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Article: Under Armour Sold Some Clothes Early

Article - Media, Publications

Under Armour Sold Some Clothes Early

Matt Levine, 04 May 2021

One theory is that the price of a share of stock reflects the present value of its future cash flows in perpetuity. People buy stock today not because they expect high profits tomorrow, but because they expect high profits over the long run. Investment decisions that cost money today, but that will bring in much more money in five years, increase the net present value of the stock, so the shareholders should support them.

Another theory is that public markets are myopically focused on the short term. Investors care only about this quarter’s earnings; they buy stocks whose earnings go up each quarter and sell stocks whose earnings go down. A decision that reduces earnings today, in exchange for higher earnings in the future, is bad, and shareholders will punish a company that makes those decisions. Continue reading “Article: Under Armour Sold Some Clothes Early”

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Article: GameStop’s CEO Goes Out on Top

Article - Media, Publications

GameStop’s CEO Goes Out on Top

Matt Levine, 26 April 2021

Is George Sherman one of the greatest public-company chief executive officers in American history? He became CEO of GameStop Corp. on April 15, 2019. The stock closed at $8.94 per share that day. On April 19, 2021 — almost exactly two years later — GameStop announced that he will be stepping down by July. The stock closed at $164.37 that day. That’s a 1,739% return over his two-year term, or about 325% annualized. (The S&P 500 index was up 43%, or about 20% a year, over those two years.) GameStop’s market capitalization went from about $900 million to about $11.5 billion; Sherman added about $10.5 billion of shareholder value in two years. 1

How much should he get paid, for doing this amazing work for shareholders? A billion dollars? Two billion? If GameStop’s shareholders had only gotten the S&P 500 return over the last few years, they’d have missed out on more than $10 billion in value; I suppose you could make a case that they should be willing to pay Sherman up to $10 billion for his magic touch. Continue reading “Article: GameStop’s CEO Goes Out on Top”

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Article: Ex-Deutsche Traders Urge 2nd Circ. To Nix Libor Convictions

Article - Media, Publications

Ex-Deutsche Traders Urge 2nd Circ. To Nix Libor Convictions

Stewart Bishop, 14 April 2021

Two former Deutsche Bank traders on Wednesday argued that the Second Circuit should reverse their convictions for Libor-rigging, saying the government failed to prove they violated any of the applicable rules governing the benchmark interest rate.

Matthew Connolly and Gavin Black in 2018 were convicted at trial of wire fraud and conspiracy for their roles in a purported scheme to tweak lending estimates included in Libor to benefit the bank’s derivatives trading positions. Continue reading “Article: Ex-Deutsche Traders Urge 2nd Circ. To Nix Libor Convictions”

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Journalist: Matt Levine

Journalist, People

Matt Levine  is a columnist for Bloomberg News covering finance and business. Levine has previously been a lawyer, investment banker, law clerk, and has written for a number of newspapers and financial sites. His newsletter, Money Stuff, is one of the most popular on Wall Street with over 150k subscribers.

After graduating Levine was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer for the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He later went on to become an investment banker for Goldman Sachs, where he structured and marketed corporate equity derivatives for four years. Levine was also a high school Latin teacher and a law clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.[ Continue reading “Journalist: Matt Levine”

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Article: The War On Wall Street: GameStop Sparks Revolution With Retail Investors

Article - Media, Publications

The War On Wall Street: GameStop Sparks Revolution With Retail Investors

Anat Alon-Beck, 01 February 2021

I don’t know about you, but I’ve been glued to the financial news during the past week.

And, for the first time, both my husband and my son were actually interested in my work. It is mind-boggling.

My husband first told me these stories of people making exorbitant amounts of money trading stock options, and no, not people we know from the investment community. My son, who turned 11 this month, wanted to know what’s all the buzz in the news about his favorite store: GameStop GME +0.9%. Continue reading “Article: The War On Wall Street: GameStop Sparks Revolution With Retail Investors”

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Web: Our Financial Oligarchy; Emperors of a Brave New World

Web

Our Financial Oligarchy; Emperors of a Brave New World

They own the regulators; they own the brokerage houses; they own the clearing houses; they own all of your investments; and it’s even been shown that they can exert complete control over the government.

To understand how these banks exert complete control over our financial system, one must first understand the securities clearance system.

In the United States of America, there is only one central clearinghouse: The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, and for almost 50 years they have maintained a virtual monopoly over this essential service.

It is a private corporation that is owned by these mega-banks and brokers.

Read full free book online with many illustrations

PDF (470 Pages): Our Financial Oligarchy Back-Up

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Subject: Aron Levine

Subject of Interest

Aron Levine is the Head of Consumer Banking & Investments and the Consumer Investments group at Merrill Edge. Levine joined the company through Fleet Financial group in 1993 and has held leadership roles in Commercial Real Estate Banking, Marketing, Corporate Strategy, and Global Wealth Management. He graduated from the University of Rochester with a degree in both Economics and History.

Biography

Merrill Edge aka “MLPF&S” or “Merrill”

 

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Article: Here’s Why Shares of Ballard Power Systems Sank 18% in January

Article - Media, Publications

Here’s Why Shares of Ballard Power Systems Sank 18% in January

Scott Levine, 06 February 2018

Shares of Ballard Power Systems (NASDAQ:BLDP), an industry leader in fuel cell solutions, plunged more than 18% last month, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. The decline follows a report from Spruce Point Capital that cast a critical eye on the company and assigned a long-term price target for the stock of $1.15 to $2.50. Through 2017, Ballard’s stock had risen 167%, ending the year at $4.41.

Ballard has high hopes for its success in the Chinese market — by providing solutions to bus and truck manufacturers — over the next several years. In fiscal 2016, for example, the company attributed 39% of its revenue to sales there, and forecasts that it will contribute 45% to its top line in fiscal 2020. However, it’s less optimistic about success in other markets, guiding for sales in North America (its second-largest source of revenue) to remain stagnant at 33% from fiscal 2016 to fiscal 2020 and sales in Europe to slide from 22% to 18% during the same period.
Continue reading “Article: Here’s Why Shares of Ballard Power Systems Sank 18% in January”

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Article: Dole Food Had Too Many Shares

Article - Media

Dole Food Had Too Many Shares

Matt Levine

Bloomberg, 17 February 2017

In 2013, tropical-fruit tycoon David Murdock, who was the chairman, chief executive officer and biggest shareholder of Dole Food Co., took it private for $13.50 a share. A lot of shareholders felt that that price was way too low, and that Murdock had sandbagged the shareholders by driving down the value of the company so he could buy it cheaply for himself. So they sued, and they won. In 2015, the Delaware Chancery Court ordered Murdock to pay shareholders another $2.74 a share, plus interest. There was a class action on behalf of shareholders, covering 36,793,758 shares, and after the court ruled in their favor, the class lawyers informed the shareholders and asked them to submit a form to claim their $2.74 a share.

Read full article.

 

Comment: Who sold all the fake shares? Who paid the dividend to shareholders?

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Article: Robot Funds and Bank Regulation

Article - Media, Publications

Robot Funds and Bank Regulation

Matt Levine, 04 August 2016

What’s Steve Cohen up to? Stamford Harbor Capital, the new firm started by Steven Cohen and led by a longtime deputy, is working with a third-party marketing company that’s meeting with potential clients to gauge interest in investment vehicles that could be started as soon as 2018. Continue reading “Article: Robot Funds and Bank Regulation”

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Article: SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says

Article - Media, Publications

SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says

jgoff, 08 December 2011

Auction-rate securities holders seeking to win back part of the $330 billion they’ve invested, may get help from a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission legal brief supporting claims that Merrill Lynch & Co. rigged the moribund market, a lawyer involved in the case said. Continue reading “Article: SEC backs investors’ claim Merrill rigged ARS market, lawyer says”

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Release: Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Justice

Article - Media

Former FBI Agent Pleads Guilty to Obstruction of Justice

Robert Nardoza

United States Attorney’s Office, 23 June 2005

ROSLYNN R. MAUSKOPF, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and JOHN A. KLOCHAN, Acting Assistant Director-in-Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office, announced that LYNN WINGATE, a former Special Agent of Federal Bureau of Investigation, pleaded guilty this afternoon to obstruction of justice in connection with her role in interfering with a grand jury’s investigation relating to Amr “Anthony” Elgindy and former FBI Agent Jeffrey A. Royer by accessing the FBI’s confidential law enforcement computer system and then relaying pertinent confidential information to Royer, who was one of the subjects of the investigation.

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