TOP STORIES:
Probe
May Hit China's Imports of Copper, Iron Ore - (online.wsj.com) China's imports of copper and iron ore may drop
due to an alleged financing scandal, as banks withhold credit and customs
officials tighten checks on incoming shipments, metals traders say. Western
banks are looking into allegations that a Chinese trading company illegally
pledged metals as collateral to more than one lender. The operator of Qingdao
Port, the eastern Chinese port where the metals are stored, has confirmed that
Chinese authorities are investigating allegations of fraud relating to
stockpiles of metals. China's government hasn't commented publicly. Traders
have used metals as collateral to bring some $110 billion into China since
2010,Goldman
Sachs Group Inc. estimates. Traders who import the metal use
the commodity to secure loans from abroad.
Fourth
Largest Bulgarian Bank Seized After Bank Run: "Let's Not Tear Down Our
House" Central Banker Begs - (www.zerohedge.com)
The small, impoverished
country of Bulgaria may not be in the Eurozone (even though its currency is
pegged to the Euro), but it is in the European Union. Which is why we find it
surprising that there has been relatively little mention that overnight the
fourth largest Bulgarian bank, Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank) and which
in recent weeks has made headlines due to the political exposure of one of its
largest shareholders, was seized by the Bulgarian central bank following what Reuters reports was a run on the bank.
With preserving confidence in the banking system key, and since the small
country is not immune from failure unlike its southern neighbor which knows
Europe will now never let its banks fail, the central bank promptly took to
boosting morale, when its governor Ivan Iskrov begged depositors to stay
calm, saying: "Let's not tear down our house."
China
Property Failures Seen as $33 Billion in Trusts Due - (www.bloomberg.com) Chinese property trusts face record repayments
next year as the real-estate market cools, fueling speculation among bond funds
that more developers will collapse. The trusts, which channel money from
wealthy individuals to smaller builders that have trouble obtaining financing
elsewhere, must repay 203.5 billion yuan($32.7
billion) in 2015, according to Use Trust, a
Chinese research firm. That’s almost double the 109 billion yuan due this year.
New issuance of the products slumped to 40.7 billion yuan this quarter, the
least in more than two years, Use Trust data show. “Trust loan defaults will
rise substantially,” said Fiona Cheung, head of Asia credit at Manulife Asset
Management’s fixed-income team which oversees $44 billion globally. “It won’t
be surprising if there are more collapses of China’s
property companies. Those companies that suffer from weak sales, that bought
land too aggressively last year funded by debt and that have poor access to
capital markets will potentially experience cash flow pressure.”
Mark
Cuban Warns That A Housing Bubble-Like Bust Is Coming To America's Colleges
- (www.businessinsider.com) In a clip on
Inc.com, Mark Cuban says that colleges
are going to go out of business. In the clip, Cuban talks about the student
loan bubble, which he says will burst and end badly for colleges. The end of
the student loan bubble, Cuban says, will be like the housing bubble, where
tuition collapses the way the price of homes collapsed. These collapses
will put colleges out of business. Cuban: "It's inevitable at some point
there will be a cap on student loan guarantees. And when that happens you're
going to see a repeat of what we saw in the housing market: when easy credit
for buying or flipping a house disappeared we saw a collapse in the price
housing, and we're going to see that same collapse in the price of student
tuition, and that's going to lead to colleges going out of business."
Corinthian
Colleges Warns It May Shut Down - (www.abcnews.go.com) Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit education
company with about 75,000 students nationwide, warned Thursday that it may fail
as it clashes with U.S. regulators over student data. Corinthian, which owns
the Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech schools, said that the U.S.
Department of Education has limited its access to federal funds after it failed
to provide documents and other information to the agency. That follows allegations
that the company altered grades, student attendance records and falsified job
placement data used in advertisements for its schools. Shares in the company
plunged more than 64 percent Thursday. The Education Department said that it
heightened its oversight of the company after requesting data "multiple
times" over the past five months. Regulators have grown increasingly
concerned about inconsistencies in its job placement claims for graduates. Corinthian's
problems come as student enrollment at schools run by for-profit education
companies have been dropping amid heightened government scrutiny of the
industry's practices. Earlier this year, the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau filed suit against another company, ITT Educational Services Inc., alleging
that it pushed students into high-cost private loans knowing they would likely
default. The company denied the charges. Several state attorneys general are
also investigating various for-profit education companies.
Argentina
default getting more likely - (www.reuters.com)
Good video.
Facebook
website returns to service after crash - (www.reuters.com)
- (www.reuters.com)
GM safety crisis grows with recall of 3 million more cars for ignition issues - (www.reuters.com)
GM safety crisis grows with recall of 3 million more cars for ignition issues - (www.reuters.com)
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