Monthly Archives: March 2021

In 1954, Ishiro Honda created a monsterquite literallywith his film Godzilla, where the titular monster levels the city of Tokyo. While Hondas original tale of Godzilla is about the horrors of nuclear war, it created a franchise of films that became primarily focused on the spectacle of giant monsters rather than the consequences of human actions. The nihilism Honda imbued within the 1954 film slowly dissipates and is replaced with campy and entertaining battles between Godzilla and giant moths, three-headed space dragons, sentient pollution and more. But, in 2016, directors Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Shinji Higuchi harkened back to the 1954 films hopelessness and absolute terror with their 2016 film, Shin Godzilla. This is no longer about the entertaining spectacle of monsters; this is about an unstoppable, rapidly-evolving malevolent god with no regard for humanity.

Shin Godzilla is Anno and Higuchis interpretation of Hondas original film, but with a modern twist that includes a scathing look at the continued incompetence of an unnecessarily complex bureaucracy, the first-person perspectives of those on the ground and a horrifying reimagining of Godzilla himself. Just like 1954s Godzilla, the giant lizard levels Tokyo while government officials helplessly watch from afar. Anno and Higuchi imbue the film with the prevailing sense of nihilism seen in the original. There is no hope, only temporary solutions.

The terror inflicted by Godzilla in this film triples as he undergoes three evolutions, each more destructive than the last. He is able to quickly adapt to his surroundings, going from a bumbling creature with only back legs to a gargantuan monster with atomic breath and the ability to asexually reproduce. The first form, the larval form, crashes on land as his two hind legs propel him forward while the rest of his body scrapes along the ground, carving a path through the city like a snake slithering through grass. Frilled, shark-like lungs spew out a red liquid that drowns the city in a bloody substance. Then, before everyones eyes, he stands up.

The second form most closely emulates the traditional Godzilla design. He is wreaking typical havoc as he topples buildings, but is still gaining strength; he is not done growing, a harrowing realization that there is even more hell to be wrought. His third and final form is his most destructive, as he evolves to have Anno and Haguchis version of atomic breath. Godzillas jaw unhinges and unleashes not a fiery blast, but a concentrated laser beam that can slice through buildings, drones and fighter jets. But thats not it. Godzilla is virtually indestructible and cannot be killed like the 1954 version. While he is frozen with liquid coagulant, this is only a temporary solution. Even worse, humanoid creatures are frozen mid-spawn from his tail; Godzilla is able to create his own beings, further illustrating his godlike abilities. This is his planet now.

But this horror isnt just created by the lizard deity. Perhaps even more horrifying than Godzilla is the bureaucracy that bogs down any hope of rapid response from the government. Officials with vague titles gather around giant wooden tables for back-to-back meetings where solutions are discussed but never executed. The prime minister is rendered essentially useless as he tries to make a reassuring speech about how the creature cannot come on land and in the midst of that speech, Godzilla makes landfall. Instead of honesty, the Japanese government is more focused on its image; their continuous denial of the gravity of the situation only increases the number of casualties. This mirrors 2011s three-pronged real world catastrophethe Tohoku earthquakes subsequent tsunami and Fukushima nuclear meltdownin both scope of damage and mismanagement of the disasters by the Japanese government. While 1954s Godzilla is about a force of nature, Shin Godzilla is about bureaucratic reactions to that force of nature. Anno and Higuchi build upon the original films discussion of the effects of manmade disasters (ie the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) to create a biting commentary of the current Japanese governments lack of accountability.

Shin Godzilla innovates not only in its reinterpretation of Godzilla, but it also adopts elements of found footage to truly illustrate the terror unfolding for those evacuating the city. These sections emulate the most horrifying parts of Hondas Godzilla, where Tokyos citizens are shown screaming in the streets, not just through wide shots, but through short vignette-like scenes that give the film a more personaltherefore devastatingtone. In Hondas film, a woman clutches her three sobbing children as a building collapses on them saying, Dont cry, well be with daddy soon, a heart-wrenching moment that focuses not on Godzilla himself but on the people he is killing. Anno and Higuchi take that ethos and place it within a 21st century contextand what better way to provide that context than through the prevalence of social media in society?

Live streams, Instagram posts and tweets are the only ways for the government to have any idea of whats really happening in Godzillas wake, not unlike how government officials in the 1954 film only understand the scope of destruction through television coverage. Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (Hiroki Hasegawa) is shown glued to his phone, watching footage as its posted, such as people escaping a collapsed tunnel and the sound of Godzillas footsteps shaking the ground. This footage is what leads Yaguchi to propose that there is a creature approaching the city; there is no denying its truth as the same images flood news feeds and timelines. This on the ground footage creates a sense of realism; there are seemingly no well-crafted shots or scripted dialogue here. It is raw and shaky, making its contents all the more believable and all the more terrifying.

While wide shots are used in many kaiju films to capture the spectacle of the monster, a first-person POV shifts the focus to the actual effects on people that are sprinting away from Godzillas feet. Similar to the 2007 film Cloverfield, found footage elements are used here to emulate the scale of the monster and the abject terror Tokyos citizens are facing as they try to evacuate the city.

In the 67 years since the release of Godzilla, dozens of films have been made as part of the franchise, bringing about decades of creative and entertaining cinema with a political message. While both 2014s Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters are more recent adaptations of the monster, they still do not capture that same fear, as neither take risks with their creature: He is not made to be a destructive, hateful god but one that wants to be a protector. In that context, despite being a gigantic kaiju imbued with nuclear energy, he does not want to wipe out humanityunlike both his 1954 and 2016 counterparts, who were purely focused on destruction and reclaiming the Earth as their own. It took 62 years for a film to truly capture the fear of the first Godzilla, but with Shin Godzilla, Anno and Higuchi translate the fear and hopelessness of postwar Japan into a modern nihilist context illustrating that perhaps humanity hasnt come as far as wed like to think.

Mary Beth McAndrews is a freelance film journalist with a love of all things horror. Shes written across the Internet about found footage, extreme horror cinema, and more. You can follow her on Twitter to read more of her work, as well as her hot takes about her favorite cryptid, Mothman.

Read more here:

Shin Godzilla Captured the Terror of the Original, Six Decades Later - Paste Magazine

From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just across from Carnegie Hall, Bill Hwang was quietly building one of the worlds greatest fortunes.

Even on Wall Street, few ever noticed him -- until suddenly, everyone did.

Hwang and his private investment firm, Archegos Capital Management, are now at the center of one of the biggest margin calls of all time--a multibillion-dollar fiasco involving secretive market bets that were dangerously leveraged and unwound in a blink.

Hwangs most recent ascent can be pieced together from stocks dumped by banks in recent days--ViacomCBS Inc., Discovery Inc. GSX Techedu Inc., Baidu Inc.--all of which had soared this year, sometimes confounding traders who couldnt fathom why.

One part of Hwangs portfolio, which has been traded in blocks since Friday by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co., was worth almost $40 billion last week. Bankers reckon that Archegoss net capital--essentially Hwangs wealth--had reached north of $10 billion. And as disposals keep emerging, estimates of his firms total positions keep climbing: tens of billions, $50 billion, even more than $100 billion.

It evaporated in mere days.

Ive never seen anything like this -- how quiet it was, how concentrated, and how fast it disappeared, said Mike Novogratz, a career macro investor and former partner at Goldman Sachs whos been trading since 1994. This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history.

Late Monday in New York, Archegos broke days of silence on the episode.

This is a challenging time for the family office of Archegos Capital Management, our partners and employees, Karen Kessler, a spokesperson for the firm, said in an emailed statement. All plans are being discussed as Mr. Hwang and the team determine the best path forward.

The cascade of trading losses has reverberated from New York to Zurich to Tokyo and beyond, and leaves myriad unanswered questions, including the big one: How could someone take such big risks, facilitated by so many banks, under the noses of regulators the world over?

One part of the answer is that Hwang set up as a family office with limited oversight and then employed financial derivatives to amass big stakes in companies without ever having to disclose them. Another part is that global banks embraced him as a lucrative customer, despite a record of insider trading and attempted market manipulation that drove him out of the hedge fund business a decade ago.

He soon opened Archegos--Greek for one who leads the way --and structured it as a family office.

Family offices that exclusively manage one fortune are generally exempt from registering as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So they dont have to disclose their owners, executives or how much they manage -- rules designed to protect outsiders who invest in a fund. That approach makes sense for small family offices, but if they swell to the size of a hedge fund whale they can still pose risks, this time to outsiders in the broader market.

This does raise questions about the regulation of family offices once again, said Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC aide who now runs the Healthy Markets trade group. The question is if its just friends and family why do we care? The answer is that they can have significant market impacts, and the SECs regulatory regime even after Dodd-Frank doesnt clearly reflect that.

Valuable customer

Archegos established trading partnerships with firms including Nomura Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. For a time after the SEC case, Goldman refused to do business with him on compliance grounds, but relented as rivals profited by meeting his needs.

The full picture of his holdings is still emerging, and its not clear what positions derailed, or what hedges he had set up.

One reason is that Hwang never filed a 13F report of his holdings, which every investment manager holding more than $100 million in U.S. equities must fill out at the end of each quarter. Thats because he appears to have structured his trades using total return swaps, essentially putting the positions on the banks balance sheets. Swaps also enable investors to add a lot of leverage to a portfolio.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, for instance, are listed as the largest holders of GSX Techedu, a Chinese online tutoring company thats been repeatedly targeted by short sellers. Banks may own shares for a variety of reasons that include hedging swap exposures from trades with their customers.

Unhappy investors

Goldman increased its position 54% in January, according to regulatory filings. Overall, banks reported holding at least 68% of GSXs outstanding shares, according to a Bloomberg analysis of filings. Banks held at least 40% of IQIYI Inc, a Chinese video entertainment company, and 29% of ViacomCBS -- all of which Archegos had bet on big.

Im sure there are a number of really unhappy investors who have bought those names over the last couple of weeks, and now regret it, Doug Cifu, chief executive officer of electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial Inc., said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. He predicted regulators will examine whether there should be more transparency and disclosure by a family office.

Without the need to market his fund to external investors, Hwangs strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. Even as his fortune swelled, the 50-something kept a low profile. Despite once working for Robertsons Tiger Management, he wasnt well-known on Wall Street or in New York social circles.

Hwang is a trustee of the Fuller Theology Seminary, and co-founder of the Grace and Mercy Foundation, whose mission is to serve the poor and oppressed. The foundation had assets approaching $500 million at the end of 2018, according to its latest filing.

Its not all about the money, you know, he said in a rare interview with a Fuller Institute executive in 2018, in which he spoke about his calling as an investor and his Christian faith. Its about the long term, and God certainly has a long-term view.

His extraordinary run of fortune turned early last week as ViacomCBS Inc. announced a secondary offering of its shares. Its stock price plunged 9% the next day.

The value of other securities believed to be in Archegos portfolio based on the positions that were block traded followed.

By Thursdays close, the value of the portfolio fell 27% -- more than enough to wipe out the equity of an investor who market participants estimate was six to eight times levered.

You have to wonder who else is out there with one of these invisible fortunes, said Novogratz. The psychology of all that leverage with no risk management, its almost nihilism.

(With assistance from Ben Bain, Ben Stupples, Erik Schatzker, Gillian Tan, David Gillen, Donal Griffin and Emily Cadman.)

Read more:

How one of worlds greatest hidden fortunes was wiped out in days - Business Standard

What first comes to mind when you hear the term SoundCloud rap? Perhaps you envision an immature group of teens with colorfully-dyed hair and face tattoos, rapping about prescription drugs. Maybe the term connotes a sense of rebelliousness that brings to mind exciting, unfiltered discoveries found on the internet. It could remind you of your own blunders and self-produced lo-fi beats you wish will never see the light of day. Regardless of your relationship to the genre, it seems that this simple two-word phrase elicits strong reactions from every Gen Z, tech-savvy music listener.

However, though mentions of the genre are a staple in music discourse, defining the short-lived moment of SoundCloud rap (often derogatorily referred to as mumble rap) is a task ranging from arduous to impossible.

During the last decade, the audience for the music streaming service SoundCloud exploded into the hundreds of millions. With a utopian vision of accessible music creation for the people, SoundCloud became a champion for any up-and-coming artist. New musicians, without ever having to leave their bedroom, gained stratospheric stardom, circumventing the conventional methods of going to professional studios and working with record labels. SoundClouds design is more aligned with social media websites than streaming services, which lowers the barrier between artist and audience. This gave a massive advantage to musicians who interacted with their fans online. Behind the scenes, SoundClouds unprecedented success shook the music industry to its core.

What we think of as SoundCloud rap is emblematic of the platform it spawned from. With harsh, raw instrumentals, SoundCloud rap embodies the DIY nature of its platform. Songs like XXXTentacions Look at Me (which currently has over 189 million plays on SoundCloud) contain blown-out vocals and very minimal mixing. Lil Pumps Gucci Gang (which peaked at number three on Billboards Hot 100) trades songwriting for the repetition of the phrase Gucci gang 53 times. For outsiders of the genre, this style of production may make SoundCloud rappers seem lazy and their music seem inaccessible, but for fans, this amateur aesthetic only heightens the listening experience.

These rappers, boasting ostentatious personalities, mind-numbing music and underground origins may elicit strong parallels to the punk movement of the late 70s and early 80s. Rather ironically, most SoundCloud rappers have ditched the platform of their namesake and got snatched up by large record labels, leaving SoundCloud rap to embody the spirit of the early punk scene. Where punk was a stripped-down, aggressive and often nihilistic response to the maximalism of mainstream rock, SoundCloud rap responded similarly to the excess of mainstream hip-hop with hostile, anti-authoritarian attitudes. SoundCloud rappers are much more likely to write songs about taking drugs than dealing them, and the content of their songs is centered around depression and self-destruction, unlike mainstream raps obsession with ego inflation.

Similar to punk, SoundCloud rappers are overwhelmingly young. Many SoundCloud rappers, such as Tekashi69, Lil Peep and Ski Mask the Slump God, all gained tremendous fame before their 18th birthdays. The popularity of these teenagers solidified SoundCloud rap as the sound of Gen Z. The genre represented the anxieties of a highly online generation disillusioned with the world they inherited. The unhealthy forms of escapism discussed in these songs from drugs and sex to self-harm are prevalent coping mechanisms within a generation characterized by existential fear. The intensity of the genre, from the lyrics to the garish face tattoos, represents a palpable nihilism both on and off-stage. In a sense, SoundCloud rappers and their cartoonish personas create an incredibly authentic reflection of the broken society they were brought into.

Gaining millions of fans before you are legally able to vote, however, comes with a dark side. The lives of these artists have been of immense fascination from the public since the beginning of the genre, which may have to do with the stars accessibility through their heavily online presence. On these platforms, SoundCloud rappers have gained a cult following interested in everything from their next collaboration to their latest run-ins with the law. Many of these SoundCloud rappers became just as famous for their music as they did for their hectic personal lives. For rappers such as XXXTentacion and Tekashi69, the bombastic content of their music was backed up by charges for horrific crimes [should we link something about this claim?]. The relationship fans have with these musicians has always been partly defined by morbid curiosity, and the distinction between enjoying music from these creators and condoning their actions is hazy.

These chaotic lifestyles may explain why the genre and the phrase SoundCloud rap has begun to fall out of fashion. Unfortunately, many of the artists who headlined the genre are either dead or sitting in jail. The notorious 27 club, which consists of numerous high-profile deaths of 27-year-old musicians, is now starting to look like a 21 club. The deaths of Lil Peep and Juice Wrld at 21 from drug overdoses, XXXTentacions assassination at 20 and Jimmy Wopos murder at 21 illustrate a painful pattern for the genre.

Although the public legal battles and violent crimes committed by the rappers may be of great fascination to the genres die-hard fans, it has mostly tarnished the publics perception of the genre. It seems the characteristics which draw people toward these artists their ridiculous public lives, their young, immature personalities and their intense lyrics are the very aspects which eventually drove people away from the genre. Just as quickly as the genre exploded, it started to fade.

Pure SoundCloud rap may be all but dead, but its influence will have a lasting effect on the music industry. Record labels and distribution companies will forever have to wrestle with an industry that is rapidly becoming decentralized. In the internet age, it has now become mainstream for artists to use modest equipment to put out studio-quality beats from their bedrooms. While many of the artists who headlined this miniature musical revolution have either passed away or faded out of public life, others have found successful careers adapting and experimenting with the genre in new and exciting ways. Albums such as Denzel Currys TA13OO and Lil Uzi Verts Eternal Atake play on the spirit of SoundCloud rap in exciting ways while also gaining widespread critical acclaim.

It may be wrong to think of SoundCloud rap as a genre. Instead, it is probably best to think of SoundCloud rap as an artistic movement, one which guided a diverse coalition of artists, entertainers and producers. The movement became ubiquitous then extinct seemingly overnight, leaving wildly experimental, tech-savvy teenagers in its wake.

In the end, its up to us to decide what they think of SoundCloud rap. While divisive, its certain that the movements influence is here to stay. Whether die-hard fans, haters or somewhere in between, it is up to us to navigate this post-SoundCloud rap world. Hopefully, we can create some beautiful music out of it.

Daily Arts Writer Kai Bartol can be reached at kbartol@umich.edu.

Suggested articles

Read the original post:

'Look at me': The rise and fall of SoundCloud rap - The Michigan Daily

Nier Replicant is a remaster thats been a long time coming, with many fans feeling like the original 2010 game, while good, had so much more potential just waiting to be tapped into. At the time, Nier didnt fare too well critically, with reviewers often citing the clunky combat as a reason to avoid it. Despite this, the action adventure maintained a devoted cult fanbase, but quickly faded into obscurity for everyone else.

However, the surprise announcement of a sequel, Nier Automata, generated a whole new wave of interest for the series, thanks in no small part to its...eye-catching protagonist, YoRHa No.2 Type B (or just 2B for short), an android with a stoic disposition and a peculiar fashion sense.

Thanks to Nier Automatas surprising success (the game has sold over 5 million copies to date), a true revival of the series suddenly became a very real possibility - and Nier Replicant is the first step in making that a reality. And what a step it is. Due to release four years to the month after Nier Automata first landed on PS4, Nier Replicant is easily one of the best remasters Ive ever played and sets a whole new standard for the importance of video game preservation.

To be frank, Nier Replicant puts most other remasters to shame. Often it can feel like remasters offer nothing more than slightly upscaled textures, then being thrown onto a current-gen storefront before calling it a day. But Nier Replicant doesnt settle for that. Instead, its entirely raised the bar for how good remasters can be.

The end result of Nier Replicant, then, is a remaster/remake hybrid of sorts. Environments are utterly gorgeous now, with vastly improved textures and lighting across the board. While some of the indoor locales do still look a little bland, the upgrades seen in the overworld and the small towns that dot the map more than make up for this.

"The rollercoaster of a story is more impactful than ever, with completely re-recorded voice work for both main characters and NPCs."

Going into Nier Replicant for the first time, my excitement was quelled by an intruding thought, and thats no fault of the game itself. Rather, its a thought I typically get whenever a remaster of a classic game is on the way: what if the game isnt as great as we once remembered?

Maybe the jump to newer hardware will present entirely new technical problems that werent in the original release (I still shudder thinking about the Silent Hill HD Collection). Maybe the remaster will fail to paint over the cracks that show the originals age.

In the case of Nier Replicant, though, my fears couldnt have been more misplaced, as the remaster sidesteps these issues entirely by not just being a faithful remaster, but also a careful restoration of an aged piece of art.

Locations are simply more vibrant than before, with a smartly heightened level of contrast that doesnt go overboard. The Nier Replicant remaster presents a world thats still bleak and barren, but feels more lived in and as a result, creates the impression that the beauty of the world here is absolutely worth fighting for.

Toylogic also took strides to modernize the games combat somewhat. Once again, combat remains faithful to the original game, but feels so much more responsive than it did prior. Its not mind blowing, and certainly not as flashy as Platinum Games work on Nier Automata, but what we do get is an easy-to-understand and snappy combat system that really benefits from 60fps and the general fast pace of traversal.

The key areas where the original Nier didnt need improvements are fully intact in Nier Replicant, too, but somehow even they have been improved upon. The rollercoaster of a story is more impactful than ever, with completely re-recorded voice work for both main characters and NPCs.

"Niers strength is that its able to tell a mature story without straying into aimless nihilism, and the refurbished visuals and voice acting hammer this home effortlessly."

Nier Replicant tells a mature, fairytale-esque story with characters who are genuinely good people trying to do right in a hopelessly cruel world. Said characters often struggle with their identities, existentialism and choosing to make morally grey choices. But Niers strength is that its able to tell a mature story without straying into aimless nihilism, and the refurbished visuals and voice acting hammer this home effortlessly.

Composer Keiichi Okabe and vocalist Emi Evans also revisit their legendary soundtrack, offering cleaned-up rearrangements for what was already one of the most stunning collections of songs ever put into a game.

Now that Nier is a much more revered franchise than it used to be, the Nier Replicant remaster has no small reputation to live up to. Personally, Im thankful Square Enix didnt opt for a simple port job. Instead, it clearly saw an opportunity in further developing Nier as a core franchise, and developer Toylogic took that mentality and ran with it.

The most important thing the Nier Replicant remaster gets right is that it knows exactly what it is. Its not a grand reimagining of the original narrative, nor is it a from the ground up kind of remake. On the flipside, its not a warts and all recreation of the original Nier, either. What Toylogic has crucially recognized is that theres already a great game in Nier - its just one that had a ton of untapped potential.

The Nier Replicant remaster is impressive on two fronts. One, its a quality remaster that completely revitalizes a cult classic smartly and respectfully. And two, its something of a remake that doesnt eschew what made the original release so special, and introduces it to a new audience of fans that jumped into the series starting with Nier Automata.

Nier as a whole, then, shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Nier Automata became something of a phenomenon, with its characters making guest appearances in other games (most notably 2B as a DLC character in Soul Calibur 6), as well as a full-blown crossover with Final Fantasy 14. Its my prediction that the Nier Replicant remaster will cement the series yet-young legacy for even more years to come.

Square Enix and Toylogic not only delivered a great experience with Nier Replicant, but they also showed the entire gaming industry that with enough time and an adequate budget that remasters can be just as good - if not better - than full-fledged new releases.

Want to get into Nier? Try out Nier: Automata today!

Read more:

Nier Replicant perfects the art of the remaster - TechRadar

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just across from Carnegie Hall, Bill Hwang was quietly building one of the worlds greatest fortunes.Even on Wall Street, few ever noticed him -- until suddenly, everyone did.Hwang and his private investment firm, Archegos Capital Management, are now at the center of one of the biggest margin calls of all time -- a multibillion-dollar fiasco involving secretive market bets that were dangerously leveraged and unwound in a blink.Hwangs most recent ascent can be pieced together from stocks dumped by banks in recent days -- ViacomCBS Inc., Discovery Inc. GSX Techedu Inc., Baidu Inc. -- all of which had soared this year, sometimes confounding traders who couldnt fathom why.One part of Hwangs portfolio, which has been traded in blocks since Friday by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co., was worth almost $40 billion last week. Bankers reckon that Archegoss net capital -- essentially Hwangs wealth -- had reached north of $10 billion. And as disposals keep emerging, estimates of his firms total positions keep climbing: tens of billions, $50 billion, even more than $100 billion.It evaporated in mere days.Ive never seen anything like this -- how quiet it was, how concentrated, and how fast it disappeared, said Mike Novogratz, a career macro investor and former partner at Goldman Sachs whos been trading since 1994. This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history.Late Monday in New York, Archegos broke days of silence on the episode.This is a challenging time for the family office of Archegos Capital Management, our partners and employees, Karen Kessler, a spokesperson for the firm, said in an emailed statement. All plans are being discussed as Mr. Hwang and the team determine the best path forward.The cascade of trading losses has reverberated from New York to Zurich to Tokyo and beyond, and leaves myriad unanswered questions, including the big one: How could someone take such big risks, facilitated by so many banks, under the noses of regulators the world over?One part of the answer is that Hwang set up as a family office with limited oversight and then employed financial derivatives to amass big stakes in companies without ever having to disclose them. Another part is that global banks embraced him as a lucrative customer, despite a record of insider trading and attempted market manipulation that drove him out of the hedge fund business a decade ago.A disciple of hedge-fund legend Julian Robertson, Sung Kook Bill Hwang shuttered Tiger Asia Management and Tiger Asia Partners after settling an SEC civil lawsuit in 2012 accusing them of insider trading and manipulating Chinese banks stocks. Hwang and the firms paid $44 million, and he agreed to be barred from the investment advisory industry.He soon opened Archegos -- Greek for one who leads the way -- and structured it as a family office.Family offices that exclusively manage one fortune are generally exempt from registering as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So they dont have to disclose their owners, executives or how much they manage -- rules designed to protect outsiders who invest in a fund. That approach makes sense for small family offices, but if they swell to the size of a hedge fund whale they can still pose risks, this time to outsiders in the broader market.This does raise questions about the regulation of family offices once again, said Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC aide who now runs the Healthy Markets trade group. The question is if its just friends and family why do we care? The answer is that they can have significant market impacts, and the SECs regulatory regime even after Dodd-Frank doesnt clearly reflect that.Valuable CustomerArchegos established trading partnerships with firms including Nomura Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. For a time after the SEC case, Goldman refused to do business with him on compliance grounds, but relented as rivals profited by meeting his needs.The full picture of his holdings is still emerging, and its not clear what positions derailed, or what hedges he had set up.One reason is that Hwang never filed a 13F report of his holdings, which every investment manager holding more than $100 million in U.S. equities must fill out at the end of each quarter. Thats because he appears to have structured his trades using total return swaps, essentially putting the positions on the banks balance sheets. Swaps also enable investors to add a lot of leverage to a portfolio.Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, for instance, are listed as the largest holders of GSX Techedu, a Chinese online tutoring company thats been repeatedly targeted by short sellers. Banks may own shares for a variety of reasons that include hedging swap exposures from trades with their customers.Unhappy InvestorsGoldman increased its position 54% in January, according to regulatory filings. Overall, banks reported holding at least 68% of GSXs outstanding shares, according to a Bloomberg analysis of filings. Banks held at least 40% of IQIYI Inc, a Chinese video entertainment company, and 29% of ViacomCBS -- all of which Archegos had bet on big.Im sure there are a number of really unhappy investors who have bought those names over the last couple of weeks, and now regret it, Doug Cifu, chief executive officer of electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial Inc., said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. He predicted regulators will examine whether there should be more transparency and disclosure by a family office.Without the need to market his fund to external investors, Hwangs strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. Even as his fortune swelled, the 50-something kept a low profile. Despite once working for Robertsons Tiger Management, he wasnt well-known on Wall Street or in New York social circles.Hwang is a trustee of the Fuller Theology Seminary, and co-founder of the Grace and Mercy Foundation, whose mission is to serve the poor and oppressed. The foundation had assets approaching $500 million at the end of 2018, according to its latest filing.Its not all about the money, you know, he said in a rare interview with a Fuller Institute executive in 2018, in which he spoke about his calling as an investor and his Christian faith. Its about the long term, and God certainly has a long-term view.His extraordinary run of fortune turned early last week as ViacomCBS Inc. announced a secondary offering of its shares. Its stock price plunged 9% the next day.The value of other securities believed to be in Archegos portfolio based on the positions that were block traded followed.By Thursdays close, the value of the portfolio fell 27% -- more than enough to wipe out the equity of an investor who market participants estimate was six to eight times levered.Its also hurt some of the banks that served Hwang. Nomura and Credit Suisse warned of significant losses in the wake of the selloff and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. has flagged a potential $300 million loss.You have to wonder who else is out there with one of these invisible fortunes, said Novogratz. The psychology of all that leverage with no risk management, its almost nihilism.(Updates with latest bank to detail exposure in penultimate paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Read more here:

Japan buyers agree to pay Q2 aluminium premiums of $148-149/T -sources - Yahoo Finance

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just across from Carnegie Hall, Mr Bill Hwang was quietly building one of the world's greatest fortunes.

Even on Wall Street, few ever noticed him - until suddenly, everyone did.

Mr Hwang and his private investment firm, Archegos Capital Management, are now at the centre of one of the biggest margin calls of all time - a multibillion-dollar fiasco involving secretive market bets that were dangerously leveraged and unwound in a blink.

Mr Hwang's most recent ascent can be pieced together from stocks dumped by banks in recent days - ViacomCBS, Discovery, GSX Techedu, Baidu - all of which had soared this year, sometimes confounding traders who couldn't fathom why.

One part of Mr Hwang's portfolio, which has been traded in blocks since last Friday (March 26) by Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co, was worth almost US$40 billion (S$54 billion) last week.

Bankers reckon that Archegos'net capital - essentially Mr Hwang's wealth - had reached north of US$10 billion. And as disposals keep emerging, estimates of his firm's total positions keep climbing: tens of billions, US$50 billion, even more than US$100 billion.

It evaporated in mere days.

"I've never seen anything like this - how quiet it was, how concentrated, and how fast it disappeared," said Mr Mike Novogratz, a career macro investor and former partner at Goldman Sachs who's been trading since 1994. "This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history."

Late Monday in New York, Archegos broke days of silence on the episode.

"This is a challenging time for the family office of Archegos Capital Management, our partners and employees," Ms Karen Kessler, a spokesman for the firm, said in an e-mailed statement. "All plans are being discussed as MrHwang and the team determine the best path forward."

The cascade of trading losses has reverberated from New York to Zurich to Tokyo and beyond, and leaves myriad unanswered questions, including the big one: How could someone take such big risks, facilitated by so many banks, under the noses of regulators the world over?

One part of the answer is that Mr Hwang set up as a family office with limited oversight and then employed financial derivatives to amass big stakes in companies without ever having to disclose them. Another part is that global banks embraced him as a lucrative customer, despite a record of insider trading and attempted market manipulation that drove him out of the hedge fund business a decade ago.

A disciple of hedge-fund legend Julian Robertson, Mr "Bill" Hwang Sung Kook shuttered Tiger Asia Management and Tiger Asia Partners after settling an SEC civil lawsuit in 2012 accusing them of insider trading and manipulating Chinese banks stocks. Mr Hwang and the firms paid US$44 million, and he agreed to be barred from the investment advisory industry.

He soon opened Archegos - Greek for "one who leads the way" - and structured it as a family office.

Family offices that exclusively manage one fortune are generally exempt from registering as investment advisers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. So they don't have to disclose their owners, executives or how much they manage - rules designed to protect outsiders who invest in a fund. That approach makes sense for small family offices, but if they swell to the size of a hedge fund whale, they can still pose risks, this time to outsiders in the broader market.

"This does raise questions about the regulation of family offices once again," said Mr Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC aide who now runs the Healthy Markets trade group. "The question is if it's just friends and family, why do we care? The answer is that they can have significant market impacts, and the SEC's regulatory regime even after Dodd-Frank doesn't clearly reflect that."

Archegos established trading partnerships with firms including Nomura Holdings, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse Group. For a time after the SEC case, Goldman refused to do business with him on compliance grounds, but relented as rivals profited by meeting his needs.

The full picture of his holdings is still emerging, and it's not clear what positions derailed, or what hedges he had set up.

One reason is that Mr Hwang never filed a 13F report of his holdings, which every investment manager holding more than US$100 million in US equities must fill out at the end of each quarter. That's because he appears to have structured his trades using total return swaps, essentially putting the positions on the banks' balance sheets. Swaps also enable investors to add a lot of leverage to a portfolio.

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, for instance, are listed as the largest holders of GSX Techedu, a Chinese online tutoring company that's been repeatedly targeted by short sellers. Banks may own shares for a variety of reasons that include hedging swap exposures from trades with their customers.

A building that reportedly houses Archegos Capital at 888 Seventh Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York. PHOTO: REUTERS

Goldman increased its position 54 per cent in January, according to regulatory filings. Overall, banks reported holding at least 68 per cent of GSX's outstanding shares, according to a Bloomberg analysis of filings. Banks held at least 40 per cent of Iqiyi, a Chinese video entertainment company, and 29 per cent of ViacomCBS - all of which Archegos had bet on big.

"I'm sure there are a number of really unhappy investors who have bought those names over the last couple of weeks," and now regret it, Mr Doug Cifu, chief executive officer of electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial, said on Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. He predicted that regulators will examine whether "there should be more transparency and disclosure by a family office".

Without the need to market his fund to external investors, Mr Hwang's strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. Even as his fortune swelled, the 50-something kept a low profile. Despite once working for Mr Robertson's Tiger Management, he wasn't well-known on Wall Street or in New York social circles.

Mr Hwang is a trustee of the Fuller Theology Seminary, and co-founder of the Grace and Mercy Foundation, whose mission is to serve the poor and oppressed. The foundation had assets approaching US$500 million at the end of 2018, according to its latest filing.

"It's not all about the money, you know," he said in a rare interview with a Fuller Institute executive in 2018, in which he spoke about his calling as an investor and his Christian faith. "It's about the long term, and God certainly has a long-term view."

His extraordinary run of fortune turned early last week as ViacomCBS announced a secondary offering of its shares. Its stock price plunged 9 per cent the next day.

The value of other securities believed to be in Archegos' portfolio based on the positions that were block traded followed.

By Thursday's close, the value of the portfolio fell 27 per cent - more than enough to wipe out the equity of an investor who market participants estimate was six to eight times levered.

"You have to wonder who else is out there with one of these invisible fortunes," said Mr Novogratz. "The psychology of all that leverage with no risk management, it's almost nihilism."

More:

For Archegos' Bill Hwang, one of world's greatest hidden fortunes is wiped out in days - The Straits Times

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- From his perch high above Midtown Manhattan, just across from Carnegie Hall, Bill Hwang was quietly building one of the worlds greatest fortunes.Even on Wall Street, few ever noticed him -- until suddenly, everyone did.Hwang and his private investment firm, Archegos Capital Management, are now at the center of one of the biggest margin calls of all time -- a multibillion-dollar fiasco involving secretive market bets that were dangerously leveraged and unwound in a blink.Hwangs most recent ascent can be pieced together from stocks dumped by banks in recent days -- ViacomCBS Inc., Discovery Inc. GSX Techedu Inc., Baidu Inc. -- all of which had soared this year, sometimes confounding traders who couldnt fathom why.One part of Hwangs portfolio, which has been traded in blocks since Friday by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo & Co., was worth almost $40 billion last week. Bankers reckon that Archegoss net capital -- essentially Hwangs wealth -- had reached north of $10 billion. And as disposals keep emerging, estimates of his firms total positions keep climbing: tens of billions, $50 billion, even more than $100 billion.It evaporated in mere days.Ive never seen anything like this -- how quiet it was, how concentrated, and how fast it disappeared, said Mike Novogratz, a career macro investor and former partner at Goldman Sachs whos been trading since 1994. This has to be one of the single greatest losses of personal wealth in history.Late Monday in New York, Archegos broke days of silence on the episode.This is a challenging time for the family office of Archegos Capital Management, our partners and employees, Karen Kessler, a spokesperson for the firm, said in an emailed statement. All plans are being discussed as Mr. Hwang and the team determine the best path forward.The cascade of trading losses has reverberated from New York to Zurich to Tokyo and beyond, and leaves myriad unanswered questions, including the big one: How could someone take such big risks, facilitated by so many banks, under the noses of regulators the world over?One part of the answer is that Hwang set up as a family office with limited oversight and then employed financial derivatives to amass big stakes in companies without ever having to disclose them. Another part is that global banks embraced him as a lucrative customer, despite a record of insider trading and attempted market manipulation that drove him out of the hedge fund business a decade ago.A disciple of hedge-fund legend Julian Robertson, Sung Kook Bill Hwang shuttered Tiger Asia Management and Tiger Asia Partners after settling an SEC civil lawsuit in 2012 accusing them of insider trading and manipulating Chinese banks stocks. Hwang and the firms paid $44 million, and he agreed to be barred from the investment advisory industry.He soon opened Archegos -- Greek for one who leads the way -- and structured it as a family office.Family offices that exclusively manage one fortune are generally exempt from registering as investment advisers with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. So they dont have to disclose their owners, executives or how much they manage -- rules designed to protect outsiders who invest in a fund. That approach makes sense for small family offices, but if they swell to the size of a hedge fund whale they can still pose risks, this time to outsiders in the broader market.This does raise questions about the regulation of family offices once again, said Tyler Gellasch, a former SEC aide who now runs the Healthy Markets trade group. The question is if its just friends and family why do we care? The answer is that they can have significant market impacts, and the SECs regulatory regime even after Dodd-Frank doesnt clearly reflect that.Valuable CustomerArchegos established trading partnerships with firms including Nomura Holdings Inc., Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. For a time after the SEC case, Goldman refused to do business with him on compliance grounds, but relented as rivals profited by meeting his needs.The full picture of his holdings is still emerging, and its not clear what positions derailed, or what hedges he had set up.One reason is that Hwang never filed a 13F report of his holdings, which every investment manager holding more than $100 million in U.S. equities must fill out at the end of each quarter. Thats because he appears to have structured his trades using total return swaps, essentially putting the positions on the banks balance sheets. Swaps also enable investors to add a lot of leverage to a portfolio.Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, for instance, are listed as the largest holders of GSX Techedu, a Chinese online tutoring company thats been repeatedly targeted by short sellers. Banks may own shares for a variety of reasons that include hedging swap exposures from trades with their customers.Unhappy InvestorsGoldman increased its position 54% in January, according to regulatory filings. Overall, banks reported holding at least 68% of GSXs outstanding shares, according to a Bloomberg analysis of filings. Banks held at least 40% of IQIYI Inc, a Chinese video entertainment company, and 29% of ViacomCBS -- all of which Archegos had bet on big.Im sure there are a number of really unhappy investors who have bought those names over the last couple of weeks, and now regret it, Doug Cifu, chief executive officer of electronic-trading firm Virtu Financial Inc., said Monday in an interview on Bloomberg TV. He predicted regulators will examine whether there should be more transparency and disclosure by a family office.Without the need to market his fund to external investors, Hwangs strategies and performance remained secret from the outside world. Even as his fortune swelled, the 50-something kept a low profile. Despite once working for Robertsons Tiger Management, he wasnt well-known on Wall Street or in New York social circles.Hwang is a trustee of the Fuller Theology Seminary, and co-founder of the Grace and Mercy Foundation, whose mission is to serve the poor and oppressed. The foundation had assets approaching $500 million at the end of 2018, according to its latest filing.Its not all about the money, you know, he said in a rare interview with a Fuller Institute executive in 2018, in which he spoke about his calling as an investor and his Christian faith. Its about the long term, and God certainly has a long-term view.His extraordinary run of fortune turned early last week as ViacomCBS Inc. announced a secondary offering of its shares. Its stock price plunged 9% the next day.The value of other securities believed to be in Archegos portfolio based on the positions that were block traded followed.By Thursdays close, the value of the portfolio fell 27% -- more than enough to wipe out the equity of an investor who market participants estimate was six to eight times levered.Its also hurt some of the banks that served Hwang. Nomura and Credit Suisse warned of significant losses in the wake of the selloff and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. has flagged a potential $300 million loss.You have to wonder who else is out there with one of these invisible fortunes, said Novogratz. The psychology of all that leverage with no risk management, its almost nihilism.(Updates with latest bank to detail exposure in penultimate paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

Link:

Chinese official says there is no basis to claims it did not share COVID data - Yahoo Finance

Young Mark Grayson (voiced by Steven Yeun) follows in his father's footsteps and adopts the heroic identity of Invincible in the Amazon Prime animated series. Amazon Prime Video hide caption

Young Mark Grayson (voiced by Steven Yeun) follows in his father's footsteps and adopts the heroic identity of Invincible in the Amazon Prime animated series.

When it debuted in 2003, you'd be forgiven for assuming the superhero comic series Invincible was yet another in a slew of playful but similar riffs on the superhero genre that filled comic store shelves at the time, peopled as it was with analogues of various well-established characters. There was a team of heroes called the Guardians of the Globe who looked, if you squinted, an awful lot like the Justice League. There was an all-powerful hero from another planet called Omni-Man who read as a straight-up Superman stand-in (though he'd swapped out Kal-El's signature spit-curl for a bushy mustache). And there was a group of super-powered, perpetually squabbling adolescent heroes clearly modeled on the Teen Titans.

The look of the series, provided in turns by artists Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley, was classic superhero clean lines, bright colors, and friendly, inviting, and in some cases downright cartoony character designs. It set out to tell the tale of young Mark, the half-human son of Omni-Man, who was waiting for his powers to kick in so he could follow in his father's superboot-steps. Mark was only the latest in a long line of fledgling superheroes in the Peter Parker mode: a nerd unsure of himself, his powers and his social status which is to say: it all felt familiar, old school, nostalgic.

But it soon became clear that there was more going on in the pages of the comic than playful, whimsical pastiche. The writer was Robert Kirkman, who would go on to show, in the pages of The Walking Dead, a gift for getting the reader to care about his characters, only to dispatch them in horrific, gore-flecked ways. Again and again, he ripped your heart out by having characters get their hearts ripped out, or their brains smashed in, or their limbs gnawed off, or all of the above, simultaneously. He didn't hold back.

In The Walking Dead, a zombie comic featuring grimy, gritty black-and-white art by Tony Moore, Charlie Adlard and others, all that gruesome blood and guts seemed simply part of the book's grim visual landscape. The presence of grisly, graphic violence in such an otherwise hopeful, breezy and frequently funny superhero comic, however, was striking, and unusual.

That was back in 2003. For the next 15 years, Kirkman and his artists built a vast superheroic universe around Invincible, his friends and his family. The series was dense with plot twists, sudden reveals and teenage, soap-operatic emotion, but it never shied from depicting the violent, real-world ramifications of superhero physics. The resulting perpetual tonal whiplash couldn't help but cause the quality of the series to vacillate wildly, as Invincible's youthful delight in discovering his powers gave way to his struggling with the weight of responsibility on his shoulders.

The new Amazon animated series based on the comic tells much the same story the comic set out to tell back in 2003. But the intervening years have seen countless superhero stories clamoring for our attention, across all media; the landscape has changed. Consider: At its core, Invincible's basic narrative formula (superpowers + grisly violence) has been gleefully adopted by The Boys, a live-action show on the very same streaming service, which was also based on a comic book.

The good news: Invincible is more than its formula, and its approach is vastly different. Where The Boys comes from a place of smirking, sadistic, let's-see-what-we-can-get-away-with adolescent nihilism, Invincible seems sincerely committed to building emotional connections between its characters. It is greatly aided in this endeavor by an outstanding cast of voice actors who find the humor and pathos amid the over-the-top action, led by Steven Yeun as Mark, Sandra Oh as Mark's mother Debbie, and J.K. Simmons as his father, Omni-Man.

There's more where they came from many more: Zachary Quinto, Gillian Jacobs, Zazie Beetz, Walton Goggins, Andrew Rannells, Jason Mantzoukis, Mahershala Ali, Mae Whitman, Djimon Hounsou, Sonequa Martin-Green, Nicole Byer, Jon Hamm, Seth Rogen, Jonathan Groff, voice-acting all-stars like Clancy Brown and Kevin Michael Richardson and, somehow inevitably, Reginald VelJohnson.

Some of the series' devices now seem less fresh than they did in 2003 (a bit about using a special tailor to devise super-outfits, for example, has since become well-trodden ground), but the show combats this by devoting serious screen time to building out the dynamics between its characters in ways big and small.

The comic's grisly violence is made all the more stark and shocking when animated, as it is here. But it's not depicted with the cynical, repellent glee it is on shows like The Boys, Preacher and Utopia -- oh, it's harrowing, yes, but it's not played for laughs, which turns out to be hugely important. But if the gobbets of animated flesh flying around on an animated show like Harley Quinn turns you off, know that Invincible ratchets it up even higher.

Amazon made only the first three episodes, which drop together on Friday, March 26th, available to press. The other five episodes of this (first?) season will be parceled out over the next five weeks. There's every chance that the series will trade the emotional heart it displays in these first episodes for more literal ones, strewn across the floor and smeared across the walls; it's attempting to thread a very difficult tonal needle, after all. But the voice cast is certainly up for it, and there's 144 hugely imaginative issues (plus spin-offs) of the original comic for the writers to pull from. I'll be watching, even if, every so often, through my fingers.

Link:

Review: A Superhero Comes of Age, And Learns Some Bloody Lessons in Invincible - NPR