The Week Unpeeled
The holidays did little to minimize headlines (big names in trouble) or slow markets (big gains all around), with pretty shocking news early last week that Hewlett-Packard was taking a $9-billion write down over an accounting “scandal” tied to its acquisition last year of Autonomy, the UK enterprise software company. (HP is claiming “serious” accounting improprieties; the former Autonomy chief mismanagement.) Stay tuned for a battle.
Elsewhere:
- UBS trader Adoboli received a seven-year jail sentence in the UK’s biggest bank-fraud case;
- Equity markets rallied late last week, with the Dow Jones climbing 3.3 percent during its holiday-shortened week to close Friday at 13,009;
- Black Friday saw large crowds shopping earlier than ever on reports of mixed results with analysts wondering if online sales may be taking a bigger part of the retail-sales pie;
- The EU ended its two-day summit with no budget deal;
- Rebekkah Brooks, former News International chief, and Andy Coulson, former communications director for UK Prime Minister David Cameron, were charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office;
- BBC named the head of the Royal Opera House to its top spot amid ongoing stories about who knew what when on scandals surrounding “Newsnight” and Jimmy Savile;
- SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen has been “implicated” (WSJ, Nov 12) in insider-trading scheme; and
- JR Ewing, also known as Larry Hagmen, died.