In this video, Tony shows how he starts his week with a clear technical and fundamental perspective of the stocks he’s likely going to enter, and of options positions throughout the week, and how you can apply that yourself. Tony shares bullish (NVDA, DIS, SHOP) and bearish (AAPL, CAT, ADI) options ideas.
This video premiered on December 2, 2024.
A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported.
Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record.
The High People’s Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City determined there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, reported online newspaper VnExpress.
If Lan is able to return three-quarters of the money embezzled while on death row, it is possible the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.
She is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy anti-graft campaign known as “Blazing Furnace.”
“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution was quoted as saying at the appeal hearing by state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.
“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy,” it said.
State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled,” but prosecutors said that was insufficient.
Reuters could not immediately reach Lan’s lawyers for comment.
Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.
Lan’s arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of the country’s largest private banks by deposits, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was at the center of the fraud and largely owned by Lan through her proxies.
Documents reviewed by Reuters showed Vietnam’s central bank had as of April pumped $24 billion in “special loans” into SCB in an “unprecedented” rescue.
Apart from the death sentence, Lan was handed a life sentence at a separate trial in October after being found guilty of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers.
President-elect Donald Trump is wasting little time affirming that tariffs will be a Day One priority. With his inauguration less than two months away, small businesses are already making moves to avoid expected cost increases — or weighing whether to take a financial hit or pass it on to customers.
On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he plans to implement 25% tariffs on all goods from Mexico and Canada, plus an additional 10% tariff on goods from China.
He didn’t reiterate his calls on the stump for blanket tariffs on imports from practically everywhere, and some experts predict his proposed trade barriers would face legal challenges. But despite the uncertainty, small businesses that had eyed the plans nervously during the campaign say the clock is ticking to insulate themselves as best they can.
There’s a sense of urgency, and I’m very nervous.
Beatrice Barba, owner of Tabor Place, san francisco bay area
Beatrice Barba runs Tabor Place, a San Francisco Bay Area maker of nontoxic cups and lunch boxes for children. She’d intended to spend 2025 innovating new styles of her signature sippy cups, but now she’s dropping those plans and stockpiling as much of her basic inventory as she can.
Her entire product line is made in China, because none of the 80 domestic manufacturers she contacted when she launched the business around six years ago could execute her borosilicate glass designs.
Barba was a little worried about Trump’s tariff proposals, but she didn’t expect him to win, and she doubted his commitment to imposing them if he did. Over the next couple of months, she’s hoping her Chinese suppliers can churn out a single $200,000 order for the whole year — and get it through U.S. ports — before Trump takes office.
“That at least buys me a little bit of time to weather the storm,” she said. “There’s a sense of urgency, and I’m very nervous.”