Economy
Related: About this forumSTOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 13 October 2015
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 13 October 2015[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 12 October 2015
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 12 October 2015
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Dow Jones 17,131.86 +47.37 (0.28%)
S&P 500 2,017.46 +2.57 (0.13%)
Nasdaq 4,838.64 +8.17 (0.17%)
[font color=green]10 Year 2.09% -0.04 (-1.88%)
30 Year 2.92% -0.03 (-1.02%) [font color=black]
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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
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The Big Picture
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Brad DeLong
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
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[/center][font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
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William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.
09/21/15 Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizes for VW cheating on air quality standards with emission testing avoidance device. Stock drops 20%, fines may total $18B.
09/22/15 Stewart Parnell, CEO Peanut Corp. of America, sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-tainted peanut butter that killed nine.
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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]
Demeter
(85,373 posts)I don't pay any attention to the nuts in California, esp. in high tech politics.
tclambert
(11,085 posts)Then the salesperson started in on "access line charges," which is apparently a rip-off in which they rip you off every month in perpetuity to the tune of thousands of dollars for "features" I could not care less about. That old Star Trek style flip phone started looking pretty good about then.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The minutes in bulk run me $200 for 3000 anytime, anywhere. I don't do computer stuff on my phone, anyway.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)On 8 June, a Scottish banker named Alexander Fordyce shorted the collapsing Companys shares in the London markets. But a momentary bounce-back in the stock ruined his plans, and he skipped town leaving £550,000 in debt. Much of this was owed to the Ayr Bank, which imploded. In less than three weeks, another 30 banks collapsed across Europe, bringing trade to a standstill. On July 15, the directors of the Company applied to the Bank of England for a £400,000 loan. Two weeks later, they wanted another £300,000. By August, the directors wanted a £1 million bailout. The news began leaking out and seemingly contrite executives, running from angry shareholders, faced furious Parliament members. By January, the terms of a comprehensive bailout were worked out, and the British government inserted its czars into the Companys management to ensure compliance with its terms.
If this sounds eerily familiar, it shouldnt. The year was 1772, exactly 239 years ago today, the apogee of power for the corporation as a business construct. The company was the British East India company (EIC). The bubble that burst was the East India Bubble. Between the founding of the EIC in 1600 and the post-subprime world of 2011, the idea of the corporation was born, matured, over-extended, reined-in, refined, patched, updated, over-extended again, propped-up and finally widely declared to be obsolete. Between 2011 and 2100, it will decline hopefully gracefully into a well-behaved retiree on the economic scene.
In its 400+ year history, the corporation has achieved extraordinary things, cutting around-the-world travel time from years to less than a day, putting a computer on every desk, a toilet in every home (nearly) and a cellphone within reach of every human. It even put a man on the Moon and kinda-sorta cured AIDS.
So it is a sort of grim privilege for the generations living today to watch the slow demise of such a spectacularly effective intellectual construct. The Age of Corporations is coming to an end. The traditional corporation wont vanish, but it will cease to be the center of gravity of economic life in another generation or two. They will live on as religious institutions do today, as weakened ghosts of more vital institutions from centuries ago.
It is not yet time for the obituary (and that time may never come), but the sun is certainly setting on the Golden Age of corporations. It is time to review the memoirs of the corporation as an idea, and contemplate a post-corporate future framed by its gradual withdrawal from the center stage of the worlds economic affairs....
Demeter
(85,373 posts)GOP lawmakers insisted that the president have the power to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and now theyre criticizing the deal he struck...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)The first of the really big sandbags dropped on Monday morning.
Well, all right, then.
This is the economic equivalent of all those people who monger for war because we need to demonstrate "will." The plutocrats and their political sublets drag the rest of us into this unprecedented and largely unexamined arrangement so the president gets a "legacy-making achievement"? The legacy undoubtedly will be made in a Vietnamese factory by children making four Vietnamese dongs a decade and fashioned from some sort of toxic goop that will ensure that, when these children have children, those children will have two heads and gills. But the legacy for the rest of us is unlikely to be quite so bright and shiny...
Demeter
(85,373 posts)OH, I DO HOPE SO!
http://wolfstreet.com/2015/10/08/did-the-european-court-of-justice-just-torpedo-the-mother-of-all-us-trade-agreements/
Europes already rocky trading relationship with the U.S. just got a whole lot worse. Thanks to one young mans battle against one of the worlds biggest tech companies, data traffic underpinning the worlds largest trading relationship has been thrown into jeopardy. As the Wall Street Journal warns, hanging in the balance could be billions of dollars of trade in the online advertising business, as well as more quotidian tasks such as storing human-resources documents about European colleagues.
A Decidedly Unsafe Harbor
When, in 2013, the Austrian law graduate Max Schrems filed a data-privacy-infringement lawsuit against Facebook after Edward Snowden had revealed the full extent of the companys collusion with the NSA, little could he have imagined the impact he would end up having. Now, two years later, the European Court of Justice has ruled that the Safe Harbor Agreement that has governed EU data flows across the Atlantic for some 15 years is no longer valid. As Tech Crunch notes, the new ruling will affect all companies that outsource data processing of E.U. users data to the U.S:
In response to the ruling, Schrems said it draws a clear line by clarifying that mass surveillance violates our fundamental rights. The ruling will also directly affect the operations of some 4,500 European and international companies, including U.S. tech giants Alphabet (Googles newborn parent company), Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft. However, while the biggest players claim to have already set up backup legal mechanisms to avoid clashes with regulators, including expanding the size of their European data centers, smaller companies may find it prohibitively expensive to build their own European facilities or pay companies that already have them. Setting up servers in Europe could double operations costs, said Chris Babel, chief executive of TRUSTe, which advises startups on data-protection laws.
No Protection
More important still, the ECJs ruling could torpedo a sizable chunk of the worlds biggest and most secretive trade agreement currently under negotiation, the so-called Trade in Services Act (TiSA). Allegedly in the late stages of negotiation, TiSA currently has 52 prospective signatory nations (compared to the Trans-Pacific Partnerships paltry 12). Those nations include both the U.S. and all 28 members of the European Union.
As WOLF STREET previously reported, TiSA appears to have three primary goals: 1) privatize all services; 2) rip up national and regional financial regulations and 3) spread the U.S. approach to data protection i.e. no protection around the world:
As Ralf Bendrath, a senior policy advisor to the MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht, writes in State Watch, TiSA would constitute a radical carve-out from current European data protection rules:
The transfer and analysis of financial data from EU to US authorities for the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme (TFTP) has already shaken EU-US relations in the past and led the European Parliament to veto a first TFTP agreement in 2010. With the draft text of the TiSA leak, all floodgates would be opened.
The weakening of EU data protection rules through TiSA goes further than only the financial sector. According to sources close to the negotiations, a draft of the TiSA Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications Services Annex contains provisions that would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection law.
Big Brother Unleashed?
If signed, TiSA would set Big Brother (led by the NSA and fellow five-eye partner organizations such as the UKs GCHQ) free to roam and eavesdrop on a very large part of the globe completely unhindered by national laws or regulations. Multinational corporations from all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean would also have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the worlds 200-or-so nations. At least that was the plan. However, according to Spains biggest daily, El País, data protection has always represented a big fat red line in the EUs trade negotiations with the U.S. In the wake of Snowdens revelations, there have even been proposals to introduce changes to the routing of internet data packets, so that they take a certain path and remain within the EU. Brussels has also negotiated the construction of a deep-sea Internet cable between Portugal and Brazil that is intended (but is unlikely) to be NSA-proof.
In the European Parliament an amendment tabled by the Green Party to encrypt all Internet traffic from end to end was adopted as part of a compromise on the committee vote in February. Now, thanks to Snowdens revelations and Schrems court case against Facebook, the EU has a perfect opportunity to redraw the limits of data protection.
In private and behind firmly closed doors, however, the European Commissions trade negotiators the people with real clout in the negotiations will continue to come under intense U.S. pressure to sign away virtually all European data protection rights. To what extent they yield will ultimately hinge on the extent to which the Commissions recent outrage over the U.S. governments wholesale subversion of Europes data protection laws with a little help, of course, from Germanys intelligence agency is genuine or faux.
As the president of the Transnational Institute, Susan George, told El País, you never really know what is really being negotiated between the two trading blocs. Until its too late, of course: in the case of TiSA the treatys binding text is to be considered confidential i.e. not for public consumption for at least five years after being signed.
After this Mondays provisional signing of TPP, an agreement that civil rights groups warn could herald a new age of unbridled global Internet censorship, the momentum appears to be shifting in the corporatocracys favor. What this might mean for the increasingly strained trade relationship between the U.S. and Europe a relationship that is, according to El País, in critical condition its still too early to tell. After all, the only chance we have of knowing what decisions our elected representatives are making on our behalf these days is if someone, somewhere has the uncommon decency to leak them.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Princeton professor Angus Deaton won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for his work on consumption, income and poverty.
Much of his work focuses on how to measure poverty around the world. The question of who is poor, he says, is very easy to determine at a community level. It's doable at a national level. But when you try to determine just who is poor worldwide, it's nearly impossible. Figuring out what poverty is globally is a big part of Deaton's work.
He has asked whether poverty should just be measured in terms of the question, "Do you have enough to eat?" or whether there are other factors that should play into the definition -- and whether those factors are different across different societies.
Deaton wrote a very good (non-technical) essay about the difficulties of measuring poverty back in 2003. In it, he writes of all the different factors that have nothing to do with having enough food that go into determining if someone is poor around the world:
MUST READ
Demeter
(85,373 posts)Seven years after the financial crash, despite important new rules signed into law by President Barack Obama, there are risks in our financial system that could still cause another crisis. Banks have paid billions of dollars in fines, but few executives have been held personally accountable. Too big to fail is still too big a problem. Regulators dont have all the tools and support they need to protect our economy. To prevent irresponsible behavior on Wall Street from ever again devastating Main Street, we need more accountability, tougher rules and stronger enforcement. I have a plan to build on the progress weve made under President Obama and do just that.
In the years before the crash, as financial firms piled risk upon risk, regulators in Washington either couldnt or wouldnt keep up. Top regulators under President George W. Bush posed for a picture literally taking a chain saw to banking rules. Before the crisis hit, as a senator from New York, I was alarmed by this gathering storm, and called for addressing the risks of derivatives, cracking down on abusive subprime mortgages and improving financial oversight. Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress largely ignored calls for reform. The result cost 9 million Americans their jobs, drove 5 million families out of their homes and wiped out more than $13 trillion in household wealth.
Too Big to Fail
Thanks to President Obamas leadership and the determination and sacrifice of the American people, weve worked our way out of that ditch and put our economy on sounder footing. Now we have to keep going.
- First, its time for more accountability on Wall Street. Stories of misconduct in the financial industry are shocking -- like HSBC allowing drug cartels to launder money or five major banks pleading guilty to felony charges for conspiring to manipulate currency exchange rates. This is criminal behavior, yet the individuals responsible often get off with limited consequences -- or none at all. I want to change that.
People who commit serious financial crimes should face serious consequences, including big fines, disbarment from working in the industry and the prospect of imprisonment. As president, I will seek to extend the statute of limitations for major financial crimes, enhance whistle-blower rewards, and increase resources for the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate and prosecute individuals. We should also hold financial executives accountable for egregious misconduct by their subordinates. They need to lose their bonuses and, in some cases, their jobs. - Second, I will work with Congress and independent regulators to rein in the complexity and riskiness of major financial institutions. The Dodd-Frank Act that President Obama signed after the crisis has already made important reforms, but theres more to do.
One serious approach being advocated is to pass an updated Glass-Steagall Act, separating commercial and investment banking, to reduce the size of the banks and the risk of a taxpayer bailout. I certainly share the goal of never having to bail out the big banks again, but I prefer the path of tackling the most dangerous risks in a different way.
To start, I will propose a new fee on risk that would discourage the type of excessive leverage and short-term borrowing that could spark another crisis. We should also strengthen and enforce the Volcker Rule so banks cant make risky and speculative trading bets with taxpayer-backed money. And if a bank suffers losses that threaten its overall financial health, senior managers should lose some or all of their bonus compensation. That will ensure that financial executives have skin in the game and a real incentive to avoid reckless risk-taking.
My plan would also give regulators the authority they need to reorganize, downsize or even break apart any financial institution that is too large and risky to be managed effectively. It is a comprehensive and flexible approach. It allows regulators to adapt to changing markets and help ensure that large financial firms never pose a danger to our entire economy.
Weve learned the hard way that theres no substitute for tough, empowered regulators with the resources and support to do their job. Thats why Ive supported Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwins bill to restore trust in government and slow Wall Streets revolving door. We need to find the best, most independent-minded people for these important regulatory jobs -- people who will put consumers and everyday investors ahead of the industries and institutions theyre supposed to oversee. - Third, we need a comprehensive strategy to reduce risk everywhere in the financial system. After all, many of the firms at the heart of the crash in 2008, like Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and AIG, were not traditional banks. Ill push for stronger oversight of the shadow banking sector, which includes certain activities of hedge funds, investment banks and other nonbank finance companies.
- Fourth, we need to ensure that everyday investors and consumers can trust that our financial markets work for them -- and not just for insiders with the most sophisticated, specialized and fastest connections. That is why we should impose a tax on the high-frequency trading that makes our markets less stable and less fair. And we should reform the rules that govern our stock markets to ensure equal access to markets and information, increase transparency, and minimize conflicts of interest.
- Finally, I will veto any legislation that would weaken Dodd-Frank. We cant go back to the days when Wall Street could write its own rules. I believe we can defend Dodd-Frank while easing burdens on community banks so they are able to lend responsibly to the hardworking families and small businesses they know and trust. We also have to defeat Republican attempts to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- an agency dedicated solely to protecting Americans from unfair and deceptive financial practices -- and to exploit the upcoming budget and debt-ceiling negotiations for rollbacks in financial reforms.
The bottom line is that we can never allow what happened in 2008 to happen again. Just as important, we have to encourage Wall Street to live up to its proper role in our economy -- helping Main Street grow and prosper. With strong rules of the road and smart incentives, the financial industry can help more young families buy that first home, make it possible for entrepreneurs to create new small businesses and support hardworking Americans saving for retirement. My plan will help us unlock that potential. Well create good-paying jobs, raise incomes and help families afford a middle-class life, with less speculation and more growth -- growth thats strong, fair and long-term. Thats what Im fighting for in my campaign, and thats what Ill do as president.
THERE ARE NO WORDS.
antigop
(12,778 posts)In that hybrid organization, money trumps morals, duty to country and the public interest. It is a shrine to crony capitalism, infused with lawyers who believe its legal if you can get away with it. Just as Wall Streets watchdogs suffer from regulatory capture, the Wall Street Democrats are afflicted with cognitive capture, a polite way of saying public officials covet the wealth they hang around with on Wall Street and expect equal earning power when they pass through the gold-plated revolving door.
After former President Bill Clinton signed Citigroups dream deal in 1999 to repeal the depression era Glass-Steagall Act that separated insured banks from gambling casinos on Wall Street, then U.S. Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin (another Wall Street Democrat) who lobbied for the repeal, quickly beat a path to Citigroups door where he received compensation of more than $115 million over the next decade. After Bill Clinton left the White House, Citigroup paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees and committed $5.5 million to the Clinton Global Initiative a program that has become controversial over fears that corporations and foreign governments were attempting to curry favor with Hillary while she was Secretary of State by making donations to the related Clinton Foundation.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)not knowing who all is reading here with us....