Latest online News|Breaking news|Daily news online|National And international News online
  • Home
  • About News Online
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Business And Finance News
  • Celebrity Gossip
  • Earth Shattering News
  • Entertainment News
  • Health Awareness
  • Latest News Videos
  • Politics Across the Border
  • Sports News Online
  • Technology Advancement
  • Uncategorized

The Never-Ending Knightmare

Posted by on August 4th, 2012

Thing One: The Never-Ending Knightmare: Knight Capital, the firm that lost $440 million from mistaken trades earlier this week, is learning the value of smoothing out the kinks. After rushing to create a robot platform capable of taking advantage of a new venue for trading stocks, the company let its new system loose Wednesday, before working out all the bugs, The New York Times reports.

The result? A disaster that pushed Knight to the brink and renewed calls for closer regulation over super-speedy computer-based too-little-too-late trading platforms. The company’s stock slid more than 60 percent after the debacle Wednesday, and it may be looking to be saved by a rival firm or JPMorgan Chase, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In an ironic twist, all of this comes after Knight’s CEO, Thomas Joyce, gave Nasdaq quite the tongue lashing after trading glitches led to delays and hundreds of millions of dollars in losses during Facebook’s highly-anticipated IPO. But the fact that his company is now responsible for a similar problem may be the least of Joyce’s worries; the CEO’s net worth shrunk by $9.5 million over the last week, according to Bloomberg.

Thing Two: Jobs Day Jitters: It’s time for that highly-anticipated event that occurs every month: Jobs day! Today the Labor Department will tell us how many jobs the economy added last month and what share of Americans looked for work but couldnt find it. Pundits will proceed to talk about what it means for Romney’s campaign or Obama’s chances of staying in the White House, or Michael Phelps’ medal count, etc.

If economists’ predictions are correct — note: they are not always correct — it appears that things will be better than last month, but not all that great. A survey of economists by Bloomberg estimates that employers added 110,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate held at 8.2 percent.

No matter the number, you, dear reader, should be wary. Thanks to seasonal adjustments — or the way the Labor Department accounts for regular fluctuations like teachers that are off for the summer — it will be hard to get a sense of any long-term trends from today’s report, The New York Times notes.

Thing Three: Mario Do-Nothing: Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, said that the bank would only take action to try and stop the financial crisis engulfing the region once European countries themselves began to use their bailout funds to stabilize the markets, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Investors were none too pleased. That could be because, as famed bond investor Bill Gross noted, Draghi’s downer press conference was sort of a “kick the can” moment, which is exaclty what European policymakers have been doing for 2.5 years, according to Bloomberg. All this just one week after Draghi promised he would “do whatever it takes” to save the Eurozone. Of course, that’s before he felt the pressure from Germany, the pupetteer that really pulls all the strings for the Eurozone economy.

And it seems that (not-so) great central banks think alike. Draghi’s move comes after the Federal Reserve said on Wednesay that it would maybe consider doing something in the future to boost the economy, but couldn’t be bothered right now even though unemployment is stuck above 8 percent.

Thing Four: Libor Hits Other Banks: Bob Diamond can rest a little bit easier. Other banks are getting swept up in the Libor scandal now. The Royal Bank of Scotland confirmed that it got rid of some of its employees over misconduct that they discovered thanks to an investigation into Libor manipulation, according to Reuters. Bank of America also disclosed that its facing investigations into its role in the Libor scandal, according to Dow Jones.

Meanwhile, no one, at least on television, seems to care. Major nightly news programs on ABC, NBC and CBS have given almost zero air time to the scandal.

Thing Five: BofA, Fannie Mae Are Speaking To Each Other: Bank of America and Fannie Mae are getting closer to a deal to resolve a fight over some mortgages that have gone bad. BofA and Countrywide Financial — which BofA now owns — sold billions of dollars worth of mortgages to Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2008 during the housing boom. Now that those loans have gone sour, Fannie Mae would like the bank to buy them back, according to Reuters.

The two sides may be far from reaching a deal, and, if they don’t, the dispute could be decided in court, according to the Financial Times. Still, the fact that they’re even talking may be a sign of maturity considering that BofA initially responded to Fannie’s claims by refusing to sell the mortgage giant new loans.

Thing Six: The London Whale Wasn’t A Free Willy: JPMorgan Chase’s London Whale may have had some help taking his risky positions. Bruno Iskil’s boss, Javier Martin-Artajo, pushed him to put a higher price on some positions than they would have gotten in the open market, the WSJ reports. The revelation comes from a series of emails and voice communications reviewed as part of the bank’s internal investigation into Iskil’s $2 billion trading loss in May.

Thing Seven: Guess Who’s Back: You’re welcome, AIG. The mostly government-owned insurance giant posted a boost in profit thanks in large part to tax benefits the company was able to take advantage of as it returned to profitability, according to Reuters. The company, which was bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, is expected to use some of its more money to buy back part of the Treasury Department’s stake.

Thing Seven And One Half: Women And Children Whenever: Men will probably save themselves first in a shipwreck, according to a new study. Yes, despite what Kate Winslet will have you believe, that age-old adage “women and children” first is probably just a Titanic-sized lie. Turns out, male passengers as well as the captain and crew are the most likely demographics to survive a shipwreck.

Now Arriving By Email: If you’d like this newsletter delivered daily to your email inbox, then please just feed your email address to the thin box over on the right side of this page, wedged narrowly between the ad and all the social-media buttons. Nothing bad will happen to you if you do, unless you consider getting this newsletter delivered daily to your email inbox a bad thing.

Calendar Du Jour:

Economic Data:

8:30 a.m. ET: Nonfarm Payrolls for July

8:30 a.m. ET: Unemployment Rate for July

10:00 a.m. ET: ISM Services for July

Corporate Earnings:

NYSE Euronext

Proctor and Gamble

The Washington Post Company

Viacom

Heard On The Tweets:

@LaMonicaBuzz: Was just about to note irony of $FB’s new 2012 low being $20.12. But stock has since fallen to new new low of $20. Teenage wasteland soon?

@yoyoha: Look forward to Chick-fil-A introducing their Only Some People Are Allowed to Be Happy Meal

@EddyElfenbein: What’s the big deal? Knight Capital only lost $10 million. Oh wait. Make that $10 million a minute. Yeah, that’s sucks. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/?hp

@neilbarofsky: Outside of badminton, we can’t afford to continue to rely on utopian view of human nature. People suck.

@eisingerj: As if to prove my point about the lack of social cost to financial malfeasance, the NYT publishes Steven Rattner on finl reform.

– Calendar and tweets rounded up by Khadeeja Safdar.

And you can follow us on Twitter, too: @markgongloff and @byKhadeeja

Posted in Business And Finance News
« Dr. Jim Taylor: What Is the Stock Market Thinking?
Fister FTW »
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

CAPTCHA Image
Refresh Image
*

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More
RSS FeedSubscribe to our RSS feed!
Follow me on Twitter!Follow me on Twitter!
CONNECT WITH:
  • Featured Video

Recent Links


  • Sponsored Listings

  • Recent Posts

    • Singer Featured On Gay Anthem ‘Same Love’ Opens Up
    • And The Favorite For Super Bowl 50 Host Is…
    • Targets In IRS Scandal Make Little Sense
    • Treasury Acts To Avoid Debt Limit
    • Michael Kinsley Feels Your Pain, Middle Class, But Pain Makes You Beautiful
  • Categories

    • Business And Finance News
    • Celebrity Gossip
    • Earth Shattering News
    • Entertainment News
    • Health Awareness
    • Politics Across the Border
    • Sports News Online
    • Technology Advancement
  • Pages

    • About News Online
    • Contact Us
  • Archives

    • May 2013
    • April 2013
    • March 2013
    • February 2013
    • January 2013
    • December 2012
    • November 2012
    • October 2012
    • September 2012
    • August 2012
    • July 2012
    • June 2012
    • May 2012
    • April 2012
    • March 2012
    • February 2012
    • January 2012
    • December 2011
    • November 2011
    • October 2011
    • September 2011
    • May 2011
    • April 2011
    • March 2011
    • February 2011
    • January 2011
    • December 2010
    • November 2010
    • October 2010
    • September 2010
    • August 2010
    • June 2010
    • May 2010
    • April 2010
  • Blogroll

    • Skin Care and Acne Treatment
  • Latest News Online

    Promote Your Page Too
wordpress themes
Copyright Latest online News - CAN READ HOT AND LATEST NEWS ON A CLICK.free counters


Site Map