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(Bloomberg) — A key organizer of the trucker protest that besieged Canada’s capital city was denied bail Tuesday as police kept a strict checkpoint system in place to prevent demonstrators from retaking the downtown streets.

Tamara Lich, who was the public face of the convoy and helped it crowdfund millions in donations, was rebuffed by an Ontario Superior Court judge who concluded she was evasive during her testimony and was likely to re-offend if released, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. and other news outlets. She was arrested last Thursday and remains in detention on a charge of counseling to commit mischief.

Though Ottawa has now been cleared of the semis and other trucks that blockaded the city for three weeks in protest against Covid-related public health measures, dozens of the vehicles used in the protest are still in the area, parked at private farms outside the city. One demonstrator told the Globe and Mail he and others left the city to “regroup,” not to give up. 

The emergency powers invoked last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are still in place, having been approved by a majority of elected lawmakers in a vote Monday night. Trudeau and his cabinet ministers have said they still need the emergency powers in case the truckers attempt any more blockades, which not only disrupted daily life in Ottawa for weeks but shocked the Canadian economy and supply chains by bringing important U.S. border crossings to a standstill.

“We know that there are still a number of individuals who are affiliated with the illegal blockades who were in the area just this morning,” Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino told reporters on Monday. “We have to remain vigilant — and not only in Ottawa, but at our ports of entry.”

Nearly 200 Arrests

Two other high-profile protest organizers have also been arrested over the past week. Chris Barber, a trucker, was released on bail Friday on the condition he leave Ottawa immediately and not further promote the convoy in any way. Pat King, who has hundreds of thousands of social media followers, was in court on Tuesday arguing for his own release on bail. He faces four charges, including mischief, counseling to commit mischief, counseling to disobey a court order, and counseling to obstruct police. 

As of Monday, police had made a total of 196 arrests related to the Ottawa protest and laid criminal charges against 110 people. They had towed 115 vehicles.

Police are also using the emergency powers to target the flow of funding to protest organizers and put financial pressure on trucking companies to prevent their vehicles from being used in blockades.  

The financial dragnet has been criticized as overreach by the main opposition Conservatives. It has also raised the ire of trucking companies whose rigs were involved in the protest. 

“I am extremely disappointed in our government,” Len Petkau, owner of Manitoba-based Terrain Transport, said by phone. “We’ll keep fighting for our rights as best as we can but it is very clear we’re under siege here, our freedom is.”

He had three company trucks at the Ottawa protest; one left Thursday and two departed Friday. Another owner-operator who drives for Terrain “and wanted to stay at any cost” was arrested Friday and his truck was towed, Petkau said. So far, Petkau’s assets are not frozen and he anticipates the driver will be able to pick up his truck as “they can’t seize a truck because of a legal protest.”

He added: “I believe that across the country there is going to be massive uprisings here now because we can all see where this is going.”

So far, that process includes freezing a transaction totaling C$3.8 million ($3 million) from a payment processor, as well as the freezing of 219 financial products, the disclosure of 57 entities and 253 Bitcoin addresses shared with virtual currency exchanges, according to a statement from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Monday.

“While it remains the responsibility of the financial institutions to make the decision of freezing accounts, the RCMP is diligently working with our law enforcement and federal partners to disclose relevant information of individuals and companies suspected of involvement in illegal acts,” the RCMP said.

A parliamentary committee is scheduled to meet Tuesday afternoon to hear from government officials on how the banking measures have been used so far.

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(Bloomberg) — Colonial Pipeline Co., which manages the largest fuel conduit in the U.S., hired a Chief Information Security Officer nine months after a ransomware attack completely paralyzed its operations, drove up gasoline prices and sparked shortages at filling stations along the East Coast. 

The new position will be filled by Adam Tice, who previously held leadership roles in cyber security at privately-held Silicon Valley Bank and Equifax Inc., Colonial said Tuesday in a statement. 

Hackers, who the FBI said were linked to a group known as DarkSide and were believed to be located in Russia or Eastern Europe, were able to breach Colonial’s computer system using a virtual private network, or VPN. The attack forced Colonial to shut down, halting flows of gasoline to the East Coast. Operations were only resumed after the company agreed to pay a ransom in bitcoins. 

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(Bloomberg) — Peloton Interactive Inc., Salesforce.com Inc.’s Slack and Microsoft Corp.’s GitHub generally recovered Tuesday from earlier service outages, according to the websites and Downdetector, which monitors internet issues. 

Slack users saw the message “something’s gone awry, and we’re having trouble loading your workspace” in their workplace chat app. The disruption, which began about 9 a.m. New York time, was reported by as many as 11,000 users, according to Downdetector. The issue subsided within a few hours. 

Peloton users reported issues with the fitness company’s hardware and the digital app. Downdetector received almost 5,400 reports of disruptions before the services were restored.

GitHub, Microsoft’s internet hosting service for software development, was also down for some users before recovering. Downdetector also reported issues with Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud unit, Amazon Web Services, which operates the back end of many online services. Amazon, however, said it was “not seeing any problems originating with AWS services.”

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It’s been a volatile start to the week for global equities, and that was before U.S. markets began to trade following a holiday-extended weekend. Stocks in Europe fell as much as 2% on Tuesday before recouping most of those losses as investors digested increasing Ukraine tensions that almost put major indexes at the brink of …

Ukraine Crisis Ripples Through World Markets From Stocks to Gold Read More »

(Bloomberg) — Bitcoin’s notorious weekend volatility is paying dividends Tuesday for investors in the largest cryptocurrency, which is outperforming U.S. equities for a change amid the uncertainty surrounding the turmoil in Ukraine.  

The digital token has remained in the green through most of Tuesday after slumping through the three-day U.S. holiday weekend. By comparison, the Nasdaq 100 Index has extended losses from last week after trading resumed following the Presidents Day holiday.

Bitcoin rose as much as 3.4% to $38,319, while the Nasdaq 100 was down as much as 1.2%.

“You tend to see overreactions that happen on weekends and holidays, and for a couple of hours overnight,” said Ed Hindi, chief investment officer and co-founder of Tyr Capital. 

Bitcoin’s relationship with global markets had been strengthening despite it being long touted by advocates as an uncorrelated hedge against turmoil. The cryptocurrency has been mimicking movements in equities, most notably the technology benchmark Nasdaq 100 index. The correlation between the two rose was recently at 0.43, with a coefficient of 1 indicates asset classes move in lockstep. 

Greg Waisman, co-founder of global payment network Mercuryo, said $40,000 is a key resistance level for Bitcoin in the short-term. 

“The old adage of ‘turnaround Tuesday’ looks to be ringing true again as Bitcoin gains today,” said Justin McQueen, a strategist at DailyFX, by email. “Of course, an extension of this move higher is dependent on the situation between Russia and Ukraine and as we have seen, sentiment can change on a whim from one headline to the next.”

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(Bloomberg) — Macy’s Inc. projected sales and earnings for the current year that outpaced Wall Street’s estimates — a sign that its efforts to boost online sales are paying off. Following the release, Fitch Ratings boosted the department-store retailer to investment grade. 

The company sees full-year earnings of $4.13 to $4.52 a share, excluding some items, topping the $3.98 average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Macy’s projects net sales to be $24.46 billion to $24.7 billion, compared with the analyst estimate of $24.2 billion.

Fitch raised Macy’s debt to BBB-, citing strong sales and “some evidence of successful implementation” of its business overhaul. The company remains below investment grade at S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service. 

Same-store sales, a key metric in retail, rose 28% on an owned basis in the quarter ended Jan. 29, according to a statement Tuesday. That’s above the average estimate of about 26% from analysts.

Chief Executive Officer Jeff Gennette said Macy’s has overcome Covid-19 disruptions, logistics problems, labor issues and inflation pressures. 

‘Watching Carefully’

“The things we’re watching carefully are what continues on the supply chain, what continues on with inflation and as we lap the stimulus package and really looking at that demand that we’re up against,” he said on the conference call with analysts.

A recent Bank of America Corp. report found that while inflation has curbed grocery spending for shoppers, it still hasn’t hurt apparel demand. Macy’s experience in its fourth quarter backs up that conclusion and could bode well for other retailers reporting in the coming weeks. Dillard’s Inc. also reported better-than-expected results on Tuesday. 

Macy’s also provided an update on its e-commerce strategy along with its so-called Polaris business-improvement plan. The company’s board will seek to accelerate certain parts of the Polaris initiative, saying that would “deliver greater value to our shareholders than a separation of digital and physical assets at either the enterprise or brand levels.”

The retailer said in November that it was working with Alix Partners to evaluate a potential digital spinoff.

Macy’s also announced a new open-ended $2 billion share-buyback program after repurchasing $500 million in shares in the quarter.

The shares were about unchanged at 12:07 p.m. in New York trading, retreating from an earlier gain. The stock has declined about 2% this year. 

(Updates with Fitch upgrade starting in first paragraph.)

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(Bloomberg) — Brevan Howard Asset Management is enjoying a banner February after its traders benefited from the European Central Bank’s surprise signal that it could start raising rates as soon as this year.

The firm had one of its best-ever days of trading on Feb. 4 as complex option bets on short-term euro rates paid off, people with knowledge of the matter said. One of the notable winners was Brevan Howard’s star trader Fash Golchin who rebounded after his record annual loss last year, according to the people and an investor document seen by Bloomberg. 

Other money managers such as Louis Basger, Minal Bathwal and Alfredo Saitta as well as the firm’s multi-trader Alpha Strategies platform also gained, one of the people said.  

Traders scrambled to bet that the ECB will end years of negative interest rates in 2022 after its President Christine Lagarde declined to rule out a hike this year to contain the fastest inflation since the euro was created. The global pile of sub-zero debt shrunk by $1.5 trillion in the space of a day after her Feb. 3 statement.

Brevan Howard’s flagship fund has risen almost 4% for the year-to-date through Feb. 11, with the vast majority coming in the first eleven days of this month, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg. Golchin, who runs his own fund and manages part of the firm’s $8.3 billion Master Fund, gained 8%.

A spokesman for the Jersey, Channel Islands-based investment firm, which managed about $18.4 billion in assets at the end of last year, declined to comment. 

Brevan Howard is rebuilding under Chief Executive Officer Aron Landy after years of mediocre returns at the firm saw its assets crash to about $6 billion from a peak of more than $40 billion. The firm, co-founded by billionaire Alan Howard, has given separate funds to its star traders and is also building a digital assets unit.  

Macro hedge funds are seeing their fortunes turn after a decade of sub-par returns as central banks move to raise rates and inject market volatility. Firms such as Haidar Capital Management, Trend Capital Management and Castle Hook Partners were some of the biggest winners in the industry last month. 

Brevan Howard’s traders had been betting on higher rates since last year. While the trades failed to fire in 2021 with the firm’s main fund ending the year up just about 2%, they have started to pay off now. Golchin, who specializes in multi-asset macro trading, made money on euro rates trading as well as U.S. rates, commodities and precious metals, one of the people said. 

The money manager, who is among Brevan Howard’s star traders, recorded a loss of about 9% last year. Golchin was key to record gains at the firm in 2020, when he made about 60%.

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(Bloomberg) — Lucid Group Inc., a maker of luxury electric vehicles, is recalling about 200 cars due to a safety defect that could increase the likelihood of collisions.

A piece on the Lucid Air’s front strut dampers may have been installed incorrectly due to an error by a supplier, the company said in an email to customers that was seen by Bloomberg. “This condition may result in a sudden loss of ground clearance, vehicle vibration and front brake line damage, increasing the risk of a crash,” Newark, California-based Lucid told customers.

The automaker offered to inspect and repair the cars at no cost to owners.

Lucid said in a statement to Bloomberg that it initiated the recall but is not aware of any instances of strut damper failure in its vehicles. The recall affects 203 Air sedans, but the company expects only about 1% of those vehicles have the incorrectly installed part. 

Lucid, which began trading in July following a merger with a blank-check firm, is seen as a potential competitor to market incumbent Tesla Inc. The company’s chief executive officer, Peter Rawlinson, was chief engineer on Tesla’s Model S. Lucid started production on the Air in September after delays over quality concerns, and to date it has only delivered a small number of a high-spec $169,000 variant.

Read more: Lucid production timeline delayed by SPAC’s quality concerns  

Lucid shares fell 2.5% at 11:42 a.m. in New York.

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(Bloomberg) — Brazil’s senate took a first step toward regulating the domestic cryptocurrency market as a bill that creates ground rules for digital currency funds and their day-to-day use passed a key legislative stage.

The senate’s economic affairs committee unanimously approved the text on Tuesday. The bill now goes to a vote on the senate floor, followed by the lower house if approved, before President Jair Bolsonaro can consider signing it into law.

The text starts from ground-zero by defining virtual assets and classifying their service providers. Under the proposal, the federal government decides which body will be responsible for regulating business with cryptocurrencies. The draft’s rapporteur, Senator Iraja Abreu, said by phone Monday that he expects this responsibility will fall to the central bank, which actively participated in the construction of the bill.

If the bill is approved, Brazil will become the biggest Latin American country to regulate cryptocurrencies, reducing the potential for money laundering as well as risks for investors. Some smaller nations in the region are more advanced, with Cuba issuing rules that recognize and organize their use and El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar.

How El Salvador’s Bitcoin Experiment Got Rocky Start: QuickTake

According to the bill, virtual asset service providers must prevent money laundering and concealment of assets, while combating criminal organizations, the financing of terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The text provides for imprisonment and fines for violations.

At the end of 2021, Brazil’s lower house passed a different bill with rules for trading virtual currencies in Brazil. That text moved to the senate, which chose to vote on Abreu’s proposal. Once brought to the senate floor, though, one bill can be attached to the other.

Read more: Rio de Janeiro Wants to Become Brazil’s Cryptocurrency Capital

The bill’s rapporteur said that the regulation approved today, which is more focused on investments than on popular use, creates a favorable environment for the more regular use of cryptocurrencies. 

“With regulation, cryptocurrency will become even more popular,” Abreu said. “Once this regulation is approved, the trend is that it will be increasingly adopted in the supermarket, in commerce, in a car dealership.”

The proposed bill comes as Brazil’s central bank works on a digital version of the Brazilian real. That project is aimed at promoting investments rather than commercial use and is expected to be tested as a pilot in the second half of the year.

Read more: A Bold Caribbean Experiment in E-Cash Hits a Major Obstacle

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(Bloomberg) — Stay on top of the electric car revolution by signing up to our Hyperdrive newsletter here.

They say seeing is believing. On a brisk and sunny February morning, a ride around San Francisco in a Waymo fully autonomous vehicle and a walk around the company’s depot was indeed eye-opening.

I’m Ryan Fisher, and along with my colleague Andrew Grant, we saw a trip to the West Coast for BloombergNEF’s San Francisco summit as a chance for some on-the-ground research. Once our work at the conference was complete, we headed to the Bayview district to see Waymo’s operation in action.

The autonomous-driving company spun-off by Google parent Alphabet operates a pilot ride-hailing service in the city, with a few hundred autonomous vehicles. So one of the first things you notice upon arrival at the depot is the cars buzzing around, including Jaguar I-Pace electric vehicles and Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrids. All are fully kitted-out with an array of sensors, including a 360-degree lidar system.

First, we hopped into one of the vehicles for a ride. The 15-minute journey was unremarkable and the experience was not dissimilar from calling for and riding in an Uber. Some details did jump out at us as a sign of just how much car companies and dealerships especially will be impacted by the rise of AVs. It struck us as symbolic that the Jaguar leaper badge on the electric I-Pace is covered by an array of cameras with the Waymo logo, highlighting the tension between the two brands as automakers try not to be eaten by a bigger system integrator and simply become a manufacturer of hardware on wheels.

The I-Pace is a stylish vehicle designed to be driven but it is not an optimal vehicle for a robo-taxi service (Waymo and Jaguar announced their long-term strategic partnership back in 2018). The fit in the back seat alongside my colleague and the Waymo representative was snug. The dimensions of AVs are likely to be redesigned in the future to fit the purpose of the vehicle. Ride-hailing leaders Didi and Uber have enlisted the help of established automakers in doing so. Without a driver and potentially a steering wheel, there’s more space to work with. A center console in the I-Pace offers the opportunity to play your own music — it’s easy to imagine it as a console for video content or shopping and gaming appearing on bigger and better positioned screens.

The journey got us thinking about the feasibility of AV ownership models and which would be best for automakers. The Tesla thesis is that its Full Self-Driving capable vehicles will one day be upgraded to fully fledged robo-taxis and individual owners will be able to offer rides to users over a ride-hailing platform. Robo-taxi developers like Waymo and its General Motors-backed rival Cruise are operating on a centralized vehicle ownership model. Cruise, for example, has signed an agreement with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority to be the exclusive provider for self-driving taxis and ride-hailing services through 2029.

Each of these approaches presents challenges. Can Tesla safely bring the technology to market while using ordinary drivers for testing and will it be possible to make the technology cheap enough for personal ownership? Especially when the industry is converging around expensive lidar technology over the camera-only vision system which Tesla currently uses. For ventures like Waymo that are attempting a centralized vehicle ownership model, can the company continue to keep up with the high capital requirements while at the same time solving the intricacies of computer vision algorithms and the less-discussed but highly challenging details of operating a ride-hailing service?

Despite the significant progress in mapping cities, deploying fleets for consumer trials and winning the approval of local regulators, AVs will continue to achieve progress mostly through trial and error. It takes lots of work and capital to deploy successfully in any single city or district and slowly expanding the geo-fenced areas of operations. This is a major reason why BloombergNEF’s long-term outlook for road transport shows fully autonomous vehicles taking until 2035 to surpass 1% of all car sales. 

After 2035, sales are expected to quickly grow to over 10% of all car sales by 2040. Due to the extensive usage of the vehicles, AVs will account for over 15% of total electricity demand of the passenger electric vehicle fleet. This rapid growth in electricity demand will have implications for the charging infrastructure sector.

The Waymo depot in San Francisco has one of the largest charging installations in the city, with 19 DC charging stations offering over 2 megawatts of total load, enough to power 1,000 to  2,000 homes. Upon inspection, the cars are charging at only 30kW, most likely as a way to limit battery degradation. In 15 years, we don’t see the depots looking quite like this one. To reduce labor costs the chargers will either have robotic arms to plug in the cables or wireless charging pads embedded in the ground. The latter is something Jaguar is already testing, working with Momentum Dynamics and ordinary taxis in Oslo.

To reduce infrastructure costs AVs will likely utilize a specific network of depot and community charging stations. A shared charger is a cheap charger. A strategically placed distributed network can also reduce the size of the battery since vehicles will be able to top up throughout the day.

The change in charging requirements for the rapidly growing global AV fleet in the mid-2030s from the ordinary passenger electric fleet also points to the threat of redundancy to other charging infrastructure in the network that may have been installed only a few years earlier. This highlights the importance of sites, particularly those being installed in cities around the 2030s, needing to be suitable for AVs and the chargers having the ability to be retrofitted to meet the vehicles’ specific charging needs.

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the slow adoption of AVs, but the impression, after the visit to the Waymo depot, is that real progress is being made. The path to large-scale adoption remains unclear, but with more companies opening their autonomous vehicle programs to the public, perhaps you will also experience a ride soon.

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