Category: zerohedge

Investors were eagerly looking forward to Disney’s results today, not so much for the actual earnings, but to see what Disney’s success was in grabbing streaming TV market share from Netflix and other established streamers such as Amazon for its fledgling Disney+ service, home of the streaming hit The Mandalorian (and baby Yoda). And Disney did not disappoint, reporting a whopping 26.5MM Disney+ subscribers, and smashing consensus expectations of 20.8 million, as the force appears to be very strong with the baby Yoda.

Additionally, Disney also reported that in Q1, it had 6.6 million ESPN+ subscribers, and another 30.4 million Hulu subscribers, as Disney is rapidly emerging as a significant competitor to Netflix, which this quarter reported 61 million domestic and 106 million international subs, however at the expense of $1.7 billion in cash burn in Q4 alone, whereas Disney is a solidly profitable and cash flow positive company.

What is surprising, however, is that despite the massive surge in Disney+ subs, Disney still missed on earnings, even if it beat on the top line, as per the following Q1 results:

• Adjusted EPS $1.53 vs. $1.84 y/y, estimate $1.46 (range $1.28 to $1.69)
  • Media networks operating income $1.63 billion, +25% y/y, estimate $1.61 billion
• Revenue $20.86 billion, +36% y/y, estimate $20.81 billion (range $19.48 billion to $21.87 billion)
  • Cable Networks revenue $4.77 billion, +19% y/y, estimate $4.49 billion
  • Media networks revenue $7.36 billion, +24% y/y, estimate $7.13 billion
  • Parks, experiences & consumer products revenue $7.40 billion, +11% q/q, estimate $7.37 billion
  • Studio entertainment revenue $3.76 billion vs. $1.8 billion y/y, estimate $3.41 billion
  • Direct-to-consumer & international rev $3.99 billion, +16% q/q, estimate $3.99 billion
• Broadcasting revenue $2.60 billion, +14% q/q, estimate $2.20 billion
  • Broadcasting oper income $575 million, +53% q/q
  • Studio entertainment operating income $948 million vs. $309 million y/y, estimate $966.0 million
  • Cable Networks operating profit $862 million, +16% y/y, estimate $777.2 million
  • Parks, experiences & consumer products operating income $2.34 billion, +69% q/q, estimate $2.33 billion
  • Direct-to-consumer & international operating loss $693 million, -6.4% q/q, estimate loss $824.3 million

Commenting on the earnings, Disney CEO Bob Iger said “We had a strong first quarter, highlighted by the launch of Disney+, which has exceeded even our greatest expectations.”

And while that may have been enough to boost the stock sharply higher in kneejerk response to the Disney+ number, as algos read the rest of the report and saw the somewhat disappointing bottom line miss, the stock is now red.

Having traded as high as $969, a move of almost $200 higher on the day, and hitting a market cap of $175 billion, Tesla stock suddenly collapsed just around 3:50pm, dropping as much as $100 from $960 to $860 in seconds, in what can only be described as the mother of all red candles…

… on a burst in volume, with over 2 million shares hitting the tape in the last few minutes of trading.

Putting that move in context, Tesla lost roughly $20BN in market cap in just that one drop, or as much as the entire market cap as Fiat Chrysler.

Both longs and shorts scrambled to find any news for the move, although despite a vague rumor of a follow-on offering, there was none, even as Tesla dumped back to its cash open levels, before recovering modestly.

And while investors try to find the reason for the furious liquidation, one place that may provide a hint for the stock’s massive ramp higher in the past few days comes from google’s autocomplete function, which now shows the following when googling “Should I Buy…”

Despite GOOGL’s demise, the exuberance in TSLA sent Nasdaq back to record highs today, shrugging off any anxiety over global pandemics, trade collapses, and the second-largest economy in the world basically closed.

But while stocks soared, bonds were not buying it…

Source: Bloomberg

Nor was copper…

Source: Bloomberg

Nor crude (WTI traded back below $50)…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, Yuan suggests this is far from over…

Source: Bloomberg

But what really matters is this…

Retail is getting sucked back in…

The Investor Movement Index increased to 5.55 in December, up 7.4 percent from its November score of 5.17.

The IMX is TD Ameritrade’s proprietary, behavior-based index, aggregating Main Street investor positions and activity to measure what investors actually were doing and how they were positioned in the markets.

So it’s rug-pulling time for the big boys…

 

*  *  *

Another CNY400 Billion net liquidity injection juiced China stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

European markets uniformly soared today extending Monday;s modest gains…

Source: Bloomberg

And US stocks smashed higher at the open and largely trod water (except Nasdaq which kept pushing to record-er highs)…

 

Nasdaq broke out to new record highs… as if the coronavirus never happened (we’ve seen this pattern before)…

It did seem like Dow 29k was important for Trump ahead of tonight’s SOTU, but once again it just couldn’t get there…

For the second day in a row, a giant squeeze of the shorts at the open…

Source: Bloomberg

While GOOGL stole the headlines with disappointing earnings, it was TSLA that dominated traders’ minds…

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA’s short-squeeze is beginning to be on par with VW’s infamous move in 2008…

Source: Bloomberg

 

 

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields surged today…

Source: Bloomberg

30Y Yields spiked off the 2.00% level…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar held yesterday’s gains back into its tight range…

Source: Bloomberg

Yuan rebounded today after China’s gigantic liquidity injection…

Source: Bloomberg

Cryptos were broadly lower today with the notable outlier of Ripple surging early on…

Source: Bloomberg

Copper was higher today (China liquidity) but PMs and crude were knocked lower…

Source: Bloomberg

Palladium soared today back towards record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI traded down below $50…quite a swing from the Soleimani killing and Iran missile strike highs…

Source: Bloomberg

And while traders show no fear whatsoever piling into the most expensive and most overbought stock market ever, global gold holdings in ETFs has risen to record highs…

Source: Bloomberg

And finally, we note that, just like during The Fed’s Y2K Liquidity splurge, Nasdaq has rebounded right on time…

Source: Bloomberg

It also seems like stocks have come to terms with Bernie getting the nod!!?? Or are they revelling in Iowa’s ‘good start’ at rigging it away from Sanders once again.

Source: Bloomberg

A polar vortex will strike the US early next week, according to AccuWeather. 

AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok said Central states would be the first to experience a blast of Arctic air, excepted to arrive early next week. 

“We are anticipating that a strong push of Arctic air will take place into the US during the second and third week of February in response to displacement or weakening of the polar vortex during the first week of February,” Pastelok said. 

He said an area of high pressure above much of the southwestern Atlantic this winter has led to unseasonably warm temperatures for the East Coast to start the year. 

“For this reason, we expect the upcoming big discharge of Arctic air to target the interior West and northern Plains initially, where it might be more persistent as February progresses,” Pastelok said.

“While much colder air could work into the Eastern states during the middle to latter parts of February, there is some uncertainty as to how long-lasting and/or severe this may be, depending in part on the persistent area of high pressure over the southwestern Atlantic,” he added.

The last time a polar vortex sent Arctic air into Central states and parts of the Northeast, it was around late November into December. 

Data provider Refinitiv estimates that heating degree days (HDDs) for US-Lower 48 for the next two weeks is expected to increase, indicating that it will require more energy, starting next week, to heat homes across the country as the polar vortex sends frigid air into Central states. 

An active storm track could setup in the weeks ahead with colder air in the Central states and in some parts of the Northeast. 

But-but-but, Punxsutawney Phil didn’t see his shadow on Sunday, declaring that spring is on its way. Well, before spring arrives, there might be one last shot of cold Arctic air…

The annual Groundhog Day event at Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney had ‘Punxsutawney Phil’ declaring that spring will come early after the animal failed to cast a shadow https://t.co/Ld9rU4jJS5 pic.twitter.com/jKaULwD2v2

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 2, 2020

With at least 425 dead (amid an almost nation-wide community lockdown), one outspoken China expert is saying that the number represents a false estimate fabricated by a country notorious for secrecy and censorship.

Gordon Chang, who authored the book “The Coming Collapse of China”, explained on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” last night that “local Chinese authorities have just lost the ability to pick up corpses due to a breakdown in government.”

“So really what we are having right now is, they are completely overwhelmed,” Chang added.

“They are not able to keep accurate statistics. So what we are witnessing is essentially a breakdown in government and keeping accurate statistics is a very minor part of their priorities right now.”

Multiple witnesses and leaked video’s show heavily “overwhelmed” authorities making threats against people “spreading rumors” or showing the chaotic handling of the situation at ground zero.

Chang said that while he understands the preventative measure, he believes the quarantine has “made the problem worse.”

“I can understand why they want to quarantine but remember, the Wuhan mayor said about 5 million people from his city left before the quarantine was imposed,” he said.

“Also right now the quarantine has aggravated a problem and that is [that] people can’t get to hospitals, so they are at home…they are dying.”

“They are infecting other people in their households because they are not, in a sense, quarantined from wives, husbands, brothers, sisters,” he continued.

“The quarantine has made the problem worse. It’s also created panic. That panic has had consequences on, for instance, social cohesion which is absolutely necessary if you want to beat an epidemic.”

“It’s not just Wuhan,” he said. “Many Virologists think that [conditions in] Wuhan will be duplicated in cities like Shanghai, maybe even Beijing. Clearly there is fear everywhere throughout China right now.”

“This is only going to get worse,” Chang concluded, adding the virus will likely not be contained until “April or May.”

Apparently confirming Chang’s warning, The Daily Mail reports a Wuhan medic has said there are more deaths from coronavirus than reported, as patients are dying before they can even be tested for the virus.

Hospital worker Jeisi Luo, not his real name, also made the shocking claim that there are far more cases than official figures suggest, because the waiting list for diagnosis is too long.

Still the WHO says they are doing a great job and the rest of the world should stop worrying!!

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Some leftists are blaming “Russian propaganda accounts” for the embarrassing fallout from the Iowa caucus, fulfilling a prediction by President Trump that they would do precisely that.

The results from last night’s caucus were delayed to to a “reporting issue” related to an app called Shadow, the owner of which Tara McGowan is a Mayor Pete Buttigieg supporter and is married to one of his advisers.

Buttigieg declared victory last night despite internal polling showing he had lost to Bernie Sanders.

This prompted the hashtag #MayorCheat to trend on Twitter and that in turn prompted numerous hysterical Buttigieg supporters to claim the hashtag was a creation of Russian-controlled bots.

“When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?” asked President Trump in a tweet.

When will the Democrats start blaming RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, instead of their own incompetence for the voting disaster that just happened in the Great State of Iowa?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2020

Fact is, many on the left were already doing exactly that even before Trump tweeted.

“While I can’t yet prove it, I feel safe in saying that both #BernieWon and #MayorCheat are trending because Russian propaganda accounts are amplifying them,” tweeted David Slack.

“Putin’s goal is to divide us. Instead, let’s stand together, elect Democrats, and sanction his ass out of office,” he added.

Hi.

While I can’t yet prove it, I feel safe in saying that both #BernieWon and #MayorCheat are trending because Russian propaganda accounts are amplifying them.

Putin’s goal is to divide us. Instead, let’s stand together, elect Democrats, and sanction his ass out of office.

— David Slack (@slack2thefuture) February 4, 2020

“If you are legitimately tweeting the #MayorCheat hashtag then you are either: a) A Russian operative b) A GOP operative or c) A useful idiot playing right into Trump/Russia’s strategy of dividing the Democratic party,” tweeted another user.

If you are legitimately tweeting the #MayorCheat hashtag then you are either:

a) A Russian operative

b) A GOP operative

or

c) A useful idiot playing right into Trump/Russia’s strategy of dividing the Democratic party

Any Democrat is 1000X better than Trump. #IowaCaucas

— Ms. Krassenstein (@HKrassenstein) February 4, 2020

“Morons! #MayorCheat is trending because Russia is manipulating you idiots. Fuck all this! How are Americans this fucking stupid?” claimed Edan Clay.

Morons! #MayorCheat is trending because Russia is manipulating you idiots. Fuck all this! How are Americans this fucking stupid?

— Edan Clay 🇺🇸 (@EdanClay) February 4, 2020

“#MayorCheat Russia trolls are starting this and morons are making this trend stop,” asserted another.

#MayorCheat Russia trolls are starting this and morons are making this trend stop. #VoteBlueNoMatterWho

— Slomo (@slowmo1032) February 4, 2020

However, most respondents ridiculed the idea that anyone other than Buttigieg himself was to blame for the hashtag trending.

Some leftists are still so beset by Russia Derangement Syndrome, they think any criticism of their preferred candidate must be some kind of Kremlin-orchestrated conspiracy.

No wonder Trump’s approval rating just hit an all time high.

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Back in October, in the aftermath of the historic WeWork fiasco, we asked if the company’s new majority owned and anchor investor SoftBank is the bubble era’s (that would be now, for those unclear) short of the century.

While that thesis has yet to play out especially since the post-WeWork period was marked by another major reflation of asset bubbles courtesy of the Fed’s QE4 and the return of the ECB’s own QE, it appears that one by one the rats are starting to leave the sinking ship.

According to the FT, the US head of SoftBank’s $100bn Vision Fund is leaving after expressing concerns about “issues” at the technology conglomerate, which as regular readers know all too well, has suffered a string of setbacks over the last year, not only its catastrophic investment in WeWork, but disappointing returns on both Uber and OyO.

Michael Ronen, who as luck would have it is a former Goldman banker who joined SoftBank in 2017, told the Financial Times he had been “negotiating the terms of my anticipated departure” for several weeks. Ronen was the managing partner of its US investment office and in charge of the Vision Fund’s US investments, “leading its bets on transportation and logistics start-ups such as Getaround, GM Cruise and Nuro. According to the FT, Deep Nishar, a former LinkedIn and Google executive, and Colin Fan, a former Deutsche Bank executive and close associate of SBIA chief Rajeev Misra, are likely to take on Mr Ronen’s responsibilities in the Americas.

Ronen departure comes as SoftBank has failed to raise any outside investment for the company’s second Vision Fund, the FT notes.

He is not the only one expressing doubts about the fate of what until recently was the world’s most generous investor in startups: SoftBank is also in discussions about Ron Fisher’s future at the company, according to FT sources. Fisher, who is not a former Goldman banker, is SoftBank’s vice chairman and one of Masa Son’s “longest-serving lieutenants and was a leading advocate of SoftBank’s outsized bet on WeWork.”

Fisher joined in 1995, making him one of Son’s closest advisers, and while Son signed off on SoftBank’s $10bn-plus investments in WeWork, it was Mr Fisher who sat on the board of the co-working office-space provider and who worked closest with management on its strategy and growth plans.

So after WeWork took a multi-billion writedown on WeWork in Q4, one can see why he may be concerned about his future there, even though a SoftBank spokesperson told the FT, Fisher was “a valued member of the SoftBank family” and was “not going anywhere.”

Yet while Ronen and Fisher’s future is nebulous at best, a far bigger question is what happens to the man at the top: after a series of catastrophic investments shook confidence in the Vision Fund, founder Masayoshi Son has struggled to raise any outside capital for its sequel fund.

As a reminder, last July Son unveiled a roster of investors including Apple, Microsoft and the National Bank of Kazakhstan for the fund, which he said committed a total of $108bn, even without any funding from the first Vision Fund’s largest outside backers, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. However, none of the would-be investors have yet to firm up their non-binding commitments in the second Vision Fund, even though SoftBank has provided around $5bn in backing for the second Vision Fund to begin making investments, a lot of it “extracted” from the company’s own “volunteer” employees.

Ironically, even Saudi Arabia which for years was considered the world’s dumbest money, appears to have learned its lesson about “investing” with Masa Son: after contributing $60BN to the first Vision Fund, the Gulf investors “have become worried about the perception of pouring money into SoftBank funds following several high-profile flops from the first Vision Fund”, the FT cited people familiar with the discussions.

For its part, since the pulled WeWork IPO, SoftBank has scrambled to show the world it is a disciplined investor, announcingd new management at WeWork, and pressuring other companies it has backed to cut their losses and increase their profits. Alas, the investing world has not been impressed, and SoftBank’s share price tumbled 25% since last April when it hit its highest level since the early 2000s before a string of high-profile SoftBank-backed companies had embarrassing stock market debuts, including Uber and Slack.

Luckily for Masa Son, much of its poor performance has continued to be masked by stock price gains at China’s ecommerce giant, Alibaba, which has seen its shares climb sharply and reached a market value of $600bn. SoftBank, in its best investment ever, purchased and still owns a 25% stake in Alibaba.

Earlier this morning we pointed out that with the coronavirus pandemic showing no signs of slowing, and in fact claiming its second offshore death, after a surprisingly young, 39-year-old Hong Kong man passed away, US equity futures soared after the Shanghai Composite managed to stabilize and rebound from the worst drop since the bursting of China’s equity bubble as traders realized that Beijing will do as much as is needed, whether adding liquidity, fiscal or outright market support (as we discussed on Sunday) to support if not the real economy which is slowly grinding to a halt, then at least financial assets. And with China’s president Xi Jinping making a rare admission that Coronavirus epidemic is a threat to societal stability, the opportunity cost to intervene like never before is nil.

Which is why bulls today can thank the PBOC for the staggering market reversal that has sent stocks 1.5% higher (for now), and which will result in even more gains, because as China’s ability to stimulate its economy is now virtually nil, since China’s record debt load has now made it virtually impossible to push the country’s credit impulse higher…

… Beijing will instead throw the kitchen sink at risk assets and stimulating consumption and borrowing.

So what will China do next? First let’s take a look at what Beijing has already done, courtesy of Nomura:

• The PBoC cut the OMO rate by 10bps
• On Monday, the PBoC injected RBM 2.1T of short-term interbank liquidity, which against currently maturing loans, will see total liquidity in the banking system ~ RBM 900B higher than during the same period in 2019
• On Tuesday, the PBoC injected a further RMB 400 billion in reverse repo liquidity, marking the largest single-day addition since January 2019.
• The CSRC suspended securities lending from Monday until further notice, with some funds receiving so-called “window guidance” from regulators to avoid actively selling stocks
• The CSRC told brokerages that their prop traders “aren’t allowed to be net sellers of equities this week” (Bloomberg)
• The CSRC also said it would halt night sessions for futures trading and allow some share pledge contracts to be extended by as long as six months
• The MoF announced an interest subsidy scheme for new loans ear-marked for medical supply companies fighting coronavirus
• The MoF announced policies to extend loans to entrepreneurs and SMEs which have been hit-hard from the coronavirus, as well as potentially delay mortgage repayments or adjust credit policies to repay the loans for those individuals or entities who may have temporarily lost sources of income

So looking ahead, what will China do? According to Nomura’s Chinese Econ Team, expect more policy and fiscal-easing measures to be announced in coming weeks, and of course an avalanche of more money:

• Expect the PBoC to deliver a 50-100bp RRR cut and conduct more MLF operations and OMOs in coming weeks to inject both long- and short-term liquidity into the banking system (this would add RMB 800-1600BN)
• Expect the 1Y MLF rate to be cut by 10bps in coming weeks, which should be reflected in the release of the Feb “Loan Prime Rate” (LPR) to be released Feb 20th
• Expect to see waving, cutting or postponing tax and fee payments for the virus-affect regions, industries, companies and individuals for several months until the virus is fully contained
• Rising likelihood of increasing unemployment and medical insurance benefits for individuals who have lost income or been infected with the virus
• Expect authorities to grow bolder on fiscal deficits and increase the transfer of central government revenues to local governments in virus-affected regions, with Beijing raising the fiscal deficit target as well as raising the annual quota of net local government special bond issuance in 2020
• Expect Beijing to introduce favorable tax policies to boost final demand, such as cutting the auto purchase tax to boost auto production and sales
• Most critically, Nomura expects authorities to give local governments more flexibility in easing restrictions on the property sectors (e.g. price controls, caps on new home purchases and property developer financing), while also rolling-out more favorable urbanization policies to attract talent and migrant workers to large cities to beef up production and consumptions.

The biggest beneficiary of this arsenal of Chinese bazookas? As the chart below shows, it’s not Chinese stocks, which are barely up from a year ago. No, the biggest beneficiary is the one “barometer” which Donald Trump believes is all that matters to get him reelected in November: the S&P500.

Authored by Chris Andrew at Clarmond Wealth

It strikes me that one of the first actions following our super-duper new free trade agreement with the USA would be to export over to them a large box of British pencils.

On the 24th June 2016, by approximately 6am, we had managed to count 33,577,342 votes in the UK Brexit Referendum. These votes were counted by hand and we all voted by putting a simple cross in a box, using a trusty pencil.

Now, the voting in the Iowa Caucus has been closed for over 16 hours and, as of now, there has been no result. In fact only 1.9% of the votes have been tallied and are being reported. To put this into context in the last Iowa Caucus in 2016 approximately 171,517 votes were cast. It is both staggering and worrying that the world’s most powerful democracy cannot count.

What has happened?

Well it does not take much digging. The Democratic party were using an ‘App’ to count the votes; you cannot make it up but the tech company creating the app is called SHADOW, a name generally given to a Bond villain. To add to this Bondness, SHADOW is owned by another group called ACRONYM, whose CEO is Tara McGowan, Obama’s digital strategist. Gerard Niemira, who worked on Hilary’s 2016 campaign is CEO of SHADOW and finally David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, sits on the board of ACRONYM.  Additionally, the Buttigeg and Biden campaigns paid SHADOW for work done. Strange coincidences indeed.

This sleuthing took me all of 20 minutes when you asked me to see what the heck happened in the Iowa cornfields. There are two explanations: it is a conspiracy of the Washington Consensus cabal denying Bernie a clean win and essentially muddying the waters…or it is total and utter incompetence of bringing an untested, non-transparent technology into the democratic process.

Either we have a FUBAR (an American acronym…look it up!) of American democracy, which is now as brazen as any Developing world dictator wannabe. Or technology has made the population so dependent that they have forgotten how to organize and count. We can all make our own decision on this but my suggestion to PM Boris would be export our election expertise to America – along with some free pencils.

Iran announced Tuesday its judiciary is set to execute a man for “spying for the CIA” and attempting to pass information to the US related to Iran’s nuclear program, according to a Fars news agency report cited in Reuters. 

Authorities did not give a date for the execution of the convicted prisoner, identified as Amir Rahimpour, but only said it would happen “very soon” after the nation’s top Islamic court upheld his death sentence.

Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili alleged that Rahimpour received a “big payment” from the US intelligence service for his operation to leak sensitive nuclear information. “Amir Rahimpour who was a CIA spy and got big pay and tried to present part of Iran’s nuclear information to the American service had been tried and sentenced to death and recently the supreme court upheld his sentence and he will see the consequences of his action soon,” the spokesman said.

No evidence or further details related to the conviction were given — a similar scenario to prior alleged “spy rings” broken up by Iranian authorities. Last summer Iran claimed to have uncovered a major spy ring involving 17 people. The Rahimpour case appears to be related to the busted alleged spy network.

After that prior July claim by Tehran, which also included announcements that death sentences had been handed out, President Trump tweeted that “The Report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth. Just more lies and propaganda.” Iran had gone so far as to publish photos and personal information of alleged CIA operatives attempting to recruit Iranians. 

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had told Fox & Friends at the time: “It’s part of their nature to lie to the world,” as well as, “I would take with a significant grain of salt any Iranian assertion about actions they’ve taken.”

The Report of Iran capturing CIA spies is totally false. Zero truth. Just more lies and propaganda (like their shot down drone) put out by a Religious Regime that is Badly Failing and has no idea what to do. Their Economy is dead, and will get much worse. Iran is a total mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 22, 2019

However, it was recently confirmed that an Iranian who had worked with US intelligence was executed in 2016. Deutsche Welle reports: 

The last alleged US spy to be executed in Iran was Shahram Amiri, who was hung in 2016. Amiri had defected to the US at the height of Washington’s efforts to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. When he returned to Iran in 2010, he received a warm welcome from politicians and was a popular guest on talk shows. He suddenly disappeared before it was confirmed that he was tried and killed for epsionage.

Iran on Tuesday cited another case involving two people falsely working ‘under cover’ of a charity who were also alleged spies.

They were each given a total of 15 years on spying and related breach of national security charges. Little further information was given, or whether or not they could be dual nationals.