The Securities Law Blog: Och-Ziff Hedge Fund Settles FCPA Charges: The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Och-Ziff Capital Management Group has agreed to pay nearly $200 million to the S...

Deutsche Bank is back in the spotlight with everyone screaming for their demise. Personally I don't see it (Germany will save them no problem at all), and DB's credits have been in question for years. However, I would not take bets on the securities, at this point. 

Safe sailing DB. Your research holds a special place in my economic heart. - Chad

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Giving the markets jitters, struggling German banking giant Deutsche Bank AG DB hit a new 52-week low of $11.23 on Monday, closing down 7% to $11.85 on the NYSE, marking the lowest level in decades. The price movement reflected investors’ concern that the bank may raise capital to settle the potential $14-billion accord with the U.S. Department of Justice (“DoJ”) related to mortgage practices. Notably, as of Jun 30, the bank had €5.5 billion ($6.2 billion) in its litigation reserves - Zack's 

Update:  BofA/Merrill upgraded Deutsche Bank's credit to Neutral, not the equity

The Securities Law Blog: SEC Charges Anheuser-Busch With Violating FCPA and...: The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Anheuser-Busch InBev has agreed to pay $6 million to settle charges that it viol...

A follow up to "Toulouse, Toujours" - "Concorde Files" - a new book by Chad is coming out in Nov.

See Pre-Purchase Link Here.

He is also releasing his first non-fiction book on Value and Corporate Finance Jan, 2017. 

Basically if the data had agreed...

When the data does not agree you get the below...

Despite Fed optimism for near-term improvement, the U.S. economy is expected to continue to alternate between “moderate” and “slow” activity levels, failing to meet even the Fed’s new, lower forecast of 2% growth in 2016, with lackluster price pressures well below the Committee’s longer-term objective of 2%.  Furthermore, with the debate over U.K. membership in the EU heating up, a near-term resolution on either side is unlikely, resulting in an overhang of “global risks.”  While the Fed has seemingly redirected their focus to September, swift improvement in the domestic economy is unlikely, making it difficult for the Fed to justify a second-round rate increase in a little more than two months.  Lingering “uncertainties” both domestic and international could further delay a second hike until the end of the year or beyond. - Stifel 

Housing starts fell in May and multi-family construction housing dropped. Single family homes went up. Housing consisted of a near .06% of  Q1 GDP - which is a big deal to some. 

The summer is here (sort of ) and that means the hope of ravenous home sales.

Fitch: In the Midst of a Multiyear US Housing Recovery 

"Challenges remain, including restrictive credit qualification standards and narrowing affordability. Various housing and related statistics bottomed in early to mid-2009. Since then, for a time, the on-and-off, then on-again nature of the federal housing credit spurred, or at least pulled forward, primarily entry-level buyer housing demand. With the US economy moving from recession to expansion in third-quarter 2009, plus very attractive housing affordability and government incentives, housing was jump-started. However, faltering consumer confidence, among other issues, had largely restrained the recovery. New home sales and single-family starts retested the bottom during the summer of 2010 and in February 2011. During second-half 2013, the sharp rise in home prices and interest rates and the government impasse over the budget and debt ceiling led many prospective homebuyers to take a careful stance in the shorter term. Consumer caution and poor weather from early in the year restrained the gain in housing metrics in 2014. The growth in starts, especially single-family, was more robust in 2015" - Fitch Ratings Press Release

You can ask my wife, I always wondered what went on with hotels and unused rooms. For years we lived in a major business district bespotted with hotels. Of course when hotels.com came around that was a good enough answer for me, but then came AirBnB, and now AirBnB is worth more than most hotel chains despite being a private company, and holding no real estate. That is a major disruption. However, there is more ahead. Hotels are at times cumbersome real estate holdings, and that costs money. They are also service based, and that takes employees. Those perceived margins get thinner by the moment. See the link below for a more in depth look into the hotel industry shakeup.

CB INSIGHTS Link

The mechanics behind an EU member state exit 

https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/final_report_bjorge_brexit_i_0.pdf

The Federal Reserve provided $6 million of liquidity to foreign central banks in the latest week via its swap lines for foreign central banks, the New York Fed said on Thursday. The European Central Bank swapped $5 million with a term of 7 days and a rate of 0.87 percent. The Bank of Japan swapped $1 million with a term of 7 days and a rate of 0.85 percent. The Federal Reserve has established swap arrangements with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Japan in an effort to respond to the reemergence of strains in short-term funding markets in Europe. - RTRS

Korea's Implied Volatility Index June 08 - June 14, 2016 -
{AKA, What A Weekend}

Link to published image

- Both have somewhat tyrannical referendums on a regular basis

  

- Both are financial hubs, filled with economists who are worried about Brexit (UK) and the Swiss, who are worried about upsetting 100* agreements with the EU securing the (unsecure) special status of Switzerland

- Both worry about tax on trade from losing access to the single market 

Imagine of Schengen Area

http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen/index_en.htm

* I seriously think it is over 100 agreements, treaties and special clauses

Not good. Maybe an uptick is occurring, but we need a serious uptick on silver. Many promote the industrial benefit of silver but correlation tends to lag on the alpha side. 

New post:
Flush with an influx of crude oil, independent global refiners are refining at breaking speed. Oil traders who bought at the lows in February ($26.01) are unloading to downstream channels. These sales should continue and will help E&P balance sheets, but only so much, as losses have greatly damaged the industry. Continued sales and revenue will repair the losses and allow for more seemingly comfortable M&A and integration.
Read more at Investing.com

Simply put, Gawker is not the New York Times, neither is the local news.
Gawker, local news, and blogs need to be held accountable for disrupting the standards of journalism and for endorsing mafia-like character assassination behavior. This is very similar to the news hacking scandal in London a few years back. Media must allow privacy and must adhere to a code of human ethics.

Lotte Group indicated it will shelve what may have been a $4.5 billion initial public offering for its hotel unit, the world’s biggest so far this year, after widening investigations pushed the South Korean conglomerate deeper into crisis.

- BBERG

If you value your $$$...

The current won't make the fundraising hurdle and you can't get those dollars back folks. There is literally NO way. In fact, the current runner should consider lending himself his own money. Americans need not give in this cycle. Put your money into the economy.

CNN Park City, Utah (CNN) Republican fund-raisers are beginning to fret that Donald Trump does not comprehend the enormity of the challenge before him, warning that if he fails to execute the basic tasks of fund-raising during a critical six-week stretch...

Romney retreat puts spotlight on Trump's fund-raising problem in critical stretch

http://goo.gl/rmh2yR

A legend of venture capital has passed.

I will remind myself to not make comments in old age that are so racy, 

but Perkins was his own person. 

It is too bad I will not be able to meet him, but I am fortune he was here and achieved what he achieved. He is perhaps the first legend of venture capital.

Thomas J. Perkins, Pioneering Venture Capitalist in Silicon Valley, Dies at 84 http://nyti.ms/1WH3kPT