Morgan Stanley on Friday told its army of financial advisors that it will soon allow them to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients, a first among major Wall Street banks, CNBC has learned.
The firm’s 15,000 or so financial advisors can solicit eligible clients to purchase shares of two exchange-traded bitcoin funds starting Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the policy.
The move from Morgan Stanley, one of the world’s largest wealth management firms, is the latest sign of the adoption of bitcoin by mainstream finance. In January, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved applications for 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, heralding the arrival of an investment vehicle for bitcoin that is easier to access, cheaper to own and more readily traded.
So it’s not surprising that Wall Street’s major wealth management businesses didn’t immediately embrace the new ETFs, forbidding their financial advisors from pitching them and only allowing trades if clients actively sought out the product.
Morgan Stanley made the move in response to demand from clients and in an attempt to follow an evolving marketplace for digital assets, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about the bank’s internal policies.
The bank is still striking a note of caution, however, in the rollout: Only clients with a net worth of at least $1.5 million, an aggressive risk tolerance and the desire to make speculative investments are suitable for bitcoin ETF solicitation, said the people. The investments are for taxable brokerage accounts, not retirement accounts, they added.
The bank will monitor clients’ crypto holdings to make sure they don’t end up with excessive exposure to the volatile asset class, according to the sources.
The only crypto investments approved for solicited purchase at Morgan Stanley are the pair of bitcoin ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity; private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that the bank made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year.
Morgan Stanley is watching how the market for newly approved ether ETFs develops and hasn’t committed to whether it would provide access to those, the people said.
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Correction: Private funds from Galaxy and FS NYDIG that Morgan Stanley made available starting in 2021 were phased out earlier this year. An earlier version of this story included inaccurate information from Morgan Stanley sources about the company’s crypto investment offerings.
Check out the companies making headlines before the bell. Warner Bros. Discovery – Shares jumped nearly 9% after Warner said it will split into two publicly traded companies by next year. One company will host WBD’s streaming services and movie properties, while the other will include its cable networks such as CNN and TNT Sports. Tesla – Shares of the electric vehicle maker dropped about 2% after Baird downgraded the stock to neutral from buy. The firm said that CEO Elon Musk’s comments on robotaxi plans are “a bit too optimistic” and that Musk’s relationship to President Donald Trump adds “considerable uncertainty.” EchoStar – Shares tumbled 11% after the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar, said the telecommunications company is considering filing for bankruptcy under chapter 11 . The company is trying to protect its wireless spectrum licenses that are under review by the Federal Communications Commission, the report said. Robinhood , Applovin – Shares of Robinhood and Applovin each fell about 4% after neither name was added to the S & P 500 on Friday, as both names were considered possible candidates for inclusion in the index . Robinhood soared more than 13% last week leading up to the rebalance announcement, while Applovin advanced more than 6%. IonQ – The quantum computing stock gained more than 7% after the company announced that it’s agreed to acquire Oxford Ionics in a deal valued at $1.075 billion in cash and stock. The deal is expected to close in 2025. McDonald’s – The fast-food chain’s stock slipped nearly 1% on the heels of a Morgan Stanley downgrade to equal weight from overweight. Morgan Stanley said the company hasn’t been insulated from pressures on the fast food sector. Moelis & Co. – Shares were marginally lower. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that CEO Ken Moelis is planning to step down from the role at the investment bank. He said in an interview that he’s expected to become executive chairman, effective Oct. 1. Co-president Navid Mahmoodzadegan is slated to become CEO, the report said. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Fred Imbert and Sarah Min contributed reporting.
People wait in line for T-shirts at a pop-up kiosk for the online brokerage Robinhood along Wall Street after the company went public with an initial public offering earlier in the day on July 29, 2021 in New York City.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Robinhood shares sold off on Monday as the online brokerage was snubbed in the latest quarterly rebalance of the S&P 500 Index after months of speculation that it could earn a coveted spot in the benchmark.
Shares of Robinhood dropped nearly 5% in premarket trading. The stock has rallied 3.3% Friday to bring last week’s gain to over 13% before the S&P Dow Jones Indices said after the bell that the S&P 500 would remain unchanged.
Just last week, Bank of America called Robinhood a top candidate to join the S&P 500 during the big reshuffling in June. The S&P 500 rebalance, which typically comes on the third Friday of the last month in a quarter, is usually an impactful event as it can spark billions of dollars of trading and spur passive funds to snap up its shares. Companies being added to the index can generally expect funds like that to buy huge amounts of their shares in the coming weeks.
Crypto exchange Coinbase was the latest beneficiary of such an inclusion. The stock skyrocketed 24% in the next trading session following the announcement last month.
Still, Robinhood has had a major comeback this year so far with shares doubling in price. The online brokerage’s shares hit a fresh record high last week amid a rebound in both stocks and crypto. The company had fallen out of favor after the GameStop trading mania of 2021 fizzled and the collapse of FTX triggered a sell-off in digital assets.
LONDON — Britain’s financial services watchdog on Monday announced a new tie-up with U.S. chipmaker Nvidia to let banks safely experiment with artificial intelligence.
The Financial Conduct Authority said it will launch a so-called Supercharged Sandbox that will “give firms access to better data, technical expertise and regulatory support to speed up innovation.”
Starting from October, financial services institutions in the U.K. will be allowed to experiment with AI using Nvidia’s accelerated computing and AI Enterprise Software products, the watchdog said in a press release.
The initiative is designed for firms in the “discovery and experiment phase” with AI, the FCA noted, adding that a separate live testing service exists for firms further along in AI development.
“This collaboration will help those that want to test AI ideas but who lack the capabilities to do so,” Jessica Rusu, the FCA’s chief data, intelligence and information officer, said in a statement. “We’ll help firms harness AI to benefit our markets and consumers, while supporting economic growth.”
The FCA’s new sandbox addresses a key issue for banks, which have faced challenges shipping advanced new AI tools to their customers amid concerns over risks around privacy and fraud.
Large language models from the likes of OpenAI and Google send data back to overseas facilities — and privacy regulators have raised the alarm over how this information is stored and processed. There have meanwhile been several instances of malicious actors using generative AI to scam people.
Nvidia is behind the graphics processing units, or GPUs, used to train and run powerful AI models. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, is expected to give a keynote talk at a tech conference in London on Monday morning.
Last year, HSBC’s generative AI lead, Edward Achtner, told a London tech conference he sees “a lot of success theater” in finance when it comes to artificial intelligence — hinting that some financial services firms are touting advances in AI without tangible product innovations to show for it.
He added that, while banks like HSBC have used AI for many years, new generative AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT come with their own unique compliance risks.