Foreign Collusion, Naked Shorting (Counterfeiting) & Money Laundering — All Illicit Wealth
Steve Cohen Rides Point72 Gains to $1.4 Billion in Personal Earnings
Stephen Taub, 05 January 2021
Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management just posted its best year since it launched with outside money in 2018 — capping what has been a remarkable professional and personal comeback for the founder of now-defunct SAC Capital Advisors. Continue reading “Article: Steve Cohen Rides Point72 Gains to $1.4 Billion in Personal Earnings”
Exuberance Over Good News Drives Bionano Genomics’ Wild Week
John Alford, 04 January 2021
Bionano Genomics, Inc. (BNGO) has been on a wild, meteoric rise in the past few days, and after hours on the 31st it continued to skyrocket, rising to $4 a share. On the 31st of December alone, counting market and after-hours trading, share prices surged $1.90, almost doubling. This capped a wild week, and is a momentum-driven mania trade not based on the previous performance or long-term trend of the company. While recently reporting one good report (via a paid PR service), there are obvious issues surrounding the company to the investor that takes the time to evaluate their most recent 10-Q, recent and potential massive dilution, and decreasing revenue. Continue reading “Article: Exuberance Over Good News Drives Bionano Genomics’ Wild Week”
ZEN Graphene Solutions Announces Grant of Stock Options
Newsfile Corp, 30 December 2020
ZEN Graphene Solutions Ltd. (TSXV: ZEN) (OTC Pink: ZENYF) (“ZEN” or the “Company”) announces stock option grants for its directors, officers, employees and consultants. These options are exercisable for an aggregate of 1,425,000 common shares at an exercise price of $3.32 per common share for a period of three to five years from the date of the grant. Continue reading “Article: ZEN Graphene Solutions Announces Grant of Stock Options”
NJ Securities Trader Gets 18 Months For $17M Stock Scheme
Bill Wichert, 22 December 2020
A New Jersey federal judge on Tuesday dashed a securities trader’s hopes of receiving home confinement, sentencing him to 18 months behind bars based on his plea agreement with the government over charges he orchestrated a market manipulation scheme that reaped more than $17 million in illicit profits.
In making the request for home confinement, Joseph Taub told U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez during a Zoom hearing that “I’ve never been away from my kids more than one day at the most,” and that his wife’s father died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading “Article: NJ Securities Trader Gets 18 Months For $17M Stock Scheme”
Credit constraints and fraud victimization: Evidence from a representative Chinese household survey
L.COLIN XU, NAN GAO, YUANYUAN MA, 21 December 2020
Fraud victimization has profound economic and social implications. With the widespread leakage of private information and ever-evolving fraud schemes, people frequently encounter fraud schemes. Millions of people suffer from fraud victimization with enormous economic losses every year. A Federal Trade Commission survey reveals that 15.9 percent of the respondents were victims of fraud in 2017, which represents approximately 40 million U.S. adults. The direct monetary costs incurred by victimization could reach $50 billion (Brenner et al. 2020). Continue reading “Article: Credit constraints and fraud victimization: Evidence from a representative Chinese household survey”
What Kind Of Shareholders Own Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated (NYSE:RBA)?
Simply Wall St, 21 December 2020
If you want to know who really controls Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated (NYSE:RBA), then you’ll have to look at the makeup of its share registry. Institutions will often hold stock in bigger companies, and we expect to see insiders owning a noticeable percentage of the smaller ones. Companies that used to be publicly owned tend to have lower insider ownership. Continue reading “Article: What Kind Of Shareholders Own Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated (NYSE:RBA)?”
SEC VS. CORMARK SECURITIES INC.,
21 December 2020
These proceedings concern Cormark’s role in repeatedly causing a U.S. executing broker (the “Executing Broker”) to violate the order-marking and locate requirements of Regulation SHO of the Exchange Act.
From August 2016 to October 2017 (the “relevant period”), Cormark entered more than 200 sale orders for a hedge fund customer (the “Hedge Fund”) into an intermediary broker’s execution management system as “long” orders.2 At the time these orders were entered, the Hedge Fund was not “deemed to own” the stock being sold and did not have a net long position in the stock. Thus, the orders should have been marked as “short” sales under Regulation SHO. The intermediary broker, ITG Canada Corp. (“ITG Canada”), routed the sale orders, with the incorrect order-marking information provided by Cormark, to the Executing Broker, which in turn executed the orders as “long” sales on U.S. exchanges. As a result, Cormark caused the Executing Broker to mismark sale orders as “long,” in violation of Rule 200(g) of Regulation SHO.
PDF (8 pages): SEC VS. CORMARK SECURITIES INC.,
China’s Luckin Coffee fined $180m for accounting fraud
Pat Sweet, 17 December 2020
The company, founded in 2017, was one of the few Chinese companies listed on the US NASDAQ exchange until it de-listed in July this year following the admission of a series of financial scandals. The US regulator said its investigation found Luckin had defrauded investors by materially misstating the company’s revenue, expenses, and net operating loss in an effort to falsely appear to achieve rapid growth and increased profitability and to meet the company’s earnings estimates.
The SEC alleged that, from at least April 2019 to January 2020, Luckin intentionally fabricated more than $300m in retail sales by using related parties to create false sales transactions through three separate purchasing schemes. Continue reading “Article: China’s Luckin Coffee fined $180m for accounting fraud”
Swiss central bank chief rejects ‘currency manipulator’ label from the U.S.
Elliot Smith, 17 December 2020
LONDON — Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan has rejected a U.S. decision to label Switzerland a “currency manipulator.”
The U.S. Treasury on Wednesday added Switzerland to a list of nations it suspects of deliberately devaluing their currencies against the dollar.
Jordan told CNBC on Thursday that neither the SNB nor Switzerland itself has artificially manipulated the value of the Swiss franc.
“Our monetary policy is necessary, it is legitimate, and we have a very low inflation rate — it is even negative at this moment — so we have to fight this deflation, and the Swiss franc is very strong, so it appreciated in nominal terms over the last 12 years enormously, both vis-a-vis the euro and vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar,” he said. Continue reading “Article: Swiss central bank chief rejects ‘currency manipulator’ label from the U.S.”
Analysis: A currency manipulator tag for Switzerland may not deter FX approach
Saikat Chatterjee, John Revill and David Lawder, 16 December 2020
LONDON/ZURICH/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The threat of being named a currency manipulator by the U.S. Treasury may be an embarrassment for Switzerland, but even if the country does get the tag, it likely will have little effect on the Swiss National Bank’s monetary policy.
Switzerland is expected to meet all three criteria for such designation in the long-overdue U.S. Treasury report on the foreign currency practices of major trading partners. The Treasury has some discretion on whether to issue such a label, and the coronavirus pandemic, which has thrown trade and capital flows into chaos this year, could be a factor.
There would be no automatic punishment with a label, though U.S. law requires Washington to demand negotiations with designated countries.
Vietnam, Thailand and Taiwan this year have also been in violation https://www.cfr.org/article/tracking-currency-manipulation of the Treasury’s three manipulation criteria: a $20 billion-plus bilateral trade surplus with the United States, foreign currency intervention exceeding 2% of GDP and a global current account surplus exceeding 2% of GDP.
Currency experts expect Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to issue the report within days, just over a month before he leaves office.
“The subtle implication of being put on this list is that you eventually could come under sanctions, and that puts pressure on these countries not to weaken their currencies so much, or to allow strengthening,” said Win Thin, global head of Currency Strategy at BBH.
But he said that in Switzerland’s case, as the exchange rate is its main tool for fighting deflation, “they may say, ‘Well, tough’”.
The Swiss central bank is firmly under the Treasury’s focus after spending 90 billion Swiss francs ($101.50 billion) on foreign currency intervention in the first half of 2020 amid pandemic-driven safe-haven inflows.
The SNB has long argued it is not trying to weaken the franc to gain a trade advantage. Instead, it aims only to stem the appreciation of its currency to head off the threat of deflation, which runs contrary to its goal of price stability.
“Switzerland has always been treated as a special case when it comes to exchange rate policy and even the U.S. Treasury has conceded in the past that Switzerland’s economic situation is “distinctive” and that its monetary policy options are limited by its small stock of domestic assets,” said David Oxley, a senior European economist at Capital Economics.
FOREX-Bitcoin breaks $20,000 for first time, Switzerland named currency manipulator
Suzanne Barlyn, 16 December 2020
Bitcoin smashed through $20,000 for the first time on Wednesday while the Swiss franc gained after the U.S. Treasury labelled Switzerland a currency manipulator.
Bitcoin last jumped 6.9% to move as high as $20,651. The cryptocurrency has gained more than 170% this year, buoyed by demand from larger investors attracted to its potential for quick gains, purported inflation-resistant qualities, and expectations it will become a mainstream payment method.
“The latest run to $20,000 hasn’t been accompanied by nearly the amount of hype as there was back in 2017,” said Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group. Bitcoin then garnered more interest from retail investors, but some may now be leery after getting burned, Hickey said.
The Treasury, also on Wednesday, said that through June 2020 both Switzerland and Vietnam had intervened in currency markets to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments. It is not surprising that the Trump administration might make a case about currency manipulation, given recent “runaway appreciation” of the Swissy,
The Swiss Franc was last at 0.8844, with the dollar down 0.12% against the currency on the day. The Swiss government, on Wednesday, said it is open for bilateral talks with the U.S. Treasury about the currency manipulation issue.
Strong euro zone survey figures and hopes of progress on Brexit negotiations pushed the euro above
$1.22 against the U.S. dollar on Wednesday for the first time since April 2018, but later notched
downward. Continue reading “Article: FOREX-Bitcoin breaks $20,000 for first time, Switzerland named currency manipulator”
U.S. Treasury labels Switzerland, Vietnam as currency manipulators
Reuters Staff, 16 December 2020
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury labeled Switzerland and Vietnam as currency manipulators on Wednesday and added three new names to a watch list of countries it suspects of taking measures to devalue their currencies against the dollar.
In what may be one of the final broadsides to international trading partners delivered by the departing administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Treasury said that through June 2020 both Switzerland and Vietnam had intervened in currency markets to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments.
Furthermore, in its semi-annual currency manipulation report, the Treasury said Vietnam had acted to gain “unfair competitive advantage in international trade as well.” Continue reading “Article: U.S. Treasury labels Switzerland, Vietnam as currency manipulators”
Is First Trust Multi Cap Growth AlphaDEX ETF (FAD) a Strong ETF Right Now?
Zacks Equity Research, 14 December 2020
The First Trust Multi Cap Growth AlphaDEX ETF (FAD) made its debut on 05/08/2007, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund that provides broad exposure to the Style Box – All Cap Growth category of the market.
What Are Smart Beta ETFs?
The ETF industry has traditionally been dominated by products based on market capitalization weighted indexes that are designed to represent the market or a particular segment of the market.
GLOBE NEWSWIRE, 10 December 2020
Vinco Ventures, Inc. (NASDAQ: BBIG), today updates on the first 30 days of their subsidiary Honey Badger Media, LLC and the advancement of its esteemed influencer list.
Honey Badger Media is a digital commerce company and one of Vinco’s key tools in the Be B.I.G. business model. The Company designs digital campaigns from scratch to monetization and leverages a 300 million plus follower network to grow advertiser-based revenue as well as Vinco’s brands and holdings. Additionally, within the first month, Honey Badger was able to sign an impressive catalog of celebrity influencers, including skateboarder and TV personality Bam Margera, Reality Television and Motivational Speaker Adalia Rose, and respected mom blogger Joy of Mom.
NASDQplayer97, 10 December 2010
Vinco Ventures, Inc. (NASDAQ:BBIG), today updates on the first 30 days of their subsidiary Honey Badger Media, LLC and the advancement of its esteemed influencer list.
Honey Badger Media is a digital commerce company and one of Vinco’s key tools in the Be B.I.G. business model. The Company designs digital campaigns from scratch to monetization and leverages a 300 million plus follower network to grow advertiser-based revenue as well as Vinco’s brands and holdings. Additionally, within the first month, Honey Badger was able to sign an impressive catalog of celebrity influencers, including skateboarder and TV personality Bam Margera, Reality Television and Motivational Speaker Adalia Rose, and respected mom blogger Joy of Mom.
THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?
