Robinhood Markets took the unusual step of reserving 35% of its initial public offering shares for retail investors, but only around 20% to 25% have reportedly been allocated, while several posts on the Reddit group that triggered the retail investor frenzy earlier this year actively advised against buying. Shares closed their first day of trading down 8.4%.

Modern Money Murmurs: In these democratized markets, the people have spoken.

Across Wall Street and beyond, major banks are raising pay for junior bankers, with at least 12 now starting first-year analysts and associates around $100,000 per year. The firms' hiring minds say the higher baseline is needed to compete against Big Tech in the talent market, and to combat burnout among a cohort beginning their careers in an unprecedentedly challenging time for the industry. Meanwhile, senior executives have not held back from calling out what they see as a harmful break from the pay-for-performance precedent.

eFinancialCareers has put together a handy chart estimating salary levels for a dozen Wall Street investment banks following their recent pay-raise announcements.

Credit Suisse says it will pursue all avenues, including legal action, to recover the $5.5 billion of losses it suffered from the collapse of family office Archegos Capital Management. An independent report from law firm Paul Weiss commissioned by the bank said Archegos probably deceived the lender and "obfuscated the true extent of its positions" but that staff also disregarded the risks.

Euronext, the stock market operator that does business throughout Europe, has said it is examining the possibility of reducing its use of the London Stock Exchange clearinghouse in Paris. The company said it instead might switch to CC&G, a clearinghouse it acquired when it bought Borsa Italiana in April.

Chinese shares posted more losses today, reversing Thursday's advance, as investors reevaluated the risk of future regulatory surprises for the country's equity markets. "It's the fear of the unknown," said Justin Tang, head of Asia research at United First Partners.

Turkey's lira is starting to recover from the sharp decline it suffered early this year and bond buyers are beginning to develop an appetite for lira-denominated debt after the central bank resisted pressure from president Recep Tayyip Erdogan to lower interest rates. This month the currency has gained around 3% against the US dollar.

Incorporating Refinitiv into the London Stock Exchange is turning out to be a lot more challenging and expensive than the exchange initially thought. Since January when the $15 billion deal closed LSEG stock has lost 15% of its value.

Lloyds Banking Group has reported a larger-than-expected profit in the first six months of the year, recovering from a first-half loss in 2020, and announced a 0.67 pence interim dividend. The bank booked a £3.9 billion pretax profit for the six months ending in June, well ahead of the average analyst forecast of £3.1 billion.

Goldman Sachs on Thursday adjusted downward its outlook for Chinese offshore equity markets, following a broad sell-off triggered by government regulatory actions. The bank downgraded its view of MSCI China from "overweight" to "market weight."

The European Central Bank and Bank of England are publicly warning about banks' exposure to leveraged loans and high-yield bonds, but investors haven't lost their appetite for potentially risky deals. Loan prices and below-investment-grade debt prices have fallen, and a new wave of deals is on the way.