Financial Review

Ultra Violet

Sinclair Noe — December 7, 2017

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DOW + 70 = 24,211
SPX + 7 = 2636
NAS + 36 = 6812
RUT + 11 = 1520
10 Y + .05 = 2.38%
OIL+ .66 = 56.62
GOLD – 16.00 = 1247.80

Cryptocurrency

• Number of Currencies: 1,364
• Total Market Cap: $443,799,771,860
• Volume (24h): $29,879,496,699

Top Cryptocurrencies

	Name	Symbol	Price USD	Market Cap	Volume (24h)	Total Vol. %	Price BTC	Chg. % 1D	Chg. % 7D
	Bitcoin	BTC	16,012.0	$290.56B	$17.67B	59.15%	1	-3.56%	+74.30%
	Ethereum	ETH	413.58	$41.34B	$2.10B	7.02%	0.0250542	-0.34%	-1.99%
	Bitcoin Cash	BCH	1,378.80	$26.18B	$1.55B	5.20%	0.0906213	+11.89%	+15.99%
	IOTA	MIOTA	3.71990	$10.57B	$1.14B	3.80%	0.00022174	-9.27%	+196.54%
	Ripple	XRP	0.23500	$10.09B	$553.84M	1.85%	0.00001519	+15.71%	+6.01%
	Dash	DASH	660.52	$5.36B	$242.77M	0.81%	0.0403684	-0.34%	-11.54%
	Litecoin	LTC	97.110	$5.31B	$644.07M	2.16%	0.00571542	-0.85%	+13.95%
	Bitcoin Gold	BTG	238.73	$4.52B	$146.44M	0.49%	0.0157946	+11.30%	-7.79%
	Monero	XMR	251.29	$4.32B	$281.56M	0.94%	0.0163026	-3.27%	+59.69%
	Cardano	ADA	0.112903	$2.98B	$64.74M	0.22%	0.0000067	+1.62%	-1.36%

Stocks closed higher. The S&P 500 snapped a 4-day losing streak. Tech stocks made something of a comeback after taking a battering earlier this week. From Friday through Tuesday, the Nasdaq fell 1.6%, with analysts largely blaming the drop on profit-taking after a big rally and on concerns about how the U.S. tax overhaul will impact the tech sector. Whatever rotation away from tech happened in the past few days, it was minor.

Hamas urged Palestinians to abandon peace efforts and launch a new uprising against Israel in response to Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Palestinian factions called for a “Day of Rage” on Friday, and today a wave of protest in the West Bank and Gaza brought clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops.

Sen. Al Franken said he will resign in the coming weeks, in a speech on the Senate floor that put him face to face with dozens of Democratic colleagues who called for him to step down over mounting allegations of sexual misconduct.

General Electric plans to cut 12,000 jobs in its power division as the new CEO institutes sweeping changes and the company grapples with a decline in business for coal and natural gas products. The company will cut nearly one in five positions in its GE Power unit. Overall, the layoffs equal about 4% of the company’s workforce of about 295,000 employees at the end of 2016.

New CEO John Flannery is aiming to make GE more efficient. He has already earned a reputation for taking a microscope to GE’s global business to identify opportunities for savings and changes. GE said the cuts would contribute to its plans to slash $3.5 billion in “structural costs” in 2017 and 2018. That includes a $1 billion cost-cutting plan in 2018 by the GE Power division, which makes gas and steam turbines, electrical transmission products, nuclear plant infrastructure and other items.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 236,000 for the week ended Dec. 2. Last week marked the 144th straight week that claims remained below the 300,000 threshold, which is associated with a strong labor market. That is the longest such stretch since 1970, when the labor market was smaller.

This only tells part of the story about the strength of the economy. Yes, the unemployment rate is at 4.1%, a level considered near full employment. But many workers who leave or lose a job are not eligible for unemployment benefits. That is why the claims number has been so low for so long.

The bitcoin boom continued today, zipping past $17,000. Since its low of $11,450 on Tuesday to its peak Thursday, Bitcoin has rallied 45% in a roughly 48-hour span. Bitcoin soared above $19,500 a coin on Coinbase’s GDAX exchange at about 11:30 a.m. ET, three hours after it blew past $16,000.

The massive tear upward seems to have put pressure on Coinbase’s infrastructure — the exchange said on Twitter that users were experiencing issues logging into their accounts because of record traffic. Other exchanges had other prices. Pick one and wish.

If you placed a wager on bitcoin, congratulations. Don’t forget to cash in. If you didn’t put money in bitcoin and you are starting to feel tempted, just remember that you probably didn’t win the lottery this week either. So, what?

The only thing hotter than bitcoin is inflation in Venezuela, now running at 1,369 percent between January and November. The Venezuelan central bank reported inflation of 180 percent and 240 percent in 2015 and 2016, which had been the highest on record. It has since then stopped providing figures.

S&P Global analysts said a partial government shutdown would cost the economy about $6.5 billion per week, or about 0.2 percent of gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter of 2017, as the impact of furloughing federal employees ripples across the country.

Lawmakers have until the end of Friday to reach an agreement to avert the shutdown. The House is slated to vote Thursday on a short-term extension to keep the government going a couple of more weeks while lawmakers try to work out the problems.

If a shutdown were to take place so far into the quarter, fourth-quarter GDP would not have time to bounce back, which could shake investors and consumers and, as a result, possibly snuff out any economic momentum. The bad news, is that even in a partial shutdown, Congress would continue to get paid for taking a holiday recess.

A faction of conservative Republicans is raising warnings about federal spending, two weeks after backing tax-cut legislation that would raise federal deficits by $1 trillion over the next decade. They say that compromises struck with moderate Senate Republicans, as well as negotiations to keep Democrats from filibustering spending bills, will contain measures that increase government spending.

As Congress turns attention to funding the government after months devoted to passing the tax cut package, some of the lawmakers who dismissed Congress’s own analysis that the tax cuts would add deficits are raising alarms about spending.

That may threaten some of the deals Senate Republican leaders cut to secure votes for the tax plan, including heading off cuts to Medicaid and legislation to stabilize Obamacare insurance markets. Killing your parents and then complaining about being an orphan.

Wildfires in Los Angeles have burned more than 120,000 acres, and it will get worse. Schools are closed, roadways are shut and nearly 200,000 people have been told to evacuate their homes. Winds were strengthening on Thursday, with warnings that gusts of 80 miles per hour. The high winds will continue at least through tomorrow.

Brush fires broke out this morning in Malibu, Oxnard and Huntington Beach; that in addition to the fires burning, basically out of control in Sylmar, Santa Clarita, Bel-Air and Ventura.

The Federal Reserve reports net worth of households and nonprofits hit a record of $96.9 trillion after a $1.74 trillion increase, or 1.8%, gain in the third quarter. Total debt grew at the fastest rate in nearly two years, 6.2% annualized, after the federal government was allowed to borrow again following the end of a debt-limit impasse. The stock market rally continued in the third quarter, and that $1.1 trillion gain was the big driver of the gain in net worth. Rising house prices added another $400 billion.

On the borrowing front, the story continued to be the rise in corporate debt, rising 6.4% annualized, as well as the continued auto- and student-loan driven rise in consumer credit, which rose 4.9% annualized. Cash on corporate balance sheets rose to $2.36 trillion from $2.29 trillion. So, tax cuts.

Goggle and Amazon are fighting. Google on Tuesday said it would pull its YouTube apps from Amazon’s Fire TV and Alexa-powered Echo Show starting next month. Why? Google pointed a finger at Amazon, which hasn’t been selling some products from Google and Nest, which is also owned by Google’s parent company.

Amazon also doesn’t allow Google products to have access to its Prime Video streaming service. These kinds of conflicts can be confusing for consumers who probably just want to watch the things they like on the devices they’ve bought. It’s childish that companies as big as Amazon and Google can’t work out a deal that makes sense for both, thereby helping the industry to grow and, instead, let consumers and content owners suffer.

Meanwhile, another long-standing streaming media tiff is getting (somewhat) resolved. As of Wednesday, Apple TV owners are finally able to add Amazon’s Prime Video to their devices — about six months after Apple chief executive Tim Cook promised the service was on its way. The two companies reportedly had trouble negotiating while wearing the hats of both partners and competitors.

With the holiday shopping season approaching and bankruptcy proceedings underway in federal court, Toys R Us just received court approval to pay 17 executives about $14 million in incentive bonuses, as long as the company hits its target of $550 million in earnings. It must hit a minimum of $484 million in adjusted earnings before any bonuses are awarded.

Attorneys for the company argued in court papers that the bonuses would help encourage executives to focus on driving up sales as the holidays approach. Because if they don’t get bonuses, they might not do a good job?

The national student loan debt is currently $1.4 trillion, an amount owed by more than 44 million borrowers. The average student loan borrower owes $27,857 in educational debt upon graduation.

The Student Loan Report polled 1,000 student loan borrowers currently in repayment to find out if they would rather receive a gift or an equally-valued student loan payment this holiday season, and 69% said they would like the money to go toward paying down the student loan debt.  Just trying to help you work through your shopping list.

Wildfires torching California, sexual-harassment scandals toppling powerful men and a splintered political landscape — and that’s only a trickle of the headlines. It’s the sludge of earthbound news that has Pantone, the design world’s arbiter of color, looking to the night sky and the future for its 2018 color of the year.

Ultra Violet 18-3383, it is — a dramatically provocative and thoughtful shade. Pantone says the hue, a blue-based purple, expresses “originality, ingenuity and visionary thinking that points us toward the future.” Apparently this is an annual event.

Financial Review

When It Rains It Pours

Sinclair Noe — September 19, 2017

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:15 — 7.6MB)

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DOW + 39 = 22,370
SPX + 2 = 2506
NAS + 6 = 6461
RUT – 0.68 = 1440
10 Y + .01 = 2.24%
OIL – .06 = 49.85
GOLD + 3.60 = 1311.70

Top Cryptocurrencies

	Name	Symbol	Price USD	Market Cap	Vol.	Total Vol. %	Price BTC	Chg. % 1D	Chg. % 7D
	Bitcoin	BTC	3,908.8	$64.92B	$1.56B	37.66%	1	+0.43%	-3.98%
	Ethereum	ETH	283.50	$26.71B	$643.03M	15.53%	0.0722237	+0.31%	-1.68%
	Bitcoin Cash	BCH	524.76	$8.60B	$800.36M	19.33%	0.132646	-0.75%	2.96%
	Ripple	XRP	0.18400	$7.03B	$53.73M	1.30%	0.000047	-0.33%	-11.57%
	Litecoin	LTC	53.050	$2.80B	$280.54M	6.78%	0.0135243	+0.32%	-16.96%
	Dash	DASH	322.71	$2.44B	$34.29M	0.83%	0.082652	-0.70%	1.18%
	NEM	XEM	0.23856	$2.14B	$5.07M	0.12%	0.00006087	+0.10%	-3.03%
	IOTA	MIOTA	0.56389	$1.56B	$12.86M	0.31%	0.00014337	+0.76%	-0.14%
	Monero	XMR	98.35	$1.47B	$48.69M	1.18%	0.0249811	+0.52%	-11.23%
	Ethereum Classic	ETC	11.5000	$1.09B	$68.20M	1.65%	0.00292037	-0.35%	-20.25%

The fun never stops. The Dow hit another record high close. The S&P 500 hit another record high close. The Nasdaq Composite hit a record high close. For the Dow Industrial average, this is the sixth record high. The S&P has a streak of three record highs.

The Fed will wrap up its two-day meeting tomorrow and release an announcement on monetary policy at 2:00 p.m. Eastern – 11:00 a.m. in Arizona. Although we don’t see any surprise rate increase this month, the betting at the Chicago Merc is for a 57% likelihood of a rate increase at the December meeting.

There’s no meeting in November, and after December, the next planned Fed get-together is March. And Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s term expires in February, so December seems like the time to increase rates a quarter point.

At the current meeting, traders are expecting talk of downsizing the Fed’s $4.5 trillion bond portfolio. The Fed has outlined its plan and will only be taking baby steps at first. At first, it will sell Treasuries and mortgage backed securities to reduce its holdings by only $10 billion per month and, as time and conditions warrant, it will work up to $50 billion per month. Wall Street typically likes economic stimulus and typically throws a tantrum when the punch bowl is taken away. We’ll see.

President Trump delivered his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. Trump escalated his standoff with North Korea over its nuclear challenge, threatening to “totally destroy” the country of 26 million people and mocking its leader, Kim Jong Un, as a “rocket man.”

A bipartisan group of 10 governors — including the Republican governors of Alaska and Nevada –  expressed opposition to a last-ditch Republican effort to repeal and replace most of Obamacare. The bill must pass by a Sept. 30 deadline under a process known as reconciliation, that makes it possible for Republicans to get around any filibuster attempt from Senate Democrats.

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell says he’ll only bring the legislation to the floor if it has the needed 50 votes to pass. So far, a vote has not been scheduled. Meanwhile, negotiations to stabilize the ACA market exchanges have broken down.

After Senate Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare in July, talks began on fixing the law rather than dismantling it. Trump has threatened to withhold billions in Obamacare subsidies, which would upend private insurance markets.

Top Republicans on a key Senate panel have reached a tentative agreement on a tax plan that would add about $1.5 trillion to the government’s $20 trillion debt over 10 years. The figure would allow deeper cuts to tax rates than would be allowed if Republicans followed through on earlier promises that their upcoming tax overhaul wouldn’t add to the deficit.

The divide between the Senate GOP’s deficit hawk and “supply side” wings must overcome before action on this fall’s tax measure can commence in earnest. Unlike the House, Senate Republicans aren’t planning to pair the tax measure with spending cuts. The work of the budget panel is critical since Republicans need to agree on a Capitol Hill budget plan to pass a follow-up tax bill.

Both House and Senate Republicans are divided and the budget debate is months behind schedule. Many Republicans in Washington promise that cutting corporate and individual rates and ridding the code of inefficient tax breaks, deductions, and preferences will boost the economy and cause a burst of new revenue.

But the outlines of their tax plan itself remain secret, and it’s not clear how successful they will be in cleaning up the loophole-choked tax code. Congress’ impartial scorekeepers have accepted the premise of such “dynamic scoring,” but past studies by the Joint Tax Committee and Congressional Budget Office have been cautious about how much economic growth and tax revenues would follow tax cuts.

If, as it appears, the tax plan would add to the deficit, the development also means, under the Senate rules governing fast-track debate on the budget and taxes, some of the provisions in the upcoming tax measure would have to be temporary.

The House Financial Services Committee has published a report entitled: “Did the CFPB let Wells Fargo ‘beat the rap’?” The report claims the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could have fined Wells Fargo $10 billion instead of $100 million last year for the unauthorized customer accounts fraud. The regulator settled for so much less to resolve the matter quickly.

The Equifax hack just keeps getting worse. A security failure exposed the personal information of 143 million Americans. Equifax now says about 100,000 Canadian consumers may have had their personal information compromised.

The SEC is investigating the sale of company stock by 3 executives, days after the breach and before it was publicly announced. There are multiple lawsuits in the pipeline. Now, Equifax says it had a security breach earlier this year that involved a different part of the company than the one accessed in the larger hack.

That breach involved TALX, which is Equifax’s human resources and payroll service. The company said there’s no evidence that the TALX breach, which happened between March and April this year, and the wider breach are related.

Hurricane Maria is expected to hit Puerto Rico tomorrow morning with Category 5 winds of up to 160 miles per hour. There is also concern about flooding from heavy rains and storm surge. Puerto Rico is still suffering from Hurricane Irma, which grazed the island, knocking out power and communications. If Maria retains its strength, it would be the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico in 85 years.

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked central Mexico today, centered just south of Mexico City, killing at least 44 people as buildings collapsed in plumes of dust and thousands fled into the streets in panic. The quake came less than two weeks after another quake left 90 dead in the country’s south, and it occurred as Mexicans commemorated the anniversary of a 1985 quake that killed thousands.

Construction on new houses slipped 0.8% in August to an annual rate of 1.18 million from an upwardly revised 1.19 million in July. Although housing starts fell 7.9% in the South, Hurricane Harvey had very little impact. The storm only made landfall at the end of the month. And Hurricane Irma did not batter Florida until September.

Permits to build new homes jumped 5.7% to a 1.3 million rate, matching the level in January and marking the second highest amount since 2007.

Post Holdings will buy refrigerated foods producer Bob Evans Farms in a deal with an equity value of about $1.5 billion. Under terms of the deal, Post, a consumer goods holding company, will pay $77 for each Bob Evans share outstanding, which is 5.6% above Monday’s closing price.

Shares of Sprint gained more than 6% after a CNBC report reignited speculation that the mobile company is in talks to merge with T-Mobile.  Shares of T-Mobile were up more than 3%, and shares of other mobile carriers also saw a bump.

The Federal Trade Commission signed off on a deal for Walgreens Boots Alliance to buy 2,186 Rite Aid stores for $5.19 billion. That amounts to a much smaller deal than the companies originally sought when Walgreens pushed to buy Rite Aid. The companies abandoned that deal following opposition from regulators.

As expected, Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The court allowed Toys R Us to borrow up to $2 billion to start paying suppliers so it can stock up on toys for the holiday season. As part of its restructuring, the company plans to spend around $1 billion over the next 5 years to transform its big box stores by adding event space, increasing staff and wages for in-store product demonstrations and combining its flagship stores with Babies ‘R’ Us stores.

FedEx reported a lower quarterly net profit due to service disruptions following June’s Petya cyber-attack on its Dutch delivery unit TNT Express and the impact of Hurricane Harvey. FedEx shares trade lower in after-hours.

Bed Bath & Beyond reported earnings far below expectations, citing restructuring- and hurricane-related issues. Share closed down almost 12%.

Financial Review

The Streak

Sinclair Noe — September 18, 2017

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:15 — 7.6MB)

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DOW + 63 = 22,331 (record)
SPX + 3 = 2503 (record)
NAS + 6 = 6454
RUT + 9 = 1441
10 Y + .03 = 2.23%
OIL + .05 = 49.94
GOLD – 12.10 = 1308.10

Top Cryptocurrencies

	Name	Symbol	Price USD	Market Cap	Vol.	Total Vol. %	Price BTC	Chg. % 1D	Chg. % 7D
	Bitcoin	BTC	3,996.0	$66.00B	$1.91B	38.60%	1	-2.16%	-6.17%
	Ethereum	ETH	289.40	$27.17B	$959.96M	19.36%	0.0719694	-2.49%	-4.60%
	Bitcoin Cash	BCH	480.38	$7.86B	$474.39M	9.57%	0.118807	-1.49%	-13.34%
	Ripple	XRP	0.18800	$7.13B	$84.20M	1.70%	0.0000466	-2.68%	-14.53%
	Litecoin	LTC	54.660	$2.87B	$411.13M	8.29%	0.0135419	-2.96%	-20.48%
	Dash	DASH	326.15	$2.45B	$47.40M	0.96%	0.0810799	-2.85%	0.25%
	NEM	XEM	0.23864	$2.18B	$6.46M	0.13%	0.00006056	-4.42%	-5.82%
	IOTA	MIOTA	0.58250	$1.60B	$24.99M	0.50%	0.00014478	-4.11%	-3.93%
	Monero	XMR	98.50	$1.48B	$60.96M	1.23%	0.0245064	-3.15%	-13.95%
	Ethereum Classic	ETC	11.8487	$1.12B	$123.42M	2.49%	0.00292943	-2.72%	-22.35%

The Dow and the S&P 500 hit record highs. The Dow has posted gains for 7 consecutive sessions and 5 consecutive record high closes. The was the 40^th record high for the Dow this year.

The S&P 500 topped 2500 Friday and held that milestone level today. At the start of the year, bullish analysts were anticipating S&P 2500 by the end of the year, so take the next 3 months off, go home and relax.

Assuming nothing explodes, the big economic event this week will be the Fed FOMC meeting. The Fed is expected to begin Quantitative Tightening by beginning to sell off some of its $4.5 trillion dollar in Treasuries and mortgage backed securities.

On Wednesday, the Fed will wrap up its 2-day meeting on monetary policy and likely announce that it will start selling in October – just a little bit, at first. You’ll hardly notice – they say – or at least they hope you won’t notice. Fed policymakers hope the sell-off will be like watching paint dry.

The central bank is trying to avoid a repeat “taper tantrum,” the swift run up of nearly 1 percentage point on the yield of the 10-year Treasury in 2013 after then-Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed the tapering of bond purchases for the first time. And so, the Yellen-led Fed has been extremely transparent about its plans to start selling some of those bonds.

It seems inevitable that such a big seller will push down prices, which would, in turn, push yields higher. And yet, that has not been the bond market response. The Fed announced plans for a sell-off in July, and since then, yields on the 10-year Treasury note have sunk from 2.28% to a low of 2.04% before bouncing back up to 2.23% today. The 2-year note remained flat during that same time.

The plan that has been laid out calls for the balance sheet to initially shrink by only $10 billion per month. The pace of the run-down would then increase by $10 billion every quarter, up to a maximum of $50 billion per month. And the Fed is expected to keep a very sizeable balance sheet.

And other central banks around the world are still buying, so there are plenty of buyers to soak up the excess. There’s momentum in the market. There’s lots of cash. Even though the Fed’s about to reduce their balance sheet, you continue to have aggressive global monetary policy.

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman said it would buy the missile and rocket maker Orbital for about $7.8 billion in cash, with plans to establish a new, fourth business sector. Orbital has billion-dollar contracts with NASA as well as the US Army.

The deal, expected to close in the first half of 2018, comes as the firing of missiles by North Korea in recent months has focused attention on missile-defense systems. Northrop’s offer price of $134.50 an Orbital share represents a premium of 22% over the stock’s Friday close.

Hurricane Maria is rapidly intensifying in the Caribbean and is likely to hit some of the same areas recently devastated by Hurricane Irma. Puerto Rico appears to be directly in Maria’s path, with the Virgin Islands also projected to be near the storm’s eye.

Maria is now a Category 4 as it moves closer to the islands over the next 48 hours. It is still too early to predict if Maria will hit the US mainland. Meanwhile, Hurricane Jose is traveling up the East Coast of the US and could affect an area from North Carolina to New England. The National Hurricane Center has issued a tropical storm warning for parts of New England.

The National Association of Home Builders’ index for September showed that builder confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes dropped during the month on worries that the recent hurricanes will make it difficult to find workers and materials. The NAHB/Wells Fargo housing-market index fell 3 points to 64, and August’s reading was cut by a point to 67.

Obamacare repeal is on the brink of coming back from the dead. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his leadership team are considering voting on a bill that gets rid of the individual and employer mandates and the 2.3% tax on medical devices, and block-grants money to states, leaving reform up to governors.

It would be a last-ditch attempt to repeal Obamacare before the GOP’s power to pass health care legislation through a party-line vote in the Senate expires on Sept. 30. No final decision has been made, but the GOP leader has told his caucus that if the bill written by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy has the support of at least 50 of the 52 GOP senators, he will bring it to the floor – and once again the fate of repeal may rest with Arizona Senator John McCain.

Democrats are demanding a Congressional Budget Office score on the latest Obamacare repeal plan. The CBO, a non-partisan fiscal analysis unit of Congress, said it will make a preliminary assessment of the bill’s impact next week. But it said it won’t be able to estimate the impact on the deficit or changes in insurance coverage or premiums for several weeks.

The Justice Department is investigating whether Equifax executives violated insider-trading laws when they sold Equifax shares before the company disclosed the hack. The three senior executives dumped almost $2 million worth of stock days after the company learned of the breach.

The company’s first order of business ought to have been to create a simple way for people to figure out if their data was potentially compromised. On this count, Equifax failed and continues to fail.

If you have tried to go on the Equifax site to see if your data has been compromised, you have probably been bounced from here to kingdom come and arrived at the idea that Equifax has no idea who or what has been compromised. By the way, the FTC has issued a scam alert – if someone calls you on the phone and says they are from Equifax, they are not, it is a scam, hang up.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ordered National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts and their debt collector, Transworld Systems to pay at least $21.6 million in penalties and restitution for illegally filing debt collection lawsuits.

According to the agency, the companies allegedly sued borrowers without being able to prove the debt was owed or pursued collection on loans that were too old to sue over, and relied on false and misleading legal documents. A federal judge must still sign off on the judgments against the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, a collection of 15 trusts that own more than 800,000 private student loans.

Toys R Us, the largest toy retailer in the country is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today. The timing is unusual, just before the start of the holiday shopping season. Toys R Us vendors fell on the news: Mattel dropped 6.2%, Hasbro down 1.7%. While this bankruptcy might be considered just another brick and mortar firm falling to online sales, the reality has more to do with private equity firms, KKR and Bain, loading up a successful firm with debt.

Last week, Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon recently rejected Bitcoin as a ‘fraud,” likely causing additional sell offs after the news of the Chinese exchange ban was released. Dimon commented that Bitcoin was in a bubble not unlike the famous Tulip bubble during the 17th century. However, in a somewhat surprising move, JP Morgan purchased a large block of Bitcoins just after the CEO’s harsh criticisms.