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People across Mississippi got into the scratch-off fever Monday as lottery tickets went on sale for the first time in the state.Get more news about 彩票包网服务,you can vist loto98.com

For decades Mississippi was one of only six states without a lottery. There was strong opposition from politically powerful churches. People often drove to neighboring states such as Louisiana to buy tickets there.

“We are getting a lot of customers from Alabama,” he said, speaking about the customers he’s seen since the gas station and store started selling the tickets around 9 a.m. And customers are already making financial plans, he said: “They are saying what they are going to do with their money after they win.”

The tickets are available in roughly 1,200 convenience stores and other sites across the state.Democratic state Rep. Alyce Clarke of Jackson has been pushing for years to bring a lottery to Mississippi. She bought a ceremonial first ticket at a RaceWay store and gas station in south Jackson.“It feels great. Finally, it becomes a reality. And it just goes to show you what happens if you don’t give up,” Clarke said. “Sometimes you have to try and try and try again.”

The state had resisted a lottery for years until lawmakers in 2018 authorized a lottery as a way to finance road maintenance and infrastructure needs. At the time, the state had been forced to close hundreds of unsafe bridges.

For the first ten years, the first $80 million a year from lottery revenue will go to infrastructure needs. After the $80 million benchmark is hit, the rest goes to education. After the ten-year period is over, the first $80 million will go to the state’s general fund with the remainder continuing to go toward education.

Clarke had been pushing for all the money to go to education. She said she was disappointed with the way the money was apportioned but that the roads and bridges also needed investment.

Right now, people can play four different types of games, and the Mississippi Lottery Corporation plans to introduce new games in the coming weeks. On January 30, tickets for both Mega Millions and Powerball will go on sale. Winners can remain anonymous.

At the Stop & Go Foodmart in Picayune, owner Hiren Bhakta said people have been talking about the sales for weeks. In this corner of southwestern Mississippi, residents wanting to buy lottery tickets can easily pop across the border to towns in Louisiana like Pearl River and buy tickets there. Bhakta hopes that traffic will now stay in Mississippi.

“People have been going to the state lines to get tickets, so they’ve heard about it and are excited about how we don’t have to go to the state line anymore,” he said. “We can get everything here in Mississippi.”

In Brooksville, Amro said if he had the choice he wouldn’t sell the tickets because he’s not sure it’s worth the expense; he had to hire an extra employee specifically to sell the tickets. But since other stores are selling the tickets he needed to remain competitive. But if someone is going to win big, he hopes they buy the ticket at Tenn Tom Express.

“I hope somebody will win from my store because that is how we get a whole bunch of money,” he said. “I wish everybody good luck.
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:56PM
Massachusetts lottery sales are down by a third across the board compared to this time last year, prompting arguments from state officials to bring the lottery online.Get more news about 彩票包网,you can vist loto98.com

“This pandemic has dramatically exposed the limitations and vulnerabilities of the lottery’s all-cash, in-person business model," Treasurer Deborah Goldberg said.As people abide by the stay-at-home advisory amid the coronavirus pandemic, Keno and scratch tickets are taking the biggest hit, with Keno plunging more than 50 percent and scratch tickets down almost 30 percent.

“All of our daily patterns of life have changed, if a consumer would normally go into a store twice a day to purchase products, that’s not the case anymore," said Michael Sweeney, executive director of the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission.

About 1,800 of the state’s 7,500 lottery agents are closed, according to state officials and even places that are open have eliminated lottery sales because of staff shortages.Goldberg is urging lawmakers to move forward with legislation to modernize the state’s lottery system and go online.

“The ability to process cashless payments and to sell our products online would have undoubtedly helped to mitigate our losses," Goldberg said.

Cities and towns across the state receive some of the lottery revenue, which can be used for needs like snow removal, senior programs and parks and recreation.Representative Aaron Michlewitz, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said there are a lot of issues surrounding bringing the lottery online, including the hit retailers would take.

“The lottery is an economic driver to some of our local convenience stores and our local stores, because people go in there to use the lottery and end up spending money on other things," Michlewitz said.

Similar legislation has failed in the past, but this new crisis is putting it back in the spotlight.
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:50PM
The persistent weakness of the Euro against the US Dollar, which began in late September 2018, will likely persist in the first few months of 2020 although a rally could follow as the US Presidential Election in November comes closer and climbs up the trading agenda.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
  For the Euro, the key problem is that economic growth in the Eurozone remains weak and the European Central Bank may therefore decide to ease its monetary policy even further. With the ECB deposit rate currently at -0.5% that might seem fanciful but there is nothing to stop its Governing Council from lowering the rate to -0.6% or -0.7%, even though market pricing towards the end of 2019 was still suggesting that rates will be on hold throughout 2020.
  New ECB President, Old ECB Policy
  Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, there is nothing to stop the ECB from increasing the asset purchase program that it restarted in November 2019 at a monthly rate of €20 billion or from widening the array of assets that it buys. It could also amend its forward guidance to suggest that monetary policy will be eased even further if seen as necessary. The previous ECB President Mario Draghi told his successor Christine Lagarde to “never give up” on propping up the Eurozone economy and that is advice she will surely take. There can also be little doubt that Lagarde will remain dovish and continue to press the Eurozones governments to ease fiscal policy by spending more or taxing less to help boost economic growth.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:44PM
Facet Wealth is a three-year-old registered investment adviser with a fintech twist that's tapping into major themes playing out across the wealth management industry.A focus on all-encompassing financial planning, subscription-based offerings, and regulation prompting financial professionals to act in their clients' best interest are major drivers. Business Insider spoke with Anders Jones, Facet's chief executive officer and co-founder, and Brent Weiss, co-founder and head of planning, about the firm's growth plans.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.

Visit BI Prime for more stories.If an investor assembled a basket of themes shaping the wealth management industry today and fed them into a blender, they would end up with a creation that looks a lot like Facet Wealth.Facet, a Baltimore-based registered investment adviser with a fintech twist, uses Facet-branded digital tools to pair clients with certified financial planners who work remotely from homes around the US.The firm, founded by a financial planning executive and two venture capitalists, finds clients primarily by referrals from independent broker-dealers, hybrid robo-advisers, and traditional RIAs who might pass on them because their asset base is too small.Its 102 employees and 30 certified financial planners across 16 states service Facet's 1,300 clients who are, on average, 55 years old. Anders Jones, Facet's chief executive, told us its client base has been growing by 20% each month since July, and the average client has $350,000 in investable assets.
That places Facet's client base in the so-called “mass affluent” set — well below what might be considered high- or ultra-high-net-worth clients that wirehouses like UBS are focusing their energy on as they look to boost adviser productivity.It's a space where there's competition from roboadvisers like Wealthfront, which has an account minimum of $500, as well as human advisers, though human advice often have higher account minimums. Personal Capital, for example, says it has a $100,000 minimum account size for customers to get human financial advice services. Fees, Netflix-styleFacet charges clients a flat fee to work with their advisers, leaning on a subscription model, a la Netflix. Brokerages Charles Schwab and TD Ameritrade have channeled Netflix in pricing and recommendation products, respectively, rolled out this year. Depending on how extensive Facet planners' services are, clients' flat fees range from $480 to $5,000 per year.Revenue that comes in from clients' subscription fees goes to Facet, while all of its financial planners are salaried — and planners' take-home pay is not tied to the revenue they generate. “I've been a big believer that the AUM model does not make sense,” Jones said in a recent interview, referring to the wealth management industry's traditional fee model that ties advisers' pay to their clients' total assets under management.
  Jones, formerly a founding partner at the firm Argyle Ventures, started Facet in 2016 with co-founders Brent Weiss, now head of planning, and executive chairman Patrick McKenna.That year, the Obama administration's Department of Labor passed the fiduciary rule — which stated advisers must act in the best interest of their clients, a rule that's been overturned under the Trump administration's DoL — and Jones called that an “a-ha moment.”The Securities and Exchange Commission's “Reg BI” rule passed earlier this year that states financial professionals must disclose what fees and costs their clients may incur. In response, the CFP Board has created a new code of ethics and standards, which were effective last month, which designated its planners as fiduciaries. “The future of this industry is about financial planning,” as opposed to solely offering investment management advice, Jones said.He likened his firm's approach most closely to digital wealth management firm Personal Capital, which offers free online savings tools and also employs human advisers. Facet does not implement account minimums, and its clients typically fall into three groups: young professionals, early- to mid-career families, and pre-retirees. It has some $100 million in assets under management, with assets under advisement around $500 million.Expansion plansTo date, Facet has raised some $37 million after a Series A round led last fall by the private equity firm Warburg Pincus and an earlier investment from Slow Ventures.With that funding, it's been able to expand. After the robo-adviser Wealthfront in August absorbed team members from financial-planning start-up Grove, Facet took on Grove's planning business, members of its planning team, and their clients who weren't integrated into Wealthfront for an undisclosed amount. To be sure, even as new and digital entrants crowd the wealth management industry and gain market share, legacy wirehouses (the large, full-service broker-dealer institutions) still oversee trillions in wealth. Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wells Fargo, and Merrill Lynch manage a combined $9 trillion in client assets as of their third-quarter filings; Morgan Stanley is the largest wealth manager in the US by assets.And as we reported, analysts increasingly believe scaling up in the wealth management business, which includes consolidation and gobbling up smaller players, will keep firms competitive.Brent Weiss, a Facet co-founder and head of planning, told us in a recent interview that he thinks its subscription model for mass-affluent clients makes it stand out from firms with more traditional models.“Our subscription model really becomes a unique differentiator in that space where we can go to those families and say, 'Hey, we know you need some help with your financial life plan. Let's talk about it for an affordable flat fee,'” he said. “And that creates great practice in that space.”if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:27PM
Slack's growth prospects in a critical market will face an imposing wall erected by Microsoft, according to a report by Wedbush securities.Microsoft Teams, a competing product to Slack, is available free to business customers of Microsoft Office 365. That will keep many Microsoft enterprise customers from moving to Slack, according to the report.Large enterprise customers are especially important to Slack's future revenue potential.“To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
The Slack solution is impressive and represents a strong growth opportunity, however we believe penetrating this next phase of enterprises will be incrementally more difficult as the Microsoft/Teams value proposition presents a major competitive hurdle going forward in sales cycles,” Wedbush analysts Daniel Ives and Strecker Backe wrote.Microsoft has claimed it has more daily active users than Slack, at 13 million. While Slack has responded and said it had 12 million and highlighted user engagement figures which it says show how much people like using the app. Click here for more BI Prime stories.One out of every ten Microsoft enterprise customers might switch to Slack, the upstart office collaboration tool. And that's not good news for Slack. The San Francisco company is valued at roughly $10 billion by public market investors who are betting that Slack's passionate “cult” user base will help it become a standard workplace tool — as common as email and mobile phones — in the corporate world. But according to a recent report by Wedbush Securities analysts Dan Ives and Strecker Backe, Slack's growth prospects might not be as wide open as investors believe.
In particular, Ives reckons, Slack is about to crash into a Microsoft wall. “Only 10% to 15% of the core Microsoft enterprise customer base is potentially 'in play' for Slack,” Ives and Backe write in a recent note to investors initiation coverage of Slack with an “Underperform” rating.Microsoft has a rival product called Teams that offers similar capabilities and is available free to existing Microsoft Office 365 business customers. “We have spoken to many enterprise customers that have seriously contemplated Slack's enterprise tier solution, but in the final IT decision was viewed that Teams services will suffice with no extra charge for Office 365 customers,” the Wedbush report says.What's more, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is putting a lot of resources behind the Teams product to blunt the threat Slack presents to “wall-to-wall Microsoft shops,” the analysts say.Earlier this year Microsoft claimed it had about 13 million daily active users, which it said put it ahead of Slack. Slack responded last month saying it had 12 million daily active users. That's less than Teams but Slack was careful to highlight its user engagement figures, which it said showed how much people like using the app.Slack offers a freemium model where customers start on a free plan and then can move up to paid offerings ranging from standard to plus to enterprise. The company has 100,000 paying customers as of Q2 2020. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield has said that's still the way the company acquires most paid customers. “Its individual work groups, like some one person says we should check this out and they get 2 to 3 and then 5 or 8 or 15 people using it and that happens over and over again across the company,” Butterfield said at a conference in Laguna Beach last month.

  Slack is among a string of tech startups focused on corporate customers to recently enter the public markets. Zoom which provides video conferencing tools for companies using a similar “freemium” model, was one of the most successful public offings of the year, with its stock now trading at roughly double the level of its IPO price.Slack, which went public in June via an unorthodox direct listing, has seen its share sink about 47% below the level of its first days on the market.If not Microsoft customers, then who?If Wedbush's bleak view of Slack's prospects with Microsoft customers proves true, Slack will need to find its growth elsewhere. Ives said Slack's challenge will be to get the roughly 500,000 organizations that use Slack's free platform option to covert to paid users and drive growth over the next three to five years.He does think Slack will continue to do well with small business and startups and mid-market companies. “I think their sweet spot is 500 to 2,000 seat enterprises that tend to be more next generation type companies,” Ives said. Ives does see Slack's integrations with other services as an advantage, and that it offers a “sophisticated search and collaboration software that is embedded within an organization's workflow with topic, historical data maintenance, and group based features that are difficult for competitors to replicate.” However, that may not be enough to take a significant portion of the market and beat Microsoft. “The next step of growth will be a major uphill battle” for Slack, says Ives.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:19PM
Unlike the violent fluctuation in the energy market and the great volatility in the stock market, the U.S. Treasury market has been particularly calm in recent weeks, and no one can say where it's heading to.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
  After the initial shock of the coronavirus epidemic, many bond traders were neither able nor willing to bet on the direction of US Treasury yields. The benchmark U.S. 10-year Treasury yields, after roller-coastering in March from a record low of 0.31% to a high of 1.27%, fluctuated in a much smaller range of 0.54% to 0.78% in April.
  According to the institutional investor survey data released by JP Morgan Chase, two-thirds of the surveyed institutions have become more neutral in terms of fund allocation, a proportion close to the highest level in the past two years. This situation indicates that there are few large-scale risk-taking investments at the moment.
  Most bond yields have been trading in a tight range, which means that investors are still holding out to see whether the United States can escape the whirlpool of deflation. A large amount of fixed-income futures positions were closed in March, and since then, the size of the open interest has hardly changed, and has been hovering around the lowest level since 2017.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:10PM
Andrew Lapthorne, the global head of quantitative research at Societe Generale, is skeptical of forecasts for a “perfect” v-shaped recovery in corporate earnings. The consensus forecast among analysts is that by the end of 2021, profits will be growing at nearly the same rate as they were in late-2019.Lapthorne considered the unique nature of this crisis and concluded that the consensus is too optimistic.Click here for more BI Prime stories.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
  Wall Street's expectations for recovery from the coronavirus crisis seems too good to be true. That's according to Andrew Lapthorne, the global head of quantitative research at Societe Generale. He is skeptical that the stock market's strong rebound from its trough in March matches up with the reality that will unfold in the months ahead. In particular, Lapthorne is skeptical of the “perfect” recovery that is reflected in real-time consensus forecasts for earnings, the biggest long-term driver of stock prices. Data he compiled shows that analysts expect global profits to fall by 21% this year and then rise 21% in 2021.In other words, the prediction is that economic conditions will recover so quickly that by December 2021, corporate profits will be back to where they were when COVID-19 began to spread in late-2019.
In the alphabet soup of economic scenarios, analysts expect a V-shaped recovery that is turbocharged by effective containment of the outbreak and abundant government stimulus.Many countries around the world are clearly not close to fully reopening their economies. But the latter condition — stimulus — has been successful and unprecedented, ranging from the Federal Reserve's purchases of select junk-rated corporate debt to the checks wired straight to Americans' accounts.
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  This helps explain why the S&P 500 has already retraced more than half of its losses after its fastest 30% decline ever. Once again, investors are buying equities knowing fully well that the Fed is ready to act as lifeguard.
  “Yet there is zero evidence historically that markets can go up on a sustained basis whilst profits continue to slump,” Lapthorne said. “Equity markets may have bounced but investors still seem to be positioning themselves for a drop.”For proof of the ongoing risk to corporate profits, keep tabs on what companies are doing with their cash. Goldman Sachs strategists estimate that cash spending among S&P 500 companies will fall by a record 33% to $1.8 trillion this year. The decline includes cuts to dividends — another area where proof of cashflow constraints can be found. By adjusting for the expected drop in EPS this year, UBS estimates that the median S&P 500 dividend will fall 28% to $1.47. The largest expected dividend reductions are in cyclical sectors like energy and materials.Lapthorne is not the only strategist concerned that earnings expectations are still too high, even though they have been reined in by the pandemic.
  “We are concerned 2021 numbers now need to be cut more aggressively,” said Lori Calvasina, the head of US equity strategy of RBC Capital Markets, in a recent note. Her 2021 EPS forecast that factors in a “healthy economic recovery and margin expansion” is $153, below the consensus forecast for $170.In addition, she noted that several executives have told analysts on earnings calls that the journey to get the economy back to its pre-coronavirus strength will be slow and uneven. These observations contrast the market's march higher — at least in Lapthorne's books. And the mismatch is one that may be corrected by another sell-off.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 10:01PM
Continued speculation that the pandemic is nearing the peak has continued to fuel optimism into US financial market.Thanks to prospects that United States will soon lift lockdown measures and produce drugs to effectively control the coronavirus pandemic, Nasdaq was up by 6% throughout the week, registering the largest double-week gain since 2001. On the other hand, extreme pessimism continues to loom the forex and oil markets, while a crisis similar to the Asian financial turmoil of 1997-98 is quietly brewing and threatens to hit emerging market currencies.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
  While Trump said last week that the United States would lift restrictions in phases, Japan expanded state of emergency to the whole country, and the United Kingdom also announced an extension of the blockade measures for three weeks, reflecting that the global pandemic has yet to be controlled. There is also news that Remdesivir, the drug produced and tested by pharmaceutical company Gilead, has a positive effect in treating coronavirus patients, boosting the company's stock price by 10%.
  The Dow component Boeings share also soared 15% after the company announced plans to restart aircraft production in Washington State. But the foreign exchange market and the oil market have been sluggish amid the good news, with some emerging market countries seeing devastating crash of oil price and their national currencies.
  Emerging market currencies in sell-off and ZAR has fallen 26% this year.
  Some emerging market currencies have continued to record new lows, such as the Indian rupee, the Argentine peso, the Mexican peso, the Brazilian real and the South African rand, while the Turkish lira is approaching historical lows. The South African rand has fallen by 26% year to date, seeing the largest decline among all currencies. The Brazilian real has fallen by 23%, the Mexican peso has fallen by 21%, and the Russian ruble has fallen by 16.5%. The above data reflects that the currencies of emerging market countries and oil-producing countries are in a sell-off wave, facing the crisis of sharp depreciation.
  When Soros targeted the Thai central bank and attacked the Thai baht in early 1997, Hong Kong people, indulged in the enthusiasm of the reunification with Mainland, continued to speculate in stock and property markets and ignored signs of the fierce currency battle between Soros and Thailand. Later the baht‘s crash triggered an unprecedented tsunami in Asian financial market. So the sell-off in currencies of emerging markets and oil-producing countries may be a signal that a financial storm is looming large in these emerging markets. This explains why the US dollar index remains strong despite US stocks’ rally last week.
  Therefore, if the emerging markets are unfortunately hit by the financial crisis domino effect in the future, there will be another round of dollar shortage and liquidity shortage, which will boost the exchange rate of the US dollar and keep non-US currencies under pressure.
  A financial crisis is brewing in emerging markets and non-dollar currencies remains under pressure
  In addition to the forex market, the oil market has also suffered a heavy blow as the worst among most affected sectors. From the beginning of the year to last Friday, closing price of WTI futures at New York Mercantile Exchange have plummeted by 70.19%, which is definitely a disaster. A barrel of oil is approximately 159 liters. Taking WTI crude‘s lowest price of US$17.31/barrel last Friday, that’s 0.84 Hong Kong dollars per liter of oil, suggesting that the price of oil fell to a much cheaper level than water.
  Therefore, at this stage, there are extremely extreme contradictions in the financial market. The US stock market rebounded amid optimism that the global pandemic has peaked, but at the same time, WTI crude has suffered pressures from the economic fallout and possibility of a recession. Some foreign banks observe that WTI will bottom out at around US$10, I personally think that there is very little room for oil price to plunge further.
While opinions still vary as to whether oil prices have hit the bottom, one thing sure is that whether oil prices bottom out now or continue to drop to the forecast US$10 level, prices wont return to US$30 in the short term even after bottoming out, which will definitely be a big problem for oil companies. Most oil companies, probably except for those in Russia and the Middle East, will be losing money if the prices remain below US$30. Oil companies in North and South America, Europe and Asia may fall into financial difficulties and then face the crisis of bankruptcy. I estimate that in the future, the collapse of oil companies will repeat the collapse of investment banks in the 2008 financial crisis, and eventually off a financial tsunami.
  I also cited the above example during one of the shows-the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in the first quarter of 2007, butLehman Brothers didnt go bankrupt immediately in the second quarter of 2007, they collapsed in September of the following year. So I believe that the Great Depression 2.0 derived from the coronavirus pandemic will eventually trigger emerging market crisis, sovereign debt crisis and the collapse of large companies in different sectors, especially energy companies, starting from the second half of 2020. For bottom buyers counting on a rally of oil prices, Unlevered ETF will be a good choice.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 09:50PM
The British pound has been sluggish recently, being among a group of non-US currencies that suffered general pressure due to risk aversion sentiment caused by WTI's decline into negative areas. However, the pound has now shown obvious resistance to decline.To get more news about wikifx, you can visit wikifx news official website.
  Despite Markit's service industry PMI in April of 12.3, which was much lower than the expected 27.8, the pound did not show a sharp decline, indicating that the market partially digested the epidemic's shock on Britain's economy. We believe that pound s current exchange rate at an extremely low range indicates the currency has little room for further declines. As the global economy gradually recovers, the pound may rebound significantly.
  The negotiators of the United Kingdom and the European Union began week-long consultations to discuss the relationship between the two countries after the Brexit, including trade issues. As the epidemic persists, the possibility of the UK applying for an extension of the Brexit transition period is also increasing. The market still needs to pay close attention to how the progress of related matters evolve.if you want know more,Download wikifx
buzai232 May 4 '20, 09:42PM
One Bertie County real estate broker's "on a whim" decision has led to more than $375,000.Get more news about 彩票包网平台,you can vist loto98.com

Tony Rawls says he bought extra Cash 5 tickets online from his home on April 3 and woke up in the middle of the night to quite the surprise - he had won the jackpot.

Rawls and his wife, Jolene Morris, say they use Online Play with the North Carolina Education Lottery for its convenience.As it turns out, both were seeing the same thing; Rawls says they "hit the jackpot!"

While the state’s Stay At Home order remains in effect, lottery officials say they decided to lift the requirement that winners of prizes of $100,000 or more claim their prize in person. Since Rawls had an Online Play account, officials say he had the choice of getting his prize money from an electronic funds transfer or by certified check. After federal and state tax withholdings, Rawls and Morris took home $266,027, and officials say they received their prize on Friday.
According to the lottery, Online Play allows players to purchase tickets online for four draw games:

Carolina Cash 5,
Lucky For Life,
Mega Millions,
Powerball.
Ticket sales from games like Carolina Cash 5 make it possible for the lottery to raise more than $700 million per year for education, officials say.
buzai232 May 3 '20, 12:05AM
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