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[ad_1] Explosions heard in Kyiv, official says enemy aircraft downed [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Russia-Ukraine Crisis Live Updates: Indian citizens, especially students living closest to border checkpoints are being advised to depart first in an organised manner, Indian Embassy in Hungary said, reported ANI. The team is coordinating with the Ministry of External Affairs to actualise this option. As per the report, the Embassy has said that at present, teams are getting in place at CHOP-ZAHONY Hungarian border near Uzhhorod, PORUBNE-SIRET Romanian Border near Chernivtsi. Two loud blasts were heard in Kyiv on Friday morning, as per a Reuters report. This sets off the second day of shelling and fighting after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a “military operation” in eastern Ukraine on Thursday. About 400 Indian students in Sumy city of Ukraine have taken shelter in a basement after Russian forces took control of it, reported PTI. They have appealed to the government of India to evacuate them. As the crisis in Ukraine deepens with each passing minute, India’s efforts to evacuate its citizens continues. Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla at a media breifing on Thursday said that Indian officials have been sent to Ukraine’s land borders with Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Romania to provide assistance to Indian nationals. “I want to assure all Indian citizens including students in Ukraine and their family members that we will take all possible steps to bring you back safe and sound,” Shringla said, reported PTI. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also spoke to his counterparts from Romania, Hungary and Slovakia on Thursday about the evacuation of stranded Indians from Ukraine. The minister took to Twitter and even thanked Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto who promised full cooperation to facilitate the evacuation of Indians. “Reached out to my friend FM Péter Szijjártó of Hungary on the Ukraine evacuation. He has promised full cooperation to facilitate evacuation from Debrecen. Thank him for his understanding,” Jaishankar posted in a tweet. Amid the deepening crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin about the concerns over the safety of the Indian nationals in Ukraine and that India attaches the highest priority to their safe exit and return home, reported PTI. According to the official statement, the prime minister appealed for an immediate cessation of violence, and called for concerted efforts from all sides to return to the path of diplomatic negotiations and dialogue. “The prime minister has conveyed … that the topmost priority of the government is the safety and security of Indian nationals, including Indian students, and their evacuation from Ukraine,” Shringla said at the breifing, reported Reuters. The foreign secretary informed there were around 20,000 Indians in Ukraine and, nearly 4,000 have already returned to India. According to a PTI, the Indian embassy in Poland said a camp office is being set up at Krakowiec on the Polish-Ukrainian border that will facilitate transit through Poland to India. A similar office is also being set up in Lviv in Ukraine. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Zillow has been pilloried for diving headfirst into iBuying only to announce the money-losing enterprise’s demise in November. Meanwhile, Opendoor, the OG of an iBuying company with a national presence and patina of technological prowess, was upheld as doing things right. “If you read our SPAC filings,” Opendoor co-founder Keith Rabois, who is no longer part of company leadership, tweeted in November, “We explained how our algorithms actually work vs. Zillow’s which are horrible.” Fast forward to Thursday, and Opendoor reported losing $662 million in 2021. That exceeds Zillow’s $528 million loss for the year. It also surpasses by 261% Opendoor’s 2020 loss of $253 million. Opendoor’s losses came after iBuyer Offerpad announced it made $6 million in net income for 2021. Opendoor’s losses did come amid massive growth. The company tallied $8.0 billion revenue, which mostly stems from a 5% sales fee charged to home sellers and proceeds from flipping homes. That’s good for a 211% year-over-year revenue gain. Opendoor resold 21,725 of the homes it bought in 2021, up 119% from 2020. The company also grew the price range for which it buys homes and where it operates. It is now in 44 markets, compared to 23 at the end of 2020. But like real estate brokerage Compass, another company significantly financed by the SoftBank Vision Fund, Opendoor has constructed an empirically money-losing business model with little sign of reversing course. In addition to operations losses, Opendoor has a negative investing cash flow of $476 million. Additionally, the company has $5.7 billion in unsold real estate inventory. Carrie Wheeler, Opendoor’s Chief Financial Officer, assured investors that the company has financing for “over $10 billion” in inventory. Opendoor CEO Eric Wu repeatedly pointed out that adjusted earnings before interest taxes deductions and amortization, or Adjusted EBITDA, was a positive $58 million. Opendoor’s official earnings report with the Securities and Exchange Commission warns investors that “Adjusted Net Loss and Adjusted EBITDA are supplemental measures of our operating performance and have important limitations.” Both measurements make Opendoor’s $525 million in 2021 stock-based compensation magically disappear. Adjusted EBITDA takes extra steps including wiping out $119 million toward asset-backed debt facilities. Wu declared that Opendoor had an “outstanding” quarter and “Every homeowner in the U.S. wants to start the journey with an Opendoor offer.” The CEO broadly addressed analyst questions. Ygal Arounian, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, asked about balancing growth with contribution margin, which means the revenue Opendoor generates for each home subtracted by the costs. Wu said that the company has the “optionality” to focus more on contribution margin than growth, but the CEO did not suggest a rebalancing act. One hypothetical path to profitability is ancillary services, particularly Opendoor mortgage loans and title insurance. Wu did say that Opendoor has become one of the biggest title agencies in the country, but he did not elaborate. The company did not break out its title and mortgage earnings. Opendoor acquired mortgage broker RedDoor, which can preapprove a loan applicant “within 60 seconds,” in November. Another possible profitability path is Opendoor’s partnerships, including with homebuilders like Lennar, a longtime investor in the iBuyer. Ryan Tomasello, an analyst at KBW, asked if the partnerships are “driving a material portion of your volume.” Wu did not answer. “The partnerships are extremely beneficial to both partners and consumers,” he said, repeatedly adding that they create a “Win, win, win situation.” The CEO concluded the call with a note on his company’s determination.   “No one is working as hard as us to build a digital, integrated, seamless consumer experience,” Wu said. The post Opendoor loses more money than Zillow in 2021 appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

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[ad_1] Taiwan's TSMC says to comply with export control rules on Russia [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Share Market News Today | Sensex, Nifty, Share Prices LIVE: Domestic equity market benchmarks BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 were set to start in green on Friday, as suggested by trends on SGX Nifty in early trade. Nifty futures were trading 220 points or 1.35 per cent higher at 16470 on Singaporean Exchange. In the previous session, headline indices crashed nearly 5% after the Russia attacked Ukraine. BSE Sensex tumbled 4.7 per cent or 2,702 points to end at 54,530, while Nifty 50 index plunged 815 points or 4.8 per cent to finish trade at 16248. Shrugging off the Russia-Ukraine concerns, Asian stock markets were seen trading with gains. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.62%, while the Topix gained 0.84%. The international benchmark Brent crude increased 2.77% to $101.82. US stock indices witnessed a roller-coaster trade overnight. The S&P 500 gained 1.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased a 859-point drop to advance 92.07 points. The tech-focused Nasdaq Composite rose 3.3%. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the market mayhem that followed have raised fresh concerns over the mega initial public offering (IPO) of Life Insurance Corporation. A senior government official, however, told FE on Thursday that the issue would hit the market in March as scheduled, since the “life insurance business is largely insulated from commodity markets turmoil”. On Wednesday, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, too, had said the government was going ahead with the IPO plan, but added, “we are equally worried if the market situation is conducive”. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Rocket Companies CEO Jay Farner No mortgage lender in America capitalized on the pandemic-driven refi boom better than Rocket Mortgage. The Detroit-based company, with a ready-built infrastructure and top-notch brand recognition, was uniquely positioned to absorb historic mortgage demand as others struggled to get out of the gates. In 2020, Rocket’s parent company notched $9.4 billion in profit on the strength of $320 billion in mortgage originations. Few thought those records would ever be broken. It’s fitting then that Rocket executives in Thursday’s earnings report opted not to compare the full-year 2021 financials with that of the prior year, which it treated as something of a freak occurrence. They quietly chose to compare 2021 financial results with 2019 results, a fairly normal year for the mortgage industry. Overall, Rocket reported a $6 billion in profit in 2021, a 35.4% decline from the prior year, even though mortgage originations actually rose to $351 billion, up nearly 10% from 2020. Business also slowed considerably in the fourth quarter, as interest rates ticked up and refis waned. Rocket’s net income fell 69.5% year-over-year to $865 million, which was also a sequential decline of 37%. Margins declined to 2.80% in the fourth quarter, a sequential decline of 25 basis points and a 161 bps decline from a year prior. If Rocket executives, who no doubt noticed that the company’s stock had been trading at its lowest mark ever – were worried about a downturn, they didn’t show it. Jay Farner, CEO of Rocket Companies, said on a conference call with analysts that as rates rapidly increase, the company’s strategy has always been to protect margin and profitability. “In fact, we have grown our mortgage business substantially since the last market cycle by doing the right things,” he said. Farner told analysts that Rocket has invested heavily in a flexible, scalable multi-channel platform and is still generating significant mortgage volume growth from less rate-sensitive products, such as purchase business and cash-out refinances. In the fourth quarter, the company reported $75.8 billion in loan originations, down 30% compared to the same period of 2020 and 13% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Since Rocket brought employees back to the office on February 14, the non rate-sensitive products account for nearly 90% of the mortgage production, Farner said. Purchase volume grew 76% year-over-year due to focus on a “technology-driven client experience,” the company said. Regarding the servicing book, the unpaid principal balance increased 35% year-over-year to $552 billion as of December 31. Rocket has 2.6 million clients in the servicing portfolio and generates an annual $1.4 billion in recurring servicing fee income.  Rocket has invested heavily in diversifying beyond mortgage. Farner said the company will continue its strategy to leverage its platform to grow and scale across real estate, mortgage, and financial services. The acquisition of Truebill, a personal finance app, for $1.3 billion in December, was part of the strategy.  “Our combined teams are currently working together to create a single sign-on solution that will bring the entire Rocket ecosystem together through one unified login. We expect this new experience to launch in the next 30 to 45 days,” Farner told analysts. The company expects closed loan volume of between $52 billion and $57 billion for the first quarter of 2022, with a rate lock volume between $50 billion and $57 billion. Executives are forecasting the gain-on-sale margin to be between 2.80% and 3.10%. Despite the annual decrease in profits, the company board of directors declared a special dividend of $1.01 per share to Class A common stockholders. It will fund with cash distributions of around $2.0 billion.  “Since our IPO, Rocket has returned $4.5 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases while remaining well-capitalized and investing in a disciplined manner to generate long-term shareholder value,” Farner said.  Rocket Companies shares closed on Thursday at $11.56, up 4.33% from the prior day. The stocks were down 0.95% in the aftermarket following the earnings report.  The post Rocket Mortgage wants you to forget about the 2020 refi boom appeared first on HousingWire. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Key Takeaways Gabi is an insurance comparison site that lets consumers compare insurance quotes across more than 40 providers in one place. In addition to auto insurance quotes, Gabi lets you shop for homeowners insurance, renters insurance, umbrella insurance, and more. Gabi also lets you shop for multiple types of coverage at the same time. Gabi says their average customer saves $961 when they use the platform to shop for insurance. They also report they have delivered more than 7 million insurance quotes to customers so far. Gabi is accredited with the Better Business Bureau (BBB), where the company boasts an A+ rating. Gabi insurance is absolutely free for consumers to use. The company says that, just like a traditional insurance agent, Gabi is paid a commission by the insurance company for each policy they sell. Compare Multiple Quotes in Minutes Shopping for car insurance can be an absolute drag, but that’s especially true if you’re hoping to compare rates across multiple providers. After all, individual auto insurance providers require you to fill out an array of personal information, which takes time and effort to complete. In some cases, auto insurance companies even want you to speak with an agent to get a free quote.  In today’s day and age when so much can be accomplished online, who wants to do that? Enter Gabi.  Gabi is an online insurance marketplace that aims to make shopping for car insurance and homeowners insurance much easier. Not only does Gabi let you get multiple quotes for insurance after filling out a single application, but you get the benefit of comparing prices across multiple providers in one place. If you want to save money on car insurance, comparing prices with Gabi is definitely worth the effort. 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[ad_1] If you follow me on Instagram, you know that there’s one dinner we make at least a few times every single month: Sausage & Potatoes. Every time I make it, people ask me for the recipe. And every time, I just say that I wing it… because I do! But I figured it was high time I actually sat down and typed up at least the basics of how I make it to give you something to go off of! This recipe is so versatile, comforting, filling, and easy. Plus, I often find the ingredients on great sales or markdowns (which is why we make it so often!) so it’s very frugal, too. You can make this in the the slow cooker or as a sheetpan dinner. The slow cooker is great if you want to make it earlier in the day and then have dinner done. Making it on a sheet pan gives it a more flavorful, roasted flavor. The Ingredients I Use I make it a little differently every time, based upon what we have on hand. Here are the ingredients I use: Sausage: I always use some type of rope sausage or kielbasa. We like smoked sausage best as I love how it flavors everything. I just slice it. Potatoes: I always use either potatoes or sweet potatoes or both. I peel and chop into pieces. Veggies: Depending upon what I have on hand, I’ll use a combination of peppers (we especially love red/orange/yellow), onions, and/or carrots. Broth, water, or oil: I add a little chicken broth, beef broth, or water if I cook in the slow cooker or drizzle with olive oil if I’m roasting it on a sheet pan in the oven. Seasonings: You can add herbs or seasonings, if you’d like. But I find that the sausage will flavor it enough if you don’t. How to Make It I slice the sausage, chop the veggies, and then either lay out on a sheet pan and drizzle with oil or put in a slow cooker and pour about a cup of broth or water over. If I’m cooking in the slow cooker, I’ll cook on low for 4-6 hours or on high for 3-4 hours. (If I make a large batch, I’ll add extra cooking time.) If roasting in the oven, bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Stir a few times while baking to fully roast everything. And that’s it! Let me know if you make it and if you try any new variations on this staple recipe! [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] 3 former Minneapolis police officers found guilty of violating George Floyd’s civil rights  CNN 3 officers found guilty on federal charges in George Floyd’s killing  NBC News 3 former officers found guilty of violating George Floyd’s civil rights  ABC News What the jury is weighing in the case of 3 ex-MPD officers  KSTP 3 ex-officers found guilty in federal civil rights trial over George Floyd’s death  CBS News View Full Coverage on Google News [ad_2]