“Monmouth University is the perfect location for this outstanding collection,” university president Paul Gaffney said in a statement.”Students and faculty from Monmouth University, especially our music industry students, will benefit greatly from having access to these documents. I hope it will also serve as a valuable resource for members of the academic community,” Gaffney added.The collection, formerly housed at the Asbury Park Public Library, contains nearly 15,000 documents from 44 countries chronicling New Jersey native Springsteen’s career that began as far back as the late 1960s.Springsteen, 62, and his band released their debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.” in 1973, but it was two years later with the album “Born to Run” that the group hit the top 10 of U.S. music charts and launched into stardom.The move of Springsteen’s memorabilia caps a four-year search for a new site in New Jersey that allowed for public access and had room for expansion to include recordings, oral histories and film footage.Christopher Phillips, editor and publisher of Backstreets and president of the Friends of the Bruce Springsteen Special Collection, said that the partnership between Monmouth University and fans “offers a great opportunity.”“At the university, the collection will be publicly accessible to all who have a serious interest in Bruce Springsteen’s life and career,” Phillips said, citing students, scholars and journalists.Viewing of the documents at the West Long Branch, N.J. university will be available by appointment.Robert Santelli, executive director of the GRAMMY Museum in Los Angeles and a Monmouth alumnus, helped secure the collection for the school.
* Banks drop on Moody’s France warningBy Tricia WrightLONDON, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Britain’s top shares fell on
Tuesday, pressured by miners after Chinese data raised fears
about demand for the world’s top metals consumer, while revived
concerns over the euro zone debt crisis unleashed further
volatility.Miners bore the brunt of the sell-off, tracking
metals prices lower, after China’s growth slowed in the third
quarter to its weakest pace since early 2009.Xstrata was among the worst off, down 4.8 percent,
after the global miner issued a third-quarter production report
showing copper output down 4 percent on the same period a year
ago, while in line with the second quarter.”The market is suddenly very nervous again,” said Lex van
Dam, hedge fund manager at Hampstead Capital, which manages $500
million of assets. “The iron spot price is the big worry right
now, which is indicating a hard landing in China, something that
could unravel the whole global economy.”Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, helped spur
a turnaround in market sentiment when he played down heightened
expectations that European governments will resolve the region’s
sovereign debt crisis at an EU summit on Oct. 23.Banks , particularly sensitive to the vagaries
of the euro zone debt story, fell sharply, also knocked after
Moody’s late on Monday warned it may slap a negative outlook on
France’s AAA credit rating in the next three months.Standard Chartered led the sector lower, down 4.2
percent, with traders citing the impact of Temasek Financial
launching a S$650 million ($512 million) bond exchangeable into
shares of the London-listed bank.The FTSE 100 was down 54.61 points or 1 percent at
5,382.09 by 0818 GMT, with Monday’s 0.5 percent dip putting it
back below the technically important levels around 5,450 which
it breached for the first time in 10 weeks on Friday.”I think (market volatility) is here with us to stay at the
moment until we’ve got some clear and … concrete proof that
there is a method of resolving the European crisis,” Martin
Dobson, head of trading at Westhouse Securities, said.Atif Latif, director of equities and derivatives at Guardian
Stockbrokers, noted an increase in “put” protection — options
to hedge against downside risk — looking to take advantage of a
FTSE 100 fall down to around 5,000-5,100.Whitbread managed to outperform the weaker market,
off only 0.4 percent, as Britain’s biggest hotel and coffee shop
operator reported a higher-than-expected first-half pretax
profit and hiked its dividend by over 50 percent.
The U.S. delegation will be headed by Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Newberry and include officials from the State Department and Pentagon agencies responsible missing personnel, the Pentagon said on Monday.”Accounting for Americans missing in action is a stand-alone humanitarian matter, not tied to any other issue between the two countries,” said the statement.The Bangkok meeting had only remains on the agenda, it said. But there is growing speculation U.S. President Barack Obama, approaching the final year of his current four-year term, may initiate talks with North Korea on curbing its nuclear ambitions.The decision to hold talks on resuming recovery of the remains of American soldiers from the Korean War could be a hint at U.S. willingness to engage.Other signals may include whether the United States offers North Korea food aid — a decision U.S. officials say is not affected by political factors — and whether U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth may hold a new round of talks with North Korea.In July, Bosworth held two days of talks with a veteran North Korean nuclear negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan, in New York — their first such contact since 2009.More than 7,900 U.S. soldiers are listed as missing from the Korean War, with some 5,500 estimated to be buried in the reclusive North. Joint recovery efforts were halted in May 2005 over concerns about the uncertain environment created by North Korea’s nuclear programs.The North has long sought to sign a peace treaty with Washington to formally end decades of enmity since the war, which ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.
* Rupee steady amid heavy importer demandCOLOMBO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka’s stock market fell to
a 15-week low on Friday on retail selling with turnover and
volumes slumping due to low investor participation amid a
liquidity crunch, while foreign investors again bought
heavyweight John Keells Holdings .The island nation’s main share index closed 0.55
percent or 36.08 points down at 6,549.91, lowest since June 27.
It is Asia’s fifth-best performer with a year-to-date loss of
1.3 percent after being on the top for most of 2011.Foreign investors bought over 418,000 shares in conglomerate
and institutional favourite Keells, bringing total foreign
buying over the last four sessions to nearly 4 million shares,
bourse data showed. Keells lost 0.4 percent on Friday.Offshore investors also offloaded 600,000 shares in
Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka , which closed
steady.The bourse witnessed a net foreign outflow of 37.5 million
rupees on Friday, after a total inflow of 650.1 million in the
previous four sessions. Thus far in 2011, offshore investors
have sold 16.7 billion, and sold a record 26.4 billion in 2010.”The market is still falling as it had risen mainly due to a
lot of speculative shares,” said a stockbroker on condition of
anonymity. “Now those shares are coming down after some punters
took the shares up and dumped at high prices.”Losers outperformed gainers by 133 to 65 on Friday, Thomson
Reuters data showed.Turnover was at 992.6 million rupees ($9 million), its
lowest since July 5 and less than last year’s average of 2.4
billion and this year’s 2.6 billion.Friday’s total volume was 50.7 million, lowest since
Sept.23, against a five-day average of 67.2 million. The 30-day
and 90-day average trading volumes were 146.1 million and 135.3
million. Last year’s daily average was 67.9 million.The rupee closed steady at 110.18/20 a
dollar for a 11th straight day, as a state bank continued dollar
sales at 110.20 rupees in spite of heavy importer dollar demand,
dealers said.FACTORS TO WATCH:
- If central bank can maintain a narrow dollar trading range
- How much the central bank buys in repo auctions
- Rupee depreciation due to heavy importer dollar demandDATAColombo Stock Exchange:Stock Market Volume (Shares)Current Volume Average Volume 30 Days50,697,241 146,110,413Yield and Price of Sri Lanka’s sovereign bonds:Maturing year Tenure amount Reuters yield2012 5-yr $500 mln 5.676-5.1732014 5-yr $500 mln 5.868-5.5372020 10-yr $1,000 mln 6.5859-6.43522021 10-yr $1,000 mln 6.5769-6.4355* For Sri Lankan treasury securities benchmarks and data,
please click and* For interbank lending rate or call money rate or* For secondary market rates, please see <0#LKBMK=>.
($1 = 110.200 Sri Lanka Rupees)
* Rajaratnam to appeal government’s use of phone taps* Former Galleon trader Zvi Goffer recently got 10 yearsBy Grant McCoolNEW YORK, Oct 13 (Reuters) - One-time hedge fund tycoon Raj
Rajaratnam, convicted in the biggest Wall Street
insider-trading case in decades, hears his punishment in court
on Thursday with all signs pointing to a lengthy prison term.Rajaratnam, 54, whose Galleon Group managed $7 billion at
its peak, could face almost 25 years in prison. His lawyers are
asking for a shorter term, arguing he is in poor health and
does not deserve a two-decade prison term akin to what a
violent offender would receive.A sentence of 15 years for Rajaratnam may suit the crime
and send a warning to others on Wall Street, said St. John’s
University business professor Anthony Sabino. “The court has to
balance he is a first offender, that this is stock fraud, not
murder,” Sabino said.A Sri Lankan-born U.S. citizen, Rajaratnam is the central
figure in a sweeping insider trading case that touched some of
America’s top companies, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc , Intel Corp , IBM and the elite McKinsey
& Co consultancy. It is the biggest insider trading case since
the 1980s-era prosecutions of speculator Ivan Boesky and
junk-bond financier Michael Milken.The Galleon founder was arrested in October 2009 after an
investigation marked by the most extensive use of secret FBI
phone taps in a white collar case. Such tactics usually are
reserved for Mafia and drug trafficking investigations.A jury convicted Rajaratnam on May 11 of all 14 counts of
securities fraud and conspiracy. The government then asked for
a prison term of between 19-1/2 years and 24-1/2 years.The sentence will be delivered by U.S. District Judge
Richard Holwell, who presided over the two month-long trial.The Galleon case sent shock waves through Wall Street and
the hedge fund industry, where traders can try to get an edge
at all costs. Prosecutors say some traders crossed the line by
pumping corporate insiders for corporate earnings or details of
mergers that had not yet been announced.Insider trading cases are often difficult to prove because
evidence can seem circumstantial. But the secretly recorded
telephone conversations proved hugely successful for the
Galleon prosecutors. Out of 26 charged in two overlapping
Galleon cases, Rajaratnam and three others were convicted at
trial; 21 pleaded guilty and one defendant is at large.In a separate investigation of so-called expert network
consultants who advise hedge funds, two defendants were
convicted at trial and more than a dozen pleaded guilty.PRISON, OR BACK HOME?Holwell is likely to hand Rajaratnam a sentence between
about eight and 20 years, predict legal experts who are not
involved in the case. It is not yet known in which prison he
would serve time.The judge also could allow him to remain under house arrest
in his luxury Manhattan apartment on $100 million bail while he
challenges the use of phone taps in the case. Typically,
appeals can take two years or longer.”What the court might do, even though I think it will be a
much longer sentence than the defense want, it might twist
around a little bit to allow bail pending appeal,” said
criminal defense lawyer Glenn Colton of law firm SNR Denton.Insider-trading defendants often get sentences below what
is prescribed in federal sentencing guidelines, out of the view
that their crime is less harmful than other types of
white-collar wrongdoing.But judges have delivered some tough sentences recently.
Former Galleon trader Zvi Goffer, 34, was sentenced last month
to 10 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $10 million.The case is USA v Raj Rajaratnam et al, U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York, No. 09-01184.
The Financial Times reported that Telefonica (BBB+/Stable) will
trial an internet-calling product called ‘O2 Connect’ in the UK, which may
become a commercial service in 2012. This will initially be a downloadable
application available on Apple and Android smartphones. The application could
potentially allow a Skype-type account - and phone number - to be accessed from
a number of devices.”A key barrier to free voice at present is mobile termination rates which
remain high compared to land line rates,” says Damien Chew, Senior Director in
Fitch’s TMT team in London. “However, regulatory pressure has and will continue
to drive these rates down. The lower they go, the more attractive free voice as
a loss leader becomes to a variety of market players, beyond just internet call
companies. This will translate into more downward pressure on voice prices.”The potential danger of this development for the operators is that they
could become utility-like, providing undifferentiated data-only tariffs subject
to intense price competition, with profit being siphoned off by application
providers. However, mobile operators could combat this by using their knowledge
of their networks - and possibly their ability to manage data flows through
these applications - to claim a share of the application revenues to reinforce
both profits and brand image.Overall, Fitch expects no negative revenue implications for O2 from the
move. The product, if successful, could be a significant brand differentiator,
attracting customers to O2’s data offering rather than competitors’. Any
potential negative price implications will be further mitigated by the
widespread practice of bundling voice, SMS and data for the UK’s post-paid
customers.This application has network implications also, in that it could allow calls
to be routed through WiFi connections rather than through mobile networks. This,
if competitors follow suit, may remove one of the few remaining differentiators
between networks - domestic signal coverage.
Caution ahead of the European Union’s bank recapitalisation
plan due later on Wednesday, designed to cushion the impact of a
possible Greek default on the region’s banks, also encouraged
investors to pause after a five-day rally in world stocks.Although Slovakia is still expected to enact the measure by
the end of this week, the twist highlighted the difficulty in
forging a united response to the worsening sovereign debt crisis
in a 17-member currency zone.Alcoa kicked off the U.S third-quarter earnings
season with a weak note. The largest U.S. aluminum producer’s
shares fell after an economic slowdown hurt metal demand,
denting its profit and sales.JP Morgan and Google are due to report
their earnings later in the week.”Caution is still the watch word,” said Keith Bowman, equity
analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.”But we can’t read too much into just one set of results.
Additionally, there is still hope that Slovakia will pass the
expansion of the bailout fund in the very near term.”MSCI world equity index fell 0.1 percent.
The benchmark index is now 11 percent above a 15-month low hit
earlier in October after a five-day rally.European stocks fell 0.7 percent while emerging
stocks rose 0.3 percent, thanks to a rebound in
Chinese shares .U.S. crude oil fell 0.3 percent to $85.53 a barrel.
Bund futures rose 27 ticks.The dollar was steady against a basket of major
currencies. The euro was also broadly unchanged on the
day at $1.3646.
