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Having risen along with weakness in broad market surveys (ISM, PMI, NFIB) throughout January, initial jobless claims have plunged twice since (despite the same surveys getting worse) breaking down to 253k in the last week – the lowest since 1973!
Makes perfect sense…
Sometimes you just have to laugh.
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'Nothing to see here, move along' is the message from embattled once-hedge-fund-darling SunEdison following its Valeant-esque self-investigation. Despite finding 'wrongdoing' by a former employee in talks over a failed acquisition and that its own executives fostered an "overly optimistic culture," SUNE officials found no misstatements in financial statements. The stocks is 75% higher in the pre-market on this 'good' news (remember BTU?). However, despite the kinda sorta wrongdoing, Bloomberg reports the renewable-energy company already teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, missed a bond payment this month.
As Bloomberg reports,
Counsel retained by SunEdison Inc. found wrongdoing by a former employee in talks over a failed acquisition and that its own executives fostered an “overly optimistic culture” that came from the top of the organization, according to a regulatory filing.
The world’s worst-performing and biggest renewable-energy developer said it will remedy the situation with tighter financial controls and with the appointment of a new Chief Financial Officer, Ilan Daskal, who started work on April 4 after Brian Wuebbels departed the position. Shares of SunEdison rose as much as 54 percent to 57 cents in pre-market trading in New York after closing at 37 cents on Wednesday.
SunEdison’s independent directors, according to the filing, identified “wrongdoing” by a former non-executive employee “in connection with negotiations over the termination of the Vivint Solar Inc. acquisition.”
The $1.9 billion Vivint acquisition was scrapped in March after SunEdison missed deadlines. It was canceled shortly after SunEdison initially revealed that it was delaying the filing of its 2015 annual report to address, in part, an internal inquiry into its accounting.
The delay along with concerns about its mounting debt load have raised questions among analysts about SunEdison’s ability to remain solvent. SunEdison amassed $11.7 billion in debt as of Sept. 30, and is facing technical defaults on at least $1.4 billion in loans and credit facilities because of its failure to file the 2015 report.
But, according to its leats 8-K, SunEdison found no misstatements in financiall statements:
The Independent Directors have determined that as of the date of the independent counsel report, there were no identified material misstatements in the Company’s historical financial statements as well as no substantial evidence to support a finding of fraud or willful misconduct of management.
However, the company was supposed to pay $2.6 million April 1 on its 2 percent convertible bonds, which are due in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. SunEdison has a grace period through May 1.
The trustee, Wilmington Trust Corp., confirmed April 11 that the payment was missed, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Not making the payment “means SunEdison is likely in technical default,” Greg Jones, an analyst at CreditSights, said in an e-mail Wednesday. Failure to cure by May 1 “could potentially trigger cross-default provisions in other debt obligations.”
About $256 million remains on the bonds. They were issued in December 2013 and are currently trading at about 9 cents on the dollar.
Ben Harborne, a SunEdison spokesman, declined to comment Wednesday. A spokesman for Wilmington Trust didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
SunEdison is already facing technical defaults on at least $1.4 billion in loans and credit facilities because of its failure to file its 2015 annual report. The company amassed $11.7 billion in debt by Sept. 30, and now faces inquiries into its financial status from an internal audit committee, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
And so – a default, some "just the tip" wrongdoing, and so – SUNE is up 75% in the pre-market….
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The Justice Department has abandoned its appeal of a ruling that said federal prosecutors are breaking the law when they target medical marijuana providers who comply with state law. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued that ruling last October, when he said enforcing an injunction against a state-legal dispensary would violate a spending rider that prohibits the DOJ from interfering with state laws allowing medical use of marijuana. The Justice Department initially asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to overturn Breyer’s decision but later changed its mind, and on Tuesday the court granted its request to withdraw the appeal.
That decision leaves in place Breyer’s ruling, which involved the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana (MAMM), without establishing a circuit-wide precedent. Presumably the DOJ worried that the 9th Circuit would agree with Breyer’s reading of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which says the department may not use appropriated funds to “prevent” states from “implementing” their medical marijuana laws. The DOJ argues that prosecuting medical marijuana suppliers, seizing their property, and shutting them down does not prevent implementation of laws authorizing them. Breyer said that interpretation “defies language and logic.”
The rider that Breyer considered expired last year, but the same language was included in the omnibus spending bill for the current fiscal year. If Congress continues to renew the amendment and other courts agree with Breyer’s understanding of it, medical marijuana growers and suppliers who comply with state law will have less reason to worry about raids, arrests, and forfeiture actions, although uncertainty will remain in states where the rules for dispensaries are unclear. For the time being, that remains true in California, although state regulations aimed at clarifying the situation are scheduled to take effect in 2018.
MAMM founder Lynnette Shaw, who plans to re-open the dispensary, one of California’s oldest, told the East Bay Express her case signals “the end of the medical marijuana war.” She said the DOJ’s capitulation “means that so long as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment remains in effect, the Department of Justice will be barred from expending funds to target medical cannabis businesses that operate in compliance with state law,” which she called “a victory for everybody.”
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Just over 5 years since the massively destructive 2011 Japanese earthquake which unleashed a tsunami and led to the Fukushima disaster, moments ago NHK reported that Japan’s Kumamoto region had been hit with another quake which had a Shindo shaking intensity of 7 and registered a magnitude of apprxoimately 6.4.
According to the Japanese media this is the strongest quake to hit Japan since the 2011 earthquake. The good news is that so far there has been no tsunami alert.
Some initial social media images from the ground:
??????????????… http://pic.twitter.com/eMjlfIfEqh
— ?????? (@SEXSENS) April 14, 2016
????????? http://pic.twitter.com/uc45nemuOE
— ?????? (@SEXSENS) April 14, 2016
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Having surged to its highest since 2008 in February, Core CPI’s YoY gain inched back from 2.3% to 2.2% YoY in March hovering at post-crisis highs. The food index declined in March, as did the cost of ‘shelter’ and medical care but used cars and truck prices declined, as we noted previously.
Still above Fed “mandate” levels and near 8 year highs…
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.1 percent in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index rose 0.9 percent before seasonal adjustment.
The food index declined in March, while the indexes for energy and for all items less food and energy rose, leading to the slight seasonally adjusted increase in the all items index. The food index fell 0.2 percent after rising in February, as five of the six major grocery store food groups declined. The energy index rose for the first time since November, with all of its major components except natural gas increasing.
While the index for all items less food and energy increased in March, the 0.1 percent advance was the smallest increase since August. Major component indexes were mixed in March. The indexes for shelter, recreation, medical care, education, tobacco, and personal care were among those that rose, while the indexes for apparel, airline fares, communication, household furnishings and operations, and used cars and trucks all declined.
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Back in July of 2014, we reported that in an attempt to obtain if not compensation, then at least confirmation of bank manipulation in the precious metals industry, a group of silver bullion banks including Deutsche Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC (later UBS was also added to the defendants) were accused of manipulating prices in the multi-billion dollar market.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed in a New York district court by veteran litigator J. Scott Nicholson, a resident of Washington DC, alleged that the banks, which oversee the century-old silver fix manipulated the physical and COMEX futures market since January 2007. The lawsuit subsequently received class-action status. It was the first case to target the silver fix.
Many expected that this case would never go anywhere and that the defendant banks would stonewall indefinitely: after all their legal budgets were far greater than the plaintiffs.
Which is why we were surprised to read overnight that not only has this lawsuit against precious metals manipulation not been swept away, but that the lead defendant, troulbed German bank Deutsche Bank agreed to settle the litigation over allegations it illegally conspired with Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC Holdings Plc to fix silver prices at the expense of investors, Reuters reported citing a court filing by law firm Lowey.
Terms were not disclosed, but the accord will include a monetary payment by the German bank.
It goes without saying, that there would have been neither a settlement nor a payment if the banks had done nothing wrong.
According to Reuters, Deutsche Bank has signed a binding settlement term sheet, and is negotiating a formal settlement agreement to be submitted for approval by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni, who oversees the litigation. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman declined to comment. Lawyers for the investors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
As noted above, investors had accused Deutsche Bank, HSBC and ScotiaBank of abusing their power as three of the world’s largest silver bullion banks to dictate the price of silver through a secret, once-a-day meeting known as the Silver Fix.
None of this will come as a big surprise to readers, most of whom have been aware that this took place for years.
But wait there’s more.
In a curious twist, the settlement letter reveals a stunning development, namely that the former members of the manipulation cartel have turned on each other. To wit:
“In addition to valuable monetary consideration, Deutsche Bank has also agreed to provide cooperation to plaintiffs, including the production of instant messages, and other electronic communications, as part of the settlement. In Plaintiff’s estimation, the cooperation to be provided by Deutsche Bank will substantially assist Plaintiffs in the prosecution of their claims against the non-settling defendants.”
The full shocking letter can be read here:
Since this is just one of many lawsuits filed over the past two years in Manhattan federal court in which investors accused banks of conspiring to rig rates or prices in financial and commodities markets, we expect that now that DB has “turned” that much more curious information about precious metals rigging will emerge, and will confirm what the “bugs” had said all along: that the precious metals market has been rigged all along.
Finally, we’ll just remind readers that the US commodity “regulator”, the CFTC in 2013 closed its five year investigation concerning allegations that the biggest bullion banks manipulate silver markets and prices. It proudly reported in September 2013 that it found no evidence of wrongdoing and dropped the probe. This is what it said:
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission) Division of Enforcement has closed the investigation that was publicly confirmed in September 2008 concerning silver markets. The Division of Enforcement is not recommending charges to the Commission in that investigation. For law enforcement and confidentiality reasons, the CFTC only rarely comments publicly on whether it has opened or closed any particular investigation. Nonetheless, given that this particular investigation was confirmed in September 2008, the CFTC deemed it appropriate to inform the public that the investigation is no longer ongoing. Based upon the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring an enforcement action with respect to any firm or its employees related to our investigation of silver markets.
In light of this confirmation that the CFTC’s probe was “lacking” perhaps it is perhaps time for the so-called regulator who at the time was headed by ex-Goldmanite Gary Gensler, to reopen its investigation?
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Forget Doha, says the International Energy Agency (IEA), bet it all on US production crashing.
First, IEA says Doha Don’t Matter…
A deal to freeze oil production by OPEC and non-OPEC producers will have a limited impact on global supply and markets are unlikely to rebalance before 2017, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday.
The IEA, which oversees the energy policies of industrialized nations, said even though the decline in U.S. output was gathering pace and Iran was not adding as many barrels as expected, the world would still produce more oil than it consumes throughout 2016.
Then, as Bloomberg reports, IEA says global oil markets will “move close to balance” in the second half of the year as lower prices take their toll on production outside OPEC…
The world surplus will diminish to 200,000 barrels a day in the last six months of the year from 1.5 million in the first half, the agency said in a report on Thursday. Production outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will decline by the most since 1992 as the U.S. shale oil boom falters. The glut is also being tempered as Iran restores exports only gradually with financial barriers to sales persisting even after the lifting of international sanctions.
“There is no doubt as to the direction of travel for the supply-demand balance,” the Paris-based adviser to industrialized nations said. “There are signs that the much-anticipated slide in production of light, tight oil in the U.S. is gathering pace.”
And the algos love it…
So what happens when the rallying oil price enables these zombie glut creators to stay alive longer and re-create the glut in H2?
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Submitted by Dave Forest via OilPrice.com,
Readers the world over are still busy crawling through information from the “Panama Papers” leak – which has revealed how high-profile persons around the globe used corporate havens to dodge taxes.
And in Zimbabwe, they’re turning their attention to one particular name leaked in the documents: the country’s largest platinum miner.
That’s Zimplats — the local subsidiary owned 87 percent by major miner Impala Platinum. Which the Panama Papers say used offshore accounts to dodge tax rules in Zimbabwe.
The leaked documents note that Zimplats established a company in the Isle of Man, called HR Consultants. Which was used to pay the salaries of Zimplats’ senior managers.
The offshore firm thus eliminated the need for salaries to be routed through Zimbabwe. Almost certainly simplifying payments, and possibly avoiding local taxes on these monies.
But such a strategy is illegal under Zimbabwe rules. With reports suggesting that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was never notified of the payment scheme, constituting a major breach of tax legislation.
As one local expert interviewed by BDLive noted, “As long as the central bank was not involved in this‚ Zimplats would be committing a serious crime of money laundering‚ externalization and tax evasion.”
For its part, Zimplats has denied that it took part in any such arrangements — with a spokesperson saying the company has “no relationship” with any of the companies mentioned in the Panama Papers leak.
There are indeed some details missing from the story. Such as the method Zimplats used to transfer cash from the parent company to the offshore firm, to then be forwarded to executives as payment.
But Zimbabwe’s government said it will now take a hard look into the matter. With the country’s central bank governor John Mangudya warning, “Violation of exchange control rules and regulations is a punishable offence.”
This could be an especially big story given that Zimplats is a key player in the global platinum sector — being the largest operator in the world’s third-largest producing nation. Watch for more details emerging as investigations proceed.
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A self-proclaimed socialist whose entire platform consists of spending more money on everything and making somebody else pay for it has somehow broken into the presidential race, to the befuddlement of everybody—especially Hillary Clinton. How did Bernie Sanders do it? From Reason‘s May issue, Glenn Garvin examines how the sleeper socialist blew up the Democratic primary:
[E]ven if he loses, Sanders has still shown he can attract around 40 percent of Democratic voters across the country. That’s an amazing performance for somebody who keeps a plaque on the office wall honoring Eugene V. Debs, who ran his 1920 Socialist Party presidential campaign from the prison cell where he was serving a sentence for sedition.
Sanders is a guy who throws around words like oligarchy like penny candy, promises to stop virtually all U.S. trade with countries not run by someone named Castro, and thinks the federal government should set up “worker-owned businesses.” He wants you to be able to borrow money from the government at the Post Office. And his contempt for the marketplace borders on the paranoid. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers,” he famously said at the beginning of his campaign, “when children are hungry in this country.”
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