Author: therawinformant

Why isn't the stock market concerned about a Trump loss in November? Maybe it should be.

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In the last 24 hours, Spotify scored two major podcast deals. Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferre breaks down the details of Spotify’s latest podcast deals.

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Arun Sundaram, CFRA analyst joins Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to break down Kroger’s first-quarter earnings report, how the grocery giant can compete with its competitors and more.

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(Bloomberg Opinion) — Less than a month ago, Wirecard AG told investors that it expected an “unqualified audit opinion” when its long-delayed annual results were finally published. The update that the German electronic-payments processor provided to the market on Wednesday was about as far from unqualified as it’s possible to imagine.Auditor Ernst & Young has been unable to obtain enough information to verify 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of the company’s cash balances, according to the Wirecard statement. Furthermore, there’s evidence that a third party tried to “deceive” the auditor. The annual report still hasn’t been published and, unless that’s quickly resolved, creditors might terminate 2 billion euros of loans to the company. The shares lost about two-thirds of their already beaten-down value. Since their peak in 2018, when Wirecard replaced Commerzbank AG in Germany’s blue-chip Dax index, about 20 billion euros of shareholder wealth has gone up in smoke. The market capitalization is now just 4.4 billion euros.These events cap a devastating fall from a grace for a business that investors hoped would repair Germany’s reputation for being a laggard in IT and technology, and restore the pride of its diminished finance sector. The Wirecard case is also a lesson in the dangers of group think: Financial analysts, directors, regulators and auditors were for too long unwilling to listen to important questions about how it made money.The company has for months been engaged in a war of words with the Financial Times newspaper and short sellers, who queried its accounting practices and the role of third parties used by Wirecard in countries where it lacked a license to operate.For outsiders not privy to internal documents, the complexity and opacity of Wirecard’s business made it difficult to pass judgment. Nevertheless, the FT’s reporting raised sufficient doubts to warrant further investigation. Police in Singapore launched a probe.   And yet, German prosecutors chose to investigate an FT journalist, and Wirecard’s regulator Bafin temporarily banned investors from shorting the stock last year. Instead of demonstrating diligence, Germany tried to shoot the messenger.   Analysts were also too willing to take the company at its word. Mirabaud Securities’ Neil Campling was a rare voice that doubted Wirecard’s business and technology. In contrast, another analyst accused the FT of publishing “fake news” (the bank where they worked subsequently backtracked). Another said they hadn’t read the full conclusions of a recent special audit by KPMG because they were in German. Before today, Ernst & Young had signed off on Wirecard’s accounting for more than a decade.When a stock is heavily shorted, as Wirecard’s was, it’s incumbent on directors to ask why. But in this case, the board appears to have been in thrall to the chief executive officer, Markus Braun, who has defied calls from some investors to resign. He said on Wednesday that it was still unclear whether fraudulent transactions had occurred.  The company’s defenses began to unravel last month when KPMG was unable to verify sales and profits booked via third-party partners. Wirecard’s apparent mischaracterization of those findings appears to have spurred German regulators into action. Its offices were raided earlier this month.Trust and the appearance of propriety are vitally important for the payments industry, and after today Wirecard is now severely lacking in both. The FT journalist who pursued the story endured personal attacks on social media, but his instincts appear to have been correct. For years Germany took a lenient approach to regulating its banks and suffered the consequences. It has made the same mistake with a fintech.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Chris Bryant is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering industrial companies. He previously worked for the Financial Times.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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Carnival Corp., the world's largest cruise company, gave no clarity about when it will cruise again in a company filing released to investors on Thursday. During the company's second quarter, which ended on May 31, it saw a net loss of $4.4 billion, or $6.07 earnings per share, preliminary results show. It is accelerating plans […]

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Akili Interactive’s video game “EndeavorRX” is a digital therapeutic treatment designed for children with ADHD. After 7 years of clinical trials, studying 600 children, the FDA cleared the video game as medicinal therapy.

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When it comes to a 401(k) account, most savers simply choose a “target date” funds and leave it that. Now, thanks to a rule change from the Trump administration, those funds could get a lot more complicated under the hood.

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Carnival Corp (CCL) posted a preliminary $4.4 billion loss in the second quarter as the coronavirus pandemic has forced cruise ship companies to halt operations and suspend cruises.Shares dropped 6.9% to $17.77 in pre-market trading after the world's biggest cruise operator warned that it expects a net loss on both a U.S. GAAP and adjusted basis for the second half of 2020. Carnival expects the monthly average cash burn rate for the second half of the year to amount to about $650 million and said that it was also planning to accelerate the sale of more ships.Revenue in the second quarter ended May 31, plunged to $700 million from $4.8 billion a year earlier. Sales missed analysts’ expectations by $37.8 million.“Cruise operations have been in a pause for a majority of the second quarter,” Carnival said in a statement. “In addition, the company is unable to definitively predict when it will return to normal operations.”Meanwhile, the cruise operator said that it is seeing growing demand from new bookings for 2021. For the six weeks ending May 31, 2020, about two-thirds of 2021 bookings were new bookings, the company said.As of May 31, Carnival had a total of $7.6 billion of available liquidity and $8.8 billion in export credit facilities that are available to fund ship deliveries originally planned through 2023.Carnival has this year seen its shares shed as much as three-quarters of their value following major coronavirus outbreaks on a number of cruise ships, including Carnival’s Diamond Princess. The stock has seen some relief over the past month soaring more than 50% as the cruise operator experienced a surge in bookings amid prospects that it may restart some cruises in August.Still, analysts are for now staying on the sidelines. The Hold analyst consensus shows 8 Hold ratings and 4 Sell ratings versus 3 Buy ratings. The average price target stands at $15.66, reflecting 18% downside potential over the coming year. (See CCL’s stock analysis on TipRanks)Meanwhile JPMorgan analyst Brandt Montour this month raised the stock’s price target to $20 from $16, while maintaining a Hold rating, saying that the shares are reflecting a "reasonable, albeit slow," recovery in operations.In the short-term though, Montour expects shares to "remain choppy and range-bound" until investors receive more clarity on "several pressure points," including sailing requirements, firm restart dates, and signs that new cruisers and older passengers will reengage with the product.Related News: Royal Caribbean Warns Of Q2 Loss, Sees Sailings Suspended Until July 31 Torpedoed by the Coronacrisis, Can Cruise Lines Recover? Southwest Pops Almost 6% As May Passenger Bookings Outpace Cancellations More recent articles from Smarter Analyst: * Google’s $2.1 Billion Fitbit Bid Challenged By Australia’s Competition Regulator * Hertz Drops 7% In Pre-Market After Suspension of $500 Million Share Offering * Lyft Plans To Switch To 100% Electric Cars By 2030 * IBM, Shell Team Up To Power Digital Platform For Mining Industry

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