tyb
good morning
SAM689 USAF C-32A (secondary AF2) departed JBA wn
Polish AF PLF252 C-130 Hercules out of Dover AFB and ne-arrived on 0203
BUILD25 US Navy E-6 B Mercury out of Pax River ne currently off-shore
Algerian AF 7TVPR G4 south from Brussels Int'l Airport after a ground stop and back to Algers
Did this same route on 0131
GameStop shares rise after Robinhood lifts trading curbs
Shares of GameStop and other companies caught in the recent social media-hyped trading frenzy rose on Friday, after online broker Robinhood lifted all the buying curbs imposed at the height of the battle between amateur investors and Wall Street hedge funds.
The videogame retailer, the initial trigger for the market slugfest, was up 8.4% in U.S. pre-market trading although the wild gyrations seen in the past two weeks appeared to have fizzled out.
Robinhood, among the fee-free online brokers that are credited with fueling the trades, said late on Thursday it had removed all buying restrictions imposed due to a surge in clearing house deposit requirements last week.
With many of the stocks involved in the so-called “Reddit rally” slumping this week, hedge funds with bearish positions on GameStop made $3.6 billion in profits compared to losses of $12.5 billion in January, financial analytics firm Ortex said on Friday.
Analysts pointed to a stunning Hong Kong debut for Tencent-backed Kuaishou Technology as more evidence of the growing power of small investors but, on the WallStreetBets forum at the center of the last week’s action, there were few signs of consensus around new stock market favorites.
https://www.reuters.com/article/retail-trading/wrapup-1-gamestop-shares-rise-after-robinhood-lifts-trading-curbs-idUSL4N2KB3F0
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GME
That should make the bagholders fee-fee's slightly better for about 45 minutes
U.S. trade deficit jumps to 12-year high in 2020
The United States’ trade deficit surged to its highest level in 12 years in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the flow of goods and services. The Commerce Department said on Friday that the trade deficit jumped 17.7% to $678.7 billion last year, the highest since 2008. Exports of goods and services tumbled 15.7% to their lowest level since 2010. Imports of goods and services dropped 9.5% to a four-year low.
The plunge in exports contributed to the economy shrinking 3.5% last year, the biggest drop in gross domestic product since 1946. Trade flows have been gradually improving. For December, the trade deficit narrowed 3.5% to $66.6 billion . Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the trade gap would shrink to $65.7 billion in December.
Imports of goods rose 1.5% to $217.7 billion in December. Goods exports shot up 4.7% to $133.5 billion.
https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-economy-tradefigures/u-s-trade-deficit-jumps-to-12-year-high-in-2020-idUSL1N2KA27F
We may get some answers regarding how they will treat Pedotus using Gov AC's at JBA later today
5:15 PM EST
The President departs Joint Base Andrews en route Wilmington, Delaware
https://factba.se/biden/calendar
Manhattan Office Prices Seen Falling as Much as 30% in a Year
Prices for Manhattan office buildings may tumble as much as 30% in the next year – victims of falling demand, rising costs and shorter leases, according to Tom Shapiro, chief investment officer of GTIS Partners.
“The notion of the market dropping 20% to 30% over the next year or so is not a tough call,” Shapiro, whose Manhattan-based firm oversees $4.5 billion in real estate investments, said in an interview. “It should be pretty obvious.” While Shapiro isn’t alone in predicting a decline before buyers are willing to step back into the market, he sees a quicker slide than most.
Sales and leasing of New York offices have collapsed since Covid-19 forced most desk workers to telecommute, shrouding future demand in uncertainty. The office-availability rate in Manhattan jumped to 14.9% in January, the highest in data going back to 2000, according to Colliers International. Rents fell to their lowest in almost three years, the brokerage reported.
Landlords are likely to face higher costs, such as taxes and capital expenditures for property improvements, making buildings less profitable, Shapiro said. Tenants also are going to want more flexibility, such as shorter-term leases, another factor undercutting values.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/manhattan-office-prices-seen-falling-as-much-as-30-in-a-year-1.1559593
US warship sails near disputed South China Sea islands
A U.S. warship sailed near the Chinese-controlled Paracel Islands in the disputed South China Sea on Friday in a freedom of navigation operation, the U.S. Navy said, the first such mission under President Joe Biden's new administration. China's military condemned the move, saying it had dispatched naval and air units to follow and warn away the ship.
The busy waterway is one of a number of flashpoints in the U.S.-China relationship, which include a trade war, U.S. sanctions, Hong Kong and Taiwan. China has been infuriated by repeated U.S. sailings near the islands Beijing occupies and controls in the South China Sea. China says it has irrefutable sovereignty and has accused Washington of deliberately stoking tensions.
The U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet said the destroyer USS John S. McCain "asserted navigational rights and freedoms in the vicinity of the Paracel Islands, consistent with international law".
The freedom of navigation operation upheld the rights, freedoms and lawful uses of the sea recognised in international law by challenging the "unlawful restrictions on innocent passage imposed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam", it said. The Southern Theatre Command of China's People's Liberation Army said the ship had entered into what it termed the territorial waters of the Paracels without permission, "seriously infringing upon China's sovereignty and security". The United States was "deliberately disrupting the good atmosphere of the South China Sea of peace, friendship, and cooperation", it added.
China took full control of the Paracels in 1974 after a short battle with South Vietnamese forces. Vietnam, as well as Taiwan, continue to claim the islands. Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines have claims to other parts of the South China Sea, where China has been building artificial islands and constructing air bases on some of them. The same U.S. ship involved in this mission earlier this week transited the sensitive Taiwan Strait, drawing an angry response from Beijing.
Last month, a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group entered the South China Sea for what the Navy said was routine operations.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/South-China-Sea/US-warship-sails-near-disputed-South-China-Sea-islands
Asset manager BlackRock cuts stake in Occidental Petroleum
BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, cut its stake in U.S. oil and gas producer Occidental Petroleum Corp by about 9% last year, according to a securities filing on Friday.
The firm beneficially owned 53.69 million Occidental shares at the end of December, down 5 million shares from a year earlier. The stake was valued at $1.22 billion on Friday. BlackRock did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The firm has urged companies to prepare their businesses to live in a low-carbon environment by the middle of this century. Occidental Petroleum has embraced carbon emissions reductions and laid out a plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. A company representative did not immediately reply to a request for comment on BlackRock’s share sales.
Occidental Petroleum’s market value sank 60% last year as oil demand and prices tumbled and debt from its 2019 purchase of Anadarko Petroleum drove losses. It lost $14.36 billion in the first nine months of 2020. Full-year results are set to be released on Feb. 16.
https://www.reuters.com/article/occidental-petroleum-blackrock/asset-manager-blackrock-cuts-stake-in-occidental-petroleum-idUSL1N2KB1RH
nite
Budget talks overshadowed as more issues pile up for Suga
The Lower House began debating the fiscal 2021 budget late this week, but the focus has been on the mounting pressure on Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on issues ranging from a potential ethics violation involving his son to a sexist remark by the Tokyo Organising Committee chair. In the Lower House Budget Committee, the main battleground between the administration and opposition parties, opposition lawmakers attempted to shake the prime minister with a series of attacks, but he kept his ground, even though he at times raised his voice.
Although the events unfolding this week are not directly tied to the prime minister himself, they could further inflame mistrust toward the administration — which is already nearing its boiling point over Suga's coronavirus response.
The biggest clash between Suga and opposition lawmakers revolved around an allegation in a weekly tabloid magazine that Seigo Suga, the prime minister’s eldest son, who works at a satellite broadcast company, gave four Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications officials gifts and taxi vouchers after treating them at a high-end restaurant in Tokyo on at least four occasions last year. Accepting the gifts could be a violation of the ethics code for public servants. The opposition camp suspects that an inappropriate relationship could have influenced the ministry’s licensing decisions, especially because of the company’s ties to the prime minister’s son, undermining the fairness of them. On Friday, Suga told the committee he had talked to his son and urged him to cooperate with any inquiry. At the same time, he has tried to distance himself from the report. In response to heated questioning from Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Takahiro Kuroiwa, Suga on Thursday said he had not been aware of the facts reported in the magazine and the matter should be handled “based on rules after confirming the facts.” One of the implicated officials, Yoshinori Akimoto, said to Kuroiwa that he had dined with Suga’s son. The official told the committee session he did not pay for his meal because he was not aware of a potential conflict of interest.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said in a morning briefing Friday that the communications ministry will primarily conduct a probe while coordinating with the National Public Service Ethics Board. He elaborated on neither the start of the investigation nor its conclusion, other than saying it will be done as soon as possible, as the ministry is consulting with the ethics board on how it needs to be carried out.
Trying to put distance between himself and his son, Suga noted his son is an adult and a private citizen. The prime minister said he had not confirmed whether photographs published in the magazine were of his son or not. In the photos, the eyes of the person reported to be Suga's son were covered over with a black line for privacy purposes. “Truth be told, this is not something I should be responding to at a place like this because the matter involves his and his family’s honor and privacy,” Suga said.
Kuroiwa also broached the subject of nepotism — Suga had at one point made Seigo Suga parliamentary secretary when he was an internal affairs minister between 2006 and 2007. The prime minister shot back forcefully and argued that the appointment complied with proper procedures. “I don’t meet him on a regular basis because he is something like 40 years old,” Suga said. “Isn’t it unfair that you’re connecting the dots to him? He’s a completely different person, so I hope you understand that.”
Meanwhile, sexist remarks by Olympics organizing chief Yoshiro Mori, who said that women talk too much at meetings, was another topic during the debates. Suga initially declined to weigh in on the matter, prompting jeers from opposition lawmakers. But then he reversed course and criticized it when pressed further by the CDP’s Makiko Kikuta.
“The remark should not have been said,” Suga said, but he declined to comment when Kikuta admonished the prime minister to encourage Mori to step down. On Friday, Suga said he had instructed Olympics minister Seiko Hashimoto to talk to Mori and convey that gender equality is part of the International Olympic Committee’s mission and the upcoming games should be a reflection of that.
Mori apologized to Hashimoto and pledged to support the games until the end, essentially denying that he would be stepping down, the prime minister said.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/02/05/national/politics-diplomacy/suga-diet-budget-talks/
Clover Health shares dip as SEC looks into short-seller allegations
U.S. regulators are following up on a critical report about Clover Health Investments Corp by short-selling specialist Hindenburg Research and have told the insurance company to preserve any relevant documents. Clover, backed by venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, said on Friday it would cooperate with the request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The company’s share price was last down 1.8%.
Clover said the SEC had requested “document and data preservation for the period from January 1, 2020, to the present, relating to certain matters that are referenced in the (Hindenburg) article.”
The company also disclosed a separate earlier inquiry from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), but added it had not received any civil investigative demands or subpoenas from the department.
Palihapitiya and the company were fully aware of the DOJ inquiry, which it did not consider as “material information” for its earlier disclosures, Clover said.
On Thursday, Hindenburg published a scathing report, the title of which called Clover a “broken business,” and accused the company of not disclosing a DOJ investigation into its business model and its software offering, Clover Assistant.
The insurance firm’s shares fell more than 12%, their biggest daily percentage drop in four months, following the report.
Clover said on Friday some of the claims were “completely untrue” and executives Vivek Garipalli and Andrew Toy said in a separate blog post that the report was “rife with ad-hominem attacks, sweeping inaccuracies and gross mischaracterizations”.
Hindenburg was the first major short-selling research house to publish a new report since the eruption two weeks ago of the battle between short-sellers and investors over GameStop Corp and a number of other stocks.
Clover, which sells Medicare-backed insurance plans, went public through a $3.7 billion deal with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) backed by Palihapitiya. Its other investors include Alphabet Inc and Silicon Valley-based venture capital giant Sequoia Capital.
https://www.reuters.com/article/clover-health-short-seller/update-3-clover-health-shares-dip-as-sec-looks-into-short-seller-allegations-idUSL4N2KB36L
I'm sure fuggen Gary will be ALL over this /s
Mystery Trade Adds Almost $9 Billion to Vanguard S&P 500 Fund
Near the start of December, a mystery over-the-counter trade pulled about $7 billion from Vanguard Group’s S&P 500 exchange-traded fund. It just got it all back and more.
The $194 billion Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (ticker VOO) added $8.7 billion on a single day this week, about two months on from that record withdrawal. Similar to the 2020 mega outflow, VOO’s cash infusion came amid lower-than-average trading volumes and there were no noticeable large block trades, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It all points to another monster over-the-counter trade.
“A large institution arrives with, say, 200 equities that are in the S&P. They work with a broker to get that morphed into a VOO position,” said Dave Nadig, chief investment officer at data provider ETF Trends. “The most likely reason for a trade like this is liquidity. All ETFs are much easier to manage, from a liquidity perspective, than any basket of individual securities.”
When cash flows into an ETF, a market maker known as an authorized participant gives the issuer more of the fund’s underlying assets in exchange for new shares to meet demand. An investor ordinarily buys or sells their ETF shares on an exchange. But instead of buying on the open market with cash, they could theoretically take some of the underlying assets to an AP, and arrange for them to be swapped into ETF shares. In this way, assets would flow into the ETF, but volumes associated with the transaction would not show up on the exchange.
The latest data show a similar trade also cycled through the $251 billion iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (IVV) this week. Roughly $7.6 billion poured into that fund, amid muted exchange trading volume and without any discernible large transactions. That inflow comes after $8.3 billion was yanked from IVV in a single day in mid-December.
Vanguard spokesman Freddy Martino declined to comment on the VOO flow. BlackRock didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on IVV’s jump in assets.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/mystery-trade-adds-almost-9-billion-to-vanguard-s-p-500-fund-1.1559656
Intruder ‘gained access’ to Joint Base Andrews, Air Force says
An intruder managed to breach Joint Base Andrews in Maryland — the home of Air Force One, military officials said. A spokesman at the base confirmed the incident Thursday to the Air Force Times, the outlet reported.
“An unauthorized individual gained access to Joint Base Andrews,” the spokesman said in a statement. “The incident is under investigation.”
The spokesman referred additional inquiries to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which is handling the ongoing probe.
Linda Card, an OSI spokeswoman, confirmed the intruder got onto the base and was being interviewed by investigators.
She had no additional details to provide, including how far onto the base the intruder got or if the suspect managed to reach aircraft there, according to the report.
The incident came just one day ahead of President Biden’s scheduled flight from the base southeast of Washington, DC, to Delaware, according to the president’s schedule released late Thursday.
Messages seeking additional details from Card and Joint Base Andrews’ public affairs office were not immediately returned early Friday.
The call sign for Air Force One — also known as the “president’s office in the sky” — is technically used to designate any Air Force aircraft carrying the commander-in-chief, according to the White House’s website.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/05/intruder-gained-access-to-joint-base-andrews-air-force/
when peeps finally get the truth about all that dey gonna be reeeeeally mad.
just setting up the next round of bagholders on that one.
99-6143 USAFSOC C-32B on descent for Miami Opa Licka Exec. Airport from San Juan PR-not confirmed as data has the se flight yesterday freezing at same point.
At least two of these AC's at San Juan in the last week-not including this one
GTMO845 US Navy Beech Huron se from NAS jax ground stop-no Ft. Lauderdale today
czech't