Written by Gary
The Dow finishing above 24,000 for the first time in history, as investors grew more optimistic about the prospects for a tax overhaul out of Washington. All major indexes closed higher for the month, with the S&P 500 and Dow logging new records, while the blue-chip index set its longest streak of monthly gains in more than 22 years. Oil closed the day higher as the dollar declined.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
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The Market in Perspective
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Wall Street gains, Dow tops 24,000 as tax bill gains steamNEW YORK (Reuters) – The S&P closed at a record high and the Dow Jones Industrial Average broke above the 24,000 mark for the first time on Thursday as investors gained confidence that the Republican party’s push for a U.S. tax overhaul would succeed. | |
CVS closes in on deal to buy health insurer Aetna: source(Reuters) – CVS Health Corp is moving closer to a more than $66 billion cash and stock deal to buy health insurer Aetna Inc that could be announced as early as Monday, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday. | |
Bitcoin loses over a fifth of its value in less than 24 hoursLONDON (Reuters) – Bitcoin slid to as low as $9,000 in volatile trade on Thursday, having lost more than a fifth of its value since hitting an all-time high of $11,395 on Wednesday. . | |
Big U.S. banks in last-ditch push on regulatory relief billWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street banks and big regional lenders are scrambling to secure changes to a U.S. Senate bill easing rules on smaller banks ahead of a key lawmaker meeting next week, several bank lobbyists told Reuters. | |
GM plans large-scale launch of self-driving cars in U.S. cities in 2019SAN FRANCISCO/DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co laid out its vision for self-driving vehicles on Thursday, telling investors it planned a commercial launch of fleets of fully autonomous robo-taxis in multiple dense urban environments in 2019, in a challenge to rivals such as Alphabet Inc’s Waymo. | |
Goldman eschews bitcoin but wants to help clients crypto-tradeNEW YORK (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc is trying to figure out how to cater to investors who want to trade bitcoin even though the digital currency remains too volatile for the Wall Street bank to trade itself, according to comments by a representative and its chief executive officer on Thursday. | |
Hundreds of American Air flights still lack pilots in DecemberNEW YORK (Reuters) – American Airlines still has hundreds of flights without pilots assigned to them in December, the company said on Thursday, after a scheduling error gave too many pilots time off. | |
Now hiring? Amazon says its voice aide Alexa is ready for the office(Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc wants to be your new executive assistant at work. | |
Carl Icahn blasts SandRidge Energy’s poison pill move(Reuters) – SandRidge Energy Inc’s top shareholder and activist investor Carl Icahn blasted the oil and gas company’s move to adopt a poison pill plan amid strong opposition to its $746 million bid for Bonanza Creek Energy Inc. | |
White House Says It Is “Monitoring The Bitcoin Situation”In the past few days two Federal Reserve presidents have discussed cryptocurrencies and concluded they are “niche” and “don’t matter today.” The total market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency space is around $300 billion – smaller than the Top 10 names in the S&P 500. In the last three years, Bitcoin has gained a similar amount of market cap as Nvidia… A de minimus percentage of Americans are exposed to Bitcoin and crypto-currencies. But it appears the last few days of turbulence in Bitcoin – which saw total losses of around $3 billion yesterday, compared to $60 billion lost in FANG stocks alone – has ‘triggered’ the world’s media into a frenzy.. Which led to today’s White House Press Briefing and an unusual question from one reporter…
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Obese Millennials Jeopardize America’s Future: StudyA new study from the New England Journal of Medicine indicates the current obesity epidemic trends in the United States are much worse than thought. The study was published on Wednesday and already has demographers, government officials, and scientist alarmed. The sobering report finds 57.3% of the nation’s children and teens will be obese by the age of 35 if the model continues. America’s empire is now cracking under the weight of the millennial and the homeland generations’ poor eating habits. This study is unique and goes beyond any previous research suggesting unhealthy childhood weights leading to adult obesity, exclaimed USA Today. Further, the article suggests the millennial and homeland generation children may have just ushered in a “world where obesity could soon be the new normal”. Here is how the scientist calculated these scary findings,
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This Time Is Different – Part I: What Bitcoin Isn’tAuthored by Mark Jeftovic via Medium.com,
Given the current, latest successive series of spikes to all time highs for Bitcoin, the detractors are working overtime to make the case that the crypto-currency is a Ponzi, a scam, a phantasm or at the very least, a bubble. Oddly, many of these same detractors spend a lot of time cheerleading “the other bubble”, that everything-bubble, stocks, bonds, real estate, even ETFs of ETFs, you name it. It’s easy to make superficial apples-to-screwdrivers comparisons about why Bitcoin is doomed to fail. Until you really take some time to look into it. When first was exposed to the idea back in 2013 and researched it, I realized that “this really is different”, and the reason why was because of something John Kenneth Galbraith had once written whi … | |
Hyperinflation: Much Talked About, Little UnderstoodAuthored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke. Professor Liping He from Beijing Normal University has produced a most comprehensive and useful scholarly treatment of world hyperinflation. It is hot off the press. This is a welcomed addition to the literature. Indeed, Hyperinflation: A World History is destined to become a standard reference on the topic. My basis for this judgment rests on my own travails in grappling with the literature and data on hyperinflation. It also rests on my experience with measuring and stopping hyperinflation. The “Hanke-Krus World Hyperinflation Table” first appeared in the authoritative The Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History (2013). What was the genesis of this Table? In 2010, I was invited to write a survey article on hyperinflation for The Routledge Handbook of Major Events in Economic History. I accepted the invitation, thinking it would require routine work on my part, and that I could complete the task in short order. I had already surveyed the literature on hyperinflation. In addition, I had accurately estimated the inflation rates in several countries that had experienced episodes of hyperinflation. These included two relatively re … | |
How Retailers Can Fight Back at ChristmasIn an Amazon-free world, retailers would be singing in the streets. Unemployment and inflation are low and consumer confidence is high. Yet e-commerce continues to cannibalize store profits. | |
Kroger Investors Cleaning Up in Aisle FiveSupermarket chain Kroger, slammed by Amazon’s entry into the grocery business and other competitive fears, is bouncing back and still looks like a bargain. | |
A Bitter Winter for China’s EntrepreneursAs the U.S. reaffirms China’s status as a nonmarket economy, the latest data shows China’s economy is holding up well—as long as you are a large, state-owned manufacturer. China’s private factory owners are taking fire from multiple sides, however. | |
Negotiating The EU’s Future On Even Groundfrom STRATFOR — this post authored by Adriano Bosoni From its very inception, the European Union has depended on the alliance between France and Germany. The bloc’s predecessor, the European Economic Community, formed with the principal goal of binding the two countries together so closely that another war on the Continent would be impossible. And from the 1950s on, a tacit agreement underlay their partnership: France was the main political and military power in the bloc, and Germany was the main financial supporter (paying for, among other things, onerous subsidies for French farmers). After German reunification in 1990, France even pushed for the creation of the euro as another way to strengthen Paris’ links with Berlin. | |
November 2017 Chicago Purchasing Managers Barometer Eases. Supplier Lead Times Hit 13-Year HighThe Chicago Business Barometer declined marginally but remains in positive territory. | |
Market Extra: Uncle Sam is coming after your bitcoin gainsA ruling in favor of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in its suit against Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, once again proved that death and taxes are truly the only certain things in life | |
Personal Finance Daily: How to provide for your pet in your estate plan and why women still take their husbands’ namesThursday’s top personal finance stories | |
Mutual Funds Weekly: Forget the Benjamins — now it’s all about the bitcoinThe cryptic cryptocurrency continues to defy the critics. |
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