TITAN25 USF E-4B Nightwatch departed London-Stansted Airport after ground stop-inbound from Brussels Int'l
morning
morning B
Bank of America profit more than doubles on trading gains, reserve release
Bank of America Corp’s quarterly profit more than doubled as it released reserves it had set aside to cover potential coronavirus loan losses and recorded big gains in trading that offset weakness in consumer banking. America’s second largest bank unlocked $2.7 billion from its reserves and unveiled a $25 billion stock repurchase plan, betting on a swift economic recovery on the back of rapid vaccinations.
Consumer banking revenue, however, fell 12% in the quarter ended March as appetite for loans waned, while net interest income, a key measure of how much the bank can make from lending, fell 16% on low interest rates. Bank of America’s pre-tax, pre-provision profit, seen this quarter as a better gauge of lenders’ true performance, amounted to 68 cents per share, according to Refinitiv. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 66 cents per share. The pre-tax, pre-provision profit number for Bank of America was down 21% from a year earlier. In contrast, JPMorgan Chase & Co said on Wednesday its first quarter pre-provision profit was up 18%.
But like JPMorgan, which reported earnings earlier in the week, loans and lease balances fell across Bank of America’s divisions by 7% to $887 billion, driven mostly by lower credit card balances and declines in commercial loans.
https://www.reuters.com/article/bank-of-america-results/update-3-bank-of-america-profit-more-than-doubles-on-trading-gains-reserve-release-idUSL4N2M82V3
Citigroup profit triples, exits some overseas consumer units
Citigroup Inc trounced analysts’ first-quarter profit estimates on Thursday as its outlook for an economic recovery driven by vaccinations and government stimulus allowed it to release reserves set aside for loan losses from the pandemic. Like JPMorgan Chase & Co, which reported earnings on Wednesday, Citi benefited from a boom in capital markets activity, but its consumer bank felt the impact of low interest rates that hurt earnings.
Revenue fell 7% on low interest rates and a 10% decline in loans, largely due to lower consumer credit card loan balances.
Partially offsetting the drag from interest revenue, investment banking revenue surged 46% on stronger equity underwriting fees. Citigroup has been a Wall Street leader in raising money for the so-called blank-check firms or special purpose acquisition companies.
Citi shares were up nearly 3% in early trade.
The lender also said it would exit its consumer businesses in 13 markets across the Asia and EMEA regions, as part of a broader strategic review under new Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser. As part of the move, Citi will divest those businesses in countries like Australia, China and India.
The bank’s bottom line was bolstered by its decision to draw down $3.85 billion in reserves it had built up for expected loan losses from the pandemic. A year earlier it had added $4.88 billion to its loss reserves.
Earlier on Thursday, Bank of America Corp’s profit more than doubled after it freed up reserves that it had set aside to cover loans that could go bust.
https://www.reuters.com/article/citigroup-results/update-1-citigroup-profit-triples-exits-some-overseas-consumer-units-idUSL4N2M83ED
done this for long time...sometimes big (like nao) or smaller if at all.
Love how it's nao earned income all of a sudden.
Add in the stock buybacks they got to start up again and poof!
Instant 'earnings'
similar exp buying muh house in nao
the games.....big hole..dump 'em in.
They always think you don't know wut they know.
Myanmar coup latest: Military crackdown hardens in Mandalay
Thursday, April 15
5:50 p.m. A 28-year-old man was killed after Myanmar soldiers opened fire inside a mosque in Mandalay on Thursday morning, local media Myanmar Now reports. He was sleeping inside the Sule Mosque in Mandalay's Maha Aungmyay township when the attack started at about 10 a.m. He had spent the night there after fasting during Ramadan, and was shot in the chest.
5:00 p.m. Partially reflecting economic damage in the two months since the coup on Feb. 1, Myanmar's trade in the period between Oct. 1 and Apr. 2 "drastically plunged to $15.78 billion, from $20.36 billion" recorded in the same period the previous year, state-owned media outlet Global New Light of Myanmar reported. It added that "exports showed a drop of over $1.7 billion, while imports fell by $2.85 billion."
2:00 p.m. Myanmar security forces launched a crackdown in the morning in Mandalay, where medical workers' families and students from Yadanapon University had taken to the streets for pro-democracy protests, local media report. They opened fire on the medical workers, and perhaps others, though details on casualties and arrests remain unclear. In the same city, the soldiers also attacked a Muslim compound, opening fire on residents, killing one person, wounding two and arresting five.
11:30 a.m. The Myanmar military is using heavy weapons, including Russian-made jets and attack helicopters, in rural areas controlled by various armed ethnic groups, Nikkei Asia reports. The military forces "want to demonstrate that they can do anything, and can bomb anywhere the Karen people live," said a source close to a senior leader of the Karen National Union, the political wing of the Karen National Liberation Army, the oldest of Myanmar's 20 ethnic armed groups.
9:37 a.m. Tateshi Higuchi, Japanese ambassador to Myanmar from 2014 to 2018, says in his recent interview with Nikkei that Myanmar military forces "are becoming more militant as their countermeasures modeled after those taken in Thailand after the 2014 coup have proved unworkable." "If the military's loyalty to their commander-in-chief weakens because of an absolute stalemate, [Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing] may change his approach or step down," Higuchi said, adding: "Even a coup within the military could occur." The worst possible scenario, according to the former envoy, is that "Myanmar closes itself [off] from the rest of the world, similar to previous periods of military rule."
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Myanmar-Coup/Myanmar-coup-latest-Military-crackdown-hardens-in-Mandalay
CR1 and 2 JASDF 777 departed Tokyo Haneda Airport ne
This is PM Suga and entourage heading to D.C.
02-4452 USAFSOC C-32B departed McGuire AFB ne heading across the pond
US Cancels Black Sea Deployment Of 2 Warships After Biden-Putin Call
Turkey has revealed that a pair of US warships which were scheduled to sail through the Bosporus starting Wednesday have canceled their passage. Interestingly it comes on the heels of the Tuesday Biden-Putin phone call wherein Biden is said to have proposed the two leaders meet "in the coming months".
Anadolu state news agency has indicated that both deployments scheduled to take place through Thursday have been cancelled, and that no further rescheduling has yet occurred. The news comes after the Kremlin issued threats for the warships to steer clear of Crimea "for their own good" and announced naval exercises of its own.
Turkey first indicated the planned-for passage last week, and at the same time a US defense official had told CNN the warships would be deployed "in the next few weeks in a show of support for Ukraine," and further the deployment would "send a specific message to Moscow that the US is closely watching."
But it appears the Biden White House has chosen to issue its 'deterrent messaging' related to the Russian troop build-up near the border with eastern Ukraine in the form of Thursday's new sweeping anti-Russia sanctions measures that were prompted chiefly by the SolarWinds hack and alleged 'election meddling'.
The avoidance of sending more warships into the Black Sea also came just after Tuesday's Biden-Putin phone call. The BBC has this important commentary which says the call was a major diplomatic victory for the Russian side...
The build-up has been impossible to ignore: thousands of Russian troops deployed towards Ukraine; US warships reportedly heading for the Black Sea and Russia's foreign ministry warning them off "for their own good".
As the hostile rhetoric and military moves around Ukraine have intensified, Western politicians have begun fearing an open invasion and urging Russia's Vladimir Putin to "de-escalate".
Russia has refused: the defense ministry this week insisted its moves were in response to "threatening" Nato exercises in Europe.
Then Mr Putin got a phone-call from the White House.
And then, notes the BBC, Biden suggested a near-future face-to-face summit with Putin, which gives Russia the edge given it was the US side that first proposed it: "In Putin's game of brinkmanship, Biden blinked first," argues journalist Konstantin Eggert, after Joe Biden made his first call to the Kremlin and proposed meeting Mr Putin "in the coming months". It's just weeks after the US president agreed with an interviewer that Russia's leader was "a killer".
President Biden's new move is now a new topic of debate - disaster prevention or a mistaken concession - but in the run-up to a summit, the risk of major military action by Russia certainly fades. "That would be really unstatesmanlike: a slap in Biden's face," Mr Eggert told the BBC. "But the fact that it was Biden who suggested they meet does give Putin the edge."
"In Putin's game of brinkmanship, Biden blinked first" https://t.co/jJ63okoiUZ
— Andy Scollick (@Andy_Scollick) April 15, 2021
However, given Thursday's executive order which included the expelling of ten Russian diplomats from their embassy in D.C. and a wide range of sanctions, including against Russian officials and entities "linked to Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and human rights abuses" - the Biden-Putin summit is unlikely to happen anytime soon... if at all.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/us-cancels-black-sea-deployment-2-warships-after-biden-putin-call
Russia is closing the strategic Kerch Strait in the Black Sea for warships and state ships of foreign countries from next week until October 2021, closing off the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk to traffic (Interfax Ukraine)
https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1382715377579393025
check yo other ear
09-0017 USAF C-32A finished up over Roanoke, Va on cert flight
00000000 USAF B-52 Stratofortress a little further east than normal and just west of Roanoke