Article: The Global Intelligence Files

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The Global Intelligence Files

Wikileaks, 02 Aug 2021

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

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Article: The Future Of Wall Street: Fintech 50 2021

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The Future Of Wall Street: Fintech 50 2021

JAMES ALBERT, 22 July 2021

Even before the Coronavirus pandemic closed bank branches and emptied Wall Street’s once-boisterous trading floors, the digitization of all things finance was well underway. Stock markets trade almost entirely electronically and many of Wall Street’s most valuable companies now provide data, technology and software to the big banks, private equity firms and hedge funds that execute the day’s big trades. Covid only accelerated the push for firms to digitize their businesses and handle an increasingly distributed workforce.

Behavox, founded by former Goldman Sachs stock analyst and hedge fund portfolio manager Erkin Adylov, has become the go-to solution for banks, hedge funds and PE firms looking to maintain control over their data as their workers trade and communicate digitally. Founded seven years ago by Kyrgyzstan-born Adylov, Behavox’s natural language processing algorithms and data lakes track and store email and voice communications for large banks and hedge funds, helping to protect against issues like market manipulation, insider trading and the stealing of intellectual property. Continue reading “Article: The Future Of Wall Street: Fintech 50 2021”

Article: Affirm’s Max Levchin Responds to New Competition From Apple

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Affirm’s Max Levchin Responds to New Competition From Apple

Bloomberg, 17 July 2021

Affirm CEO Max Levchin discusses Apple’s announcement that they will collaborate with Goldman Sachs and start allowing customers to buy products using Apple Pay and pay off the purchases in installments, which will be in direct competition with his company. He speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Technology.”

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Article: Robinhood Gets Ready for the Meme Stock World It Created

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Robinhood Gets Ready for the Meme Stock World It Created

Annie Massa, 14 July 2021

Hi all, it’s Annie from Bloomberg’s investing team. Soon, Robinhood Markets Inc. will go public. The debut—which could happen in the coming weeks—will see Robinhood entrust its share price to the same retail investors who have been using its app to roil markets.

The free stock trading app has been around for eight eventful years. During the pandemic, Robinhood traders congregated on Reddit message boards and drove wild swings in the price of companies like GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. Then, when Robinhood put limits on customer purchases of those stocks, the startup incurred social media wrath, along with some lawsuits. Continue reading “Article: Robinhood Gets Ready for the Meme Stock World It Created”

Article: EU bond sales run by four banks previously suspended for antitrust

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EU bond sales run by four banks previously suspended for antitrust

ishwarkimmins, 29 June 2021

As Brussels sold its new five- and thirty-year debt, four banks that had previously suspended EU bond sales were selected to manage Block’s latest trading on Tuesday.

JP Morgan, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank and UniCredit were banned from participating in the first € 20 billion debt sale to fund the EU’s € 800 billion recovery fund earlier this month due to past antitrust violations. It was one of only 10 lines. Continue reading “Article: EU bond sales run by four banks previously suspended for antitrust”

Article: Wall Street Reins In Hedge Funds’ Short Bets on Meme Stocks

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Wall Street Reins In Hedge Funds’ Short Bets on Meme Stocks

Eliza Ronalds-Hannon and Jennifer Surane, 04 June 2021

Wall Street’s top brokers are quietly tightening their rules for who can bet against retail traders’ most-popular meme stocks.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Jefferies Financial Group Inc. are among firms that have adjusted their risk controls at prime-brokerage operations, according to people familiar with the moves. The banks are trying to protect themselves against fallout from extreme surges and dips that have characterized trading in companies including AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., MicroVision Inc. and GameStop Corp. Continue reading “Article: Wall Street Reins In Hedge Funds’ Short Bets on Meme Stocks”

Article: Greedy Wall Street giants won’t fare well in Xi Jinping’s China

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Greedy Wall Street giants won’t fare well in Xi Jinping’s China

Nels Frye, 01 June 2021

Congrats to America’s finance bros for finally getting their reward from the Chinese Communist Party. But surely, after obediently lobbying in favor of opening up to Beijing for decades, Wall Street deserved more than it received.

Two finance giants, Goldman Sachs and BlackRock, can now operate wealth-management businesses on the mainland, partnering with China Construction Bank Corp. and Commercial Bank of China — state-run entities at the center of power in the Communist state. The result: Goldman and BlackRock will likely relinquish much in independence, data and intellectual property, while scrounging only scraps of the domestic finance market in China. Continue reading “Article: Greedy Wall Street giants won’t fare well in Xi Jinping’s China”

Article: London startup fighting against financial crime with ML picks $70M from Goldman Sachs

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London startup fighting against financial crime with ML picks $70M from Goldman Sachs

UKTechNews, 21 May 2021

London-based global data technology company – ComplyAdvantage transforming financial crime detection has announced a fresh investment from Goldman Sachs Growth Equity (“Goldman Sachs”).

While the terms of transactions were not disclosed, the Machine Learning (ML) scaleup has extended its Series C investment to $70 million with this new Goldman Sachs investment. Pouring fresh investment into oversubscribed Series C funding. It is an extension to the company’s oversubscribed Series C funding announced in July 2020. With this, Goldman Sachs joins a growing list of the company’s world-class investors, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, Index Ventures, and Balderton Capital. Continue reading “Article: London startup fighting against financial crime with ML picks $70M from Goldman Sachs”

Article: Share buybacks roar back – but how good an idea are they?

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Share buybacks roar back – but how good an idea are they?

Adrian Holliday, 13 May 2021

Spurred by the speed of global vaccination roll-outs, stimulus boosts and a white-hot US first-quarter earnings period, some US companies have upped dividend payments to their shareholders. Alternatively, they’re buying back their own shares in ‘buybacks’. So what are share buybacks? Is the UK seeing a similar wave – and how good an idea are share buybacks for investors? Continue reading “Article: Share buybacks roar back – but how good an idea are they?”

Article: Malaysia’s 1MDB, ex-unit seek recovery of $23 bln in assets

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Malaysia’s 1MDB, ex-unit seek recovery of $23 bln in assets

Reuters, 10 May 2021

Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and a former unit have filed 22 civil suits seeking to recover more than $23 billion in assets from entities and people allegedly involved in defrauding them, the finance ministry said on Monday.

The ministry, in a statement on the suits, did not identify any of the individuals or entities being sued but said two foreign financial institutions were among them. The Edge business daily, citing court documents that it said it had seen, reported that JP Morgan (JPM.N) and Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) were among those being sued.

Malaysian officials did not immediately confirm the names. Continue reading “Article: Malaysia’s 1MDB, ex-unit seek recovery of $23 bln in assets”

Article: After striking settlements with Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and AmBank, Putrajaya now hunting down other 1MDB wrongdoers

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After striking settlements with Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and AmBank, Putrajaya now hunting down other 1MDB wrongdoers

YISWAREE PALANSAMY, 10 May 2021

KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 — The government is hunting down others who have received funds from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and SRC International Sdn Bhd, after settlements with banking giants Goldman Sachs, Deloitte PLT and Ambank Group.

In a statement today, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said that six of the recent civil suits on 1MDB were filed by the fund itself, while 16 were by its subsidiary SRC for the recovery of assets with a combined total in excess of RM96.6 billion, including approximately RM300 million against various local parties. Continue reading “Article: After striking settlements with Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and AmBank, Putrajaya now hunting down other 1MDB wrongdoers”

Article: Gas Suppliers, Banks Make Billions on Texas Power Crisis

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Gas Suppliers, Banks Make Billions on Texas Power Crisis

Alex Shanahan, Andy Szal, 07 May 2021

Months after the deadly winter storm passed, some companies are starting to detail some significant windfalls. In mid-February, a brutal winter storm swept across Texas and overwhelmed the state’s power grid, knocking out electricity and water to millions for days.

A sudden jump in energy prices hammered utilities, and some customers faced power bills in the thousands of dollars. More than 100 people reportedly died.

The public vented its anger — primarily at executives and lawmakers — and amid that kind of public outcry, it’s easy to see why some companies who may have benefited from the crisis were happy to keep that information under wraps. Some 12 weeks later, however, the details are beginning to seep out. Continue reading “Article: Gas Suppliers, Banks Make Billions on Texas Power Crisis”

Article: THESE ARE THE TEN BIGGEST BANK FINES OF 2020

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THESE ARE THE TEN BIGGEST BANK FINES OF 2020

ValueWalk, 07 May 2021

Banking regulators around the globe were busy last year despite the Covid-19 pandemic. Like any other year, the regulators imposed heavy fines on banks and financial institutions for a range of indiscretions, including money laundering, tax evasion and market manipulation. It is estimated that total bank fines amounted to more than $14 billion in 2020, with the U.S. accounting for the majority of them with 12 bank fines. Anti-money laundering (AML) breaches were the most common violation last year. Detailed below are the ten biggest bank fines of 2020. Continue reading “Article: THESE ARE THE TEN BIGGEST BANK FINES OF 2020”

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