Deutsche Bank To Be Probed By Federal Reserve
Deutsche Bank (NYSE:DB), which can never seem to catch a break this days, is now being probed by the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, for suspicious activity stemming from an Estonian outpost of Danish bank Danske Bank (OTCMKTS:DNKEY), Danish for “Danish Bank”. Danske bank has admitted to the Fed that about $230 billion in money flowing through it through Deutsche Bank may have been “dirty”, which could mean anything, but probably means money laundering or tax evasion. Estonia has the reputation for being a hub for money laundering from countries of the Former Soviet Union, which is an improvement from having a reputation for being part of the Soviet Union, or the ESSR, as Estonia was called until 1991. In its defense, Deutsche said that its ability to know about other clients as a correspondent bank is limited. So case closed. Deutsche is down 94% from its all time highs hit in April 2007. It’s been all downhill from there.
Trump to Government Workers: You’re Furloughed!
The partial government shutdown got an inch closer to being resolved yesterday as the Senate is reportedly “moving closer” to a deal on border wall funding in exchange for concessions to Democratic leaders. Specifically, the deal the Senate will be voting on won’t contain any funding for a border wall, so it’s actually completely baffling how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConell thinks that this thing will pass at all. So really, we’re back to square one. The theory, technically speaking, is that the act of voting on something that President Trump has no chance of signing will get the Senate in the “voting mood” or something like that, dim the lights, and they’ll remember how amazing it feels to vote on something. From there they may end up voting on something that will get the government fully funded again, for a few days maybe.
SEE: Cannabis Stock News Daily Roundup January 22
In Reuters diplomatic language, “…the Senate action (of voting) could set the stage for the type of bipartisan negotiating that will be necessary to end a shutdown that began on Dec. 22.” Reuters went on to pull at the heartstrings by saying that “Affected federal workers are struggling to make ends meet.” Oh the humanity. One wonders what will happen when nobody will lend the United States any more money. Meanwhile, cash lender stocks like EZCORP are doing well since the shutdown on the business of these poor souls. (NASDAQ:EZPW).But they’ll only do well if the shutdown eventually ends.
Green Growth Gets Hostile In Takeover Attempt of Aphria
Battle of the weed growers. Green Growth (OTCMKTS:GGBXF) wants Aphria (NYSE:APHA), and is valuing the company at $2.77B Canadian. The current valuation on the Toronto Stock Exchange is $2.36B Canadian. Green Growth already owns 3 million shares of Aphria, or about 1.2% of the company. Aphria has not received a formal offer and thinks that Green Growth is undervaluing the company, so Green Growth will go on a buying spree and see how much its shareholders actually value the company, hence the hostile nature of the bid. Because marijuana is still technically illegal on the federal level, Green Growth, a US company, would be violating federal law if it Acquired Aphria, so Aphria shareholders would have to move to over the counter and off the NYSE.
J.C. Penney To Follow Sears?
J.C. Penney (NYSE:JCP) is circling the drain, down to its last $400 million in market cap. The dying retailer had a disappointing holiday shopping season and struggles to fill executive vacancy spots because nobody wants to or is qualified to work for it. Rumors out of the Wall Street Journal suggest that bankruptcy is imminent, though uppity snippets from the J.C. Penney executive staff suggest otherwise, using words like “strength” and “depth”, though the only strength the stock has shown is its propensity to fall into the depths. Sort of like that psalm, where the psalter is calling out from them. The retailer is leveraged 11:1, so we’d say that yeah, bankruptcy is imminent.