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Tag Archives: Halted
NYSE says trading issue that led to dozens of stocks being halted has been resolved
Trading in dozens of stocks on the New York Stock Exchange was briefly halted shortly after the market opened Tuesday due to an apparent technical issue.
The major stocks impacted included Morgan Stanley, Verizon, AT&T, Nike and McDonald’s, according to the NYSE’s website. Many stocks were shown to have abnormally large moves when the market opened, which may have triggered volatility halts.
CNBC’s Bob Pisani said on “Squawk on the Street” that the issue appears to be a technical one and not something that happened on the trading floor.
Many of the companies impacted resumed trading before 9:45 a.m. ET. The NYSE said at roughly 9:50 a.m. that all of its systems were operational. CNBC has reached out to the NYSE for more details about the issue.
The exchange said in a statement at 10:21 a.m. ET that it is still investigating the issue with the opening auction.
The NYSE, like some other exchanges, has automatic halts in place for stocks that move dramatically in one direction or another. On a normal trading day, few if any stocks are halted for volatility on the NYSE.
The other major U.S. stock exchange, the Nasdaq, did not appear to be impacted by the technical issue.
Correction: The NYSE technical issue took place Tuesday. A previous version misstated the day of the week.
Ovidio Guzmán: Extradition of ‘El Chapo’ son to the US halted after 29 killed in arrest operation
CNN
—
A Mexico City federal judge halted the extradition of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s son, alleged drug cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán, to the United States on Friday, a day after he was arrested in an intense operation in northern Mexico that led to the deaths of 29 people.
The US is seeking Guzmán’s extradition for drug trafficking and has offered up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of the man they say is “a senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
On Thursday, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard confirmed that there is an arrest warrant in the US dated September 19, 2019, but said that the possible extradition of Guzmán would not be immediate due to the formalities of the law. He also stated that Guzmán has ongoing legal proceedings in Mexico.
On Friday, the judge also suspended a measure that prevented Guzmán from communicating with his relatives and his legal team.
According to the legal resolution, Guzmán’s legal team has three days to decide whether to ratify the measures they have filed in favor of their client.
CNN has requested a response from Guzmán’s defense but has not yet heard back. He is being held in the Altiplano maximum security federal prison, officials said Friday.
– Source:
CNN
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CNN
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Video of El Chapo’s son being arrested (October 2019)
01:31
– Source:
CNN
Guzmán’s father, “El Chapo,” had escaped from Altiplano prison on July 11, 2015 through a mile-long tunnel that featured a motorcycle on tracks. He was later captured and convicted in the US four years later of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking and firearms charges. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture.
Ovidio Guzmán was previously arrested by federal authorities in October 2019, but was released on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to avoid further bloodshed.
His latest arrest comes days before US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit Mexico City to attend the North American Leaders Summit.
Capturing Guzmán could be a way for López Obrador to show the US that he is “in control of the armed forces and Mexico’s security situation,” Gladys McCormick, a associate professor at Syracuse University who focuses on Mexico-U.S. relations, told CNN in an email.
“It also defuses the power behind any ask from the Biden administration to stem the tide of fentanyl and other narcotics across the border,” she added.
After Guzmán’s arrest in Culiacán on Thursday, chaos erupted in the city. The authorities asked citizens to seek refuge due to clashes in several areas.
His arrest was the result of a lengthy operation which involved 200 special forces, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Friday. Local officials urged citizens to shelter at home amid clashes with cartel members in various parts of the city.
At least 19 suspected gang members and 10 military personnel died during violent clashes in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, after authorities arrested Guzmán, along with 21 others. No civilian deaths or injuries were reported.
Security at Altiplano prison has been increased since Guzmán was detained, the minister added.
The state of Sinaloa, where Culiacán is located, is home to one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel, of which “El Chapo” was the leader.
The US State Department, which was offering a $5 million reward for information leading to Guzmán’s arrest, wrote that law enforcement investigations indicated that Guzmán and his brother, Joaquín Guzmán-López, “inherited a great deal of the narcotics proceeds” following the death of another brother, Edgar Guzmán-López.
They “began investing large amounts of the cash into the purchasing of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia. They also began purchasing large amounts of ephedrine from Argentina and arranged for the smuggling of the product into Mexico as they began to experiment with methamphetamine production,” the State Department said.
The brothers are also alleged to oversee an estimated 11 “methamphetamine labs in the state of Sinaloa,” the State Department says.
Dow Jones Futures: Market Rally Not Finished Yet; Tesla Shanghai Production Halted
Dow Jones futures will open on Monday evening, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures, after the long Christmas weekend. Tesla Shanghai halted production while China rival Nio (NIO) unveiled new models.
X
The stock market rally had another difficult week, but did bounce from Thursday’s lows. The major indexes were mixed last week, but many leading stocks came under further pressure. The market rally is looking shaky but isn’t finished yet.
It’s not a good time to be buying stocks, especially growth names. But investors should always be looking for potential growth leaders for the next sustained market rally. Shift4Payments (FOUR), Celsius (CELH), Impinj (PI), Enphase Energy (ENPH) and Box (BOX) are holding up relatively well in the current weak market. FOUR stock and Box are consolidating near recent highs, while Impinj, Celsius and ENPH stock are trading around the 50-day or 10-week lines. None are actionable right now, and all could buckle if the market continues to weaken. But keep an eye on them.
ENPH stock is on IBD Leaderboard, with PI stock on the Leaderboard watchlist. Enphase, Shift4Payments, Box and CELH stock are on the IBD 50. ENPH stock also is on the IBD Big Cap 20. Shift4Payments was Friday’s IBD Stock Of The Day.
But growth megacaps had a rough outing, notably Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA) and Tesla (TSLA).
Nio Day 2022
Finally, Tesla China rival Nio (NIO) is holding its Nio Day 2022 on Saturday. It unveiled the EC7 coupe SUV, a likely Tesla Model Y competitor on the high end. EC7 deliveries will start in May 2023. Nio also unveiled a revamped ES8 SUV, now on the NT 2.0 platform like its all-new models. Deliveries begin in June.
Nio also announced next-generation battery swap stations and charging options.
Nio production is ramping up with strong demand for its newer ET5 sedan and ES7 crossover SUV. But easing Covid rules may be triggering a massive wave of infections, and Nio and other China EV makers could face production or supply-chain hiccups again. EV giant BYD (BYDDF) said this week that Covid cases among workers is cutting production by 2,000-3,000 vehicles per day.
Nio stock fell 5.4% last week, back below the 50-day line. Shares are well below the 200-day line.
Tesla Shanghai Production Halted
Tesla Shanghai halted production on Dec. 24, with workers set to return Jan. 1, 2023. A year-end production halt had been widely reported in recent weeks, but denied by the EV giant. Shanghai had already slowed output earlier in the month, with inventories building up rapidly despite a late October price cut and substantial year-end incentives.
Last week, Tesla stock dived 18% to 123.15 after plunging 16.1% in the prior week. Those are the worst weekly losses since the March 2020 Covid crash. TSLA stock is at a 27-month low, down 70% from the November 2021 peak.
Dow Jones Futures Today
With Christmas falling on Sunday, U.S. stock and bond markets will be closed Monday, along with many exchanges around the world.
Dow Jones futures open at 6 p.m. ET on Monday, along with S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures.
Remember that overnight action in Dow futures and elsewhere doesn’t necessarily translate into actual trading in the next regular stock market session.
Join IBD experts as they analyze actionable stocks in the stock market rally on IBD Live
Stock Market Rally
The stock market rally fell solidly during the week, but did finish off the worst levels of the week.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.9% in last week’s stock market trading. The S&P 500 index dipped 0.2%. The Nasdaq composite sank 1.9%. The small-cap Russell 2000 finished just above break-even.
Apple stock fell 2% to 131.86 in the past week. It’s testing its June bear-market low of 129.04, sliding to 129.64 Friday morning.
Nvidia stock tumbled 8.2% to 152.06, following a nasty reversal back below the 200-day line in the prior week, amid a broad chip sell-off. NVDA stock did find support at the 50-day line on Friday.
The 10-year Treasury yield jumped 27 basis points to 3.75%. The inverse relationship between Treasury yields and stock prices has faded in the past several weeks.
U.S. crude oil futures jumped 6.9% to $79.56 a barrel during the week, briefly topping $80 on Friday.
Tesla Buckles Up For A Very Interesting 2023
ETFs
Among the best ETFs, the Innovator IBD 50 ETF (FFTY) edged down 0.3% last week, while the Innovator IBD Breakout Opportunities ETF (BOUT) rose 0.7%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) fell 1.8%. The VanEck Vectors Semiconductor ETF (SMH) tumbled 4.7%, with NVDA stock a major SMH holding.
SPDR S&P Metals & Mining ETF (XME) rose 1.6% last week. The Global X U.S. Infrastructure Development ETF (PAVE) edged up 0.75%. U.S. Global Jets ETF (JETS) descended 1.3%. SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) declined 1.25%. The Energy Select SPDR ETF (XLE) bounced 3.2% and the Financial Select SPDR ETF (XLF) edged up 0.8%. The Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLV) nudged 0.4% higher.
Reflecting more-speculative story stocks, ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) tumbled 6.9%, hitting a new five-year low on Thursday. ARK Genomics ETF (ARKG) skidded 5.6% last week. Tesla stock remains a top holding across Ark Invest’s ETFs.
Five Best Chinese Stocks To Watch Now
Growth Stocks To Watch
Shift4Payments stock rose 4.1% to 54.06 last week. FOUR stock has had wild swings, but has tightened up in the past couple of weeks near seven-month highs. The relative strength line is at its highest level in eight months, reflecting Shift4’s outperformance vs. the S&P 500 index. Still, FOUR stock doesn’t have a clear buy point right now.
Shift4 earnings and sales growth accelerated in the latest quarter, with the company significantly expanding its target markets.
CELH stock fell 1.85% to 106.79 last week, consolidating just below the 21-day line and approaching the 10-week line. Celsius stock briefly topped a 118.29 cup-base buy point earlier this month before pulling back. But that’s let the 10-week line catch up, while the RS line has held near highs. A strong rebound from the 10-week line and above the 21-day line would also break a short downtrend, offering an early entry for CELH stock.
Celsius has booming sales growth and should see strong earnings in 2023, but the energy-drink maker has a caffeinated valuation.
Impinj stock rose 4 cents to 111.87, with Friday’s 2.9% decline bringing it down to the 50-day and 10-week lines for the first time since a powerful earnings gap-up breakout on Oct. 27. PI stock has pulled back modestly for four straight weeks from record highs, but its RS line has barely fallen. A bullish bounce from the 50-day line would offer an early buy point.
Impinj earnings have soared in 2022, with robust gains seen next year.
Enphase stock slumped 3.1% to 293.95 last week, below the 50-day line. A 316.97 buy point from a cup-with-handle buy point is no longer valid. The always-volatile ENPH stock may be a few weeks into a new consolidation. A bullish move from the 50-day line — perhaps retaking the old buy point — could offer an aggressive entry.
Enphase earnings and revenue growth is ramping up fast, with solid growth seen in 2023 and beyond with solar incentives in place for years to come.
Box stock traded tightly the past couple of weeks, dipping 0.7% to 31.01. The cloud-based data storage firm is at the edge of a buy zone from a 29.57 cup-with-handle buy point, according to MarketSmith analysis, following a Dec. 12 breakout. The recent pause could be seen as a handle to an eight-month consolidation. That buy point is 31.10, but investors could look for an early entry. Ideally, the 21-day line would catch up and the 50-day line would narrow the gap with Box stock.
Box earnings growth has accelerated for the past two quarters.
Market Rally Analysis
The stock market rally remains under heavy pressure. The major indexes were mixed for the week, not bouncing back after the prior week’s big, ugly outside week.
The Dow Jones rose modestly for the week after testing its 50-day line multiple times.
The S&P 500 fell modestly, but that masked some big swings during the week. The benchmark index just reclaimed its 50-day moving average on Wednesday. On Thursday, the S&P 500 and other major indexes fell to their worst levels in weeks, but did close off lows.
On Friday, the S&P 500 rose slightly, but below its 50-day line. The Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF (RSP), with less weight to tech titans such as Apple, rallied Friday to just reclaim its 50-day.
The Nasdaq was the big laggard, with Tesla stock and Nvidia among the notable laggards. But there was broad weakness for growth stocks, especially among chip names following weak results and guidance from memory-chip maker Micron Technology (MU).
The S&P 500 needs to regain the 50-day line, but that would be just a first step.
It’s unclear if the market will rebound, tumble toward bear lows or move sideways in a choppy fashion for an extended period. The latter may be more likely until there is some clarity over when and where the Fed will stop hiking rates, and whether the economy will slip into a clear-cut recession.
While growth stocks such as Enphase and Celsius are worth watching, many medical stocks and other defensive growth plays are holding up. Metal and mining, industrial, housing and some energy plays are doing relatively well.
Time The Market With IBD’s ETF Market Strategy
What To Do Now
The stock market feinted higher and lower during the week, with the technical picture not changing dramatically. Aside from the Dow Jones, the major indexes are below key moving averages. Leading stocks have been hard to hold, at best.
Investors should have minimal exposure and be wary of adding new positions. Don’t get excited by a strong open or even a bullish session or two.
Keep your watchlists fresh. A lot of stocks from a variety of sectors are setting up or setting up to set up. Some names are showing strong relative strength but don’t have a clear buy point. That’s OK right now.
Meanwhile, spend some time reviewing your trades over the past year, including your big winners and losers, and the trades you didn’t make but wish you had. Were you following your rules, and were your rules sound?
Read The Big Picture every day to stay in sync with the market direction and leading stocks and sectors.
Please follow Ed Carson on Twitter at @IBD_ECarson for stock market updates and more.
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Twenty oil tankers halted near Istanbul in insurance dispute
ISTANBUL, Dec 9 (Reuters) – The number of oil tankers waiting in the Black Sea to pass through Istanbul’s Bosphorus Strait on the way to the Mediterranean rose to 20 on Friday, Tribeca shipping agency said, as Turkey held talks to resolve an insurance dispute behind the build-up.
Dismissing pressure from abroad over the lengthening queue, Turkey’s maritime authority said on Thursday it would continue to block oil tankers that lacked the appropriate insurance letters, and it needed time for checks.
The ship backlog is creating growing unease in oil and tanker markets and comes as the G7 and European Union introduce a price cap on Russian oil. Millions of barrels of oil per day move south from Russian ports through Turkey’s Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits into the Mediterranean.
The maritime authority said that in the event of an accident involving a vessel in breach of sanctions it was possible the damage would not be covered by an international oil-spill fund.
“(It) is out of the question for us to take the risk that the insurance company will not meet its indemnification responsibility,” it said, adding that Turkey was continuing talks with other countries and insurance companies.
It said the vast majority of vessels waiting near the straits were EU vessels, with a large part of the oil destined for EU ports – a factor frustrating Ankara’s Western allies.
The G7 group of nations, the EU and Australia have agreed to bar providers of shipping services, such as insurers, from helping to export Russian oil unless it is sold at an enforced low price, or cap, aimed at depriving Moscow of wartime revenue.
However, Turkey has had a separate measure in force since the start of the month requiring vessels to provide proof of insurance covering the duration of their transit through the Bosphorus strait, or when calling at Turkish ports.
KAZAKH OIL
Eight tankers were also waiting for passage through the Dardanelles strait into the Mediterranean, down from nine a day earlier, Tribeca said, making a total of 28 tankers waiting for southbound passage.
Most of the tankers waiting at the Bosphorus are carrying Kazakh oil and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday the U.S. administration saw no reason that such shipments should be subjected to new procedures.
Washington had no reason to believe Russia was involved in Turkey’s decision to block ship transits, she added.
Turkey has had to balance its good relations with both Russia and Ukraine since Moscow invaded its neighbour in February. It played a key role in a United Nations-backed deal reached in July to free up grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports.
Turkey’s maritime authority said that it was unacceptable to pressure Turkey over what it said were “routine” insurance checks and that it could remove tankers without proper documentation from its waters or require them to furnish new P&I ship insurance letters covering their journeys.
Reporting by Daren Butler, Can Sezer, and Jonathan Saul in London
Editing by Himani Sarkar, Clarence Fernandez, Jonathan Spicer and Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Less than a month after Musk takeover, half of Twitter’s top advertisers have halted activity: report
Half of Twitter’s top advertisers appear to have halted their activity on the social media platform, amid billionaire Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of the company.
Fifty of Twitter’s leading 100 advertisers have stopped advertising on the site as of Nov. 21, according to a recent report from the left-leaning media watchdog Media Matters for America.
Several of the companies officially announced their decision not to advertise on Twitter, including Chevrolet, Chipotle, Ford, Jeep, Kyndryl, Merck and Novartis. The remaining companies were identified by Media Matters’ analysis as “quiet quitters,” those that previously advertised on the social media site but have stopped for a significant period.
Another seven companies appear to be slowing down their advertising to almost nothing, according to the Media Matters report.
The 50 companies that halted advertising on the platform accounted for more than $750 million in spending on Twitter in 2022 and almost $2 billion overall since 2020.
Musk finalized his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter late last month and has since led a chaotic transition at the company. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said Twitter saw a “massive drop” in revenue in his first week, as advertisers pulled out over concerns about content moderation.
“Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists,” Musk said.
Musk laid off about half of Twitter’s workforce in his first week, claiming he had “no choice” amid the company’s poor financial condition. Several hundred more employees resigned in mid-November when Musk gave them an ultimatum — commit to a “hard core” work environment or leave.
The billionaire has also made changes to the social media platform itself, unsuccessfully attempting to roll out a paid subscription service for Twitter’s blue check verification and reinstating former President Trump’s account. Musk has also indicated that he plans to reinstate other suspended accounts in the near future.
How a Single Human Hair Nearly Halted a SpaceX Launch
Engineers quip that FOD is a four-letter word, but there’s nothing funny about foreign object debris and its potential to trigger disaster.
The incident happened on October 5 at around 10:25 a.m. ET, as a SpaceX pad crew was preparing Crew Dragon Endurance for launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket. With the four Crew-5 astronauts already inside the capsule and the hatch closed, an attentive eye spotted a single human hair in the latch seal. The hair was designated FOD—an engineering term for foreign object debris—requiring the pad crew to take action.
The countdown clock had just ticked past T-90 minutes, so time was of the essence. The pad crew calmly reopened Endurance’s hatch and removed the offending strand. They performed another inspection, thoroughly re-cleaned the seal area, and closed the hatch for the second and final time. A subsequent pressure check confirmed a tight seal.
The entire affair took only a few minutes, and the launch wasn’t affected. Blast off of the Falcon 9 happened at noon as scheduled, with the Crew-5 astronauts—Nicole Aunapu Mann, Josh Cassada, Koichi Wakata, and Anna Kikina—successfully reaching the International Space Station on the following day.
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That the SpaceX pad crew would take the time to remove a single hair in advance of a rocket launch is revealing and totally understandable. In the aerospace industry, FOD is defined as any object that doesn’t belong at a specific location, whether that location is a hatch seal, an engine, a cockpit, or the runway. Debris in the wrong place can damage equipment, facilitate the suboptimal performance of systems, and trigger outright malfunctions.
It’s an issue across many industries, but for the aerospace industry, it’s a problem that comes with a $4 billion price tag each year, according to Boeing. NASA runs a FOD program at Kennedy Space Center, the purpose of which is to “minimize the possibility of damage or loss of flight hardware or injury to personnel due to lost items within the flight hardware elements, resulting in preservation of national resources.”
Speaking to me on a video call, Tom Simon, deputy spacecraft manager at NASA Johnson Space Center, said, “we’ve all been trained since day one, when dealing with flight systems, to watch out for FOD.” Extraneous items, such as pencils, paperclips, screwdrivers, hair, and dust, “might seem minor,” but they could, among other things, result in a “seal that is slowly leaking overboard,” he said. “When we’re building systems, we take it seriously,” he added.
As an engineer, FOD is “ingrained in your system,” John Posey, NASA lead engineer for Crew Dragon, told me during the same call. It’s “considered a top risk in training programs,” as FOD carries the potential to “bring down rockets and aircraft,” he explained.
Simon and Posey weren’t able to speak to SpaceX’s specific policies and protocols, but they weren’t surprised by the pad crew’s actions in removing the human hair. FOD related to the sealing of surfaces is a serious concern. When dealing with a sealing surface, and when having to ensure a tight seal, “you don’t want something pressing up against it,” Posey said. “Something like hair—depending on its size and orientation—can result in a leak path.”
Posey said that, for time-sensitive situations like the final closing of a capsule hatch, the sudden appearance of FOD should be built into the timeline and process, in addition to having a contingency plan should this scenario arise. Pad crews should “back out, remove the item, re-inspect, and even clean the seal, and then move forward with the job you’re trying to do,” said Posey.
It’s not just hatches that are prone to FOD risk. Launch operators implement processes to mitigate FOD risk, such as using covers or shields when work like cutting or sawing needs to be done near spacecraft. And of course, the operators themselves need to be clean. Propulsion systems, in which fuels and oxidizers are pumped through high-pressure systems, can be affected by FOD, said Posey, who worked on the Space Shuttle during its final days and “spent thousands of hours on propulsion systems, working on the floor with technicians, to make sure it’s all good.”
As Simon explained, the required degree of cleanliness often depends on the nature of the project or mission itself. Posey said every system needs its own control plan, with engineers defining acceptable limits and deciding what needs to be screened.
Clean room protocols for uncrewed satellite launches tend to be minimal, “to the point of washing hands and putting on gloves,” he said. Missions involving a crew are a different story, however. “With crews, not only does the avionics system have to work, you also don’t want to have things flying all over the place,” in addition to keeping the seals clean, said Simon. Once in orbit, microgravity can suddenly cause unnoticed FOD to float around, including hair and dust. Posey said filtration systems are designed to deal with this sort of stuff, “but you still want to prevent hassles,” such as requiring covers over hatch seals, among other measures. And “even covers have to be cleaned and checked for leaks,” he added.
Posey offered some sage advice: “Always make sure you’re opening a system in a clean room, perform only what you need to do, and do an inspection prior to closing it up.” And “if you see something that doesn’t look right, go in and investigate,” as it’s a “necessary burden,” he said. A second set of eyes won’t hurt, he added. “FOD will find a way to get into your system,” said Posey, hence the term “Smart FOD.” He recounted an incident in which a bootie, or a shoe cover, was suddenly discovered in the Shuttle compartment. “It just slipped off someone’s foot, and these types of things can be funny in retrospect,” said Posey, but booties or tape or anything else that doesn’t belong can be a flammability concern.
Measures to prevent FOD from getting into components or complex systems start in the clean room, and every clean room has its own cleanliness requirements, depending on the project. Clean rooms “are specially certified and monitored to a certain cleanliness rating depending on what’s in there,” and items typically need to be approved before they’re allowed into a clean room, said Posey.
Lockers are available to hold loose items; tape and sticky floor pads can secure items that must be in the room; and tethers can catch anything that’s accidentally dropped. Overalls, known to engineers as “bunny suits,” cover arms and legs and usually feature a hood with a hair net. Beards get covered by beard nets, while shoes get booties.
“Once you’re ready and all geared up, you step through a double door,” said Posey, the first of which “closes behind you and then you go into the clean room.” In the medium chambers of some double doors, “air blows all over you, sucking up any dust or debris,” he explained. Staff will collect any found FOD and investigate where it came from and whether any additional controls are needed. Clean rooms “are never clean enough,” Posey added.
These measures are an added but necessary headache. The good news is that FOD detection is improving over time. Cameras are now routinely used to observe virtually every corner of a launch pad, while X-ray and CT scans can peer inside objects and create 3D images of a part’s interior. With these tools, engineers can “see assembly issues” and “detect FOD that wouldn’t have been found otherwise,” Posey said. An enhanced ability to sniff-out FOD is of increasing importance to the private sector, particularly in the era of component reusability.
The human hair found inside the hatch seal may or may not have caused a problem during the Crew-5 flight, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is safety and the elimination of anything that could put human lives at risk. Engineers will continue to seek out FOD, regardless of the inconvenience it may cause.
More: Remembering Enterprise: The Test Shuttle That Never Flew to Space.
Oil settles lower as halted Russian pipeline flows appear temporary, demand fears rise
Sticker reads crude oil on the side of a storage tank in the Permian Basin in Mentone, Loving County, Texas, U.S. November 22, 2019. REUTERS/Angus Mordant
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NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) – Oil prices settled slightly lower on Tuesday after a see-saw session as worries that a slowing economy could cut demand vied with news that some oil exports had been suspended on the Russia-to-Europe Druzhba pipeline that transits Ukraine.
Crude prices have been under pressure for weeks as fears mounted that a recession could cut oil demand.
Brent crude settled at $96.31 a barrel, losing 34 cents, or 0.4%. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude settled at $90.50 a barrel, shedding 26 cents, or 0.3%. During the session, both benchmarks rose and fell by more than $1 a barrel.
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Ukraine halted oil flows on the Druzhba oil pipeline to parts of central Europe because Western sanctions had prevented a payment from Moscow for transit fees from going through.
Flows along the southern route of the Druzhba pipeline have been affected while the northern route serving Poland and Germany was uninterrupted.
Oil initially moved higher on the pipeline news and expectations that the shutdown would tighten supplies, but prices reversed course as details became clearer around what caused the disruption and that flows were expected to resume within days. read more
“Considering the fact it is not the Russian side shutting down pipe, but the Ukrainian side, it would figure to be a situation that can resolved sooner rather than later,” Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho in New York, said in a note.
Prices were pressured by talks of a last-ditch effort by European nations to revive the Iran nuclear accord. On Monday, the European Union put forward a “final” text to revive the 2015 Iran deal. A senior EU official said a final decision on the proposal, which needs U.S. and Iranian approval, was expected within “very, very few weeks”.
Talks have dragged on for months without a deal.
Iran’s crude exports, according to tanker trackers, are at least 1 million barrels per day below their rate in 2018 when former U.S. President Donald Trump exited the nuclear agreement.
Oil is now down more than $40 from its peak following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which took Brent briefly to $139 a barrel.
U.S. crude oil inventories were also signaling slacking demand, according to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures. Crude stocks rose by about 2.2 million barrels for the week ended Aug. 5. Analysts had forecast a small 400,000-barrel drop in crude inventories. Official government data is due on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT.
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Additional reporting by Alex Lawler, Sonali Paul and Emily Chow
Editing by Louise Heavens, Mark Potter, Barbara Lewis and David Gregorio
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Homeland Security watchdog halted plan to recover Secret Service texts
But later that month, Cuffari’s office decided it would not collect or review any agency phones, according to three people briefed on the decision.
The latest revelation comes as Democratic lawmakers have accused Cuffari’s office of failing to aggressively investigate the agency’s actions in response to the violent attack on the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021.
Cuffari wrote a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees this month saying the Secret Service’s text messages from the time of the attack had been “erased.” But he did not immediately disclose that his office first discovered that deletion in December and failed to alert lawmakers or examine the phones. Nor did he alert Congress that other text messages were missing, including those of the two top Trump appointees running the Department of Homeland Security during the final days of the administration.
Late Friday night, Cuffari’s spokesman issued a statement declining to comment on the new discovery.
“To preserve the integrity of our work and consistent with U.S. Attorney General guidelines, DHS OIG does not confirm the existence of or otherwise comment about ongoing reviews or criminal investigations, nor do we discuss our communications with Congress,” the statement read.
Cuffari, a former adviser to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), has been in his post since July 2019 after being nominated by Trump.
DHS spokeswoman Marsha Espinosa said the agency is cooperating with investigators and “looking into every avenue to recover text messages and other materials for the Jan. 6 investigations.”
After discovering that some of the text messages the watchdog sought had been deleted, the Federal Protective Service, a DHS agency that guards federal buildings, offered their phones to the inspector general’s investigators, saying they lacked the resources to recover lost texts and other records on their own, according to three people familiar with the plan who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.
A senior forensics analyst in the inspector general’s office took steps to collect the Federal Protective Service phones, the people said. But late on the night of Friday, Feb. 18, one of several deputies who report to Cuffari’s management team wrote an email to investigators instructing them not to take the phones and not to seek any data from them, according to a copy of an internal record that was shared with The Post.
Staff investigators also drafted a letter in late January and early February to all DHS agencies offering to help recover any text messages or other data that might have been lost. But Cuffari’s management team later changed that draft to say that if agencies could not retrieve phone messages for the Jan. 6 period, they “should provide a detailed list of unavailable data and the reason the information is unavailable,” the three people said.
Cuffari also learned in late February that text messages for the top two officials at DHS under the Trump administration on the day of the attack were missing, lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021, according to an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight. But Cuffari did not press the department’s leadership to explain why they did not preserve these records, nor try to recover them, according to the four people briefed on the watchdog’s actions. Cuffari also did not alert Congress to the missing records.
These and other discrepancies prompted key Democrats scrutinizing the attack and the Department of Homeland Security to issue a subpoena to the Secret Service and to call for Cuffari to recuse himself from the investigation.
Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and the committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, and Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the committee that oversees inspectors general, said in a letter to Cuffari on Tuesday that they “do not have confidence” that he can conduct the investigation.
Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, issued a statement Friday calling the missing messages “an extremely serious matter” and said he would ask the Justice Department to intervene.
“Inspector General Cuffari’s failure to take immediate action upon learning that these text messages had been deleted makes clear that he should no longer be entrusted with this investigation,” Durbin said in a statement. “That’s why I’m sending a letter today to Attorney General Garland asking him to step in and get to the bottom of what happened to these text messages and hold accountable those who are responsible.”
Cuffari was asked to answer the lawmakers by Aug. 9.
Cuffari opened a criminal investigation into the Secret Service’s missing text messages this month, one of dozens of inquiries his office does as part of its work overseeing the Department of Homeland Security, the nation’s third-largest agency. Many, including Democrats in Congress, viewed the timing and motive for the inquiry with suspicion, as Cuffari had not pushed to probe the fact that the records were deleted when he first learned of it months earlier. DHS encompasses agencies such as the Secret Service, the Federal Protective Service and immigration and border protection.
Three people briefed on his handling of the missing text messages painted a portrait of an office that faltered over how to handle the matter, even though they had highly skilled officials ready to attack the issue and federal agencies willing to cooperate.
A former senior executive at the inspector general’s office who left the agency this year said Cuffari’s office instructed the executive to call the agency’s top forensic expert on a Saturday early this year to tell him to “stand down” on pursuing the forensics work for the Secret Service’s phones.
“That was done at the direction of the inspector general’s front office,” the former senior executive said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are no longer at the office.
Cuffari’s office has continued to issue reports and, on the day the lawmakers called for him to step aside, tweeted about awards that they had won for inspections. The awards are from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency, an independent executive agency that supports inspectors general.
In their letter, Thompson and Maloney asked the council to find a replacement for Cuffari on the investigation into the missing Secret Service texts.
The council said it could only help find a replacement if Cuffari decided to recuse himself and asked them for assistance finding a replacement, its executive director, Alan F. Boehm, said in an email.
Cuffari sent a letter to the House and Senate Homeland Security committees this month accusing the Secret Service of erasing text messages from the time around the assault on the Capitol and after he had asked for them for his own investigation.
The Secret Service denied maliciously erasing text messages and said the deletions were part of a preplanned “system migration” of its phones. They said none of the texts Cuffari’s office sought had disappeared.
The Federal Records Act and other laws require federal agencies to preserve government records, and it is a crime, punishable by fines and prison time, to willfully destroy government records.
In addition to the Secret Service, text messages for Trump acting homeland security secretary Chad Wolf and acting deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli are missing for a key period leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, according to four people briefed on the matter and internal emails.
But Cuccinelli and Wolf both said they turned in their phones, as Wolf put it in a tweet, “fully loaded,” and said it was up to DHS to preserve their messages.
On Twitter, Wolf wrote: “I complied with all data retention laws and returned all my equipment fully loaded to the Department. Full stop. DHS has all my texts, emails, phone logs, schedules, etc. Any issues with missing data needs to be addressed to DHS.”
Cuccinelli, also on Twitter, said he handed in his phone before departing DHS and suggested that the agency “erased” his phone after he left.
The National Archives and Records Administration has sought more information on “the potential unauthorized deletion” of Secret Service text messages, but that inquiry could be delayed by Cuffari’s criminal investigation into the agency. The archives had no immediate comment Friday about Wolf and Cuccinelli’s text messages.
GameStop surges more than 20% and is halted in odd trading; AMC shares also pop
A screen displays the logo and trading information for GameStop on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) March 29, 2022.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Shares of two meme stocks surged on Thursday, adding an unexpected wrinkle for a stock market that has been dropping in choppy trading for more than a month.
GameStop jumped more than 20% and was halted for volatility multiple times. The stock of theater chain AMC Entertainment popped 18%.
GameStop and AMC turned heads early last year when a band of retail investors coordinated trades on online chatrooms to create massive short squeezes in these stocks widely hated by hedge funds and other players. The meteoric rallies inflicted huge pains for many hedge funds and other short sellers involved in these speculative names.
Since then, the stocks have retreated from their peak prices, and short-sellers have started to build positions once again. According to FactSet, AMC has short interest of 19.5%, while GameStop sits at 21.4%.
Those large bets against the company can sometimes lead to dramatic one-day moves in a stock, as hedge funds move to close out their short positions when a stock rises, thus creating more buying pressure. This process is known as a short squeeze.
Even with Thursday’s big moves, the stocks remain well below their heights from the first half of 2021. GameStop, which rose as high as $483 per share on an intraday basis last January, was trading between $90 and $100 per share on Thursday.
AMC, which hit an intraday of $72.62 last June, was at around $12 per share on Thursday.
Because the market caps of the companies have fallen so much, it is easier for just a few trading shops, or even one large fund, to force a new short squeeze.
In 2021, both AMC and GameStop took advantage of their temporarily elevated share prices to sell additional stock and raise capital. AMC CEO Adam Aron has made a major effort to embrace the retail investors who participated in the rally, answering questions from small-dollar traders on earnings calls and introducing shareholder perks at the physical movie theaters.
AMC has used the cash it raised in part to buy up other theaters around the country. However, the company also bought a stake in a small gold mining company earlier this year that has a shaky financial history.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
— CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report