Thursday, April 24, 2014

Friday April 25 Housing and Economic stories


Ex-ABN Banker Schmittmann Killed Wife, Daughter, Himself - (www.bloomberg.com) Former ABN Amro NetherlandsChief Executive Officer Jan Peter Schmittmann committed suicide after killing his wife and one of his daughters, Dutch police said, as his family said he suffered from depression. The Dutch forensic institute has “confirmed suspicions” of a murder-suicide, the police said in a statement today. Schmittmann’s family was cited as saying in the statement that “we knew Jan Peter struggled with severe depression.” Schmittmann, 57, and his wife and daughter were found at their home in Laren, 32 kilometers (20 miles) southeast of Amsterdam, on April 5 after the police received a call from an acquaintance who said something might be wrong at the property. Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf identified the dead women as Schmittman’s 57-year-old wife, Nelly, and their daughter Babette, 22.

Millions of Americans aren’t working. Why? - (www.cnbc.com) Call it the million-worker mystery. A large chunk of American adults are no longer in the labor force. That has left economists divided over how many of them are voluntarily not working—or even looking for work—because they wanted to retire, go to school or take care of family members, versus how many have been forced out because they couldn't find a job. "Almost everyone who's looked rigorously at the numbers thinks both of those things are going on," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. What they can't agree on is what is more prevalent—leaving the workplace on purpose or getting left out even as the economy improves.

MillerCoors says probe shows ex-employees embezzled millions - (www.cnbc.com)  MillerCoors, a U.S. joint venture between SABMiller and Molson Coors Brewing, on Thursday said it had uncovered a multiyear scheme in which two former employees allegedly embezzled several million dollars. "Based on an extensive internal and external investigation, MillerCoors believes former employee David Colletti embezzled several million dollars from the company over several years and that former employee Paul Edwards was involved to a lesser extent in the scheme," company spokesman Jonathan Stern said in a statement.

Hollande Deficit-Delay Campaign Begins as Sapin Visits Berlin - (www.bloomberg.com) President Francois Hollande’s campaign to slow the pace ofFrance’s deficit reduction effort begins today as the new ministerial duo responsible for the economy and finance court their German counterparts in Berlin. French Finance Minister Michel Sapin will meet with Wolfgang Schaeuble and Arnaud Montebourg, who since last week is responsible for both the economy and industry portfolios, holds talks with Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel. Sapin and Schaeuble are due to brief reporters at about 11.30 a.m. in Berlin.

Fortress to Tudor Lose in First Quarter as Macro Misfires - (www.bloomberg.com) Paul Tudor Jones, Michael Novogratz and Louis Bacon, hedge-fund managers that profited last year from bets on macroeconomic trends, posted losses in the first quarter as some of those trades turned against them. Markets gyrated in the first three months of the year as investors fled developing countries in anticipation of further reduction in U.S. monetary stimulus, Russian PresidentVladimir Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and Japanese stocks tumbled. The losses for macro managers have caused them to cut some of their bigger bets, Anthony Lawler, a money manager at the $120 billion Swiss firm GAM, wrote in a report last week, though their views -- including that Japanese stocks will rise and the U.S. dollar will gain -- could make money later in 2014, he said. “The directional conviction trades did not play out in the first quarter, despite a strong underlying thesis,” Lawler wrote. “Later this year there may be upside for some of these larger trades such as long US dollar positioning, the Japan reflation trade and the China slowdown risk.”





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