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Wow, one of the (or only?) top 50 largest shareholders owns $541 worth of this stock! That is amazing news!
One thing that DOES happen every time is a rehash of the discussion of gaps every time there is one. Ad nauseam.
Haha ! That's what makes a market I guess. Because I am convinced that taken in context, it is just wishful thinking.
This news is not substantial. Just wishful thinking. We will have to depend on the courts. Many many months from now.............
"To be sure, Tuesday's House budget is essentially a wish list of Republican proposals and one step in what is likely to be a long process of negotiations.
"These are the talking points we've seen time and time again," Boltansky said. "The goal here was to get a document done to begin the process. Specificity wasn't the goal." "
It was well before market close.
Yeah they have a unique product but it needs improving tremendously in order to be viable in a widespread fashion. Where space is limited, crystalline silicon beats asti's product enormously. I can't remember if it beats it on longevity or durability as well, but I suspect it does. Other posters no doubt would know. There is a reason they didn't do even 2 million of sales in all of last year, after being in business for how many years? Most every competing product out there is way better than theirs. They need a breakthrough. But even after a technology breakthrough in the lab, it would take a very long time before they had sales from it.
"The only reasons I hear for not buying is past performance."
Valid point. But the only reason you are giving for a bright future is based in hope and imagination. If this guy were to come up with a breakthrough today it would probably be a year or two before they would have sales from it. I think the thing that most people recognize as a positive for this company is less about technology and actual sales, and more about a huge technical bounce. You can make money off of either, so I'm still watching it, but it's a pitiful crapshoot until further evidence is revealed.
If he delivers the goods then you're right. But after "numerous" infractions I would suspect the validity of his efficiency claims and the relevance of his patents.
"Contreras acknowledged double billed the government on numerous occasions in 2008 and 2009."
"Investigators claimed Contreras committed up to 37 violations of the False Claims Act."
It's possible they could follow up with more news. But I've learned one thing... when there's proven dishonesty in a company's principal people the most probable thing that happens is you lose money. http://www.denverpost.com/2017/01/26/national-renewable-energy-lab-double-billing/
Rekcusdoo.... I seriously hope you send a copy of that message to him multiple times over the next few days/ weeks, in case your first message gets lost in the shuffle. I think you'll agree human nature requires repetition in order to get a message established.
"Bloated" and "failed" institutions? What a ridiculous imagination. I mean blatent, ulterior motive.
It's been well over a year since they said they were going to be a real company that actually does something. This is VERY reliable indication that they will get no further than they did in years past with the millions that were gifted to them. With new management this stock might actually get interest from smart money. Until then it's just a desperate attempt for a few guys to have day jobs they never will get from anyone else.
Fwiw... Just ran across this and thought it was interesting. Wondering if the bankers orchestrated this whole Fannie Mae debacle. Very short segment ...just watch from 1:27 - 2:06
Be careful and humble. The first rule of investing is don't lose money. Making money is secondary. Being married to a stock is the foolishness. Expecting karma or ascribing moral value to an investment is also thoroughly foolish.
You should have said >unwarranted< negativity is as bad as unwarranted optimism....not just ANY negativity at all. It's just wise investing/living to consider all possibilities. I think it is completely possible that the government/courts will take these two gse's away from us. Why? ....BECAUSE THEY ALREADY HAVE! What we investors never thought was a possibility has become reality!
I've never been short. And I lost a lot of money on the Feb 21st.
Many longs here seem to propose that we need to avoid even thinking negative thoughts about the possible outcomes. For example, you wrote...."No reason to even think about zero... "
I've been a full-time investor for 20 years. I've learned that not considering the "unthinkable" can set a person up to lose money. Something to THINK about.
What will you do if it goes to zero?
Finally. Why did it take someone so long to do this?
New to ASTI. There are few technologies in the works utilizing printed solar cells. Anyone know if Asti has a possibility of transitioning to the next breakthrough printed cell technology? Or if any other solar company has shown interest in buying them? They have a very valuable production facility that would help any new technology to leapfrog startup delays. That would rocket the share price. tia
Oh great somebody said a minute amount of something positive for fnma. The next three pages of ihub comments will obsess about it as though it was the second coming.
Now that's some hard-hitting journalism! Getting a has-been guitarist to voice his opinion on Trump! Alex's signature reporting of all the crucial and relevant stuff!
One of the most unfortunate things about this stock is it has been a distraction for me for the last year and kept me from getting on many other stocks that have surged dramatically... especially in the last two or three weeks. You have to have OCD to follow all the posts on this board !
How in the world do you conclude that "the move to R&R is ON " when it was reported..."“The objective here is not to recapitalize these entities in any fashion,” Ryan said. ""
How can you spin that?
I don't know... I guess cause he's a fhfa official, and BO is an unemployed nobody.
"Obama speech in Arizona, did not sway us, why would this guy? Only issue we have it time.. we will prevail sooner or later"
This sounds absolutely terrible for us shareholders........
" At Monday’s conference, an FHFA official said any change made to the dividends would be a “delay,” not an elimination of the payments. The goal would be allowing Fannie and Freddie to hold enough capital to protect against small operating losses, said Bob Ryan, who oversees the companies’ conservatorship.
“The objective here is not to recapitalize these entities in any fashion,” Ryan said. "
Navy can you point out how this is different than everything else we've heard so far? It says he stopped short of telling us how the government was going to get it out of government control. The way I read it that includes getting rid of Fannie Mae as we know it. I really don't see anything more definite that this guy said than everyone else has said recently.
"Why is nobody watching Craig Phillips talk?"
Did anyone watch this? Did he say anything pertinent to Fannie Mae? And most importantly..... did he get up and leave early with a sour look on his face? That is crucial info! Haha!
Nothing new but it's good to see the media repeating our outrage.
They DID leave.
Yes by all means let's all put our hard-earned money in this stock because we imagine some hot head got angry and walked out of a meeting. Sounds like as good a reason as any to risk your money!
And I for one would like to hear hundreds of more posts on this, ridiculous, irrelevant subject. Please, keep them coming!
I did not rewatch the video but I remember someone on the bench saying something to the effect...."in case you're wondering where everyone is going there is a vote going on so we will excuse them for that." Am I the only one that caught that?
Someone on the bench mentioned that everyone was leaving because they had a vote to do. That is the most likely reason why Corker got up and left. If he is was angry... being the fighter that he is... he would have stayed.
No one heard it and I suspect you did not either.
Absolutely. We should all invest our hard-earned money based on some obscure comments by a tabloid reporter who doesn't eat unless he keeps churning out the conspiracy theories Etc. Wow.
I don't understand what is to be excited about. Alex has proven over and over he is reckless in his characterization of the facts. In my opinion his siding with Fannie Mae shareholders is not a desirable thing. I also cannot stand to listen to his irritating voice. Good grief, he needs to get an operation on his vocal cords!
But he cannot end the net worth sweep. He cannot.
Rek, is this statement true?.... "It represents controlling law for Sweeney, which means she is obligated to apply it to her cases."
http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2017/05/09/appeals-courts-aig-decision-doom-fannie-freddie-litigation/
Appeals Court’s AIG Decision Sets Government Up For Big Win in Fannie and Freddie Cases
Fannie MaeGETTY
by JOHN CARNEY9 May 201711
This month has been a difficult one for shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still hoping to shake-off government control of the mortgage giants.
Last week, a spokesman for the Treasury Department said that Secretary Steven Mnuchin supports the deal that requires Fannie and Freddie to send nearly all of their profits to the government, leaving nothing for shareholders. The Treasury spokesman also shot down the notion that Mnuchin had confirmed allegations that the Obama administration had diverted funds from Fannie and Freddie to pay for Obamacare-related subsidies, an idea spread by political operatives hoping to win conservatives over to the cause of the Fannie and Freddie shareholders.
A more serious blow came Tuesday when a federal appeals court tossed out a lower court’s ruling that the federal bailout of American International Group was unlawful. The lower court’s decision had been the basis for hope that shareholders of a bailed-out company could successfully sue the government over the terms of the bailout.
The AIG suit had been filed by Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg in 2011. He argued that the Fed overstepped its legal authority when it demanded a 79.9% equity stake in exchange for an emergency loan that enabled the company to avert bankruptcy. In 2015, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the government’s actions constituted an “illegal exaction” but awarded no damages because the court accepted the government’s arguments that without the loan AIG would have been forced to file for bankruptcy, leaving the shareholders with nothing.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit vacated the lower courts ruling. The three-judge panel said that AIG shareholders lacked standing to sue the government because their claims “belong exclusively to AIG.” In other words, the shareholders could not bring the lawsuit because the alleged illegal actions would be harms against the company and not the shareholders directly.
Lawyers for the U.S. government will certainly bring the AIG decision to the attention of Judge Margaret Sweeney, who is overseeing a case filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by Fannie and Freddie shareholder Fairholme Funds. It represents controlling law for Sweeney, which means she is obligated to apply it to her cases. Investors in Fannie and Freddie sued over the sweep of the mortgage companies’ profits in the U.S. Treasury in the Federal Claims court, which hears cases for monetary damages against the federal government.
While many of the factual and legal details of the AIG and Fannie/Freddie cases differ, the rationale for the Federal Circuit’s AIG decision is particularly damaging to the Fannie and Freddie plaintiffs in the Claims Court. Their case rests on the basic assertion that they have a right to sue as shareholders over the terms of the government’s bailout–an assertion flatly rejected by the court in Tuesday’s ruling.
The stakes in the Sweeney court have been elevated by decisions in several other federal courts to dismiss similar shareholder lawsuits. Sweeney has allowed the plaintiffs in that case to attempt to establish that her court has jurisdiction through the discovery process. That process has now dragged on for years as lawyers for the government and shareholders battle over which documents must be turned over to plaintiffs, with the government asserting that many documents are subject to privileges that allow them to be withheld.
This process could be brought to a sudden end, however, if Sweeney holds that the AIG case means the plaintiffs lack standing to sue.
Background: How Fannie and Freddie Went from Implicit Guarantees to Bailouts to Lawsuits
Fannie and Freddie provide liquidity to the housing market by buying mortgages from lenders, packaging them into securities whose principal and interest payments they guarantee. Prior to their 2008 collapse, Fannie and Freddie were widely viewed as enjoying an “implicit guarantee” from the U.S. government, enabling them to earn enormous profits because investors viewed their bonds as being safe–or nearly so–as U.S. Treasury bonds
The companies were taken over by the U.S. government in 2008 when officials feared their collapse could further destabilize the housing and financial markets. Treasury provided hundreds of billions of funding while the Federal Housing Finance Agency became their conservator.
Under their original agreement with the U.S. Treasury, both companies were supposed to pay a dividend equal to 10% of their taxpayer funding as well as a fee on the hundreds of billions more Treasury had pledged to support them. For years, however, neither company earned enough to pay the dividend, which forced them to draw even more from their bailout funds just to send the money back to Treasury as the dividend. This circular draw, as it came to be called, threatened to put the companies into a death spiral, slowly eating away at the remainder of the Treasury backstop.
In mid-2012, Treasury and the FHFA agreed to change the terms of the bailout so that Fannie and Freddie would no longer have a fixed dividend–ending the need for circular draws. Instead, each company would have a flexible dividend obligation that would rise and fall with their profits. Because the new dividend is equal to the positive net worth of each company, less a small capital cushion set to decline each year, it is known as the “net worth sweep.”
At the time the net worth sweep was implemented, Treasury Department officials noted that in addition to ending the circular draws and death spiral, the arrangement would facilitate the eventual wind down of the companies by preventing them from using profits to recapitalize as policy-makers designed a safe, more stable mortgage finance system.
Because every attempt at bipartisan mortgage finance reform legislation stalled out on Capitol Hill, neither company has been wound-down. Instead, they have remained in conservatorship and supported by taxpayer backing for more than eight years–a situation that nearly everyone involved in mortgage finance reform regards as undesirable.
Hedge funds and other big investors who have purchased shares of Fannie and Freddie, including Perry Capital LLC and the Fairholme Funds, have been attempting to undo the net worth sweep for years. These attempts have included marshaling support of civil rights groups and filing lawsuits in several federal courts. The litigation tactic, however, has largely failed. The cases have been met by dismissal in four federal district courts and a federal appeals court in March largely rejected the bid by investors to reverse one of those decisions. The case before Judge Sweeney is one of the few to have survived the government’s motion to dismiss.
Rek, is this true?.... "It represents controlling law for Sweeney, which means she is obligated to apply it to her cases."
http://www.breitbart.com/economics/2017/05/09/appeals-courts-aig-decision-doom-fannie-freddie-litigation/
Appeals Court’s AIG Decision Sets Government Up For Big Win in Fannie and Freddie Cases
Fannie MaeGETTY
by JOHN CARNEY9 May 201711
This month has been a difficult one for shareholders of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac still hoping to shake-off government control of the mortgage giants.
Last week, a spokesman for the Treasury Department said that Secretary Steven Mnuchin supports the deal that requires Fannie and Freddie to send nearly all of their profits to the government, leaving nothing for shareholders. The Treasury spokesman also shot down the notion that Mnuchin had confirmed allegations that the Obama administration had diverted funds from Fannie and Freddie to pay for Obamacare-related subsidies, an idea spread by political operatives hoping to win conservatives over to the cause of the Fannie and Freddie shareholders.
A more serious blow came Tuesday when a federal appeals court tossed out a lower court’s ruling that the federal bailout of American International Group was unlawful. The lower court’s decision had been the basis for hope that shareholders of a bailed-out company could successfully sue the government over the terms of the bailout.
The AIG suit had been filed by Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg in 2011. He argued that the Fed overstepped its legal authority when it demanded a 79.9% equity stake in exchange for an emergency loan that enabled the company to avert bankruptcy. In 2015, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the government’s actions constituted an “illegal exaction” but awarded no damages because the court accepted the government’s arguments that without the loan AIG would have been forced to file for bankruptcy, leaving the shareholders with nothing.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit vacated the lower courts ruling. The three-judge panel said that AIG shareholders lacked standing to sue the government because their claims “belong exclusively to AIG.” In other words, the shareholders could not bring the lawsuit because the alleged illegal actions would be harms against the company and not the shareholders directly.
Lawyers for the U.S. government will certainly bring the AIG decision to the attention of Judge Margaret Sweeney, who is overseeing a case filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims by Fannie and Freddie shareholder Fairholme Funds. It represents controlling law for Sweeney, which means she is obligated to apply it to her cases. Investors in Fannie and Freddie sued over the sweep of the mortgage companies’ profits in the U.S. Treasury in the Federal Claims court, which hears cases for monetary damages against the federal government.
While many of the factual and legal details of the AIG and Fannie/Freddie cases differ, the rationale for the Federal Circuit’s AIG decision is particularly damaging to the Fannie and Freddie plaintiffs in the Claims Court. Their case rests on the basic assertion that they have a right to sue as shareholders over the terms of the government’s bailout–an assertion flatly rejected by the court in Tuesday’s ruling.
The stakes in the Sweeney court have been elevated by decisions in several other federal courts to dismiss similar shareholder lawsuits. Sweeney has allowed the plaintiffs in that case to attempt to establish that her court has jurisdiction through the discovery process. That process has now dragged on for years as lawyers for the government and shareholders battle over which documents must be turned over to plaintiffs, with the government asserting that many documents are subject to privileges that allow them to be withheld.
This process could be brought to a sudden end, however, if Sweeney holds that the AIG case means the plaintiffs lack standing to sue.
Background: How Fannie and Freddie Went from Implicit Guarantees to Bailouts to Lawsuits
Fannie and Freddie provide liquidity to the housing market by buying mortgages from lenders, packaging them into securities whose principal and interest payments they guarantee. Prior to their 2008 collapse, Fannie and Freddie were widely viewed as enjoying an “implicit guarantee” from the U.S. government, enabling them to earn enormous profits because investors viewed their bonds as being safe–or nearly so–as U.S. Treasury bonds
The companies were taken over by the U.S. government in 2008 when officials feared their collapse could further destabilize the housing and financial markets. Treasury provided hundreds of billions of funding while the Federal Housing Finance Agency became their conservator.
Under their original agreement with the U.S. Treasury, both companies were supposed to pay a dividend equal to 10% of their taxpayer funding as well as a fee on the hundreds of billions more Treasury had pledged to support them. For years, however, neither company earned enough to pay the dividend, which forced them to draw even more from their bailout funds just to send the money back to Treasury as the dividend. This circular draw, as it came to be called, threatened to put the companies into a death spiral, slowly eating away at the remainder of the Treasury backstop.
In mid-2012, Treasury and the FHFA agreed to change the terms of the bailout so that Fannie and Freddie would no longer have a fixed dividend–ending the need for circular draws. Instead, each company would have a flexible dividend obligation that would rise and fall with their profits. Because the new dividend is equal to the positive net worth of each company, less a small capital cushion set to decline each year, it is known as the “net worth sweep.”
At the time the net worth sweep was implemented, Treasury Department officials noted that in addition to ending the circular draws and death spiral, the arrangement would facilitate the eventual wind down of the companies by preventing them from using profits to recapitalize as policy-makers designed a safe, more stable mortgage finance system.
Because every attempt at bipartisan mortgage finance reform legislation stalled out on Capitol Hill, neither company has been wound-down. Instead, they have remained in conservatorship and supported by taxpayer backing for more than eight years–a situation that nearly everyone involved in mortgage finance reform regards as undesirable.
Hedge funds and other big investors who have purchased shares of Fannie and Freddie, including Perry Capital LLC and the Fairholme Funds, have been attempting to undo the net worth sweep for years. These attempts have included marshaling support of civil rights groups and filing lawsuits in several federal courts. The litigation tactic, however, has largely failed. The cases have been met by dismissal in four federal district courts and a federal appeals court in March largely rejected the bid by investors to reverse one of those decisions. The case before Judge Sweeney is one of the few to have survived the government’s motion to dismiss.
Was this posted?.....http://www.dsnews.com/daily-dose/05-09-2017/gses-granted-foia-exemptions
GSEs Could be Granted FOIA Exemptions
The U.S. House of Representatives has passed an amendment that extends the nine exemptions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Sponsored by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia), the bill amends HR 1694, a law passed in late April. HR 1694 requires Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to comply with all requirements of FOIA. Previously, the two government-sponsored enterprises were exempt from the law, because they did not qualify as federal agencies.
With the passage of the new amendment, Fannie and Freddie will not have to disclose any information under FOIA’s nine exemptions, which include documents classified as secret; information solely related to personnel; trade secrets; privileged inter-agency letters; medical releases; information compiled for law enforcement purposes; and more.
According to Johnson, the amendment helps ensure the privacy and safety of GSE employees and American borrowers.
“By passing this amendment, we will ensure that personal privacy and sensitive information is appropriately protected, while ensuring the highest level of transparency for the American taxpayers, who have invested almost $187 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Johnson said.
HR 1694 was passed in late April. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the new law will require the entities to accept, process, and satisfy all FOIA requests from the public as long as they are under conservatorship. The CBO estimates that this uptick in administrative duties will increase costs by about $10 million over the next 10 years. The CBO noted that each entity would need to hire new staff and its expand its data processing abilities.
This is the second time issues of communication privacy have come up this week. On Monday, Buzzfeed published a letter from Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), the Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. In the letter, Hensarling announced the committee’s intention to retain control of all communication between the two agencies, saying they qualified as “congressional records.”
“All such documents and communications constitute congressional records not ‘agency records’ for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, and remain subject to congressional control even when in the physical possession of the” agency, Hensarling wrote.
The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1967, giving any American the right to request records from a federal agency. Congress is exempt from the law.
He has said repeatedly and recently that they are talking with many people and groups in order to determine what route they will take with Fannie Mae. That tells me he has not decided yet. Obviously that includes recap and release as another solution that he has in no way decided upon yet.