28 billion from $957 million a year ago, as allowances for credit losses rose for credit card and commercial real estate loans. Wells Fargo said that was partially offset by lower allowances for auto loans.
Wells Fargo shares are virtually flat this year after rallying more than 19% in 2023. During the period the 10-year Treasury yield topped the 5% threshold in October, before finishing the year below 3.9%.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More