#financialservices

Especially if you're younger and recently joined Elevance. Save up six months of expenses. Keep interviewing even though you're employed. Find a way to make money on the side. Don't let this place have all the power over your life.

Looking like the days of Arvind fooling Wall Street with his financial engineering shenanigans is coming to an end. Heading right back to $160, where it was before he embarked on his "RA everyone, move everything to India, stop investing in everything" strategy.

How strict is VG on the background check for licensed client facing roles?

• Clean U4
• Clean credit 820+ score
• Don’t drink/do dr-gs
• No felonies
• 2 misdemeanors that were dismissed. One was for stopping payment on a check b/c merchant delivered broken goods. Went to court judge ordered me to pay the amount of the check to the merchant, and the merchant had to deliver working goods. After that was done, judge dismissed.

Other misdemeanor was an as--ult charge. Where I live Sheriff can file without grand jury and did. Judge ruled no probable cause at initial hearing and threw it out with prejudice after admonishing the Sheriff and DA for wasting the courts time.

Fidelity, UBS, Chase had no issues, Merrill and USAA did.

The stock fell 44% in a year. 33% in the last 6 months. This company is going down or getting sold in the near future.

All these posts about how fantastic it is that the stock is at 92. For those holding on, and not selling and diversifying into other investments, or aren't cashing out now; re-read this post when the market corrects. It will.

The best thing you can do is diversify your portfolio. Take CSCO profits now. Before it's too late. Take the proceeds, and simply invest them in simple index funds. Or; take profits now, and pay off debt. Mortgage. Car Loans. The future you, decades out, will thank you.

Yes, I had CSCO RSUs, CSCO Stock Options (the old Cisco Options from the late 1990s/early 2000s), and Cisco ESPP. Never, at any time, did CSCO ever exceed 25% of my total investment portfolio. Ever. I always took option and ESPP profits and rolled them into simple total market index funds. Max out Roth IRAs with the ESPP and RSU proceeds. You will thank yourself later.

Save your market gambling for using the Cisco Brokerage-Link function to day trade things like SPY and other index funds. Save the speculation for that aspect. Leverage Brokerage-Link functionality.

There is safety in being diverse. You are wasting a HUGE opportunity cost, by having an all-in-one basket, waiting to be all lost at the next correction, 2008-ish market meltdown, or CSCO stock demise. It is amazing yes it is at 92; but look at the curve of CSCO going back to 1990s.

Writing this as former CSCO, and living in a neighborhood with several CSCO friends, waiting for their payout, in their $750,000 homes, coupled to serious mortgages and BMW payments. Stop living life shackled to the speculation that this thing is going to keep running. Take your profits now and simplify your lives.

I was guilty of handing on too long to have options and ESPP accumulate, but then as things got very miserable with Cisco corporate ideology changes, I downsized my life financially. I felt shackled in staying because of a number on paper on what it could all be worth. I dumped the ESPP, the RSUs, and paid off all the debt. Then Cisco dumped me. All good, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Now financially and more importantly mentally free from the whole game.

Writing this in hopes that somehow it inspires someone truly as miserable as I was at my last two years at Cisco to do the same. Now may be the time. Cash out. Get your life back.

By the way: AI play on it. Go put all your RSU shares, and ESPP shares, into ChatGPT. Go ask her how much you will get AFTER taxes. You will be astounded how much Uncle Sam is going to take. Another reason to take the money and run.

TIAA is cutting 95 jobs. These layoffs affect its Denver office. The financial services giant is moving operations to Texas. TIAA is ending its lease early. This involves a prominent downtown Denver building.

Denver, Colorado

https://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2026/05/01/denver-layoffs-downtown-colorado-financial-giant.html

Devastating review by new young S&P analysts. Employers will now begin to review MoA as a going concern from a fiduciary standpoint. Rich has another 12 months to turn things around.

Mutual of America Life Insurance Co.
Ratings Lowered To 'A-' From 'A' On
Weakened Competitiveness; Outlook Stable

Mutual of America Life Insurance Co.'s competitiveness has been declining in recent
years, evidenced by volatile profitability and business and geographic concentrations
that constrain its ability to achieve performance consistent with similarly rated peers.

S&P Global Ratings therefore lowered the long-term issuer credit and financial strength
ratings on Mutual of America Life Insurance Co. (MoA) to 'A-' from 'A'

The outlook is stable, reflecting MoA's turnaround plan to drive revenue gains and
reduce expenses.

NEW YORK (S&P Global Ratings) April 27, 2026--S&P Global Ratings today lowered its

long-term issuer credit and financial strength ratings on Mutual of America to 'A-' from 'A'.
The outlook is stable. MoA's volatile, below-peer profitability and concentrated product and geographic profiles dent our view of its business risk. MoA has reported operating losses for the past three years,
with a loss of $27.6 million in 2025, compared to $149.6 million in 2024 and $223 million in
2023. The company had positive net income in 2025, of $2 million, for the second time in the
past five years, but in both cases this owed to one-time, unrealized gains from real estate salesand other Non-Interest Maintenance Reserve (IMR)realized gains from the investment portfolio.

We had anticipated that MoA’s cost-cutting initiatives would generate consistent profitability and returns commensurate with ‘A’-rated peers. While the new management team has taken significant actions, the company has yet to demonstrate sustained profitability Although MoA is pursuing numerous strategic initiatives to restore profitability, we anticipate it will take time

Another round of layoffs. First in March for 60+ people and then again in April. Company cannot stop bleeding money.

Potential Employers and Industries
Your experience at FIS Global can open doors to various companies and industries:
Direct Competitors and Similar Companies: Companies that offer similar financial technology services are often looking for experienced professionals. Some direct competitors to FIS Global include:
Equifax
Popular
Propay
Other significant players in the core banking systems market, like Temenos Transact.
Payment processing providers like Equals Money and Q2.
Other Fintech Companies: The financial technology sector is vast and growing. Many other fintech companies, including those focused on remote work, could be excellent fits. Some companies explicitly mentioned as alternative employers include Ansira, ModSquad, Teleperformance, Concentrix, Conduent, Omni Interactions, and Fora (for a travel agent role).
Big Tech and Financial Services: Larger technology companies and traditional financial institutions often seek individuals with fintech experience for roles in strategy, product management, and operations.
Consulting Firms: Your background in financial technology makes you a strong candidate for consulting roles, particularly within tech or financial services practices.
Venture Capital and Growth Equity Firms: For those with strategic and leadership experience, moving into venture capital or growth equity can be a viable path.

Any news on the gigantic CCB reorganization? When is it going to be over? What are the goals?

The situation at Verizon perfectly encapsulates a bitter reality of the corporate ecosystem: when leadership miscalculates, the workforce absorbs the shock.

The executives who championed the failed pricing strategies of the past are rarely the ones standing in the unemployment line. Instead, the everyday workers pay the price for those executive missteps so that the institutional investors can recoup their money.

​Schulman’s strategy may very well succeed in bouncing Verizon's stock price back to a respectable valuation. The math might start working again.

But what the brand truly stands for when its financial resurrection requires the systematic dismantling of its own culture and the displacement of the very people who trusted the company with their careers.

It is a financial victory achieved through a human loss.

Q: I am 24. I want to retire at 65. I plan to live to 85. How much do I need to save every year if I want to spend $100K every year after retirement?

A:

To retire at 65, live until 85, and spend about $100,000 per year in retirement, you would need to save roughly $6,700 per year starting at age 24. That is about $560 per month. This estimate assumes your investments earn about 7% annually before retirement and about 4% during retirement, with your retirement spending measured in today’s dollars.

The estimate was calculated in two steps. First, I found how much money would be needed at age 65 to fund $100,000 of annual spending for 20 years in retirement, treating retirement withdrawals like a 20-year annuity discounted at a 4% annual return. That gave a required retirement balance of about $1.36 million. Second, I calculated the fixed annual savings needed from age 24 to 65 to grow to that amount, assuming a 7% annual investment return during the saving period.

I read the rules around blackout period but I am asking for advice on how they are enforced. Obviously the SAP share price will keep dropping because there is no SAP strategy besides failing at AI and laying off employees and share buybacks. And we did not even get decent salary appraisals this year. I am low on money and thinking of selling SAP shares just to be able to pay my mortgage and not have to worry about basic necessities. I am not sure how things are in the US but here in Europe, everything is getting more and more expensive. And other companies are not hiring or they are simply laying off. What are the real implications of selling shares during the blackout period? I do not have a high role at SAP and I do not know enough to be considered as someone doing insider trading. I just want to be able to pay my bills. Is there legal action that SAP can take if I sell them before the earnings call? I am also afraid that the share price will go even lower because shareholders are understanding that SAP's executive board has failed. And giving shareholders a higher dividend by laying off employees is not seen by them as longterm success of a company. So I want to get them out before the price goes below €100. Please advice what I should do.

Fulton city school officials are facing a $5 million budget shortfall. This deficit could lead to the layoff of 54 employees. Rising health care costs are a primary factor in the budget crisis. Increased gas and electricity costs also contribute to the financial strain. A budget hearing is scheduled for May 7, with the final budget vote on May 19.

Fulton, New York

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/education/2026/04/10/fulton-schools-budget-shortfall

Down another 6% today, can't drop much further now without default risk on debt and being taken private

New Jersey school districts face significant financial challenges. Many districts propose layoffs, tax increases, and program cuts. Ocean Gate School District will close its only school. These issues stem from revised state funding and rising operational costs. Health care and special education expenses contribute to budget shortfalls.

, New Jersey

https://www.nj.com/education/2026/04/these-11-nj-school-districts-are-facing-layoffs-tax-hikes-and-closures-to-stay-afloat.html

https://www.investmentnews.com/wirehouses/citi-turns-up-the-heat-on-wealth-bankers-as-it-races-to-close-the-gap-with-rivals/266043

Does anyone have experience with this option? Is there a maximum age you can execute this? The reason I am asking is that I am hesitant to commit to a fix life time annuity now with the DOW down 5,000 points since the start of the war. I understand you can withdraw up to 7 percent with this option for non-tiaa traditional. Just wanted to get a perspective before i speak with a TIAA WMA. I appreciate the insight.

Nebraska Wesleyan announced the elimination of 14 positions. These job cuts are part of necessary budget reductions. The university faces difficulties from declining enrollment and rising operational costs. Affected employees were offered severance packages and continued health insurance. A faculty advisory work group has been formed to review academic programs and positions.

Lincoln, Nebraska

https://www.1011now.com/2025/10/10/nebraska-wesleyan-announces-layoffs-due-budgetary-issues/

Seriously. How is it possible to get out of the hole we are in? Can't lower prices, Customers don't want to come back to us, Can't gain trust to get new customers, Verizon is coming in. I wish Dennis or management would comment on how this company will start making money again! I have been here for a long time and I can't see a way to get out of this hole Altice put us in.

Ok, let's say they need to fire ~10,000 people to stay afloat in some form or fashion:

With severance, UI insurance, COBRA, and other sundry items, lets say it costs $10K on average. Not just the package, but the actual total cost of firing someone. 10000 X 10000 is $100 million.

This sounds about right, but let's say it is half of that, or 5000/head, or $50Mil.

Do you think these creeps are going to spend $50 million to do the right thing? They will not, because:

1. They are crooks and creeps.
2. They have a fiduciary duty to shareholders AND debtholders.

My gut says they will file CH11 as soon as they can get away with doing so.

Total opposite of other analysts and certainly no belief in management. Mayo hasn’t been this tough and we know how he feels about BillyBob and his management.

Jefferies initiated coverage on Truist Financial Corp. (NYSE:TFC) with an underperform rating and set a price target of $35.00, representing a significant 23% downside from the current stock price of $45.39. This bearish stance contrasts sharply with the broader analyst consensus of Hold, with price targets ranging from $48.50 to $69.
The firm cited execution risk related to the bank achieving its return on tangible common equity target of 15% in fiscal year 2026, up from 13% in fiscal year 2025. The challenge appears substantial given that Truist’s return on common equity currently stands at just 8% as of the last twelve months. According to InvestingPro analysis, 8 analysts have revised their earnings downwards for the upcoming period, though the stock trades at a P/E ratio of 11.86 and offers a dividend yield of 4.59%.
Jefferies said intensifying competition in the Southeast may hinder loan and deposit growth and add friction to the company’s hiring plans.
The firm noted that even if Truist Financial meets its ROTCE target, it would trail peers at 17% in fiscal year 2027.
Jefferies said the expected performance gap warrants a discounted valuation for the stock.

The Los Angeles Unified School District announced staff layoffs. This action comes amidst a significant budget shortfall. The district faces an $877 million deficit. These layoffs are a direct result of the financial challenges. The district is addressing its budget imbalance.

Los Angeles, California

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/video/news/local/lausd-issues-staff-layoffs-amid-877m-budget-shortfall/3861863/

Apollo (APO) & their insurance subsidiary Athene are big private credit players that are under liquidity pressure due to a market perception of increased credit risk resulting in a sharp decline in APO share price. This is important because AT&T off loaded some of their pension liabilities to Athene.

You could be at risk-PAY ATTENTION!!

Under the group annuity contracts, Athene made an irrevocable commitment and became solely responsible for paying the pension benefits of each transferred participant beginning with their August 2023 pension payments. The transaction did not change the amount of pension benefits payable.

The transaction covered approximately 96,000 AT&T participants and beneficiaries, and was funded directly by assets of the pension trust — requiring no cash or asset contributions by AT&T.

This seems interesting as the classed the trademark was filed is 009, 036, 042.
IC 009: Downloadable software in the nature of a mobile application
IC 036: Financial exchange; Financial information; Financial processing
IC 042 Software as a service (SAAS) services featuring softwar for tokenization of assets.

You can go to uspto.gov and search for yourself and get more details.....

Let's see where this takes us.

https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kk9z3n9c
or
@OP+1kk9z3n9c

From Bloomberg:

• Capital One will lay off 1,139 employees after acquiring Discover Financial Services in 2024.
• About half of the layoffs affect Illinois workers, mainly at Discover’s Riverwoods headquarters.
• Additional employees work remotely but report to teams based in Riverwoods.
• None of the layoffs involve front-line customer-facing positions.
• Capital One has cut 1,748 jobs total since late 2025.
• Layoffs are part of integrating Discover into Capital One after the $35 billion merger.
• Most workers leave by May 4, with final departures scheduled by Oct. 2, and will receive severance and career support.

Why is this not being discussed? Europe is breaking up with Visa and MasterCard to use their own system. What's going to happen to overseas card acceptance? How does this affect Fiserv and other acquirers?

https://europeanbusinessmagazine.com/business/europes-24-trillion-breakup-with-visa-and-mastercard-has-begun/?amp=1

We need real growth, not by pulling ahead to make quarterly figures. Financial Hocus Pocus always ends in tears.

Despite the online gushing about a Verizon turnaround since CEO Dan Schulman took over, the completion of its break up by delayering, which started more than 10 years ago, seems a far more likely outcome for what was once the top wireless provider in the US.

Verizon has been delayering for a decade
Delayering is when a telco splits itself into separate ServCo, NetCo, and InfraCo layers and sells off its assets to address its debts. (For a deeper understanding, check out this TM Forum research report on it). Verizon has been at this awhile.

Sold its towers

Verizon began delayering in about 2015 when it sold most of its cell towers to American Tower and the rest to Vertical Bridge just last year. Now largely a ServCo-Netco, Verizon leases towers from American Tower, Vertical Bridge, Crown Castle, and SBA Communications. The company still owns its base stations and other network gear, which move toward obsolescence every day.

Sold its data centers

Verizon left the data center business in 2017 through a deal with Equinix and now partners with hyperscalers like AWS and Microsoft for data center capacity. So, Verizon does not own much of the physical plant where it runs its IT and network systems.

Verizon’s IT landscape remains on its books, but much or most of that is outsourced and licensed, some is obsolete, and all of it is aging fast. As the pace of change increases across IT markets worldwide, especially with the AI invasion, its legacy BSS and OSS systems become costlier and less relevant to future value.

Spinning off its stores

Most recently, Verizon announced it would convert its company-owned stores to franchised Authorized Retailers. Most likely these physical assets will go to big partners like Victra and Wireless Zone, which already operate thousands of Verizon stores. This also relates to the company’s announced layoffs of thousand of customer-facing employees to shed expense.

Fiber miles next?

Verizon still owns significant installed fiber optic assets. Just as AT&T and T‑Mobile US lease most of their fiber, we should probably expect to see Verizon sell off this physical plant to raise more cash.

Becoming customer-focused? Not really
Schulman’s turnaround spiel insists the company “must shift to a customer-first focus.” This is a tacit admission that Verizon isn’t customer-focused now.

Lip service ripped from T‑Mobile

Spinning out thousands of stores to partners who charge added service fees doesn’t sound like a customer-centric move. The messaging sounds disingenuous and is cut-and-pasted from T‑Mobile’s playbook. T‑Mobile’s “customer obsession” has helped it take the lead in US wireless and it took a few years to kick in.

Cut rate holiday offers

Verizon launched a “bring your bill” holiday campaign to undercut AT&T and T‑Mobile pricing. This isn’t customer-centric, it’s prospect-centric. And it’s a race to the bottom price gimmick Sprint failed with before being acquired by T‑Mobile US.

This desperation rate cut coupled with the 13,000 non-union layoffs looks more like a short-term ploy to bump Verizon’s stock by doing two things Wall Street likes: cutting costs and adding subscribers.

These moves might benefit Schulman’s cadre of executives and remaining shareholding employees. Keep an eye on insider sales the minute the stock price moves north, if it does.

Cannibalizing its own MVNOs
Part of Schulman’s justification for price cutting is to fend off its aggressive competitors and turn the tide on customer churn. Wireless offerings from cable MSOs are major drivers of the churn he wants to stop. Two of the biggest players in cable MVNOs are Comcast and Charter, which use Verizon’s network. Verizon might win some customers away from AT&T and T‑Mobile with its holiday sale, but they will also undercut these wholesale customers.

Back in May, Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath was telling the street that cable MSOs are “a very important strategic partner of ours” adding that because they only focus on certain segments and play in markets where Verizon “may not have a presence… it’s actually a gain for us.”

Here’s your mixed metaphor of the day: Verizon is a snake eating its tail while rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship. This is BS on top of BS from Verizon leadership.

A mountain of debt to conquer
One thing Verizon does own is a $147 billion mountain of debt. This stands against less than $8 billion in cash on hand. Some of this debt is a leftover from the company’s debt financed, $130 billion purchase of Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless back in 2014. Selling off assets to American Tower for $5 billion hardly made a dent. Some debt also ties back to its C‑band spectrum auction “win” in 2021, which cost the company more than $45 billion. Spectrum remains Verizon’s prized asset, but it’s not enough to overcome its debts.

This makes Verizon dependent on its rich cash flows. The company reported about $135 billion in operating revenue for 2024, with about $37 billion in cash flow and $19.8 billion in free cash flow. Verizon’s annual interest expense alone is around $7 billion. This doesn’t set a great stage for a turnaround and is a big part of the reason for the company’s mass layoffs just before the US Thanksgiving holiday. Classy move.

There’s not much left for Verizon to sell out of its cupboard and only so many heads it can cut to deal with its ugly debt problem.

If you’re a Verizon IT vendor, get ready to feel the squeeze. You can bet a round of contract cancellations are on the way. It would not be the first-time new management in a US telco booted out as many IT players as it could to cut costs.

Private bankers happy, public shareholders not
What’s left of Verizon will be a low-cost wireless brand that offers less value to consumers than its own MVNOs.

This reduced company isn’t suddenly going to care better for its customers. It won’t cater to businesses better as it trims back the IT and employees it needs to do so. And it doesn’t offer a better network than its rivals.

Schulman may have a great track record making investors happy, but which investors is he trying to make happy now? I don’t think it’s the public market.

Private banking interests will benefit most from the finalization of Verizon’s break up. Public shareholders will be left with the brand, debts, spectrum — if that isn’t also sold off — IT expense, and probably a reduced dividend in the not-too-distant future.

Verizon turn-around? It seems doubtful that’s even the plan. The completion of its de-layering and devouring by private money interests looks like a far more likely outcome. Then it’s a question of who buys whatever is left.

Anyone want to guess?

Just wondering what the goal is of McKinsey and co to destroy employee good will as much as they can.

Every person who takes pride in their work learns to not only stop giving a sh-t, but extract as much as they can from the company out of pure spite. Every department has people deliberately making mistakes and slowing procedures down out of PURE SPITE because they hate this company.

When you first start, you wonder at the incompetence of literally every team around you, but then you are adopted into the culture. The culture is: Smile while doing everything possible to make the company worse and the people around you’s jobs harder. This a joint effort, and eventually you fall in line.

Senior leadership is involved in this joint effort, they pass down initiatives that they know will fail with a smile and a song, and everyone nods enthusiastically, with the same smile, and the grunt employees smile a painful grimace as they purposefully make the process even worse than it would have been initially out of pure spite. But they are still smiling, that’s the important part. Their middle managers get their bonus, the senior leaders get their bonus, everyone smiles and money flows, wasted on infinite vanity projects and processes that don’t work.

Had you asked employees who do these processed day in day out if they might work, they could have told you from the beginning. But these employees likely did express concern at one point, years ago, and learned that that is NOT the Schwab way. The Schwab way is to keep your mouth shut and smile. Everybody knows they don’t work, but that is not important. What is important is that you smile some that whichever C-Suite gets applauded for fudged numbers from their vanity project.

I don’t know how clients think our customer service is wonderful. Everyone I talk to hates their job and is confidently incorrect. It takes me, on average, 10 hours of extra work a week to fix simply mistakes made by other department. I can call five different departments and receive 5 different answers. I don’t blame them, Schwab provides no training (too expensive) and no motivation. Hurting the customer and internal business partners seems to be the only way to lash out at the company that clearly hates you.

So remember you think you are guaranteed but honestly once the pensions were sold off they are no longer federally guaranteed it’s state regulatory guaranteed.Which is dependent on state .So NJ would be up to 250,000 .So if you have more your gambling.I believe.But here is one article https://www.americanretiree.com/post/verizon-retirees-object-to-5-9-billion-pension-spinoff

As project Crane continues to sla-ghter headcount and increase exec compensation the job market becomes even more unfavorable leaving employees unable to pay their WF mortgages, car payments, personal loans and more. Severance pay is only for people with tenure. So many people we new to wells fargo just a couple of years ago which means at best they might see 2 weeks or so of severance. Pay your bills on that, good luck because its not possible. Unemployment in many states is around $200 a week. What can someone really do with that, NOTHING!!!!

Anyone having any insight on this? As we heard big layoffs planned

Finally, SLF seems to have found something she's really good at: sending the stock CONSISTENTLY down at the speed of a failed SpaceX rocket. Time for some put options, because when the FT news is public, and James has to guide the investors, you can make some serious money when the stock sinks below 35! (This is NOT financial advice, though!!!). Say hi to Bob T!

There is 150 million left in the plan for right sizing the company, that's roughly 1500 jobs

Will this happen before end of financial year ?

Stock price collapsing again. Heading to ten bucks a share

There will be no OpenText in 18 months

Something doesn't add up.