NYT : Uber used secret tool to deceive authorities: report

Uber used secret tool to deceive authorities: report

For years, Uber has reportedly used a secret tool to deceive authorities in cities where its service was banned.

The New York Times, citing sources, said Friday that Uber had a tool called Greyball, that collected data identifying “customers’’ who were actually officials looking to catch the ride-share service violating local laws.

Asked about the existence of Greyball, Uber told the Times, “This program denies ride requests to fraudulent users who are violating our terms of service — whether that’s people aiming to physically harm drivers, competitors looking to disrupt our operations, or opponents who collude with officials on secret ‘stings’ meant to entrap drivers.”

A current Uber employee familiar with the program confirmed to Reuters that Uber had used antifraud techniques to hunt for suspected undercover law enforcement and regulators. The person said Greyball had not been used in the United States in more than a year.

The Times said Uber used the methods to evade authorities in cities including Boston, Paris and Las Vegas, and in countries including Australia, China, Italy and South Korea.

Reuters - Goldman Sachs to move risk managers into independent unit

By Olivia Oran | MARCH 3
Goldman Sachs Group Inc plans to move its risk management team into an independent unit, people familiar with the matter said, a move that is largely symbolic but signals its growing importance.

Headed by Chief Risk Officer Craig Broderick, the group will be carved out from the finance division, where risk managers have long sat alongside accountants, technologists and those responsible for managing Goldman's idle cash.

The Wall Street bank is in the process of creating the separate unit, and changes will take effect over the next few months.

Sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss internal matters. Goldman spokeswoman Tiffany Galvin declined to comment.

Goldman Sachs prides itself on the independence and power of its risk management staff. The bank's risk managers are known for questioning business decisions. That has been true since before the 2008 financial crisis at Goldman, but it has not been uniformly true for other big banks.

Goldman's new structure will not change much about the way risk managers operate, but will offer the operation new prominence, sources said.

Broderick, who joined Goldman in 1985, will maintain his responsibilities. The firm-wide risk committee, which is co-chaired by Broderick and Goldman's finance chief, will also stay the same.

Phil Venables, the bank's chief information risk officer, will move into the division to a new role that includes handling operational risk. He previously sat within the technology division.

Like other big banks, Goldman is increasingly under threat from hackers and technology glitches, and Venables' move into the risk division reflects the importance of protecting against such attacks, sources said.

>>> US Close Dow +0.01% S&P +0.05% Nasdaq +0.16% Russell -0.11%

Closing Market Summary: Averages Eke Out Gains on Friday

The major averages finished Friday's session near their unchanged marks as investors digested the latest remarks from Fed Chair Janet Yellen. The Nasdaq (+0.2%) outperformed while the S&P 500 (+0.1%) finished with a slim gain. The Dow closed the day unchanged.

According to the Fed funds futures market, it appears that a March rate hike is on after Fed Chair Yellen said nothing to upset that notion on Friday afternoon. Ms. Yellen expressed her belief that a March rate hike is indeed appropriate as long as the economy evolves as expected. The CME Fed Watch Tool now assigns an implied probability of 81.9% to a March rate hike, up slightly from yesterday's 77.5%.

The U.S. dollar retreated in the wake of Ms. Yellen's comments, nearly doubling its earlier loss. The U.S. Dollar Index (101.35, -0.81) finished Friday lower by 0.8%.

Conversely, Treasuries climbed back towards their flat lines after holding losses going into Ms. Yellen's speech. The benchmark 10-yr yield finished one basis point higher at 2.48% while the 2-yr yield closed two basis points lower at 1.29%.

The financial sector (+0.4%) profited from the steepening of the Treasury yield curve, closing the day with the health care sector (+0.4%) at the top of the leaderboard. The biotechnology industry had a hand in the health care group's positive performance, evidenced by the 0.9% increase in the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (IBB 302.49, +2.70). 

Conversely, consumer staples closed Friday near the bottom of the leaderboard following Costco's (COST 170.26, -7.72) most recent earnings report. The wholesale retailer tumbled 4.3% after reporting worse than expected earnings per share results after Thursday's close.

Costco's performance also negatively influenced retailers, evidenced by the 1.4% decline in the SPDR S&P 500 Retail ETF (XRT 42.72, -0.62). The consumer discretionary sector, which comprises many retailers, also underperformed, closing lower by 0.2%.

Crude oil finished the day 1.4% higher at $53.33/bbl, but the energy group (-0.4%) still had trouble keeping pace with the broader market. 

Also of note, Snap (SNAP 27.09, +2.61) followed up Thursday's IPO with a 10.7% spike in Friday's session. The social media company had an IPO price of $17.00 per share, but opened for trading late on Thursday morning at $24.00 per share.

Today's lone economic report was February ISM Services:

  • The ISM Services Index for February increased to 57.6 while the consensus expected reading of 56.5. The prior month's reading was left unchanged at 56.5.

Monday's lone economic report, January Factory Orders (consensus 1.0%), will cross the wires at 10:00 ET.

  • Nasdaq Composite +9.1% YTD
  • S&P 500 +6.4% YTD
  • Dow Jones Industrial Average +6.3% YTD
  • Russell 2000 +2.7% YTD

>>> AMD paring recent gains following Ryzen launch

AMD paring recent gains following Ryzen launch (AMD)
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD -6%) is extending yesterday's sell-off after some tepid reviews for its new Ryzen CPU chips that hit the market this week.
AMD's new Ryzen CPUs are finally a formidable competitor to Intel's (INTC) after many years of being a clear laggard in the space. The chips are roughly half the price and the specifications are comparable to that of Intel's.
A big problem for the stock right now is that there was a ton of hype coming in to the release. We have seen a classic sell the news reaction following the product launch, but some disappointment regarding the performance of the chips among the gaming community is exacerbating the move.
What's more, Intel (INTC) is likely to come out with a new set of chips in short order that once again shows they are the leader in the space. AMD won't have any answer for a while.
AMD is the #2 player in the graphics processing units (GPU) space behind NVIDIA (NVDA) and #2 in the central processing units (CPU) space behind Intel.
Despite the recent sell-off, AMD is still in a rather strong longer term uptrend. The stock has had a huge run as GPUs continue to do well in gaming. Meanwhile, GPU demand has picked up as they enable machine/deep learning capabilities that are all the rage in 2017.
AMD trades at ~54x enterprise value over EBITDA but that number comes down to 41x on fiscal 2018 estimates. NVIDIA trades at 21x EV/EBITDA and chip behemoth Intel (INTC) trades at 7.3x EV/EBITDA.
The stock is attempting to hold support at the $13 level today after giving up the $14 level rather easily yesterday afternoon.

FT : UK drugmakers accused of fixing price of life-saving NHS drug

UK drugmakers accused of fixing price of life-saving NHS drug
CMA alleges Actavis and Concordia made illegal non-compete agreements

The UK’s competition watchdog has accused two pharmaceutical companies of making illegal non-compete agreements to maintain artificially high prices for a life-saving drug.

The Competition and Markets Authority alleged on Friday that Actavis UK offered incentives to Concordia’s Amdipharm unit not to enter the market with its own competing version of hydrocortisone tablets.

It accused Actavis of supplying a fixed amount of its own 10mg tablets “for a very low price” so that Concordia could resell the product in the UK. Actavis was the sole supplier of the drug for more than three years until June last year, when the cost of the drug to the NHS rose from £49 to £88 a pack, the CMA said. 

The tablets are used to treat Addison’s disease and other problems with adrenal glands, which produce hormones particularly during times of stress. 

It is the second time in recent months that the CMA has said it would investigate Actavis over pricing. 

In a separate probe, the agency in December said Actavis had hiked the price of its unbranded 10mg hydrocortisone tablets by more than 12,000 per cent when compared with the branded version of the drug sold by another company in 2008. 

Andrew Groves, CMA senior officer, said the findings of the most recent investigation were provisional “and no conclusion should be drawn at this stage that there has in fact been any breach of competition law”.

But he noted that “anti-competitive agreements can cost the NHS, and ultimately the taxpayer, by stopping competition bringing down the cost of life-saving drugs like hydrocortisone tablets”. 

The UK arm of Actavis was recently sold by Israel’s Teva to Intas of India, while Amdipharm was acquired by Canada’s Concordia. 

Concordia on Friday rejected that Amdipharm was in breach of competition law and said it was co-operating with the CMA probe. 

Teva said that although it had acquired Actavis UK in August last year, it “has never in practice been controlled by Teva” due to competition obligations with the EU Commission. Intas declined to comment.

The agency has also recently set its sights on drugmakers more broadly, marking a new, more aggressive stance by the regulator. Michael Grenfell, the CMA’s director of enforcement, who was appointed in 2015, has promised to speed up investigations and make the agency more efficient. 

Last year US group Pfizer was fined a record £84m in the UK for charging excessive prices for a drug to treat epilepsy while GlaxoSmithKline and other generics manufacturers were fined £45m over the sale of paroxetine, an antidepressant.