CBS - CBS Corporation
| Previous Close | 36.75 |
| Open | 36.91 |
| Bid | 36.57 x 800 |
| Ask | 36.58 x 800 |
| Day's Range | 36.35 - 37.08 |
| 52 Week Range | 36.25 - 59.56 |
| Volume | 3,453,190 |
| Avg. Volume | 4,480,623 |
| Market Cap | 13.394B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 1.02 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 4.49 |
| EPS (TTM) | 8.13 |
| Earnings Date | Nov 12, 2019 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 0.72 (1.96%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-09-09 |
| 1y Target Est | 54.48 |
- Yahoo Finance Video
Brexit and earnings biggest factors moving markets
Yahoo Fianance's Julie Hyman, Adam Shapiro, Brian Sozzi, Andy Serwer and Charlie Bobrinskoy - Ariel Investments Vice Chairman Head of Investment Group, Portfolio Manager discuss.
- Yahoo Finance Video
Macquarie upgrades Roku to ‘outperform’, raises PT to $130
Roku shares ended higher on Wednesday after getting an upgrade from Macquarie, whose analysts think the company can triple by 2022 (from 2019 guidance) because Netflix was able to do it. The firm also raised Roku's price target by $20 to $130, acknowledging that even though the competition is real (especially from Amazon), the playing field is big. Myles Udland and Akiko Fujita discuss the bullish call.
- GuruFocus.com
52-Week Company Lows
Simon Property Group, EOG Resources and others may present buying opportunities Continue reading...
- Barrons.com
The Ugly Details in CBS’s and Viacom’s Latest Merger Filing
CBS and Viacom had news that Wall Street didn’t like—on page 117 of a 793-page document offering details about the companies’ merger. Management expects the combined company to produce less profit and lower cash flows than Wall Street anticipated.
- Financial Times
Corporate break-ups: spin cycle
Swedish fund manager Carnegie Fonder, itself a spin-off, is the latest to jump on the bandwagon, or “super trend” as it prefers to call it. A new fund will take positions and jostle boards when it thinks spin-offs can create value. Divestments or spin-offs were called for in a quarter of the cases of European activism. The trend is driven by the hope that faster-growing or trendier parts of large companies will command higher stock market ratings.
- Insider Monkey
Hedge Funds Piled Into CBS Corporation (CBS) At The Wrong Time
Billionaire hedge fund managers such as David Abrams, Steve Cohen and Stan Druckenmiller can generate millions or even billions of dollars every year by pinning down high-potential small-cap stocks and pouring cash into these candidates. Small-cap stocks are overlooked by most investors, brokerage houses, and financial services hubs, while the nearly unlimited research abilities of […]
- American City Business Journals
Contract extension to keep Florida-Georgia in Jacksonville expected to be done soon
A new contract extension to keep the ‘World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party’ in Jacksonville will be in place “very soon”, according to the city’s director of public affairs Nikki Kimbleton. Kimbleton declined to give more details on current contract negotiations when asked. Athletic directors Greg McGarity (Georgia) and Scott Stricklin (Florida) also declined to comment.
- Bloomberg
U.S. Poised to Sanction Turkey as Syria Incursion Escalates
(Bloomberg) -- The U.S. is poised to impose sanctions on Turkey as soon as Monday in response to the nation’s advance into Syria, according to people familiar with the matter, days after President Donald Trump cleared the way for Turkey to launch its offensive by pulling American forces from the area.The initial round of penalties would most likely be aimed at a wide range of individuals and was prepared for Trump’s approval, according to one of the people. The departments of State, Defense and Treasury worked over the weekend to draft the terms, the people said.The Trump administration is leaving open the option of penalties aimed at military transactions, arms exports and energy shipments to the Turkish military, two people said. All of the people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.The move is an effort to contain the damage from Trump’s decision to stand aside if Turkey entered northern Syria, essentially giving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a green light to carry out the operation. Erdogan says the offensive is necessary to push back Kurdish militants and resettle refugees, but the rapid advance into Syria has drawn international condemnation and accusations of war crimes.Trump’s decision exposed American-allied Kurdish militias to attack, risking a resurgence of Islamic State and a slaughter of the Kurds. Kurdish forces that previously fought alongside the U.S. have warned they may no longer be able to secure camps and prisons holding Islamic State jihadists, including Europeans whose home countries don’t want them back.Lira FallsThe Turkish lira lost as much as 0.94% to session low 5.9384 per dollar. The currency soon pared its drop, down 0.62% to 5.9197 per dollar at 3:32 p.m. New York time. Month-to-date, the lira has sunk more than 4.5%, the worst performer among 24 emerging-market currencies tracked by Bloomberg.Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday that the administration was also weighing sanctions against Turkish financial institutions, a move that would hit its economy hard because they are heavily reliant on the dollar. Yet since Mnuchin’s remarks, critics have warned that any new measures from the U.S. would have limited effect because telegraphing sanctions would encourage asset flight.”The time lag allows adversaries and targets to set the conditions on the ground,” said Eric Lorber, a former sanctions adviser in Mnuchin’s Treasury department. “This means that sanctions on Turkey face significant obstacles to success, namely that Turkey may be able establish advantageous facts on the ground before sanctions have a chance to seriously bite.”Treasury and the White House declined to comment.Trump has defended his decision to withdraw troops, tweeting on Monday that the U.S. was “not going into another war with people who have been fighting with each other for 200 years.” He also suggested the Kurds may be releasing prisoners “to get us involved.”Trump later tweeted: “Some people want the United States to protect the 7,000 mile away Border of Syria, presided over by Bashar al-Assad, our enemy. At the same time, Syria and whoever they chose to help, wants naturally to protect the Kurds.”But Trump’s decision was met with fierce criticism from allies in Washington, including Senator Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican has been working on legislation to sanction Turkey for the invasion and said Sunday that he spoke with Trump about it over the weekend.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among lawmakers concerned that Trump will not impose strong enough sanctions.“As we find ourselves in a situation where the President gave a green light to the Turks to bomb and effectively unleashed ISIS, we must have a stronger sanctions package than what the White House is suggesting,” Pelosi tweeted Monday.Execution of KurdsAsked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” about videos circulating that appear to show the execution of some Kurds, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said if true, they “would be war crimes” -- raising questions about whether talk of imposing economic sanctions may be coming too late.Esper said the U.S. learned in the past 24 hours that Turkey is likely to attack further south and to the west in Syria, and that Kurdish forces are looking to cut a deal with Syria and Russia to counterattack against the Turks in the north.The defense secretary said he spoke with Trump on Saturday night, and that after discussions with the national security team, the president directed the start of the withdrawal of forces from northern Syria but not the entire country. Trump and Esper are scheduled to meet again on Tuesday.(Updates with Trump tweet in 11th paragraph.)\--With assistance from Nick Wadhams and George Lei.To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Saleha Mohsin in Washington at smohsin2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum, Joshua GalluFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
'Peak TV' Might Also Mean Peak Employment in Hollywood
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Working in the media can be lots of fun, but it hasn’t been the greatest place to build a career over the past two decades. Employment at print publishers has plummeted with the rise of the internet, and broadcasters have downsized too. The jobs created in new media, which in Bureau of Labor Statistics’ employment data fall mostly in the ungainly category of internet publishing and broadcasting and web search portals, come nowhere close to making up for the losses elsewhere since 2000.Still, there is one old media sector that has been holding up just fine: There are 11% more jobs in motion picture and sound recording industries in 2019 than there were in 2000.It sure isn’t the music business that’s driving these gains: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment in the industry is down almost 40% since 2001. There has been an increase in employment in motion picture and video exhibition, which may in part be due to the rise of more labor-intensive movie theaters that serve alcoholic beverages and nice food.(5) But most of job gains have come in motion picture and video production. In other words, Hollywood!The numbers above understate the total employment effect, as more jobs in motion picture and video production also mean more jobs for accountants, carpenters, caterers and all sorts of other people. And while we call it “Hollywood,” lots of the jobs are actually in New York, Atlanta and other locales.But it’s the trajectory that interests me here. Why has film and TV production held up so much better than other legacy media industries? And what’s up with that rise in the 1990s, the long flat stretch after 2000, and the rise from 2013 through 2017?In answer to the first question, Hollywood catered to a national, even global audience almost from the beginning, and thus hasn’t suffered from the collapse of local media business models in the way that newspapers and parts of broadcasting have. Relatedly, it also wasn’t so advertising-dependent, and thus has been less vulnerable to Facebook and Google’s conquest of the advertising industry. And while competition from user-generated media and video games has taken screen time away from Hollywood’s products and will continue to do so, there’s clearly still a lot of demand for high-quality narrative video.As for why Hollywood employment has risen over some periods but not others, I took a stab at annotating the chart.OK, the 1990s employment gains probably weren’t all or even mostly about HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show.” That acclaimed comedy was an early (although far from the earliest) landmark in the rise of original series paid for by cable channels, which provided a lucrative new outlet for makers of TV series who previously had only the three big broadcast networks to sell to. Others included cartoons such as Nickelodeon’s “Ren and Stimpy” (which premiered in 1991) and MTV’s “Beavis and Butt-Head” (1993), and early reality series such as MTV’s “The Real World” (1992) and “Road Rules” (1994). Later in the decade came HBO’s high-end scripted series “Sex and the City” (1998) and “The Sopranos” (1999). Boom times for U.S. movie makers may have had as much or more impact on the 1990s jobs numbers than TV did. Domestic ticket sales rose after a flat 1980s, foreign markets grew in importance and the rise of the DVD created a big new revenue stream. From 1990 to 1998, according to consulting firm Monitor Deloitte, the number of U.S.-developed theatrical films rose 67%, from 319 to 534, while the number of U.S.-developed TV productions of all sorts rose 36%, from 397 to 541. Those higher production volumes brought pressure to cut costs. One reaction was to do more filming abroad. Another was to increase reliance on reality shows, which usually require a lot fewer people (especially unionized people such as actors and writers) than scripted programs. Competition-based reality TV first took off in Europe in the 1990s, and after CBS brought “Big Brother” (originally from the Netherlands) and “Survivor” (from the U.K. and Sweden) to the U.S. in 2000, the format for a time seemed destined to completely take over broadcast TV here. Hollywood was able to keep employment steady through this reality-TV onslaught thanks to overseas movie markets plus continued growth in the number of scripted shows on cable, but the trend did not seem to be the industry’s friend.Then Netflix came to the rescue with “House of Cards,” the first of a flood of original programming that it and rival streaming providers commissioned to lure and keep customers. The number of scripted series for television nearly doubled from 2011 to 2018, according to FX Networks, with streaming services accounting for the vast majority of the gains.Can it continue? The 495 scripted series that aired in 2018 amounted to only a modest rise over 2017’s 487, a slowdown that seems to be reflected in the jobs numbers. The past few years might turn out to have been “peak TV,” and peak employment in motion picture and video production might turn out to have come and gone.Or it might not. This has proved to be quite the resilient industry, after all. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is still projecting a 5.5% increase in motion picture and video industry(2) employment through 2018. The narrow occupational categories expected to see the biggest employment gains are:film and video editors, 3,800 new jobs producers and directors, 3,000 new jobsPart of what’s going on is that social media networks, YouTube and other nontraditional content channels — and advertisers —are hungry for programming that doesn’t require Hollywood-level production budgets but does still need people to create, direct, edit and produce it. These generally aren’t Martin-Scorsese-type jobs. Still, if you’ve always wanted to direct, it’s nice to know that you needn’t give up hope just yet.(1) The number of waiters and waitresses working in motion picture and video industries has risen from 510 in 2010 to 3,510in 2018, and the number of bartenders from 150 to 1,910.(2) That is, including distribution, exhibition and post-production as well as production.To contact the author of this story: Justin Fox at justinfox@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business. He was the editorial director of Harvard Business Review and wrote for Time, Fortune and American Banker. He is the author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Yahoo Finance
Jaguars' Shad Khan: 'It's taken a while' for NFL owners to warm to betting
“The NFL has really been obsessed with the integrity of the sport," the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars said.
- Financial Times
Kurds strike deal with Russia and Syria to stem Turkish assault
, in a dramatic shift that came just hours after Donald Trump ordered the evacuation of the remaining US forces in the country’s north-east. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had agreed with the Damascus government that the Syrian army should enter the Kurdish-controlled territory and deploy along the Syrian-Turkish border. The aim, the group said, was to protect Syria’s territorial integrity and “liberate areas entered by the Turkish army and its hired mercenaries” — a reference to Ankara-aligned Syrian rebels that oppose the regime.
- Simply Wall St.
Does CBS (NYSE:CBS) Have A Healthy Balance Sheet?
The external fund manager backed by Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger, Li Lu, makes no bones about it when he says...
- Bloomberg
Iranian Oil Tanker Attacked as Middle East Tensions Remain High
(Bloomberg) -- Iran said missiles struck one of its tankers in the Red Sea, the latest in a series of attacks on oil infrastructure in the region that have roiled energy markets.The Islamic Republic’s tanker company initially said the attacks probably came from Saudi Arabia, but later withdrew the claim. The incident, which caused a spill and a jump of as much as 2.6% in crude prices, comes weeks after a devastating attack on major Saudi oil facilities that Riyadh blamed on Tehran.Tensions have been rising steadily in the region since U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from an international nuclear deal with Iran and imposed harsh sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Although so far all sides have said they want to avoid war, there’s a growing risk to supplies from the world’s most important oil-producing region.“The market has been entirely too complacent given that we are one security incident away from a war,” said Helima Croft, chief commodities strategist at RBC Capital Markets.The Sabiti, a tanker capable of carrying 1 million barrels a of crude, was damaged on Friday near the Saudi port of Jeddah after being hit by suspected missiles, Iranian state media said. The explosions on the tanker occurred between 5:00 and 5:20 a.m. local time damaging two of its main oil tanks, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.A spokesman for the National Iranian Tanker Company, initially said in a call with Iran’s Press TV that the missiles probably came from the direction of Saudi Arabia. NITC later withdrew that claim in a statement.The ship was hit twice within a 30-minute interval from the east of the Red Sea near its crossing route, Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said on Telegram. The Iranian authorities presented no further evidence of the nature or origin of the attack.The Saudi Ports Authority confirmed that an incident involving a tanker had occurred near the port of Jeddah overnight, but was unable to verify if the vessel was Iranian, according to a press officer.After initially saying the spill from the tanker had been halted and the damage minimized, the Iranian oil ministry’s Shana news service said crude was again flowing into the Red Sea. No one has provided any assistance to the damaged ship, Al-Alam news channel reported, citing Nasrollah Sardashti, head of NITC.Oil AttacksThe Sabiti was fully laden with crude and heading toward the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea, according to Florian Thaler, chief executive of data analytics firm OilX. On its previous voyages it has carried Iranian crude to the East Mediterranean he said.According to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, the vessel was under way using its engine and heading south at a speed of 9.6 knots as of 8:45 a.m. London time. Its destination was listed as Larak, an Iranian island in the Strait of Hormuz.Oil prices jumped above $60 a barrel in London after the attack. Despite the growing risk to Middle Eastern supplies, crude prices have been depressed by fears of an economic slowdown due to the U.S.-China trade dispute. Brent is still lower than it was before the Sept. 14 drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities last month that briefly cut global supplies by 5%, the worst sudden disruption in history.In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman warned that conflict between his country and Iran would lead to a “total collapse of the global economy” and should be avoided. The Foreign Ministry of China, which gets a significant proportion of its oil imports from the Persian Gulf, urged restraint on Friday in order to safeguard peace and stability in the area.The attack on the Sabiti came a day before Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is scheduled to visit Tehran for talks on how to reduce tensions with Saudi Arabia, Iranian lawmaker and member of the parliamentary commission for national security, Heshmattolah Falahatpisheh, said in an interview with the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency. Khan was one of several leaders who unsuccessfully tried to broker dialogue between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations General Assembly last month.The Pentagon said on Friday that it’s sending more U.S. forces to the Middle East to “assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia” against Iran. Overall about 3,000 personnel are being deployed or having their missions extended in the region, including a previously promised delivery of additional Patriot and Thaad missile defense systems.(A previous version of this story corrected the job title and company name of Florian Thaler.)\--With assistance from Dan Murtaugh, Dandan Li, Golnar Motevalli, Verity Ratcliffe, Dana Khraiche, Julian Lee, Chloe Whiteaker and Adrian Leung.To contact the reporters on this story: Golnar Motevalli in Tehran at gmotevalli@bloomberg.net;Arsalan Shahla in Dubai at ashahla@bloomberg.net;Yasna Haghdoost in Beirut at yhaghdoost@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Ramsey Al-Rikabi at ralrikabi@bloomberg.net, James Herron, Christopher SellFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Benzinga
This Day In Market History: FCC Begins Licensing Color Broadcasts
When viewers weren’t tuned in to NBC, which boasted the top six shows for the 1950-1951 season, they were reading the earliest "Peanuts" comic strips. The FCC’s Joint Technical Advisory Committee approved the CBS color broadcasting system as the first industry standard. NBC eventually ran the first show with a compatible color system, as well as the first color primetime series.
- Bloomberg
Warren’s Pregnancy Discrimination Story Is No Outlandish Tale
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A core biographical element of Elizabeth Warren’s stump speech — that in the 1970s she lost a job as a public school teacher when her pregnancy became apparent — came in for scrutiny this week after a conservative website, the Washington Free Beacon, went hunting through 1971 New Jersey school board records.Never mind that the records don’t contradict Warren’s story, or that it took place years before the national Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, or that other teachers at her school told CBS that there was a “rule” that pregnant teachers had to leave once they started to show. The doubts raised about this story create a cloud of dishonesty around Warren, just as the Ukraine affair stirs up a murk of corruption around Joe Biden. That’s the way politics works in 2019: Mud doesn’t have to be real to stick to you.But the mudslinging at Warren’s early-career story of pregnancy discrimination is particularly pernicious, because it besmirches not only her, but also all working women. More than 80% of women become mothers, and most have jobs when they find out they’re pregnant. Nonmothers may be seen by employers as “potential mothers” — hence the how-are-we-still-discussing-this advice that a woman should remove her wedding ring before a job interview. The accusation that Warren lied will gain traction because many people believe a bigger lie — that claims of pregnancy discrimination and sexism are exaggerated.But to this day, significant bias against mothers and mothers-to-be persists. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Joan C. Williams and Amy Cuddy observe that although people generally understand that explicitly stating their biases at work is a bad idea, “many remain surprisingly open about their bias against one subset of employees: caregivers, particularly working mothers.”A study led by Shelley Correll at Cornell and published in 2007 found that mothers were expected to be more credentialed and committed than other employees, but offered less money: $11,000 less than childless women and $13,000 less than fathers. Mothers were half as likely to be hired as equally qualified nonmothers were. These findings align with decades of research finding that mothers and visibly pregnant women are seen as less competent than childless women, while fathers pay no such price. The gender pay gap widens so much with a first child — starting in the year before the birth — that many researchers have concluded it’s essentially a motherhood penalty.Pregnant women often find that discrimination begins as soon as they disclose their pregnancy, or, as in Warren’s case, as soon as they can no longer hide it. Erin Murphy’s boss at Glencore told her during a performance review that she was “one of the hardest working” people on the team, as well as “diligent, conscientious and determined.” After she got pregnant with her first child, he told her it would “definitely plateau” her career, something he seems to have personally ensured.For lower-earning women, announcing a pregnancy can lead not to a plateau, but a cliff. The Center for Work Life Law issued a report in 2011 — 40 years after Warren lost that job — finding that such women can still lose their jobs with shocking speed. A receptionist at a day spa was fired within hours of sharing the happy news; a telephone operator the following day; a restaurant worker within two weeks. According to complaints filed, the women’s managers justified these actions by saying the pregnant women were “too moody” or “less agile,” explaining that they were coming up on a busy season or protesting that they couldn’t afford to offer even an unpaid leave. One boss simply blurted, “That’s not going to work.”Bigger, better-lawyered companies tend to be savvier about how they go about this, stopping short of “firing,” but the results are the same. Rachel Mountis was an award-winning salesperson for Merck, and in 2009 was promoted for her stellar results. The next year, though, she became pregnant, and the company laid her off only weeks before her due date, calling it a downsizing. In 2017, pregnant Walmart warehouse employee Whitney Tomlinson said that after she asked for an unscheduled break and a bit of help with the heavy lifting, her supervisors pressured her to apply for unpaid leave, called her a “liability,” and then told her she couldn’t return to work until she gave birth. Try affording that on $15 an hour.Opposition researchers want to neutralize Elizabeth Warren’s personal story precisely because it’s a powerful one. But what makes it powerful isn’t that it’s unusual. It’s that it’s so infuriatingly common.To contact the author of this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Sarah Green Carmichael is an editor with Bloomberg Opinion. She was previously managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barron’s, and an executive editor at Harvard Business Review, where she hosted the HBR Ideacast. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Business Wire
DeDe Lea Named Executive Vice President, Global Public Policy and Government Relations, ViacomCBS
Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAB, VIA) and CBS (NYSE:CBS.A and CBS) today jointly announced that Doretha (DeDe) Lea has been named Executive Vice President, Global Public Policy and Government Relations of ViacomCBS, effective upon closing of the proposed merger between Viacom and CBS. In her role, Lea will oversee all government affairs and public policy work for the combined company domestically and internationally. “DeDe has been an incredible advocate for Viacom, our audiences and the creative community over the past two decades,” said Bakish.
- American City Business Journals
'60 Minutes' to trim down to 6 minutes for Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi
Quibi is adding to its lineup of content partners, announcing its second programming deal with a news organization in as many days. Jeffrey Katzenberg’s forthcoming mobile-first platform is partnering with CBS News on "60 in 6," a weekly news show that will deliver "60 Minutes"-style stories in about six minutes, tailored for a mobile platform and audience and coming from a dedicated team of correspondents and producers. "This is a perfect opportunity to bring '60 Minutes'' style of storytelling, in-depth reporting and investigative journalism to a new audience," said the program's executive producer Bill Owens in a statement.
- Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia Can’t Escape Khashoggi’s Shadow
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Last October, a few days after the murder of the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, I found myself in the thicket of TV cameras outside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. Standing a few dozen feet from the scene of the crime, I marveled at the international attention being devoted to the killing of a member of my professional tribe—and wondered how long this interest would last.A few weeks, I guessed, maybe a couple of months; my professional cynicism doesn’t allow for much optimism.For journalists, murder is an occupational hazard. In the year of Khashoggi’s murder alone, 53 journalists were killed, at least 34 of them as a direct consequence of their work. Only a handful of those murders made the international headlines — the four Capital Gazette journalists shot dead by a gunman in Annapolis, Raed Fares of Radio Fresh, assassinated by the regime in Syria — and even then, just for a few days. I reckoned the Khashoggi killing would fade from the collective memory in the same way.It’s a safe bet that the people responsible for the killing, from those who ordered and planned it to those responsible for its execution and the botched cover-up that followed, were hoping that the world would quickly forget another dead journalist. Their professional cynicism allows for optimism.Yet that one murder refuses to fade away. When I returned to the consulate on the evening of the first anniversary of Khashoggi’s killing, there was another thicket of cameras. As I stood there, I used my phone to read about memorial events and demonstrations in Paris, Berlin and The Hague. For journalists, this is a comfort. For the Saudi authorities, it is a continuing crisis: Khashoggi is Banquo’s Ghost, haunting the kingdom and its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The specter of the murdered columnist has cast an ectoplasmic pall over efforts by the Saudi prince to deflect blame. A United Nations rapporteur assigned to investigate Khashoggi’s murder reiterated on Monday that Prince Mohammed “has a responsibility in relationship to the killing.” The CIA believes he gave the order.Last week, MBS — as the prince is commonly known — tried again to change the narrative. In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes,” he allowed that, since the killing had taken place “on my watch,” he had responsibility. But he undercut his case by arguing that he could not know what all 3 million of his government’s officials were doing at any given time.The questioning about Khashoggi must be especially frustrating for MBS at a moment when Saudi Arabia badly needs the world’s attention — and sympathy. Less than a month has passed since the kingdom’s largest oil installations were disabled by attacks, the presumed handiwork of Iran. And in less than a month, his pet project — the initial public offering of Saudi Aramco, potentially the world’s most valuable firm — will be put to the test. It also clouds the recent flurry of economic and social reforms MBS has instigated. If the prince is given to introspection, he might ask himself why the world won’t let him be rid of this meddlesome journalist. He can, if he is so inclined, pick from any number of explanations: the brazenness of the killing; the ineptitude of the killers; the doggedness of the U.S. media, and especially of the Washington Post; the outrage of the American Congress; the opportunism of Turkish authorities, and especially of MBS’s bete noire, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.He might wonder, too, whether the steadfast support of President Trump is the boon it first appeared to be — or if the endorsement is more of a curse.MBS could also ponder whether it is possible, at this late date, to set things right: by allowing the trial of 11 suspects to take place under international monitoring, and by adding to their ranks his major domo, Saud al-Qahtani. Or, Prince Mohammed can pin his hopes to the passage of more time, and bet that the world will not be asking about Jamal Khashoggi a year from now. For all my professional cynicism, I wouldn’t be optimistic about that.To contact the author of this story: Bobby Ghosh at aghosh73@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gibney at jgibney5@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Bobby Ghosh is a columnist and member of the Bloomberg Opinion editorial board. He writes on foreign affairs, with a special focus on the Middle East and the wider Islamic world.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- PR Newswire
CBS Corporation To Report Third Quarter 2019 Results On Tuesday, November 12
NEW YORK , Oct. 1, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- CBS Corporation (NYSE: CBS.A and CBS) announced today that it will report results for the third quarter 2019 before the market opens on Tuesday, November 12, 2019 ...
- Bloomberg
Elizabeth Warren Is More Health-Care Cipher Than Firebrand
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Health insurance stocks touched their lowest point of 2019 last week, with some in the market citing the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump and the rise of Senator Elizabeth Warren in Democratic presidential polls as twin reasons for the decline. The thinking is, anything that boosts Democrats’ chances in the 2020 election would be bad for the industry, with most of the party’s candidates calling for at least some type of shake-up to the current health-care system. And Warren’s support of “Medicare for All” makes her a particular threat to the status quo, as that type of sweeping plan would largely eliminate private insurance.The sector certainly would rather have the more moderate Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, so it’s not surprising to see investors get jittery as Warren gains ground on the former vice president. Some also worry that her pro-consumer and generally interventionist bent might put a damper on dealmaking. Whether it was those concerns or the prospect of drug-pricing reform, biotech shares had a rough week as well.Just how much of a threat would a Warren presidency pose to the current health-care system? A review of the Massachusetts senator’s policy position and recent messaging suggests a more nuanced attitude than many market participants fear. In fact, in many ways, she’s more a health-care cipher than firebrand.Warren has detailed and unique policy proposals for tackling many issues — from student debt to big tech to income inequality — but the health-care portion of her website is conspicuously sparse. It mentions her support for Medicare for All and guaranteed coverage but offers few details on her preferred structure, implementation, or financing of such a plan.As recently as this spring, Warren’s health-care message was relatively broad. She said on more than one occasion that there are multiple paths to universal and affordable coverage. Her position hardened at the first Democratic primary debate in June, when she said she was “with Bernie on Medicare for All” – referring to her support of a universal health plan like the one championed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders – but there’s still lingering ambiguity. After the most recent debate in September, Warren once again said she remains open to other options in answer to a CBS reporter’s question.What this means is that single-payer fans are free to assume she wants exactly what they do: universal government-financed coverage that’s free at the point of care. At the same time, more moderate voters and hopeful managed-care investors can see someone who might be open to more incremental steps. It’s arguably a savvy strategy; it gives Warren broader appeal and certainly doesn’t appear to be hurting her in the polls.An “all-of-the-above” approach arguably makes sense from a policy perspective. A four-year transition to a single-payer system gets mixed reviews from voters and might be hard to achieve, whereas concurrently working on easier-to-pass bills that boost the Affordable Care Act, introduce a public option, or allow Medicare buy-in could help a lot of people while Democrats hammer out the details of and build support for more significant change.None of this is to say that a Warren presidency would be insurer-friendly. Her rhetoric tends to single out the industry as profiteers that get in the way of care, and her pioneering research into high rates of medical bankruptcy is a big part of her political origin story. It’s also still early in the campaign, and as she fleshes out her plans in greater detail, they may confirm a more radical approach. But it’s hard to watch her campaign and believe that she would focus single-mindedly on the pursuit of universal health care as envisioned by Bernie Sanders at the expense of other policy priorities.To contact the author of this story: Max Nisen at mnisen@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Beth Williams at bewilliams@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Max Nisen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, pharma and health care. He previously wrote about management and corporate strategy for Quartz and Business Insider.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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Saudi Crown Prince Says Iran War Would Bring Down Global Economy
(Bloomberg) -- Terms of Trade is a daily newsletter that untangles a world embroiled in trade wars. Sign up here. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman warned that war between his country and Iran would lead to a “total collapse of the global economy” and should be avoided.In comments that echo clear signals from the Trump administration that it doesn’t want to resort to conflict to punish Iran for disputed attacks on Saudi oil facilities, the prince said a “political and peaceful solution is much better than the military one.”“Oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes,” he said of any war. Still, the world needed to take “strong and firm action to deter Iran” or see further escalations, the prince said in an interview for CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday.The U.S., Saudi Arabia and major European nations have all blamed Iran for the Sept. 14 aerial attacks on two Saudi oil installations, which knocked out almost 5% of global supply.But after weighing their possible responses, President Donald Trump opted first to tighten sanctions on Tehran, while the U.K., Germany and France have pushed for talks with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.Iran denies it carried out the strikes, saying they were the work of Yemen’s Houthi rebels who are fighting a Saudi-led coalition.Together with apparent efforts to build on a fledgling peace process in Yemen, the international moves have eased fears that the Middle East was sliding toward another catastrophic war.Favors Talkshttps://t.co/0i8faMZq2L pic.twitter.com/ELIgFgITUE— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) September 30, 2019 “If Iran stops its support of the Houthi militia, the political solution will be much easier,” the prince said. “Today we open all initiatives for a political solution in Yemen.”The oil facility attacks were motivated by “stupidity,” the prince said. “There is no strategic goal. Only a fool would attack 5% of global supplies.”He said he’s in favor of Trump and Rouhani holding face-to-face talks. Trump -- who won the White House vowing to remove the U.S. from wars overseas and faces re-election next year -- had talked up the possibility of meeting Rouhani until the attack on Saudi oil fields.Iran has repeatedly said it won’t negotiate with the U.S until it returns to the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal that Trump existed last year and lifts all sanctions.The war in Yemen has killed thousands and triggered one the world’s worst humanitarian disasters since Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervened in 2015 to restore an allied government ousted by the Houthis.The U.A.E. has signaled it will pull its forces from the conflict by the end of the year as the war threatened to ignite a catastrophic wider conflict with Iran. Last week, a Yemeni official said the Saudis had agreed a partial cease-fire.On the murder of government critic and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi last year, Prince Mohammed said he took “full responsibility.” Asked how he could have been unaware of the operation, he said he can’t know “what 3 million people working for the Saudi government do daily.”“This was a mistake,” the prince said. “And I must take all actions to avoid such a thing in the future.”The question of the prince’s role in the murder has particularly weighed on the kingdom’s relations with the U.S., a key ally. Trump has shielded the prince even as Congress condemned Saudi Arabia.Prince Mohammed first spoke publicly about the killing in October last year at an investor conference in Riyadh, calling it a “heinous crime” and promising that the killers would be brought to justice.To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Mark WilliamsFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
