Feria de Primavera: Sábado 5 de Marzo @ 1pm

Homebuyers in Pricey Markets Are Now Scared to Dream (BusinessWeek)

Rising home prices in large cities have put a damper on the aspirational online real estate search.

Rising home prices in hot housing markets are robbing buyers of a favorite pleasure: looking at pictures of homes they can't afford. Or at least, that's one way to read a blog post published today by real estate brokerage Redfin.

Traditionally, buyers browsing online listings have looked at homes that cost more than they are planning to spend, said Redfin. That dynamic has held true in such cities as Philadelphia and Chicago, where prices have remained stable in recent years. But in cities such as San Francisco and Boston, where inventory is scarce and prices have increased sharply, buyers are starting their searches at lower price points.

Denver is another good example. In 2014, the median price for listings viewed on Redfin was $359,000. That was 26 percent higher than the $285,000 median listing price for the city. So far this year, the difference between viewed listing prices ($379,000) and median listing prices ($337,000) is 13 percent. 

There are a couple reasons buyers may start their search by aiming high. We all like to look at stainless steel appliances and killer views, whether or not we can afford them. More practically, it’s smart pricing strategy. If you want to spend $300,000 on a house, you might shop for homes that list for $330,000 and make a lower offer. The research looked at nine large U.S. cities to see whether real estate searchers were using that logic. 

Why would buyers target their search below the local median listing price? Eric Scharnhorst, the Redfin data scientist who compiled the numbers, thinks it's more likely that buyers are adapting their pricing strategies to hot markets where bidding contests have become the norm. "In a city where you need to compete, you start looking at homes for $280,000 with the exception that you'll wind up spending $20,000 more," he said. A simpler theory: In these markets, more people want to buy relatively cheap homes, even though few are available. Whatever the reason, homebuyers in the most competitive markets seem to be abandoning the urge even to peek at the high ceilings, Italian appliances, and outdoor kitchens of their fantasies. 

The U.S. States Where Recession Is Already a Reality (BusinessWeek)

• Energy-state slumps put economists on alert for wider decline
• In West Virginia, everyone needs to `tighten their belts'

Dale Oxley doesn’t need to hear about rising odds of a U.S. recession to dread the future. For the West Virginia homebuilder, the downturn has already arrived.

“Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts,” said Oxley, the 48-year-old owner of a Charleston-area construction company. “The next couple of years are going to be difficult.”

As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states -- Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming -- are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moody’s Analytics.

The regions suffering the most are in the flop stage of the energy industry’s boom-to-bust cycle, and manufacturing-dependent areas hurt by a rising dollar are at risk of receding. Whether the weak links break the entire U.S. economy will hinge largely on a group that’s benefited from the energy price collapse: American consumers.

“The impetus for weakening regional economies is the huge fall in energy prices and other commodities prices, which is taking a tremendous toll,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, who is concerned of a broadening into a national recession. “If the consumer were to falter for any reason, that would be a big problem.”

Job gains and losses are key factors that the National Bureau of Economic Research uses to chart U.S. expansions and recessions. Even as U.S. employers added 2.7 million workers in 2015, job cuts last year totaled 18,800 in North Dakota, 11,800 in West Virginia and 6,400 in Wyoming, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

The common thread? They all have concentrations of energy companies. A 72 percent plunge in crude oil prices since a peak in June 2014 has led to lower production and firings.

So far, Federal Reserve officials view the patches of hardship as isolated and the chance of a recession as remote. Chair Janet Yellen told Congress on Feb. 10 that falling energy prices “have caused companies to slash jobs and sharply cut capital outlays,” but she didn’t expect a nationwide recession.

“There would seem to be increased fears of recession risk” reflected in tightening financial conditions, she said in her testimony. “We’ve not yet seen a sharp drop-off in growth, either globally or the United States, but we certainly recognize that global market developments bear close watching.”

Still, seven of the 50 U.S. states have had downturns in economic activity over the final three months of last year, according to tracking by the Philadelphia Fed.

Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma are all at risk of recession, according to Moody’s. Wyoming and North Dakota’s economies have declined for at least the past 10 months, according to the Philadelphia Fed.

The median probability for a U.S. recession in the next 12 months jumped to 20 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists this month, the highest since February 2013.

Dollar’s Strength

A second blow to regional economies is the dollar’s surge, reflected in a 22 percent increase in the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index since mid-2014, which is weighing on U.S. producers that compete globally. Illinois, Wisconsin, Louisiana and Mississippi --manufacturing states hurt by the currency’s march higher -- have all had economic declines in the past few months.

The spottiness of the expansion represents a turnaround from the broad recovery after the deepest downturn since the 1930s. As recently as October 2014, every state was expanding, according to Paul Flora, an economist with the Philadelphia Fed.

For every 25 percent drop in oil prices, employment could be expected to decline 0.6 percent in Texas and 0.8 percent in Louisiana, while Wyoming stands to lose 2.1 percent of its jobs and North Dakota and Oklahoma about 1 percent each, according to research by Stephen Brown, an economist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Mine Yücel, director of research at the Dallas Fed.

Growth in Texas has slowed with falling oil prices, though the state continues to expand because of a diversified economy including technology jobs in Austin and development in Dallas. Texas added 166,900 jobs in the year ended in December, behind only California and Florida.

The situation today echoes what happened three decades ago, when falling commodities prices caused regional pockets of distress in energy and farm states, Flora said. “This seems similar to 1985-86 which did produce a recession in Texas and other energy states,” he said. “But it did not spread to the rest of the nation.”

This time around, the relatively healthy state of American consumers may keep the economy afloat. Retail sales rose 3.4 percent in January from a year earlier, the biggest jump in a year, and stagnant wages are showing signs of perking up: Average hourly earnings in December rose 2.7 percent from a year earlier, the biggest advance since mid-2009.

“We’re taking account of the fact that the energy sector is very hard hit. We’re losing jobs there,” Yellen said Feb. 10. “But with respect to employment, although there really are very severe losses, it’s a pretty small sector of the work force overall.”

That’s cold comfort in places like Kimball, West Virginia, where the setbacks include the closing of a Wal-Mart store. “We are experiencing stagnation overall in the rest of the economy,” said John Deskins, an economist at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

Oxley, the builder, said his company’s business has held up more than most in part because he serves wealthier customers, including doctors, who continue doing well. Still, recession conditions are dampening everyone’s confidence.

Oxley’s Modern Home Concepts built four $500,000 custom homes last year in southern West Virginia, down from five in 2014 and fewer than half 2009’s level, when the last U.S. recession ended. About 200 people are employed on contract for each home, he said.

“There is not a lot of job creation and you are not creating new households,” he said. “I am not optimistic in regard to our future in West Virginia.”

This is San Francisco’s Plan to Get the 1 Percent to Pay Up (BusinessWeek)

The proposed tax hikes on mansions would generate $26.8 million in extra annual revenue.

There’s a new target in San Francisco’s income inequality wars: luxury mansions. Jane Kim, a member of the city’s board of supervisors, is seeking to put a proposal before the voters in November that would increase transfer taxes on homes sold for more than $5 million, with properties worth more than $25 million incurring a minimum fee of $750,000 typically paid by the sellers. “There is a strong sense right now in San Francisco that affordability is the No. 1 issue, and the economic divide that we’re seeing here is unprecedented and stark,” says Kim, a civil rights lawyer who’s running for the state legislature. “While we cannot stop people from coming to San Francisco and encouraging this luxury economy, we can ask them to help pay for the crisis that they are contributing to.”

The influx of highly paid technology workers into the city has fueled some of the highest rents and home prices in the U.S., spurring public outcries over tenant evictions and the increase in homelessness. Protesters have frequently targeted the commuter buses that ferry tech workers to jobs in Silicon Valley, about 40 miles south of the city. “San Franciscans are upset that the city has prioritized the wealthy developers and speculators over everyday San Franciscans,” says Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, which has organized anti-eviction protests.

The issue has dogged Mayor Ed Lee, who’s credited with drawing the technology companies to the city. He was elected to a second full term in November on a “shared prosperity” agenda. Kim’s proposal, which requires support from five other members of the board of supervisors to appear on the November ballot, would increase the tax on properties worth $5 million to $10 million by a quarter point, to 2.25 percent. The transfer tax on properties sold for $10 million to $25 million would also rise a quarter point, to 2.75 percent, and homes worth more than $25 million would be taxed 3 percent—a new bracket that increases the tax on such homes by half a percentage point.

The tax hikes would generate $26.8 million in extra annual revenue, says Drew Murrell, citywide revenue manager in the division of budget and analysis at the San Francisco Controller’s Office. The city collected $240 million in transfer taxes on properties worth more than $5 million in fiscal 2015, a 33 percent increase from fiscal 2012, city data show.

The San Francisco metropolitan area had the highest median home price in the U.S. in November, at $1.1 million, according to the most recent data from consumer analytics firm CoreLogic. There are currently two home listings for $25 million or more in the area, out of 294 across the U.S., Zillow data show. There are 99 listings in the San Francisco metro area for homes worth $5 million to $25 million.

Taxing the wealthy has become a popular policy in California, where voters in 2012 approved temporary income tax increases on people making more than $250,000. At the time, California faced a $9 billion budget shortfall; the taxes generated $15.2 billion over the last two fiscal years, helping to erase the state’s budget deficit. The state’s largest teachers union and the California Hospital Association are among groups pushing to extend the income tax increases.

Some brokers aren’t thrilled at the prospect of additional taxes on multimillion-dollar properties. “Homes selling for higher prices in San Francisco already pay substantially higher transfer taxes than the norm,” says Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at the city’s Paragon Real Estate. “Increasing them significantly constitutes an unfair penalty being levied upon certain homeowners simply because of their financial success.”

Others say the proposed real estate tax would depress prices of homes that should be worth more than $5 million to just below that amount, so sellers can avoid the additional fees. “At that price point, the city already gets a healthy chunk,” says John Kirkpatrick, a broker at Pacific Union International, a real estate firm in San Francisco. He’s currently listing his own three-bedroom condo at the St. Regis in the city’s South of Market district for $5.5 million. “The perception is that San Francisco is becoming more heavily taxed than other cities. It’s not good for business.”

The $20 Billion Manager Who Won After the Crisis Is Buying Again (BusinessWeek)

David Samra, awarded for his stock-picking during and after the 2008 financial crisis, says he’s buying again.

Samra, who oversees about $20 billion for Artisan Partners, says now’s the time for a steady hand and no emotion as concern intensifies about the slowdown in China and the sliding price of oil. The winner of Morningstar Inc. international stock manager rankings in 2008 and 2013 says he’s sticking to his investment approach: finding undervalued shares with strong balance sheets.

“We welcome these types of markets,” Samra said in a phone interview from San Francisco on Monday. “We weren’t happy to see the potential social and economic disruption that happened during the financial crisis. It causes a lot of human misery. You’re not existentially happy about what’s going on. On the other hand, that turned out to be a market opportunity.”

Global equities erased $7.7 trillion in value this year through Monday as routs in commodities and Shanghai shares spread, taking global banks as the latest victim. Worldwide stocks neared a bear market on Tuesday as the yen surged and corporate bond risk jumped. The $10.7 billion Artisan International Value Fund, the largest Samra oversees, lost 8.3 percent in 2016 and is still beating about three-quarters of its peers.

Markets had become “very greedy” over the past few years, according to Samra, which he says was time to take advantage and sell shares. In today’s conditions, it’s time to “aggressively buy,” he said. His main fund had 12.7 percent of its holdings in cash as of Jan. 31.

UBS Bet

In UBS Group AG, which has plummeted 26 percent this year, Samra sees his preferred combination of cheapness and a safety buffer. The Swiss bank, the third-largest holding in Samra’s biggest fund, has strong capital levels, a less complex balance sheet and a wealth-management business that’s worth more than the lender’s market value, says Samra, while declining to specify which stocks he’s been buying amid the selloff. Chairman Axel Weber is taking the right approach by prioritizing wealth management over investment banking, he said.

Earlier this month, Credit Suisse Group AG reported its biggest quarterly loss in seven years as it wrote off goodwill and set aside provisions for litigation, sending shares to a 25-year low. A slump in earnings at UBS’s wealth-management and investment-banking divisions also sparked its biggest stock drop in more than a year.

UBS is “way ahead of their competitors, well ahead of Credit Suisse,” Samra said. Short-term headwinds such as declines in assets under management and tougher regulations “don’t undermine the franchise in the long term.”

The International Value Fund had 42 holdings at the end of January, with Compass Group Plc and Samsung Electronics Co. the two biggest holdings, according to information on Artisan Partners’ website.

Chinese Economy

One area where Samra’s not rushing to invest is China. He says the economy may have already stopped growing and valuations are “not even close” to enticing.

As for oil, the other obsession of global markets this year, Samra says it’s probably time to get bullish. Growth in production has stopped and the lower prices will make substitute energy sources less attractive, he said. West Texas Intermediate traded near $30 a barrel on Tuesday, and has fallen more than 50 percent since June.

Samra’s main fund, which he manages with Daniel O’Keefe, beat 92 percent of peers over the past five years and 74 percent in 2016, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Samra and O’Keefe ranked in the top percentile with a 31 percent gain when they won Morningstar’s U.S. manager of the year for international stocks in 2013, according to the fund-ranking firm. They took top honors in the same segment in 2008 when the Artisan International Value Fund lost 30 percent.

Creating Bubbles

Samra says he’s doubtful about central bank monetary policies after the financial crisis. Japan, already buying unprecedented amounts of bonds to stimulate its economy, said last month it would move to negative interest rates. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi says more easing could come as soon as March.

“The world is not right,” Samra said. “You always run this balance between creating social unrest and creating bubbles, and we’ve erred on the side of creating bubbles," he said. “We’ve had distortion after distortion after distortion. And we keep applying more aggressively the same remedies and causing more distortions.”

Still, the former Harris Associates fund manager says his stocks are trading at high discounts to what he sees as their value, and the turmoil means it’s time to make money.

“You need a personality that can take the emotion and noise out of the equation,” he said. 

“We’ve got the contrarian streak” of buying things others want to offload, he said. “And we’ve got the conservative nature that we want to make sure that if we don’t get the analysis correct, we don’t get slaughtered.”

Why do companies make Android phones if they can't make profits?

The smartphone business has never been more cutthroat than it is right now. It's particularly difficult if you're an Android phone manufacturer since low-cost competitors have made it very difficult to make any profits. So why do companies bother to sell Android phones if they can't make any money? 

Here's a quick survey of the traditional Android device manufacturer landscape: Samsung is doing alright, LG and Sony could be doing better, HTC doesn't know what it's doing, and Motorola is done. Smartphones have grown to be the most essential piece of modern technology, and yet the industry manufacturing them has backed itself into a corner where only two companies, Apple and Samsung, are generating any reliable profit.

The quarterly earnings reports keep painting the same bleak picture, with most phone makers barely breaking even in spite of increasing shipment numbers and constantly improving products. It seems a Sisyphean task, and it's been going on long enough to invite the question of why so many companies bother making Android phones at all.

It still costs a great deal of time and effort to build a great smartphone, but making a decent one is now easy. Android, even without any retouching or enhancements, is a first-class mobile OS, so all a manufacturer needs to do is figure out how to produce and sell the most attractive possible device at the cheapest possible price. History will record the names of Palm, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia's device division as the victims swept aside by this rising Android tide.

What remains now are Apple and Samsung's tightly integrated monoliths at the top and a sea of Chinese competitors who seem hellbent on destroying each other (and, if they're lucky, Samsung too) through a rabid price war. The motivations of those market participants can still be related to profit with relative ease — whether it be some small sliver on big volumes of cheap phones in China or the prestige premium commanded by Apple worldwide — but what of everyone else?

E N M I O P I N I O N (Ricardo Tribin Acosta)

Primero cae un mentiroso que un....

Si, esa es la sentencia que la vida enseña pues , casi que en la mayoría de los casos, quién miente y engaña, temprano o tarde, olvidará el origen y las consecuencias de su equivocado proceder y entonces estará atrapado en las propias redes de su telaraña de negación.

El castigo para el mentiroso es el no ser creído, aun cuando diga la verdad, puesto que este pierde algo demasiado importante cual es la credibilidad, y a quien esto le acontece el poder recuperar el tiempo y las relaciones y oportunidades perdidas será una tarea larga y difícil.

El pastorcito mentiroso, aquel que anunciaba la presencia del lobo sin que este llegara, en su intento final y debido a su mentira no logro ser creído y por tanto el voraz animal devoró a sus víctimas.

Por lo anterior y para no caer en el círculo demoledor de soledad que la mentira conlleva, solo queda un solo camino a seguir y este siempre será el de la verdad y el correcto proceder en los diversos aspectos y circunstancias de nuestra vida.

http://ricardotribin.blogspot.com

Miami, Febrero 3 de 2016

You Can Buy a Czech Castle for $13,000 (BusinessWeeK)

The Libejovice chateau looks like something out of a 19th century romantic novel: an elegant, mustard-hued Renaissance palace with tall windows and elaborate balcony railings bearing the noble Schwarzenberg family’s coat of arms. Natalia Makovik will sell it to you for less than the price of some Manhattan studio apartments. The catch: Restoring the place, a two-hour drive south of Prague, could cost 10 times the purchase price. “I look at a ruin, and I see an investment opportunity,” says Makovik, founder of VIP Castle, a real estate brokerage specializing in historic buildings.

There are plenty of such opportunities in the Czech Republic, with its 2,000-plus castles and chateaux, the legacy of a turbulent history of feudal lords, royal dynasties, and minor aristocrats. Makovik started her business in 2007, eight years after she arrived penniless from her native Belarus. The history buff had fallen hard for the run-down castles she discovered in the Czech countryside. Lacking the money to buy one, she decided to make them the focus of her career—first as a tour guide and then as a real estate agent.

€270,000: Fortress Kunzov, built in 1907.

Although it took Makovik more than five years to close her first deal, she says she now sells up to three historic properties a month, priced from €12,000 ($13,000) to €4 million. She typically takes a 3 percent commission, which last year earned her about 4 million Czech korunas ($161,000). The 400 or so properties she lists range from relatively modest brick and stone manors to palatial expanses with gardens, ballrooms, and enough beds for the ball guests to sleep over. Because many of the properties are owned by municipalities, she travels the country speaking with mayors and town representatives. Sometimes it takes months of meetings to persuade officials to sell what many consider a part of their local heritage.

€3,000,000: The Castle of Count Thurn’s price includes an adjacent summer residence; a brewery and wine cellar are also available for purchase. 

Makovik faces growing competition, with international real estate companies such as Century 21 and Re/Max adding more historic properties to their portfolio. She says she has an edge as the only company focusing exclusively on such buildings. And with her background, she says she can better relate to her clients—mostly wealthy Russians or Ukrainians looking to park their money abroad. “To sell a castle, you have to be more of a psychologist than a real estate agent,” she says. “It can take years to cultivate a client and find the right property.”

€425,000: The House of Geydl, built in 1557, is a Renaissance-style mansion with two apartments and a pastry shop

Lenka Duskova, a broker from Luxent, an agency that specializes in high-end homes in and around Prague, says selling castles is a challenge. Clients love the idea of living in an elegant historic manor, but it doesn’t take long before they balk at the costs of renovation and shy away from the realities of living in the biggest building in a tiny Czech town. “It’s not an investment,” Duskova says. “This is a business for dreamers and enthusiasts.

€450,000: Built in 1853, the Fort of Olomouc is surrounded by a moat.

In 2010, Sergei Chernichkin, a Russian entrepreneur, swooned over a 16th century ruin in Kynsperk nad Ohri, a town of 5,000 near the German border. Makovik was offering it on behalf of the municipality for 300,000 korunas. Chernichkin couldn’t resist and decided to restore the property to its original use as a brewery; beer has been made in Kynsperk since 1595. He created a new brand called Kynspersky Zajic and built a restaurant serving local specialties such as roast pork and dumplings. Next up: a hotel and a spa where guests can indulge in beer baths and malt skin treatments. “The place had a 400-year history of brewing, and I was really intrigued,” says Chernichkin. “I would have never been able to do anything like that in Russia.”

 

€450,000: The late 19th century ancestral castle of Ernest Solvay has 50 rooms, pool, cinema, sauna, and billiard room.

The bottom line: Natalia Makovik finds that being a history buff helps her sell Czech fixer-upper castles to wealthy Russians.

Barclays y Credit Suisse pagarán multas por operaciones fraudulentas (Mercado de Dinero)

                     

Miami / Nueva York. Barclays Capital Inc. y Credit Suisse Securities (EE.UU.) LLC pagarán un total de $154,3 millones al Estado de Nueva York y la Comisión de Seguridad e Intercambio de Valores –SEC- para resolver las investigaciones sobre las declaraciones falsas y omisiones realizadas en relación con la comercialización de sus respectivos fondos oscuros y otros servicios electrónicos y acciones comerciales de alta velocidad.

Los fondos oscuros son los intercambios privados para la negociación de valores que no son visibles para el público en general y son realizados fuera de las bolsas de valores públicos, ha destacado la Fiscalía de Nueva York, a través de su vocero principal el Fiscal General Eric T. Schneiderman.

Las investigaciones de la Fiscalía General fueron conducidas por Chad Johnson, Director de la Oficina de Protección al Inversor, los Fiscales Adjuntos John Castiglione, Rebecca Reilly, Jordan Salberg, y Jonathan Zweig, y el Asesor Especial Nicholas Suplina. Karla G. Sánchez es la Fiscal Ejecutiva Adjunta de Justicia Económica.

Un poco de historia

Barclays admitió los hechos fundamentales contemplados en la demanda de junio 2014, que alega los engaños sobre la forma en que operaba su fondo oscuro de inversiones, "Barclays LX," incluyendo el que engañó a los inversionistas y violó las leyes de valores. Barclays pagará una multa de $ 70 millones, dividida en partes iguales entre el Estado de Nueva York y la SEC, e instalará un monitor independiente para garantizar el correcto funcionamiento de su división de comercio electrónico.

Credit Suisse pagará una multa $60 millones dividida en partes iguales entre el Estado de Nueva York y la SEC, y pagará un adicional de $24.3 millones en intereses y restitución de prejuicio a la SEC en relación con otras violaciones.

El Fiscal General y la SEC ambos han censurado a Barclays y Credit Suisse por su mala conducta.

"Estos casos marcan la primera victoria importante en la lucha para combatir el fraude en la comercialización de fondos oscuros de inversión y traer reformas significativas para proteger a los inversionistas de depredadores en el comercio de alta frecuencia", dijo el Fiscal General Schneiderman.

"Este esfuerzo, que comenzó cuando demandamos por primera vez Barclays, incluye la acción gubernamental coordinada y agresiva que obligó a las admisiones de irregularidades y logro multas históricas. Vamos a seguir sometiendo a la justicia a los que pretenden manipular el sistema y los que miran hacia el otro lado".

En marzo de 2014, Schneiderman pidió fuertes reformas en la supervisión y regulaciones y de mercado para eliminar las ventajas desleales de operadores de alta frecuencia en los centros de negociación de valores. Desde su despachoi puso en marcha investigaciones sobre Credit Suisse y Barclays, el primer y segundo mayores operadores de fondos oscuros en el momento, con el fin de exponer las prácticas ilegales y garantizar la igualdad de condiciones para todos los inversionistas.

Desde ese momento, el Fiscal General ha llegado a acuerdos con Thomson Reuters, Business Wire, y otros para poner fin a las prácticas comerciales que proporcionan a operadores de alta frecuencia una ventaja injusta.

Barclays

Como se ha establecido plenamente en la demanda enmendada presentada en el Tribunal Supremo de Nueva York en febrero de 2015, el Fiscal General descubrió evidencia de que Barclays sistemáticamente y a sabiendas tergiversó información a los inversores acerca de cómo y en beneficio de quién, Barclays operó su fondo oscuro llamado "Barclays LX, "y expuso a sus clientes a los comerciantes abusivos de quienes se había comprometió a protegerlos. Como resultado del fraude, Barclays aumentó su fondo oscuro que es el segundo más grande en los Estados Unidos.

En enero de 2015, el tribunal confirmó la jurisdicción del Fiscal General sobre la conducta fraudulenta de Barclays negando una moción de Barclays para desestimar la demanda. En la resolución, Barclays admite que violó las leyes de valores al hacer declaraciones falsas a los inversionistas con respecto a una amplia gama de temas, incluyendo:

Barclays tergiversaba cómo se supervisaba su fondo oscuro en torno al comercio depredador de alta velocidad. A pesar de decirles repetidamente a sus clientes que utilizaba herramientas sofisticadas para monitorizar el “arbitraje” y que haría reportes semanales de vigilancia. Barclays, de hecho, no hizo nada.

Los servicios de “perfiles de liquidez" de Barclays, que se suponía daría a inversores tradicionales la opción de no negociar con los operadores de alta velocidad más agresivos en el fondo oscuro de Barclays, estaba plagado de excepciones para los clientes de alta velocidad favorecidos, lo que significa que los inversionistas tradicionales que pensaban que estaban negociando sólo contra las contrapartes más seguros estaban de hecho en comercio con algunos de los operadores más agresivos y abusivos de alta velocidad en el fondo oscuro de Barclays.

Barclays hizo caso omiso de la calificación de "perfiles de liquidez" en su mesa de negociación de alta frecuencia interna, haciendo creer que se trataba de un socio comercial "seguro", cuando en realidad Barclays sabía que era uno de los más depredadores en su fondo.

Durante varios años, Barclays daba a conocer a los inversores un análisis de la negociación en su fondo oscuro, del que Barclays eliminaba intencionalmente a los comerciantes más agresivos, con el fin de hacer que su fondo pareciese más seguro de lo que realmente era.

Barclays dijo repetidamente a los inversores que utilizaba y se alimentaba de los datos de mercado de más rápido todas las bolsas más importantes para establecer precios en el fondo; de hecho, Barclays no lo hizo.

Barclays también reconoció, en consonancia con la decisión del tribunal, la jurisdicción del Fiscal General bajo la Ley Martin de Nueva York. Barclays también instalará un monitor independiente para realizar una revisión al fondo de negocio de comercio electrónico de Barclays, y propondrá nuevas reformas para asegurar que la empresa cumpla con la ley de Nueva York.

Credit Suisse

La investigación fiscal encontró que Credit Suisse hizo declaraciones falsas en relación con dos lugares de negociación de acciones, Crossfinder and Light Pool, gestionados por la división de servicios avanzados de ejecución del Credit Suisse ("AES"), así como la manera en la cual AES “enrutaba” órdenes de clientes y manipulaba información confidencial en el pedido del cliente.

Credit Suisse promovió una función de "puntuación alfa", que de acuerdo con la comercialización de Credit Suisse, brindaba a los clientes la capacidad de evitar el comercio con las contrapartes, tales como algunos comerciantes de alta frecuencia ("HFT"), cuyo flujo de orden Credit Suisse consideraba como "oportunista" y perjudicial para los inversionistas institucionales. De hecho, Credit Suisse tergiversó los aspectos claves de esa característica, incluyendo:

Credit Suisse dijo en repetidas ocasiones a los clientes que la puntuación alfa en su fondo oscuro Crossfinder fue objetiva y transparente. En realidad, Credit Suisse considera varios factores subjetivos al categorizar los participantes, lo que resultaba en algunas empresas de HFT ser clasificadas como no oportunistas, a pesar de que estas empresas podían ser objetivamente "oportunistas".

Credit Suisse favoreció selectos participantes en Light Pool, incluyendo algunas firmas de HFT, dándoles llamadas de advertencia cuando estaban en riesgo de ser categorizados como oportunistas y con suspensión temporal, en lugar de expulsar a dichos participantes (como prometió Credit Suisse) si se clasificaron como oportunistas.

Credit Suisse aplicaba puntuación alfa en Light Pool hasta un año después de que el lugar comenzó a funcionar, a pesar de haber manifestado lo contrario.

Credit Suisse también hizo declaraciones falsas y omisiones con respecto a cómo AES manejaba órdenes de clientes confidenciales, incluyendo:

Credit Suisse dijo a sus clientes que no tenía ninguna preferencia en torno a un centro de negociación sobre otro al enrutar las órdenes, excepto en base a la calidad de ejecución. De hecho, Credit Suisse dio prioridad sistemáticamente su propio fondo oscuro, Crossfinder, sobre los demás, independientemente de la calidad de ejecución.

Credit Suisse dijo a sus clientes que se llevaron a cabo análisis regulares de los lugares a los que se dirigía órdenes, pero en realidad se realizaron análisis de manera irregular.

Credit Suisse creó y operó una plataforma no revelada llamada Crosslink que en secreto permitió dos firmas de HFT comerciar directamente con las solicitudes enviadas por otros clientes de Credit Suisse.

Credit Suisse no dio a conocer plenamente su transmisión de información confidencial de órdenes de clientes fuera de Crossfinder.

Esta conducta se produjo en un ambiente en el cual las empresas AES de Credit Suisse carecían de políticas y procedimientos adecuados relativos a la puntuación alfa, enrutamiento de órdenes, el uso de la información confidencial de órdenes de clientes, y las revelaciones al cliente.