victorybull

Author: victorybull

  • California gas utility fined $10 million for ratepayer money misuse

    A major California gas utility must pay the state nearly USD 10 million and reimburse customers money it improperly spent on work related to the development of energy-efficient building codes.

    The penalties that Southern California Gas Co. faces were handed down Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission.

    The commission, which regulates California’s major utilities, in 2018 prohibited the utility from spending any ratepayer money on advocacy work related to building codes after its internal watchdog found the utility fought standards designed to make homes and businesses more energy-efficient.

    Between June 2018 and January 2021, SoCalGas continued to send employees and consultants to participate in workshops, conference calls, and meetings about the development of new state and federal building standards and also withheld key information from the commission, the ruling said.

    The utility showed profound, brazen disrespect for the commission’s authority,” the commission wrote in its ruling.

    Christine Detz, a spokeswoman for the utility, said in a statement that the utility was reviewing the decision and looked forward to further engagement on this issue.” She declined to comment further on Friday.

    The USD 9.8 million fine falls far short of the USD 124 million penalty that was sought by the commission’s watchdog group and by Earthjustice, an environmental legal group that was involved in the proceedings.

    But the fine sent a strong message, said Sara Gersen, a senior attorney for Earthjustice.

    SoCalGas has gone rogue for too long, trying to undermine California’s climate goals and keep Californians reliant on polluting gas appliances. It’s good to finally see some measure of accountability, she said in a statement.

    SoCalGas distributes natural gas to nearly 22 million consumers in central and Southern California, according to its website.

    It’s not the first time the utility has been mired in controversy. A 2015 blowout at the utility’s Aliso Canyon storage facility took almost four months to control and became the largest known natural gas leak in the nation’s history. The utility and its parent company, Sempra Energy, settled with 35,000 plaintiffs for USD 1.8 billion last year.

    This week, the utility settled another lawsuit related to the leak that alleged it violated a California law requiring businesses to warn people about possible exposure to toxic chemicals, the Los Angeles Times reported. The agreement requires the utility to pay USD 1.55 million to the Center for Environmental Health, which filed the lawsuit, the state, and counsel, Detz told the Times.

    The California Public Utilities Commission’s Public Advocates Office, the ratepayer watchdog group, has also alleged the company has improperly used ratepayer money on activities to promote the continued use of natural gas in buses and convincing cities not to encourage electric appliances in new construction. Detz, the utility spokeswoman, did not immediately comment on those claims.

    California has set some of the nation’s most ambitious clean energy goals, and reaching them will require phasing out the use of natural gas.

    That’s already underway in some cities, which have banned gas appliances in new construction.

    The California Energy Commission stopped short of requiring new construction to be all-electric in its most recent update to state building codes. But the use of electric heat pumps is encouraged and new buildings must be electric ready” even if they use natural gas.

    Meanwhile, a recent study by California researchers found that gas-powered stoves are emitting more methane than previously thought, even when turned off. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

    California utilities are allowed to spend ratepayer money to participate in state and federal efforts to update building standards, but only if they’re promoting stricter standards, not weaker ones.

    In 2017, the Public Advocates Office found SoCalGas had been using ratepayer money to fight against the adoption of stricter building codes that would diminish the need for natural gas.

    That prompted the public utility commission in 2018 to prohibit SoCalGas from using ratepayer funds on any activities related to new building standards, regardless of the utility’s position. It did allow them to transfer ratepayer money to other utilities working on such issues.

    The USD 9.8 million fine is a result of the utility continuing to engage in that work by sending employees and consultants to participate in workshops, conference calls, and meetings around the development of new state and federal building standards, the commission wrote in its Thursday decision.

    The bulk of the fine is a USD 10,000 per day charge over 960 days, from June 1, 2018, to Jan. 15, 2021. The ruling also limits incentive payments to shareholders related to energy efficiency programs.

  • Gold investment platform Jar raises $32 million led by Tiger Global

    Savings and investment management platform Jar has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, the company has said .The round also saw participation from Rocketship.vc, Third

    Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures and existing investors including Arkam Ventures and WEH Ventures, the company said on February 3.

    Angel investors, including Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, Suleman Ali of Ali Capital, Shamir Karkal, founder of Sila Money, Byron Ling of Cannan Partners, Joel John of Ledger Prime and Italic founder Jeremy Cai also participated in the round.

    “We are helping people get comfortable with the idea of investing,” founder Nishchay AG said in a statement. “What we have found is that once people build familiarity with investments, they build a habit to invest more. A habit and discipline is clearly being formed and we see a jump of 20 percent in investments month over month by users.”

    The funds will be used to expand the user base and eventually add offerings like savings and other financial services, including lending and insurance.

    The round comes after the company raised $4.5 million in seed funding in August 2021, with the backing of Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital and WEH Ventures.Founded in June 2021 by Nishchay and Misbah Ashraf, the platform aims to encourage Indians to invest small amounts in gold and help them build their savings.

    The Jar app saves a small amount each time a user makes a transaction. The app, which can be allowed to look at the transaction history, rounds up an individual’s daily spendings and puts some money aside as investment.

    Users’ investments in digital gold is backed by physical gold of the same amount and they can choose to withdraw that much gold or liquidate their investments at any time. The company partners with Paytm and Safegold for helping users invest.

    “Hundreds of millions of Indians today don’t have any savings. This, unfortunately, continues to trap many of them in the world of bad debts that some take decades to get out of. We want to help Indians build a habit of saving so they have a financial cushion to fall back on in the time of dire need,” Ashraf said.

    The platform has four million users and the app sees over 100 transactions a minute.”Jar is bringing new users into the online investing space, starting with digital gold as the first product. We are bought into Jar’s mission of helping users build a daily savings habit, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they scale to millions of customers,” Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global, said.

  • Gold investment platform Jar raises $32 million led by Tiger Global

    Savings and investment management platform Jar has raised $32 million in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global, the company has said .The round also saw participation from Rocketship.vc, Third

    Prime, Stonks, Force Ventures and existing investors including Arkam Ventures and WEH Ventures, the company said on February 3.

    Angel investors, including Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, Suleman Ali of Ali Capital, Shamir Karkal, founder of Sila Money, Byron Ling of Cannan Partners, Joel John of Ledger Prime and Italic founder Jeremy Cai also participated in the round.

    “We are helping people get comfortable with the idea of investing,” founder Nishchay AG said in a statement. “What we have found is that once people build familiarity with investments, they build a habit to invest more. A habit and discipline is clearly being formed and we see a jump of 20 percent in investments month over month by users.”

    The funds will be used to expand the user base and eventually add offerings like savings and other financial services, including lending and insurance.

    The round comes after the company raised $4.5 million in seed funding in August 2021, with the backing of Arkam Ventures, Tribe Capital and WEH Ventures.Founded in June 2021 by Nishchay and Misbah Ashraf, the platform aims to encourage Indians to invest small amounts in gold and help them build their savings.

    The Jar app saves a small amount each time a user makes a transaction. The app, which can be allowed to look at the transaction history, rounds up an individual’s daily spendings and puts some money aside as investment.

    Users’ investments in digital gold is backed by physical gold of the same amount and they can choose to withdraw that much gold or liquidate their investments at any time. The company partners with Paytm and Safegold for helping users invest.

    “Hundreds of millions of Indians today don’t have any savings. This, unfortunately, continues to trap many of them in the world of bad debts that some take decades to get out of. We want to help Indians build a habit of saving so they have a financial cushion to fall back on in the time of dire need,” Ashraf said.

    The platform has four million users and the app sees over 100 transactions a minute.”Jar is bringing new users into the online investing space, starting with digital gold as the first product. We are bought into Jar’s mission of helping users build a daily savings habit, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they scale to millions of customers,” Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global, said.

    Users’ investments in digital gold is backed by physical gold of the same amount and they can choose to withdraw that much gold or liquidate their investments at any time. The company partners with Paytm and Safegold for helping users invest.

    “Hundreds of millions of Indians today don’t have any savings. This, unfortunately, continues to trap many of them in the world of bad debts that some take decades to get out of. We want to help Indians build a habit of saving so they have a financial cushion to fall back on in the time of dire need,” Ashraf said.

    The platform has four million users and the app sees over 100 transactions a minute.”Jar is bringing new users into the online investing space, starting with digital gold as the first product. We are bought into Jar’s mission of helping users build a daily savings habit, and we’re excited to partner with the team as they scale to millions of customers,” Alex Cook, Partner at Tiger Global, said.

  • The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may go for a hike of up to 0.25 per cent in the reverse repo rate at which the RBI absorbs excess liquidity and leave the repo rate at which it lends, to narrow the policy rate corridor, a British brokerage said on Thursday.

    “Growth concerns amid spread of the Omicron variant and relatively benign inflation out-turns provide the RBI with enough room to maintain its growth-supportive monetary policies,” analysts at Barclays said, ahead of the resolution announcement next week.The RBI will hike the reverse repo rate by 0.20-0.25 per cent, given its liquidity management actions, it said.

    The brokerage joins a growing list of watchers expecting a reverse repo hike.

    Other analysts also blame the surprising hike in the government borrowing announced in the budget for the RBI’s likely call for policy normalisation.

    Barclays said the budget’s focus on capital expenditure is expected to provide a back-loaded fiscal impulse to the economy and does not change the macro backdrop, which includes concerns on inflation.

    On the surging global oil prices, which generally play into domestic inflation through corresponding price hikes of fuels locally, the brokerage said the inflationary pressures are unlikely to rise before the state elections finish by March, hinting of no pass-through.

    Even though the inflation is benign lately, the RBI needs to be vigilant, it said, pointing to its own forecasts suggesting the headline number staying in the upper end of the 2-6 per cent band and also the crude prices moving higher.

    It said till now, the liquidity signals from the RBI have been mixed, which have included shelving of the bond purchasing programme GSAP, an increase in both the quantum and cut-offs for voluntary reverse repo rate auctions and some bond sales in the secondary market last month.

    The policy guidance will be dovish when compared to RBI’s global peers who have been guiding or announcing rates hikes as inflations become into a concern, it said, adding that inflation in India should trend lower through 2022.

  • Akhilesh Yadav in Noida today years after avoiding it due to ‘jinx’

    Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Akhilesh Yadav is scheduled to address a press conference in Noida on February 3 as part of his poll campaign in Western Uttar Pradesh.

    The seven-phase Uttar Pradesh election beginning February 10 is considered to be a fight between the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Yadav-led Samajwadi Party. Three seats of Gautam Buddh Nagar district – Noida, Jewar, and Dadri –  will go to the polls in the first phase on February 10.This will be Yadav’s first visit to the Noida Gautam Buddha Nagar district which he avoided as chief minister purportedly because of the ‘jinx’ associated with the town neighboring Delhi.

    The political superstition that has stuck to Noida, another name for Gautam Buddh Nagar, for long popular as ‘Noida jinx’ is that visiting the town brings bad luck to chief ministers and hence are not re-elected.

    Yadav’s visit comes after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s remark that he feared visiting the town because of the superstition. Adityanath has been trashing the jinx by his regular visits to the NCR town, even ahead of the Uttar Pradesh polls. During one his of visits earlier this month, Adityanath said that he would beat the “Noida jinx” and come back to power, unlike his predecessors.

    Prime Minister Narendra Modi also criticised leaaders believing in the jinx at his virtual rally addressing voters of western Uttar Pradesh earlier this week.

    Yadav stayed away from Noida as chief minister between 2012 and 2017. He even skipped the Asian Development Bank Summit held in Noida in May 2013. Then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was the chief guest at the event. Yadav would often inaugurate projects in the town virtually. In April 2013, he launched the Rs 3,300-crore development projects, including access to the six-lane Yamuna Expressway, through a video link from Lucknow.

    Yadav even met family members of Dadri lynching victim Mohammad Akhlaq in Lucknow, instead of visiting the family in Dadri. Before him, other Uttar Pradesh Chief Ministers, including, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Kalyan Singh, ND Tiwari, and Rajnath Singh avoided going to Noida as well.

    After his defeat in 2017 assembly polls, Yadav, while on his way to Delhi, briefly stopped  in Noida for five minutes to greet party workers.

  • Sensex climbs 696 points, Nifty ends at 17,780 as Budget cheer continues; banks, financial stocks gain

    The frontline equity indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) settled higher for the third consecutive session, closing with over 1.1 per cent gains on Wednesday as the post-Budget rally continued for the second session with intense buying in banking and financial stocks amid supportive global cues.

    The S&P BSE Sensex surged 695.76 points (1.18 per cent) to end at 59,558.33 while the Nifty 50 rose 203.15 points (1.16 per cent) to settle at 17,780.00. Both the indices had opened over 0.5 per cent higher earlier in the day and extended their gains as the trade progressed.

    On the Sensex pack, IndusInd Bank and Bajaj Finserv were the top gainers of the day ending with over 5 per cent gains. They were followed by HCL Technologes, Bajaj Finance, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Axis Bank, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, HDFC Bank and Wipro. On the other hand, Tech Mahindra, Nestle India, Ultratech Cement, Maruti Suzuki India, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Sun Pharamaceutical Industries were the biggest laggards.

  • Dalal Street cheers Union Budget as Sensex climbs 848 points, Nifty settles at 17,577

    The benchmark equity indices on the BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) ended nearly 1.5 per cent higher following a volatile session of trade on the Budget day as market participants reacted positively to the big infrastructure boost in the Budget 2022 delivered by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

    The S&P BSE Sensex rose 848.40 points (1.46 per cent) to settle at 58,862.57 while the Nifty 50 climbed 237.00 points (1.37 per cent) to end at 17,576.85. Earlier in the day both the indices opened over 0.8 per cent higher and rose around 1.7 per cent with the Sensex hitting a high of 59,032.20 and Nifty touching 17,622.40 during the FM’s budget speech.

  • Power consumption grows 2.6% in January

    India’s power consumption grew marginally at 2.6 per cent year-on-year in January to 112.67 billion units (BU), showing the impact of local restrictions imposed by states amid the third wave of COVID-19.

    Power consumption in the entire January last year was 109.76 BU, which was 4.4 per cent higher than 105.15 BU in January 2020, as per the power ministry data.According to the data, peak power demand met or highest supply in a day rose to 192.07GW in the month under review compared to 189.39 GW in January 2021, and 170.97 GW in January 2020.

    Experts are of the view that the slowdown in power consumption growth in the fortnight of January has shown the impact of local restrictions imposed by states amid the third wave of COVID-19.

    They opined that the local restriction had affected industrial and commercial demand. The third wave of the pandemic hit the country in January 2022, which has forced many states to impose local restrictions like night and weekend curfews.

    They have also taken measures like banning dining in bars and restaurants. The experts opined that the power demand and consumption would improve in the coming months as many states are now lifting local restrictions after a decline in the number of positive cases.

    Power consumption had grown by 3.3 per cent in December 2021 to 109.17 BU from 105.62 BU in the year-ago period. In November 2021, power consumption grew by 2.5 per cent to 99.32 BU from 96.88 BU a year ago.

    In November 2021, power consumption grew by 2.5 per cent to 99.32 BU from 96.88 BU a year ago. Many states had imposed lockdown restrictions after the second wave of the pandemic in April 2021, which affected the recovery in commercial and industrial power demand.

    Curbs were gradually lifted as the number of COVID cases fell. Curbs were gradually lifted as the number of COVID cases fell. Power consumption witnessed a 6.6 per cent year-on-year growth in May 2021 at 108.80 BU, from 102.08 BU in the same month of 2020.

    In June 2021, it grew nearly 9 per cent to 114.48 BU, compared to 105.08 BU in the same month in 2020. In June 2021, it grew nearly 9 per cent to 114.48 BU, compared to 105.08 BU in the same month in 2020.

    In July 2021, it rose to 123.72 BU from 112.14 BU year-on-year, while in August, power consumption surged by over 17 per cent to 127.88 BU compared to 109.21 BU in the same month a year back.Power consumption in September 2021 witnessed flat growth at 112.43 BU, mainly due to the delayed monsoon. In October 2021, power consumption grew at 3.3 per cent to 112.79 BU from 109.17 BU in the same month in 2020.

  • BlackBerry to Sell Patents Related to Mobile Devices, Messaging for $600 Million

    BlackBerry Ltd said on Monday it will sell its legacy patents primarily related to mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking for $600 million to a special purpose vehicle formed to acquire the company’s patent assets.

    BlackBerry said the transaction with the vehicle, Catapult IP Innovations Inc, will not impact customers’ use of its products or services.

    The move comes weeks after BlackBerry pulled the plug on service for its once ubiquitous business smartphones, which were toted by executives, politicians and legions of fans in the early 2000s.

    U.S-listed shares of BlackBerry were down 3.6% in premarket trading. One of the so-called “meme stocks”, such as GameStop and AMC Entertainment, that witnessed a surge in early 2021, BlackBerry rose 41% last year.

    At the closing of the deal, the company will receive $450 million in cash and a promissory note for $150 million.

    Once known for its phones with a tiny QWERTY physical keyboard and the BBM instant messaging service, BlackBerry’s core businesses today are cybersecurity and software used by automakers.

  • Sensex down 4,000 points: What should mutual fund investors do?

    The year 2022 started on a volatile note with capital markets across asset classes witnessing a sharp correction amid investor concerns over tighter monetary policy settings in 2022 and geopolitical tensions. The benchmark index BSE Sensex has fallen over 3,000 points in the last 15 days, which is in line with the fall in global equity markets seen during the month. From its 52-week high levels, the index is down by 4,000 points, at 58,000. The expectations and uncertainty surrounding the Union Budget also led to volatility in equity markets. 

    Midcap and small caps have witnessed higher volatility in the last few months after having outperformed in the last two years. Year-to-date, mid cap mutual funds on an average have fallen by 2.5% and small cap funds have gone down by slightly over 2%. In fact, all equity mutual fund categories are in red YTD, except for banking and PSU funds.

    Technology funds, after remaining the best performers for a long duration, have taken the maximum hit of an average 12% YTD, followed by pharma sector schemes (-8.5%) and international schemes (-7.5%). Large cap funds, flexi cap funds and large & mid cap funds have plummeted by little over 2%.

    Investors should consider this fall as an opportunity to add more investments. In general, a 10% correction is an attractive enough “dip” to follow the time and tested “buy on dips” allocation strategy, says Sachin Jain, research analyst, ICICI Securities. “Investors may, therefore, allocate some lumpsum amount at current levels apart from their regular SIPs,” he adds.

    For the large cap segment, as per Rushabh Desai, founder of Rupee With Rushabh Investment Service, corrections anywhere between 10% and15% and for the mid and small cap segments, 15-25%, are considered to be decent correction pockets. However, even with the current correction and the company earnings prices and valuations in many segments in the equity markets remains high or expensive. Also, with the fear of new Covid-19 variants, supply chain disruption, high inflation, liquidity tightening and normalisation of policy rates (rate hikes) process etc. markets will remain volatile especially if company earnings don’t outperform, he explains. Thus, 2022 is the year to be extra cautious.

    For lumpsum investors who have investable amount, Desai suggests waiting for a decent and a deeper correction pocket before deploying their money. SIP investors should continue their investments and need not worry. Correction pockets should be looked at as an opportunity to invest for the long term.

    “This is a good time to assess your overall portfolio and reallocate your capital to schemes where the valuations are comfortable,” says Divam Sharma, co-founder of Green Portfolio, a SEBI-registered portfolio management service. He recommends value funds to be preferred over growth funds in the current markets and believes that IPO and start-up related funds should be avoided for now.