grishutovamuhy

Saturday, March 3, 2012

PSAL boys basketball playoff roundup: Conway leads Evander to 'A' quarters

Jaquan Conway’s latest stellar performance lifted Evander Childs to the PSAL Class A quarterfinals.

The senior guard surpassed the 1,000-point plateau with 30 points and added six rebounds and five assists as the No. 5 Tigers topped 12th-seeded Banneker, 58-42, on Thursday. Conway also limited Banneker star Marquis Roberts to eight points.

“He was great from the start,” Evander Childs coach Dave Fonfa said. “He came down court and started scoring right away, making great moves. It seemed like he couldn’t miss three quarters of the game.”

Romaine Thomas added 10 points, 18 rebounds and 8 blocked shots and Devan Garrett had 11 rebounds for the Tigers. Fonfa loaded up his non-league schedule with Class AA teams such as Transit Tech, Manhattan Center and Eagle Academy from the PSAL and Mount St. Michael and St. Francis Prep from the CHSAA. While Evander (20-7) only beat Manhattan Center, it realized what it took to beat top competition.

“I felt we proved we can compete against anybody and defensively we still played the same defense,” Fonfa, the fourth-year coach, said. “The only team that really hammered us was Mount St. Michael. It was a learning experience for us.”

Evander Childs will now face one of the top ‘A’ teams in the PSAL next Wednesday when it visits No. 4 Bedford Academy. This is already the best season the Tigers have had in quite awhile. Fonfa researched the last few decades and no boys basketball team has reached the quarterfinals in any classification as far as he’s aware.

“We spend as much time in the gym as any team and it’s paid off,” Fonfa said. “We’re very pleased, we’re happy to go to the quarterfinals and we’re happy to go to Brooklyn [to face Bedford Academy]. We want a chance to redeem ourselves. We lost by 11 to [eventual PSAL Class A champion] Midwood in the Round of 16 last year. We’re very excited about the opportunity.”

No. 4 Bedford Academy 72, No. 20 John Adams 60: Darren Thomas had 22 points, five rebounds and five assists, Sean Snagg added 18 points and seven rebounds, Iran Duncan had 10 points and five assists and Darien Best chipped in 10 points and five rebounds for Bedford (23-5), which hosts No. 5 Evander Childs in the quarterfinals March 7 at 5 p.m. Paul Johnson scored 19 points and Ahmed Kone had 18 points and 10 rebounds for John Adams (13-5).

No. 6 Springfield Gardens 58, No. 27 Brooklyn Tech 56: Greg Williamson scored 17 points, Jason Deochan had 12 points and four assists, Eghosa Osagie had 11 points and 12 rebounds and Dupree McBrayer had 11 points and six assists for Springfield Gardens (18-4), which meets No. 11 DeWitt Clinton in the second round March 2 at 5 p.m. Brooklyn Tech wraps up its season at 11-9.

CLASS B

No. 3 Newcomers 82, No. 19 Metropolitan 73: Newcomers (17-0) will face No. 11 Leon Goldstein in the quarterfinals March 7 at 5 p.m. Metropolitan finishes the year at 14-6.

No. 7 WHEELS 81, No. 10 August Martin 76 OT: Eulogio Medina had 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists, Junior Lora added 17 points, 14 rebounds and five assists, Raymer Leonardo notched 13 points and 10 rebounds and Tyshawn Myles had 11 points and 20 rebounds for WHEELS (19-2), which rallied from a double digit deficit. The Wolves meet the No. 2 Eleanor Roosevelt/No. 15 Bathgate winner March 6 at 5 p.m. Jameik Riviere had 32 points and Aaron Swanson added 24 for August Martin (14-5).

No. 11 Leon Goldstein 55, No. 27 NEST 43: Lucas Savage had 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists, Daniel Finkelstein scored 14 points and Jacob Berardi had 13 points and 13 rebounds for Leon Goldstein (17-4), which takes on No. 3 Newcomers in the quarterfinals March 7 at 5 p.m. NEST finishes the year at 12-5.

zbraziller@nypost.com

Evander Childs, Bedford Academy, PSAL, quarterfinals, Brooklyn Tech, Leon Goldstein, Mount St. Michael, Manhattan Center, Tigers, John Adams, assists, assists, Banneker, St. Francis Prep

Nypost.com

Friday, February 24, 2012

Japan Shuts Firm: Billions Lost

TOKYO—Japan's financial regulator said it has halted operations of a little-known Tokyo money-management company after finding it has allegedly lost billions of yen in client money.

Shozaburo Jimi, the minister responsible for regulation in the financial-services industry, said that the Financial Services Agency, will scrutinize operations at all 263 investment management firms in business in Japan as a result of the AIJ case.

In one of the biggest cases of its kind in Japan, Japan's FSA Friday said investigators have been probing 120 cases involving clients of AIJ Investment Advisors Co., which manages corporate pension funds. Investigators found that AIJ has lost "most of'' the ¥183 billion, or about $2.3 billion, in pension-fund assets it had under management, FSA officials said.

Japan Real Time: Missing Funds: Watchdogging Japan

The FSA said it couldn't comment on details, including why the money was missing or the exact amount of losses found. The agency has ordered the firm to suspend operations for a month.

Phone calls to AIJ's office in central Tokyo were directed to a voicemail system that told callers to try again later. The firm's Internet site says it was founded in 1989, capitalized at ¥230 million.

Microchip testing equipment maker Advantest Corp. and industrial robot maker Yaskawa Electric Corp. confirmed that they are among the clients that placed pension money with AIJ, but declined to specify how much.

A Yaskawa spokesman described the company's investments with AIJ as "very minor," accounting for less than 2% of all its pension fund investments.

—Atsuko Fukase contributed
to this article

Write to Takashi Mochizuki at takashi.mochizuki@dowjones.com and Kenneth Maxwell at kenneth.maxwell@dowjones.com

AIJ Investment Advisors Co., AIJ, FSA, Financial Services Agency, Japan, Yaskawa Electric Corp., Advantest Corp., pension money, FSA officials, corporate pension funds

Online.wsj.com

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Dow throws investors a tease party

A frustrated Wall Street was left on the verge of hitting its best blue-chip high in nearly four years after the Dow Jones industrial average peeked through the 13,000-point mark twice, only to withdraw both times to ruin the long-awaited moment.

Buoyed by Europe’s all-night saga of hardball talks for solving its debt crisis, investors here jumped into a buying spree at the opening bell with high hopes of the Dow closing above 13,000 for the fist time since May 19, 2008.

It twice hit the magic moments briefly after lunchtime to an intraday high as 13,005.04, but fell back to end the session at 12,965.69, up 15.82 — still about 34 points shy of the symbolic milestone.

But the session wasn’t a total letdown.

The market value of the 30 stocks on the Dow showed a revived value of $1.71 trillion, a solid comeback from their $1.29 trillion value the last time the Dow closed above 13,000, at 13,028.16 on May 19, 2008.

The broadly traded Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ended little changed yesterday at 1,362.21, its highest close since the June 5, 2008 session of 1,404.05. The S&P is up 8.32 percent this year, and the Dow is ahead 6.12 percent.

The Nasdaq is up 13.81 percent since January, but slipped 3.21 points yesterday to close at 2,948.57.

Some investors lost interest in flirty stocks and put their cash into a crude oil rally. The commodity surged here 2.5 percent to a nine-month high of $105.84 a barrel amid profit-taking and worries about Iran’s new saber-rattling, and gold closed the New York spot session at $1,760.30, up 1.5 percent, or $26.20 an ounce.

Dow Jones, Dow online

Nypost.com

Friday, February 17, 2012

Remembered as warrior on the field

PORT ST. LUCIE — Howard Johnson remembers Gary Carter standing on the dugout steps in the 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series before he sparked the Mets’ famous rally against the Red Sox.

“He said, ‘There’s no way I’m going to make the last out of the World Series,’ ” Johnson said after the Hall of Fame catcher died yesterday at 57. “And with Gary, more than just about anyone else, you believed him. He was the ultimate competitor.”

And it was that fighting spirit that he brought to his battle against the brain cancer.

“If you could mold yourself after one person, both as an individual and an athlete, it should be Gary Carter,” said another former Mets’ teammate, Wally Backman, now the manager at Triple-A Buffalo. “He was the guy. He was the perfect combination of a great player but an even better person. There was no one I would rather have as a teammate. … He was like a big brother to me.”

Backman, who will wear Carter’s No. 8 in his memory this season, talked with Carter for half an hour at Carter’s charity fundraiser in Florida just a few weeks ago.

“You knew how sick he was, but he was still himself,” Backman said. “He never changed.”

Those thoughts were echoed many times yesterday.

“The baseball world lost one of its gladiators today, and I have lost a friend,” Ron Darling said in a statement. “Gary Carter was everything you wanted in a sports hero: a great talent, a great competitor, a great family man, and a great friend.”

MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said Carter was “driven by a remarkable enthusiasm for the game” and “one of the elite catchers of all-time. … Like all baseball fans, I will always remember his leadership for the ’86 Mets and his pivotal role in one of the greatest World Series ever played.”

And those who played with him on that 1986 team credited the catcher with being the key reasons they beat the Red Sox.

“Gary was a one-man scouting system,” manager Davey Johnson said. “What people didn’t know was that he kept an individual book on every batter in the National League. He was the ideal catcher for our young pitching staff.”

But his importance included more than just what he brought to the field.

“What he added to the team was character,” said Darryl Strawberry, who also told WFAN: “I wish I could have lived my life like Gary Carter.”

“He battled his fight to the end,” Dwight Gooden said. “[That] gives me a lot of strength and faith to battle mine. We will always be connected at the hip.”

danmartin@nypost.com

Gary Carter, Gary Carter, Wally Backman ebook download, World Series, Howard Johnson, the Mets, manager Davey Johnson, Darryl Strawberry

Nypost.com

Friday, February 10, 2012

NYSE Euronext 4Q profit dips, hit by failed merger costs

Stock exchange operator NYSE Euronext said Friday that it was well positioned for 2012 and beyond despite a tough near-term outlook for trading volume and currencies, as it reported an almost 19 percent fall in fourth-quarter net profit.

Net profit for the period fell to $110 million from $135 million a year earlier, hit by merger costs and a tax settlement charge. Fourth-quarter revenue rose to $628 million from $613 million.

Results for the fourth quarter of 2011 and 2010 include $46 million and $18 million, respectively, of pretax merger expenses and exit costs, the company said.

After its failed tie-up with German bourse Deutsche Borse, NYSE Euronext is launching a two-year plan aimed at lifting profit and promised to give investors details in April.

"We are continuing to focus on those areas of our business model that we control to create value for shareholders. We are targeting a two-year plan that, with only modest improvement in the operating environment, will drive higher levels of earnings per share growth through a combination of targeted revenue growth initiatives, accelerated cost efficiency efforts and disciplined deployment of capital," Chief Financial Officer Michael Geltzeiler said.

Details of the two-year plan will be provided in April on investor day, he said.

Fourth-quarter net revenue from the exchange's derivatives unit was $186 million, marginally lower than in the same period last year, including a $1 million hit from currency fluctuations. The company attributed the slight revenue fall to lower European derivatives trading volume, partially offset by higher average net revenue per contract.

Revenue related to information services and technological solutions rose 11 percent in the fourth quarter to $127 million. The result includes a $9 million gain from currency fluctuations, NYSE Euronext said.

NYSE Euronext now needs to lay out a new standalone strategy following the collapse of its blockbuster merger with Deutsche Borse.

The EU Commission blocked NYSE Euronext's merger plans with Deutsche Borse earlier this month on antitrust grounds, as the combined company would have had a dominant 93 percent share of Europe's on-exchange derivatives business.

NYSE Euronext, Deutsche Borse, Chief Financial Officer Michael Geltzeiler, revenue growth, merger costs, derivatives trading

Nypost.com

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Chip Pan Trailer - T6

Avon Fire & Rescue Service, Southmead, seen here at Yate.

Pending

, Burrill Lake, NSW, 6/7 February 2012