>>> US Gapping up

Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:

  • RH +33.1%, EGAN +28.6%, GPRO +13.5%, (Guidance), VRNT +5.8%, MTRX +2.8%, CONN +0.8%

M&A news:

  • TELL +7.8% (enters into agreement to acquire core Haynesville acreage, production and midstream assets)

Other news:

  • CLIR +18.9% (announced unanimous approval for funding by the Board of the SCAQMD during their September 1, 2017 meeting to demonstrate ClearSign's Duplex products within the Torrance Refinery)
  • CAB +14.7% (Fed approves the purchase of Cabela's Bank)
  • AMSC +7.7% (was awarded U.S. Navy contract for insertion of ship protection system on USS Fort Lauderdale, LPD 28)
  • CUR +7% (receives two patents which broadly protect methods for using neural stem cells to treat neurodegenerative disorders, a key component of the Co's platform)
  • VVUS +6.7% (EMA granted Orphan Drug Designation to the Company's lead clinical candidate tacrolimus, for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension; co remains on track to hold a pre-IND meeting with the FDA by the end of 2017)
  • ZAIS +6.2% (confirms receipt of letter from Christian Zugel seeking to pursue discussions to take the Company private by acquiring the issued and outstanding shares of Class A Common Stock at $4.00/share in an all cash transaction)
  • ITCI +2.8% (announces 'positive' topline data from the first part of an open-label safety switching study in which 302 patients with stable symptoms of schizophrenia were switched from standard-of-care antipsychotic medications to lumateperone),
  • INSM +1.8% (prices offering of 12,281,000 shares of common stock at $28.50)
  • GBTC +1.6% (provides update on possible bitcoin cash distribution)
  • WSM +1.6% (following RH results)

Analyst comments:

  • APTO +8.5% (upgraded to Buy at H.C. Wainwright)
  • AZN +3% (initiated with an Outperform at BMO Capital Mkts)
  • JUNO +2% (initiated with Overweight ratings at Barclays)
  • BLUE +1.7% (initiated with Overweight ratings at Barclays)
  • AKS +1.4% (initiated with a Outperform at Macquarie)
  • ETSY +1.1% (initiated with a Buy at DA Davidson)
  • CAR +1.1% (Goldman upgrades Rental Car sector)
  • PX +1% (upgraded to Positive from Neutral at Susquehanna)
  • ONCE +0.9% (initiated with Overweight ratings at Barclays)
  • X +0.7% (initiated with a Outperform at Macquarie)

FT : Gianluca Vialli launches crowdfunding campaign for sports finance

Gianluca Vialli launches crowdfunding campaign for sports finance

Ex-Chelsea striker seeks £1m for Tifosy to help smaller clubs secure funds from fans

Former star footballer Gianluca Vialli is looking to strengthen ties between fans and clubs, seeking funding for a venture that aims to tap the growing trend of sports teams using alternative ways to bolster their finances by looking to supporters.

The ex-Chelsea and Juventus striker is one of the founders of Tifosy, an equity crowdfunding group that allows ordinary individuals to invest in sports clubs, which can opt to raise funds through selling equity shares, mini-bonds or seeking donations in return for specific rewards.

This week, Tifosy launched a campaign to raise £1m from investors to fund its international growth, valuing itself at about £10m.

Speaking to the Financial Times, he said: “We are sorting out two major problems in sport, but now, especially in football: financing and disengagement between clubs and fans.”

Mr Vialli is a co-founder of Tifosy alongside chief executive Fausto Zanetton, a former investment banker with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. It claims to be the only “fully authorised sports crowdfunding platform”, after receiving approval to offer investments by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority last year.

The group launched the first ever football mini-bond — retail bonds that cannot be resold and are offered in small amounts direct to consumers — helping the English Football League club Stevenage FC raised £600,000 last month to build a new stand at the club’s ground.

Tifosy said it has helped to raise roughly £1m for clubs since it was founded in 2015, including English teams such as Fulham and Coventry City, and a number of Italian Serie B clubs.

Sports groups have increasingly sought new routes to raise capital in recent years, finding banks increasingly unwilling to lend large sums of money and with owners unwilling to give up equity stakes to outside investors.

Last year, Harlequins, the Premiership rugby club, raised £15m by issuing a mini-bond, following the initiative of rival club Wasps, which raised £35m from issuing a bond on the London Stock Exchange in 2015. The Jockey Club, owners of 15 UK racecourses and Lancashire Cricket Club, have also raised cash through mini-bonds in the past few years.

“Football is a big pyramid,” said Mr Zanetton. “You have 20-25 clubs that are big businesses, that could be part of a stock index. The others are small and medium enterprises. If you think of how to finance these companies, they do not have always access to institutional funding. They need to be a lot more creative than relying on an owner to put money in.”

Tifosy takes a cut of roughly five to seven per cent from the sum raised from an investment campaign. The unprofitable start-up wants to break even by 2019, aiming to convince major clubs, such as those in the English Premier League, to launch similar crowdfunding campaigns.

Equity crowdfunding groups have come under fire in recent years, with critics arguing they target unwitting investors who may be unaware of the risks involved in investing in start-ups that have a high chance of failing.

But Mr Vialli said that sports groups seeking investment from fans will have a motivation beyond commercial aspects.

“The clubs call their sponsors ‘partners’,” said Mr Vialli. “Sponsors pump money into the club, they expect a return for their brand, but they don’t do it because they feel passionate about the club. Then you have the passionate people, the fans, and the clubs call them ‘customers’. That has to change. The fans have to become the partners.”

>>> ECB On the tape

ECB SAYS THE GOVERNING COUNCIL EXPECTS THE KEY ECB INTEREST RATES TO REMAIN AT THEIR PRESENT LEVELS FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME, AND WELL PAST THE HORIZON OF THE NET ASSET PURCHASES

ECB SAYS REGARDING NON-STANDARD MONETARY POLICY MEASURES, THE GOVERNING COUNCIL CONFIRMS THAT THE NET ASSET PURCHASES, AT THE CURRENT MONTHLY PACE OF €60 BILLION, ARE INTENDED TO RUN UNTIL THE END OF DECEMBER 2017, OR BEYOND, IF NECESSARY

>>> US Early premarket gappers

Early premarket gappers

Gapping up:

  • RH +33.1%, EGAN +28.6%, CLIR +18.9%, CAB +14.7%, AMSC +12.1%, VVUS +10.2%, TELL +7.8%, VRNT +5.8%, FNSR +4.6%, MTRX +2.8%, AKS +1.9%, GBTC +1.6%, AZN +1.4%, X +1.2%, GRFS +1.2%, QGEN +1.2%, CONN +0.8%

Gapping down:

  • NCS -13.4%, KEM -5.9%, ABM -4.8%, LEG -3.5%, BLDR -3.4%, DSGX -1.6%, NEP -1.4%, GIS -1.3%, EHIC -0.5%

WSJ : President Trump Unlikely to Nominate Gary Cohn to Become Fed Chairman

President Trump Unlikely to Nominate Gary Cohn to Become Fed Chairman
Cohn’s chances dropped after he criticized Trump’s response to the Charlottesville protests, according to people familiar with the president’s thinking

WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump is unlikely to nominate Gary Cohn, his top economic adviser, as the next Federal Reserve chairman, according to people familiar with the president’s thinking, adding to the uncertainty over the U.S. central bank’s leadership and policies next year.

Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal in July that he was considering Mr. Cohn as a potential successor to Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen, whose term as central bank chief expires in early February.

The change in thinking comes at a time of great uncertainty over the top ranks of the world’s most important central bank. Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said Wednesday he will resign in mid-October for personal reasons, adding another vacancy to the three others on the powerful seven-member Fed board of governors. His departure accelerates Mr. Trump’s opportunity to put his stamp on the central bank.

Candidate Trump was critical of the central bank and Ms. Yellen last year, publicly chiding her during the campaign for keeping interest rates too low, which Mr. Trump said benefited Democrats.

The shift in Mr. Cohn’s prospects for the top Fed job arises largely from his criticism of Mr. Trump’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, Va., the people familiar with the matter said.

The president said in the Journal interview that he was also considering whether to nominate Ms. Yellen for a second term. Mr. Trump has told people that he is impressed with Ms. Yellen, leaving them with the sense he might ask her to serve another term.

The change in Mr. Cohn’s chances potentially bolsters her odds. Other names that have been discussed by Mr. Trump and his team as possible nominees to top Fed posts include former governors Lawrence Lindsey and Kevin Warsh, former BB&T Bank chief executive John Allison, and Stanford University economist John Taylor, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The White House has been considering nominating Marvin Goodfriend, a former research director at the Richmond Fed who is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, to the Fed’s board, the people familiar said. One possibility would be to nominate an incoming board member, such as Mr. Goodfriend, or a current board member, such as Fed governor Jerome Powell, to the vice-chair post.

Mr. Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, has been running the White House search for Fed chief. A senior administration official said “the president is considering several candidates.” Mr. Cohn’s office directed questions to the White House.

White House spokeswoman Natalie Strom said Mr. Cohn is “focused on his responsibilities…including a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to deliver meaningful tax reform that creates jobs and grows the economy.” Mr. Cohn may have doomed his chances for the top Fed job with comments he made to the Financial Times last month, according to people close to the president.

The former investment banker had told associates that he was disgusted by Mr. Trump’s performance immediately after the president’s combative news conference on Aug. 15 about the Charlottesville events, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Cohn stood near Mr. Trump at the news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower, which White House officials had intended to focus on the president’s push for investment in infrastructure.

Asked if he considered resigning after the news conference, Mr. Cohn told the Financial Times that he was “reluctant to leave my post.” He also said the Trump administration “can and must do better” to condemn hate groups. “Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK,” Mr. Cohn told the newspaper.

Mr. Trump wasn’t aware such a blunt critique was coming, said one person familiar with the president’s thinking. One White House official said the president visibly bristles at the mention of his economic adviser.

Mr. Trump had been eager to talk about the possibility of appointing Mr. Cohn as the next Fed chairman when he spoke about it during the Journal interview. At the time, the president said he had “gained great respect for Gary” during their time together in the West Wing.

A White House official said that Mr. Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive, may be able to repair his relationship with the president.

Mr. Cohn is one of the key White House hands shepherding an overhaul of the federal tax code through Congress. If successful, Mr. Cohn may find himself in better standing, the person said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has nominated Randal Quarles, a private-equity executive who served in the Bush administrations, for one opening on the Fed board, but has yet to name his other picks.

A Senate committee is set to vote on Mr. Quarles’ nomination as the Fed’s vice chair for bank regulation on Thursday, and he is expected to ultimately win confirmation. Nominations for all board positions, including the chair and vice chair, are subject to Senate confirmation.

Mr. Fischer’s departure gives the White House a wider range of options in considering how to remake the Fed, but it also adds to the challenge Mr. Trump faces in managing the leadership turnover without roiling markets.

Mr. Fischer’s term as Fed vice chairman was due to end in June 2018, although his term as governor wouldn’t have ended until Jan. 31, 2020. Several people who know him say he has been addressing family health issues. Mr. Fischer is planning to attend the central bank’s next policy gathering Sept. 19 and Sept. 20, when the Fed is expected to announce plans to begin shrinking its portfolio of bonds and other assets accumulated during the financial crisis.

Fed officials in June raised their benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 1% and 1.25% and penciled in one more rate increase this year. Analysts saw Mr. Fischer as a centrist voice as the Fed’s second-in-command, and slightly less inclined to keep rates low to spur the economy than Ms. Yellen.

However, other policy decisions beyond December are clouded by the leadership succession question, and that uncertainty could increasingly weigh on markets.

Every president since Ronald Reagan has asked the standing Fed leader to stay in the job at the start of his presidency, which has served to underscore the central bank’s relative independence from politics on monetary policy. If Mr. Trump doesn’t follow that pattern, Ms. Yellen would be just the third Fed leader since 1934 to serve only one term.

Ms. Yellen hasn’t said whether she would like to serve a second term, but some friends and former colleagues say her long record of public service and her devotion to the Fed are clues that she would accept a nomination if it were offered.

Nearly three in four economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month said Ms. Yellen should be reappointed as Fed chair. Around two thirds of the same economists said Mr. Cohn is qualified to be chair. The Journal surveyed 56 economists from Sept. 1 to Sept. 5 in its monthly poll.

FT : Saudi Arabia redrafts crown prince’s transformation plan

Saudi Arabia redrafts crown prince’s transformation plan

Move suggests Riyadh realises some targets were overly ambitious

Saudi Arabia is redrafting its main reform plan just over a year after its much-hyped launch, stripping out some areas earmarked for change and extending the timeline of other targets.

The move suggests that Riyadh may have realised that some of the objectives in its National Transformation Plan were over ambitious. The government has been reworking the NTP, centrepiece of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s efforts to overhaul the oil-dependent economy, since July.

An internal document seen by the Financial Times says the amended plan, dubbed NTP 2.0, will “change existing initiatives and add new ones”.

“The timeline of the NTP will continue to 2020, but the plan requires implementation of objectives for 2025 and 2030,” it says.

Reforms that had been under the NTP have shifted to other programmes as the government seeks to develop a more manageable agenda.

Core elements of the original plan included privatising state assets, creating 1.2m private sector jobs and reducing unemployment from 11.6 per cent to 9 per cent by 2020.

The partial privatisation of Saudi Aramco, the state oil company, sits outside the NTP, but is critical to Prince Mohammed’s overall plans. No suggestion is made that the NTP’s redrafting will affect the initial public offering of 5 per cent of Aramco, planned for next year.

But the broader privatisation programme, as well as other initiatives such as providing more affordable housing and reforming the financial sector, will be run outside of the NTP by different ministries.

NTP 2.0 will be one of 12 so-called “vision realisation programmes” that are tasked with delivering Prince Mohammed’s goals.

“There is a recognition that too many of these targets were too aggressive and maybe having too much impact on the economy,” said a government adviser.

The original NTP was launched in June 2016 and was overseen by Prince Mohammed’s council for economic and development affairs.

A consultant working with the Saudi government said the redrafting process was inevitable given the unwieldy state bureaucracy’s struggle to meet targets that are little more than three years away.


But advisers are worried that the revision could create confusion for investors, who are already nervous about an economic slowdown, and foment political intrigue in the royal family with Prince Mohammed having replaced his cousin as heir apparent in June.

Bankers have also been concerned that the reform efforts have focused too heavily on revenue-raising measures, such as tax increases and subsidy cuts, rather than initiatives to boost growth.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts that the kingdom’s economic growth will be just 0.1 per cent this year, down from 1.7 per cent in 2016.

“Flexibility is great, but changing the goalposts isn’t a healthy habit,” said another government adviser.

The revamped NTP will focus on reforms to the government bureaucracy, such as improving the productivity of civil servants and boosting transparency. Its goals will also include increasing female participation in the workforce and supporting small and medium-sized companies.

The full details of the changes will not be known until the end of October when officials are scheduled to present a final draft, according to the document.