Article: No Rest For Hong Kong Investment Bankers As Kuaishou IPO Skyrockets

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No Rest For Hong Kong Investment Bankers As Kuaishou IPO Skyrockets

Brendan Ahern, 05 February 2021

Tencent-backed ByteDance rival Kuaishou Technology (1024 HK) ripped +160% in its Hong Kong IPO today in the second-best IPO performance ever behind Alibaba’s +193% gain back in 2007 (BABA went private before going public again in 2014). The company raised $5.4B from investors. Yesterday we did a deep dive on the company, which you can access here.

The value traded in Kuaishou was nearly 3X the second most traded stock worth $4.84 billion as 119 million shares traded hands today. Several brokers noted the company’s market cap of $158 billion is more than three Hong Kong banks, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and Hang Seng, combined! The Hong Kong IPO frenzy is going to continue with rumors overnight that Tencent Music Entertainment TME -4% is working on a Hong Kong IPO along with Baidu BIDU -0.3%. Bloomberg noted that ByteDance might want to take advantage of the valuation given to Kuaishou and pursue an IPO itself, similar to when Uber UBER +2% went public after seeing Lyft’s LYFT +0.2% success at doing so. Continue reading “Article: No Rest For Hong Kong Investment Bankers As Kuaishou IPO Skyrockets”

Naked Short Selling: The Truth Is Much Worse Than You Have Been Told

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Naked Short Selling: The Truth Is Much Worse Than You Have Been Told

By James Stafford – Feb 02, 2021, 3:20 PM CST, OilPrice.com

There is a massive threat to our capital markets, the free market in general, and fair dealings overall. And no, it’s not China. It’s a homegrown threat that everyone has been afraid to talk about.

Until now.  That fear has now turned into rage.

The naked truth is this: Investors stand no chance in the face of naked short sellers. It’s a game rigged in the favor of a sophisticated short cartel and Wall Street giants.

Continue reading “Naked Short Selling: The Truth Is Much Worse Than You Have Been Told”

Article: Deutsche Bank Reaches $100 Million Deferred-Prosecution Deal

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Deutsche Bank Reaches $100 Million Deferred-Prosecution Deal

Bloomberg, 08 January 2021

Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay more than $130 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it bribed foreign officials and manipulated the market for precious-metals futures through a trading tactic known as spoofing. The Frankfurt-based bank agreed to a deal in which it won’t be prosecuted as long as it doesn’t engage in the practices again for more than three years, and wasn’t required to spoofing. Big banks have been rushing to conclude legal deals before the change of U.S. administrations, partly out of concern that there may be stiffer fines under a Democratic president. Three top U.S.-based banks agreed to pay more than $4 billion in settlements announced just before the November election, on issues ranging from bribery to market manipulation. Continue reading “Article: Deutsche Bank Reaches $100 Million Deferred-Prosecution Deal”

Article: Two Ex- Deutsche Bank traders found guilty of spoofing gold and silver markets

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Two Ex- Deutsche Bank traders found guilty of spoofing gold and silver markets

Neils Christensen, 27 September 2020

U.S. authorities, in an effort to clean up trading activity in the precious metals markets, won a major victory Friday after two former employees of Deutsche Bank traders were found guilty of manipulating gold and silver prices.

Friday, after a two-week court case a federal judge in Chicago found James Vorley, 42, of the United Kingdom, and Cedric Chanu, 40, of France and the United Arab Emirates, were convicted of three counts and seven counts, respectively, of wire fraud affecting a financial institution.

“Today’s jury verdict shows that those who seek to manipulate our public financial markets through fraud will be held accountable by juries and the department,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in a press release. Continue reading “Article: Two Ex- Deutsche Bank traders found guilty of spoofing gold and silver markets”

Article: Ex-Deutsche Bank Gold Traders Found Guilty in Spoofing Trial

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Ex-Deutsche Bank Gold Traders Found Guilty in Spoofing Trial

Bloomberg, 26 September 2020

Prosecutors behind a sweeping U.S. crackdown on market “spoofing” scored a big win Friday when former Deutsche Bank AG traders Cedric Chanu and James Vorley were convicted of fraud for manipulating gold and silver prices.

A federal jury in Chicago, after three days of deliberations, concluded Chanu and Vorley made bogus trade orders between 2008 and 2013 to illegally influence precious-metals prices. The weeklong trial was the latest U.S. prosecution of a “spoofing” case since the global market “flash crash” in 2010. Continue reading “Article: Ex-Deutsche Bank Gold Traders Found Guilty in Spoofing Trial”

Article: Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands casino pays Chinese gambler US$6.5 million to settle suit

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Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands casino pays Chinese gambler US$6.5 million to settle suit

Bloomberg,  20 July 2020

(Bloomberg) Singapore casino Marina Bay Sands has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by a former patron, meeting his demand for a S$9.1 million (US$6.5 million) payment, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Marina Bay Sands, run by US billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands, also agreed to allow Chinese gambler Wang Xi back into the casino as long as he abides by its policies, said the person, who asked not be identified because the matter is confidential.

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Subject: Michael R. Bloomberg

Subject of Interest

Michael R. Bloomberg is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P.. He was the 108th mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. Bloomberg grew up in Medford, Massachusetts and graduated from Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School. He began his career at the securities brokerage Salomon Brothers before forming his own company in 1981. That company, Bloomberg L.P., is a financial information, software and media firm that is known for its Bloomberg Terminal. Bloomberg spent the next twenty years as its chairman and CEO.

Biography

Article: Largest Silver Gold Manipulation Criminal Case Coming

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Largest Silver Gold Manipulation Criminal Case Coming

James Anderson, 08 February 2020

This week we learned that U.S. authorities at the DoJ, who have for years not only accused various JPMorgan Chase & Co. employees of rigging precious-metals futures but also got many to plead guilty. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) is now, more importantly, building a criminal case against America’s biggest bank itself.

The previously unreported investigation of the global bank’s parent company, part of a wide-ranging attempt by the Federal government to maintain shreds of its former financial market credibility, raises the now new prospect of criminal charges against higher up executives within the United States’ largest bank.

And perhaps even larger implications are coming to this once considered too big to fail, therefore we must bail them out bank.

One which today in 2020, and seemingly year after year the Bank for International Settlements’ Financial Stability Board ascribes as being the #1 Global-Sytimatic Important Bank (G-SIB). In terser terms, JP Morgan’s stability is consistently ranked by the central bank of central banks, as being the largest threat to our global financial system functioning smoothly (new Bank Bail-In Laws on the books still).

Today we will dig into some details about this coming criminal case against JP Morgan Chase.

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Article: Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target

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Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target

Mark P, 11 December 2019

Cannabis stocks have had a history of being rife with scandals and potential wrongdoings. While it’s unfortunate that the industry has garnered such a reputation, for the most part, this perception has died down a bit in 2019. However, from time to time, a well-known cannabis company will be implicated in something illegal or against the law. That’s what happened today with Tilray (NASDAQ: TLRY), which was hit with a $300 million lawsuit from an acquisition target that claimed Tilray was trying to make them go bankrupt.

While it didn’t make headlines in the financial press, Bloomberg quietly mentioned that Tilray had been hit with a hefty lawsuit from a soap company called Trimax, which argued that the pot company had been trying to bankrupt one of its subsidiaries in order to make it easy to buy them out. Specifically, Trimax claims that Tilray wanted to buy its line of CBD products at a discount.gh cash that is inflated or compromised, and warranty and service costs are understated by at least $11 million.
Continue reading “Article: Tilray hit by $300 million lawsuit over scheme to bankrupt acquisition target”

Article: Russian national confesses to biggest bank hack in US history

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Russian national confesses to biggest bank hack in US history

DAN GOODIN, 24 September 2019

A Russian national has admitted to carrying out the largest-known computer hack on a US bank. His 2014 breach of JPMorgan Chase generated hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit revenue and stole the data of more than 80 million JPMorgan clients.

Andrei Tyurin, 35, whose last name is also spelled Tiurin, also pleaded guilty to hacks against other US financial institutions, brokerage firms, and other companies. In all, he pleaded guilty in federal court to computer intrusion, wire fraud, bank fraud, and illegal online gambling as part of a securities-fraud scheme carried out by co-conspirators. Continue reading “Article: Russian national confesses to biggest bank hack in US history”

Article: ICYMI – Investing Insight from “The Scourge of Wall Street” Marc Cohodes

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ICYMI – Investing Insight from “The Scourge of Wall Street” Marc Cohodes

Hedgeye, 25 June 2019

Hedgeye CEO Keith McCullough just hosted a conversation with renowned short-seller Marc Cohodes. If you haven’t watched it yet, we encourage you to do so. According to Cohodes, the craft of short-selling is more than just about making money, it’s about exposing business practices that are at best deeply questionable and at worst… criminal. Continue reading “Article: ICYMI – Investing Insight from “The Scourge of Wall Street” Marc Cohodes”

Article: Citi, JPMorgan, UBS Face Forex Cartel Class Action in Australia

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Citi, JPMorgan, UBS Face Forex Cartel Class Action in Australia

Peter Vercoe, 27 May 2019

Citigroup Inc., Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are among five banks named in a class action lawsuit in Australia seeking damages for colluding on foreign-exchange trading strategies. UBS Group AG and Barclays Plc were also named in the suit lodged Monday in the Federal Court by Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. The action claims the banks colluded to rig foreign exchange rates boosting profits at the expense of Australian businesses and investors, the law firm said in a statement. Continue reading “Article: Citi, JPMorgan, UBS Face Forex Cartel Class Action in Australia”

Article: Meet the New York investor who’s making all the right calls in shorting Canadian stocks

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Meet the New York investor who’s making all the right calls in shorting Canadian stocks

Victor Ferreira, 19 November 2018

Ben Axler is used to being alone on his stock calls. In August, the New-York-based short seller released a report criticizing Canadian space tech juggernaut Maxar Technologies Ltd., raising questions about some of its accounting practices and warning that the company’s shares could lose more than half their value. Continue reading “Article: Meet the New York investor who’s making all the right calls in shorting Canadian stocks”

Article: Manulife clashes with short seller Muddy Waters over lawsuit outcome

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Manulife clashes with short seller Muddy Waters over lawsuit outcome

RJ Dumaual, 04 October 2018

Manulife Financial Corp. rejected a short seller’s statements that the company could lose billions of dollars if it loses a lawsuit concerning a universal life policy issued in the 1990s. Hedge fund Mosten Investment LP sued Manulife, claiming that it should be able to deposit as much capital as it can with the Canadian insurer and reap at least 4% in annual interest due to an insurance contract signed in 1997, Bloomberg News reported.

Muddy Waters Capital LLC disclosed a short position in Manulife and said in a report that the insurer is facing billions in losses, Bloomberg reported. Muddy Waters founder Carson Block expects a verdict in 2018. Holders of the policies were allowed to invest in side accounts with guaranteed rates of up to 4%, according to Canada’s Financial Post. The policies were issued at a time of high interest rates and could be profitable for firms amid a low rate environment.
Continue reading “Article: Manulife clashes with short seller Muddy Waters over lawsuit outcome”

THE DOLLAR HAS NO INTRINSIC VALUE : DO YOUR ASSETS?