The controversial brokerage Robinhood is continuing with lobbying efforts that ramped up in 2020 with four hires of outside lobbying firms. The company has recently picked up a former SEC staffer and a former congressional staffer as in-house lobbyists. The Silicon Valley firm revealed the hires in a disclosure filed last week. The new in-house...
Tag: feb 23 2021
Post
REDDIT SUBCULTURE LOST ON POLITICOS
Dems were more active in questioning the players involved in the GameStop stock market blow-up at the recent House Financial Services committee hearing. But most of the questioning failed to dig into possible collusion or the practice of naked shorting, focusing instead on “gamefication” of the Robinhood app, and other misconceptions about Reddit app traders. ...
Post
“VIRTUAL” GAMESTOP HEARING ACCOMPLISHES LITTLE IN THE REAL WORLD
All the players in the GameStop saga were there, on screen. So were politicians on the House Financial Services Committee, teeing up questions to later highlight in video spots to their constituents. But very little of substance came from the anticipated hearing, according to analysts. The possible collusion of intertwined Wall Street entities went unchallenged....
Post
GOING DOWN, GOING BUST, GOING OUT
AIRBUS LOSES €1.1 BILLION IN 2020. Europe’s premier aircraft builder blamed its loss on canceled or postponed orders for new jetliners as the pandemic scuttled travel. “Global air traffic reached a low point in April 2020 at the peak of the global pandemic,” CEO Guillaume Faury said in a statement announcing the loss, adding that...
Post
TURKEY’S CURRENCY GAINS ON THE DOLLAR
Turkey’s lira has risen 6.5 percent in value against the dollar this year, reversing its steady 2020 slide and marking it as the best-performing currency among emerging markets so far in 2021. The lira lost 20 percent of its value against the dollar last year, trading below 8 to the buck for the first time...
Post
SAUDIS TO BOOST OIL PRODUCTION AS PRICES STRENGTHEN
Saudi Arabia, which cut its oil production by a million barrels daily this month and next to boost oil prices, has let it be known that will reverse those cuts at the beginning of April. The decision follows oil’s price rise from $30 a barrel last summer to more than $60 now. The kingdom will...
Post
JAPAN’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY GAINS SPEED
Japan’s economy grew 3 percent in 2020’s fourth quarter compared to the third, surging past expectations of a 2.3-percent expansion, figures from the government’s Cabinet Office show. The GDP grew in both domestic demand and export markets. The quarter’s GDP was just 1 percent below that of a year earlier, signaling a strong rebound from...
Post
ONTARIO POSTS RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT IN 2020
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, lost 355,300 jobs in 2020, pushing the unemployment rate to 9.6 percent, its highest since 1993, the province’s Financial Accountability Office reported last week. The sheer number of jobs lost was the largest in Ontario’s history. “The rise in the unemployment rate in 2020 was tempered by a surge in...
Post
CANADA FACES “INESCAPABLE” FINANCIAL RECKONING
A limping economy and massive deficits wrought by stimulus and bailout spending have created an “inescapable” fiscal reckoning for the country, a new report from the Conference Board of Canada (CBC) warns. The government of prime minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to spend $100 billion and up to 4 percent of GDP over the next...
Post
EUROPE’S CENTRAL BANK: MORE CHEAP MONEY
The European Central Bank (ECB) will leave its stimulus measures unchanged, the bank’s governing officials decided at their January meeting, and will not react to short-term blips in inflation or nominal interest rates. The ECB pledged to maintain “favorable financial conditions” into the future, largely through its €1.85-trillion bond-buying program. Analysts interpreted the decision to...