AF2 USAF C-32A departed JBA sw to Greensboro, NC Piedmont Int'l Airport
Harris to make first visit to North Carolina as vice president to tout jobs plan
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article250676884.html#storylink=cpy
EXEC1F USAF C-32A departed JBA west
Only thing I can find is a trip to northern Arizona that commences on Weds. See where this goes.
SAM323 USAF C-40B sw from JBA depart
Danske CEO bows out over Dutch ABN money laundering inquiry
Danske Bank’s chief executive Chris Vogelzang, who was hired to help it recover from a multi-billion dollar money laundering scandal, resigned on Monday after Dutch authorities labelled him as a suspect in a separate case at ABN Amro. Vogelzang said he was quitting after the Dutch prosecution service said it was investigating three former board members at ABN. The Dutch bank also said it had reached a 480 million euro ($577 million) settlement over systematic failures to tackle money laundering. “I am very surprised by the decision by the Dutch authorities,” Vogelzang said, adding his status as a suspect did not imply that he would be charged. Vogelzang joins a growing list of European bank CEOs to depart over the past 18 months. Italy’s UniCredit , Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse , Germany’s Commerzbank and Britain’s Lloyds Banking Group have all announced leadership changes since the start of 2020.
And Danske’s former CEO, Thomas Borgen, stepped down in September 2018, also over money laundering missteps. Prosecutors in the Netherlands are investigating the failure of bank boards to catch illicit money trails, targeting executives who have since landed top jobs elsewhere. While the prosecutors did not name the three individuals, they said they had been identified as suspects “effectively responsible” for breaking the Dutch money laundering act. ABN’s former CEO Gerrit Zalm, a long-time Dutch finance minister, also stepped down from the board on of Denmark’s largest bank and confirmed to Dutch broadcaster NOS that he was one of the individuals being targeted.
The investigation into anti money laundering failures at ABN began a year after fellow Dutch bank ING paid a record fine of 775 million euros to settle a similar case.
https://www.reuters.com/article/danske-abn-amro/wrapup-2-danske-ceo-bows-out-over-dutch-abn-money-laundering-inquiry-idUSL1N2MC0T1
After a bitcoin crackdown, China now calls it an ‘investment alternative’ in a significant shift in tone
China’s central bank is now calling bitcoin an “investment alternative” — marking a significant shift in Beijing’s tone after a crackdown on cryptocurrency issuance and trading nearly four years ago.
Industry insiders called the comments “progressive” and are watching closely for any regulatory changes made by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC). “We regard Bitcoin and stablecoin as crypto assets ... These are investment alternatives,” Li Bo, deputy governor of the PBOC, said on Sunday during a panel hosted by CNBC at the Boao Forum for Asia. “They are not currency per se. And so the main role we see for crypto assets going forward, the main role is investment alternative.” Bitcoin was up around 2% at 12:25 p.m. Beijing time at over $57,134.04, according to Coindesk data. China was once one of the world’s largest buyers of bitcoin.
But in 2017, China banned so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs), a way to raise money for crypto companies by issuing digital tokens. That same year, authorities shut down local cryptocurrency exchanges. The moves were prompted by concerns about financial stability. As investment alternatives, “many countries, including China, are still looking into it and thinking about what kind of regulatory requirements. Maybe minimal, but we need to have some kind of regulatory requirement to prevent ... the speculation of such assets to create any serious financial stability risks,” Li said. He added that the central bank will keep its current regulations on cryptocurrencies. Li’s latest comments highlight a potential shift in tone from the PBOC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/china-calls-bitcoin-an-investment-alternative-marking-shift-in-tone.html
still no 92-9000 yet....
Stock Market Leverage In La-La Land, Rises To Historic WTF High
Archegos shows how leverage is the great accelerator of stock prices on the way up, and on the way down. One of its bets, ViacomCBS, after skyrocketing, collapsed by 60%.
Vast, unreported, and at the time unknown amounts of leverage blew up Archegos Capital Management, dishing out enormous losses to its investors, the banks that brokered the swaps, and holders of the targeted stocks. The amount of leverage became known only after it blew up as banks started picking through the debris. ViacomCBS [VIAC] was one of the handful of stocks on which Archegos placed huge and highly leveraged bets, thereby pushing the shares into the stratosphere until March 22, after which they collapsed by 60%. Archegos is an example of how leverage operates: It creates enormous buying pressure and drives up prices as leverage builds, and then when prices decline, the leveraged bets blow up as forced selling sets in. Most of the leverage in the markets is unreported until it blows up. The only type of stock-market leverage that is reported is margin debt – the amount that individuals and institutions borrow against their stock holdings as tracked by FINRA at its member brokerage firms. Margin debt is an indicator for overall leverage, and it has reached the zoo-has-gone-nuts level.
FINRA reported on Friday that margin debt jumped by another $9 billion to $823 billion in March, having soared by $163 billion in five months, and having exploded by 72% from March 2020 and by 51% from February 2020, to historic WTF highs-cap#2. Archegos is an example of how leverage is the great accelerator of stock prices, on the way up, and on the way down. Its massive bets on a handful of stocks, powered by huge leverage, drove up prices of those stocks because it created buying pressure with borrowed money. As prices rose, Archegos could borrow more to increase its bets. And then suddenly, when these stocks started selling off because other investors got out, Archegos got the margin calls, and leverage became the great accelerator on the way down.
While we don’t know how much total stock market leverage there is, we can look at margin debt as a measure of the trend. And the trend has reached whopper proportions. History shows that a big surge in margin balances preceded – and perhaps was a precondition for – the biggest stock market declines-cap#3
As the world has seen unfold with Archegos, the amounts of other types of stock market leverage aren’t known. Even Wall Street banks that deal with their clients don’t know about their clients’ total leverage at other banks. Each bank knew how much leverage Archegos had with it, but not how much it had with other banks, or that it had any leverage with other banks.
And when banks issued their margin calls – said to have been the second largest margin call in US history, after Lehman – and liquidated the underlying shares, they were selling those shares against each other. The first-out-the-door, including Goldman Sachs, came away relatively unscathed. Late movers, such as Credit Suisse got mauled. That’s also a feature of leverage: The first-out-the-door pocket the gains and get away unscathed. Late movers get crushed. And since everyone knows this, everyone is trying to get out the door first, which is not possible, but it speeds up the selloff.
Among the types of stock market leverage, in addition to margin debt, are derivative products, such as the swaps that sank Archegos, portfolio-based lending, and Securities-Based Loans. Each broker knows what they have on their books, presumably, but they don’t know what other brokers have on their books, and no one knows the total, and no one knows just how leveraged the markets are.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stock-market-leverage-la-la-land-rises-historic-wtf-high
EXEC1F USAF C-32A on descent for Davenport, IL Quad Cities Int'l Airport
Jill Biden to visit Sauk Valley Community College Monday
Dr. Jill Biden is expected to pay a visit to Sauk Valley Community College on Monday, April 19th, for a tour of the campus. The First Lady will also be joined by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.
https://www.kwqc.com/2021/04/15/first-lady-dr-jill-biden-to-visit-sauk-valley-community-college-april-19th/
Credit Suisse's co-heads of prime services to step down
Credit Suisse said in an internal memo on Monday that the co-heads of its prime services, John Dabbs and Ryan Nelson, would step down with immediate effect.
The Swiss bank said in the memo seen by Reuters that it had appointed Roger Anerella as interim head of prime services “where he will focus on stabilizing the franchise, delivery of remediation actions and repositioning the business to deliver the highest level of service to our clients”. The Swiss bank has been reeling from its exposure to the collapse first of Greensill Capital and then Archegos Capital Management within a month.
The bank also appointed Doug Crofton as head of Americas Cash with functional responsibility for Execution and Advisory Sales and Stuart McGuire as head of EMEA Cash with functional responsibility for execution and advisory sales, according to the memo.
https://www.reuters.com/article/credit-suisse-appointments/credit-suisses-co-heads-of-prime-services-to-step-down-internal-memo-idUSZ8N28501L
dunno...gonna add Blythe Masters to the BoD this week so who knows.
They knew this went on...no fuggen way they didn't
EU Says Russia’s Troop Buildup on Ukraine Border Is Largest Ever
The European Union’s top diplomat said that Russia’s military presence on the border with Ukraine has grown to 150,000 personnel, the largest ever buildup on the frontier between the two countries, raising the possibility of further conflict.
“The military deployment of Russian troops with all kind of materials, deploying campaign hospitals and all kind of warfare, has been continuing,” Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU, told reporters following a virtual meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers on Monday. “When you deploy a lot of troops, a spark can jump here or there.” Borrell declined to say where the bloc had obtained the figure, but it is a significant increase from those provided by Ukrainian authorities. He added that the 27 member bloc wasn’t preparing fresh sanctions on Russia over the buildup of Russian troops and the declining health of opposition activist Alexey Navalny.
It comes as more countries line up to condemn the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the Czech Republic blaming Moscow for a deadly explosion and expelling 18 embassy staffers. The EU’s foreign ministers had a one hour dialog with their Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, who as been trying to drum up more support for sanctions against Russia.
Last week, the U.S. ordered a raft of new punitive measures against Russia, including restrictions on buying new sovereign debt, in response to allegations that Moscow was behind a hack on SolarWinds Corp. and interfered with last year’s U.S. election. They warned Moscow of more consequences should Navalny die, with the dissident currently on a hunger strike.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/eu-says-russia-s-troop-buildup-on-ukraine-border-is-largest-ever-1.1592231
Wall Street’s Mega Bank CEOs To Be Hauled Before Congress in May; Nobody Will Say Why
We’ve been closely monitoring the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees for the past 15 years. We can think of no other time when the Committees issued a joint statement to announce they were hauling the most powerful men on Wall Street to testify, without offering a scintilla of information on the topic of the hearing.
The press statement simply indicated that the Senate Banking Committee would hold its hearing on Wednesday, May 26 at 10 a.m. and the House Financial Services Committee would hold its hearing the following day on Thursday, May 27 at 12 noon.
The announcement indicated that the following CEOs are scheduled to testify: Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase; David Solomon of Goldman Sachs; Jane Fraser of Citigroup; James Gorman of Morgan Stanley; Brian Moynihan of Bank of America; and Charles Scharf of Wells Fargo.
The joint press release did not give a title for the hearings nor the topic for the hearings. There is nothing on the websites for either Committee that sheds any further light on the matter.
The only conclusion that we can draw is that more than a month before the hearings are set to be conducted, the Chairs of these two Committees – Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Maxine Waters (D-CA) – wanted to send a message to Wall Street’s CEOs that they have them in their crosshairs.
If past is prologue, which we pray it is not, the hearings will use such a buckshot approach to questioning the witnesses that there will be no meaningful takeaway to the public from the hearings. In April of 2019, when CEOs from the same banks appeared before the House Financial Services Committee, the topics ranged from the banks’ financing of fossil fuel companies; to “pink lining” (discriminatory practices against women); to racial preferences in hiring and promotion; to Jamie Dimon’s failure to pay his bank tellers enough to raise a child without going into debt; and Wall Street’s decades long practice of sending all customers and employee claims of wrongdoing into its own private justice system called mandatory arbitration – effectively closing the nation’s courthouse doors and pitting David against Goliath in the pursuit of justice against the most rigged and historically corrupt industry in America.
https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/04/wall-streets-mega-bank-ceos-to-be-hauled-before-congress-in-may-nobody-will-say-why/