Economic Glance
- A former SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager was convicted Thursday of helping his company earn more than a quarter billion dollars illegally through trades based on secrets about the testing of a potential breakthrough Alzheimer's drug.
The verdict capped a three-week trial that featured testimony from two prominent doctors who confessed to spilling secrets to Mathew Martoma during lucrative consultations. When prosecutors announced the case in November 2012, they said it may be the most lucrative insider trading scheme of all time.
SAC Capital ex-trader convicted of insider trading
RadioShack to close about 500 stores
U.S. electronics chain RadioShack Corp is planning to close about 500 stores within months, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The struggling retailer, which is due to report results for the fourth quarter later this month, said it could not comment on rumor or speculation.
RadioShack has been working with bankers from Peter J Solomon Co to boost its liquidity and with AlixPartners on its operational turnaround.
New report: Budget deficit to drop to $514B
A new report released Tuesday says the government's budget deficit is set to fall to $514 billion for the current year, down substantially from last year and the lowest by far since President Barack Obama took office five years ago.
The Congressional Budget Office report credits higher tax revenues from the rebounding economy and sharp curbs on agency spending as the chief reason for the deficit's short-term decline.
But CBO sees the long-term deficit picture worsening by about $100 billion a year through the end of the decade because of slower growth in the economy over the coming decade than it had previously predicted.
Nation of Change: More Inequality Shock
Inequality is a cancer on society, here in the U.S. and across the globe. It keeps growing. But humanity seems helpless against it, as if it's an alien force that no one understands, even as the life is being gradually drained from its victims.
The recent Oxfam report on global wealth inequality reveals some of the ugly extremes that have divided our world. It also directs our attention to the Global Wealth Report compiled by Credit Suisse, and the companion Databook, which offer a shocking testament to the severity of U.S. and global inequality.
Novartis to cut or transfer up to 4,000 pharma jobs: paper
Swiss drugs group Novartis (NOVN.VX) is planning to cut or transfer up to 4,000 jobs, newspaper NZZ am Sonntag reported on Sunday, citing an internal email.
The plan affecting up to 6 percent of its pharmaceuticals workforce comes on top of a program to reduce the number of production sites and is part of a larger drive to cut costs, the newspaper said.
Obama to raise minimum wage for federal workers
President Barack Obama will act to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors from $7.25 to $10.10, fulfilling a big wish for liberals, the White House announced.
The executive order to be announced at Tuesday’s State of the Union address would cover only the fraction of 2 million federal contractors making the minimum wage.
The president will also renew his call for Congress to raise the minimum wage for all workers to $10.10 via a bill from Democrats Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California that would then tie it to the rate of inflation.
Bank of America's trading practices have been probed, filing shows
The U.S. Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have both held investigations into whether Bank of America (BAC.N) engaged in improper trading by doing its own futures trades ahead of executing large orders for clients, according to a regulatory filing.
The June 2013 disclosure, which Reuters recently reviewed on a website run by the securities industry regulator FINRA, sheds light on the basis for a warning by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on January 8.
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