new york stock

DealBook: New York Stock Exchange Settles Case Over Early Data Access

September 15, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Brendan McDermid/ReutersNew York Stock Exchange trading data gave some clients a split-second advantage.

In the latest federal action against a major exchange, the New York Stock Exchange settled accusations on Friday that its trading data gave select clients a split-second advantage over retail investors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a civil enforcement action citing the Big Board for “compliance failures” that allowed certain customers to receive stock data before the broader public. The improper actions, which began in 2008, ran afoul of safeguards set up to promote fairness in a system known for favoring elite investors.

The S.E.C. forced the exchange to adopt a battery of internal controls and pay a $5 million penalty. While the fine is a token sum for the country’s biggest and most prominent trading platform, it represents the first penalty the agency has levied against an exchange.

“Improper early access to market data, even measured in milliseconds, can in today’s markets be a real and substantial advantage that disproportionately disadvantages retail and long-term investors,” Robert Khuzami, the agency’s enforcement director, said in a statement. “That is why S.E.C. rules mandate that exchanges give the public fair access to basic market data.”

In a statement, the Big Board played down the significance of the action. The S.E.C., the exchange noted, did not unearth intentional wrongdoing or evidence that the problems harmed individual investors. Instead, the exchange blamed the lapses on “technology issues,” which it said had since been fixed.

Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesTraders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday.

“N.Y.S.E. Euronext is pleased to have this matter resolved, and believes that the settlement is in the best interest of its share owners, clients and employees,” Duncan L. Niederauer, the company’s chief executive, said in the statement. “We will continue to take every responsible measure to ensure that our market operates with the utmost fairness and transparency.”

The action on Friday was part of a wider federal crackdown on the nation’s biggest exchanges. The S.E.C. has penalized the Direct Edge exchange for having “weak internal controls,” and it is also pursuing the Chicago Board Options Exchange for not properly policing the markets.

The sprawling investigation has grown after the so-called flash crash on May 6, 2010, when the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 700 points in minutes before quickly recovering. Federal authorities and Congressional committees have focused their scrutiny on technological breakdowns and high-speed trading.

“Today’s action by the S.E.C. affirms what many have believed for years: that our U.S. capital markets are threatened by those with the resources and access to get split-second advantages over the rest of us,” Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat whose Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has examined high-speed trading, said in a statement.

In its most prominent case, the S.E.C. is investigating Nasdaq in connection with Facebook’s botched public offering in May. BATS Global Markets has also acknowledged receiving a request from the agency, which is examining whether collaboration between BATS and high-frequency trading firms could hinder competition. Separately, the agency is looking into BATS’s own aborted public offering.

The companies often blame their woes on technological malfunctions. But in the New York Stock Exchange case, regulators described a more pervasive problem, tracing the improper actions to multiple technological mishaps and compliance issues.

In highlighting disparities in the distribution of stock data, the S.E.C. pointed to an “internal N.Y.S.E. system” and a “software issue.” The problems, regulators said, caused the exchange to send stock prices and other data to certain customers milliseconds, or even multiple seconds, before it released information more widely. The breakdown, which first came to light after the flash crash, dates back to 2008.

Despite the scope of the issues, the S.E.C. suggested they were preventable.

The exchange, regulators say, failed to keep computer files that detailed the timing of data feeds. The exchange’s compliance department also steered clear of major technology decisions, according to the S.E.C. The compliance staff, for example, did not help design or adopt the exchange’s market data systems. Under the terms of the settlement, the exchange must hire an independent consultant to study its “market data systems.”

“The violations at N.Y.S.E. may have been technological, but they were not technical,” said Daniel M. Hawke, chief of the agency’s Market Abuse Unit, which is leading the investigations into various exchanges. “Robust technology governance is just as important to preventing investor harm as any other compliance or supervisory function.”

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/n-y-s-e-settles-regulatory-action-on-trading-data/?partner=rss&emc=rss

DealBook: 3M and Avery Dennison ‘Committed’ to Deal Despite Antitrust Issue

September 5, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Scott Eells/Bloomberg News3M is the maker of Post-it notes and Scotch Tape.

3M‘s acquisition of an Avery Dennison unit was in limbo on Wednesday, as the companies scrambled to clear regulatory obstacles.

The Justice Department balked at the $550 million deal, threatening to file a civil antitrust lawsuit against the companies, which sell labels and sticky notes. On Tuesday, the department announced that 3M had “abandoned” its takeover plans in the face of a court battle.

But just hours later, the companies vowed to keep fighting. In a statement late on Tuesday, 3M and Avery Dennison clarified that they “voluntarily” withdrew the paperwork for the deal as they sought to appease the Justice Department’s concerns.

DealBook: Santander Seeks $4.2 Billion I.P.O. of Its Mexican Unit

September 4, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Tomas Bravo/ReutersA Santander branch in downtown Mexico City.

LONDON – Banco Santander of Spain said on Tuesday that it was looking to raise as much as $4.2 billion through the initial public offering of its Mexican unit.

The listing would be one of the largest I.P.O.’s ever in Mexico, and comes as the country’s economy continues to grow on the back of strong local demand. At the same time, American depository receipts of the unit would list on the New York Stock Exchange.

Santander, based in Madrid, is planning to sell as much as 24.9 percent of Grupo Financiero Santander México, and has set the price range of 29.00 pesos ($2.20) to 33.50 pesos a share, according to a regulatory filing released on Tuesday. Around 20 percent of the shares would be offered to Mexican investors, while the remaining stake would be sold to international investors.

The Mexican subsidiary is the country’s fourth largest-bank, based on assets, and had a total of $25 billion of outstanding loans at the end of June.

The Spanish bank said a three-week roadshow for investors would start on Tuesday, and shares in Grupo Financiero Santander México would begin to trade in Mexico and New York by the end of September.

“We want to continue playing a part in the growth of Mexico,” Santander’s chairman, Emilio Botín, said in a statement. “Our goal is to list our most significant subsidiaries within five years,”

Money raised from the listing would help to strengthen Santander’s capital reserves, according to a company statement. The bank has been hurt by a struggling domestic market, which has been buffeted by the European debt crisis.

Santander reported a 93 percent drop in second-quarter profit, to 100 million euros ($126 million), as it set aside more money to cover bad loans in the Spanish market.

Banco Santander, UBS, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank are coordinating the I.P.O.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/santander-seeks-4-2-billion-i-p-o-of-its-mexican-unit/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: initial public offering, mexican subsidiary, new york stock

DealBook: Manchester United Trades Flat in Debut

August 11, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto AgencyTraders wearing Manchester United jerseys on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

7:55 p.m. | Updated Manchester United had hoped to add to its soccer successes with a strong debut as a newly public company on Friday. But its initial public offering fell short of that aim.

On Friday, their first day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the soccer team’s shares closed flat at their offer price of $14, after having opened only 5 cents above that level.

The stock’s performance appeared to meet low expectations, after underwriters for the club priced the offering on Thursday below an expected range of $16 to $20 a share.

The team’s offering, which raised $232.4 million, was one of the biggest this year. The offering values the franchise over all at about $2.3 billion.

Manchester United has returned to the public markets during a year in which stock offerings have largely struggled. About $29.6 billion has been raised from initial stock sales through the end of July, according to data from Renaissance Capital, roughly 5 percent higher than at the same time last year. But nearly two-thirds of this year’s proceeds came from Facebook’s gigantic offering.

By going public — while remaining firmly under the control of its majority owner, the Glazer family — Manchester United is hoping to challenge the history of sports teams that have flailed when traded on stock exchanges.

Ed Woodward, Manchester United’s vice chairman, emphasized that the newly public company was less a team than a branding empire — with revenue from broadcasts and merchandise sales — built around one of the most successful soccer clubs in memory.

He said that officials from six sports leagues from around the world had asked how Manchester United officials built up an expansive commercial operation.

“This feels like it’s a fantastic opportunity,” he said in a telephone interview on Friday. “The story has been incredibly well received, especially in the U.S.”

Mr. Woodward recalled heading into meetings during Manchester United’s road show over the last two weeks that were standing room only, with potential investors clamoring for the team’s signature red-and-white gear.

But by Thursday afternoon, the company and its underwriters looked at the offering book and decided to accommodate what Mr. Woodward called “very-high-quality institutional investors” who were willing to buy in bulk at $14.

Skeptics of the offering pointed not only to the tortured history of publicly traded sports teams but also the specifics of Manchester United’s offering. The team raised money to pay some of the debt it incurred when Malcolm Glazer bought the club in 2005.

The Glazers also sold some of their holdings in the offering, though they are retaining control by holding onto a class of stock that carries 10 times the voting rights of the ordinary shares.

The Boston Celtics went public in 1986 and the Cleveland Indians in 1998. But the stocks struggled, and both were taken private in the last decade. Many British Premier League soccer clubs were publicly traded at one point or another, and performed miserably.

Manchester United fans have also expressed dismay over the offering, with one group having organized a letter-writing campaign complaining about the Glazers’ cashing out some of their holdings through the stock sale.

Mr. Woodward said that Manchester United remained committed to strengthening its team, with improvements in its commercial revenue making more cash available to attract top-flight players. “Through growing these business lines, we’ll have huge firepower to make player acquisitions,” he said.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/manchester-united-opens-at-14-05-in-first-day-of-trading/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: new york stock, new york stock exchange, renaissance capital

DealBook: Manchester United Prices I.P.O. Below Target

August 10, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

6:52 p.m. | Updated

Manchester United priced its initial public offering at $14 a share on Thursday, valuing the 134-year-old English soccer team at about $2.3 billion.

The price is below the price range of $16 to $20 it outlined last week.

Underwriters decided to price the offering below the range after several institutions requested allotments late on Thursday afternoon, after the company’s investor book had closed, according to a person briefed on the matter. Because of the perceived high quality of the potential shareholders, bankers decided to accommodate them at the lower price.

About 16.6 million shares are being sold in the offering. Its underwriters have the option of selling an additional 2.5 million shares to cover additional demand.

The shares will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday under the ticker symbol “MANU.”

Shares of the team had traded on the London Stock Exchange until 2005, when Malcolm Glazer, an American who also controls the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, took the company private in a $1.45 billion buyout. Manchester United had previously considered listing in Hong Kong and Singapore before choosing the United States market.

Manchester United has been the most successful English soccer team of late, winning 19 league titles, Last season, however, it finished second to Manchester City. Still, it has attracted a large following around the world, selling more than 5 million licensed products in the last year.

The offering is being led by the Jefferies Group, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/manchester-united-prices-i-p-o-at-14-a-share/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: english soccer team, new york stock, new york stock exchange

DealBook: Trading Program Ran Amok, With No ‘Off’ Switch

August 4, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Justin Lane/European Pressphoto AgencyThe Knight Capital Group has posted losses related to trading errors this week.

When computerized stock trading runs amok, as it did this week on Wall Street, the firm responsible typically can jump in and hit a kill switch.

But as a torrent of faulty trades spewed Wednesday morning from a Knight Capital Group trading program, no one at the firm managed to stop it for more than a half-hour.

Some Knight employees and New York Stock Exchange officials noticed the blizzard of erratic orders in the minutes after trading started and sent alarmed messages to Knight managers, according to the exchange and Knight employees who declined to be identified discussing the matter.

As Knight struggled to survive on Friday, employees at the company, market overseers and other electronic trading firms were asking the same basic question: Where was the off switch?

Several market insiders said that they were bewildered, because in a market where trading losses can pile up in seconds, executives typically have a simple command that can immediately halt trading.

Timeline: Trading Errors

Richard Drew/Associated PressThe Knight Capital trading post at the New York Stock Exchange. Some brokerage firms have yet to resume business with Knight.

“Even just a minute or two would have been surprising to me. On these time scales, that is an eternity,” said David Lauer, a trader at a high-speed firm until a year ago. “To have something going on for 30 minutes is shocking.”

Regulators are planning to look into why there was such a lag between the discovery of the problem and when Knight’s trading ceased, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. But so far the company has not provided any answers, even to its own staff, employees said.

On Friday, Knight, which in the last decade grew into a leading broker for American stocks, climbed off the mat, securing emergency financing that allowed it to continue operating for the day. It also enticed some of its customers to resume sending client stock trades, two days after it disclosed a possibly fatal $440 million loss from the software problem. But it faced a desperate weekend of maneuvering to find a more permanent solution for its woes. Knight’s short-term financing was meant to keep it alive until Monday, when its executives and advisers hope to have deals completed to remove any doubt about the firm’s future.

Advisers, including Sandler O’Neill Partners, have been talking with Knight rivals and private equity shops about either buying divisions of the firm or investing in the business.

Among the businesses that Knight is in discussions about selling is its futures brokerage unit, largely made up of operations the firm purchased only in May, according to people briefed on the matter. Potential buyers for the business include R. J. O’Brien, which is based in Chicago and is one of the oldest futures clearing firms in the country.

Others that have expressed interest in potential investments or deals include rivals to Knight like the Citadel Investment Group, Virtu Financial and Peak6 Investments, as well as private equity firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and TPG Capital, these people said.

Knight is also working with Goldman Sachs to help unwind the trades behind its extensive loss, according to people briefed on the matter.

Goldman has agreed to buy, at a discount, the shares that the trading firm had accumulated. Such a move would help Knight by taking the portfolio off its hands and freeing up capital.

Two major brokerage firms, TD Ameritrade and Scottrade, said on Friday that they had begun sending client orders to Knight. Others, like E*Trade Financial, had yet to resume doing so.

“Knight is one of many order routing destinations for us and has long been a good and trusted partner,” Fred Tomczyk, TD Ameritrade’s chief executive, said in a statement.

Toward the end of the trading day Friday, employees in the Jersey City offices gathered around TV screens and cheered at every bit of good news.

Shares in Knight leapt 57 percent on Friday, closing at $4.05. But they remained down more than 60 percent for the week.

Coming after a number of previous market mishaps caused by faulty computerized trading, Knight’s trading problems rekindled a broader discussion about the vulnerability of an increasingly complex and fragmented stock market.

In a statement, the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary L. Schapiro, called the Wednesday episode unacceptable and said that her staff would “convene a round table in the coming weeks to discuss further steps that can be taken to address these critical issues.”

Duncan Niederauer, the chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, said in a conference call with investors that the incident was a “call to action,” and that the exchange was prepared to lead the way on reforms.

“We are all understanding — meaning we, market participants, and most importantly the regulators — are understanding that speed is not always better,” Mr. Niederauer said.

Within the financial community, much of the attention was still focused on what happened Wednesday morning.

While the New York Stock Exchange has said that there was “irregular trading” in only about 140 stocks listed on its exchange that day, Knight’s trading in those stocks was so extreme that it was visible in the volume of trading in all stocks.

A New York Times analysis of New York Stock Exchange volume on Wednesday morning showed that during the first minute of trading there was 12 percent more trading in all stocks than there had been on average during the previous seven days. By the third minute of trading there was 116 percent more trading than the previous week’s average. The difference reached a peak at 9:58 a.m., when the volume was six times greater. After that, trading volume fell off sharply, nearing the recent average at 10:15 a.m.

Mr. Niederauer said that the exchange had noticed the problem and contacted Knight “within minutes” of the 9:30 opening bell.

Knight’s failure to respond sooner was particularly mystifying to other traders because on Wednesday the firm had introduced new trading software. Industry experts said that this would normally be cause for programmers and other employees to be on high alert.

Once the problems began, many traders said it would have made sense if the firm’s employees had not caught the problems for the first minute or so, given the speed at which Knight’s program was firing off orders. After that, though, the problems were visible for all to see.

Howard Tai, an expert in high-speed trading at the Aite Group, said that at all the firms where he worked, there were several warning signals built into every computerized trading system. When all else failed, there was always the “automatic kill switch” that could immediately stop trading.

Mr. Lauer said, “It’s kind of mind-boggling that it got so out of control.”

Azam Ahmed and Ben Protess contributed reporting.

Article source: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/03/trading-program-ran-amok-with-no-off-switch/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: justin lane, kill switch, new york stock

DealBook: Goldman’s Profit Falls but Tops Estimates

January 18, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Richard Drew/Associated PressGoldman Sachs was up more than 5 percent on Wednesday at the New York Stock Exchange.

Goldman Sachs said on Wednesday that it earned $978 million in the fourth quarter, well below the $2.23 billion it posted in the period a year earlier, as it continued to struggle with lackluster economic conditions both here and abroad.

Still, the performance of $1.84 a share exceeded the expectations of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who were predicting Goldman would earn $1.24 a share.

And while the result is below that of a year ago and a world away from the earnings power Goldman was once known for, it is better than the showing in the third quarter, when Goldman posted a loss for only the second time since it went public in 1999.

“This past year was dominated by global macroeconomic concerns which significantly affected our clients’ risk tolerance and willingness to transact,” said Lloyd C. Blankfein, Goldman’s chairman and chief executive.

While Goldman’s profit number is always of note on Wall Street, this quarter investors will also be looking at the compensation number as the firm prepares to doll out billions of dollars in bonuses. Goldman disclosed that it had set aside $12.22 billion, or 42.4 percent, of its 2011 net revenue to pay compensation and benefits for its 33,300 employees. This is down from $15.38 billion in 2010, a decline reflecting the drop in Goldman’s net revenue in 2011.

Goldman’s compensation and benefit pool is enough to pay each of the firm’s employees $367,057. A year ago, its pool would have been enough to pay each employee $430,700.

Goldman produced net revenue of $6.05 billion in the fourth quarter, down 30 percent from the period a year earlier.

Goldman’s performance is not surprising. Some of its rivals, including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup, have already weighed in with results, and they too are struggling to churn out big trading profits in this current environment.

As revenues on Wall Street fall, firms have laser focused on cutting expenses. Goldman’s headcount is down 2,400 over the past year and during a conference call with analysts to discuss the firm’s results, its chief financial officer, David Viniar, said that towards the end of the year Goldman increased its non-compensation cost-cutting goals by $200 million, to $1.4 billion, as previously reported by DealBook.

Goldman can’t cut its way to better results, but right now, facing a drop in revenue in all of the firm’s major divisions, it doesn’t have many other levers to play with. In a research report on the earnings, a Keefe Bruyette Woods analyst, David Konrad, noted that that lower expenses was a key factor in Goldman’s ability to beat analyst expectations.

“We are currently targeting $1.4 billion in savings and will closely monitor our expense run rate and make further adjustments as necessary,” Mr. Viniar said during the conference call.

Net revenue in Goldman’s division that trades bonds, currencies and commodities was $1.36 billion, down 17 percent from year-ago levels. The firm attributed the drop to lower results in mortgages and credit products “as continued global economic uncertainty contributed to difficult market-making conditions.” This division accounted for roughly 22 percent of the firm’s total revenue in the fourth quarter.

Net revenue from equities trading and commissions was $1.69 million, down 15 percent from year-ago levels. Goldman’s annualized return on equity, a crucial measure of profitability, was 5.8 in the quarter, compared with 13.1 percent in the period a year earlier. In 2006, it was 41.5 percent.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=1cd28a96d08d8e251bbb12a1f7737d6f

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: economic conditions, new york stock, risk tolerance

Foreclosure Auctions Show Raw Form of Capitalism

January 15, 2012 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

But instead of waiting to meet a judge, they are preparing to bid on the hundreds of foreclosed properties auctioned each week in one of the country’s more colorful public clearinghouses. During the housing boom, when mortgages were being given out with no money down and prices soared, the auctions were a sleepy sideshow. But in the years since, the auctions have grown into a scruffy economic circus where bargain hunters from around the world have scooped up houses often sold for less than half of the value of the mortgage.

The auctions look more like a low-end poker game than the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The bidders and auctioneers, most of them men in their 20s and 30s, are on a clubby first-name basis, and their banter can border on sophomoric. But their trading serves a critical if somewhat heartless function: to find new buyers for houses so they can be fixed up and sold to more stable owners.

“This is capitalism at its rawest,” said Brad Grannis, a bidder from AZ Property Advisors. “There’s an asset, and people assign a value to it.”

In recent months, the auctions have become more competitive because of an influx of outsiders who are eager for cut-rate houses that they can resell or rent out and because of a decrease in the number of houses available. There were 2,296 trustee sales in Maricopa County last month, 44 percent fewer than in December two years ago during the depths of the market crash, according to The Cromford Report, a real estate newsletter.

Many economists say that the housing market has a long way to go before it returns to health and that the decline in foreclosures is partly because lenders, often under political pressure, are trying to work with distressed borrowers.

But optimists in Phoenix point to the decline as a harbinger of an upturn, albeit a tentative one.

“We went lower than anywhere except Las Vegas, and we got through the foreclosure crisis faster,” said Mike Orr, a researcher at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and the editor of The Cromford Report. “I don’t know if this will be a significant recovery, but even going up a few points is still a recovery.”

The courthouse auctions have a bloodlessness that belies their impact on people’s lives. Every day, in the rain, morning chill or scorching heat, a half-dozen auctioneers set up shop on the picnic tables in front of the courthouse. They flip open their laptops and read off the addresses of the properties for sale, the value of each mortgage, the taxes due and the opening bid, which the seller determines. Homeowners’ names are never mentioned.

The bidders, many wearing jeans, hoodies and the occasional nose ring, work for investors who rarely attend the actual bidding. Increasingly, those investors come from Canada, China and other countries where Arizona property looks like a bargain. Local investors say these newcomers, as well as hedge funds, have driven up prices and made it harder to turn a profit.

The bidders register with each auctioneer and must produce a $10,000 certified check. They consult their spreadsheets on clipboards or iPads, which list the homes for sale. Many wear earpieces connected to cellphones so they can instantly relay the prices during the auction to their bosses, who know the limit of their clients.

“There’s no emotion in the bidding,” said Mary Nicholes, who runs the Home Ownership Center of Arizona, which bids on behalf of investors who want to rent out their homes. “They all have their number.”

The bidding moves quickly, but there are no secret signals and bidders rarely make eye contact. The regulars help one another, and they will also cheer or encourage colleagues as if they were investing their own money. “You got a hole in one!” one bidder yelled to another who had just bought a house with virtually no bidding. Bidding companies are typically paid a flat fee of about $2,500 or 3 percent of the purchase price, with a share of that money going to the bidder.

No rules are posted, but the bidders obey a strict code, the cardinal rule of which is that those who fail to pay their bills can no longer bid. One former bidder earned the nickname Runaway Bride after she won an auction for the wrong house, panicked and fled the scene without paying her $10,000 deposit.

Individual bidders show up, too. Christopher St. John, a longtime broker in Phoenix, recently went to bid on a house that was near another one that he bought and resold last year, making a $16,000 profit. Bidding at the auction started at $119,700 and zoomed past Mr. St. John’s limit of $125,000. The auctioneer, in chinos, a golf shirt and a Diamondbacks baseball cap, eventually sold the house for $158,000.

Mr. St. John thought the house was worth no more than $175,000, and because he would have to pay about $15,000 to fix it and cover any fees and taxes, bidding that high did not make sense to him. But to well-heeled investors, a smaller profit was acceptable, he said.

“It’s amazing how different it is now and how many more people there are,” he said. “It’s a battle to get properties.”

At times, the auctioneers and bidders are confronted with the reality of what they are trading. Some homeowners come to see their houses sold and vent their anger. A few bring video cameras to film the auction, trying to intimidate the bidders. Every so often a homeowner, having walked away from the mortgage, will bid on his own house. In recent weeks, protesters from the Occupy Phoenix movement camped in the park across the street have stopped by to appeal for an end to the auctions.

For some bidders, the intrusion is another reminder of the hardship that they themselves are enduring. This month, Kelly Galles started working as a bidder after a bout with cancer forced her to give up her job teaching preschool. Her husband, who worked in construction until the downturn, is one of the auctioneers. Lured to Arizona from California during good times, they bought a house that is now worth less than what they owe on it.

“It’s a pretty exciting job,” she said. “The downside is these are people’s homes. We’re lucky not to be here ourselves.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=0fdf456b642ee3a853b0a9e3470f1f24

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: maricopa county, new york stock, optimists

DealBook: NYSE and Deutsche Borse Offer New Deal Concessions

December 13, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

9:11 a.m. | Updated

LONDON — NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse have submitted new concessions to the European authorities as the exchanges attempt to gain approval for their proposed $9 billion merger.

The move comes as the European Commission and a local German regulator have raised concerns about the deal, which would give the two companies a dominant position in the exchange-traded derivatives market.

To allay these concerns, the companies said on Tuesday that they had agreed to divest more of their equity derivatives trading operations, as well as provide the new owner access to Eurex Clearing, a clearinghouse for derivatives products.

The concessions include the disposal of all of NYSE Euronext’s single-stock derivatives businesses in Europe, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

If local regulatory approval isn’t given for divestments in individual European countries, the companies would look to dispose of Deutsche Börse’s complementary operations in those countries, the person added.

NYSE Euronext, the parent of the New York Stock Exchange, and Deutsche Börse also said they would license Eurex’s trading system to third parties looking to offer interest-rate derivatives.

The firms said the European authorities were now expected to make a decision on the merger by February; the previous deadline was January.

“The revisions are designed to reflect the European Commission’s feedback on the initial proposal, and thereby fully address the commission’s remaining concerns while preserving the industrial and economic logic of the merger,” the companies said in a statement.

The new concessions echo a similar move in November when NYSE Euronext said it would sell its pan-European single-equity derivatives units, but not the options businesses in its home markets. Deutsche Börse said it would divest similar operations. The companies had also agreed to give rivals access to Eurex Clearing to offset regulatory concerns that the pending merger would lead to uncompetitive practices.

The European authorities are concerned the merger would give the companies a dominant position in the exchange-traded derivatives market, where the firms’ operations represent up to 90 percent of trading activity in certain contracts.

NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse are adamant that the proposed merger does not break antitrust rules. They cite competition from the so-called over-the-counter market, dominated by many of the world’s largest investment banks, which still represents the majority of derivatives trades in Europe.

Under new global regulatory proposals, these opaque deals are being required to use clearinghouses — financial intermediaries that guarantee trades if one side defaults — and to trade on exchanges.

William Rhone, a senior analyst at financial consulting firm TABB Group in New York, said the over-the-counter derivatives market, not the exchange-traded sector, was where antitrust regulators should be focusing their attention.

“The NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse is an attractive proposition that will allow them to compete with the oligopoly of the O.T.C. dealers,” Mr. Rhone said. “It’s that market, not the exchanges, where the debate about competition should be.”

Last week, Deutsche Börse’s chief financial officer, Gregor Pottmeyer, said the deal could be in jeopardy if antitrust regulators demanded more concessions.

“We want to pursue the transaction, but not at all costs,” Mr. Pottmeyer said. “Antitrust conditions should not be allowed to endanger the industry and economic logic of this transformational merger.”

Along with antitrust concerns, a local German regulator has also questioned how the deal would affect the companies’ future operations in Frankfurt, where Deutsche Börse is based. On Monday, the Hessian Ministry of Economy, the local regulator for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, called for changes to the merger to protect trading activity in Frankfurt.

“We have communicated suggestions about how our concerns could be remedied,” said Wolfgang Harmz, a ministry spokesman.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f0ae09ed56417495a1c792f858fc6e60

Filed Under: Business News Tagged With: dominant position, new york stock, regulatory approval

China Shuts Solar Panel Factory After Anti-Pollution Protests

September 19, 2011 by NewsMaker Leave a Comment

Since last Thursday, the factory, JinkoSolar Holding Company, has drawn hundreds of protesters, some of whom overturned vehicles and ransacked offices inside the plant in Haining city, Zhejiang Province.

At least 23 people have been detained on charges of vandalism and public disorder, including a man accused of “spreading false information” about the impact of pollution from the plant, the Haining city government said on its Web site. Three company employees were among those taken into police custody after they tried to wrest television cameras away from reporters attempting to film the demonstrations.

Villagers have complained about toxic smokestack omissions and factory wastewater they say killed a large number of fish. Government inspectors have confirmed that fluoride contamination was 10 times higher than acceptable levels after heavy rainfall swept improperly stored wastewater into a canal, according to the state-run media.

Local residents have also blamed the five-year-old plant for what they claim is an unusual number of cancer deaths, although local officials say such fears are exaggerated.

According to the Haining city Web site, JinkoSolar has been fined about $74,000. Company employees reached by phone on Monday declined to comment. JinkoSolar, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, reported revenue of about $360 million, in the second quarter.

The protests, which lasted four days and drew as many as 500 people, followed a much larger demonstration last month in the northeastern city of Dalian against a plant that makes paraxylene, a highly toxic component of polyester products. Government officials promised to relocate the plant after 12,000 residents took to the street.

Mia Li contributed research.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/20/world/asia/china-shuts-solar-panel-factory-after-anti-pollution-protests.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Global Business Tagged With: false information, new york stock, northeastern city