CES 5G panel discussionCEO's from Qualcomm, Verizon, and Baidu sat down on a panel during the CES to discuss the opportunities of 5G:
- Transformation in mobile is in between "G's" right now, converting from 4G to 5G
- Users demand for more data/unlimited data with higher speeds for phones
- Focused on the topic of autonomous driving vehicles and being able to connect these vehicles using 5G, which in return connects mobile/consumer more to vehicle.
- 5G will take mobile to other industries, connecting vehicles, small business, banks, etc.
- Won't need as much memory in phones using 5G, which could reduce the recent price hike in smart phones and other devices.
- Noted that phones and devices will not need as large of chips for speed (reduction in the size of chip memory)
China Quietly Orders Closing of Bitcoin Mining Operations
Move tightens a clampdown that already has shut exchanges for trading of cryptocurrencies in China
BEIJING—Bitcoin can’t catch a break in China.
Chinese authorities ordered the closing of operations that create a large share of the world’s supply of bitcoin, tightening a clampdown that has already shuttered exchanges for the trading of cryptocurrencies in China.
A multiagency government task force overseeing risks in Internet finance issued a notice last week ordering local authorities to “guide” the shutdown of operations that produce, or “mine,” cryptocurrencies, according to the notice and people familiar with the information.
While the notice called for an “orderly exit” without setting a deadline, far-flung areas of China where cryptocurrency mining operations have flourished are complying. A local regulatory official in the far western region Xinjiang said Wednesday that his agency received the notice and is doing “what the country wants.”
The central bank, the lead agency in the task force on Internet financial risk that issued the notice, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Miners use powerful computer systems to solve complex math problems to generate and verify units of cryptocurrencies. The miners have thrived in sparsely populated areas of China where electricity is plentiful and inexpensive and temperatures are cooler.
Their winding down is the latest blow for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in what was a promising market but where the government is concerned about money laundering and risks in the financial system. China accounted for nearly 80% of computer power devoted to global bitcoin mining over the past 30 days, a rough approximation of its share of new units created in the same period, according to calculations based on data from ChainalysisInc., a New York-based research firm.
A loss of a large-scale mining operation would disrupt the creation and verification of cryptocurrency units, according to Philip Gradwell, chief economist at Chainalysis. He said it usually takes about 14 days for the bitcoin system to adjust so the rate of creating new coins stabilizes. If China were to wipe out 80% of global mining power in one go, recovery could take weeks, possibly months, he said.
“If China really does switch off all the minters suddenly, there could be a very high level of disruption,” Mr. Gradwell said. “It’s very hard to estimate back-of-the-envelope how big an impact would be.”
Such an across-the-board shutdown is unlikely, Mr. Gradwell and other analysts say, given that the Chinese government has been tightening the regulatory noose for months, prompting many operators to move their equipment elsewhere.
“I don’t think miners have been sitting on their hands,” said Arthur Hayes, who runs a peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies exchange called BitMEX. “Some people have already moved their hardware out of China.”
The founder of Chinese mining pool F2Pool, which accounts for 9% of the bitcoin mined over the past month, said his operations in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang received “directives” from local authorities, though he declined to provide details.
“We are already very small,” said the founder, who is known in the Chinese bitcoin community by the nickname “Shen Yu,” or “mythical fish.”
After the government banned offerings of new cryptocurrencies and commercial exchanges in September, official scrutiny fell on the miners.
The government notice to shut down miners began circulating on social media last week and may have added to the factors that have seen prices of bitcoin drop to $14,200 from a high in December of $19,000 per unit after soaring for much of the year. Just before China’s clampdown in September, bitcoin traded for $4,600.
A potential shutting of China’s vast bitcoin mining network could also shake up the dynamics between global mining pools, or firms that share processing power, some analysts said. In recent years, a handful of these powerful Chinese pools resisted expanding the bitcoin network to process more transactions, according to cryptocurrency entrepreneurs.
If authorities in China have cooled to cryptocurrencies, demand has remained hot elsewhere, especially in South Korea, making that country the center of attention for the industry. South Korean regulators have announced tougher measures to crack down on cryptocurrency trading, following the collapse of one Seoul-based platform that investigators are looking into for possible involvement by North Korean hackers.
Shares in Monte dei Paschi di Siena rose more than 5 per cent after the boutique fund Quaestio bought a chunk of bad loans from the bank for around €800m.
Milan-based Quaestio said it had bought around 95 per cent of a tranche of €25bn non-performing loans from Monte Paschi. The Tuscan bank is 68 per cent owned by the Italian Treasury, after a government-backed rescue last year.
The deal by Quaestio’s Italian Recovery Fund underlines the slow opening up of a market in Italy’s bad loans, a breakthrough long looked for my European and Italian regulators to ease the Eurozone’s third largest economy of a significant weight on lending.
The Italian banking system accounts for around a quarter of the eurozone’s stockpile of NPLs — by the far the largest in the bloc – built up during Italy’s triple dip recession and as a result of poor lending and supervisory decisions. The bad loans have weighed on banks’ profitability and the wider economy, stifling lending to new businesses.
New dynamism in the Italian economy has started to reduce the stock pile, although the creation of market for NPLs is seen as crucial to their reduction in the short term. The latest data from the Bank of Italy showed the stock of gross non-performing loans fell 5.5 per cent in November to €173bn compared with the preceding month, and were down 6.4 per cent compared with the same month last year.
Intel, Tsinghua Unigroup may team up to develop China NAND flash market
Intel is expected to enhance its presence in China's NAND flash market, with plans to ramp up the capacity of its 12-inch fab in Dalian and possibly to license its technology to Tsinghua Unigroup for production of 3D NAND flash chips after winding up its cooperative partnership with Micron in the field in one year, according to industry sources.
The sources said Intel and Micron have announced intentions to go their separate ways after introducing their third-generation of 96-layer 3D NAND flash by the end of 2018 or early 2019 at the IM Flash Technologies (IMFT), their 12-year-old joint venture, with the exception for a special type of flash memory called 3D Xpoint.
In fact, the upcoming split is not without precedent. In 2012, Intel sold its share of some IMFT fabs to Micron, leaving just the original Lehi, Utah facilities as co-owned. And three years later, Intel converted its 12-inch wafer plant in Dalian, northeastern China to production of 3D NAND flash from processor chips, aiming to cash in on the increasing demand in the China market.
Some industry watchers speculated that Intel's eagerness to discontinue partnership with Micron is to pave the way for cooperating with Tsinghua Unigroup to develop the China market, and that may not rule out licensing 3D NAND manufacturing technology to the China semiconductor group.
They said that the likely tie-up between the two firms may alter the scenarios of the global NAND flash sector and become the most undesirable development for Samsung Electronics and Toshiba, also leading 3D NAND players, reasoning that the market might soon fall into a state of oversupply following an expected strong presence of China players.
But some observers said Intel itself will not worry about a possible imbalance between supply and demand in the 3D NAND market, because the company focuses primarily on the enterprise SSD, rather than consumer SSD, market as the major outlet for its NAND flash memory chips. Should Intel successfully team up with Tsinghua Unigroup, the company could not only show its muscles to Samsung, Toshiba and other major players in the 3D NAND field, but could also leverage the collaboration to secure a better position in developing the China market, they indicated.
Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
- TSRI +37.6%, VOXX +31.5%, TNDM +18.9%, NBEV +13.5%, NSPR +10.7%, VNCE +10.5%, SHLD +5.4%, WDFC +4.4%, ALKS +0.5%
M&A news:
- BORN +9.4% (announces receipt of preliminary non-binding going private proposal for $1.67/share in cash)
Other news:
- KODK +75% (continued strength)
- AMRH +65.2% (to expand offering with blockchain solutions)
- SEII +27.5% (enters into exclusive agreement with Quik Ventures limited regarding potential acquisition to implement blockchain and IoT enabled workspace rental platforms)
- AFSI +20.7% ( Stone Point Capital Partners with CEO of AmTrust and Karfunkel Family to jointly propose acquiring all shares of AmTrust Financial not controlled by family for $12.25/sh in cash)
- HMNY +11.7% (continued strength following MoviePass update)
- TVTY +10.1% (Tivity Health and Humana extended existing partnership through December 31, 2022, under which Humana offers the SilverSneakers fitness program to Humana's Medicare Advantage individual and group members)
- ORIG +8.8% (attributed to report company is working with bankers regarding strategic options)
- AVDL +8.4% (announces that FT 218 has been granted Orphan Drug Designation from the FDA)
- FRSX +7.8% (increases stake in Rail Vision)
- NMRK +5.5% (following Chairman Howard W. Lutnick comments on CNBC FastMoney)
- UAL +2.2% (reports December 2017 traffic)
- MDT +0.9% (FDA approval of a new clinician programmer for use with the SynchroMed II Intrathecal Drug Delivery system for chronic pain and severe spasticity)
- PLAY +0.8% (Director disclosed purchase of 10000 shares)
Analyst comments:
- CLDR +5% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Citigroup)
- DFRG +2.6% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Stephens)
- WDAY +2.2% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley)
- AAWW +2.1% (upgraded to Outperform at Cowen)
- DLR +1.6% (upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank)
- NYCB +1.4% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill)
- CNK +0.9% (upgraded to Outperform from Sector Perform at RBC Capital Mkts)
- WFC +0.8% (upgraded to Neutral at Atlantic Equities)
Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
- SVU -7.3%, SIG -6.1%, JWN -4.4%, SNX -3.9%, SLP -3.4%, MSM -2.8%, GOL -2.5%, LEN -1.3%, EXFO -1.1%
Other news:
- APHB -33.3% (Ampliphi Biosciences to offer shares of common stock in a public offering)
- DPZ -3.8% (Pres/CEO J. Patrick Doyle to leave in June; Board names Richard Allison as CEO and Russell Weiner as COO)
- HL -1.5% (Q4 Production)
- GPRO -1% (continued weakness)
- TSM -1% (reports Dec revs)
- INTC -0.8% (Senators urge SEC, DOJ to investigate Intel CEO's stock sales despite chip vulnerabilities knowledge)
Analyst comments:
- IMAX -2.9% (downgraded to Neutral from Overweight at Piper Jaffray)
- AMC -2.9% (downgraded to Sector Perform from Outperform at RBC Capital Mkts)
- TLND -2% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Citigroup)
- HSY -1.5% (downgraded to Underweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley)
- MPW -1.1% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank)
- CIO -1% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank)
- AAOI -1% (Applied Optoelectronics initiated with Neutral at B Riley FBR, Inc)
- ALK -0.6% (downgraded to Equal Weight from Overweight at Barclays)
Early premarket gappers
Gapping up:
- KODK +74.3%, TSRI +37.6%, VOXX +20.7%, AFSI +17.8%, TNDM +16.1%, HMNY +13.1%, TVTY +10.1%, NMRK +9.1%, ORIG +8.8%, FRSX +7.6%, SHLD +5.4%, SVU +4.9%, WDFC +4.4%, CLDR +3.3%, DLR +1.6%, UAL +1.2%, PLAY +0.7%, ALKS +0.5%, DVN +0.5%, ALKS +0.5%
Gapping down:
- APHB -30%, SIG -4.1%, LEN -4%, SNX -3.9%, SLP -3.4%, MSM -2.8%, DPZ -2.4%, HL -1.5%, HSY -1.5%, EXFO -1.1%, JWN -1.1%, AAOI -1%, GPRO -1%, TSM -1%, INTC -0.9%, DHI -0.6%
Sears Holdings comps at Sears and Kmart for the first two months of 4Q17 have declined in the range of 16-17%; raised $100 million in new financing and is pursuing an additional $200 million from other counterparties; amends second lien notes; announced new cost reduction (3.13)
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $(70) million and $(10) million for the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to $(61) million in 4Q16.
- In addition, co expects a net loss attributable to Sears Holdings' shareholders of between $320-200 million in 4Q17, compared to a net loss attributable to Sears Holdings' shareholders of $607 million in the prior year fourth quarter.
Sears Holdings has amended the borrowing base definition in the indenture relating to the Company's second lien notes, maturing October 15, 2018, to change the advance rate for inventory to 75%, increased from 65%.
- The amendment also defers the collateral coverage test for purposes of the repurchase offer covenant in such indenture and restarts it with the second quarter of 2018 (such that no collateral coverage event can occur until the end of the 3Q18).
- Sears Holdings has also initiated a series of financial transactions to raise an incremental $300 million in new liquidity. The Company has already received a $100 million term loan, supported by ground leases and select intellectual property.
- In addition, the Company is in discussions with certain lenders regarding additional transactions to enhance its liquidity and strengthen its balance sheet through a series of agreements that would improve the terms on potentially more than $1 billion of its non-first lien debt, including significantly reducing cash interest expense and extending the maturity of some of that debt.
The Company has identified $200 million of cost savings, unrelated to store closures.
- Sears Holdings will also benefit from cost reduction activities undertaken in the 2017 fiscal year, including additional store closures announced in January 2018.