Opening Bell: 4.30.15
Bank of America to Pay $180 Million to Settle Investors’ Forex Lawsuit (WSJ)
Bank of America Corp. has agreed to pay $180 million to settle a lawsuit by private investors who accused the bank and others of manipulating foreign-exchange rates. The bank’s decision comes after rivals J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and UBS AG had agreed to settle with the same investors. Other banks, including Citigroup Inc. and Barclays PLC, are expected to settle soon, according to people familiar with the situation.
Apple warns of ‘material’ financial damage from European tax probe (FT via CNBC)
Apple has warned investors that it could face "material" financial penalties from the European Commission's investigation into its tax deals with Ireland — the first time it has disclosed the potential consequences of the probe. Under US securities rules, a material event is usually defined as 5 per cent of a company's average pre-tax earnings for the past three years. For Apple, which reported the highest quarterly profit ever for a US company in January, that could exceed $2.5bn, according to FT calculations.
The Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight Will Be a Game of Piracy Whack-a-Mole (Bloomberg)
The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight will be a major test of the sports media industry’s ability to crack down on piracy. The fight is expected to be the most lucrative boxing match ever—and the most-pirated live sporting event in history. And while the lawsuits are a first step, the real contest will be a spirit game of whack-a-mole taking place as the fight is actually going on. Sports pose a unique challenge when it comes to piracy. Whereas an episode of Game of Thrones will likely draw significant attention days or even weeks after it airs, relatively few people will want to watch a boxing match once they know who has won. As a result, everything comes down to what happens during a few hours on Saturday night.
Buffalo Wild Wings Balks at Price for Pacquiao-Mayweather (Bloomberg)
As sports fans gear up for Saturday’s much-hyped championship bout in Las Vegas, Buffalo Wild Wings has decided not to show the fight at the vast majority of its U.S. locations because of the price, which is about $5,100 per restaurant. “It was enormously expensive,” Chief Executive Officer Sally Smith said in an interview.
Court bans petty thief from touching ANY vending machine (Manchester Evening News)
Russell Stansfield, from Derker near Oldham, has a long history of petty thefts and was slapped with a Criminal Behavioural Order after his latest appearance in court. He had been caught stealing money from a parking meter in Bury earlier this year and admitted having a history of committing similar offences. The order means he cannot use coin-operated machines. He is banned from touching food and beverage vending machines, banned from the Trafford Centre and its car parks and he has been told he is not to visit any airport or its car parks unless he can prove he is travelling somewhere. Stansfield is also banned from using pay phones unless he is calling emergency services and if he is using the Metrolink, he must buy his ticket and move away from the machine.
Twitter's growth seen hinging on luring advertisers (Reuters)
Advertising has been seen as a growth driver for Twitter, but the RBC analysts said the company appears to have "hit an ROI (return on investment) wall with its advertisers." Twitter's ad revenue per monthly average user has now decelerated for three consecutive quarters, and its outlook implied a further slowdown in the second quarter.
Can Bitcoin Conquer Argentina? (NYT)
Banks everywhere hold money and move it around; they help make it possible for money to function as both a store of value and a medium of exchange. But thanks in large part to their country’s history of financial instability, a small yet growing number of Argentines are now using Bitcoin instead to fill those roles.
Buy Julia Roberts’ Hanalei Bay Estate in Kauai, Hawaii for $30 Million (Bloomberg)
Roberts has listed her Hanalei, HI estate with more than 200 feet of beachfront for $29.85 million, Pacific Business News reports. The estate, which the actress bought for $13.4 million in 2011, is called “The Faye Estate” for the sugar plantation manager who bought it in 1915, four decades before Hawaii became a state.
Anonymous sharing app Secret shuts down (FT)
Secret, an anonymous sharing app backed by Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and Ashton Kutcher, is shutting down and returning money to investors, a rare occurrence for such a high profile tech start-up. David Byttow, Secret’s chief executive, said he had decided to close the company rather than changing direction — known in Silicon Valley as pivoting — because he believed in “failing fast”. “This has been the hardest decision of my life and one that saddens me deeply. Unfortunately Secret does not represent the vision I had when starting the company, so I believe it’s the right decision for myself, our investors and our team,” he said in a blog post on Medium.
'People need to wear pants and not set off fireworks,' say police after six Red Mile arrests (EJ)
Calgary police are reminding citizens not to set off fireworks (especially not near gas stations), not to walk around in public with open liquor, and not to forget their pants while celebrating when their beloved hockey team wins. After the Flames beat the Canucks at the Saddledome on Saturday evening, securing the hometown heroes a spot in the second round of playoffs, an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 people congregated on 17th Avenue S.W. to celebrate the victory. For the most part, the jubilant crowd was well-behaved. But, police say a total of six people were arrested — including two people in relation to media harassment, one man who was walking down the street baring everything below the waist, and another person who set off fireworks near the Shell gas station. “People need to wear pants and not set off fireworks by the gas station,” said Calgary Police Staff Sgt. Steve Ellefson.