Florida appellate courts have decided three assignment-of-benefits disputes in favor of insurers. The courts held that requirements specified in the insurance policies in question had not been met, in one case because an AOB agreement did not have the signature of the mortgage lender in addition to those of the policyholders.

US retail sales grew 0.7% in September from the previous month and 13.9% from the same month last year, the Commerce Department reported, as consumers continued to spend despite the end of enhanced unemployment benefits and the rise of new COVID-19 cases related to the Delta variant. Sales were up in 11 of the 13 tracked retail segments, including sporting goods and hobby stores, which booked a 3.7% increase.

The clear consensus among Federal Reserve policy makers that it is time to start scaling back the central bank's bond buying program does not extend to what the Fed should do in response to the surge in inflation, or whether it should do anything at all. Over the past 24 hours, views expressed publicly by Fed officials range from serious concern about inflation to dismissal of current dynamics as a short-term trend that will fade away over time.

Wall Street's soaring investment banking dealmaking more than made up for weak loan demand and low interest rates in the third quarter. Investment banking fees shot up 67% at Morgan Stanley, 52% at JPMorgan Chase, 39% at Citi and 23% at Bank of America.

Simon Puleston Jones, former European head of the Futures Industry Association, has launched an online private marketplace for environmental, social and governance investments, tailored to the needs of institutional investors. The platform will follow criteria managed by the consulting firm Climate Solutions.

As the yield on government debt edges higher, some major US banks are shifting cash into Treasurys. The change in strategy could increase bank earnings by several percentage points, analysts say.

Morgan Stanley will launch a bond offering on the heels of a third-quarter earnings report which showed a 25% rise in year-on-year revenue to $14.75 billion, a move likely to be followed by other major banks eager to sell debt before interest rates rise significantly. The 11-year portion of the $5 billion bond will offer yields 1 percentage point above Treasuries, although the spread in early discussions stood at 1.15 percentage points, one source said.

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said in a report that despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic its member jurisdictions are making progress toward full implementation of the Basel III bank capital standards. All jurisdictions have now adopted final rules for countercyclical capital buffers, the report said.

A default on the US government's debt was averted when President Joe Biden signed into law a bill raising the cap to $28.9 trillion. The measure gives the government the ability to keep paying its bills until December.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is close to allowing exchange-traded funds investing in bitcoin futures to trade, sources said. The bitcoin ETF proposals filed by ProShares and Invesco are linked to futures rather than the cryptocurrency itself and were filed under mutual fund rules SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has said offer important investor protections.