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By Carolina Mandl and Davide Barbuscia NEW YORK (Reuters) -The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (Sifma) said on Wednesday the transition to faster trade settlement was going smoothly, with some early numbers and market participants pointing to a well-ordered transition so far. On Tuesday, U.S. trading of equities, corporate and municipal bonds and other securities moved to a one-day securities settlement cycle (T+1) from two days (T+2), to comply with a rule change adopted … Read more…

By Mike Scarcella (Reuters) – Visa and Mastercard have agreed to pay $197 million to resolve a class action by millions of consumers accusing the financial payment companies of keeping cash access fees artificially high. The plaintiffs’ lawyers revealed the proposed accord on Wednesday in a filing in Washington, D.C., federal court. The settlement involves consumers who withdrew cash from bank-operated ATMs since 2007. Two other related class actions — one from consumers who used … Read more…

(Reuters) -The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) CEO Marcie Frost is planning to oppose Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s $56 billion pay package, CNBC reported on Wednesday. “We do not believe that the compensation is commensurate with the performance of the company,” Frost said in an interview to CNBC. Asked if the pension fund was “duped” when it supported the proposal in 2018, Frost said it had not been. “We used the information we had … Read more…

By Sabrina Valle HOUSTON (Reuters) – Hess Corp on Tuesday approved the company’s $53 billion merger with the No. 2 U.S. oil company Chevron, according to preliminary results of the vote. The merger required a majority vote to approve the deal by a majority of Hess’ 308 million shares outstanding to pass. The company did not immediately provide the vote tally. Chevron offered to acquire Hess last October in a move to gain a foothold … Read more…

By Zaheer Kachwala (Reuters) – Nvidia’s shares rallied around 6% to hit a record high on Tuesday, leaving the AI chipmaker’s stock market value about $100 billion away from overtaking Apple in a major reshuffle of Wall street’s biggest players. Last trading at $1,128, Nvidia’s market capitalization reached $2.8 trillion, compared to a market value of $2.9 trillion for Apple, which is Wall Street’s second-most valuable company after Microsoft. Its stock surged as much as … Read more…

(Reuters) -Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI raised $6 billion in series B funding, reaching a post-money valuation of $24 billion as investors bet big on challengers to companies like OpenAI in the intensifying AI race. The funding round was backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital, the company said in a blog post on Sunday. The company’s pre-money valuation was $18 billion, Musk said in a post on X. The money will be … Read more…