NY Exchange sold for $ 8.2Billion

Reuters:
IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) agreed a $8 billion deal to buy New York Stock Exchange owner NYSE Euronext on Thursday, propelling the commodities player into the big league of European derivatives and helping it to take on arch rival CME Group.

ICE will look at selling Euronext, NYSE's European stock market business, in an initial public offering after the deal closes in the second half of next year.

"Our transaction is responsive to the evolution of market infrastructure today and offers a range of growth opportunities," ICE chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher said in a statement.

ICE will buy NYSE, which also owns derivatives market Liffe, for $33.12 per share in stock and cash, a 37 per cent premium to its Wednesday closing price and valuing NYSE Euronext at $8.2 billion.

NYSE Euronext shares rose nearly 32 per cent after the deal was announced, while ICE's shares fell four per cent.

Analysts said the deal will give Atlanta-based ICE a strategic boost with control of Liffe, Europe's second-largest derivatives market, helping it compete against U.S.-based CME Group Inc, owner of the Chicago Board of Trade.

"ICE is after Liffe, that is the crown jewel of NYSE Euronext," said Peter Lenardos, analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

"Strategically it makes sense for ICE to enter the European derivatives space in a meaningful way."

ICE, founded in 2000, has its roots in electronic commodity trading and a tie-up with Liffe will boost trade for soft commodities such as sugar, buoying its profits.

"I would imagine that, having the softs contracts under one roof, would provide for easier arbitrage, financing and development of trading opportunities behind the contracts, via swaps and options," said Jonathan Kingsman, a sugar trade veteran who heads agriculture at information provider Platts.

"If you have clearing membership of ICE, you could trade London contracts under the same membership."

Regulatory thumbs-up

An ICE-NYSE Euronext tie-up would leap-frog Deutsche Boerse to become the world's third-largest exchange group with a combined market value of $15.2 billion. CME Group, ICE's largest U.S.-based rival, has a market value of $17.5 billion, Thomson Reuters data shows.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is the world's largest exchange group with a market cap of $19.5 billion.

ICE's main operations are in energy futures trading and unlike NYSE Euronext, it has steered clear of stocks and stock-options trading, so there is not much business overlap between the two groups, making it more likely competition authorities would approve a tie-up, analysts said.

Last year, the US Justice Department blocked a $11 billion joint hostile bid by ICE and Nasdaq OMX Group for NYSE Euronext on concerns the tie-up would dominate U.S. stock listings.

If that bid had succeeded, ICE planned to buy NYSE Euronext derivatives business while Nasdaq would have taken control of the stock exchanges.

A rival $9.3 billion bid by German exchange operator Deutsche Boerse also fell foul of regulators.

"I doubt the competition authorities will have a problem with it, there's only a modest overlap between the businesses," said Richard Perrott, an analyst at Berenberg Bank.

"The rationale for the deal will be the same as that with Deutsche Boerse - migrate the clearing of Liffe derivatives to ICE's services in London and scale up to attract OTC (Over The Counter) derivatives clearing."

ICE said it expected to achieve $450 million in cost savings from the deal.

Before the latest ICE offer emerged, NYSE Euronext's shares had fallen by nearly a third since ICE and Nasdaq launched their thwarted joint bid.

The New York Stock Exchange, known as the Big Board and the symbol of U.S. capitalism, has seen its clout fade as new technology and the rise of private trading venues run by Wall Street banks and brokers cut its margins.

ICE, which started out as an online marketplace for energy trading, is the product of a string of acquisitions from the London-based International Petroleum Exchange in 2001, to the New York Board of Trade and, most recently, a handful of smaller deals, including a climate exchange and a stake in a Brazilian clearing house.

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Newtown Massacre:Confusion over how many gunmen

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19 Dec 2012

adam Lanza,sandy hook

by admin

Police radio traffic from the Newtown school shooting shows emergency responders initially thought there might be two gunmen on the loose and were not aware of the extent of the carnage inside Sandy Hook Elementary School, the NBC reported.

The communications were not officially released but were posted on YouTube by a scanner monitor and authenticated by police.
Some of the dialogue is encrypted or garbled, but the transmissions that can be heard – with the sound of sirens blaring in the background — provide a glimpse of how Friday’s massacre unfolded through the eyes of police and paramedics.
The recordings begin at 9:35 a.m. with a dispatcher calmly reporting a 911 call about “somebody shooting in the building,” followed two minutes later by the chilling update that a caller was “continuing to hear what he believes to be gunfire,” More on this story click here.

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End is near-Video

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19 Dec 2012

end,Mayan,world

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UBS ordered to pay $ 700M for widespread rate rigging

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19 Dec 2012

UBS

by admin

Washington, DC – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) announced an Order today against UBS AG and UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd. (together “UBS” or the “Bank”), bringing and settling charges of manipulation, attempted manipulation and false reporting of certain global benchmark interest rates. These benchmarks, which are enormously significant to the American public and to financial markets, are the basis for hundreds of trillions of dollars of swaps transactions, commercial and consumer loans, futures contracts, and other financial derivatives products traded in over-the-counter markets and exchanges around the world. The Order requires UBS to pay a $700 million civil monetary penalty, cease and desist from further violations as charged, and take specified steps to ensure the integrity and reliability of its LIBOR and other benchmark interest rate submissions and improve related internal controls.

In summary, CFTC’s Order finds:
• For at least six years UBS regularly tried to manipulate multiple benchmark interest rates for profit, and at times succeeded in manipulating the official fixing of Yen LIBOR;
• More than 2,000 instances of unlawful conduct involving dozens of UBS employees, colluding with other panel banks, and inducing interdealer brokers to spread false information and influence other banks; and
• UBS made false U.S. Dollar LIBOR and other submissions to protect its reputation during the global financial crisis.
“As our action today makes clear, when a major bank brazenly games some of the world’s most important financial benchmarks, the CFTC will respond with the full force of its authority,” said David Meister, the CFTC’s Director of Enforcement. “The American public, as well as people and companies around the globe, rely on interest rate benchmarks every day for mortgages, loans and other transactions, trusting that the underlying benchmark rates are honest. Market integrity is seriously compromised where, as here, a bank spins its rate submissions to boost trading profits, pays off a network of brokers to disseminate false rate information, or makes false submissions to protect its reputation.”
According to the Order, from at least 2005 to at least 2010, UBS engaged in two overarching courses of unlawful conduct that undermined the integrity of the London Interbank Offered Rate (“LIBOR”), the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (“Euribor”), the Euroyen Tokyo Interbank Offered Rate (“Euroyen TIBOR”), and other interest rate benchmarks.Each of these benchmarks is supposed to reflect or relate to the true costs of borrowing unsecured funds in the relevant interbank market, and as demonstrated by the CFTC’s Order, during the relevant period, UBS’s submissions for these benchmark interest rates often did not.
Specifically, today’s enforcement action states:
• From at least January 2005 to at least June 2010, acting through more than three dozen employees around the world including a number of senior managers, UBS attempted to manipulate these benchmarks in UBS’s favor, to enhance the profits the Bank earned from trading benchmark-based derivatives. UBS regularly, and for certain benchmarks sometimes daily, made false rate submissions. Moreover, with respect to Yen LIBOR and Euroyen TIBOR, UBS colluded with at least four other panel banks to make false submissions, and induced at least five interdealer brokers to disseminate false information or otherwise influence other panel banks’ submissions. The Order also finds that UBS sometimes successfully manipulated the official fixing of Yen LIBOR.
• From August 2007 through mid-2009, during the global financial crisis, UBS managers directed that the Bank’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR and certain other submissions be tailored to protect the Bank’s reputation and avoid what it perceived to be unfair speculation about its fundraising ability and creditworthiness. The first wrongful direction was for the submissions to “err on the low side.” Later, the directions were revised to place UBS in “the middle of the pack” of panel bank submissions. According to the Order, these directions, at times, caused UBS’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR and other benchmark submissions to be knowingly false.
UBS engaged in all of this misconduct even after it was on notice in October 2008 of the CFTC’s investigation of UBS. The Order finds that the conduct came to light only after UBS began an internal inquiry upon the request of the CFTC in April 2010. The unlawful conduct by UBS is described in more detail below. Attached to this release are excerpts of quotations from the numerous UBS communications evidencing the unlawful conduct.
Manipulative Conduct For Profit
As detailed in the Order, from at least January 2005 through at least June 2010, UBS routinely skewed its submissions for Yen, Swiss Franc, Sterling and Euro LIBOR, Euribor, and, at times, Euroyen TIBOR, to benefit UBS’s derivatives trading positions that were tied to those particular benchmarks. This unlawful conduct involved more than three dozen traders and submitters located in many offices, from London to Zurich to Tokyo, and elsewhere. Several UBS managers participated in or knew that this was a routine practice of the traders, and did nothing to stop it.
According to the Order, UBS’s interest rate submissions were determined by inherently conflicted UBS derivatives traders, who, not only determined the rates to submit, but also traded derivatives for UBS’s profit based on the same benchmarks. The Order finds that, in deciding what rates to submit, these traders often took into consideration how their trading positions might benefit, and also routinely accommodated requests of other UBS derivatives traders to make similarly beneficial submissions.
The Senior Yen Trader and Interdealer Brokers
The Order sets forth the particularly extensive unlawful activity of one UBS senior Yen trader (“Senior Yen Trader”), known as one of the most significant traders in the Yen market, who generated hundreds of millions of dollars in trading revenue for UBS. The Senior Yen Trader orchestrated a massive, multi-year course of conduct to manipulate Yen LIBOR almost daily at times, and Euroyen TIBOR less frequently. In three years, the Senior Yen Trader, along with other UBS employees made approximately 2000 requests by email or in written chats alone, to manipulate Yen LIBOR, accounting for 75% of the days in which Yen LIBOR submissions were made by UBS during that period. At times, the Senior Yen Trader conducted sustained manipulative operations for weeks to move Yen LIBOR in the direction he needed; these operations were given names such as “the Turn Campaign” and “Operation 6m.”
The Senior Yen Trader used at least three manipulative strategies: (i) he wrongfully induced at least five interdealer brokers to assist with his manipulative scheme; (ii) he had UBS submitters make submissions reflecting his preferred rates; and (iii) he cultivated prior working relationships and friendships with derivatives traders from at least four other banks and had them make requests of their banks’ own Yen LIBOR submitters based on his preferred rates.
With respect to interdealer brokers, who act as intermediates to cash and derivatives transactions for their bank clients, the Order finds that the Senior Yen Trader induced such brokers to employ various unlawful methods tailored to drive the submissions of other panel banks to achieve the rates that would benefit the Senior Yen Trader’s derivatives positions. Thus, from late 2006 to late 2009, he made requests of interdealer brokers to: (i) disseminate false “run-throughs” of suggested Yen LIBOR to panel bank submitters, whom a broker once referred to as “sheep” following the information; (ii) contact other panel bank submitters to influence their submissions; (iii) publish false market cash rates on dedicated electronic screens available to the brokers’ bank clients; and (iv) “spoof,” i.e., make fake bids and offers, to influence submissions of other panel bank submitters. To secure the cooperation of interdealer brokers, the Senior Yen Trader took steps to make sure the brokers were compensated, or sometimes threatened to steer his business away from them. The compensation took the form of additional trades or even wash trades that generated broker commissions, and certain individuals at one broker received approximately $216,000 from UBS in paid fees/bonuses, which were shared over approximately two years in return for their unlawful assistance.
According to the Order, in making requests of UBS submitters for beneficial submissions, the Senior Yen Trader was sometimes careful not to cause a conflict with trading positions held by the UBS Yen submitters who were helping him. He sometimes reconciled conflicts by executing transactions to offset any negative impact on the submitters’ positions. This was all to make sure that the UBS employees involved with the scheme, as one submitter commented, were “one happy family.”
Management Directions to Protect UBS’s Reputation Caused False Submissions
As set forth in the Order, with the onset of the global financial crisis, the media focused on the financial well-being of the world’s major financial institutions and analyzed LIBOR submissions, among other market indicators, to ascertain a panel bank’s strength and ability to borrow funds. Questions arose in the media about the integrity of the panel banks’ submissions. In response, from early August 2007 to at least mid-2009, certain managers in UBS Group Treasury and Asset and Liability Management (“ALM”) issued directions to UBS’s submitters to tailor UBS benchmark interest rate submissions to ward off negative public and media perceptions about UBS. These directions, at times, resulted in false submissions for U.S. Dollar LIBOR, LIBORs for other currencies, Euribor, and Euroyen TIBOR, because the submissions did not solely reflect UBS’s assessment of the borrowing costs of unsecured funds in the relevant interbank markets, as required.
At first, in August 2007, the management directions were to “err on the low side” of panel bank submissions. UBS’s U.S. Dollar LIBOR submissions immediately moved to the lowest quartile of panel submissions and remained there for a sustained period. UBS continued to make low submissions that suggested it could borrow at such low rates even though at the same time it was suffering from negative credit events such as reporting negative revenues in October 2007, a significant write down of assets in December 2007, losses in the first quarter of 2008, and a credit rating downgrade. As one senior UBS employee commented at the time, “senior management want to show the world we are the strongest bank with loads of liquidity.”
In April 2008, after the Wall Street Journal questioned the integrity of low submissions by the panel banks, such as UBS, managers in Group Treasury and ALM directed that UBS’s submissions be made “in the middle of the pack” of panel banks submissions. That direction was followed and, at times, enforced, notwithstanding disagreement or resistance on some occasions by the submitters. From June 2008 through at least the first half of 2009, UBS’s submissions were in the “middle of the pack” virtually every day, even after events suggesting that the submissions should have been higher, such as UBS’s receipt of more than $125 billion in infusions and loans from the Swiss government and the Swiss National Bank, and from liquidity programs of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, and the Bank’s $7.59 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.
UBS’s Obligations to Ensure Integrity and Reliability of Benchmark Interest Rates
In addition to the $700 million penalty, the CFTC Order requires UBS to implement measures to ensure that its submissions are transaction-focused, based upon a rigorous and honest assessment of information, and not influenced by conflicts of interest. See pages 60-73 of the CFTC’s Order. Among other things, the Order requires UBS to:
• Make its submissions based on certain specified factors, with UBS’s transactions being given the greatest weight, subject to certain specified adjustments and considerations;
• Implement firewalls to prevent improper communications including between traders and submitters;
• Prepare and retain certain documents concerning submissions, and retain relevant communications;
• Implement auditing, monitoring and training measures concerning its submissions and related processes;
• Make regular reports to the CFTC concerning compliance with the terms of the Order;
• Use best efforts to encourage the development of rigorous standards for benchmark interest rates; and
• Continue to cooperate with the CFTC.
* * * *
The CFTC Order also recognizes the cooperation of UBS with the Division of Enforcement in its investigation, as of late December 2010.
In related matters concerning the U.S. Justice Department, UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd., agreed to plead guilty to a criminal charge of wire fraud, UBS AG agreed pursuant to a non-prosecution agreement to continue to cooperate with the Justice Department, and UBS AG and UBS Securities Japan Co., Ltd. agreed to make payments that when combined total $500 million. In addition, the United Kingdom’s Financial Services Authority (“FSA”) issued a Final Notice regarding its enforcement action against UBS AG and has imposed a penalty of £160 million, the equivalent of $259.2 million, against the Bank; the Swiss Financial Market Authority (“FINMA”) issued an order resolving proceedings against UBS AG and requiring disgorgement of 59 million Swiss Francs, the equivalent of $64.3 million.
The CFTC thanks and acknowledges the valuable assistance of U.S. law enforcement and regulatory authorities, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Washington Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the CFTC’s foreign counterparts in this matter ─ the FSA, FINMA, and the Japanese Financial Services Agency.
CFTC Division of Enforcement staff members responsible for this case are Philip P. Tumminio, Anne M. Termine, Rishi K. Gupta, Jonathan K. Huth, Timothy M. Kirby, Aimée Latimer-Zayets, Terry Mayo, Brian G. Mulherin, Elizabeth Padgett, Maura M. Viehmeyer, Jason Wright, Gretchen L. Lowe, and Vincent A. McGonagle. CFTC Staff from the Division of Market Oversight and Office of the Chief Economist also assisted with the investigation of this matter.

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12 reasons why world will end

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17 Dec 2012

Mayan

by admin

Bird flu and swine flu gave us a fright in years past, but the real plague could be released upon the world any minute. Scientists have reconstructed the DNA microbe of the bubonic plague, aka the Black Death, in the hope of figuring out what made it so very powerful. The New York Times reports that a lab recently grew a H5N1 flu virus, “one of the most dangerous flu viruses ever known, and made it even more dangerous — by tweaking it genetically to make it more contagious.”

Mayan Calendar
The ancient Mayan calendar (combined with a dash of New Age mysticism) has predicted that on December 12, 2012 the world will end — and even John Cusack won’t be able to stop it. The occasion will be marked by the return of Quetzalcoatl, a Mesoamerican feathered serpent god, which is a nice

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Preacher busted for bilking $ 3.8M from federal food stamp program

0

17 Dec 2012

Al-Idu Al-Gaheem

by admin

By Cornelius Frolik
 A federal judge on Thursday sentenced Al-Idu Al-Gaheem to one year and one day in prison for his role in a scheme that bilked $3.8 million from the federal food stamp program, a newspaper reported

Pic:1389blog

The Dayton Daily News said that Al-Gaheem, the former owner of two Dayton View businesses and the imam of Masjid At-Taqwa mosque, was the second of four defendants to be sentenced in the case. All four defendants have pleaded guilty.
Al-Gaheem faced as many as four years in prison after he pleaded guilty in August to felony charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, food stamp trafficking and structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements.
Al-Gaheem, who previously was named Lawrence Phillips, was the owner of Five Pillars Market, 1263 W. Riverview Ave., and Riverview Cell & Cup of Dreams, 512 N. Broadway St.
Al-Gaheem worked and conspired with Abdul Yamini Sr., Abdul Qadir and Omar Yahya to defraud the food-assistance program. The men illegally paid customers 50 cents in cash for every $1 in food stamp benefits they redeemed.
Undercover law enforcement agents caught the defendants illegally trading cash for food stamp benefits and buying and selling products that are ineligible through the program, such as counterfeit clothing and firearms.
Authorities estimate that more than 1,000 transactions took place at Five Pillars Market that involved the illegal exchange of food benefits. The federal government deposited about $3.8 million into bank accounts controlled by Al-Gaheem and others as reimbursement for food benefits redeemed at Five Pillars.
Al-Gaheem repeatedly withdrew large amounts of cash from the bank account, but he always took out sums that were just less than the threshold that requires the filing of federal financial reports.
Al-Gaheem and the other defendants used the money they stole to renovate the Dayton View businesses and pay for personal expenses, such as rent, mortgage and other bills, said assistant U.S. Attorney Dwight Keller.
Keller urged Judge Timothy S. Black to give Al-Gaheem the maximum prison sentence to deter him from breaking the law in the future and also to send a message that this criminal activity will not be tolerated.
“Mr. Al-Gaheem is arguably the most culpable” defendant in the case, Keller said.
Al-Gaheem’s attorney James Fleisher argued that justice would best be served by placing his client on probation or house arrest, because Al-Gaheem is an important part of his community and some family members depend on him for caregiving and financial support.
Judge Black said although Al-Gaheem had an “extraordinarily impressive” record of good deeds and charitable actions, he could not ignore his role in the criminal enterprise by only giving him “a slap on the wrist.”
Black sentenced Al-Gaheem to the same prison term that he handed down to Qadir in November.
In addition to prison, Black also ordered Al-Gaheem to be placed on three years of community control after his release.
Al-Gaheem and the other co-defendants in the case will be ordered to pay $3.8 million in restitution to the federal government, even though authorities doubt that they can even come close to paying back the money they stole.
Yamini is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 20. Yahya is scheduled to be sentenced in late February.

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Football turns into Ootball in newspaper title

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17 Dec 2012

Football

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