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Rusmania • Deep into Russia
The 13th century is a crucial century in Russian history which is marked by the devastation that was the Mongol-Tatar invasion of Rus and the start of the two century long Mongol Yoke. Despite the destruction, the catastrophe played a significant role in the development of Moscow which was only a small town when the Mongols sacked it but saw an influx of refugees from older and larger cities harder hit by the invasion. The deeds of Russia's most celebrated hero – Prince Aleksandr Nevsky – in the mid-century also helped return some dignity to the country trying to recover from the Mongol onslaught. The century ended with Rus fragmented into many small appendages.
Konstantin I, Yuri II and the Battle of Lipitsa River
Vsevolod the Big Nest made his eldest son Konstantin prince of Rostov in 1208 but intended to make him grand prince upon his death and have Rostov passed to his second son Yuri Vsevolodovich. However Konstantin did not support his father's plan and insisted that he should be left both Vladimir and his principality of Rostov. Konstantin had obviously become attached to his principality, where he was oversaw much construction work. In response Vsevolod disinherited him completely and decreed that Yuri should succeed him as grand prince of Vladimir. Vsevolod died in 1212 and, as decided, Yuri became grand prince of Vladimir as Yuri II. Konstantin was none too pleased and allied himself with Prince Mstislav Mstislavich the Bold of Novgorod (who later became ruler of Galicia). The coalition met Yuri in battle close to the Lipitsa River near Yuriev-Polsky. Yuri was defeated and forced to flee, allowing Konstantin to take the throne. During the battle, chroniclers noted how Yuri's brother and ally Yaroslav Vsevolodovich had lost his helmet in the battle. Amazingly this helmet, bearing the patron saint of Yaroslav, was discovered in 1808 by a peasant women from near Yuriev-Polsky and is now on display in the Kremlin's Armoury Museum.
Konstantin I did not rule for long. He died in 1218 and Yuri II once again became grand prince of Vladimir. In 1220 Yuri sent his brother Svyatoslav to Volga Bulgaria to get revenge for previous raids into Rus lands. In 1221 Yuri himself took part in a campaign and on a hill where the River Oka flows into the River Volga he founded a fortress calling it Novgorod on the Lower Grounds – now known as Nizhny Novgorod.
First Appearance of the Mongols
In 1223 Khan Kotyan Sutoevich of the Polovtsians appeared at the court of his son-in-law Prince Mstislav the Bold of Galicia saying that a fearsome enemy had appeared from the east and captured his lands and that if the Rus princes did not help, their land would be next. The Polovtsians had become the victim of the Mongolian army led by Jebe and Subutai. Mstislav the Bold only acted when information reached the prince that the Mongols had been spotted along the River Dniester. Mstislav the Bold created a coalition with the Polovtsians, Grand Prince Mstislav Romanovich of Kiev (known as Mstislav the Old) and Prince Mstislav Svyatoslavich of Chernigov. Grand Prince Yuri II of Vladimir also agreed to send troops. The main battle took place close to the River Kalka and the Rus coalition quickly found itself outmanoeuvred by the Mongol war machine. Mstislav the Bold and Khan Kotyan managed to escape with their lives, but Mstislav of Chernigov fell in the battle and Mstislav the Old had no choice but to surrender to the Mongols. He was later executed by the victorious Mongols according to their tradition not to shed royal blood. He was buried underneath a platform set up for a celebratory feast and was suffocated. Upon arriving in Chernigov, Prince Vasily Konstantinovich of Rostov, who was leading the contingent of Vladimir troops, heard of the crushing defeat and returned home. Mstislav the Bold expected the Mongols to march on Galicia, but after the battle the Mongols left Rus lands just as suddenly as they appeared. However, unbeknown to Mstislav, this was just a reconnaissance mission.
Once the Mongols had retreated back to Asia, the Rus princes did not see the importance of using this respite to unite in order to defend themselves against any further Mongol threat. Instead the standard internecine wars continued. Yuri II of Vladimir led campaigns against Novgorod and there were struggles for the Chernigov and Kiev Principalities. To make things worse the Livonian Brothers of the Sword were becoming more of a threat to Novgorod.
Mongol-Tatar Invasion of Rus
The Mongols, supported by the Tatars, began their full-blown invasion of Rus in November 1237 having overrun Volga Bulgaria the previous year. The army was led by Batu Khan, grandson of Gengis Khan. In Gengis Khan's will Batu was left all land west of the Volga, all he had to do was conquer it. The first city to bear the brunt of the Mongols was Ryazan. Prince Yuri Igorievich of Ryazan was given the choice of submitting or being annihilated. Yuri though opted for resistance and sent a request for help from Grand Prince Yuri II of Vladimir. Vladimir responded by sending an army led by his own son Vsevolod. Ryazan held out just six days; once it fell, the city was completely destroyed and all its civilians were slaughtered. Prince Yuri was killed during the defence. Old Ryazan was never rebuilt; the modern day Russian city of Ryazan is a different city which was at the time of the invasion known as Pereslavl-Ryazansky.
The army from Vladimir met the Mongols outside Kolomna in January 1238. Although Kyulkhan, a son of Gengis Khan, fell at the battle the Mongols were again victorious and Vsevolod Yurievich had no choice but to flee back to Vladimir. The Mongols proceeded to burn down Kolomna. From Kolomna, the Mongols headed to Moscow, then just a small settlement. Moscow fell in five days and Vladimir Yurievich, another son of Yuri II who was charged with defending the city, was taken prisoner. By now Yuri II understood the challenge ahead of him and left Vladimir to raise an army that would be able to halt the Mongols, nominating the River Sit as the gathering point for troops.
The Mongols arrived at the walls of Vladimir at the beginning of February 1238. The defence of the capital had been left to the city commander and Yuri's sons Vsevolod and Mstislav. Outside the walls the Mongols executed Vsevolod and Mstislav's brother Vladimir who had been captured when Moscow fell. During the subsequent siege part of the Mongol invasion force separated and sacked Suzdal. Vladimir fell after four days, the royal family barricaded themselves in the Dormition Cathedral, but all were slaughtered.
From Vladimir the Mongol army split into two to subdue the rest of the Vladimir Grand Principality. In all 14 cities were sacked: Suzdal, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Yuriev-Polsky, Starodub-on-Klyazma, Tver, Gorodets, Kostroma, Galich, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Uglich, Kashin, Ksnyatin and Dmitrov. It was the part of the Mongol force led by the commander Burundai which finally met with the Rus forces gathered by Yuri II. The battle between the two armies took place in the beginning of March 1238 near to the River Sit, and although the Rus troops were able to somewhat weaken the Mongols, they were ultimately defeated. Yuri II fell in the battle, along with his nephew Prince Vsevolod Konstantinovich of Yaroslavl. In the meantime the main part of the Mongol army had entered the Novgorod Republic and sacked Torzhok. After Torzhok the army was once again reunited and it looked as if Novgorod would be next, however instead the Mongols retreated back towards the steppe from where they came. It is not known for sure why the Mongols overlooked the rich and significant city of Novgorod, one theory is that they were two weakened after months of campaigning and the Battle of the River Sit.
On their return the Mongols camped outside of Smolensk but here too they did not make an attempt to capture this other significant city. According to legend, the sparing of the Smolensk is credited to St Mercurius of Smolensk and the protection of the Virgin Mary. When praying to the Our Lady of Smolensk Icon the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to St Mercurius and ordered him to ride out to meet the invaders. During the battle Mercurius was beheaded, but the city was not attacked.
In the spring of 1238 the Mongols next target was the small city of Kozelsk which at the time was ruled by a teenage prince. Although the city was well-fortified with earthen mounds and a wooden kremlin, it was unlikely that the Mongols expected much resistance from this small city. However later Batu would later call Kozelsk an "evil city" as it managed to hold out for seven weeks during which thousands of Mongol-Tatar soldiers lost their lives. Once the city was eventually captured its inhabitants, including young Prince Vasili, were massacred and the city was razed to the ground. Kozelsk was the last city to fall during this campaign as the Mongols retreated back to the steppe.
The second campaign began in the spring of 1239 which saw Murom, Gorodets, Nizhny Novgorod and Gorokhovets being sacked before the army took Pereyaslavl and Chernigov. Finally in spring 1240 Kiev and then Galicia fell to the Mongols. From Galicia the Mongols went on to invade Poland, Hungary and the Balkans and to threaten central Europe. The Mongol's campaign to reach the Great Sea ended only when news of the death of Great Khan Ögedei reached Batu in 1241 as Batu was forced to return to Karakorum for the election of a new great khan. With the exception of Novgorod, Smolensk and Polotsk, every major Rus city had fallen to the Mongols. The age of the Mongol-Tatar Yoke had begun.
The Mongol-Tatar Yoke
Batu Khan was not named grand khan and so he returned to his newly captured territories to consolidate his rule. He founded the city of Sarai on the Volga (about 120km north of modern-day Astrakhan) to serve as the capital of his realm which became known as the Ulus of Jochi, the Kipchak Khanate or, more commonly, the Golden Horde. In 1243 Batu summoned Yury II's brother Yaroslav Vsevolodovich to Sarai. Batu granted Yaroslav a patent confirming him as grand prince of Vladimir (Yaroslav II) and the most senior of all Rus princes, thereby finally cementing Vladimir's status as capital. However now Rus was merely a vassal of the Golden Horde. The Rus princes had to recognise the authority of the khan, oversee the collection and delivery of the tribute and provide troops from time to time to participate in the campaigns of the khan. In all other aspects Rus matters, including religious affairs, were left the Rus princes, with limited interference from the Golden Horde.
Batu once again called Yaroslav II to Sarai in 1245 and then sent him onwards to Karakorum in Mongolia to attend the coronation of Grand Khan Güyük. While in Karakorum Yaroslav II died, allegedly poisoned by Güyük's mother Töregene. Over time the Mongol authorities adopted Tatar traditions and the chronicles refer less and less to the Mongols and more about the Tatars.
The Battle of the Neva
Novgorod may have been spared the terror of the Mongol-Tatar Invasion but it faced its own enemies in the form of Sweden and the Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights (Livonia being located in what is now Estonia and Latvia). Both realised that the chaos inflicted on Rus by the Mongols gave them a chance to capture territory from the Novgorod Republic. In 1240 the prince of Novgorod was Aleksandr Yaroslavich, the teenage son of Yaroslav II. Upon hearing that the Swedes were invading Novgorod he led a small army to meet the invaders. The battle took place on the mouth of the River Izhora on the River Neva and was won by the Novgorodians. After the battle Aleksandr became known as Aleksandr Nevsky – Aleksandr of the Neva - and became incredibly popular with all expect the Novgorod boyars, who were worried by his hero status and therefore his potential influence. In the same year the boyars expelled Nevsky from Novgorod.
The Battle on the Ice
The Swedes had been dealt with by Aleksandr Nevsky but the Livonian Order of the Teutonic Knights were still active in the Novgorod Republic carrying out a second northern crusade against Baltic pagans and the Orthodox Rus. In 1240 they had captured Izborsk and Pskov and founded a wooden fortress in Koporye. By 1241 they were threatening Novgorod itself and the boyars realised their mistake and invited Nevsky back. Nevsky immediately raised an army, destroyed the fortress at Koporye and liberated Pskov. He met the knights in battle on the frozen Chudskoe Lake (Lake Peipus) in April 1242. Nevsky led the knights out on the ice who found it almost impossible to fight on the slippery surface of the frozen lake and, when the ice finally gave way under the weight of their heavy armour, many knights were drowned. Nevsky, who was then still only 20, had once again saved Novgorod from a foreign invader in a battle that has been remembered as the Battle on the Ice.
After Yaroslav II
When news reached the Vladimir Grand Principality that Yaroslav II had died in Mongolia, he was succeeded by his brother Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich (Svyatoslav III) who allotted the five surviving sons of Yaroslav parts of the principality. Aleksandr Nevsky gained Pereslavl-Zalessky where he was born, Andrey gained Suzdal, Mikhail - Moscow, Yaroslav - Tver, Konstantin - Galich and Vasili - Kostroma.
Svyatoslav III succeeded his brother under the traditional line of succession as the next most senior prince. However everything had changed and the crucial factor in deciding the next grand prince now was the permission of the khan. Understanding this, the two eldest sons of Yaroslav II, Aleksandr Nevsky and Andrey, set off for Sarai in 1247. Once there Batu Khan sent them onwards to Mongolia, where Grand Khan Güyük confirmed Andrey as grand prince in 1248. In the meantime , Aleksandr and Andrey's brother Mikhail - known Khorobrit which can be translated as the Brave or Bold - ignored both the traditional line of succession and the permission of the khan and seized Vladimir from his uncle. Svyatoslav III returned to his former principality of Yuriev-Polsky, where his mark on the city is still visible in the form of the stunningly beautiful St George's Cathedral.
No sooner had Mihail Khorobrit installed himself in Vladimir he had to deal with an invasion by Lithuania. The armies met on the River Protva (a tributary of the Oka) in January 1248 and Khorobrit had the misfortune of becoming the last grand prince to die in battle. Despite the loss of the Battle of the River Protva, the Lithuanians were eventually stopped. Andrey Yaroslavich finally returned to Vladimir to take up his position as Grand Prince Andrey II.
Reign of Aleksandr Nevsky
In 1251 Möngke, another grandson of Gengis Khan and an ally of Batu Khan, was elected grand khan and these events in Mongolia had an effect on the situation in Vladimir. Batu Khan was always more in favour of Aleksandr Nevsky and did not agree with Güyük's candidate for grand prince of Vladimir. In 1252 Batu sent a Tatar army led by the commander Nevryui against Andrey II who fled firstly to Novgorod and then to Sweden. Aleksandr Nevsky was named grand prince of Vladimir in his younger brother's place in 1252. In 1256 he made peace with his brother Andrey who returned to Rus and was made prince of Suzdal, which then included Nizhny Novgorod.
In 1263 Mongol-Tatar tax officials were killed in various cities in Rus and Berke, the new khan of the Golden Horde, demanded a response to the show of resistance. Aleksandr Nevsky set off to the Horde once more to try to lessen the response. Aleksandr fell ill whilst in the Horde and on his journey home he died in the city of Gorodets. News of his death was met with great sadness in Vladimir, where he was interred at the Rozhdestvensky Monastery. To this day Aleksandr Nevsky remains the most favourite mediaeval Russian hero, who is celebrated with defending Rus from foreign invaders and returning some pride to the Rus after the destruction of the Mongol-Tatar invasion. His subsequent cautious dealing with the Mongols, fully understanding that Vladimir was in no position to attempt to overthrow them, also helped bring some stability back to his realm. Nevsky was later canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church.
Appendage Rus
Nevsky was also the last grand prince to reside in Vladimir. After his death the throne passed along his younger brothers and then sons who had each been made prince of separate Rus principalities. Aleksandr Nevsky's death can be seen as the beginning of what is known as Appendage Rus, where the state was made up of small independent principalities whose princes vied to be name grand prince of Vladimir (the title given to the senior Rus prince) by the khan in the Golden Horde, whilst remaining in their own capitals.
In addition to the principalities ruled by the sons of Yaroslav II, there were other principalities located on the territory of modern day Russia. As with Vladimir, these principalities also became smaller and smaller as princes divided their territory to create independent principalities for their sons. The two main principalities were the Smolensk Principality which was ruled by the branch of Ryurikids known as the Rostislavichy who were descendants of Grand Prince Rostislav I of Kiev (a son of Mstislav the Great) and the Ryazan Principality which was ruled by the descendants of Yaroslav Svyatoslavich, son of Grand Prince Svyatoslav II. Both of these principalities had sub-principalities and so the princes of Smolensk and Ryazan began referring to themselves as grand princes. In addition there was also the Rostov Principality which was founded in 1208 and ruled by the descendants of Grand Prince Konstantin of Vladimir. The Yaroslavl Principality was created from the Rostov Principality in 1218, followed by the Belozersk Principality in 1238.
Reign of Nevsky's Brothers
Nevsky was succeeded in 1264 as grand prince of Vladimir by his brother Prince Yaroslav Yaroslavich of Tver (Yaroslav III), even though Prince Andrey Yaroslavich of Suzdal (Andrey II) was next in line according to age. Whereas before the dispute would have been resolved by forced, it was settled without bloodshed by Khan Berke who favoured Yaroslav over Andrey. Yaroslav III was also the founder of the Tver dynasty of princes who would later play a major role in Rus affairs.
In 1271 Grand Prince Yaroslav went to the Golden Horde along with brother Prince Vasili Yaroslavich of Kostroma and his nephew Prince Dmitri Aleksandrovich of Pereslavl-Zalessky (the son of Aleksandr Nevsky). On the return journey in 1272 Yaroslav died. Yaroslav was succeeded by his brother Prince Vasili Aleksandrovich of Kostroma, who is often simply referred to as Vasili Kostromsky as he remained in that city. Although he secured the title of grand prince for himself, the Novgorodians invited his nephew Dmitri of Pereslavl-Zalessky to be their prince. Vasili was not prepared to allow his nephew to take control the valuable Novgorod Principality and in 1273 led an army against Novgorod lands. Fearing the wrath of the grand prince the Novgorodians reconsidered their decision and invited Vasili to be their prince. Vasili died in 1276 in his capital of Kostroma.
Struggle between Nevsky's Sons
Vasili Kostromsky was the last surviving son of Yaroslav II and so upon his death the sons of Aleksandr Nevsky became the most senior line. At this point of time there were three surviving sons, each of whom had been given their own territory: Dmitri had Pereslavl-Zalessky, Andrey Gorodets and Daniil Moscow. As the oldest surviving son, Prince Dmitri of Pereslavl-Zalessky was named grand prince of Vladimir and prince of Novgorod once more.
In 1280 Dmitri had the fortress of Koporye reconstructed in Novgorod lands. This did not go down well among the Novgorodians who saw it as a threat to their independence should the grand prince have a permanent presence in their land. Nevertheless Dmitri was able to crush the dissent. When Dmitri was still dealing with Novgorod, his brother Prince Andrey Aleksandrovich of Gorodets saw his chance to improve his lot and went to the Golden Horde to make his case to Khan Mengu-Timur, who named Andrey grand prince of Vladimir. In 1281 Andrey led a Tatar army against his brother and installed himself as grand prince of Vladimir and prince of Novgorod.
Despite losing Novgorod and the title of grand prince, Dmitri was not one to give up and saw his chance of regaining his position by taking advantage of the power struggle occurring in the Golden Horde at that time. In 1283 Dmitri entered into an alliance with Nogai a powerful Tatar general. With Nogai's help Dmitri regained both Novgorod and the title of grand prince of Vladimir.
In 1291 Nogai succeeded in installing Tokhta as the new khan of the Golden Horde and in 1292 Andrey and his allies went to Tokhta, who decided to name Andrey grand prince of Vladimir and Novgorod once more. In 1293 Tokhta, with the support of Nogai, organised a punitive campaign against Dmitri led by the Tatar Dyuden (or Tuden). With Andrey himself taking part, Dyuden led the Tatar troops into Rus land and devastated 14 cities in total: Murom, Suzdal, Vladimir, Yuriev-Polsky, Pereslavl-Zalessky, Uglich, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Kolomna, Serpukhov, Klin, Zvenigorod, Mozhaisk, Volokolamsk and Tver.
Dmitri fled to Pskov and Andrey installed himself as grand prince of Vladimir and prince of Novgorod. As soon as Dyuden left Rus, Dmitri made an attempt to reclaim his original principality of Pereslavl-Zalessky, but instead was forced to flee to his ally Prince Mikhail Yaroslavich of Tver. Mikhail of Tver succeeded in reconciling the brothers and an agreement was reached whereby Dmitri would give up his claims to Vladimir and Novgorod but be allowed to return to Pereslavl-Zalessky. Andrey had previously given the city to Prince Fyodor Rostislavich the Black of Smolensk and Yaroslavl, who burned it down as he left it. Dmitri died the following year in 1294 in Pereslavl-Zalessky. Andrey ruled as grand prince of Vladimir and prince of Novgorod until his death in 1304.
Development of Moscow
Daniil Aleksandrovich was Aleksandr Nevsky's youngest son and an infant when his father died. In 1263, he was allocated Moscow - then only a minor city, which was ruled by governors until Daniil finally came of age. Daniil of Moscow grew up to be a peaceful prince although he was occasionally forced to take a side between his warring brothers. He is credited with founding Moscow's first two monasteries - the Danilov Monastery in 1282 and the Bogoyavlensky Monastery in 1296. Daniil also widened the borders of his small principality. In 1301 Moscow defeated the Ryazan Principality and incorporated Kolomna. In 1302, Prince Ivan Dmitrievich of Pereslavl-Zalessky died childless and left his principality to his uncle Daniil. Daniil himself died in 1303 and passed on to his son Yuri a Moscow which had increased in both size and significance.
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Soda, salty snacks, and processed foods are among the top groceries purchased by Americans – a diet far removed from the one consumed for most of human history.
Now researchers, health professionals, and the public want to know: how has this change in diet affected us and what, if anything, should we do about it?
Hundreds of bacterial species and trillions of bacterial cells in the human gut allow us to regulate and maintain metabolic and immune system functions. Keeping this microbial community stable is crucial for human health and well-being – unbalanced gut microbes have been linked to diseases such as diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease.
And due to a widespread increase in the use of antibiotics and a higher-sugar, higher-fat diet, the composition of human gut microbiome has shifted.
Scientists do not currently know how to manipulate microbiomes to explore how this shift has impacted our health. This would require an understanding of how species interact within the microbial network and what impacts its stability. Presidential Fellows in Data Science Lu Tian and Yingnan Gao, supported by the University of Virginia Data Science Institute, are using microbial genomics and machine learning to develop new tools that will allow us to understand microbial stability and improve human health.
Tian and Gao obtained microbiome data from the American Gut Project to identify which bacterial species are present in different people and their abundance. The researchers then analyzed microbial DNA sequences from more than 15,000 people, giving them a large-scale data set.
Tian and Gao are using this data to investigate how microbial species interact through both integrated statistical analyses and stratified analyses, in order to explore the complex data set. The team also developed a high dimensional graphical model to identify the distribution of each microbial species.
This novel research project extends beyond current projects reconstructing the microbial network using overly simplified models that only account for some species relationship, while ignoring the effects of the whole network, and aims to construct a holistic account of the gut microbiome.


text:
Q: Notation about probability After reading several books, the notations in probability are not very clear in my mind.
Take a random variable $X$ following a law $\mu$. Usually, one writes this by $X\sim\mu$. Now, take a function $F$ which depends on $X$ and one wishes to write the probability of $F$ exceeding a defined threshold $a$. Should I write:
$\mathbb{P}_{X\sim\mu}[F(X)\geq a$]
or
$\mu_{X\sim\mu}[F(X)\geq a$]
To me it should be the second one but I'm not sure anymore.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Little Green Planet offers a personalized interior design solution for residential and commercial projects. We provide high-quality design and furniture for specific needs. Francesca De Guzman is the Founder and Head Designer of Little Green Planet. She has been working and practicing in the design field for the past 7 years in various projects. She was born in the Philippines, lived and worked in the United States, returned to Manila to practice interior design. She had graduated from the Philippine School of Interior Design in 2005.
Since then, she has gained experience working in New York for West Elm, designed several offices for foreign companies, worked hand-in-hand with real estate developers, renovated and built homes from ground-up and even dabbled in production design for music videos with some of the most influential artists in the country. Currently, she is just focusing on interior design projects and supplying furniture for residential and commercial use.
Francesca is extremely passionate about designing. She truly believes good design is not only about the aesthetics but being environmentally conscious. Hence, why she named her design company Little Green Planet.


text:
<?php

namespace EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\Configurator;

use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Context\AdminContext;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Contracts\Field\FieldConfiguratorInterface;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Dto\EntityDto;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Dto\FieldDto;
use EasyCorp\Bundle\EasyAdminBundle\Field\PercentField;

/**
 * @author Javier Eguiluz <javier.eguiluz@gmail.com>
 */
final class PercentConfigurator implements FieldConfiguratorInterface
{
    public function supports(FieldDto $field, EntityDto $entityDto): bool
    {
        return PercentField::class === $field->getFieldFqcn();
    }

    public function configure(FieldDto $field, EntityDto $entityDto, AdminContext $context): void
    {
        $scale = $field->getCustomOption(PercentField::OPTION_NUM_DECIMALS);
        $roundingMode = $field->getCustomOption(PercentField::OPTION_ROUNDING_MODE);
        $symbol = $field->getCustomOption(PercentField::OPTION_SYMBOL);
        $isStoredAsFractional = $field->getCustomOption(PercentField::OPTION_STORED_AS_FRACTIONAL);

        $field->setFormTypeOptionIfNotSet('scale', $scale);
        $field->setFormTypeOptionIfNotSet('symbol', $symbol);
        $field->setFormTypeOptionIfNotSet('type', $isStoredAsFractional ? 'fractional' : 'integer');
        $field->setFormTypeOptionIfNotSet('rounding_mode', $roundingMode);

        if (null === $field->getValue()) {
            return;
        }

        $value = $field->getValue();
        $field->setFormattedValue(sprintf('%s%s', $isStoredAsFractional ? 100 * $value : $value, $symbol));
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


This moist quick bread tastes best the day after it's made. Lemon balm is a lovely addition to both the batter and glaze.
In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar and lemon balm. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Stir in walnuts if desired and lemon zest. Pour into a greased 8x4-in. loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
In a small bowl, whisk the sugar, water and lemon juice; stir in lemon balm. Spoon over warm bread while still in the pan. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely.
1 piece: 229 calories, 9g fat (5g saturated fat), 57mg cholesterol, 192mg sodium, 35g carbohydrate (22g sugars, 0 fiber), 3g protein.
Made this for my granddaughter who is fascinated with herbs. Delicious, light, quick to make.


Earlier this week, Zaman smashed 210 not out off 156 deliveries, moving past the previous record of the highest individual score in an ODI innings for a Pakistan batsman set by Saeed Anwar with his 194 against India in Chennai more than 21 years ago, and Pakistan batting coach Grant Flower called his innings "a great achievement".
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola was left angry with Borussia Dortmund's tactics for their friendly defeat in the International Cup. A first-half penalty from Mario Gotze has earned Borussia Dortmund a 1-0 victory over Manchester City in their pre-season friendly in Chicago.
England could face Kuldeep in Test cricket too after he was included Wednesday in India's squad for the first three fixtures of a five-match series that starts at Birmingham's Edgbaston ground on August 1. "I don't think it will be the last I hear of it from the group - they've been hammering me", he added of the reaction of his England team-mates. "He's a confidence player and that'll be a decision we have to make before that first Test".
Smart getting the extension done was a big win for him, as he didn't actually have any formal offers from other teams and he was an unrestricted free agent. He's played in 261 career regular-season games, starting 83 of them. The truth is, Smart is still only 24 years-old and has yet to sniff his prime.
He's the biggest prospect for the future of Brazilian football. Meanwhile, NAIJ. com previously had reported that Neymar has reportedly confirmed that he will stay back at his Paris Saint Germain next season. "I'm staying. I'm staying in Paris. Most of the speculation is made by the media", Neymar told reporters. According to a report by Daily Mail , Ronaldo took his family for a short holiday to Greece following Portugal's exit from the FIFA World Cup 2018 after losing to Uruguay.
Alisson has been priced up at £5.5m in Fantasy Premier League , half a million more expensive than fellow Liverpool goalkeepers Loris Karius and Simon Mignolet. He also said he liked having the ball at his feet and could help the team's attack. " Liverpool FC needs just the highest quality goalkeepers and that's what we have at the moment, we'll see now what we do in the next few weeks".
Any Norwich City fans looking at Liverpool goalkeeper Danny Ward as a loan option this season, seem set to have their hopes dashed as Leicester City have a bid accepted - while forward Ben Woodburn is set to travel with the Reds for their United States of America pre-season tour.
Cleveland has deep salary-cap issues - partially caused by James' failure to commit long-term - and the Cavs now lack enough talent to unseat the champion Golden State Warriors . Since that time San Antonio head coach Gregg Popovich and general manager R.C. Buford have made efforts to fix the relationship with the team's best player.
The Brazil global undertook a medical and inked a six-year contract on Thursday to become the club's fourth new face this summer after the additions of Naby Keita , Fabinho and Xherdan Shaqiri . Liverpool have finally ended their search for a top class goalkeeper, and while Roma may have beaten them in the race to announce the deal, all that matters is that Alisson Becker now calls Anfield "home".
With some flatter days to come, Thomas could enjoy a few more days in the leader's jersey to come. Roberts and Dumoulin, third overall, would have welcomed Nibali's help to overthrow team Sky with Thomas and Chris Froome . "Months and months of waiting (for the anti-doping case to end) fuelled the suspicion and it took its toll, " said race director Christian Prudhomme, who informed Team Sky that Froome was not welcome at the Tour before he was cleared of doping.
Some of what Fedora said is not an original thought. His remarks dismayed some football players, fans and experts. ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum told Fedora on " Outside the Lines " to "go to the library and read" about CTE and questioned "how this great university can stand behind someone who made those comments".
The Finn, signed two years ago as a replacement for Nico Rosberg following the then-world champion's shock retirement, will continue as Hamilton's team-mate for the 2019 season with an option for a further year in 2020. Hamilton joined Mercedes in 2013, after six seasons with McLaren. Hamilton's new contract goes to the end of the Concorde Agreement, with a new set of rules and regulations for F1 set for 2021 onward.
Both Hazard and Courtois have been linked with summer moves to Spanish giants Real Madrid , with the latter entering the final year of his contract with the west London club. Chelsea forward Eden Hazard has reportedly reached a verbal agreement with Real Madrid to join Los Blancos this summer. Sarri will look to persuade Courtois, Hazard, Willian and N'Golo Kante to stay at the club, The Sun have claimed.
Hart made it 106-105 by hitting the second of two free throws with 5.7 seconds remaining. Given that his career three-point percentage in college was 38.9%, his solid season from deep a year ago appears to be no fluke. "We have a really good leader in Wade Baldwin at the point guard position and that's huge coming into Summer League, being able to control the game".
The Thunder will then send Muscala on to the 76ers, in exchange for forward Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, while Philadelphia will also send guard Justin Anderson to Atlanta. So, in essence, Oklahoma City is paying $5 million in each of the next three seasons for a 24-year-old point guard who has started 161 games in five National Basketball Association seasons.
It would have been a mistake if he had come here when he wanted to go to Maurizio and Chelsea. "He's so young and in two years it is another European Championships and then in four years another World Cup", Guardiola said during a press conference during their U.S.


text:
Marilyn K. Wiley
Dean, G. Brint Ryan College of Business, University of North Texas
Marilyn K. Wiley is dean of the G. Brint Ryan College of Business and professor of finance at the University of North Texas (UNT). She joined UNT in 2009 as senior associate dean.
Wiley earned a BBA in marketing from the University of Texas at Arlington, an MBA and an MS in finance from the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and a PhD in finance from Texas A&M University. She began her academic career as a faculty member at Florida Atlantic University, later serving as Adams Professor of Finance, MBA director, associate dean, and senior associate dean. Before graduate school, she was vice president of finance and administration for Barrios Technology, a Houston aerospace contractor.
Wiley is a Chartered Financial Analyst and has served on the boards of the CFA Society of Dallas-Fort Worth, the Fort Worth Chapter of Financial Executives International, the Eastern Finance Association, and the Southwestern Finance Association. Her research has appeared in numerous academic journals, including the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Futures Markets. D-CEO Magazine has named her one of Dallas' 500 most influential business leaders annually since 2017.
← Back to Board of Directors

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
L'Affaire du siècle est une campagne de justice climatique en France initiée par quatre associations (Fondation pour la nature et l'homme, Greenpeace France, Notre affaire à tous et Oxfam France) le  visant à poursuivre en justice l'État pour inaction en matière de lutte contre le réchauffement climatique.

La pétition associée, devient la plus signée en France en moins d'une semaine, collectant deux millions de signatures en un mois.

Les réponses du gouvernement étant jugées insuffisantes, un recours contre l'État est déposé auprès du tribunal administratif de Paris le .

Le , dans une décision que les associations considèrent comme , le tribunal administratif reconnaît la faute de l'État, et ordonne un complément d'information avant de se prononcer sur l'injonction à agir. En octobre de la même année, le tribunal ordonne au Premier ministre de prendre d'ici au   pour réparer le préjudice.

Précédents

En 2013, aux Pays-Bas, la Fondation Urgenda a intenté au nom de  un procès contre le gouvernement des Pays-Bas . En 2015, le tribunal de district de La Haye a statué que le gouvernement des Pays-Bas devait faire davantage pour réduire les émissions de gaz à effet de serre afin de protéger ses citoyens des changements climatiques. Cette décision a été décrite comme un  et comme  au monde. Le , la cour d'appel de La Haye confirme le jugement de 2015 en conséquence de quoi, en septembre 2020, la Chambre des représentants néerlandaise adopte une motion de la CDA, du VVD, du PVV et du SGP, demandant au gouvernement d'étudier comment les Pays-Bas peuvent encourager les entreprises à investir à nouveau dans l'énergie nucléaire.

Au Pakistan, en 2015, un conseil climatique est mis en place, pour contraindre le gouvernement à agir.

En 2015 également, une plainte de 21 enfants donne lieu à une affaire surnommée « la jeunesse contre les États-Unis »  visant le gouvernement américain pour inaction face au réchauffement climatique. Le procès devait débuter le , mais le , la Cour suprême américaine gèle la procédure.

Le , la Cour suprême de Colombie ordonne au gouvernement de mettre fin à la déforestation de la forêt amazonienne.

En , un rapport du Programme des Nations unies pour l'environnement recensait neuf cents procès climatiques.

Principe d'action
Le principe juridique consiste tout d'abord en une demande préalable indemnitaire sous la forme d'une lettre précisant les griefs et émise par les quatre associations d'intérêt général.

Puis un recours devant le tribunal administratif de Paris demandant à ce que l'État soit contraint au respect de ses engagements en termes de diminution des émissions de gaz à effet de serre françaises, après que soit reconnue l'existence d'un préjudice écologique.

Pour l'avocat de Greenpeace France, le recours . Il explique que le tribunal administratif ici saisi est . En effet selon lui, celui-ci . Le recours demande donc que l'État soit contraint à prendre des mesures qui permettent de réduire les émissions de gaz à effets de serre (GES) à un  et, plus largement, toutes les dispositions nécessaires pour remplir les objectifs concernant les GES, les énergies renouvelables, l'adaptation au changement climatique, et les mesures indispensables pour  face aux risques connus liés au changement climatique.

Chronologie

Pétition

Le , quatre associations (la Fondation pour la nature et l'homme, Greenpeace France, Notre affaire à tous et Oxfam France) adressent un courrier d'une quarantaine de pages au président de la République Emmanuel Macron, au premier ministre Édouard Philippe ainsi qu'à une dizaine de membres de son gouvernement en vue d'enclencher un recours devant le tribunal administratif de Paris visant à faire sanctionner l'État pour « carence fautive ».

Le , le ministre de la transition écologique François de Rugy invite les quatre organisations à participer au grand débat national annoncé par Emmanuel Macron en réaction au mouvement des Gilets jaunes.

Le , après le succès de la pétition de soutien, devenue la pétition la plus signée en France en moins d'une semaine, François de Rugy déclare . Il déclare également que la pétition peut-être considérée comme .

Le , François de Rugy appelle les signataires de la pétition de soutien à l'Affaire du siècle à dialoguer avec lui dans un communiqué sur Facebook ; il recevra les cent premiers à répondre à son invitation.

Cinq jours après son communiqué, le , François de Rugy reçoit, avec le Premier ministre Édouard Philippe, les quatre associations à l'origine du recours et leur indiquent qu'il leur sera adressée une réponse écrite d'ici au . La réponse de François de Rugy arrive le , celui-ci publiant également une lettre de dix pages intitulée L'Action en faveur du climat de l'État français dans laquelle il détaille les actions effectuées par la France dans le cadre de la préservation de l'environnement et de la lutte contre le réchauffement climatique. Cependant, insatisfaites des réponses gouvernementales, les quatre associations confirment le , qu'elles déposeront un recours contre l'État le .

Le , François de Rugy reçoit les cent premiers citoyens ayant répondu à son invitation Facebook du  (cinq-mille avaient répondu) et leur demande d'exprimer leurs opinions, analyses, et propositions. La réunion, d'une durée de , est diffusée pendant  en direct sur le compte Facebook du Ministère de la transition écologique.

Le , une réunion sur la Transition écologique est organisée à Gréoux-les-Bains (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) dans le cadre du Grand débat national, d'une durée de près de . Le président Emmanuel Macron répond aux questions de citoyens et apporte des explications sur les actions du gouvernement.

Recours

Le , les quatre associations déposent un recours devant le tribunal administratif de Paris, demandant à ce que l'État soit contraint au respect de l'Accord de Paris sur le climat en termes de diminution des émissions de gaz à effet de serre, et que soit reconnue la notion de préjudice écologique.

En décembre 2019, les ONGs lancent un appel à témoins pour construire la carte de France des changements climatiques. De plus, ces éléments envoyés par les citoyens pourront être versés au dossier juridique.

Le , le ministère de la transition écologique a remis son mémoire en défense au nom de l'Etat et a demandé le rejet de la requête des quatre associations l'accusant d'inaction. Un mémoire en réplique est alors produit par les associations requérantes (Notre affaire à tous, Fondation pour la nature et l'homme, Greenpeace France et Oxfam France) avant la clôture de l'instruction, prononcée le 4 septembre 2020.

Le , dans le dossier - parallèle - de la pollution de l'air, l'État est condamné à une astreinte de 10 millions d'euros par semestre pour son inaction,  selon le journal Le Monde.

Décisions

Le , l'audience du recours se tient au tribunal administratif de Paris. La rapporteuse publique reconnaît la , qui n'a pas respecté le budget carbone, en particulier entre 2015 et 2018. Elle recommande d'accorder un euro symbolique pour préjudice moral à trois des associations, excluant Notre affaire à tous, qu'elle considère comme créée trop récemment.

Le , le tribunal administratif rend une première décision dans laquelle il reconnait que l'État n'a pas respecté ses engagements sur la réduction des gaz à effet de serre et a donc commis une « faute » :

Le tribunal alloue un euro symbolique pour préjudice moral aux quatre associations concernées. Le tribunal n'accorde pas l'euro symbolique demandé au titre du « préjudice écologique », considérant que les associations concernées n'ont pas démontré que celui-ci ne pouvait être réparé en nature, mais considère qu'elles sont fondées à demander cette réparation en nature. Les juges ordonnent également un supplément d'instruction de deux mois avant de se prononcer sur l'injonction à agir demandée, ouvrant la voie à d'éventuelles mesures contraignantes pour le gouvernement dans un deuxième jugement. Les associations saluent une « victoire historique ».

Le , le tribunal administratif rend une deuxième décision dans laquelle il ordonne au gouvernement de prendre  pour  au plus tard le . Il considère que la diminution d'émissions de gaz à effet de serre observée en 2020, bien que due principalement à la pandémie de Covid-19 et non à une action de l'État, doit être prise en compte pour l'évaluation du préjudice, qui se fait à la date de la décision. Le tribunal chiffre ainsi le préjudice restant à réparer à quinze millions de tonnes équivalent , sur les soixante-deux demandées par les associations.

Réactions citoyennes, médiatiques et politiques

Soutiens

Pétition
La démarche est également soutenue par une pétition de soutien, lancée le , qui rassemble plus de  au bout de cinq heures. Moins de  plus tard, la pétition dépasse le million de signatures. D'une ampleur sans précédent en France, la pétition atteint  le .

La pétition est hébergée par Greenpeace France, qui contrôle la base de données des signataires en vérifiant la validité des adresses de courriel et supprimant les doublons. Selon le site Contrepoints, ces chiffres seraient à prendre avec précaution puisque Greenpeace est juge et partie. Néanmoins cette suspicion n'est partagée ni par le gouvernement visé par l'attaque, ni par les médias nationaux qui reprennent les chiffres de la pétition.

Positions médiatiques face au recours en justice

En désaccord
 Pour Marc Fontecave, professeur au Collège de France et membre du conseil scientifique d'EDF, la pétition est « déplacée », la France étant un leader mondial en matière de limitation des gaz à effet de serre.

En accord
 Jean-Paul Markus, juriste, estime que
Marie Toussaint, présidente de l'ONG Notre affaire à Tous, demande à l'État de faire plus dans l'émission Bourdin Direct sur la radio RMC : .
 Pour Lucile Schmid, vice-présidente du think tank La Fabrique écologique, le succès de la pétition « L'Affaire du siècle » montre que la société française a pris la mesure de l'enjeu.
 Pour Carole-Anne Sénit, politologue, le succès de la pétition visant à sanctionner l'État français pour inaction climatique confère au pouvoir judiciaire un rôle primordial dans la défense de l'environnement.

Autres actions

Le débat du siècle

En , dans le contexte de l'élection présidentielle, L'Affaire du siècle organise le Débat du siècle dans le but de permettre aux candidats à la présidentielle de présenter leurs réponses à la décision judiciaire pour inaction climatique. L'émission est diffusée sur la plateforme Twitch, sur la chaine de Jean Massiet et coanimée par celui-ci et Paloma Moritz. Il ne s'agit pas d'un débat entre candidats, mais de « grands oraux », sur les propositions des candidats concernant le climat. Les participants à l'émission du  sont Yannick Jadot, Valérie Pécresse, Fabien Roussel, Philippe Poutou et Anne Hidalgo. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, qui n'était pas disponible, a été invité à un « rattrapage » le . . Les candidats climatosceptiques ou n'ayant pas formulé de proposition concernant le climat n'ont pas été invités.

Notes et références

Voir aussi

Bibliographie
 Notre affaire à tous, Comment nous allons sauver le monde : manifeste pour une justice climatique, Éditions Massot, 2019,  .
 .

Articles connexes

Liens externes

Changement climatique
Droit de l'environnement en France
Écologie politique en France
Politique climatique
2018 en France

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Q: Compare custom field values I have created a page that receives information and filters the posts by that choice. The page gets the information with _GET and I use the following code to send the query
$postss = new WP_Query([
                'post_type'      => 'post',
                'meta_query' =>
                array(
                    array(
                        'key' => 'City:',
                        'value' => $city,
                        'compare' => 'LIKE',
                    ),
                    array(
                        'relation' => 'OR',
                        array('key' => 'Time:',
                        'value' => 'hour',
                        'compare' => 'LIKE',
                        ),
                        array('key' => 'Time:',
                        'value' => 'min',
                        'compare' => 'LIKE',
                        ),
                    ),
                ),
                'cat' => $category,
                'posts_per_page' => 9,
                'post_status'    => 'publish',
                'paged'          => $paged
            ]);

However my issue is, I have an input where the user can specify the city, then the category and then the time. The city and category work fine, but when we come to time I have placed few options with a drop down : under 1 hour, under 2 hours, under 3 hours etc . With this I can easily check with php if the time value is 1 2 3 etc and simply create the query
where time LIKE '%hour%'

however when the user chooses the 1, means that it's not just 1 hour, but it can also include minutes, so for example 30 minutes, so the results shold include 1 hour, but all minutes, so the query should be something like
where time like '%min%' OR time like '%hour%'

Also there is an issue, I don't know how exactly to add the % symbol (because sometimes there is 10 min sometimes it's 20 minutes - plural) so
LIKE '%min%'

would be okay, but not the same for hous, since if i do
LIKE '%hour%'

it will also include hours (2 3, not just 1 hour), so it should be
where time like '%hour'

in sql is easy, but with the wp_query I am not sure where to place the % symbol.
ps:I read that when I use the LIKE with meta_query automatically adds the % symbols at fron and end of the string, is there a way to remove them and just add it at front or in back, but not both?
Example values in meta:
City:New York, Tokyo, London
Time:10 minutes, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 1.5 hours, 2 hours, 3 hours

A: Instead of storing your values as "5 hours 13 minutes" instead store them as timestamps, e.g. 5:13 for 5h 13m
This way you can use the date/time comparator operations to answer questions
E.g. to get items under 5 hours and 30 minutes:
$args = [
    ...
    'meta_query' => [
        [
            'meta_key'     => 'time',
            'meta_value'   => date( "5:30" ),
            'meta_compare' => '<',
            'type'         => 'TIME',
        ],
    ],
];
$query = new WP_Query( $args );

This will match a 3 hour post, or a 4:20 post, or a 5h 29min post.
You may need to add :00 for the seconds on to the end of all code and values.
For display you can use human_readable_duration. This will include the seconds though, but the function is very simple so copying and modifying it to your requirements should be straight forward.


You can learn a lot when you listen to your customers.
The growing calls for After-pay as a payment option was something we could no longer ignore.
The site was updated and it was time to find the buyers.
…turns out there was more than we'd anticipated.
Firstly, find the keywords our customers are using when searching for pet products store that have After-pay.
Secondly, develop the keyword rich article that would tell our new customers about this exciting new payment option.
Research the search terms that were target audience were using to find companies offering this payment plan.
Generate relevant and engaging content, includes text, data and images.
On-page optimisation, titles, tags and inter-site links built throughout the site.
Off-page optimisation, identifying link opportunities from relevant and authoritative platforms.
Measure keyword rankings and traffic source and volume.
As a page that now rates in the top 20 most popular pages on the website, there are an additional 680 page views per month by customer that are ready to make a purchase.
Keyword research is a critical component of search optimisation and is being used as an ongoing process searching out new opportunities in the pet products market and within our client's competitors.
Discovering this set of keywords has led us to find other payment options that customers are looking for.


We have trophies for track and field as well as cross country. They include assembled trophies with a figure on a base or with a short column. Resin trophies come is various shapes and sizes and all of them include free engraving.


HOUSTON – April 9, 2013 – Organizations today face an ever-increasing number of security threats from internal privileged users and external attackers, including APTs. SIEMs are only part of the solution available to Security teams that require true actionable intelligence – the right information at the right time to the right stakeholder – to help identify and mitigate security threats and protect corporate assets.
NetIQ® today announced that Change Guardian™ 4.0 now detects and responds to potential threats in real time through intelligent alerting of unauthorized access and changes to critical files, systems, and applications.
Most organizations employ SIEM technology as a critical piece of the security infrastructure. However, SIEM alone is no longer enough to achieve sufficient layers of data protection and risk mitigation. Change Guardian complements and extends SIEM by delivering the deeper actionable intelligence on changes to systems and actions of privileged users to more quickly identify and remediate attacks before considerable damage is done.
· Rich "before and after" detail for changes to critical files and settings to enable IT to act quickly with minimal expertise.
· Policy-based monitoring that provides the ability to simply specify monitoring policies required for various regulations, mandates, best practices or internal policies.
· Additional platform support for UNIX and Linux to complement existing Windows and Active Directory capabilities.
"Unauthorized change and user activity are a leading cause of security breaches and early indicators of a targeted attack," said Geoff Webb, director, Solution Strategy at NetIQ. "Security teams need actionable information that can extend their ability to manage risk and avoid business disruptions. Our expectations are that as organizations increasingly adopt BYOD, Mobility and Cloud, they will face even greater risks and demands, making solutions like Change Guardian a fundamental requirement to simplify and centralize response."
Change Guardian 4.0 is generally available today worldwide and offered on a subscription basis or perpetual license. For more information please visit www.netiq.com/products/change-guardian/.


The big news about the repurchase market in 2015 was that it made the news.
After decades when the largest financial market in the world rarely appeared in public, in 2015 repos finally hit the big time.
At least 140 press and public reports on the repurchase market appeared last year, according to a RepoWatch survey (see story list below).
This important trend makes it less likely that risk can build unseen on that market as it did in the 2000's. With Federal Reserve officials saying repeatedly that repos are still vulnerable to panic, the news reports and published analyses help the public keep an eye out for trouble.
Four reporters deserve special mention for their roles in 2015 in helping Americans understand the importance and the vulnerabilities of the repurchase market and its smaller cousin the securities lending market, which together are called securities financing transactions.
Tracy Alloway, formerly with Financial Times and now at BloombergBusiness, is notable for the years of hard work she has invested in understanding the arcane twists and turns of securities financing and for figuring out how to write about it in a style that is clear, understandable and jargon free. She wrote at least 13 stories about repo and securities lending in 2015.
But stick with me, oh reader, I think some things are overlooked.
Other stand-out reporters on this tough beat last year were Katy Burne at the Wall Street Journal, Liz Capo McCormick at BloombergBusiness and Joe Rennison at the Financial Times.
Also beating the repo drum were Securities Finance Monitor, which continued its more technical coverage of the market, Federal Reserve governors and economists who warned that securities finance – which they often call wholesale funding or short-term funding – is still vulnerable to panics, and the U.S. Treasury's Office of Financial Research, which worried publicly about the lack of repo data and waded through the weeds trying to figure out how to get it.
In its must-read Financial Stability Report, published Dec. 15, the Office of Financial Research reviewed the state of the capital markets, including repos and securities lending. About the need for timely securities financing data, the authors found no answer except their own voluntary pilot program.
These markets were a source of contagion during the financial crisis. Although data have improved since the crisis, gaps remain in the scope, quality, and accessibility of data about these markets. To fill those gaps, the OFR, Federal Reserve, and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2015 launched voluntary pilot data collections.
Many reports published in 2015 produced insights that suggest the repurchase market is changing in ways that no one seems to understand very well.
Three key insights from 2015 are (1) financial markets increasingly serve Wall Street instead of Main Street, (2) repo reform may be within sight and (3) securities finance seems to be moving out of traditional banks and into shadow banks, often within the same giant bank holding company.
Once upon a time financial markets provided working capital for companies that manufactured and distributed goods and services to consumers and businesses. Now financial markets increasingly provide working capital for investors – pension plans, insurance companies, corporate treasuries, endowments, hedge funds, money market funds, broker-dealers, commercial and investment banks, mutual funds, and so on – that want to make more money.
For example, in the 2000's the housing boom was not driven by borrowers who wanted money to spend, although many didn't seem to mind taking the cash that lenders offered. Instead, the housing boom was driven by investors who wanted to get a good return on their savings, according to several economic studies.
The conceptual link between repo and the provision of working capital is clear through the observation that just as working capital refers to the short-term funding of real economy transactions with an aim to satisfy household and business consumers by producing and delivering real goods, repos … aim to satisfy retail and institutional investors' wealth aspirations by delivering financial goods in the form of excess return.
Pozsar said this may reflect a natural evolution in the financial needs of a maturing economy.
In November regulators made three announcements that suggest major repo reforms may emerge in 2016. Time will tell.
(1) The Financial Stability Board said it is setting minimum haircuts for repo and securities lending transactions between non-banks, launching global data collection of securities financing, studying the risks of rehypothecation, evaluating repo clearinghouses, and seeking improved oversight of shadow banking, including reduced risk of runs on money market funds and improved quality of securitizations.
(2) The Council of the European Union announced new rules that said banks and non-banks conducting securities financing transactions will be required to report the details to regulators to ensure transparency and reduce systemic risk.
(3) The Financial Stability Board and several trade associations said 21 giant global banks had agreed that securities financiers will not be able to sell their collateral for 48 hours after a borrower declares bankruptcy, to give regulators time to arrange an orderly resolution of the failed company.
Although repo triggered the 2008 crisis, many analysts say it's now more important than ever, mainly because risk-wary traders feel more secure with collateral. Yet the U.S. market seems to be shrinking. Repo conducted by primary dealers has shrunk from its post-crisis year-end high of $2.7 trillion in 2012 to $2.1 trillion at the end of 2015. Tri-party repo is down from a post-crisis year-end high of $1.96 trillion in 2012 to $1.6 trillion at the end of 2015.
Or is repo just moving into the shadows? The goal of post-2008 regulations like the Dodd-Frank Act was to prevent another shadow banking shock like the one that occurred in 2008, but instead of regulating shadow banks and securities financing, the Dodd-Frank Act regulated mainly traditional banks and derivatives.
Since the enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, more lending has moved into the shadows than at almost any time since 1960, wrote Alloway and McCormick in December.
World Bank data show that the percent of U.S. private-sector funding provided by banks has fallen to almost the lowest point since 1960, illustrating the growing importance of nonbank financing.
— mREITs, pension plans, corporate treasurers, commercial banks, Federal Home Loan Banks, large individual investors – all are showing increased interest in using the repurchase market.
— Giant banks are doing more repurchase transactions internally, which can make the repos invisible to regulators.
— Tri-party reforms have made that market safer … and less popular with repo lenders and borrowers, some of whom seem to be going bilateral.
— Securities financing transactions that are international in scope, and harder for regulators to control, are increasing.
— Tri-party collateral is declining in quality, with 22.2 percent of the collateral being in riskier securities (securities that can not be settled on the Fedwire Securities Service) at the end of 2015, compared to 15.2 percent at year-end 2012.
Dec. 22, 2015: The International Capital Markets Association published a report and a series of slides giving a detailed overview of all ongoing regulatory initiatives that involve identifying and reporting securities financing transactions (mainly repo and securities lending) and the impact of those regulations on the different stages of a repurchase transaction.
Dec. 22, 2015: Using purpose-for-purpose (P4P) equity collateral for securities financing is a way for large firms to avoid regulations and cut costs, but risks are "material," wrote Richard Stinchfield for Securities Finance Monitor.
Dec. 22, 2015: Stocks of shadow banks have experienced "heavy selling" and "brutal" price declines this year, perhaps caused mainly by the end of the Federal Reserve's asset purchases through quantitative easing, concern that weakness in energy credit may spread to other sectors and warnings from regulators, wrote Michael P. Regan for BloombergGadfly.
Dec. 21, 2015: The New York Fed published a primer on General Collateral Finance Repo (GCF Repo), a financial service offered by the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation, to explain how dealers use GCF Repo, how trades are cleared and settled and how GCF Repo is affected by current repo reforms.
Dec. 17, 2015: Markets are getting very nervous about the rising costs of repo loans and the decline in repo trades, which some attribute to new regulations, wrote Anna Reitman at Securities Finance Monitor.
Dec. 17, 2015: The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said it's worried that new regulations have overlooked a potential problem: Banks may have unseen obligations to seemingly independent shadow bankers that the banks will honor in a crisis to protect their reputations. This caused deep losses for banks in 2007 and 2008.
Dec. 17, 2015: A potentially destabilizing unknown in the new world of rising interest rates is how many deposits will leave banks for money market funds and how much money market funds will choose to lend through overnight repos at the New York Fed instead of to bankers, wrote reporter Tracy Alloway at BloombergBusiness.
Dec. 16, 2015: Some dealers are choosing bilateral repo over tri-party repo so they can reuse (rehypothecate) the securities as collateral to get a loan if needed, wrote Jeff Kidwell, head of Direct Repo.
Dec. 15, 2015: European regulators worry that lending will move from traditional banks to shadow banks, which could threaten the stability of the financial system, but they believe the economy needs shadow banking and don't want to excessively limit it, wrote reporter Huw Jones for Reuters.
Dec. 15, 2015: The recent fall in junk-bond prices is partly caused by the shrinking repurchase market, because it's harder for investors like hedge funds to get quick financing to snap up junk-bond bargains and help stabilize junk-bond prices, wrote reporter Tracy Alloway for BloombergBusiness.
Dec. 15, 2015: The goal of post-2008 regulations was to prevent another 2008-like shadow banking shock, but instead regulations have driven more lending into shadow banks than at almost any time since 1960, wrote reporters Tracy Alloway and Liz McCormick for BloombergBusiness.
Dec. 15, 2015: Money market funds have been pouring cash into overnight and short-term repurchase transactions as they position themselves to seize rising rates expected from the Fed this week, wrote reporter Joe Rennison for the Financial Times.
Dec. 15, 2015: In its first annual Financial Stability Report, the federal Office of Financial Research said the financial system is stronger than it was in 2008. But finance continues to migrate to shadow banking, liquidity sometimes appears fragile, run and fire-sale risks persist in securities financing markets (repo and securities lending) and interconnections among financial firms are evolving in ways not fully understood, for example, in the growing use of central clearing.
Dec. 11, 2015: In 2014 hedge funds rehypothecated 36 percent of the repo collateral they got from borrowers and their lenders rehypothecated 12 percent of the repo collateral they got from hedge funds, according to the 2015 hedge fund survey conducted of 1,486 funds by the International Organization of Securities Commissions.
Dec. 10. 2015: Profound changes are coming to the repurchase market – mainly smarter use of collateral and central clearing – as repo becomes ever more important to financial markets worldwide, said a 43-page research paper "The Future of Wholesale Funding Markets" by BNY Mellon and PwC Financial Services.
Dec. 9, 2015: The Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., the only clearinghouse in the U.S. for repurchase agreements, may ask its members to commit to contributing $50 billion in the event of another 2008-style crisis, according to sources who said this is part of DTCC's efforts to expand its repo clearing services, wrote Katy Burne for the Wall Street Journal.
Dec. 9, 2015: It's getting more expensive for financial institutions to get a repo loan, as lenders hesitate to take chances in advance of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting next week, wrote Joe Rennison for Financial Times.
Dec. 8, 2015: Repurchase agreements that have terms of at least 31 days and can be automatically renewed if borrower and lender agree are increasingly popular with banks that must meet new regulations requiring them to hold enough short-term assets to withstand a 30-day run, wrote Tracy Alloway at BloombergBusiness.
Dec. 3, 2015: In a speech he titled "Financial Stability and Shadow Banks: What we don't know could hurt us," Fed vice chair Stanley Fischer said data on some risky activities – like securities lending, bilateral repos, and derivatives trading – is opaque and inadequate, and the Fed plans to set minimum margins for bank and non-bank securities financing transactions. A key problem at AIG, Lehman and Long-Term Capital Management was their complexity, he said.
Nov. 30, 2015: Securities lenders like asset managers are lending out more securities for longer periods, mainly to banks. This increases returns for lenders but also increases risk, wrote reporter Patrick Jenkins for the Financial Times.
Nov. 25, 2015: Reporter Tracy Alloway penned "The Ballad of The Repo Trader" for BloombergBusiness.
Nov. 24, 2015: As broker-dealers cut back on their role as repo market makers, some leading traders are supporting central clearing for repurchase transactions, which are the primary market for short-term funding, wrote reporter Joe Rennison at Financial Times.
Nov. 23, 2015: Repo lenders like money market funds are concerned that they may have a harder time finding borrowers, as tighter regulations cause dealers to reduce their participation in repo markets, wrote Joe Rennison for the Financial Times.
Nov. 2015. Although traders expect the repo market to continue in some form, they fear it may not be able to provide liquidity and collateral flows to the financial system as effectively and efficiently as it has in the past, and that could potentially have negative consequences both for markets and for the broader global economy, reported the International Capital Market Association in a long-anticipated report.
Nov. 16, 2015: Banks and non-banks conducting securities financing transactions like repo and securities lending would be required to report the details to regulators to ensure transparency and reduce systemic risk under new rules announced by The Council of the European Union.
Nov. 12, 2015: Twenty-one giant global banks agreed today that repo and securities lenders will not be able to sell their collateral for 48 hours after a borrower declares bankruptcy, to give regulators time to arrange an orderly resolution of the failed company, according to joint announcements from international trade associations and the Financial Stability Board.
Nov. 12, 2015: The Financial Stability Board said it is setting minimum haircuts for repo and securities lending transactions between non-banks, launching global data collection of securities financing, studying the risks of rehypothecation, evaluating repo clearinghouses, and seeking improved oversight of shadow banking, including reduced risk of runs on money market funds and improved quality of securitizations.
Nov. 12, 2015: Securities financing transactions including repo and securities lending remain vulnerable to runs and asset fire sales, said Richard Berner, director or the Office of Financial Research.
Nov. 12, 2015: Repo loans with U.S. Treasury collateral has traditionally featured the same rate regardless of counterparty, but lately rates have "fractured," just one of several strange movements in the financial markets recently, wrote reporter Tracy Alloway for Bloomberg.
Nov. 10, 2015: As investment banks withdraw from the repo market, commercial banks are moving in. "There's no cause for fear just yet … but regulators need to take care the repo grenade doesn't blow up in the hands of nonexperts," wrote Reuters' columnist Dominic Elliott.
Nov. 10, 2015: Before the financial crisis, broker-dealers borrowed securities on the securities lending market and used those securities as collateral for repo loans, but today they're more likely to hold on to the securities, wrote contributor Jeffrey Snider at the Seeking Alpha blog.
Nov. 10, 2015: One reason the interest rates on swaps is so low is that hedge funds and other traders that would normally drive up a low price are less able to get financing through the shrinking repo market, wrote reporters Michael Mackenzie and Joe Rennison for Financial Times.
Nov. 9, 2015: Regulators are trying to convince banks that have made repo loans to wait 48 hours after their borrower files bankruptcy before selling the collateral. This would give regulators time to put in place a plan to unwind the borrower's finances without a taxpayer bailout, wrote BloombergBusiness reporters Silla Brush and Jesse Hamilton.
Nov. 8, 2015: U.S. Treasury officials are considering issuing two-month Treasury bills and letting the Fed be the lender of last resort for non-banks as ways to deal with the shortage of good repo collateral, which is caused in part by post-crisis regulation and is restricting repo volumes, wrote analyst Karen Shaw Petrou.
Nov. 6, 2015: The Shell Group invests in 7- to 90-day tri-party repos and puts its overnight money in money market funds, reported Steve Lethaby with Clearstream.
Nov. 3, 2015: Corporations are increasingly investing through tri-party repo instead of putting their cash in bank certificates of deposit, bank deposits or commercial paper, according to a report out of the Sibos financial industry conference.
Nov. 1, 2015: Money market fund holdings of repurchase agreements hit an all-time high in September, reported Crana Data.
Oct. 29, 2015: Non-U.S. bank broker-dealers with relatively low capital ratios appear to temporarily remove an average of $170 billion in borrowing from the U.S. tri-party repo market before each quarter-end in order to appear safer and less levered. This amount is more than double the $76 billion market-wide drop in tri-party repo during the 2008 financial crisis. This drives lenders to the Fed's reserve repo program during that time, reported the U.S. Treasury's Office of Financial Research.
Oct. 29, 2015: The European Parliament has approved a new law that introduces mandatory reporting of securities financing transactions to help regulators spot the build up of overly risky positions, wrote reporter Huw Jones for Reuters.
Oct. 27, 2015: The International Capital Markets Association will publish its study of the current and evolving European Repo Market on November 18. "… the European Repo Market is being re-shaped; in some instances with unintentional consequences. And the end of regulation impacting the market is still not in sight," the ICMA notice said.
Oct. 9, 2015: UK pension funds are afraid that when interest rates rise they will not be able to borrow enough on the repurchase market to meet their obligations to customers who bought their derivatives. They want the Bank of England to be their lender of last resort. wrote Frederico Mollet for Risk.net.
Oct. 7, 2015: To try to make sure banks can withstand a 30-day run by their short-term lenders and avoid a crisis like the one in 2008, regulators are requiring banks to hold enough high-quality liquid assets, but the new Liquidity Coverage Ratio used to calculate that amount is confusing and could be misinterpreted, wrote two analysts at the Office of Financial Research.
Oct. 5, 2015: Surprisingly, in Europe there's been an increase in directly negotiated repo deals which typically use lower quality collateral, in using equities as collateral and in the amount of repo conducted by a few giant banks, wrote Jonathan Cooper at Securities Finance Monitor.
Oct. 4, 2015: U.S. regulators are a long way from knowing how to prevent a 2008-style financial crisis, according to speakers at a conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, wrote New York Times reporter Binyamin Appelbaum.
Oct. 2, 2015: The U.S. still does not have the tools it needs to deal with a buildup of risk in the financial markets, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in a speech.
Oct. 2, 2015: Non-banks provide 14 percent of the credit in the U.S. system. These include broker-dealers, money market mutual funds (MMFs), finance companies, issuers of asset-backed securities, and mortgage real estate investment trusts, often associated with substantial reliance on short-term wholesale funding, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer said in a speech.
Oct. 2, 2015: Regulators have been taking snapshots of big banks' balance sheets — on July 31, August 24 and September 30 — to assess their reliance on repo and other short-term wholesale funding in case the banks need to increase capital, wrote Financial Times reporter Joe Rennison.
Oct. 1, 2015: Some major players say the drop in repo volume is not a problem, while others express concern, wrote Liz McCormick at BloombergBusiness.
Oct. 1, 2015: A judge has ruled that J.P.Morgan, Lehman Brothers' clearing bank, did not improperly grab $8.6 billion in repo collateral when Lehman failed, wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Patrick Fitzgerald.
Sept. 2015. A raft of regulation has made repos unprofitable, transforming it from a profit center to a service add-on for valuable clients, wrote Andy Hill with International Capital Market Association.
Sept. 30, 2015: "The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority this week issued guidance on liquidity risk management. The move suggests that five years after the 2008 crash broker-dealers need to upgrade and invest in significant new measures in preparation for the next perfect storm," wrote Richard Satran for Reuters.
Sept. 30, 2015: "A pilot by the Office of Financial Research, aimed at filling data gaps in the market for bilateral repos, is encountering a host of challenges because of data inconsistencies, its lead researchers said in July at a panel in Washington," wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Katy Burne.
Sept. 30, 2015: Bank of New York Mellon has introduced a set of indexes tracking repo rates, which could allow the development of futures on the indexes as a hedging instrument when the Fed moves to raise rates, wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Katy Burne.
Sept. 30, 2015: "Regulatory pressure on banks is colliding with a squeeze in Treasury bills to roil the U.S. money markets as the third quarter draws to a close" and overnight rates triple, wrote BloombergBusiness reporter Liz McCormick.
Sept. 2015: Measured in June, the European repurchase market is experiencing a decline in volume, an increase in directly negotiated transactions, a surge in cross-border business, a decline in tri-party repo and in the quality of its collateral, a drop in the share of government-bond collateral and an increase in non-government bond and equity collateral, according to the International Capital Market Association's semi-annual repo survey.
Sept. 28, 2015: A run in the short-term wholesale funding markets, such as repo and securities lending, that cuts off funding to widely held assets is a greater risk to the system than a conventional bank run without deposit insurance, said Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo.
Sept. 18, 2015: "The development of Asian markets for repos would help deepen the region's capital markets and benefit its real economy," wrote Patrick Pang, managing director and head of fixed income and compliance for the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association.
Sept. 16, 2015: Some banks expect a near-term rate increase for repos, which provide a critical source of funding for Wall Street securities dealers, wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Katy Burne.
Sept. 16, 2015: "Efforts to improve data reporting so far have been little short of a mess," wrote Financial Times' reporter Philip Stafford reviewing new studies of the repurchase market.
Sept. 15, 2015: Stress tests of 43 broker-dealers found six that did not have resources, staff or liquidity plans to be likely to survive a 30-day period of the kinds of stress that have caused broker-dealers to fail in the past, reported the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Sept. 15, 2015: How can we explain "those incredible dropping repo rates?" asked the Financial Times' Alphaville blog.
Sept. 12, 2015: Historically, primary dealers absorbed liquidity shocks in the financial markets, but that system failed in 2008 and we're still trying to figure out how to replace it, blogged Barnard College professor Perry Mehrling.
Sept. 8, 2015: The general mREIT strategy is to buy Residential or Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities, finance their purchases with repo agreements, and hedge part of their interest rate risk through a derivative, explained the Colorado Wealth Management Fund.
Sept. 8, 2015: Traders who use derivatives called Exchange-Traded Funds as collateral for repos and securities lending may be having second thoughts after ETFs traded at "enormous discounts" during the recent market turmoil, wrote Jeff Cooper at Securities Finance Monitor.
Sept. 7, 2015: Market appetite for repo is growing, but new regulation has made the major banks more reluctant to provide the product, so "this has created an opportunity for new entrants which could spawn healthier competition, a reduction in costs to the end user and a less concentrated risk profile throughout the market," wrote Iain Colquhoun, global head of repo marketing for ICBC Standard Bank.
Aug. 6, 2015: It's more expensive to borrow on the repurchase market these days, and that is protecting some securities from speculators who would otherwise borrow the securities on the repo market, short them and drive down their value, wrote Reuters reporter John Geddie.
Aug. 5, 2015: The Fed's new reverse repo agreement program could cause costs for mortgages to go up and mortgage financing to get scarcer, wrote Bloomberg reporter Tracy Alloway.
Aug. 3, 2015: "Post-crisis reforms have made the repo market safer but also raised the costs of repo transactions. Greater use of central clearing could potentially lower these costs by allowing participants to net more of their transactions," Federal Reserve Governor Jerome H. Powell told a gathering at The Brookings Institution.
Aug. 1, 2015: The Great Financial Panic of 2007 was a good old-fashioned banking panic like those of the 19th and early 20th centuries and was not driven by banks that were Too Big To Fail, blogged University of Pennsylvania professor Francis X. Diebold in support of work by Yale University professor Gary Gorton.
July 2015: The U.S. has a long way to go before it achieves stability in its financial markets, including still-needed reforms in the repurchase market and securities lending, said the International Monetary Fund in its most recent Financial System Stability Assessment for the United States.
July 27, 2015: The Fed's reverse repo facility could help stabilize the repurchase market in a crisis by providing a safe haven for lenders, as the Fed did in 2007-2008 but without its chaotic improvisation, wrote reporter Cardiff Garcia at the Financial Times' Alphaville blog.
July 21, 2015: Corporate treasurers with cash to invest should realize that "repo is simply a straightforward securitized deposit," Clearstream told Treasury Insider.
July 20, 2015: Eight U.S. global systemically important bank holding companies will have to put more of their own money at risk if they want to rely on short-term wholesale funding like repos, because during the crisis "reliance on this type of funding left firms vulnerable to runs and fire sales," said the Federal Reserve.
June 29, 2015: With the growing demand from lenders to make repo loans, and the declining interest from borrowers like banks and broker-dealers, the most likely borrower to fill the gap is the Federal Reserve, wrote Tracy Alloway and Liz McCormick at BloombergBusiness.
June 28, 2015: In its annual report, the Bank for International Settlements worried that asset managers like hedge funds are picking up the business that banks are abandoning and in so doing may be creating unstable markets.
June 25, 2015: Transactions on the Denmark repurchase market are disappearing, potentially weakening the entire financial system, wrote BloombergBusiness reporter Frances Schwartzkopff.
June 25, 2015: The European Central Bank is charging banks to deposit money with it, and this is causing confusion in the European repurchase market because it causes repo lenders like money market funds to have to pay borrowers like broker-dealers or hedge funds to borrow, reported Naomi Rovnick for the Financial Times.
June 24, 2015: Several REITs have joined Federal Home Loan Banks via their captive insurers, to get funding and a cheap and flexible way to warehouse mortgages, among other things, wrote Nora Colomer for National Mortgage News.
June 24, 2015: Improvements have been made in the tri-party repurchase market, the epicenter of the financial crisis, but an important problem remains and likely will continue beyond the 2015 deadline the Fed set for reform: The two giant clearing banks still can not transact repos quickly enough to prevent fire sales for some transactions when the parties are not represented by the same clearing bank, according to the New York Fed and a story by Wall Street Journal reporter Katy Burne.
June 17, 2015: In a detailed look at short-term repos with long-term corporate bonds as collateral, Fitch Ratings said these repos are vulnerable to fire sales in times of market turmoil, for example when the Fed finally starts increasing interest rates.
June 17, 2015: Repos and repo-like transactions that use stocks or bonds as collateral for loans will be required to be more transparent under new rules reached by the European Union, reported Reuters from London.
June 17, 2015: With repo declining, mutual funds and exchange-traded funds are taking its place, taking short term money and putting it in long term investments, said a Barclays analysis reported by Tracy Alloway with BloombergBusiness.
June 17, 2015: Fitch Ratings is warning that financial institutions that have corporate bonds as repo collateral may not be able to renew the repo loan or sell the collateral if interest rates rise and the value of the bonds falls, and that could trigger market turmoil, reported Joe Rennison of Financial Times.
June 16, 2015: One of the world's biggest clearing houses warns that it may soon reach the limit of its ability to clear repo transactions for clients because regulations are creating a shortage of counterparties, wrote Joe Rennison and Phillip Stafford for Financial Times.
June 11, 2015: Data exists on U.S. repo deals done with middlemen, but there's very little U.S. data on bilateral repos. The Office of Financial Research is trying to collect the bilateral data but they won't get it all, wrote Jonathan Cooper at Securities Finance Monitor.
June 11, 2015: Stricter regulation is gumming up the repo market, wrote reporter Robin Wigglesworth in the Financial Times.
June 10, 2015: Bond prices are more volatile in the post-crisis financial markets and Jonathan Cooper at Securities Finance Monitor wondered if repo lenders are getting enough collateral to cover that potential volatility.
June 10, 2015: Repo lenders are looking for new borrowers as primary dealers cut back, wrote reporter Liz McCormick at BloombergBusiness.
June 8, 2015: The Office of Financial Research, created by the Dodd-Frank Act, is collecting data on the little-known bilateral repo market. "Because the repo market remains vulnerable to runs and asset fire sales, obtaining more information about these transactions will fill an important data gap," director Richard Berner told the Brookings Institution.
June 2, 2015: Efforts are underway to make it easier for corporations to become repo lenders, said an article in Treasury Today and a review of the article by Securities Finance Monitor.
May 28, 2015: "Despite reforms, vulnerabilities (including the reliance on two clearing banks) in the triparty repo market remain large," said the International Monetary Fund in its regular report on the U.S. economy.
May 19, 2015: The repurchase market "continues to pose a significant threat to financial stability" and bilateral repo needs more transparency, said the Financial Stability Oversight Council in its 2015 annual report.
May 13, 2015: For a variety of reasons, riskier deals soared on the tri-party repo market in the years leading up to the market's collapse in 2008 and recently they've begun rising again, but slowly, wrote Liberty Street economists Antoine Martin and Susan McLaughlin in their two-part history of tri-party repo.
May 13, 2015: When Congress threatened to force a default on U.S. debt in 2011 and 2013, the Federal Reserve researched whether in the event of market panic it could lend support to the tri-party repo market, which is one of the pillars of short-term lending on Wall Street, Reuters reported.
May 12, 2015: BNY Mellon, the largest of the two clearing banks for tri-party repo, said today it has met most of the tri-party reforms recommended by regulators and industry leaders after the financial crisis, including "the practical elimination" of intraday credit by reducing it 97 percent.
April 29, 2015: Growing signs suggest that unintended consequences of post-crisis regulations may be making the financial markets more dangerous, wrote Federal Financial Analytics in a new study.
April 2015: To reduce shadow banking risk, all money market funds should have variable NAVs, securitization should be standardized, simplified and more transparent, and reuse of collateral needs greater transparency and more consistent regulation, said the CFA Institute in a 105-page "Shadow Banking" report.
April 27, 2015: Steps taken by regulators to reduce systemic risk still permit significant hidden leverage, such as in the netting of unrelated repo borrowing and lending, wrote financial author and former banker Satyajit Das in the Financial Times.
April 26, 2015: There is "a huge wall of money moving into the capital markets from the banking system" and regulators will assess these private pools of money for systemic risk, David Wright, secretary general of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, told BloombergBusiness reporters.
April 24, 2015: The biggest securities lenders are State Street, Bank of NY Mellon, J.P. Morgan, and Northern Trust, and they usually use the cash they receive to make short-term investments, like prime money market funds do but without Securities and Exchange Commission oversight, wrote J.P. Morgan analysts as reported by Crane Date.
April 23, 2015: The Federal Reserve is worried that asset managers like hedge funds or mutual funds don't have enough cash to withstand large investor withdrawals like those during the 2008 financial crisis, wrote Michael Flaherty and Jonathan Spicer for Reuters.
April 22, 2015: Mortgage backer Ginnie Mae does not have the resources to make sure the non-banks that make most mortgages today are financially secure, wrote Kate Berry for the National Mortgage News.
April 20, 2015: Economists at the New York Fed argued in "Credit Supply and the Housing Boom" that the fundamental factor behind that boom was not relaxed lending standards but instead it was an increase in the supply of mortgage credit, which was brought about by securitization and shadow banking, along with a surge in capital inflows from abroad.
April 20, 2015: Financial regulators know next to nothing about the true level of risk that big banks are exposed to because they still have very little information about money market mutual funds, overnight repurchase agreements, over-the-counter derivatives, and loans to hedge funds, wrote Robert Lenzner in the Financial Times.
April 17, 2015: The cost to borrow overnight in the repo market surged at the end of the first quarter, and the U.S. Treasury is asking Primary Dealers why this happened and how it might be avoided, wrote reporter Karen Brettell for Reuters.
April 15, 2015: Crane Data reported on Barclays analyst Joseph Abate's comments on the future of repo, which he expects regulators will force to get smaller in the coming year.
April 14, 2015: The Office of Financial Research is collecting data on the opaque bilateral repo market and will make aggregated repo data public, Director Richard Berner said in a speech to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.
April 14, 2015: International regulators want repo traders to agree to halt trading briefly when a counterparty stumbles, to give regulators time to resolve the troubled institution and avoid a Lehman-like panic, wrote Katy Burne in the Wall Street Journal.
April 13, 2015: Repurchase transactions may soon move to centralized clearing systems to minimize risk, wrote Liz McCormick at BloombergBusiness.
April. 8, 2015: A new International Monetary Fund report repeats the IMF's concern that trouble may be brewing unseen in the shadow banking industry, wrote Ian Talley in the Wall Street Journal.
April. 7, 2015: "Investors and small firms" are replacing broker-dealers and banks as lenders in the repurchase market, wrote Katy Burne in the Wall Street Journal.
April, 6, 2015: CalPERS, California's enormous public employees' pension system, has become the first big pool of money to agree to be a source of emergency repo financing for a clearinghouse, assuming a role once reserved for investment banks like Lehman Brothers, said Rick Baert, writing for Pensions and Investments.
April 2, 2015: "A shortage of high-quality bonds is disrupting the $2.6 trillion U.S. market for short-term loans known as repurchase agreements," wrote Katy Burne in the Wall Street Journal.
April 2, 2015: Yale professor Gary Gorton, who first explained the role of the repurchase market in the financial crisis of 2007-2009, authored "The Maze of Banking," a collection of his essays published by Oxford University Press.
March 23, 2015: The worst job in investment banking for 2015 is the repo desk as it's being squeezed by regulators, wrote Sarah Butcher for efinancialcareers.
March 22, 2015: Lending in the shadow-banking system finally appears to have bottomed out, a reversal that could presage a long-awaited uptick in U.S. economic growth, wrote Michael J. Casey in the Wall Street Journal.
March 17, 2015: Economist Zoltan Pozsar said regulators will be better able to contain the build-up of risk in shadow banking if they understand the important role that securities financing transactions play in the modern economy, wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Ryan Tracy.
March 8, 2015: No one at the Securities and Exchange Commission oversees the $7.7 trillion corporate bond market, wrote Financial Times reporters Tracy Alloway and Michael Mackenzie, Financial Times.
March 2015: "Investment banks play a key role in capital markets and contribute to the efficient functioning of financial markets. As demonstrated in the recent financial crisis, however, investment banks can create and propagate risks in the financial system," wrote Kushal Balluck in "Investment Banking," Bank of England.
March 4, 2015: "US banks could lose more than 7 per cent of their annual profits to the rapidly expanding group of non-bank financial intermediaries known as 'shadow banks,' according Goldman Sachs," reported Tracy Alloway, Financial Times.
Feb. 27, 2015: Shadow banking – meaning repurchase agreements, money market funds, and commercial paper – is shrinking because of post-crisis regulation, according to a study reported by Liz McCormick at Bloomberg.
Feb. 24, 2015: New rules aimed at increasing bank capital and reducing the risk of a run in the "repo market" — Ground Zero for the financial crisis — are driving many investors to exchange-traded funds, mutual funds and credit default swaps, wrote Tracy Alloway, Financial Times.
Feb. 17, 2015: In a frantic search for yield, investors are gobbling up risky corporate bonds on the shadow banking market, which could freeze like 2008 if many try to sell at once, wrote John Plender, Financial Times.
Feb. 10, 2015: The new eBonds – corporate bonds with an embedded credit default swap derivative – sound a lot like deals that failed in 2008, especially if they use repo financing, wrote Securities Finance Monitor.
Feb. 5, 2015: Leveraged shadow banking, such as repo, is a place where risks still remain, and there's quite a lot of urgency to address them, said former Federal Reserve Governor Jeremy Stein.
Jan. 30, 2015: We still need to address the risks associated with repo and other short-term wholesale funding, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo warned at a conference in Virginia.
Jan. 9, 2015: "Big banks park beat-up energy sector bonds in U.S. money funds" by using the bonds as collateral for repo loans from the money funds, wrote Tim McLaughlin for Reuters.
This entry was posted in Bankruptcy treatment, Collateral, Crisis of 2007-2008, DataWatch, Derivatives, Dodd-Frank Act, Economists on repo, Federal Reserve, Finding a Fix, International repo market, Never say r-word (repo), Primary Dealers, Rehypothecation, Reporting on repo, Securities lending, Shadow banking, Tri-party repo and tagged repos, repurchase agreement, repurchase market, repurchase transaction, Shadow banking. Bookmark the permalink.
Some people have written about the ill effect on our economy due to the rehypothedation market. Please see "Bad Money",by Kevin Philips. However, no one has attributed the current economic malaise to the process of banks using small business equity for their own gambling. If people & small businesses cannot use their own equity to grow their own enterprises, then there is no such thing as free market capitalism!
No wonder that business start ups are at an historic low. They do not have any equity to offer the high priests of finance for their own purposes!


The combined sales tax rate for Clarkdale, GA is 9.35%. This is the total of state, county and city sales tax rates. The Georgia state sales tax rate is currently 5.6%. The Cobb County sales tax rate is 0.75%. Clarkdale sales tax rate is 3%.