consumer research blackrock

Consumers’ Research Issues Consumer Warning on BlackRock’s Relationship with China

WASHINGTON--( BUSINESS WIRE )--Today, Consumers’ Research released a Consumer Warning to inform U.S. consumers that BlackRock, the world’s largest money management company, is taking their money and betting on China.

Consumers’ Research’s Warning details BlackRock’s ties to China, which date back to the early 2000s, and shines a light on BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink’s personal relationships with China’s communist leadership.

This Consumer Warning also lists the ten states whose public pension funds are most deeply invested in BlackRock: Washington, Florida, New York, Nevada, Nebraska, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Montana, and West Virginia.

“Today BlackRock manages trillions of dollars of Americans’ hard-earned money ,” said Will Hild, Executive Director of Consumers’ Research. “Consumers deserve to know what BlackRock is doing with that money. What we’ve seen is that while BlackRock is virtue signaling in the United States, they’re aiding our adversaries with American pension dollars.”

The release of the Consumer Warning comes after new findings in the 2021 Report to Congress , which highlights the economic and national security risks of U.S. financial dealings with China, and BlackRock’s decision to seemingly double-down on its investments in the country with no regard for the Congressional report.

In addition to the Warning, earlier this Fall, Consumers’ Research released a hard-hitting TV ad , along with several billboards across New York City, including one in Times Square , exposing ties between BlackRock and the Chinese Communist Party.

“We cannot let executives like Larry Fink try and tell Americans how to live while simultaneously cozying up to one of the world’s leading human rights abusers,” said Hild. “Telling Americans how to behave, while ignoring China’s many environmental and human rights abuses is hypocritical in the worst way. Consumers deserve to know when woke companies are taking advantage of them and misusing their assets.”

You can view the Consumer Warning here .

To read more about Consumers’ Research and its more than 90-year-history, click here .

Will Hild [email protected] 703-683-5004

Is BlackRock’s Larry Fink blowing it for the climate?

As the ‘anti-woke’ movement rattles the billionaire, a wall street effort key to avoiding climate chaos falters.

An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of BlackRock executive Mark Wiedman.

Just after Thanksgiving, dozens of state lawmakers packed into a hotel ballroom in downtown Washington to plan their next assault on a movement that pushes companies to confront global warming and social injustice. Their attacks on “ woke investing ” were already sticking in red-state capitols and on Fox News, but the group wanted a target with a human face.

“Every big problem needs a face and a name,” the speaker said at the private event hosted by the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. “The worst offender out there is BlackRock and Larry Fink.”

Since then, the attacks have been unrelenting. And Fink, founder of the world’s largest investment and risk management firm, has throttled back on the urgency with which he pushes companies to confront climate change. The resolute language in public letters to CEOs is gone. And BlackRock executives have begun waving away the climate targets they once committed to helping the world meet as irrelevant to the current moment.

“The conversation with clients has moved away from … 2050 targets,” said Mark Wiedman, who heads global client business at BlackRock, referring to the U.N. goal of zeroing out emissions by 2050 to stop catastrophic warming. “It’s moved away from [climate] alliances. It’s moved toward actually putting money to work that will profit from and drive the transition.”

BlackRock frames this as an obvious evolution. Climate-focused regulators in blue states and D.C., however, see a dangerous abandonment.

BlackRock sits on $9 trillion in assets from pension funds, governments , universities and companies. It is bigger than better-known rivals Vanguard and Fidelity. Its billionaire leader has unparalleled influence over the direction of the economy’s largest companies and used his position to pioneer investing that factors in the environmental and social footprint of businesses. He is not accustomed to losing control of the narrative.

Yet Fink’s once-robust warnings to CEOs about the peril of ignoring climate risk — emphasized by BlackRock in its pursuit of what is called environmental, social, governance, or ESG — now have BlackRock rivaling Disney and Anheuser Busch as the favored target of a conservative “anti-woke” movement shaping the 2024 election campaign.

“If you told me two years ago that there would be a political movement focused on attacking critical race theory, gas stove bans and ESG investing, I would have said you are standing too close to your gas stove,” said Brad Lander, the comptroller of New York City. “But they have made ESG investing part of the culture war. How clever to make Wall Street the target with their pretend populism, when they are really doing the bidding of fossil fuel companies.”

He wrote the book on crushing ‘wokeism.’ Now he’s running for president.

It is questionable whether haranguing corporate policies will help the GOP retake the White House. But what is clear is that the way Fink navigates this storm could determine whether the world achieves its goal of limiting the most disastrous effects of climate change. Lander is among many who say he is flailing.

Fink says nothing has changed. But the company’s portfolio these days does not reflect the ambitions he laid out when BlackRock launched its climate crusade in 2019. BlackRock is the world’s second biggest investor in fossil energy, according to the German NGO Urgewald, which also reports that no financial firm invests more in coal developers. BlackRock argues that its investments are consistent with a commitment to a responsible and orderly — rather than recklessly rushed — energy transition, as well as the realities of global energy needs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Larry can’t come out and say, ‘We were wrong. We should not have gone so far over our skis, even as BlackRock is regressing,’” another financial industry leader with clout rivaling that of Fink said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “He has to publicly defend his business model. But at the end of the day, BlackRock’s objective is to be the biggest asset manager in the world. That means he needs to be selling people the products they want, not social policy.”

“We are now seeing the pendulum swing back to the reality of unintended consequences for companies like BlackRock making big, bold, definitive statements,” the executive said.

This is much bigger, though, than one firm’s quest to dominate the financial industry. Decades into the effort to contain global warming, America is more dependent than ever on companies like BlackRock for solutions. Without a national policy requiring industry to embrace a carbon-free future, the country is left with a patchwork of regulations and voluntary programs often reliant on Wall Street pressure.

Banks and giant fund managers have landed in the role of de facto climate regulators amid their worries that warming threatens to destabilize the firms they invest in.

Fink, who declined several interview requests, initially seemed to relish his role in the ESG movement. The company is the most prominent member of a key U.N. initiative to reach net zero emissions by 2050 called the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative, a consortium of big financial firms representing tens of trillions of dollars.

Fink mentioned climate 29 times in a 2020 letter to CEOs. “Climate risk is investment risk,” he wrote. “In the near future – and sooner than most anticipate – there will be a significant reallocation of capital” because of it.

“Larry was clearly saying if government is not going to fix this problem, we will help push them in the right direction,” said Peter McKillop, a former managing director in the communications division of BlackRock. “It was considered exciting and morale-boosting. Who wouldn’t want to work there?”

Some senior executives inside the company, though, worried Fink was setting very public targets for ESG impossible for a firm of its size to meet without alienating clients and diminishing investment returns.

For better or worse, billionaires now guide climate policy

“There was this naive assumption that if Larry Fink and a couple of others would get out there and talk all this ESG and demand all these requirements, the oil industry just would go along,” McKillop said. “Instead, he poked the bear. The oil industry is going to fight this to the death. And it has a war chest of tens of billions to do it.”

Vanguard, another big financial company that had signed on to the Net Zero alliance, bailed on the effort as the conservative backlash mounted. Large investment banks threatened to bolt from a parallel U.N. effort, forcing a compromise that scrapped a requirement that members quickly phase out fossil fuel investments.

But Fink’s moves are what Wall Street and Washington are watching most closely, as he is, in the words of one executive, the financial industry’s “800-pound gorilla.”

The billionaire’s clout was solidified during the Obama administration, which leaned on him heavily as it sought a path out of the mortgage crisis. The Trump White House would later call on Fink for help stemming the economic meltdown that accompanied the onset of the pandemic. Trump praised Fink at a 2017 White House meeting for doing “a great job for me. He managed a lot of my money and, I have to tell you, he got me great returns.”

By the time President Biden took office, Fink had consolidated considerable power in Washington. His company had secured major government contracts and persuaded regulators not to impose on it the Great Recession-era restrictions and constraints that now apply to other “too big to fail” financial institutions. It pushed prominent progressives to demand BlackRock executives be blacklisted from White House jobs. They were ignored. Biden would appoint one BlackRock executive to be his top economic adviser, and another to be deputy secretary of the Treasury. A BlackRock alum would also become the vice president’s top economic adviser.

The son of a shoe store owner and English professor in California’s San Fernando Valley, Fink has mostly been on a rocket ship of success since the mid-1970s, when he drifted into a job at the firm First Boston trading mortgage-backed bonds. Within two years, he was running the department. He would become the youngest member of the firm’s management committee by age 31.

Fink joined Blackstone in the 1980s but parted ways with the equity firm to form BlackRock, and the new company’s savvy at gauging and navigating risk propelled it into a breakout star following the financial meltdown of 2008. BlackRock was put in charge of managing tens of billions of dollars in toxic assets that had come under federal control, including the entire portfolio of the failed institution Bear Stearns.

The firm has spent millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions to both major parties. By the time a 2013 Treasury Department report noted that BlackRock had grown so big that it could present a risk to the U.S. financial system absent more intense regulatory scrutiny, the firm had influential allies on Capitol Hill steering the Obama administration away from taking action.

BlackRock is now so large, according to a paper published in the Boston University Law Review, that it and just two other companies could control more than a third of shareholder votes in the S&P 500 within five years. Its formidable size made its embrace of ESG all the more significant.

Even champions of ESG say it is an imperfect vehicle: amorphous, misunderstood and easy to attack. The term was conceived two decades ago at the United Nations and has since come to encompass everything including promoting diversity in boardrooms and confronting corporate environmental impacts.

“The problem is it is a mash-up of so many issues,” said Doug Chia, a fellow at the Center for Corporate Law and Governance at Rutgers Law School in New Jersey. “Not all of them apply to every company. But it became a perfect pretext for politicians who want to talk about the culture war and woke agendas.”

Tariq Fancy, BlackRock’s former chief investment officer for sustainable investing, said the irony is that ESG had been largely hollowed out before the right latched onto it, with firms slapping the label onto run-of-the-mill funds to mislead progressive investors. He compared ESG to the lifeless body in the movie “Weekend at Bernie’s,” with conservative activists propping it up to give the appearance that it was a living menace.

As the culture wars drifted increasingly toward corporate policies, it was perhaps inevitable Fink would wind up in the political crosshairs.

“It is not business the way they are doing it,” Fink said of the campaign against him, speaking this year from the stage of the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland — a platform preferred by the billionaire who brands himself a globalist. “In the first time in my professional career, the attacks are now personal.”

The group Consumers’ Research has spent more than $4 million attacking BlackRock. Its ominous ads accuse Fink of using his clout to lock Americans into a hellscape of high energy costs while he endangers the nation with his own lucrative business deals in China. It’s a familiar playbook, similar to the one the right uses against progressive billionaires George Soros and Mike Bloomberg: Elitist globalists expand their power by taking away your freedom. Like Fink, those two men are Jewish.

Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, calls charges the campaign feeds into antisemitic tropes “completely baseless,” noting that his wife and two sons are Jewish. Hild confirmed to The Washington Post that he promoted the targeting of Fink at the private event in Washington, captured on a recording given to The Post by the investigative journalism project Documented.

“Larry Fink is running a massive scam against the American consumer,” Hild said in an interview, “We didn’t think it was fair for him to get away with that simply because no one knew his name. We are working hard to make sure every American household knows that the reason prices are going up is because of Larry Fink and BlackRock.”

BlackRock is accused by critics on the right of a fervor for green energy that pushed corporations into costly initiatives, and an obsession with ESG that played into its clients losing $1.7 trillion when the markets slid in early 2022. The points are in dispute. BlackRock clients were not the only ones who took such a hit in 2022, and the extent to which ESG policies help or hurt returns — or impact the cost of products companies manufacture — is a matter of intense debate among experts.

The attacks are revealing how unprepared BlackRock was for this battle. When BlackRock announced that it was launching a major marketing push — called About BlackRock — to counter the narrative of the anti-woke activists, it neglected to register that domain name. Hild grabbed it. Aboutblackrock.com now houses videos and writings that savage Fink.

Hild’s nonprofit is part of a well-funded network of conservative advocacy groups taking aim at climate-conscious investing, including the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the State Financial Officers Foundation. A central figure in the movement is Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society whose decades-long effort was foundational to the sharp right turn of America’s judiciary. Its most visible spokesman is author and investment manager Vivek Ramaswamy, a relentless BlackRock critic who has made the evils of ESG the centerpiece of his recently launched presidential campaign.

It has created an unprecedented public relations menace for Fink. The firm is now a target of state and federal antitrust investigations , and red-state leaders are vowing to divest as much from it as they can. They have so far moved $4 billion out.

Why is Disney suing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis?

Fink is a creature of Wall Street, where success is judged by the numbers. Every dollar BlackRock lost in red-state government money over the last year has already been replaced by many more dollars of new investment from other clients. “The reality is we are winning more share wallet than any company in the world right now,” Fink told CNBC last month. “Our clients are speaking loudly by the amount of money they are awarding us.”

But the broader battle over climate change is bigger than the financial gains of one company, and Fink has stopped being a reliable leader on that front.

“He is not using his voice in a way young people will thank him for 40 years from now,” Fancy said. “The problem is that he can’t solve this crisis, but he is leaving the impression that he can. He is not being honest about how the system works. If he were being honest, it would lead to regulations that are not in his interest, and more taxes that would lessen the income of billionaires like him. He’s engaged in an intellectual fantasy.”

BlackRock’s Wiedman counters that Fink has long been calling for government to engage more aggressively, as it is not the role of an asset manager to set policy. “We can’t use our clients’ money to commit to goals they have not given us,” he said.

By 2021, BlackRock supported nearly half the shareholder proposals pushing for lower emissions at public companies, including playing a major role in propelling more climate-conscious directors onto the board of ExxonMobil. But it backed less than a quarter of such shareholder measures last year, and it has signaled that it will take an even more selective approach this year. The company says what changed is the quality of the proposals, which have become too “prescriptive and constraining on management” and often ignore how the war in Ukraine has reshaped energy needs.

BlackRock is among at least a dozen big financial firms that warned investors in their latest annual reports that the backlash against sustainable investing has become a business risk. Fink no longer talks about the issue with the bravado of a change agent.

“It is not the role of an asset manager like BlackRock to engineer a particular outcome in the economy, and we don’t know the ultimate path and timing of the transition,” he wrote in his latest public letter to shareholders , released in March.

“They are walking severely back from recognizing climate risk is financial risk because a few red-state treasurers and attorneys general doing the bidding of their fossil fuel donors have launched a culture war and are using BlackRock as a target,” Lander said.

There is one point, though, on which Lander, BlackRock and even Consumers’ Research agree: Leaving climate policy to the whims of a billionaire is a fraught path.

“It would be far better if government stepped up to set clear expectations for the transition to net zero,” Lander said. “What is expected of banks? What is expected of investors? What is expected of financial companies?”

“Unfortunately,” he said, “there is no reason to be optimistic that is going to happen.”

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Consumers' Research blasts BlackRock's Larry Fink for going 'all-in on China'

Ad ends by slamming fink and blackrock as 'taking your money' and 'betting on china'.

Blackrock CEO Larry Fink casts moderate tone on carbon footprints: Gasparino

Fink calls for middle ground on environmentally-sensitive investing in his annual letter to other chief executives.

FIRST ON FOX: Conservative nonprofit Consumers’ Research blasted investment giant BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink for going "all-in on China ."

Consumers’ Research slammed Fink in a new digital ad exclusively obtained by FOX Business, which highlights the financial leader's kowtowing to "Chinese communists."

"Larry Fink wanted the world to think he was woke until we called him out for violating his fiduciary duty to America's pensioners. Now he's backtracking and claiming he's just a capitalist," Consumers’ Research executive director Will Hild told FOX Business in a statement.

BLACKROCK INVESTMENTS IN CHINA: CONSUMERS’ RESEARCH WARNING CONSUMERS, GOVERNMENTS

"He's lying again, but his actions speak for themselves," Hild continued. "He's using American investment dollars to cozy up to Chinese communists and woke politicians, betraying the American consumer in the process."

Larry Fink, chief executive officer of BlackRock Inc., gestures as he speaks during a Bloomberg event on the opening day of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020. World leaders, influential executives, banker (Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

The ad, which was released Thursday, torches Fink over his connections to China. Additionally, Consumers' Research created a website to expose Fink's different controversial political positions.

"He calls democracy ‘messy.’ Props up the Chinese Communist Party," the video says. "Praises [Chinese President] Xi and his regime, known for violent oppression."

"Invests in Chinese military companies," the video continues. "A defector? No. It’s BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, the CEO of a major American company that has gone all-in on China."

The ad ends by blasting both Fink and BlackRock as "taking your money" and "betting on China."

Chinese President Xi Jinping is zeroing in on the ties that China’s state banks and other financial stalwarts have developed with big private-sector players, expanding his push to curb capitalist forces in the economy.  (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Consumers’ Research warned 10 state governors via a letter last December against doing business with BlackRock over the company's investments in China. 

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Hild sent the letter to the governors of Washington, Florida, New York, Nevada, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia – the 10 states with the top-10 state pension fund investments with BlackRock – to "raise awareness among American consumers that BlackRock is taking their money and betting on China."

BlackRock did not immediately reply to FOX Business' request for comment.

FOX Business' Audrey Conklin contributed reporting.

About BlackRock

Consumer warning.

U.S. Consumers should be wary of investments managed by BlackRock Investment Management Company. Led by Chairman and CEO Larry Fink, the company uses its clout to push a radical agenda in coordination with other financiers through a network of international organizations. This Consumer Warning highlights the commitments BlackRock has made with their investors’ money—commitments that adversely impact the U.S. economy and likely violate their fiduciary duty to seek the best return, putting your retirement at risk in the name of progressive politics.

Architect of Woke Capitalism

“Society is increasingly looking to companies, both public and private, to address pressing social and economic issues. These issues range from protecting the environment to retirement to gender and racial inequality, among others.” – Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO 2019 “Letter to CEOs”

Champion of Forced Behaviors

“Behaviors are going to have to change, and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at BlackRock , we are forcing behaviors.” – Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO

China’s Best Friend

“I continue to believe firmly China will be one of the biggest opportunities for BlackRock over the long term, both for asset managers and investors.” – Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO

Running Biden’s Economy

“This is about the future of the Liberal World Order and we have to stand firm.” – Brian Deese, White House Director of the National Economic Council and  BlackRock’s former Global Head of Sustainable Investing

Consumer Warnings

BLACKROCK IS TAKING YOUR MONEY AND BETTING ON CHINA

BLACKROCK IS CRUSHING AMERICA FROM WITHIN

Backpedaling

Consumers’ Research is a nonprofit organization. Consumers’ Research has no affiliation with BlackRock© aboutblackrock.com 2022. All Rights Reserved. Sponsored by Consumers’ Research. Contact us.

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Consumers’ Research Issues Warning About BlackRock’s ESG Agenda

For close to a century, Consumers’ Research (CR) has been looking out for the well-being of consumers. For much of its history, CR tested, rated, and reviewed a wide variety of consumer products, ensuring the products were safe and effective. However, in recent years, CR has pivoted to “examining the effects on consumers of government programs, laws, and regulations.”

Today, CR’s mission, “is to increase the knowledge and understanding of issues, policies, products, and services of concern to consumers and to promote the freedom to act on that knowledge and understanding.”

As one of the few organizations advocating for these principles, we should take seriously the fact that CR has identified that investment firm giant BlackRock, which holds more than $8.5 trillion in assets, poses a threat to consumers due to its aggressive advocacy for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

In fact, to alert consumers of the threat posed by BlackRock’s ESG agenda, CR issued the following:

“CONSUMER WARNING: U.S. Consumers should be wary of investments managed by BlackRock Investment Management Company. Led by Chairman and CEO Larry Fink, the company uses its clout to push a radical agenda in coordination with other financiers through a network of international organizations. This Consumer Warning highlights the commitments BlackRock has made with their investors’ money—commitments that adversely impact the U.S. economy and likely violate their fiduciary duty to seek the best return, putting your retirement at risk in the name of progressive politics.”

Hopefully, this warning will resonate with consumers, who are unwittingly funding BlackRock’s radical ESG agenda.

To read the full report, which I highly recommend, click here .

PHOTO: Warning. Photo by m.p.3. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Chris Talgo

Chris Talgo ( [email protected] ) is the editorial director and a research fellow at The Heartland Institute, as well as a researcher and contributing editor at StoppingSocialism.com.

• Chris Talgo https://stoppingsocialism.com/author/ctalgo/ Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Jump the Shark with Loan Shark Prevention Act
• Chris Talgo https://stoppingsocialism.com/author/ctalgo/ When It Comes to Government, Bigger Is Not Better
• Chris Talgo https://stoppingsocialism.com/author/ctalgo/ Hitler Was a Mass-Murdering Monster—and a Socialist
• Chris Talgo https://stoppingsocialism.com/author/ctalgo/ Warren’s ‘Ultra-Millionaire Tax’ Is a Total Strike-Out

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Consumer Group Warns 10 States With Most Pension Dollars Invested in China-Connected BlackRock

Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH / December 03, 2021

Consumers’ Research has written the governors of the top 10 states investing public pension funds in BlackRock, warning of the corporation's financial ties with Communist China. Pictured: President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a virtual summit Nov. 15 from the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

Get your FREE digital copy of The Heritage Foundation’s Founders’ Almanac.

A consumer group has warned a bipartisan group of governors against investing state pension funds in BlackRock, one of the world’s largest money management corporations, because of its close links to China. 

Consumers’ Research sent a letter Thursday to the governors of the top 10 states investing public pension funds in BlackRock. The letter refers to the group’s four-page “ consumer warning ” detailing BlackRock’s ties to China-based companies involved in surveillance and associated with the Chinese Communist Party. 

“We urge elected officials to do their due diligence in educating themselves and their staff on the multiple risks posed by BlackRock’s extensive investments in Chinese companies, both from an ethical standpoint as well as the fiduciary responsibility owed to U.S. pension holders and retirees,” William Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, says in the letter to the 10 governors . 

The consumer group sent the letter to four Democrat  governors—Jay Inslee of Washington; Kathy Hochul of New York; Steve Sisolak of Nevada; and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania—and to six Republican governors: Ron DeSantis of Florida; Pete Ricketts of Nebraska; Henry McMaster of South Carolina; J. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma; Greg Gianforte of Montana; and Jim Justice of West Virginia. 

“As the leader of a state whose pension funds are among the top 10 most extensively invested in BlackRock, we invite you to examine our report and conduct any necessary efforts to learn more about the risks to the assets of your state’s public employees,” the letter to each governor says. 

Washington state invests $13 billion of state pension funds into BlackRock, according to the Consumers’ Research notice, followed by Florida with $10 billion. 

Next are New York, which has invested $9.8 billion in pension funds in BlackRock; Nevada with $9.7 billion; Nebraska with $9.4 billion; and South Carolina with $9.3 billion. 

Rounding out the top 10 states are Oklahoma, which has invested  $5.8 billion in pension funds in BlackRock; Pennsylvania with $3.5 billion; Montana with $2.9 billion and West Virginia with $2.1 billion. 

>>> Related: 4 Things to Know About Politically Connected, Activist BlackRock and Its China Investments

The letter to the 10 governors from Consumers’ Research notes that the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last month released an annual report to Congress that warned about national security risks arising from U.S. financial dealings with China. 

“Still, BlackRock has maintained a bullish approach to investing billions in Chinese firms, supporting their economy, and helping fuel the rise of their military, which barely a month ago tested a hypersonic missile,” Hild wrote to the governors, adding:

Investment in Chinese companies could also make U.S. investors unwitting accomplices in the expansion of the [Chinese Communist Party’s] surveillance and intelligence gathering apparatus, or worse yet, make them party to human rights abuses like the ongoing genocide against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China.

The letter asserts that “BlackRock’s unabashed gusto for Chinese markets” ignores concerns about the communist regime’s “ambitions to supplant the U.S. as the preeminent world power.”  

Consumers’ Research plans to run state-specific digital ads as a follow-up to a multimillion-dollar ad campaign that included TV spots during the World Series earlier this year. 

As an asset management company, BlackRock has an obligation to manage investments consistent with clients’ objectives and choices, a spokesperson told The Daily Signal in a written statement late Friday.

“China and the U.S. have a large and interconnected economic relationship. We recognize that our stakeholders have differing views on China —BlackRock takes those concerns seriously,” BlackRock’s statement says. “We seek to balance the concerns of our stakeholders with our role as a global investor and fiduciary working for our clients as we navigate this very complicated relationship between the U.S. and China. Our approach to Chinese-related investments is consistent with US foreign policy.”

The statement continues:

BlackRock supports our clients in making informed investment decisions by providing clear and current disclosure of all material risks associated with different investment products and markets. As China’s financial services industry matures, a more robust regulatory and legal framework will be essential to building even more trust and confidence [among] global investors and Chinese savers. BlackRock is committed to continually pushing for improved standards, governance, and accounting transparency from all companies and countries wherever they are operating in the world. Our approach to China will be no different.

In 2019, BlackRock began investing in Hikvision and iFlytek , which are among 28 Chinese companies on the U.S. government’s “entity list” because of repression of the Uyghur Muslim population in China’s Xinjiang province.

Hikvision has advertised itself as the world’s largest manufacturer of video surveillance technology ; iFlytek is a voice recognition and artificial intelligence company. 

George Soros, a billionaire who supports left-wing causes, wrote in an op-ed in Financial Times that Chinese companies made up one-third of BlackRock’s environment, social, and governance , or ESG, investments.  

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BlackRock assets hit record $10.5 trillion as markets surge

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Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Ira Iosebashvili, Paul Simao and Jonathan Oatis

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Davide Barbuscia covers macro investment and trading out of New York, with a focus on fixed income markets. Previously based in Dubai, where he was Reuters Chief Economics Correspondent for the Gulf region, he has written on a broad range of topics including Saudi Arabia’s efforts to diversify away from oil, Lebanon’s financial crisis, as well as scoops on corporate and sovereign debt deals and restructuring situations. Before joining Reuters in 2016 he worked as a journalist at Debtwire in London and had a stint in Johannesburg.

U.S., Japanese and South Korean finance leaders agreed to consult closely on foreign exchange and market developments in a trilateral meeting on Wednesday, they said in a joint statement issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.

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US, Japan, Korea agree to consult on FX as yen, won slide

Finance leaders from the United States, Japan and South Korea agreed to "consult closely" on foreign exchange markets in their first trilateral meeting on Wednesday, nodding to concern by Tokyo and Seoul over their currencies' recent sharp declines.

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Blackrock, inc. (nyse:blk) q1 2024 earnings call transcript.

BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK ) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 12, 2024

BlackRock, Inc. beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $9.81, expectations were $9.35. BLK isn't one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter ( see the details here ).

Operator: Good morning. My name is Katie, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the BlackRock Incorporated First Quarter 2024 Earnings Teleconference. Our host for today's call will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Laurence D. Fink; Chief Financial Officer, Martin S. Small; President, Robert S. Kapito; and General Counsel, Christopher J. Meade. All lines have been made on mute to prevent any background noise. [Operator Instructions] Mr. Meade, you may begin your conference.

Chris Meade: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Meade, the General Counsel of BlackRock. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that during the course of this call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. We call your attention to the fact that BlackRock's actual results may, of course, differ from these statements. As you know, BlackRock has filed reports with the SEC, which lists some of the factors that may cause the results of BlackRock to differ materially from what we say today. BlackRock assumes no duty and does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements. With that, I'll turn it over to Martin.

Martin Small: Thanks, Chris, and good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to present results for the first quarter of 2024. Before I turn it over to Larry, I'll review our financial performance and business results. Our earnings release discloses both GAAP and as adjusted financial results, I'll be focusing primarily on our as adjusted results. BlackRock's first quarter results reflect sustained momentum across our entire platform. We ended the quarter with record AUM of nearly $10.5 trillion and one of the strongest opportunity sets ahead across multiple growth engines, including technology, outsource solutions and private markets. Momentum is accelerating and we have line of sight into a breadth of significant mandates in investment management and technology, spanning client channels and geographies.

Teams across BlackRock are energized and organized to execute on these opportunities and deliver BlackRock's platform to clients through world-class client service. We've built BlackRock to be a structural grower with industry leadership in secular growth areas like ETFs, private markets, model portfolios and technology. With supportive markets and more optimistic sentiment from clients, we're confident in our ability to both grow assets on behalf of clients and drive profitable growth for our shareholders. First quarter long-term net inflows of $76 billion continue to lead the industry, driving positive organic base fee growth alongside double-digit growth year-over-year in revenue and earnings, as well as 180 basis points of margin expansion.

Excluding low fee institutional index equity flows, we saw a $100 billion of long-term net inflows in the quarter. As equity markets powered to record highs in the first quarter, investors who were waiting in cash missed out on significant returns across broader markets. With long-term investing time in the markets is often more important than market timing. Although cash remains an attractive safe haven with the prospect of fewer rate cuts for 2024, the nearly 30% increase in equities over the last year continues to propel clients towards re-risking into stocks and bonds. Clients choose BlackRock for performance. They continue to consolidate more of their portfolios with us, which is driving our growth premium. With more clarity on interest rates and a supportive market backdrop, the assets we manage on behalf of our clients, our units of trust, ended the quarter up $1.4 trillion from a year ago, an increase of 15%.

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To continue reading the Q&A session, please click here .

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Stock market today: futures mixed ahead of JPMorgan, BlackRock earnings

• US stock futures treaded water on Friday ahead of the release of key bank earnings.
• JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and BlackRock are among the Wall Street titans publishing quarterly reports.
• JPMorgan and BlackRock's CEOs, Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink, are both expected to provide commentary.

Stocks barely budged in premarket trading on Friday as investors awaited earnings from several Wall Street heavyweights.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 0.2% shortly after 5 a.m. ET, while Nasdaq 100 futures were down 0.1%, and S&P 500 futures were flat.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield dropped by 0.05% to 4.54%. The US Dollar Index — which measures the buck's value against a basket of foreign currencies — rose to just over 105 points, its highest level since November.

JPMorgan and BlackRock, respectively led by billionaire CEOs Jamie Dimon and Larry Fink , are scheduled to report their first-quarter results on Friday. Wells Fargo, Citigroup, BlackRock, and State Street are also on the earnings calendar .

"Forecasts are for another strong earnings report for the US's largest bank," Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, said about JPMorgan in a morning note.

"With the market now expecting higher for longer from the Fed, net interest income should continue to be a pillar of support for bank earnings in the future. This could boost the financial sector of the S&P 500, which reached a record high in recent weeks."

Wall Street will be eager for good news from some of its biggest players, after a surprisingly hot monthly inflation reading this week squashed hopes that the Federal Reserve might start cutting interest rates as early as June.

"Stickier-than-expected CPI numbers from the US, together with elevated geopolitical tensions, means the general sense of uncertainty has increased," Sophie Lund-Yates, the lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said in a morning note.

The  economic calendar for Friday includes fresh data on import prices and consumer sentiment, plus scheduled comments from Raphael Bostic and Mary Daly, the respective presidents of the Atlanta Fed and San Francisco Fed.

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Consumer Warning – BlackRock:

Crushing america from within .