World Turmoils
TRADERS
Brace
For More Turmoil
In World’s Worst Stock Market
Roxana Zega
August 17, 2016
While most western-European markets have recovered from the Brexit shock, Italy still has a long way to go. With a looming referendum and an ongoing banking crisis, traders are paying up to hedge against more stock turbulence.
Investors in the Mediterranean nation, already suffering the world’s biggest losses this year, are bracing for a vote on political reform expected in November that could decide the fate of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.
They have pushed the price of options protecting against volatility in Italian equities for the next three months to the highest since 2013 versus shorter-term contracts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Citigroup Inc. has branded the plebiscite the largest risk in European politics this year outside the U.K. Italian banks are also suffering as they scramble to shore up capital in the face of 360 billion euros ($406 billion) of bad debt.
For Kevin Lilley, a manager of euro-area equities at Old Mutual Global Investors in London, the danger is so high he cut his Italian holdings to just one company -- defense firm Leonardo-Finmeccanica SpA -- after selling shares including Banca Popolare di Milano Scarl and Mediobanca SpA.
“Italy has been so oversold in the last year because of the political uncertainty,” said Lilley, whose firm manages about $34 billion.
“The referendum is a completely binary event, it’s a very good thing for Italy if it’s passed because it simplifies the decision-making process. But unfortunately the prime minister has tied his future to the result and banking problems are still in the background.”
Last year, when a China-led selloff erased as much as $8.3 trillion from global equities, Italy bucked the trend.
The benchmark FTSE MIB Index reached a near six-year high in July 2015, and surged an annual 13 percent, as an overhaul of employment laws and expectations of a domestic economic revival buoyed investor confidence.
This year, the equity benchmark has slid down the rankings, and one of the biggest exchange-traded funds tracking the market is heading for a seventh month of outflows in eight.
Italy’s banks are leading losses among European stocks amid concern over their levels of bad debt.
Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA, which fared the worst among 51 of its peers subjected to recent European stress tests, has plummeted 80 percent in 2016 as its plan to offload billions in doubtful loans and increase capital failed to win over investors.
Unione di Banche Italiane SpA, which has fallen 62 percent this year, earlier this month reported a second-quarter loss on higher bad-loan provisions and restructuring costs.
The economic picture offers little comfort: Italian growth unexpectedly stalled in the second quarter, missing forecasts for a 0.2 percent expansion. The Bank of Italy and the International Monetary Fund have both lowered their projections for the year, predicting an expansion of less than 1 percent.
But, after a slide of 22 percent this year for the FTSE MIB, Jasper Lawler, a London-based analyst at CMC Markets Plc, said that some investors may see an upside: valuations on Italian stocks have fallen to about 13 times their estimated earnings, near the cheapest in four years versus the Stoxx Europe 600 Index.
“The referendum doesn’t deserve the kind of concern it has generated,” he said. “Italy is arguably behind the curve with the reforms, but this referendum is part of Renzi trying to catch up and do some things.
It’s a question of whether you want to go with the momentum or value.”
Still, the valuation case may not be compelling enough to attract investors focusing on banking woes and the potential ramifications of the referendum.
Ratings company DBRS Ltd., which is used by the European Central Bank for grading collateral for its liquidity operations, said on Aug. 5 that it was reviewing Italy’s credit score, citing political risks and the “fragile recovery.”
“There’s the banking issue and then the referendum issue,” said Thomas Haerter, chief investment officer at Zurich-based consultancy firm Wellershoff & Partners Ltd.
“It’s difficult to see why stocks should perform without earnings normalization -- we have sluggish growth and low interest rates, so even if you have a credible bank bailout you are still left with a profitability problem. It’s a mess, and it’s difficult to see the way out.”
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John Peter Zenger
PRINTED
The New York Weekly Journal
&
Voiced Opinions Critical
of
The colonial governor, William Cosby
John Peter Zenger (October 26, 1697 – July 28, 1746) was a German American printer and journalist in New York City.[1]The clash between law and the printing press has deeper roots in the past and stronger connections to the present; it is the major reason for Zenger's status as an exemplar of liberty.[7]
Zenger printed The New York Weekly Journal.[2]The first generation of American editors discovered readers loved it when they criticized the local governor; the governors discovered they could shut down the newspapers. [3]
The most dramatic confrontation came in New York in 1734, where the governor brought Zenger to trial for Criminal Libel after the publication of satirical attacks. The jury acquitted Zenger, who became the iconic American hero for freedom of the press.[3]
On November 5, 1733, Zenger published the first issue of the Weekly Journal. The issue included a detailed account of the victory the previous week of Lewis Morris as Popular Party candidate for assemblyman from Westchester. [4]
Morris won the election despite the best efforts of Cosby to rig the election against him by having the sheriff disqualify Quaker voters (expected to be heavily pro-Morris) on the ground that the Quakers only "affirmed" rather than swore the oath required at the time of all voters.[4]
Sir William Cosby
Courtesy
of
New York Traveler Net
Sir William Cosby, loyal subject of the British crown. Served a New York’s royal governor for four long years, from 1732 to 1736.He was born in Ireland, worked his way up into the British military, married a wealthy women with connections to Buckingham Palace. Before his appointment as NY governor by King George II, Cosby made a great name for himself by illegally seizing a Portuguese ship and taking the cargo of snuff for himself.[10]
The election story, almost certainly written by Alexander, included this description of the sheriff's intervention:
[T]he sheriff was deaf to all that could be alleged on that [the Quaker] side; and notwithstanding that he was told by both the late Chief Justice and James Alexander, one of His Majesty's Council and counsellor-at-law, and by one William Smith, counsellor-at-law, that such a procedure [disqualifying the Quakers for affirming rather than swearing] was contrary to law and a violent attempt upon the liberties of the people, he still persisted in refusing the said Quakers to vote....[4]
No doubt to the surprise and disappointment of Cosby, Morris won the election even without the Quakers' votes. [4]
Unexpected Verdict:
The Trial of John Peter Zenger
The Journal story told of Morris's election being celebrated with "a general fire of guns" from a merchant vessel and "loud acclamations of the people as he walked the streets, conducted to the Black Horse Tavern, where a handsome entertainment was prepared for him."[4]
Subsequent issues of the Journal, in addition to editorializing about other dubious actions of the Governor, contained ringing defenses of the right to publish, authored by Alexander, such as this offered in the second issue: [4]
The loss of liberty in general would soon follow the suppression of the liberty of the press; for it is an essential branch of liberty, so perhaps it is the best preservative of the whole. [4]
Even a restraint of the press would have a fatal influence. No nation ancient or modern has ever lost the liberty of freely speaking, writing or publishing their sentiments, but forthwith lost their liberty in general and became slaves.[4]
Cosby put up with the Journal's attacks for two months before deciding that it must be shut down. The first effort to silence the Journal occurred in January 1734 when Chief Justice Delancey asked a Grand Jury to return indictments based on the law of seditious libel. [4]
The Grand Jury, however, refused. Delancey tried again when the next Grand Jury met in October. He presented the grand jurors with broadsides and "scandalous" verse from Zenger's Journal, but the jurors, claiming that the authorship of the allegedly libelous material could not be determined, again refused to return indictment.[4]
Cosby responded to these frustrations by proclaiming a reward of fifty pounds for the discovery of the authors of the libels and by issuing an order that Zenger's newspapers be publicly burned by "the common hangman." [4]
return indictment.[4]
Then, in an effort to get around the Grand Jury's refusal to indict, Cosby ordered his attorney general, Richard Bradley, to file "an information" before Justices Delancey and Philipse. Based on the information, the Justices issued a bench warrant for the arrest of John Peter Zenger.[4]
return indictment.[4]
On November 17, 1734, the sheriff arrested Zenger and took him to New York's Old City Jail, where Zenger would stay for the next eight months. [4]
return indictment.[4]
The Weekly Journal was not published the next day, November 18. It would be the only issue missed in its publishing history.[4]
Cosby's predecessor as Governor, John Montgomerie, served from 1728 through his death in June 1731. A professional soldier turned courtier--Groom of the Bedchamber to George II while Prince of Wales--Montgomerie had, according to the estimate of William Smith, Jr., "neither strength nor acuteness of parts, and was but little acquainted with any kind of literature." [5]
Montgomerie, perhaps out of awareness of his own limitations, resolved the controversy over the Governor's equity jurisdiction that had hotted up at the end of Burnet's tenure by refusing to convene his court at any time, even when directly ordered to do so by Whitehall.[5]
Never having met Calvin Coolidge, and necessarily not knowing Dorothy Parker's joke about the inability to tell whether Silent Cal was dead or alive, William Smith, Jr. could only record in description of Montgomerie that "he devoted himself so much to his ease, that he has scarce left us any thing to perpetuate the remembrance of his time." But Montgomerie had left one thing behind: the right to draw his salary. As it turned out, that was enough to bring the Province to the boiling point.[5]
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Over TV Ad - America's Newsroom
The Zenger case had roots in two distinct yet related contexts. It was a byproduct of the bitter partisan politics of colonial New York, a colony second only to Rhode Island in its reputation for factional conflict.[6]
It also was the latest chapter in a centuries-long struggle in England and its North American colonies to strike a balance between law and information technology. Zenger marked the point of collision between these two evolving stories.[6]
The clash between law and the printing press has deeper roots in the past and stronger connections to the present; it is the major reason for Zenger's status as an exemplar of liberty.[7] The movable-type printing press spread swiftly through the Western world after its invention in the 1480s. [6]
Political and religious authorities were wary of the printing press, for the new invention made it easier to circulate ideas and information and harder to trace them back to their source. They therefore sought to impose a variety of legal controls on printers.[6]
Cosby was a bad choice to represent the Crown in this pivotal, wealthy, and divided colony. Since 1664, when the Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam surrendered to forces commanded by the Duke of York (later King James II), the renamed colony exhibited a staggering level of factional strife.[6]
Colonial New York's political history is a bewildering succession of truculent governors, conniving politicians, and contentious printers.[6]
Historians have identified a complex interplay of factional allegiance, focused on great and wealthy families, dividing by allegiance or opposition to the Crown, and complicated by religious and ethnic divisions; historians have also come to appreciate the seriousness of colonial political arguments and the sincerity with which contending sides espoused them.[6]
In 1719, Zenger married his first wife, Mary White, and moved to Chestertown, Maryland, but she died shortly after. Zenger was left with a baby son. After returning to New York, Zenger married Anna Maulist in 1722. They had five children together.[8]
The Zenger Trial Explained
In 1725, Zenger and Bradford became business partners, but their partnership did not last. Many of the books Zenger published were religious English and Dutch texts and polemical tracts. In 1730, he also printed Venema’s Arithmetica, the first mathematics book in the New York Colony.[8]
Three years later, he was offered the opportunity to be printer and editor of the New York Weekly Journal, founded by James Alexander, a prominent lawyer. The journal expressed opposition toward the policies of the governor of the New York colony, William Cosby, who frequently imprisoned or disbarred those opposed him.[8]
Cease And Desist Letter Sent To Alleged Victim's Parents
Wealthy New York lawyers and politicians such as William Smith and James Alexander had Zenger publish oppositional articles in his journal. Alexander wrote many of the editorials against Cosby. Zenger himself did not write many of the articles, but he knew the potential consequences for publishing them.[8]
In 1734, as a result of his publication, Zenger was charged with seditious libel by the governor and imprisoned for nearly 10 months. During this time, Zenger’s wife ran the paper, which rallied support for Zenger’s case.[8]
Both Smith and Alexander defended Zenger for the articles that were printed in the New York Weekly Journal. When the two attorneys accused Cosby of handpicking the two judges and the jury, their right to practice law was revoked.[8]
The trial ended on August 5, 1735, when defense attorney Hamilton came to Zenger’s aid. Hamilton proved that Zenger could not be guilty of the charges because many of the accusations written in his journal about Cosby, although indeed seditious, were true. In this manner, Hamilton gained the sympathy of the court.[8]
Zenger died on September 28, 1746, poor and leaving his wife to continue the paper. His eldest son, John, took over the paper from 1748 to 1751. It is believed that Zenger is buried in an unmarked grave in New York City at the Trinity Church cemetery. [8]
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Call NeNe Leakes Bi Polar
& she will sue!
The Trial of John Peter Zenger
Sends Cruz Cease-And-Desist Letter
Over TV Ad - America's Newsroom
Call NeNe Leakes Bi Polar
& she will sue!
The Trial of Peter Zenger
Paul T. Nolan
John Peter Zenger(To audience):I'm a newspaper publisher. I publish a small local paper called the Weekly Chronicle. My father got me started, and I've been in the field all my life. I can print exactly when I please in my paper-take up the local issues or even national ones. No none censors what I print. No one tells me what I can or can't say (gestures to audience)... [9]
Anna Zenger: Peter's wife
Mrs. Zenger: Peter's mother
Cathie Zenger: Peter's sister
The Trial of John Peter Zenger
When we visited Federal Hall National Memorial on Wall Street in lower Manhattan, we saw a display dedicated to John Peter Zenger, a New York newspaper publisher from the early 18th century. Zenger went to jail for a sensational “freedom of speech” case. [10]
His trial was held here at the site of Federal Hall, in the original building on this site. Historians point to this landmark case as the “germ of American freedom” that was later epitomized in our Bill of Rights, according to Gouverneur Morris (who penned the U.S. Constitution).[10]
cease and desist letter to Uber
