FINRA STAT vs CAT comment letter to SEC
Article: Asia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future
Article - Media, PublicationsAsia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future
Mike Bird, 03 May 2021
South Korea and Taiwan both reported better-than-expected economic growth last week, and in both cases it looks quite similar: Exports have boomed, domestic demand hasn’t. That has already caused some problems, which will be exacerbated if the trend continues unabated.
In South Korea’s case, exports of goods were 4.4% higher in the first quarter compared with the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic hit. Meanwhile, private consumption spending is still languishing 5.5% below that benchmark.
It’s a similar story in Taiwan. Electronics exports in particular are up by 28.4% year-over-year, with net exports contributing far more to the overall 8.2% growth in gross domestic product than consumption. Continue reading “Article: Asia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future”
Article: Asia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future
Article - Media, PublicationsAsia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future
Mike Bird, 03 May 2021
South Korea and Taiwan both reported better-than-expected economic growth last week, and in both cases it looks quite similar: Exports have boomed, domestic demand hasn’t. That has already caused some problems, which will be exacerbated if the trend continues unabated.
In South Korea’s case, exports of goods were 4.4% higher in the first quarter compared with the final quarter of 2019, before the pandemic hit. Meanwhile, private consumption spending is still languishing 5.5% below that benchmark.
It’s a similar story in Taiwan. Electronics exports in particular are up by 28.4% year-over-year, with net exports contributing far more to the overall 8.2% growth in gross domestic product than consumption. Continue reading “Article: Asia’s Lopsided Economic Booms Store Problems for the Future”
Article: Short Seller Soren Aandahl Chases Targets With New Hedge Fund
Article - Media, PublicationsShort Seller Soren Aandahl Chases Targets With New Hedge Fund
Sofia Horta e Costa, 03 May 2021
Activist short seller Soren Aandahl is launching his first hedge fund, with a mandate to find accounting malpractice and overvalued stocks all over the world.
The Blue Orca Global Activism Fund starts trading Monday with $25 million in assets under management, according to Aandahl, who founded Blue Orca Capital three years ago in Austin, Texas. He says he’s lining up another potential $30 million in committed capital. The fund will pursue targets globally, using a market-neutral strategy to seek profits regardless of whether global stocks are in a downturn or uptrend, said Aandahl. Continue reading “Article: Short Seller Soren Aandahl Chases Targets With New Hedge Fund”
Article: Regulator to take stern actions against illegal short selling
Article - Media, PublicationsRegulator to take stern actions against illegal short selling
Yonhap, 03 May 2021
South Korea’s financial regulator said Monday the country will take stern actions against illegal activities involving stock short selling as it allowed a partial resumption of short selling after a 14-month ban.
The Financial Services Commission (FSC) partially lifted its ban on short selling of some listed stocks after it imposed a six-month ban on the trading strategy in March last year and later extended it to ease market routs caused by the pandemic.
Short selling is a trading strategy in which investors sell stocks they borrowed on the belief that share prices will fall in the near future. When the prices decline, they can buy back the stocks at lower prices, pocket the profit and return the shares to the original owner. Continue reading “Article: Regulator to take stern actions against illegal short selling”
Article: DNB to Be Fined $48.1 Million for Anti-Money-Laundering Inadequacies
Article - Media, PublicationsDNB to Be Fined $48.1 Million for Anti-Money-Laundering Inadequacies
Dominic Chopping, 03 May 2021
DNB AS A on Monday confirmed that Norway’s financial supervisory authority, Finanstilsynet, will impose a fine of 400 million Norwegian kroner ($48.1 million) for inadequate compliance with anti-money-laundering rules and legislation.
Norway’s largest lender said in December that the fine was a possibility. It has already recorded the fine in its annual accounts for 2020.
Finanstilsynet has also published a report on investigations into Samherji, an Icelandic fisheries company that had been accused of money-laundering and corruption. Continue reading “Article: DNB to Be Fined $48.1 Million for Anti-Money-Laundering Inadequacies”
Article:Canada’s casinos … one of Hezbollah’s ways of laundering money
Article - Media, PublicationsCanada’s casinos … one of Hezbollah’s ways of laundering money
Assumetech, 03 May 2021
The Canadian federal government has set up a committee to investigate money laundering operations, die through gambling in Casinos in Vancouver and drug smuggling, involving a network affiliated with the Iranian regime and the Hezbollah militia.
The committee provided the Al-Arabiya Canal with part of the investigation carried out in March last year, in which an official die Iran and Hezbollah involvement in money laundering process revealed. Continue reading “Article:Canada’s casinos … one of Hezbollah’s ways of laundering money”
Article: The Evolving Face Of The Fight Against Fraud
Article - Media, PublicationsThe Evolving Face Of The Fight Against Fraud
PYMNTS, 03 May 2021
Fighting fraudsters is a problematic realm in the digital era because fraud stubbornly refuses to be a static target.
Instead, digital fraud is an ever-evolving and improving field of endeavor that is always readying for its next evolution. It looks for its next entry point and adopts the latest technology or methodology to make getting the job done — and making off with ill-gotten data or funds — easier to do from the inside and harder to detect from the outside. Continue reading “Article: The Evolving Face Of The Fight Against Fraud”
Article: Bitcoin Mixing Tycoon Arrested for Alleged $336M Laundering
Article - Media, PublicationsBitcoin Mixing Tycoon Arrested for Alleged $336M Laundering
Bilal Waqar, 02 May 2021
Another bitcoin mixing service fraud gets caught with the help of the International Revenue Service, this time catching a suspect of 336 million dollars.
A Bitcoin tycoon got arrested when he got into the net of the IRS. An agent from the department for enforcing tax laws played an undercover role acting as a narcotics dealer, catching the suspect of huge digital currency fraud. The guy had been in the business for the course of over a decade.
Roman Sterlingov, a Swedish and Russian citizen was involved in money laundering and money transmission without having a license. The revealed public court documents broke the news of his arrest, which in itself is an interesting story. Continue reading “Article: Bitcoin Mixing Tycoon Arrested for Alleged $336M Laundering”
Article: ‘America First’ clashes with India’s bid for strategic autonomy
Article - Media, Publications‘America First’ clashes with India’s bid for strategic autonomy
P.K.Balachandran, 01 May 2021
Colombo, May 1: India and the US have designated themselves as “strategic partners” with political, economic and military dimensions to the relationship. But the partnership has kept coming under strain.
The reasons are two-fold: Firstly, its contours are not defined. Secondly, Washington’s ‘America First’ policy and its tendency to pursue a foreign policy almost exclusively in its own immediate interest, clashes with India’s penchant for maintaining ‘strategic autonomy’ despite its increasing economic and military dependence on the US. Continue reading “Article: ‘America First’ clashes with India’s bid for strategic autonomy”
Article: What The Boom In Fraud Says About The Current Market Environment, Part 2
Article - Media, PublicationsWhat The Boom In Fraud Says About The Current Market Environment, Part 2
TYLER DURDEN, 01 May 2021
Just about three months ago, I wrote a blog post which featured this quote, from Charles P. Kindleberger’s Manias, Panics and Crashes: “Swindles are a response to the appetite for wealth (or plain greed) stimulated by the boom.” Since then, the number of frauds, or swindles, that has been revealed has soared, a clear testament to both the breadth and degree of greed inspired by the current boom.
Most recently, we saw the collapse of Greensill Capital as the result of fraud. Like WireCard, Greensill was a relatively young finance company looking to disrupt its more mature competitors which took a few (illegal) short cuts in the process. Continue reading “Article: What The Boom In Fraud Says About The Current Market Environment, Part 2”
Article: Ex-Netflix Executive Convicted in Bribery-Kickback Scheme
Article - Media, PublicationsEx-Netflix Executive Convicted in Bribery-Kickback Scheme
Joel Rosenblatt, 01 May 2021
A former Netflix Inc. executive was convicted of taking kickbacks from vendors in exchange for approving millions of dollars in contracts for products and services, federal prosecutors said.
A jury on Friday found Michael Kail, a former vice president of information technology operations, guilty of wire and mail fraud and money laundering after a two-week trial, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s office in San Francisco. Continue reading “Article: Ex-Netflix Executive Convicted in Bribery-Kickback Scheme”
Article: Chinese money-laundering rings in Chicago, New York cleaning Mexican drug cartel cash
Article - Media, PublicationsChinese money-laundering rings in Chicago, New York cleaning Mexican drug cartel cash
Frank Main and Jon Seidel , 30 April 2021
A Chinese money-launderer was about to pick up Mexican drug-cartel cash in Chicago, federal authorities say, when his plans suddenly changed.
They say the suspected launderer got a call from a man he thought was a Mexican money courier who told him they needed to change their meeting place because he’d spotted a cop. “You Asian, I’m Mexican — not a good look,” the courier said in the 2017 phone call, court records show.
So they picked a different address to meet. They described their cars to each other. And when they met on the Southwest Side, they had a way to identify each other, authorities say: The money-launderer handed the courier a $1 bill. The men had agreed earlier that the serial number on the bill — G5915410C — would confirm the Chinese man’s identity. Authorities say that’s common in the world of drug-trafficking. Continue reading “Article: Chinese money-laundering rings in Chicago, New York cleaning Mexican drug cartel cash”
Article: Credit Suisse Basically Headquartered In Court These Days
Article - Media, PublicationsCredit Suisse Basically Headquartered In Court These Days
JON SHAZAR, 30 April 2021
Thomas Gottstein has been CEO of Credit Suisse for 63 weeks. There is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of them, and indeed all of the last eight or so, have been waking nightmares. Surely, however, there have been some consecutive five-day calendrical periods that he has enjoyed the job he has presumably been pining and preparing for most if not all of his professional career, some Fridays when he walked out of his office with a genuine spring in his step and ability to enjoy the weekend as much as any Swiss can enjoy such a frivolity.
This was not that week.
Bank of America Corp. Credit Suisse Group AG and Credit Agricole SA were fined about 28.5 million euros ($34 million) by European Union regulators for colluding in chatrooms on trading of U.S. supra-sovereign, sovereign and agency bonds. Continue reading “Article: Credit Suisse Basically Headquartered In Court These Days”
Article: Five Charged in Offering Fraud, Stock Manipulation, Ranging from Oil to Pot
Article - Media, PublicationsFive Charged in Offering Fraud, Stock Manipulation, Ranging from Oil to Pot
Michael Katz, 30 April 2021
Five people have been charged in federal court for their involvement in two securities fraud schemes. According to prosecutors, the schemes involved an offering fraud of a Texas-based oil and gas company and the attempted manipulation of a cannabis company’s publicly traded stock.
An indictment was filed in the Eastern District of New York against Richard Dale Sterritt Jr., Michael Greer, Robert Magness, Mark Ross, and Robyn Straza charging them with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering, among other offenses.
“Through a web of related schemes, Sterritt and his co-defendants allegedly stole millions of dollars from investors, attempted to manipulate a publicly traded stock and laundered the proceeds of their crimes through the purchase of luxury items like a Bentley,” Mark Lesko, acting US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. Continue reading “Article: Five Charged in Offering Fraud, Stock Manipulation, Ranging from Oil to Pot”
