- Microsoft welcomes CMA U-turn on Activision deal, Sony decries “irrational” decision GamesIndustry.biz
- Xbox Activision Deal: Sony Calls CMA’s Reduced Concern ‘Surprising, Unprecedented, and Irrational’ IGN
- Jim Ryan Fears ‘Serious Damage’ If Xbox Degrades Call Of Duty For PlayStation Pure Xbox
- Sony Says UK’s U-Turn On Microsoft-Activision Deal Is “Surprising, Unprecedented, And Irrational” GameSpot
- Sony pounces on Redfall exclusivity drama in latest response to Microsoft’s Activision acquisition Eurogamer.net
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: UTurn
Florida mulls U-turn on move to strip Disney theme-parks of self-governing status – FT
Dec 2 (Reuters) – Florida lawmakers are mulling plans to reverse a move that would strip Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) of its right to operate a private government around its famous theme-parks, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the plan.
In April, lawmakers had given their final approval to a bill ending Walt Disney’s designation as a self-governing entity, in an apparent response to its opposition to a state law limiting the teaching of LGBTQ issues in schools.
The new law would also mean that Disney would have to pay more taxes, state governor Ron DeSantis had said in April when he signed the bill. read more
The state lawmakers are working on a compromise that would allow Disney to keep the arrangement largely in place with a few modifications, the FT report said.
A spokesperson at DeSantis’ office said that the governor “does not make U-turns,” but added that a plan was in the works and would soon be released.
“We will have an even playing field for businesses in Florida, and the state certainly owes no special favors to one company. Disney’s debts will not fall on taxpayers of Florida.”
The FT report added that the return of Bob Iger as CEO last month could help pave the way for a resolution on the law.
The bill signed in spring this year by DeSantis eliminates special governing jurisdiction that allowed the company to operate Walt Disney World Resort as its own city.
Disney had condemned Florida’s LGBTQ legislation dubbed as “don’t say gay” bill by critics, which bans classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade.
Disney did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Jahnavi Nidumolu in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Rhea Binoy; Editing by Dhanya Ann Thoppil and Shailesh Kuber
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Beer could be banned from all eight World Cup stadiums in potential U-turn | World Cup 2022
With just days to go until the World Cup begins, the Qatari hosts are reportedly pressuring Fifa to stop the sale of beer at the eight tournament stadiums in what would be an astonishing U-turn.
The sale of alcohol is strictly controlled in Qatar, but it is due to be available in the area immediately outside match venues and fan zones, as well as within hotels.
Budweiser is one of Fifa’s biggest sponsors but was told on Saturday to relocate stalls selling its product at stadiums to less prominent locations.
The Times reports that Qatar 2022 now wants to go even further and that discussions are ongoing between Fifa and Budweiser. A decision is expected on Friday but it is believed beer could be banned from all stadiums.
Budweiser remains one of Fifa’s key partners and if it is denied the opportunity to sell beer or to have any visibility at the World Cup matches, then football’s governing body would be in breach of a multi-million dollar contract.
Fifa and the Budweiser owner AB InBev have been approached for comment.
In response to the request to move its outlets, AB InBev told Sky News: “AB InBev was informed on 12 November and are working with Fifa to relocate the concession outlets to locations as directed. We are working with Fifa to bring the best possible experience to the fans. Our focus is on delivering the best possible consumer experience under the new circumstances.”
If the beer ban goes ahead, the only place supporters will be able to drink alcohol will be at a designated fan park, where Budweiser has already revealed a 500ml drink will cost fans the pretty price of £11.60.
A few hotel bars will typically charge around £12-£15 for a beer or glass of wine.
Zelenskiy labels Putin U-turn on Ukraine grain deal a ‘failure of Russian aggression’ | Ukraine
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has hailed Russia’s turnaround in rejoining the UN-backed grain export deal, just days after the Kremlin threatened to pull out, as a “significant diplomatic outcome” for Ukraine and the “whole world”.
“Implementation of the grain export initiative will continue,” Zelenskiy said in his Wednesday evening address.
Russia initially said it would abandon the brokered deal that allowed exports of grain from Ukraine through the Black Sea, following a dramatic drone attack on its warships in the port of Sevastopol. Russia’s defence ministry said it was satisfied it had received “sufficient” guarantees from Kyiv that it would not use the maritime corridor to carry out attacks.
“We demanded assurances and guarantees from the Ukrainian side that nothing like this would happen again, that the humanitarian corridors would not be used militarily,” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said during a video meeting with his coordination council on Wednesday.
However, Zelenskiy said the Kremlin’s call for guarantees showed “the failure of the Russian aggression”, noting: “Russian blackmail has led nowhere”.
After eight months of war “the Kremlin is saying that they demanded security guarantees from Ukraine”, he said. “Two hundred and fifty two days ago Russia demanded security guarantees from the United States of America.
“These are really striking changes. This shows both the failure of Russian aggression and how strong you and I are when we remain united.”
Russia’s decision to rejoin the UN grain corridor has been seen as a humiliating U-turn by Ukraine and its western allies.
“Putin was once again humiliated … the Kremlin blackmailer once again made himself a laughing stock before the whole world and retreated,” Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote over Telegram on Wednesday night.
Mykhalio Podolyak, another of Zelenskiy’s senior advisers, described Russia as “a gambler in a casino who has been lucky several times” but “went all-in … and lost”.
British foreign secretary James Cleverley said Vladimir Putin realised he “shot himself in the foot” by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports.
“Putin must stop using food as a weapon,” he said. “The grain initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.”
Putin must stop using food as a weapon.
He has realised he shot himself in the foot by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports to load up grain to feed the world.
The Grain Initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) November 2, 2022
n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/JamesCleverly/status/1587809126138224640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1587809126138224640%7Ctwgr%5Ef8a0a268d715e27cdef2847342bb1930a3dd487d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.sky.com%2Fstory%2Fukraine-war-latest-putin-launches-military-satellite-into-space-as-russia-is-accused-of-covert-mobilisation-12541713″,”id”:”1587809126138224640″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”0eda5eda-1008-4938-9af3-173a5098aca0″}}”>
Putin must stop using food as a weapon.
He has realised he shot himself in the foot by stopping ships from entering Ukrainian ports to load up grain to feed the world.
The Grain Initiative must now be extended beyond November without further Russian impediments.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) November 2, 2022
Andrey Sizov, head of the Russia-focused Sovecon agriculture consultancy, said Moscow’s decision was “quite an unexpected turnaround” but the deal remained shaky given uncertainty about whether it would be extended past its 19 November expiry.
The United States, however, welcomed the restoration of the deal and urged Russia to renew it later this month.
State department spokesperson Ned Price praised UN and Turkish mediators but said it was important that the deal is “not only set back in motion, but it’s renewed later this month.”
Secretary of state Antony Blinken thanked Turkey for its efforts and reminded Moscow of the “importance of continued adherence to UN-brokered agreements and its commitments to support global food security,” a statement said.
Reuters contributed to this report
‘We’re seeing buyers backing out’: This dramatic chart reveals U-turn in the housing market as sellers slash home prices
Here’s a chart that speaks a thousand words about the state of the real-estate market right now.
The chart above, part of a new report by real-estate brokerage Redfin
RDFN,
-7.03%
on the property market, reveals how home sellers are adjusting to the new normal of 7% mortgage rates.
The chart says that 7.9% of homes for sale on the market each week had their prices slashed — and that’s a record high.
That’s compared to just 4% of homes having their prices reduced each week over the same period a year ago.
Redfin’s data goes back to 2015. The company averaged out the share of listings which saw a price cut over four weeks, to smoothen out any outliers.
Taylor Marr, deputy chief economist at Redfin, added that looking over a bigger time period, i.e. a month, the company’s data shows that a quarter of homes right now are dropping prices.
“We have never been this high,” Marr told MarketWatch in an interview.
Unlike buyers, who are much more sensitive to rising mortgage rates, “sellers are just slow to react to the changes in demand… they set prices based on where they think the market is [and] are often reluctant to set their prices too low,” Marr said.
So for sellers, prices are a little stickier, he added, and slower to come down.
But even if it took a while, it’s finally happening.
After all, mortgage rates are at multi-decade highs, with the 30-year trending steadily above 7% as of Friday afternoon, according to Mortgage News Daily. And that’s likely to go up even more, as the 10-year Treasury note
TMUBMUSD10Y,
4.023%,
is trending above 4%.
Meanwhile, Redfin said that the median home on the market was listed at over $367,000, up 7% over last year.
The monthly mortgage for that home at the current interest rate of 6.92%, according to Freddie Mac, is $2,559.
A year ago, when rates were at 3.05%, that monthly payment would’ve been just $1,698.
Two tips for home buyers struggling with high mortgage rates
Sellers are dropping their prices by 4 to 5% on average, Marr said.
“You would almost expect it to be a lot worse,” he added, given how quickly rates rose and eroded buying power.
But buyers and sellers are also using two different tactics to get some relief on mortgage rates, Marr said.
One, sellers are reaching out to buyers and offering concessions to buy mortgage rates down.
In other words, sellers are asking buyers to pay the full asking price, but proposing to use part of that as a concession to get buyers a lower interest rate on their mortgage.
“Which is essentially a price drop,” Marr said, “it’s the same thing … but it doesn’t necessarily show up in the data.” And it’s hard to get a sense of the magnitude of how this is playing out, he added.
How it works is as such, Marr explained: If a buyer is putting down $100,000 for a 20% downpayment on their home at a 6.5% interest rate, they can instead allocate 10% for the downpayment, and spend the rest of the $50,000 buying down the mortgage rate to 5%.
“5% isn’t very bad, and it might seem like a lot of money, but … chances are you’re going to be incentivized to refinance [in the future] and you’ll have to pay the closing cost on that loan to refinance, which could be upwards of 15 grand,” Marr added.
Buyers are also switching to adjustable-rate mortgages, which offer lower interest rates at the start of the term. ARMs are nearly 12% of overall mortgage applications, the Mortgage Bankers Association noted on Wednesday, which is high.
Where prices are falling
As to where prices are falling, a couple of places stood out to Redfin.
They said that home prices fell 3% year-over-year in Oakland, Calif., and 2% in San Francisco. New Orleans also saw a 2% drop.
“Even in Atlanta, or Orlando, we’re seeing buyers backing out,” Marr observed.
So with the backdrop of sellers finally dropping listing prices, if you’re a buyer right now, don’t be spooked by rising rates and stop looking, he advised.
“There have been opportunities when rates really came down and gave buyers the moment to jump back in and get some good deals on homes that did drop their prices,” he said.
Plus, “it doesn’t hurt to make a low ball offer,” Marr added. “Some sellers are desperate, and that can be a good strategy … we’ve heard from some of our own agents that some buyers are getting incredible deals right now.”
But if you need to rent for a year and wait for things to calm down, then do that, Marr said, and bulk up those savings for that dream home.
Got thoughts on the housing market? Write to MarketWatch reporter Aarthi Swaminathan at aarthi@marketwatch.com
Kwasi Kwarteng dashes home early from US amid tax U-turn chaos | Politics
Kwasi Kwarteng has dramatically cut short his visit to the International Monetary Fund, flying home early from Washington in response to the mounting political crisis over his tax-cutting budget.
Adding to signs that the government is preparing to announce a U-turn over its plan to scrap a rise in corporation tax, the chancellor left the US capital a day earlier than planned.
Treasury sources said the chancellor had two constructive days in Washington but was keen to get back to London to engage with colleagues over his medium-term fiscal plan, due to be announced on 31 October.
But his unscheduled departure on a late-night flight from Washington capped a day of drama for the Truss government and prompted comparisons with the sterling crisis suffered by the Labour government in 1976.
Then, the chancellor Denis Healey turned around at Heathrow rather than fly out to an IMF meeting in Manila after pressure mounted on the pound.
Treasury sources refused to comment on whether Kwarteng’s decision meant a U-turn on corporation tax was imminent, but the chancellor was under pressure to make a decision before the financial markets open for business on Monday.
The pound and government bonds – or gilts – rallied yesterday at rumours of a change of heart on tax. But the Bank of England’s support scheme for bonds comes to an end on Friday.
“This is all about the medium-term fiscal plan,” a treasury source said. “The chancellor wanted to make sure he had as wide a range of colleagues as possible engaged with it.”
Earlier, Kwarteng was forced to deny his position as chancellor was in peril, insisting he was “absolutely, 100%” confident he would still be in post next month despite a growing Tory rebellion.
But there were signs yesterday that decisions on tax were being taken by Liz Truss in London rather than by the chancellor 3,000 miles away across the Atlantic.
On another febrile day in Westminster, government sources told the Guardian that No 10 officials – rather than their Treasury counterparts – were reviewing the mini-budget in the prime minister’s efforts to balance the books.
Truss has repeatedly promised to cancel the former chancellor Rishi Sunak’s plans to put up corporation tax from 19% to 25%. Sources suggested that a potential climbdown could involve putting it up by just one or two percentage points, rather than the full 6%.
UK’s Truss thinking of new tax policy U-turn, media reports say
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Liz Truss is considering reversing more of her government’s controversial “mini-budget”, some media reported on Thursday, setting off a rally for the battered pound and British government bonds.
Discussions were under way in Downing Street over whether to scrap elements of the plan which caused turmoil in financial markets the moment it was announced by finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng three weeks ago, Sky News said, citing sources.
The Sun newspaper said Truss was considering allowing a rise in corporation tax to take place next April, something she promised to halt in her bid to be prime minister, in which she vowed to sweep away the “orthodoxy” of economic policy.
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Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng, asked repeatedly in an interview with BBC television whether the reports of a change of policy on corporation tax were accurate, said that he was focused on his growth plan.
“Our position hasn’t changed. I will come up with the medium-term fiscal plan on the 31st of October, as I said earlier in the week, and there will be more detail then,” he said on the sidelines of International Monetary Fund meetings.
Kwarteng is due to announce his medium-term budget plans on Oct. 31, alongside independent fiscal forecasts.
Truss is under huge pressure within her Conservative Party to change her push for 43 billion pounds ($48.8 billion) of unfunded tax cuts as polls show her support has collapsed and investors have balked at the potential impact on the public finances.
Some lawmakers have pondered whether she should be removed from the job only a month after becoming Britain’s fourth prime minister in just six years since the Brexit referendum.
The pound, which has fallen sharply since Truss emerged as the front-runner to enter Downing Street in August, leapt on the reports and was up almost 2.5% against the U.S. dollar shortly after 5pm (1600 GMT) on Thursday.
British government bond prices also recovered some of the steep losses incurred since Kwarteng’s “mini-budget” announcement on Sept. 23.
Kwarteng, asked by the BBC about any discussions going on back in London to tear up his package, said: “I speak to the prime minister all the time, and we are totally focused on delivering the growth plan.”
He and Truss bowed to pressure earlier this month and ditched part of the mini-budget which would have eliminated the top rate of income tax, something they had said would help spur Britain’s sluggish economic growth rate. The IMF has said it would worsen inequality.
The government has repeatedly said it will stick to the rest of the tax cut plans while also protecting public spending, but economists and critics say something has to give.
In a sign of how far Britain’s reputation for sound economic management and institutional stability has fallen, the head of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Thursday she had told Kwarteng of the importance of “policy coherence and communicating clearly”.
“I do believe that it is correct to be led by evidence. If the evidence is that there has to be a recalibration, it is right for governments to do so,” she told reporters. read more
Pedestrians leave and enter the London Stock Exchange in London, Britain August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Neil Hall//File Photo
LEADERSHIP
Truss has quickly run into deep opposition to her leadership even among some Conservative lawmakers, many of whom who never wanted her to replace Boris Johnson as leader.
“If I was Liz Truss I wouldn’t wait to be thrown out of office by my party. I hope I’d resign,” Tim Montgomerie, founder of the influential ConservativeHome website, said on Twitter.
Former finance minister George Osborne was critical too.
“Given the pain being caused to the real economy by the financial turbulence, it’s not clear why it is in anyone’s interests to wait 18 more days before the inevitable U-turn on the mini budget,” he said on Twitter.
Asked if he and Truss would still be in their jobs next month, Kwarteng replied: “Absolutely, 100%. I’m not going anywhere.”
Earlier, Foreign minister James Cleverly had warned that a change of leader would be “a disastrously bad idea, not just politically but also economically”.
Under current rules, lawmakers can only write letters to call for a no-confidence vote when the leader has been in place for a year. But that convention might not hold after a fire-sale in the government bond market drove up borrowing costs and mortgage rates and forced the Bank of England to intervene to protect pension funds caught up in the market chaos.
REALLY ILL PATIENT
The BoE’s emergency bond purchases are due to end on Friday. Many analysts have said it might have to maintain some kind of support given the fragility of the bond market.
“A central bank is like a doctor: if the patient is really ill, and even if the patient has misbehaved, it is very difficult for a doctor to walk away,” said Mohamed El Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz.
But Larry Fink, chief executive of U.S. investment behemoth BlackRock, said British government bond prices suggested that a great part of so-called liability-driven investment funds at the centre of the chaos had been “reconstructed”.
There are signs however that the rise in borrowing costs is feeding through into the real economy.
The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors said on Thursday that house prices showed the weakest growth in September since early in the coronavirus crisis and they look set to fall with mortgage rates recently jumping further.
The country’s largest homebuilder, Barratt (BDEV.L), has flagged a plunge in reservations in recent months, causing it to issue a profit warning after what has been a robust few years for the sector. read more
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Truss forced into U-turn on tax after week of market turmoil
BIRMINGHAM, England, Oct 3 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Liz Truss was forced on Monday into a humiliating U-turn after less than a month in power, reversing a cut to the highest rate of income tax that helped spark turmoil in financial markets and a rebellion in her party.
Finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the decision to scrap the top rate tax cut had been taken with “some humility and contrition”, after his party’s lawmakers reacted with alarm to a move that favoured the rich during an economic downturn.
Elected by party members but not the broader public, Truss and Kwarteng had sought to jolt the economy out of its more than 10-year run of stagnant growth with a 1980s-style plan to cut taxes and regulation, all funded by vast government borrowing.
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Signalling a break with “Treasury orthodoxy”, they had also fired the most senior official in the government’s finance department and released the tax cut plan without accompanying forecasts on how much it would cost.
Investors – used to Britain being a pillar of the global financial community – were aghast. They sold British assets at such a rate that the pound hit a record low against the dollar and the cost of government borrowing soared, forcing the Bank of England to intervene to shore up markets.
“It is astonishing,” one Conservative lawmaker said, declining to be named. “The damage has already been done. We just look incompetent now, too.”
Another party insider said the Conservative government, in power under different leaders for 12 years but with Truss as prime minister only since Sept. 6, was already on “survive a day at a time” mode as confidence and credibility drained away.
While the removal of the top rate of tax only made up around 2 billion out of the 45 billion pounds of unfunded tax cuts, it was the most divisive element of a package that also stumped up tens of billions of pounds to subsidise energy costs.
HAPPY TO OWN IT
Less than a day after Truss went on BBC television to defend the policy, Kwarteng released a statement saying he now accepted it had become a distraction.
“We listened to people and yes there is some humility and contrition,” Kwarteng told BBC Radio. “And I’m happy to own it.”
He said he had not considered resigning.
The decision to reverse course is likely to put Truss and Kwarteng under even greater pressure, the latest threat to political stability in a country that has had four prime ministers in the last six years.
Asked if he should resign or be fired, one Conservative lawmaker said: “It’s very difficult, of course, because he’s only just been appointed. But my view is that he is significantly weakened.”
British Prime Minister Liz Truss and Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng attend the annual Conservative Party conference, in Birmingham, Britain, October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Truss and Kwarteng were elected into government in 2019 when former leader Boris Johnson secured a landslide victory on a very different manifesto, promising to increase government spending, particularly in Britain’s more deprived areas.
While defending the tax cut policy on Sunday, Truss had been unable to rule out that it would require cuts to spending on public services and restrictions on welfare payments in order to balance the books.
Many Conservatives warned that it risked taking them back to their “nasty party” image of 20 years ago.
Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor of Tees Valley in northeast England, said he understood the idea of cutting taxes but said such a move during a cost-of-living crisis for millions had been “very naive”.
“Would I have done it? Absolutely not,” he told the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, where Kwarteng is due to speak later.
Britain’s opposition Labour Party said the government had destroyed its economic credibility and damaged the economy. “They need to reverse their whole economic, discredited trickle down strategy,” Labour’s Rachel Reeves said in a statement.
HISTORIC LOSSES
While the pound has recovered from the depths of last week, British government bonds have mostly failed to recoup the historic losses incurred following Kwarteng’s “mini-budget” – with the exception of long-dated debt which is subject to Bank of England support.
Investors and economists said the reversal was a step in the right direction but the government needed to go further. It is not due to release a fiscal statement with the full scale of government borrowing and debt cutting plans until Nov. 23.
“The issue was not tax changes announced at the mini-budget but the institutional ‘scorched earth policy’ that preceded it,” said Simon French, chief economist of brokerage Panmure Gordon. “UK risk premia will likely only pull back if that is addressed.”
Analysts said they were now having to weigh up the positive development that the government had been willing to reverse course, with the fact that its credibility has been damaged.
At the height of the market turmoil, the Bank of England was forced to intervene with a 65 billion pound ($73 billion) programme to shore up markets that runs until Oct. 14.
On the U-turn, Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank, said the question remained of whether it was enough.
“The answer will be clear in a few weeks’ time when the Bank of England measures end,” she said. “UK assets, the pound and gilts are not out of the woods yet, and the British government has a lot to do to get back credibility.”
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Ryan Cohen’s $60 million Bed Bath u-turn triggers meme stock investor ire
An exterior view shows a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Novi, Michigan, U.S., January 29, 2021. REUTERS/Emily Elconin
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Aug 19 (Reuters) – Investors flooded social media platforms such as Reddit on Friday with criticism of Ryan Cohen’s sale of his stake in Bed Bath & Beyond Inc (BBBY.O), blaming him for helping fuel a meme stock rally only to then walk away with a $60 million profit.
The billionaire investor disclosed on Thursday he had sold his 9.8% stake in the struggling home goods retailer, almost five months after amassing it and pushing for changes. In response, the company ousted its chief executive, changed some board directors and agreed to explore shedding its baby products unit. read more
Cohen stands to earn a profit before taxes of between $55 million and $60 million on the stock sale, according to a Reuters review of regulatory filings and a person familiar with the matter.
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Cohen did not offer a reason for the u-turn and did not respond to requests for comment. He built a following last year of loyal individual investors who bet on his turnaround of video game retailer GameStop Corp (GME.N), some of whom expressed fury and disbelief after they followed his lead on Bed Bath only to see him abruptly cash out.
Cohen sold his Bed Bath stock on Tuesday and Wednesday after it rose 300% in August amid a speculative rally in meme stocks, a popular reference to shares traded by investors mostly based on hype in social media rather than their economic fundamentals.
Bed Bath & Beyond shares, which briefly hit $30 this month, finished Thursday at $18.55, falling 20% after filings revealed Cohen planned to sell his shares. It plunged another 44% in after-hours trading after filings showed that he had sold all of his shares. read more
The stock was on course to open 43% lower on Friday, erasing all of the week’s gains.
“The writing is on the wall that Bed Bath & Beyond shares have again decoupled from economic reality,” Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem said.
Ryan Bennett, a 43-year-old agriculture worker in Beloit, Wisconsin, told Reuters he lost more than $40,000 because he followed Cohen in buying Bed Bath shares.
“I feel I took my hard-earned money out of my pocket and put it right into Cohen’s,” Bennett said.
Bed Bath said in a regulatory filing on Thursday it was working with external financial advisors and lenders on strengthening its balance sheet, an admission that it needs to raise capital to stay afloat. The company had a mountain of long-term debt totaling $1.38 billion and only $107.5 million in cash as of the end of May, according to its most recent financial disclosure.
The investor reaction raises questions over whether Cohen will continue to exert strong influence over meme stock loyalists. On Wallstreetbets, the Reddit forum frequented by such investors, some lamented their losses and Cohen’s role.
“After reading what Ryan Cohen just did, I hope you all understand that he is not one of us,” one of the posters that goes by the name of Ronpm111 wrote.
Shares of GameStop, in which Ryan holds a 12% stake and serves as chairman, have dropped 20% since he disclosed his Bed Bath stock sale. This raised questions among many investors, including Bennett, over whether Cohen’s stock sale at Bed Bath will weigh on GameStop’s status as a meme stock.
“I don’t know if I can trust him to hold a stake in GameStop. I’ll probably be looking to exit that,” Bennett said.
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Reporting by Krystal Hu and Angelique Chen in New York and Svea Hebst-Bayliss in Rhode Island; Additional reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Greg Roumeliotis and Jacqueline Wong
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Germany agrees to send heavy weapons to Ukraine after major policy U-turn
The commitment to deliver the Gepard anti-aircraft systems was announced by defense minister Christine Lambrecht during a meeting of international defense officials at the Ramstein US Air Force base in Germany on Tuesday.
“We decided yesterday that we will support Ukraine with anti-aircraft systems … which is exactly what Ukraine needs now to secure the airspace from the ground,” Lambrecht said during the meeting at the base.
This is significant as it is the first time Germany has agreed to provide this type of heavy weaponry to Ukraine as it fights off the Russian invasion. The Gepard systems were phased out from active duty in Germany in 2010.
Germany initially resisted calls to provide weaponry to Kyiv, agreeing only to provide humanitarian help and medical equipment. That approach was in line with Germany’s decades-long policy of not supplying lethal weapons to crisis zone.
Just months before Russian President Vladimir Putin order the invasion into Ukraine, the then new German government agreed to include the restrictive arms export policy into its coalition agreement.
But facing pressure from allies and the German public, the government was forced to overhaul the rules. By late February, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Germany would start delivering some weapons to Ukraine, although at that point he insisted on calling them “defensive.”
He also announced Germany would start pumping more money into its own armed forces.
First such investment was publicly confirmed last month when Germany announced it would buy 35 US-made F-35A fighter jets.
Just last week, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said that while “other partners are now providing artillery” to Ukraine, Germany would “help with training and maintenance.”
Baerbock said that Germany could not provide further weaponry as the country had no weapons it could “deliver quickly and without delay right now.”
She added that Germany had chosen not to make public all the weapons it had previously sent to Ukraine, but said: “We have supplied anti-tank weapons, Stingers [air defense systems] and many other weapons that we haven’t spoken about in public,” the minister said.