Late auto-loan payments rise
Late auto-loan payments rise
LOS ANGELES
More Americans fell behind on their auto-loan payments in the third quarter, when back-to-school shopping and other needs traditionally put a strain on consumers’ wallets.
But the uptick is likely only a seasonal blip in an otherwise multiyear decline in auto-loan delinquencies, reporting agency Trans-Union said Tuesday.
The rate of U.S. auto-loan payments at least 60 days overdue rose to 0.38 percent from 0.33 percent in the second quarter, the company said.
That represents only a slight uptick from the second quarter, which marked the lowest delinquency rate on TransUnion’s records going back to 1999.
The July-to-September delinquency rate also was down 19 percent from the 0.47 percent rate a year earlier, the agency said.
All told, the auto-loan delinquency rate has fallen on an annual basis for 12-consecutive quarters.
Ex-financier free on bail
NEW YORK
A former hedge-fund portfolio manager accused of enabling a quarter of a billion dollars in profits by passing along inside information in one of the largest insider-trading fraud cases in history appeared in a Manhattan court for the first time Monday and was released on $5 million bail, though his movements were restricted.
Mathew Martoma, 38, of Boca Raton, Fla., was read his rights by U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cott, who agreed to impose a bail package that prosecutors and Martoma’s lawyers had worked out after his initial court appearance in Florida last week.
He had been free on $5 million bail in Florida as well. Martoma must post $2 million in cash or property by next week to satisfy the new bail requirements, which will limit his travel to New York, New Jersey, Florida and Massachusetts.
Martoma was arrested last week on charges that between 2006 and 2008, he helped to engineer one of the largest insider-trading frauds in history.
Martoma worked with CR Intrinsic Investors, an affiliate of SAC Capital Advisors. SAC is owned by Steven A. Cohen, one of the world’s richest men.
More than 400,000 Wii U’s sold in US
NEW YORK
Nintendo has sold more than 400,000 of its new video-game console, the Wii U, in its first week on sale in the U.S., the company said Monday.
The Wii U launched Nov. 18 in the U.S. at a starting price of $300. Nintendo said the sales figure, based on internal estimates, is through Saturday, or seven days later.
The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in six years.
It comes with a new touch-screen controller that promises to change how people play games by offering different people in the same room a different experience, depending on the controller used.
From wire reports