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China’s Largest Broker Plunges on Rumors Over Losses - (www.cnbc.com) Shares of Shanghai-listed Citic Securities,
China’s largest brokerage firm, fell by 9.1 percent on Monday after rumors the
company had suffered a large 2.9 billion yuan ($460 million) loss on overseas
trading. But a spokesperson for the company denied the rumors and told CNBC
that reports the company’s chairman had been arrested by the police were also
untrue. The drop in Citic’s shares also affected other brokers on Monday with
shares of Haitong Securities falling 8.6 percent. Reuters reported that traders
were worried over earnings in the latest quarter.
California
Sales Tax Collections Plunge an Amazing 40% in July - (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com)
Typically, July is a month when California revenues go on vacation, as the
month accounts for about one dollar of every $20 deposited in the General Fund.
(Only October has lower revenue volume.) Despite those low expectations, July’s
revenues were $475 million, or 10.1%, below estimates. Some of that variance
may be due to timing, as a fund transfer expected in July will now be made in
August (in the range of $100 million). Most of the shortfall was attributable
to sales tax, which dropped $295 million, or 33.5%, below estimates. Partially
offsetting these revenue losses, the state’s other major revenue sources —
income and corporate taxes — performed above estimates.
Worst drought since 1956 - (www.washingtonpost.com) Driving by a boat ramp one Saturday morning
last month, a local man noticed some white spots on the Des Moines River. He
stopped to have a look. Turns out the spots were fish bellies. The undersides
of dead sturgeon formed glistening constellations in the muddy brown water. In
all, about 58,000 dead fish were along a 42-mile stretch, according to state
officials, and the cause of death appeared to be heat. Biologists measured the
water at 97 degrees in multiple spots. “I’ve never seen anything quite like
it,” said Justin Pedretti, who owns a farm near the boat ramp in Bonaparte,
Iowa, and first reported the fish kill. Under the most wide-reaching drought since 1956, and
torched by the hottest July on record dating from 1895,
the United States has been under the kind of weather stress that climatologists
say will be more common if the long-standing trend toward higher U.S.
temperatures continues.
Five years on, the Great Recession is turning into a life
sentence - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Five years into the Long
Slump it almost seems as if we are back to square one. China is sufficiently
alarmed by the flint hardness of its "soft-landing" to talk up
trillions of fresh stimulus. The European Central Bank is preparing to print “whatever
it takes” to save Spain and Italy. Markets are pricing in an
80pc chance of yet more printing by the US Federal Reserve in September or soon
after. There is no doubt that the three superpowers acting in concert can
launch a mini-cycle of growth early next year - assuming they deliver on their
rhetoric - but the twin headwinds of debt-leveraging and excess manufacturing
plant across the globe cannot easily be conjured away.
Going after Wall Street - and watching the clock - (money.cnn.com) If prosecutors want to go after Wall Street
for its role in the financial crisis, they better watch the clock: The statute
of limitations for many federal offenses is just about up. For securities fraud
and most other federal offenses, prosecutions must begin within five years, and
the subprime lending bubble hit its peak in 2007. "The statute is already
becoming a concern in a broad range of cases," said Bill Black, a law
professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Federal officials,
however, have a number of ways around this problem. For starters, they could
pursue "tolling agreements" with the firms or individuals under
investigation. In these agreements, the subjects of investigation agree to have
the statute of limitations extended, and can earn more lenient treatment in
return.
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