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☆ Spring training roundup: Mets win Kodai Senga’s debut start
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Cardinals catcher Tres Barrera was responsible for the only hit and run Senga allowed, a solo shot to left in the second. Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso hit solo home runs and Tim Locastro hit a pair of RBI doubles and scored on a throwing error for New York. The Rays got their two runs from solo homers by Jose Siri and Randy Arozarena. Jake Rogers hit his third home run of spring training for the Tigers. The Athletics, who have flirted with a move to Las Vegas, played a two-game spring training series this weekend at Las Vegas Ballpark.

☆ Here are the most overbought and oversold stocks on Wall Street right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Sarah Min | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Some of the most overbought and oversold stocks on Wall Street right now include Bank of America and a water treatment company. Meanwhile, a stock with a 14-day RSI lower than 30 is considered oversold, a signal of poor sentiment around the firm. According to a CNBC Pro screen of FactSet data, here are the 10 most overbought stocks in the S & P 500. Ecolab was among the most overbought stocks in the S & P 500. Other overbought names include Clorox Co . and Mosaic Co. We also screened for the most oversold stocks in the benchmark stock index.

Reuters reported in March 2020 that Syneos was working with investment bank Centerview Partners LLC to explore a sale. Syneos, which has a market capitalization of $3.9 billion and carries a $2.9 billion debt pile, was not immediately available for comment. Based in Morrisville, North Carolina, Syneos helps pharmaceutical companies with clinical trials and to market their drugs. There has been a wave of consolidation among contract research organizations in a bid to lower costs, amass more clinical trial data and win customers. Labcorp (LH.N), for example, said earlier this month that it will complete the spinoff of its contract research organization, called Fortrea, by the middle of this year.

☆ Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe says he was accused of taking too many black cars, stealing 'a pregnant woman's sandwich' before his ouster as CEO of the right-wing org
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Ellen Thomas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

James O'Keefe, founder of right-wing organization Project Veritas, has been removed as CEO. On Monday, O'Keefe spoke for 45 minutes, describing a 7-hour board meeting prior to his ouster. Project Veritas is a far-right group that publishes selectively edited video clips of public and corporate officials, liberal groups, and the press. In September, a jury found Project Veritas liable for fraudulently misrepresenting itself and violating federal wiretap laws. He ended his remarks with an insistence that he plans to continue the work he was doing at Project Veritas under a new name.

☆ James O’Keefe ousted from right-wing activist group Project Veritas
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Jon Passantino | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —James O’Keefe, the founder and chairman of Project Veritas — the right-wing activist group known for its selectively edited undercover sting videos targeting journalists and progressive groups — has been ousted from the organization, he told staff in a videotaped speech posted online Monday. “I’ve been stripped of my authority as CEO and removed from the board of directors,” O’Keefe said in a prepared statement to the group’s staff. Federal authorities have been investigating Project Veritas for its involvement in the 2020 theft of a diary kept by President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley. Two people who sold Ashley Biden’s journal and other items to Project Veritas for $40,000 pleaded guilty last year to stealing her belongings. Project Veritas did not immediately comment on O’Keefe’s departure.

☆ Brain implant startup backed by Bezos and Gates is testing mind-controlled computing on humans
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-18 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Philip O'Keefe, one of Synchron's patients in the SWITCH clinical trial, using his BCI. Philip O'Keefe, one of Synchron's patients in the SWITCH clinical trial, was the first person in the world to tweet using a BCI device. About 20 months earlier, O'Keefe was implanted with Synchron's BCI. Synchron's technology has caught the attention of its competitors. Source: SynchronIn January, the medical journal JAMA Neurology published the peer-reviewed, long-term safety results from a trial of Synchron's BCI system in Australia.

☆ Here's who's keeping top payment players like Stripe, PayPal, and Square ahead of the competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Fun fact Friday: The only letter of the alphabet that doesn't appear in a US state name is "Q." There are plenty of reasons to want to get in (money changes hands A LOT, whether it's between people, companies, or both). This list from Insider's Bianca Chan and Paige Hagy looks at the people pushing top payment companies to stay ahead of the innovation curve. Bianca and Paige spoke to more than a dozen industry insiders to identify executives who are making sure companies like PayPal, Stripe, Apple, and Visa are keeping the competition at bay. Click here to check out eight executives ensuring the top payment players stay ahead of the competition.

For the fourth quarter, Switzerland's second-biggest bank posted a net loss of 1.39 billion francs. That brought its total net loss in 2022 to 7.29 billion francs, marking its second straight year in the red. The bank, however, completed a 4 billion Swiss franc fundraising in December and said liquidity levels had been boosted. Chief Executive Ulrich Koerner said last month that Credit Suisse was "seeing money now coming back in different parts of the firm." "We have a clear plan to create a new Credit Suisse and intend to continue to deliver on our three-year strategic transformation," Koerner said on Thursday.

☆ KBW downgrades Bank of America, says the stock trades at an unwarranted premium to its peers
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Samantha Subin | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Now is not the time for investors to get into shares of Bank of America , according to Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. BAC YTD mountain Bank of America's 2023 performance Bank of America shares are up more than 10% this year after falling 25.6% in 2022. In its fourth-quarter report, Bank of America topped expectations as higher rates offset some declines within investment banking. According to Konrad, shares look vulnerable after the run-up in shares post-earnings and consensus cuts to PPNR, a profitability measure that accounts for net interest and non-interest income. The stock also trades at a premium to peers despite lower expected returns, and above its historical price-to-earnings multiple.

☆ Grand Central's sparkling new terminal could use a spellcheck — it misspelled artist Georgia O'Keeffe's name in an engraved quote about New York
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A new terminal for the Long Island Rail Road in New York's Grand Central Station opened Wednesday. The terminal's walls are engraved with homages to New York from famous artists. In a new terminal in New York's Grand Central Station that opened last Wednesday, called the Grand Central Madison station, O'Keeffe's name is spelled with one "f" instead of two, Bloomberg reported. That's the quote that made it into the Grand Central Madison station. Bloomberg reported that the Grand Central Madison terminal is part of an $11.1 billion project called East Side Access that will bring passengers on the Long Island Railroad to Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal instead of Penn Station.

[1/2] Goldman Sachs' Chairman and CEO David Solomon attends a session at the 50th World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 21, 2020. REUTERS/Denis BalibouseNEW YORK, Jan 27 (Reuters) - To listen to Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) chief executive David Solomon, the bank is doing "great," while skeptical investors wonder what comes next. Still, Goldman shares are up 3.6% over the past year, outperforming the S&P 500 banking index and peers. In October, Goldman scaled back ambitions for Marcus by placing it under the newly-merged asset and wealth division. "Going back to what has made Goldman great for decades will allow the firm to reset and recover," he said.

☆ Ron DeSantis just notched a win in court. But the judge says he still violated a prosecutor’s free speech rights.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Marc Caputo | Marc Caputo Is A Senior National Political Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +15 min

In a statement posted on Twitter, DeSantis' office lauded the ruling without addressing those nuances. By suspending Warren, DeSantis also elevated the Democrat’s political profile in his own party. And no one in Hillsborough County was charged with violating that state law when Warren was the county prosecutor. Court testimony from DeSantis administration officials showed that the abortion letter was the major cause of Warren's suspension. Abortion was the only issue mentioned in the first draft of DeSantis' suspension order.

☆ KBW's best trades for 2023, including a short bet against Coinbase
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

In the meantime, KBW has shared a list of several names to trade in 2023, many of which are short bets. Perhaps the most high-profile name on the list is Coinbase – and the firm has it down as a short bet, thanks to deteriorating volumes and regulatory overhang. The firm has an underweight rating on Coinbase and a price target of $37. Its price target of $6 is 18% below its Thursday closing price. The firm's price target on Allstate is 11% above where the stock closed Thursday.

The Coast Guard suspended its search for a helicopter that went down near New Orleans, officials said Friday, dimming hopes for rescuing four people who were on board. "Once a case is suspended it basically means that we will stop searching until we find any new information that would actually help us with the search," Coast Guard Petty Officer Jose Hernandez told NBC News on Friday. No bodies were immediately found, but the Coast Guard on Thursday released images of debris — several cylindrical yellow objects bobbing in the water. The Coast Guard sent an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and a 45-foot Response Boat that searched 180 square miles for eight hours, officials said. “It is always a difficult decision to suspend a search,” Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr.

☆ Why tech billionaires like Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos are all investing in biotech startups that want to link your computer directly to your brain
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Andrew Dunn | Hilary Brueck | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Tech moguls like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates are investing in brain-implant startups. Through their venture-capital funds, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates both recently backed the Brooklyn, New York, startup Synchron, which has tested its brain stent in seven humans. Peter Thiel, a billionaire cofounder of PayPal, invested last year in Utah's Blackrock Neurotech, an older BCI startup that has said it hopes to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval soon. That long-term potential has caught the attention of tech billionaires like Musk, Gates, and Bezos. No BCI startup has gone public, and most of their fundraising rounds have been modest compared with larger and more-mature biotechs.

☆ Bankers not expecting quick recovery as IPO volumes plunge to lowest level since 2008
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro | Echo Wang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

With questions swirling around monetary policy and the prospect of a looming recession, IPO advisers are not holding their breath on a near-term recovery in the equity capital markets. Global share sales plunged this year as the IPO market froze and hundreds of companies postponed stock market debuts, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and interest rate hikes from central banks weighed on the broader economy. “It’s all about rates - the price of money changed and it has affected everything," said James Palmer, head of EMEA equity capital markets (ECM) at Bank of America. A return by long-only investors to capital markets deals is seen as key for any recovery, after a year in which hedge funds have taken a lead role as buyers of new issuance. "When the stock market is going like this, people typically don't buy new issuance," said Joshua Bonnie, co-head of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's global capital markets practice.

☆ Buy now, pay later continues to be relevant for people down market, says Keefe, Bruyette & Woods' Sakhrani
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailBuy now, pay later continues to be relevant for people down market, says Keefe, Bruyette & Woods' SakhraniKPW's Sanjay Sakhrani joins 'TechCheck' to discuss Apple's adoption of fintech with the Apple Wallet, burgeoning innovations in the space and intermediates streamlining the payment ecosystem.

☆ WW International Says Chief Financial Officer to Depart
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Stephen Nakrosis | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WW International Inc. on Wednesday said Amy O’Keefe will step down from her role as chief financial officer effective Dec. 2, but will remain with the company through the end of the year to support the finance team. Heather Stark, a 12-year veteran of the company who most recently served as head of North American Finance, will assume the role of interim principal financial officer, the company said. Also on Wednesday, the company, also known as WeightWatchers, said Tiffany Stevenson will join the company in January and assume the role of chief people officer. Most recently, she was chief people officer of Patreon, and before that spent 12 years at Sephora, WW said. The company also appointed David Cohen as chief data officer.

☆ Alleged Recruiter, Florida Officials Added to Lawsuit Over Migrant Flights
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Jon Kamp | Arian Campo-Flores | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Attorneys for migrants flown to Massachusetts under a Florida program in September have added several defendants and new allegations to a federal lawsuit challenging the operation. The amended complaint, filed Tuesday in Boston, newly named defendant Perla Huerta as the alleged lead recruiter in Texas, where migrants were enlisted for the two flights. It also added the contractor that arranged the flights, Vertol Systems Company Inc., and its chief executive, James Montgomerie; Lawrence Keefe, Florida’s public safety czar; and James Uthmeier, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ‘s chief of staff.

Banks struggled to find demand from junk-bond investors for $2.4 billion of secured bonds and loans that is part of the debt package after a weeks-long marketing effort, the sources said. It showed the challenges banks face to sell down highly leveraged debt this quarter as bond yields spiked in response to a hawkish Fed policy and recessionary fears. The source would not say whether that would mean re-offering the debt to investors at even juicier terms. The end result is the banks involved are digging into their own pockets to provide the whole debt for the Tenneco acquisition which closed on Thursday. So it's almost like investors have seen this cycle occur that makes them question the outlook of something like Tenneco," he added.

☆ Real-estate tech firms are getting hammered by a cataclysmic reckoning that one VC called a cross between the 2001 dot-com bust and the 2008 market crash
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Daniel Geiger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The proptech sector is battling two challenges at once: a slowing housing market and a tech bust. For almost a decade, a growing group of companies have thrived by introducing tech innovations to a stubbornly analog real-estate industry. "Now we're seeing something that feels like a confluence between the 2001 dot-com bust in the venture-capital world and the 2008 market crash in real estate. Shares of both Opendoor and Redfin, which once drew investor attention to the soaring proptech industry, are worth roughly one-tenth what where they were a year ago. The company hasn't laid off any of its 300-person staff — including a roughly 50-person tech team — and doesn't plan to, Matthews said.

☆ Paul Allen's art collection hauls in record $1.5 bln at auction
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-10 | by ( Lisa Richwine | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The total represented the highest amount ever collected at a single art auction, according to the auction house, Christie's in New York. Among the priciest works sold was Pointillist pioneer Georges Seurat's Les Poseuses, Ensemble (Petite version), an 1888 oil on canvas depicting three nude women. Cezanne's "La Montagne Sainte-Victoire", a colorful landscape painted from 1888-1890, sold for $137.8 million, another record. And a Gustav Klimt 1903 painting, "Birch Forest," set the high mark for a Klimt work, selling for $104.6 million. Additional pieces from Allen's collection will be offered at auction on Thursday.

Nicole became a Category 1 hurricane on Wednesday evening as the storm made landfall on Great Bahama Island. It is expected to remain a hurricane as it approaches Florida, according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. By The New York TimesThe National Hurricane Center said that areas along the Florida, Georgia and South Carolina coastlines could see life-threatening storm surge. Storm surge is an abnormal rise of water caused by strong winds from a storm pushing water toward the shore. Potential storm surge flooding 1 3 6 9+ feet The New York Times; storm surge flooding prediction by NOAA as of 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 9.

☆ Will Rain Affect Turnout Tomorrow? The Answer Is Cloudy.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Eve Washington | John Keefe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +6 min

The consensus is that one inch of rainfall above the normal rain for the day can decrease voter turnout up to one percent. Competitive House races that may get above-average precipitation Precipitation above normal (inches) <1 1 2 3+ DISTRICT EXPECTED PRECIP. Competitive Senate races that may get above-average precipitation Precipitation above normal (inches) <1 1 2 3+ STATE EXPECTED PRECIP. warned about rainfall on Tuesday and said on Twitter: “Don't let the rain put a damper on Election Day. Mr. Stein experienced his research topic firsthand when he went to vote early — in the rain — on Oct. 28.

☆ Some Miss USA contestants allege ‘favoritism’ in this year’s competition. The organization says it is investigating.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Kaetlyn Liddy | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +9 min

Miss Universe Organization ran the Miss USA competition until 2020, when The Miss Brand Corp., headed by Crystle Stewart, took over. … I understand how isolating it is to win Miss USA,” Elle Smith, who was Miss USA last year, said in a TikTok video. She argued that Gabriel was “the clear front-runner.”“She needed to perform at Miss USA and she did exactly that,” Smith added. When I won Miss Texas USA, Miss USA and more recently, became President of the Miss USA Organization many women of color were inspired and filled with hope,” she said in her statement Friday. “Because this is not the Miss USA organization that we all looked up to as little girls.

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