Many forms of criminal activity generate significant amounts of money. To avoid attracting the attention of law enforcement, criminals must find a way to disguise the source of their ill-gotten funds. That’s the goal of money laundering, which involves criminals engaging in a series of transactions to conceal the criminal origins of their money.

Money laundering involves three stages:

1. A criminal (or those under their direction) introduces funds earned through criminal activity to the financial system.
2. A money launderer (or the criminal themselves) engages in a series of transactions to create layers between the illegal source of the cash they control.
3. The criminal moves laundered money back into the financial system.

The layering process

During the layering stage, the goal is to disconnect the money from the illegal activity that generated it. Generally, the more layers money passes through, the harder it becomes to connect the funds to criminal activity.

The goal of layering is to make the process of tracking money through each layer more difficult to accomplish. Layering can include changing the nature of the assets, i.e. cash, gold, casino chips, real-estate, etc.

Complex layering schemes involve sending the money around the globe using a series of transactions. The more countries the money enters and leaves, the harder it is to uncover the “dirty” source of the money.

Layering and AML

A complex layering scheme makes anti-money laundering (AML) operations challenging. Since they lack jurisdiction overseas, law enforcement must coordinate with their foreign counterparts, which can delay the tracking of the funds while complicating the document trail associated with the funds.

To complicate matters further, criminals often use shell companies, which engage in fraudulent transactions, such as the creation of fake invoices. Once the company receives payment for the fake invoice, those who control the shell company can return the proceeds or send them to another shell company as payment for a subsequent fake invoice.

Layering can involve electronic transactions such as wires and ACHs, paper transactions, and/or manual movement of the funds between countries using covert means. Those laundering the funds may also decide to use non-traditional financial systems, such as Hawala (Middle East), Hundi (India), or Hui Kuan (Hong Kong), which are alternative remittance systems that allow for the movement of money without doing so physically.

Mondelez International, Inc. (MDLZ), a Confectioners corporation, was a bullish stock in the prior session. Mondelez International, Inc. (MDLZ) stock opened the market for trading at $50.97 and closed the day at $50.90 with momentum of +1.48%. The increase change in Mondelez International, Inc. (MDLZ) lagged the change in the NASDAQ, a tech heavy index, for the day which gained +1.91% in prior day.

ONEOK, Inc. (OKE), a Oil & Gas Midstream corporation, was a active mover in the stock market session. ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) stock opened the market for trading at $30.44 and closed the day at $31.33 with increasing move of +5.31%. This increase change beat the Dow’s +1.91% gain for the stock market day.

ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is focused on the Oil & Gas Midstream sector. This sector has seen some movement from day traders in recent days. Bullish day traders of ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) will be looking for positive upcoming earnings whereas bearish day traders of ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) will be looking for negative earnings. The last time ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) had an earnings surprise was on Qtr Ending 03/20 when they reported $0.83 compared to an estimate of $0.80 which was a difference of $+0.03 resulting in a change of +3.75%. Current earnings estimates are to be released for Current Qtr 06/2020 on ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) and out of 9 Wall Street estimates the average is saying $0.69. The high estimate is saying $0.81 whereas the low estimate is saying $0.46 and the prior year ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) announced earnings at $0.75 a growth rate est. (year over year) of -8.00%.

The market performance of ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) has varied recently. Year to date ONEOK, Inc. (OKE)’s shares are down -58.60%. Over the past 12 weeks ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is down -58.90% and over the last 4 weeks ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is up 10.32%. ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) current income statement shows revenue (ttm) of $9.52B. Gross Profit is $3.38B. This puts the current EBITDA of ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) at $2.45B.

Wall street day traders might also notice recent changes to stock analyst estimates for ONEOK, Inc. (OKE). The stock is trading with an RSI (relative strength index) of 54.45 indicating ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is neither overbought nor oversold. Technically, OKE’s short term support levels are around $1367.66, $1334.96 and $1286.57 on the downside. OKEs short term resistance levels are $1526.69, $1493.59 and $1432.99 on the upside. The market cap of ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is $12.968B and institutions hold 75.92% of the stock. The outstanding share count stands at 414.28M while the short float (shares short) stands at 3.56%.

Market research indicates that these earning estimate changes look to be directly correlated with short-term stock prices. The day traders can look to capitalize on the basis of ranking. Based on technical analysis, OKE has short term rating of Neutral (0.24), Intermediate rating of Neutral (0.08) and the long-term rating of Bearish (-0.42) giving it an overall rating of Neutral (-0.03).

The EPS growth this year on ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) is increased 10.70% and is expected to increase 2.80% next year. However, quarterly earnings (EPS) growth year over year on ONEOK, Inc. (OKE) has decreased by -142.30% and quarterly revenue (Sales) growth year over year stands at -23.10%. Gross margin is detected at 35.80% that represents the percent of total sales revenue that the company retains after direct cost of goods sold. Net profit margin (ttm) is 8.40% while return on equity (ttm) is 13.10%.

Recent Developments:

2020-05-05 – Oneok Announces $1.5 Billion Notes Offering.
2020-04-28 – ONEOK Reports First Quarter 2020 Earnings.
2020-04-03 – Oneok Says CEO Terry Spencer’s FY 2019 Total Compensation Was $10.9 Million.
2020-03-11 – Oneok Announces $500 Million Decrease In 2020 Capital Spending.
2020-03-05 – Oneok Announces $1.65 Billion Notes Offering.

About Company:

Tulsa, OK-based ONEOK Inc. was founded in 1906. The company is an energy company, is engaged in natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGL) businesses.