U.K. Statistics Body to End Government Prerelease Access
Move follows Journal articles highlighting concerns that data is traded on ahead of release
LONDON—Britain’s statistics body said it would stop giving the U.K. government access to official data ahead of public release, a practice that statisticians had long complained increased the chances of leaks.
“Prerelease access to [official] statistics is outweighed by the detriment to public trust in those statistics,” said John Pullinger, the head of the U.K. Statistics Authority.
The move follows reports by The Wall Street Journal which showed that some investors could be trading with knowledge of U.K. economic statistics before they are published.
The British pound and government bond futures moved in a way that was consistent with traders being informed of the strength or weakness of economic statistics before its publication, according to analysis for the Journal.
Statisticians have long pointed to what they say is Britain’s unusual practice in the handling of market-moving data: More than 100 people, from Prime Minister Theresa May to dozens of policy advisers and press officers, can get to see some of the figures a day before they come out. In the U.S., the president and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers receive sensitive data such as gross domestic product a day in advance. In several European countries, there is no prerelease access at all.
An Office for National Statistics spokesman said that a very limited number of officials at the Bank of England would still be granted prerelease access when an economic data release coincided with a BOE interest-rate decision.
Alongside economic statistics, politically sensitive data on migration and crime will also no longer be given to the government ahead of time.
“There is no direct evidence of any leaks,” said Miles Fletcher, head of media and public relations at the Office for National Statistics.
“The national statisticians’ duty is to balance public trust in statistics against the benefit that prerelease access can bring,” he added. “It can no longer be said that it’s beneficial.”
Regulators say that widespread leaking can undermine confidence in public markets because it gives investors with early information an unfair trading advantage.
It also hits the credibility of the system through which the data is released.
Last year, the European Commission asked residents of 35 European countries how much they trusted their country’s economic statistics. Swedes expressed the highest level of confidence, with 73% saying they tended to trust the data. The U.K. came 23rd, with 44% of respondents saying they tended to trust the figures.
RTRS - NUCOR CORP SAYS Q2 EARNINGS GUIDANCE RANGE IS A DECREASE COMPARED TO Q1 OF 2017 CONSOLIDATED NET EARNINGS OF $1.11 PER DILUTED SHARE
RTRS - NUCOR CORP - EXPECTS Q2 RESULTS TO BE IN RANGE OF $1.00 TO $1.05 PER DILUTED SHARE
RTRS - NUCOR CORP NUE.N Q2 SHR VIEW $1.22 -- THOMSON REUTERS I/B/E/S
Baidu could seek sensor system targets to grow intelligent vehicle business division – sources
15 JUN 2017
Baidu [NASDAQ:BIDU], the China-based search engine, could seek sensor system targets to grow its intelligent vehicle business division, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
The company would most likely scout for such targets in Israel, the US and Europe, where sensor technologies applied in autonomous driving system are better developed and studied on, the sources said.
It welcomes advisory approaches regarding target referrals, and would closely evaluate if potential targets are in accordance with the general strategies of its intelligent vehicle unit, as well as to see if targets could fit in and add on to Baidu’s current technology in autonomous driving, the second source familiar said.
The company would not place a range on the size and earnings of the potential targets, both sources noted.
The USD 61.58bn market-cap tech giant is currently trading at a P/E ratio of 46.4x. It reported annual revenue of CNY 70.5bn in 2016, up from CNY 66.4bn from the previous year, according to its annual report. Net income declined from CNY 33.3bn to CNY 11bn in 2016, the same report shows.
The company had cash and equivalents of CNY 10.9bn as of the end of 2016, the annual report read.
Baidu is working to offer technologically mature sensors at a reasonable price, which would be the key in developing autonomous driving in the real world, said Weihao Gu, General Manager of Baidu Intelligent Vehicle Business Unit during the 2017 Commercial Electronics Shows (CES Asia) held last week in Shanghai.
The company started investing heavily on the research and development (R&D) of autonomous driving technologies since 2015, as reported. It performed self-driving tests on Beijing’s highway and city roads in the end of 2015, gained self-driving road testing license in California, the US, in September 2016.
Also in November last year, Baidu launched a trial operation of its autonomous driving vehicles on the roads of Wuzhen, of China’s Zhejiang province.
The company relies on deep learning to transform data collected via man driving on different road conditions, under various weather conditions, into behavioral knowledge, which would ‘command’ the self-driving system to make similar decisions as mankind when faced with similar road or weather conditions, he explained.
Such transformation relies on efficient algorithm to ensure the speed and accuracy of deciphering big-volume data. Baidu relies on Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to automatically collect and identify multi-layer images, which is used to control steering, or the horizontal movements of the self-driving vehicle, Gu noted.
The company also introduced long short-term memory (LSTM), a recurrent neural network (RNN) architecture, which is able to make predictions on ‘recurrent’ behaviors. This algorithm is very effective in improving the vertical control of the self-driving cars because it contains ‘time memory’, namely it tries to imitate humans in their choice of speeding up and slowing down the cars under different conditions, which would smooth the vehicles’ self-control, he explained.
Baidu is intending to open up its self-driving miles data to the wider developer community via Baidu Computing Unit (BCU) platform, Gu said. This will also be part of the company’s Apollo project, which is to be launched in July 5th in Beijing.
Apollo is expected to lower the threshold of autonomous driving industry, as it contains the architectures of Baidu’s self-driving technologies, which would potentially allow any capable developer to manufacture a self-driving car based on the existing data of environment perception, itinerary planning and vehicle control, among others, he said.
Baidu has formed strategic alliance with Bosch and Continental [FRA:CON] earlier this month, to cooperate on the fields including autonomous driving, intelligent transportation and internet of vehicles, as reported. The company, together with Ford Motor Company [NYSE:F], invested USD 150m in Velodyne LiDAR, a recognized global leader in Light, Detection and Ranging (LiDAR technology), as announced.
It also participated in the latest fundraising of NextEV [Wei Lai Qi Che], a China-based, privately held intelligent electric vehicle R&D company in March, as reported. NextEV was said to be valued at CNY 20bn upon completion of the financing.
Baidu declined to comment.
Chancellor makes no promises on post-Brexit access to EIB funds
Potential threat to infrastructure projects from trains to university libraries
Philip Hammond is likely to increase the fears of UK infrastructure providers that they face being cut off from access to valuable European Investment Bank financing after Brexit, threatening projects spanning from trains to university libraries.
In his Mansion House speech, the chancellor will pledge that companies will retain access to the EIB while the UK is still an EU member, but he will not guarantee to fund a domestic replacement or set out an ambition to negotiate continued access to the EIB after 2019 under a special agreement with the EU27.
Facing an end to EIB finance will be a serious blow to many providers of British infrastructure, since the bank has outstanding loans in the UK worth more than £48bn and has helped finance trains, trams, energy projects, universities, housing and water projects.
The EIB is the EU’s development bank and also acts as a catalyst for private sector projects, providing project appraisal and attracting co-finance from private investors.
European treaties state that membership is reserved for EU member states and the European Commission has set out in its Brexit negotiating position publicly that Britain will lose access to most projects after Brexit and only receive the capital it put into the bank back once the existing loans to UK projects are repaid.
The Treasury was unable to confirm its ambitions for EIB access after 2019 in the Brexit negotiations when asked by the FT.
But Mr Hammond will seek to reassure infrastructure providers that there will be no immediate stop on funds from the EIB. Even though the bank’s management has said UK projects will continue to be financed until Britain leaves the union, the chancellor will pledge to provide additional assurances to the EIB to secure UK project finance “during our remaining period of EU membership”.
“Investors need certainty in order to continue to support the UK economy and create jobs as we leave the EU,” Mr Hammond will say. “That is why we will fortify the vital financial support that helps businesses to grow — from cutting edge start-ups right through to large-scale infrastructure projects.”
The chancellor will also provide some additional resources to the British Business Bank, a government-owned bank. Much smaller than the EIB, it seeks to help small companies raise finance but does not lend or invest directly in them, unlike the EIB.
The Treasury said the additional resources likely to be available to the BBB will go up by “up to £80m” helping to finance up to £320m of total investment “in the coming months”.
This is a far smaller amount than the average £7bn of finance provided annually by the EIB to Britain in recent years.
Treasury officials said that after Brexit, the government would decide whether it would seek to retain access to the EIB under a special treaty or whether it would consider a domestic alternative, but it was too early to say what the UK position was publicly. An official said the UK government did have a view, but it was private and the chancellor would not reveal it in his speech.
The Conservative party manifesto made no specific pledges about finding a replacement for EIB financing after Brexit.
Gapping down
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
In reaction to disappointing earnings/guidance:
- KR -8%, JRJC -5.8%, SOL -2.4%, APPS -1.1%
Select actively traded tech names showing weakness:
- NVDA -2.8%, AMD -2.7%, NFLX -2.4%, MU -2%, AMBA -2%, TSLA -2%, ASML -1.9%, JD-1.6%, EA -1.5%, AMZN -1.4%, FB -1.3%, AAPL -1.3%, BIDU -1.2%
Select metals/mining stocks trading lower:
- IAG -2%, GOLD -1.9%, AUY -1.2%, ABX -0.7%, KGC -0.7%, GDX -0.6%, NEM -0.6%, GG-0.5%, SLV -0.5%, PAAS -0.5%, AG -0.5%
Select oil/gas related names showing early weakness:
- SDRL -5.2%, STO -1.8%, RDS.A -1.7%, RIG -1.6%, TOT -1.5%, BP -1%, E -0.9%, SLB -0.7%,XOM -0.6%
Other news:
- WRLD -8.8% (World Acceptance files to delay 10-K due to internal investigation of its operations in Mexico; expects to file the Form 10-K by June 29 )
- PACB -8.7% (to offer and sell shares of its common stock in an underwritten public offering)
- LNTH -5.8% (announces public secondary offering of 3 mln shares of common stock by selling stockholders )
- OAKS -5.1% (commences 4 mln common stock offering)
- LOXO -2% (prices follow-on offering of 3.15 mln shares of common stock at $72.00)
Analyst comments:
- SPLK -2.8% (downgraded to Neutral from Outperform at Wedbush)
- GOOGL -1.7% (downgraded to Hold from Buy at Canaccord Genuity)
- EGO -1.5% (downgraded to Speculative Buy at Canaccord Genuity)
- MAT -0.9% (downgraded to Neutral from Buy at DA Davidson)
Gapping up
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
In reaction to strong earnings/guidance:
- ROX +20.5%, LAKE +9.7%, NAKD +4.8%, BOBE +3.5%, JBL +2%
Other news:
- IDXG +22.4% (still checking; notable mover that was down 20%+ this week)
- HTGM +22.2% (HTGM entered into a statement of work with QIAGEN Manchester for Master Assay Development, Commercialization and Manufacturing Agreement)
- SKLN +19.6% (has notified the Dutch Competent Authority that the Company's STREAMWAY System meets all requirements and can now be affixed with the CE mark)
- ADMP +10.7% (Adamis Pharma rebounding in after hours trade ahead of tomorrow's PDUFA date for Epinephrine Pre-filled Syringe)
- CTIC +8.1% (receives a $10 mln milestone payment from Teva Pharmaceutical (TEVA) related to the achievement of sales milestones for TRISENOX)
- HAIN +2.5% (confirms will conduct a call to discuss its financial results on Thursday, June 22, 2017 at 8am ET and expects to file Annual Report and Quarterly Reports on that day)
- PSDV +2.3% (modestly rebounding from this week's decline; Pres/CEO disclosed the purchase of 56,700 shares at avg price of $1.763/share)
- AVXS +1.9% (announces alignment w/ the FDA on its Good Manufacturing Practice commercial manufacturing process for AVXS-101 following the receipt of minutes from the Type B CMC meeting; expects to have the data ready to submit to the FDA in the August timeframe )
Analyst comments:
- YTRA +6.5% (initiated with a Buy at Deutsche Bank)
- LQ +1.2% (upgraded to Overweight from Equal-Weight at Morgan Stanley)
- AAAP +0.7% (initiated with a Overweight at JP Morgan