Business

With Toys 'R' Us having already filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, in a move that came as a shock to most of its bondholders, suddenly the race between Bon-Ton Stores and Sears Holdings who will file next, is entering its last lap.

For those who may have missed it, late last week, in a scenario right out of the last days of Toys "R" Us, some of Bon-Ton Stores’s suppliers reportedly scaled back shipments and asked to be paid sooner in order to protect themselves from potential losses in case the department-store chain unexpectedly filed for bankruptcy, Bloomberg reported on Friday.

Richard Sylla: 70% to 80% Chance of Another Global Financial Crisis

Written by Peter Diekmeyer, Sprott Money News

When Janet Yellen, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, said in June that she does not expect another financial crisis in our lifetime, eyebrows were raised.

None more so than Richard Sylla’s.

Thirty years ago this week, the stock market took a massive nosedive, a crash that came to be known as Black Monday. Many investors were destroyed by this one day's collapse, but, as we noted earlier, some survived (and even fewer thrived).

A few investors said they predicted the crash, including one familiar name: Donald Trump.

While now-President Trump is crowing about the surging stock market almost every day (for instance today)...

“The markets in a panic are like a country during a coup, and seen in retrospect that is how they were that day,” wrote a young Salomon bond salesmena named Michael Lewis, of the chaos he witnessed. “One small group of people with its old, established way of looking at the world is hustled from its seat of power.”

Amid confusion over whether the massive Saudi Aramco IPO is on hold until 2019, or permanently shelved in favor of a private placement, Reuters suggests the latter is now more likely as 'sources familiar with the matter' say China is offering to buy up to 5 percent of Aramco directly (offering the Saudis the lack of transparency they may have been nervous of with a public placing).

As we noted previously, China has been very actively diversifying its sources of energy...