Mark DeCambre

There are a few big new players in Silicon Valley’s funding frenzy.

It wasn’t as bad as some expected.

The numbers: Less than stellar. The US’s second largest bank by assets spent $6 billion during the first quarter on settlements tied to disputes with the mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–its biggest legal expense this quarter. The bank came in short of analyst expectations, losing $276 million in the first quarter, compared to a $1.48-billion profit during the same period last year. Even without the legal costs, the news wasn’t good: revenues slipped 4% to $22.7 billion.

It’s rough out there.

If you thought JPMorgan’s earnings were rough, brace yourself for Citigroup’s first-quarter results, which are due Monday.

The numbers: Ouch! JPMorgan Chase rarely disappoints analysts, but its latest quarterly results managed to miss expectations that were already low to begin with. CEO Jamie Dimon had warned that the bank’s performance in key areas like fixed income wasn’t trending well. In the end, first quarter revenues fell by 8%, to $25.2 billion. Profits sank nearly 20%, to $5.3 billion.

Bill Gross is doing some very public soul-searching.

It wasn’t an easy year to be a master of the universe.

No, Sigma X is not a Goldman Sachs fraternity. It’s the electronic trading platform the bank may be about to shutter (paywall), the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. (People familiar with Goldman’s thinking tell Quartz that the firm hasn’t made any decision on the platform.)

Newly cast leverage ratio rules adopted by US regulators yesterday are set to make it more difficult for the biggest US banks to go back to their old pre-crisis borrowing ways. The measure centers on something known as a supplementary leverage ratio. In basic terms, a leverage ratio is the amount of debt that a company carries on its balance sheet relative to the amount of total assets it owns.

Technology markets look like they’re on the fritz.

It looks to be a pretty poor earning season for the biggest banks in the US.  Some, such as JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, already have signaled that key revenue units, such as fixed-income trading, endured an ugly first quarter.

We already knew that US banks are facing a pretty rough first quarter, with a slowdown in fixed income currencies and commodities units–known as FICC. Trading FICC instruments, such as derivatives, bonds, and currencies, has historically been a big revenue-driver for banks, but trading volume in that area has significantly retreated in the face of new regulatory scrutiny.

You’re going to have to tear it from their cold, dead fingers.

It has not been a good few months for Citigroup. The sprawling international banking giant has been trying to shake its reputation as one of the weakest links in the US financial system since 2008.

Memo to Silicon Valley’s IPO candidates: If you’re looking for a sizable first day “pop” on your offering, you might want to tap Goldman Sachs as your the lead underwriter.

Investors may be about to buy a bigger stake in SpaceX.

Once they swaggered, but now they’ve shriveled.

Spotify could take itself public some time in the fall of 2014.

Sure, there’s a lot of action in the tech space right now. There was Facebook’s $19-billion purchase of the messaging company WhatsApp. Just yesterday Zuckerberg & Co. acquired the virtual reality company Oculus VR for $2 billion. And, yes, there’s been a slew of recent public offerings, including today’s trading debut of  King Digital Entertainment, the maker of the popular Candy Crush mobile game (which isn’t exactly crushing it). But let’s be clear. This technology market is nowhere near the bubblicious territory of the late 1990s. In fact, by a few key measures, the surge in the technology and internet space isn’t even close to the boom that peaked in 2000 when the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite touched a peak of 5,408.62. Now some argue that we are within spitting distance of those Nasdaq peaks. But yesterday the market closed at 4,234.27—around 2% up on the year, but still about 22% shy of that 5, 408 peak from 14 years ago. Nor are we anywhere near the pace of tech IPOs seen during those manic days. In fact, between 1999 and 2000, a combined 794 tech execs took their companies public on either the Nasdaq or NYSE stock exchanges. By comparison, the 86 tech firms that went public during 2012 and 2013 looks relatively paltry. So far, only about 10 tech companies have gone public in 2014. Here’s a look at the trend. (As a side note, you can also see how Nasdaq’s advantage in landing tech listings has disappeared.)   The IPOs that do hit the market are also more modest than they were during the tech boom. A whopping $82 billion in snazzy tech deals hit the market in 1999 and 2000, compared to just $30 billion during 2012 and 2013. So far this year, the tech IPOs that have come to market are worth about $1.6 billion.

JPMorgan Chase is losing one of its highest ranking senior executives.

It’s official: Online file-sharing firm Box is going public. (We warned you it was in the works.) The offering is just the latest in a slate of tech IPOs that have become one of the hottest areas of financial markets.

The results of the Federal Reserve’s latest test of the US financial system’s ability to withstand severe shocks are in. While 29 out of 30 institutions passed muster, some looked stronger than others.