Category: Financial News

European Central Bank official rails against Facebook Libra

Europe, Financial News, Politics, Regulation News, Technology NewsNo Comments

Yves Mersch, executive board member of the European Central Bank, outlined on Monday a series of warnings concerning Facebook’s proposed blockchain digital currency Libra.

What is Libra?

Development of Libra began in 2017, and public reports first came to light the next year. Creators Morgan Beller, David Marcus, and Kevin Weil formally announced it this June. They also revealed its planned release in 2020.

Whereas Bitcoin and many other blockchain currencies are decentralized, relying on unaffiliated miners to maintain solvency and stability, Libra’s assets are centralized by the Libra Association. Guarantees of $10 million investments from each supporting partner—injected before Libra opens to the public—intend to stabilize the digital currency. Concerns with volatility significantly deter investment in blockchain currencies.

Libra’s expected 2020 release coincides with the release of a digital wallet, Calibra, that will allow payment through Messenger and WhatsApp. Similar messaging-app-integrated payment systems are hugely popular in China (WeChat Pay, AliPay) and Japan (LINE Pay). This market gap still exists in other parts of the world; apps such as Google Pay, Venmo, and Cash App do not integrate payment and SMS services. Investing partners include Mastercard, eBay, PayPal, and Uber, which should give a likely indication of Libra’s plans for market implementation.

Governments push back

The criticism from the ECB is both general and specific. 

Mersch expressed distrust in Facebook as a whole, reminding the public that Libra’s developers are:

“the very same people who had to explain themselves in front of legislators in the United States and the European Union on the threats to our democracies resulting from their handling of personal data on their social media platform.”

He also criticized its centralized, hefty investment-based structure:

“With such a setup, it is difficult to discern the foundational promises of decentralization…normally associated with cryptocurrencies and other digital currencies. On the contrary, similarly to public money, Libra will actually be highly centralized, with Facebook and its partners acting as quasi-sovereign issuers of currency.”

Be humble

Digital currencies have always been subject to criticism and regulation from governments; they disrupt traditional wealth distribution and storage. Libra also seeks to profit off market disruption, creating a currency privately regulated by the very companies that are selling you their products.

Libra has received criticisms and/or cease and desist requests from the United States, France, England, Germany, and Japan.

Trump, economists criticize Fed’s interest rates cut

Countries, Financial News, North America, Politics, Regions, Regulation News, USANo Comments

The Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point failed to pacify US President Donald Trump, who has routinely hit out at Fed chair Jerome H. Powell for keeping rates too high. The federal funds target rate range is now 2% to 2.25%.

“As usual, Powell let us down, but at least he is ending quantitative tightening, which shouldn’t have started in the first place – no inflation,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “We are winning anyway, but I am certainly not getting much help from the Federal Reserve!”

Trump went on to say that he would like to see further and more aggressive rate cutting going forward.

“What the Market wanted to hear from Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve was that this was the beginning of a lengthy and aggressive rate-cutting cycle which would keep pace with China, The European Union and other countries around the world.”

But Trump was not the only one critical of the cut. Two Fed officials also disagreed with the decision, albeit for different reasons.

CNBC reports that Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and Kansas City Fed President Esther George—who had both expressed misgivings about a potential rate cut—both voted against the measure, arguing that rates ought to remain unchanged.

“Given that the economy is quite strong, given that I do think that inflation is going to be very close to 2%, and given that the growth in the economy is satisfactory, I think that’s an environment where you don’t have to take a lot of action,” Rosengren told CNBC.

Others were critical as well. Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank, slammed the rate cut as an “unwise decision,” arguing that “The Fed’s decision today is like in the days when doctors bled their patients to heal them.”

He added that, in his view, the Fed “manufactur[ed] reasons to cut interest rates despite a strong economy with no recession signs apparent anywhere out on the horizon.”

The decrease was the first since 2008, when the Fed hacked rates down to almost zero percent in the midst of massive economic fallout caused by the US subprime mortgage crisis.

Fall in Asian markets reflects pessimism over US-China trade deal

Asia, China, Countries, Financial News, North America, Politics, Regions, Regulation News, South East Asia, USANo Comments

Negotiations between Washington and Beijing over a trade deal may be ongoing, but that doesn’t mean people are optimistic about the potential for a settlement, as evinced by the fall in Asian markets during early trading Wednesday.

The decline came in the wake of a Twitter rampage from US President Donald Trump—who has been less than consistent (one might say erratic) on this issue—in which he lit into China for not importing more agricultural products from the US and took credit for the Asian country’s allegedly failing economy.

“China is doing very badly, worst year in 27 – was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now – no signs that they are doing so. That is the problem with China, they just don’t come through. Our Economy has become MUCH larger than the Chinese Economy is last 3 years,” he wrote.

Continuing he wrote:

“My team is negotiating with them now, but they always change the deal in the end to their benefit.”

And in conclusion:

“China has lost 5 million jobs and two million manufacturing jobs due to the Trump Tariffs. Trumps [sic] got China back on its heels, and the United States is doing great.”

Trump did not provide any sources to back up the stated figures, but then I probably didn’t have to tell you that.

MarketWatch summed up the immediate fallout, reporting that “Japan’s Nikkei slid 1% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index  fell 1.3%. The Shanghai Composite retreated 0.8% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite lost 0.5%. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% as North Korea tested more short-range ballistic missiles, and benchmark indexes in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia all fell. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.2%.”

Individual stocks were also down.

MarketWatch reports that, in addition to Trump’s unpredictability, an ongoing trade dispute between South Korea and Japan is roiling markets. Said dispute stems from Tokyo’s decision to deny South Korea a special trade status known as “white country.”

Did Elon Musk just violate the terms of his SEC agreement?

Financial News, Politics, Regulation News, Technology NewsNo Comments

This past March, Tesla CEO Elon Musk dubbed 2019 “the year of the solar roof.” In June, during the company’s annual shareholder meeting, he announced that Tesla was installing its solar roof in eight US states.

Then, just this week, Musk posted on Twitter that Tesla was aiming to produce around 1,000 solar roofs per week by the end of 2019.

“Spooling up production line rapidly,” he wrote in response to an inquiry from one of his more than 27 million Twitter followers. “Hoping to manufacture ~1000 solar roofs/week by end of this year.”

On its face the tweet seems unremarkable enough. However, as a number of news websites have pointed out, Musk recently signed an agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The agreement stipulates, among other things, that Musk obtain approval from one of his company’s securities lawyers prior to sharing any production numbers publicly that have not been shared before.

The agreement came about after the SEC claimed he had violated a settlement regarding previous tweets that (apparently falsely) indicated Tesla was preparing to go private.

The offending tweet that allegedly violated the settlement—and led to the recent SEC agreement—was posted in February and claimed that Tesla expected to make around half a million cars in 2019.

“Tesla made 0 cars in 2011,” Musk wrote on 20 February, “but will make around 500k in 2019.”

Now, in the wake of his solar roof tweet, people are questioning whether the SEC agreement has had the intended effect of reining in Musk’s behavior on social media. Tesla had not previously released any information about solar roof production numbers for 2019.

Bloomberg reports that the subject was not addressed in its second-quarter investor letter; nor was it mentioned by executives on a follow-up earning call.

According to the paper, Tesla personnel did not respond to questions about whether Musk got the required pre-approval, while SEC spokesperson Judy Burns declined to comment.