 |
|
|
|||||
Trading platform Robinhood on Monday launched a prediction markets hub in its app that allows customers to trade on event outcomes, including the expected upper limit of the Federal Reserve funds rate in May. The company’s shares were last up 6% in afternoon trading. Event contracts have exploded in popularity since the U.S. presidential election. These contracts allow traders to bet on specific outcomes, offering opportunities to profit from predictions on everything, from sports and entertainment to politics and the economy. Robinhood and its peers such as Interactive Brokers have rolled out event contracts in recent months, as they look to cash in on the boom. The company entered the sector with a wildly popular launch of contracts to bet on the U.S. presidential election in October. However, its rising popularity has fueled a heated debate between traders who have embraced the nascent asset class and critics who have likened it to gambling. In February, Robinhood scrapped event contracts allowing users to bet on the Super Bowl outcome just a day after launch, following a request from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Robinhood said it has been in contact with the CFTC in recent weeks and will continue to work with the regulator to “promote innovation in the futures, derivatives and crypto markets”. “We’re excited to offer our customers a new way to participate in prediction markets and look forward to doing so in compliance with existing regulations,” said JB Mackenzie, VP and GM of futures and international at Robinhood. The launch advances Robinhood’s push to become a full-service financial firm, and compete with dominant derivatives brokers. “Businesses and investors can use these markets to hedge against uncertain events and associated risks,” Robinhood said in a recently released policy statement. Robinhood’s prediction markets will initially be available across the U.S. through KalshiEX and eligible customers will be able to bet on the results of the upcoming college basketball tournaments. Manya Saini and Niket Nishant, Reuters
Category:
E-Commerce
Donald Trump, on Sunday, declared via social media that some of Joe Bidens presidential pardons, including those for members of the Jan. 6 Committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members of Bidens family beyond his son Hunter, were void because they were signed by an autopen device. Trumps statement has made people curious about the technology and his own use of it. Autopens are nothing new in the White House. The first president to use the technology was reportedly Harry Truman and Gerald Ford and George W. Bush were also open users. Despite this, Trump posted on Truth Social and spoke to the media on Air Force One Sunday, stirring up controversy. The Pardons that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen, Trump wrote on Truth Social. In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them! The accusation about the legitimacy of the autopen seemingly came from the Oversight Project, a self-described investigative arm of the Heritage Foundation, which was the organization behind Project 2025. Last week, the group questioned the legitimacy of the pardons and Bidens executive orders, citing autopen usage. The autopen has long been an open secret in Washington, but Trumps focus on it and the possibility that he will try to challenge the legitimacy of pardons by his predecessor have raised some questions. What is an autopen? An autopen is a robotic device used to duplicate signatures, using an actual pen rather than a scanned version of someones signature. Its a slightly different process than an electronic signature, which is just a digital photo of a real signature. Documents signed with autopens use a robotic arm with a pen attached, mimicking the penstrokes of the signee. While Truman was the first to use it, its a tool that has been commonly used by presidents since at least the Kennedy administration. Lyndon Johnson allowed the device to be photographed in the White House, which resulted in a National Enquirer story titled, The Robot That Sits in for the President. More recently, it was the subject of controversy when President Barack Obama authorized an aide to use it in 2011 on his behalf to extend the Patriot Act. Are autopen signatures legal? In 2005, the Justice Department was asked to weigh in on the legality of the autopen. In a memorandum, legal officials gave it their blessing, writing, The President need not personally perform the physical act of affixing his signature to a bill he approves and decides to sign in order for the bill to become law. Rather, the President may sign a bill within the meaning of Article 1, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the Presidents signature to such a bill, for example by autopen. Has Trump used an autopen? The New York Post quotes Trump Staff Secretary William Scharf as saying Trump does not use the autopen on documents that exercise the power of the presidency. However, he noted, it has been used on a single document that requires multiple presidential signatures. It’s unclear how frequently Trump used it during his first term. Can Trump void Bidens pardons? Trump, its worth pointing out, has not provided any evidence that Biden actually used an autopen. Newsweek even claims there is photographic proof of Biden signing many of the documents The Heritage Foundation claims were done via autopen. Regardless of how the pardons were signed, there is no power in the Constitution or existing case law that gives a president any right to undo a pardon. Trump could (and may well) take the issue to court, something he implied would happen in his Air Force One conversation with media members, but theres no precedent for such an action to be approved by the courts. Should the courts step in, it would more likely be due to the fact that the pardons Trump is challenging were pre-emptive pardons, which are different than traditional extension of clemency. Biden was hardly the first to issue a preemptive pardon, however. Abraham Lincoln issued them during the Civil War. Jimmy Carter gave a blanket pardon to anyone who evaded the draft during the Vietnam War. And Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon in 1974 before any charges could be brought against the disgraced president.
Category:
E-Commerce
This morning, news broke that the fast-credit fintech company Klarna has deposed its competitor Affirm as Walmarts exclusive provider of “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) loans. Affirm stock (AFRM) dove over 10% Monday morning following the news, before regaining some of those losses. Shares are currently down around 5% as of this writing. According to a press release published this morning, Klarna will be partnering with Walmarts majority-owned fintech startup, OnePay, to exclusively offer installment loans for purchases at Walmart in the United States. The partnership will be available both online and in stores, and will roll out at Walmart checkout this year. Klarnas BPNL services will allow consumers to pay for items purchased at Walmart in installments, with repayment terms ranging from 3 to 26 months. Based on a January report from Capital One, Walmart is the worlds largest retailer above competitors like Amazonmeaning Klarna is about to become a lot more visible to consumers. “This is a game changer, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarnas cofounder and CEO, said in the press release. OnePay choosing Klarna as their exclusive installment loans partner at Walmart in the U.S. is a huge vote of confidence as we pursue our goal of being available everywhere for everything. A big week for Klarnaand a rough one for Affirm Walmarts former exclusive BNPL partner was Affirm, Klarnas main rival in the spaceand investors seem to think that the major new deal isnt looking so good for Affirm. In a statement cited by Bloomberg, Affirm shared that its former partnership with Walmart represented about 5% of its gross merchandise volume and approximately 2% of its adjusted operating income in the six months through December. Meanwhile, Klarna is riding high, given that news of its Walmart deal comes just days after the company filed paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) related to an initial proposed public offering, a sign that Klarnas IPO could be coming sooner than expected. Although Klarna has not yet set an official IPO date, it’s now one of the most highly anticipated fintech IPOs this year.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||