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Anonymous ID: 0b1fc3 March 6, 2019, 4:45 p.m. No.5545908   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Amazon to close U.S. pop-up stores, focus on opening more book stores

 

(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc will close all of its U.S. pop-up stores and focus instead on opening more book stores, a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.

 

The company's shares closed down 1.4 percent, while shares of bookseller Barnes & Noble Inc ended 8.9 percent lower.

 

Amazon's 87 pop-up stores in the United States are expected to close by the end of April, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier on Wednesday, citing some of the employees at the stores.

 

The news underscores how the online retailer is still working out its brick-and-mortar strategy.

 

Pop-up stores for years helped Amazon showcase novel products like its voice-controlled Echo speakers, but the company is now able to market those products and more at its larger chain of Whole Foods stores, acquired in 2017, and cashierless Amazon Go stores, which opened to the public last year.

 

The online retail giant will also open more "4-star stores" - stores that sell items rated 4-stars or higher by Amazon customers, the spokesperson added.

 

"After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program, and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection."

 

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/Amazon-to-close-U-S-pop-up-stores-focus-on-opening-more-book-stores–28121991/?countview=0

Anonymous ID: 0b1fc3 March 6, 2019, 5:01 p.m. No.5546175   🗄️.is 🔗kun   >>6184

>>5545999

 

Transcript: SEC Chairman Chris Cox

This is a partial transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," August 4, 2005, that was edited for clarity.

 

This is a partial transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto," August 4, 2005, that was edited for clarity.

 

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: If you do not know my next guest, you will. He has been sworn in now by Alan Greenspan as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, sort of the stock market's top cop. And now he joins us for his very first interview on his very first day of work. And, for that, we are indeed honored.

 

From Washington, Christopher Cox.

 

Mr. Chairman, good to have you.

 

CHRISTOPHER COX, CHAIRMAN, SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION: I'm happy to join you.

 

CAVUTO: What's your first day like?

 

COX: Well, it's just a few blocks away from the Capitol, so I don't feel as if I'm lost, although it's a brand new building and a significant change for all of the thousands of employees of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

One of the ways I have been able to bond with all of the staff there is that we're all learning our way around together. It's a nice new facility, however, that I think will help the Securities and Exchange Commission even better discharge its mission of investor protection.

 

CAVUTO: Now, your predecessor, William Donaldson, was largely credited by investors with making the investment marketplace fairer to investors. You're deemed to be not as fair, that you are deemed to be more friendly to business. What's the deal?

 

COX: Well, as you know, I am very, very proud to follow in the footsteps of Bill Donaldson. I think he did an outstanding job for President Bush, for the SEC and for the country. He brought the commission, to be sure, but also the markets and public confidence in the markets, through some very, very difficult times.

 

I think he's left the country with a restored sense of confidence in the markets, and that's quite an accomplishment, given the scandals that had rocked the market just prior to his taking office.

 

Now, insofar as the prognosticators are concerned, asking whether Chris Cox will be business-friendly or investor-friendly, as if those two are mutually exclusive, I have suggested that perhaps some of those prognosticators are about as accurate as a WorldCom prospectus.

 

I have every intention of leading the Securities and Exchange Commission forward in its mission of investor protection. You know, the Department of Commerce serves business in America. And the SEC is the investors' advocate. In particular, I want to reenergize the SEC behind the mission of protecting the individual investor.

 

CAVUTO: You made a point of doing that with the enforcement chief today.

 

I guess I wonder, is your message today, sir, that those who think I'm somehow in the hip pocket of business, they're wrong?

 

COX: Yes. To put it as bluntly as I can. That of course, is not the mission of the SEC, but, rather, by insuring that we look out for the interests of all the participants in the marketplace, including individual investors, and put everybody on a level playing field, we can advantage all of the players in the economy, big and small.

 

CAVUTO: What do you think of Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general?

 

COX: Well, you know, I have yet to meet Mr. Spitzer, but I'm looking forward to doing so.

 

I think the states have a crucial role to play, just as does the federal government, in enforcing sometimes different laws that emphasize different policy priorities. The SEC's main mission, which is complementary in many respects to the missions of the states, is built around a disclosure regime.

 

We want to make sure there is full and fair disclosure, so that the markets have the best information possible for the participants to make decisions for individuals to determine whether they should buy and sell.

Anonymous ID: 0b1fc3 March 6, 2019, 5:07 p.m. No.5546293   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Former SEC Chair Cox Needs to Answer for Theft of Nest Eggs and His Revolving Door Career

 

The man who presided over Wall Street’s most shameful era takes the witness stand today before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Former Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) Chairman Christopher Cox sat on his hands while Madoff stole and Wall Street crashed and burned. Our consumer group opposed US Senate confirmation of Cox as SEC Chairman based on his representation of a swindler in private practice. Since leaving the SEC Cox has returned to lucrative private securities defense practice. The commission needs to question Cox hard about his revolving door and how he could let so much fraud go without enforcement action.

 

Cox, an attorney and former Congressman, is now a partner with Bingham McCutchen LLP in its corporate, mergers and acquisitions and securities practice in Orange County, California. When he was nominated to head the SEC in 2005, his work at the firm of Latham & Watkins prior to being elected to Congress was highlighted in a video featuring comic actor Greg Germann, dealing with his defense of a massive Ponzi scheme that should have disqualified him from the SEC post. Watch the video here.

 

Chris Cox is the quintessential symbol of Bush era indifference to financial fraud that wrecked the economy and pulled the rug out from under Americans because insiders like Cox were watching the Wall Street trading coop. Phil Angelides and the rest of the Commission should interrogate Cox about how so much fraud could go undetected under his watch and also about his contacts with his former and current employer during his tenure.

 

Cox has a long and sordid history of working on behalf of corporate interests and scammers that attempt to side-step the law. Cox was named in a 1995 lawsuit for his role in misleading regulators about an investment scheme that became one of the most notorious investment frauds in American history. As a private attorney, Cox represented First Pension Corporation and its founder William Cooper, who was later sentenced to prison for swindling California investors out of $130 million dollars in a massive pyramid scheme. Cox argued to California securities regulators that Cooper’s investment schemes were low-risk and should be free of regulatory scrutiny. In fact, the risks associated with First Pension’s mortgage investments were extremely high.

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamie-court/former-sec-chair-cox-need_b_564819.html