Tag: stock exchange
NYSE Suspends Trading Of All Securities Due To Technical Problems (Updated)

NYSE Suspends Trading Of All Securities Due To Technical Problems (Updated)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The NYSE Group, which includes the New York Stock Exchange, has suspended trading in all securities due to technical difficulties, the unit of Intercontinental Exchange Inc said on Wednesday.

“We will be providing further updates as soon as we can, and are doing our utmost to produce a swift resolution, communicate thoroughly and transparently, and ensure a timely and orderly market reopen,” a spokeswoman for the exchange operator said in a statement.

The stocks continue to trade on other exchanges, such as those run by Nasdaq OMX Group and BATS Global Markets.

“It’s under control,” Mark Otto of market maker J. Streicher & Co in New York said on the NYSE floor. “We’re just waiting for word. There’s no sign of panic at all.”

The issues at NYSE came on the same day that computer problems led United Airlines to ground all its flights for about two hours.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said there were no signs” that the problems at NYSE and United Airlines stemmed from “malicious activity,” CNN reported.

The New York Stock Exchange accounted for about 13.4 percent of all equities volume last month and 12.5 percent Tuesday according to BATS Global Markets data.

Update: Trading on the New York Stock Exchange resumed late Wednesday afternoon, more than three hours after a technical outage halted activity on its own venues.

Investors had been able to continue trading in NYSE-listed stocks throughout the outage as orders were routed to other exchanges.

(Reporting by John McCrank; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Photo: Traders, governors, and members of the New York Stock Exchange discuss what is happening following a halt in trading on the floor of the exchange in New York, July 8, 2015. Reuters/Lucas Jackson

Predators Follow Prey To Florida

Predators Follow Prey To Florida

Last week the Wall Street Journal completed an investigation of “troubled” stockbrokers, and the results were no surprise.

Four of the nation’s top five hot spots for brokers who’ve been cited for multiple regulatory violations are — where else? — right here in Florida.

First place goes to the Fort Lauderdale-Boca Raton corridor, beating out Long Island, New York. Next comes Sarasota, Collier and Lee counties (Naples and Fort Myers) and the Treasure Coast (basically Stuart to Vero Beach).

In all, the Journal examined the records of 550,000 stockbrokers, zeroing in on 16 areas of the country that attract those with disciplinary records. Florida is the choice destination, thanks mainly to its vast numbers of retirees with savings accounts.

Jackals always follow the herds. The scent is stronger when the herds have money, and Florida’s elderly tend to have more money than most.

The Journal found that brokers who’d been flagged for wrongdoing were mostly clustered in relatively affluent communities, where the rate of households headed by older residents with incomes above $100,000 was 50 percent higher than the national average.

Other geographic hot spots included lower Manhattan, Las Vegas, San Diego, Sacramento, Phoenix and Scottsdale, southern Miami-Dade and metropolitan Detroit, not exactly a sun-drenched mecca for retired seniors.

In Florida the securities industry is overseen by the Office of Financial Regulation, which last year disciplined 25 registered brokers. That’s a pitifully puny total in a place teeming with predators, but some hot-spot states didn’t bother to take action against anybody.

Crackdowns typically are conducted by the feds and industry watchdog authorities, but that seldom occurs until serious financial damage already has been done.

A classic South Florida case involved LH Ross, a brokerage firm that was based in Boca Raton but fleeced investors all over the United States. At its peak, the company had 17 offices and 180 brokers.

The company was derailed only after its president, Franklyn Michelin, was arrested for offering up to $300,000 in kickbacks to an undercover FBI agent posing as a hedge-fund manager. By then, clients of LH Ross had already lost millions.

In 2005, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) barred the firm from the industry, saying it had engaged in fraudulent trading, fraudulent sales of its own stock, failing to execute customers’ “sell” orders and falsifying order tickets with bogus time stamps, among other trickery. The following year, a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale sentenced Michelin to 27 months in prison for securities fraud and ordered him to pay $11 million in restitution to LH Ross investors.

The NASD, a self-regulatory entity on Wall Street, is now called the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). It offers an online service called BrokerCheck for people who are curious about the backgrounds of those who would be handling their money.

If you type in the name Bernard Lawrence Madoff, for example, you’ll receive the following alert: “The SEC has permanently barred this individual from acting as a broker and investment adviser, or otherwise associating with firms that sell securities or provide investment to the public.”

Madoff, who is sitting in prison until he dies, made a hefty chunk of his infamous Ponzi-scheme fortune by trolling for the wealthy in Palm Beach, where he owned a home.

Not all scoundrels who relocate to the Sunshine State see only the elderly as targets of opportunity. Jeffrey Brett Rubin, a broker in Lighthouse Point, specialized in “concierge” investment counseling for professional athletes.

According to FINRA, Rubin got $40 million from 31 NFL players, including stars such as Ray Lewis and Santonio Holmes, for a “high-risk” Alabama casino project. In exchange, promoters of the casino plan gave Rubin a 4-percent ownership stake and $500,000, a deal he kept secret from the firm that employed him.

The casino project tanked, the football players lost their money and last year Rubin was banned from the securities business. He never denied or admitted the charges.

While it’s easy not to shed tears for millionaire victims, the fact remains that outlaw brokers more often go after ordinary folks who are just trying to make their savings grow. No one was shocked to see a Florida dateline on the Jeffrey Brett Rubin story, or on the many others. This is, after all, the state that consistently leads the rest in cases of Medicare fraud, mortgage fraud and identity theft.

Whether it’s the balmy climate or the abundance of prey that appeals to white-collar crooks, they are here in thriving colonies that make Florida the undisputed Sleazoid Capital of America. It’s a title that will be hard to shake, and no place else is eager to claim it.

Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for the Miami Herald. Readers may write to him at: 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132.

Photo: DonkeyHotey via Flickr

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U.S. Stocks Little Changed; Apple Up 0.2 Percent

U.S. Stocks Little Changed; Apple Up 0.2 Percent

New York (AFP) — Wall Street stocks were little changed in early trade Wednesday with Apple posting modest gains after unveiling a spate of new products, including a mobile-payment system and a smartwatch.

About 40 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 3.01 points (0.02 percent) to 17,010.86.

The broad-based S&P 500 shed 1.25 (0.06 percent) to 1,987.19, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gained 0.89 (0.02 percent) to 4,553.18.

Patrick O’Hare, analyst at Briefing.com, said concerns about the Fed accelerating its plans to raise benchmark interest rates are the “excuse du jour” for tepid trade in equities.

But O’Hare also said the “stock market may just be succumbing to some price exhaustion after a huge move.”

O’Hare said the trajectory of Apple stock was consistent with the tech giant’s history of rising in the weeks before product launches and then cooling off after the announcements are made. Apple shares stood 0.2 percent higher.

Dollar General launched a hostile takeover campaign for Family Dollar, offering $80 a share for the company and seeking to scuttle a rival bid from Dollar Tree for $74.50. Family Dollar has said a deal with Dollar General would face major antitrust obstacles.

Dollar Tree lost 0.3 percent while Family Dollar and Dollar General each fell 0.1 percent.

EBay dropped 3.3 percent on worries that Apple’s new mobile wallet system could threaten its PayPal unit.

Although it is possible PayPal could be integrated into the Apple system, “competitive concerns for PayPal will likely continue” in light of the Apple news, said a note from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch.

Dow member Microsoft rose 0.1 percent following reports it is considering a $2 billion deal to buy Mojang AB, the creator of the popular “Minecraft” video game.

Bond prices fell. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury advanced to 2.53 percent from 2.50 percent Tuesday, while the 30-year rose to 3.26 percent from 3.23 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

AFP Photo/Eric Piermont

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U.S. Stocks Head Higher, Brushing Off Ukraine Tensions

U.S. Stocks Head Higher, Brushing Off Ukraine Tensions

New York (AFP) — U.S. stocks traded flat early in Friday’s session, holding on to recent gains despite an escalation in Ukraine tensions and a disappointing report on consumer spending in July.

Action remained light at the start of the holiday-lengthened final weekend of the summer.

About 30 minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 16.91 points (0.10 percent) to 17,062.66.

The broad-market S&P 500 added 0.49 (0.02 percent) at 1,997.23, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite gained 3.68 (0.08 percent) to 4,561.38.

A slight but still surprise fall in consumer spending in July did not dent sentiment, coming after a strong June gain.

The fresh data on consumer spending showed no inflationary pressure; the personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure, was up 1.6 percent year-on-year.

Leading stocks were mostly little-changed. Intel led gainers on the Dow, up 0.4 percent, while United Technologies led the losers, down 0.7 percent.

Amid top tech stocks, Oracle and Microsoft both gained 0.5 percent.

Communications and networking electronics maker Avago Technologies surged 8.8 percent, boosted by a third-quarter revenue and earnings report that handily surpassed forecasts, and an upbeat outlook for the current quarter.

Cloud computing software firm Veeve Systems beat analysts expectations in its second-quarter earnings, sending its shares up 15.7 percent.

Splunk, another company supplying cloud services to business, jumped 14.9 percent as it surpassed second-quarter revenue forecasts, despite a wider overall loss from a year ago.

Bond prices were flat. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury held at 2.34 percent, and the 30-year at 3.08 percent. Bond prices and yields move inversely.

AFP Photo/John Moore

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