Written by Gary
Markets sea-saw along the unchanged line going from a positive opening to fractionally in the red. Afternoon Wall Street is currently mixed with the DOW up 25 points and the Nasdaq down 0.1%. The wildfire in Canada’s oil sands region is still out of control and has halted production. Oil futures extended (then lost) gains after data after the Baker Hughes oil rig count was down by 4 to 328.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
 | North and South American markets are lower today with shares in Brazil off the most. The Bovespa is down 0.24% while Mexico’s IPC is off 0.14% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is lower by 0.01%. |
What Is Moving the Markets
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
| Wall Street falls after disappointing jobs data(Reuters) – U.S. stocks were lower on Friday after April payrolls data showed employment gains hit a seven-month low, casting doubts about the health of the economy and the likelihood of an interest rate hike by the end of the year. |
| Job market slowdown, rising wages may fit Fed’s playbookWASHINGTON (Reuters) – A slowdown in U.S. hiring coupled with a jump in wages last month dovetails with what the Federal Reserve expected as the economy approaches full employment and is not likely to alter its interest rate hike trajectory. |
| Smallest U.S. job gains in seven months temper rate hike expectationsWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy added the fewest number of jobs in seven months in April and Americans dropped out of the labor force in droves, signs of weakness that left economists anticipating only one interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve this year. |
| Exclusive: Apple’s Tim Cook to visit China for government meetings – sourceBEIJING (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook plans to visit Beijing later this month to meet high-level government officials, at a time when it is facing some setbacks in its most important overseas market, a source familiar with the matter said. |
| Redstone trial over mental competence begins with expletives(Note language in second paragraph some readers may find offensive. Rewrites with Redstone comments from deposition) |
| Cigna says Anthem deal could close in 2017; Anthem sticks to 2016NEW YORK (Reuters) – Health insurer Cigna Corp , which announced plans to be bought by larger Anthem Inc 10 months ago, on Friday said the deal may close in 2017 rather than 2016 due to the complexity of the regulatory process, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. |
| BlackRock sees no more than one U.S. rate hike in 2016NEW YORK (Reuters) – A top bond manager at BlackRock , the world’s biggest asset manager, said on Friday he does not expect the Federal Reserve to raise U.S. interest rates more than once in 2016 following a disappointing April payrolls report. |
| Oil up 1 percent as dollar softens; Brent in for big weekly lossNEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices rose about 1 percent on Friday as the dollar softened but benchmark Brent was on track to its biggest weekly loss in four months after investors cashed out from last week’s six-month highs. |
| Bosses take bigger share of top British firms’ profitsLONDON (Reuters) – Chief executives at Britain’s largest companies had a pay cut last year. But profits fell further, ensuring a decade-long trend of bosses taking a rising share of corporate profits continued. |
| No Wonder We’re Poorer: Wages’ Share Of GDP Has Fallen for 46 YearsSubmitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog, The problem is that limiting financialization will implode the system. The majority of American households feel poorer because they are poorer. Real (i.e. adjusted for inflation) median household income has declined for decades, and income gains are concentrated in the top 5%:
Even more devastating, wages’ share of GDP has been declining (with brief interruptions during asset bubbles) for 46 years. That means that as gross domestic product (GDP) has expanded, the gains have flowed to corporate and owners’ profits and to the state, which is delighted to collect higher taxes at every level of government, from property taxes to income taxes.
Here’s a look at GDP per capita (per person) and median household income. Typically, if GDP per capita is rising, some of that flows to household incomes. In the 1990s boom, both GDP per capita and household income rose together. Since then, GDP per capita has marched higher while household income has declined. Household income saw a slight rise in the housing bubble, but has since collapsed in the “recovery” since 2009.
These are non-trivial trends. What these charts show is the share of the GDP going to wages/salaries is in a long-term decline: gains in GDP are flowing not to wage-earners but to shareholders and owners, and through their higher taxes, to the government. The top 5% of wage earners … |
| One Dead, Three Critical In Maryland Mall Shooting, Suspect At Large – Live WebcastIn the latest mass shooting at a public place, one person was killed and three people are critically injured after separate shootings Friday morning at a mall and shopping center in Montgomery County, Maryland. Investigators are examining whether the shooting at Westfield Montgomery mall in Bethesda has any connection to a fatal shooting Thursday in a parking lot of a high school in Beltsville, Maryland, a source tells NBC News. Live webcast from the scene below: Police say preliminary information indicates the shooter fired at one victim and then two people went to the victim’s aid. The shooter then fired at those two people, police say, according to initial information. “We have no reason to believe the victims knew the suspect,” Montgomery County Assistant Chief Darryl McSwain said. “But we are certainly looking at all angles.” Police identified the suspect in the shooting at High Point High School as Eulalio Tordil of Adelphi, Maryland, a 62-year old employee of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Services, which provides services for federal buildings. He allegedly shot his wife on Thursday at a high school. Three people have been shot outside Westfield Montgomery mall in Bethesda, Maryland, by a shooter police believe was a stranger to the victims, police say.
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| Oil Shrugs As US Total Rig Count Continues Crash To Record LowsWTI crude prices are unimpresed at the rig count data today (after spiking off the dismal jobs data). Total rig count fell 5 to 415 – a new record low while oil rigs fell 4 to 328, tracking lagged oil prices to their nadir. 19th weekly decline of the 20 weeks in 2016… will it change as laged oil prices pick up?
With the total count continuing to crash to new record lows…
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| Property Rights are Necessary to Protect Africa’s Wildlife – A Message for Richard LeakeyAuthored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke. Over this past weekend, the New York Times published reportage, œTaking on Poachers, Kenya Burns Ivory by Jeffrey Gettleman. Richard Leakey, the noted paleontologist and one of Kenya’s leading conservationists, appeared in that piece, which described a $105 million bonfire fueled by ivory and ignited by Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta. Leakey indicated that it was a shame to have to burn tons of ivory in an attempt to stop illegal ivory trade. Well, there is another way. It was reported on in the Weekend Financial Times: œKenya enlists cattle in struggle to save the elephant by John Aglionby. In the Loisaba Conservancy, which was founded by Max Graham, a market-based approach to conservation is being developed. These articles on wildlife conservation in Kenya bring me back to my first encounters with both Leakey and Kenya. I first met Richard Leakey in the spring of 1972. It was then that the anthropologist Neville Dyson-Hudson, an expert on East African pastoral peoples, and I broke bread with Leakey at the Johns Hopkins Faculty Club in Baltimore. I anticipated plenty of paleontology and anthropology, but those weren’t on the menu. The conversation quickly turned to the topic that most interested Leakey, and as it turns out, the reason why my former colleague Dyson-Hudson had invited me to lunch in the first place: the economics of natural resources. Leakey had a vision of land use and wildlife resources in East Africa. His observation was that the East African savannahs were, in large part, common property resources. In addition, Leakey noted that the wildlife that roamed over these v … |
| What the Jobs Report Means for the Fed in JuneIt’s too soon to say a slower economy is cutting into hiring, but April jobs figures also give little urgency for the Federal Reserve to tighten. |
| Square: Learning Banking Truths the Hard WayLike other fintech firms, Square’s lending business faced financing difficulties in the first quarter. |
| Miners’ Lessons for Investment: Avoid Past PitfallsRio Tinto has taken the plunge with a $5.3 billion expansion of a copper mine in Mongolia. That will raise some eyebrows. |
| Capitol Report: Blame the jobs disappointment on the weather? One economist says yesDon’t roll your eyes ” the weaker-than-forecast jobs numbers in April can be blamed on the weather. |
| Capitol Report: Square’s snazzy presentation fails to mask resultsThe use of non-GAAP metrics by hot tech companies is under fire but Square uses one to clearly signal the impact of the end of its Starbucks agreement |
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