You have plenty of time to listen.
I hope I don't $ing out of key.
"LendingClub’s quarterly loss widens; CFO dolan steps down" by Noah Buhayar Bloomberg News August 08, 2016
SEATTLE — LendingClub Corp.’s loss widened to $81.4 million in the second quarter as the online loan venture sought to contain damage from a surprise leadership shakeup in May. On Monday, it revealed the departure of its finance chief and bolstered its board.
Chief financial officer Carrie Dolan resigned “to pursue a new opportunity,” LendingClub said in a separate announcement, naming Bradley Coleman, its corporate controller since 2013, as an interim replacement. Fannie Mae chief executive officer Timothy Mayopoulos, whose resume includes stints at some of the world’s largest banks, will join the board.
“His well-established industry experience, track record, integrity, and deep financial and legal expertise will be invaluable to Lending Club,” chairman Hans Morris said in the statement.
Morris and newly promoted chief executive Scott Sanborn are trying to restore shareholder confidence. In May, LendingClub’s founder and then-CEO, Renaud Laplanche, resigned amid an internal probe into a botched loan sale that revealed weaknesses in controls. That shook investor demand for the consumer loans the company arranges online.
The revelations sent LendingClub’s shares tumbling, prompted government probes, and caused some loan buyers to reevaluate purchases. In June, the company was forced to limit withdrawals from a fund it runs, after clients asked to pull out $442 million — 58 percent — of the assets under management.
Never trust anyone says you can't have your money.
The stock dropped 33 percent after Laplanche’s exit through the close of trading on Monday.
At times, LendingClub has struggled to show its business is stabilizing. In June, the company abruptly adjourned an annual meeting and rescheduled it for a few weeks later, when it revealed additional improprieties. The company assured shareholders an internal review was mostly complete.
More recently, there are signs the company is turning the corner. A bond deal with Jefferies Group that had been put on hold was revived. And last week, people familiar with the matter said LendingClub has been holding talks with Western Asset Management Co., a division of Legg Mason Inc., to buy as much as $1.5 billion in loans over time....
Yeah, more debt with solve everything.
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Oh, I get high with a little help from my friends:
"Spend enough time traveling around the United States and you’re bound to notice a dramatic variation in what a dollar can buy. Fortunately, the federal government now measures these variations."
Yes, fortunately the federal government is on the case and looking out for you between the looting and the lying.
What are they eating over there anyway?
"A Michigan man was charged Monday with felony drug trafficking after 24 people became sick at an Ohio rap music festival when they ate candy laced with the marijuana ingredient THC. THC is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Authorities said all those who got sick are expected to recover. No fatalities were reported...."
Ooooh, ooooh, oooooh....
"Bain, other Boston VCs, gain in $3.3b Jet.com sale to Wal-Mart" by Beth Healy Globe Staff August 08, 2016
Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s $3.3 billion acquisition of the e-commerce startup Jet.com will deliver quick profits to a group of investment firms, including the Boston area’s Bain Capital Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Fidelity Investments.
The deal, announced Monday, is aimed at giving retail giant Wal-Mart a way to compete with Amazon.com for online sales. Jet.com charges consumers an annual fee and says it provides access to low prices in return.
See: Now I Know My ABCs
The Hoboken, N.J.-based company had raised nearly $600 million in venture funding in less than two years. It rose in value at lightning speed, as investors lined up behind a company that was looking to take on Amazon. By some estimates, the company was valued at more than $1 billion last fall.
Bain Capital Ventures was an early backer of Jet.com and has a seat on the board. Fidelity, which has invested in a number of high-profile venture-backed companies on behalf of its investment customers, led a later funding round.
At General Catalyst, the Cambridge-based venture firm where Governor Charlie Baker worked before he was elected, veteran Joel Cutler ran the Jet.com investment.
Jet.com was founded by Marc Lore, who previously started Diapers.com. The parent company, Quidsi, was sold to Amazon for $545 million in 2011.
Other investors include Accel Partners of Silicon Valey, New Enterprise Associates of Chevy Chase, Md., and Alibaba Capital Partners, an arm of the Chinese retailer."
Nice to know there is plenty of money out there, huh?
What gets me is where we are headed.
No more cash, no more stores, no need for gas, everything ordered on line and delivered.
It's almost as if they have no need for us at all.
Who would spend the gift cards?
"Boston officer quits, pleads guilty to gift card scheme" by Felicia Gans Globe Correspondent August 08, 2016
A Boston police officer resigned from the department Monday after pleading guilty to the use of illegally obtained gift cards, according to the US Attorney’s office.
Eddie Odney, 38, was placed on paid administrative leave in February after federal investigators launched an anti-corruption probe. He is a nine-year veteran of the force.
According to the office of US Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Odney knowingly purchased about $5,000 worth of gift cards through a shoplifting ring that had illegally obtained the cards.
The ring would allegedly steal expensive merchandise from stores, return the items to the stores in exchange for gift cards, and sell the gift cards for half their dollar value, according to court documents filed in June.
The gift cards were from several different stores, including T.J. Maxx, Macy’s, and HomeGoods....
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"Fannie, Freddie could need $126 billion in crisis, test shows" by Joe Light Bloomberg News August 09, 2016
NEW YORK — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could need as much as $125.8 billion in bailout money from taxpayers in a severe economic downturn, according to stress test results released Monday by their regulator.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency said that the government-controlled companies, which back nearly half of new mortgages, would need at least $49.2 billion.
The annual test, required by the Dodd-Frank Act, is likely to be used both by proponents of allowing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build capital and by those who think there’s not an urgent need for the government to take that move.
Under the terms of the companies’ bailout agreements, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must send nearly all of their profits to the US Treasury and wind down their capital buffers until they reach zero dollars in 2018. After that point, any loss at either company would require a draw from taxpayers.
Monday’s stress test results showed that the funds that the US Treasury Department is authorized to use in a bailout are more than enough to cover the billions that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would likely lose in a crisis. The companies would have between $132.2 billion and $208.9 billion in available bailout money from the Treasury after the period of financial duress passed, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The stress tests assumed an extreme adverse scenario, designed by the Federal Reserve, in which real US gross domestic product dove 6.25 percent by the first quarter of next year, unemployment doubled to 10 percent by the third quarter of 2017, and inflation rose to 1.9 percent.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from lenders, wrap them into securities, and make guarantees to investors in case borrowers default. The companies have been in a conservatorship helmed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency since 2008 and received $187.5 billion in bailout money from the US Treasury.
Last week, Fannie Mae reported a profit of $2.9 billion for the second quarter, while Freddie Mac reported a profit of $993 million. Freddie Mac has reported a loss in two of the past four quarters.
Federal Housing Finance Agency director Melvin Watt in a February speech warned that the companies’ falling capital buffers could one day cause investors to doubt their guarantees of mortgage-backed securities. Such uncertainty would cause mortgage rates to go up."
The article isn't saying it, but Fannie and Freddie are nothing more than final receptacle for all the bad MBS and CDO sh** so that taxpayers will ultimately be burdened with the cost.
It's also a useful entity for the political cla$$ to run its friends through. Rahm Emanuel worked there and Barney Frank got some of his lovers jobs. That's why dissolving it was scrubbed.
As for its profits, that has to be all paper valuations and nothing more if the numbers would drop so far south were a severe downturn to occur.
Also see: Barclays to pay $100m to 43 states for improper rates
They made 10x that from the fraud before kicking back some chump change for you in the long run.
