(Bloomberg) -- Markus Braun’s almost two decades as Wirecard AG’s chief executive officer ended after accusations about the company’s accounting culminated in a shock disclosure that it was unable to locate 1.9 billion euros ($2.1 billion).James Freis has been appointed interim CEO, the German payments company said in a short statement Friday. A recent hire and former compliance executive at Deutsche Boerse AG, Freis was only named as a member of the management board on Thursday.Braun’s exit comes after a catastrophic few days for Wirecard, which suffered a share price collapse after the two Asian banks that were alleged to be holding the missing cash denied any business relationship with the company.Read More: Germany’s Fintech Star Falls on Failure to Clean Up WirecardWirecard is now facing a potential cash crunch. The company warned Thursday that loans as much as 2 billion euros could be terminated if its audited annual report is...
Saturna Capital Corporation is the investment management company of Sextant Mutual Funds. Sextant Mutual Funds recently released Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download here. The Sextant Growth Fund posted a return of -15.13% for the quarter, outperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -19.60% in the same quarter. […]...
Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) recently broke the 400-mile battery charge threshold. Its closest competitor is now 100 miles behind."We believe Tesla has a competitive advantage in batteries that is under-appreciated by investors. In the future, we expect that advantage to widen," Loup Ventures managing partner Gene Munster wrote in a note. "Bottom line: Tesla's lead in batteries is sustainable and other auto OEMs will struggle to gain measurable ground on the company's 80% US EV market share."Why Does Tesla Lead? Tesla's edge over auto peers comes from its (expensive) interest in vertical integration."The most significant advantage is that product design cycle times decrease, which quickens the pace of innovation, which is Tesla's central competitive moat," Munster wrote. "Additionally, the end product typically yields better performance and reliability compared to products built with horizontal integration."So far, the strategy has resulted in superior vehicle range. As Loup sees it, Tesla could maintain its...
Scandal-tainted Luckin Coffee Inc - ADR (NASDAQ: LK) is finding it hard to retain talent and advisors.What Happened: The Chinese coffee retailer, which has been embroiled in a controversy over financial irregularities that claimed its CEO and COO, announced Friday it has been notified by board member Tianruo Pu that he intends to resign from the board effective immediately, citing personal reasons.Pu is also stepping down from the board's Audit Committee and the three-member Special Committee of the board instituted in early April to oversee an internal investigation into certain issues related to the financial statements for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2019.Following Pu's resignation, the Special Committee consists of Sean Shao and Wai Yuen Chong, with Shao serving as chairman, according to Luckin. Pu was appointed as an independent director and a member of the Audit Committee March 27 along with Yuen Chong.Thomas Meier, who was also part of...
Saturna Capital Corporation is the investment management company of Sextant Mutual Funds. Sextant Mutual Funds recently released Q1 2020 Investor Letter, a copy of which you can download here. The Sextant Growth Fund posted a return of -15.13% for the quarter, outperforming its benchmark, the S&P 500 Index which returned -19.60% in the same quarter. […]...
[Editor's Note: This article was updated on June 19, 2020, to include the most up-to-date information.]A largely ignored market segment, gun stocks to buy have soared in both interest and demand. With fear, chaos and overall uncertainty about the future representing the dark side of the new normal, people have gravitated toward firearms, mainly for self-defense reasons. However, this nationwide surge in gun sales is unlike anything we've ever seen.According to the FBI's database, gun dealers submitted over three million firearm background checks in May. This generally corresponds to the total number of guns sold in the month, although keep in mind that federal law does not require private sellers to initiate such checks. Even so, retail sales of firearms from January through May is staggering at over 15.2 million units.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading TipsTo put this figure into perspective, in all of 2009, Americans bought...
