24Aug2018 Market Close: Wall Street Closed Higher, Low Volume Makes Investors Choices Difficult, DOW Closed Up 133 Points, WTI Crude Slipped Into The 68 Handle

Stocks up, S&P 500 reaches record closing high

The benchmark S&P 500 index clinched its longest-ever bull market run on Friday, closing above its previous January high, as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell affirmed the U.S. central bank’s current pace of rate hikes.

U.S. calls foreign mail system unfair in surprise win for Amazon

The U.S. State Department on Friday said it would push for foreign postal carriers to pay the U.S. Postal Service more to deliver small parcels within the United States, taking up a longtime complaint by Amazon.com , UPS and others who have alleged the current system is unfair.

Wells Fargo lays off more than 600 mortgage workers

Wells Fargo & Co is laying off more than 600 workers as it grapples with a slowdown in its mortgage business, a bank spokesman said on Friday.

Papa John’s taps investment banks amid pressure from founder: sources

Papa John’s International Inc , the world’s third-largest pizza delivery company, has hired Bank of America Corp and Lazard Ltd to help find ways to stabilize the restaurant chain, which has come under pressure from its founder John Schnatter, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Volkswagen CEO received memorandum about emissions cheating fallout: NDR

Volkswagen Chief Executive Herbert Diess was given a memorandum warning the carmaker might face legal action in the U.S. over the use of cheating software in cars just days before the scandal broke, a public broadcaster reported on Friday.

Fed’s Powell defends policy of gradual interest rate hikes

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Friday defended the U.S. central bank’s push to raise interest rates as healthy for the economy and signaled more hikes were coming despite President Donald Trump’s criticism of higher borrowing costs.

Fed’s Powell: more rate hikes likely if economy stays strong

The Federal Reserve’s steady interest rate hikes are the best way to protect the U.S. economic recovery and keep job growth as strong as possible and inflation under control, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Friday in a high-profile endorsement of the central bank’s current approach to policy.

UK auditors, watchdog to discuss curbs on Big Four market share

Britain’s top accountants will meet with competition regulators next week to discuss limiting the “Big Four” auditors’ market share after lawmakers called for them to be broken up.

As big firms get bigger, rate cuts may pack less punch: study

Low interest rates may do less to boost business spending in today’s economy than in years past because the big companies that now dominate many industries tend to use their money on intangibles that do not get cheaper as borrowing costs fall.

China Saves The World As Gold Gains Most In 5 Months

China “unleashed hell” on the shorts with its promise that banks would resume a “counter-cyclical” factor when calculating the yuan’s daily reference rate, restraining the influence of market forces that have been driving the currency lower versus the greenback.

Sending offshore yuan soaring by the most since Jan 2016…

Catching up with, and then leading, US equity futures…

Igniting momentum in stocks at …

US Economic Data ‘Death Cross’?

Remember ‘global synchronous recovery’? That is over…

For the first time since early 2015, US economic data is trending dramatically more disappointing than that of Europe.

In fact, as the ‘global synchronous recovery’ evaporates, US and European economic data has not been so completely decoupled in years… but don’t forget, this is the greatest economy in the world.

Still, there is one silver lining in all of this… at least America is not as bad as China (which is currently the most economically disappointing nation in the world).

…

Kunstler: “The Financialization Rackets That Replaced The Real Economy Have Come Unglued”

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

The Dogs Of Vengeance

History has a velocity of its own, and its implacable forces will drag the good, the bad, the clueless, the clever, the guilty, the innocent, the avid, and the unwilling to a certain fate. One can easily see a convergence of vectors shoving the nation toward political criticality this autumn.

Mr. Trump is like some unfortunate dumb brute of the ancient Teutonic forests with a bulldog clamped to his nose, the rest of the pack close behind snapping at his hamstrings and soft, swaying underbelly. His desperate bellowing goes unanswered by the indifference of the trees in forest, the cold moon above, and all the other furnishings of his tragic reality.

As these things tend to happen, it looks like the exertions of Robert Mueller have turned from the alleged grave offenses of a foreign enemy to the sequela of consort with a floozie. Down goes Mr. Trump’s private attorney, Michael Cohen, in his personal swamp of incriminating files and audio recordings. Enter, stage left, one David Pecker, publisher of the venerable National Enquirer — the newspaper of wreckage — on his slime-trail of induced testimony. And there is your impeachable offense: an illegal campaign contribution.

One way or another, as Blondie used to sing, I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha.

Some in this greatest of all possible republics may be asking themselves if this is quite fair play, given the hundreds of millions of dollars washed-and-rinsed through the laundromat known as the Clinton Foundation, and related suspicious doings in that camp of darkness. But remember, another president, Jimmy Carter, once declared to the shock of official Washington that “life is unfair.”

“What’s The First Thing You Look At In The Morning?”

Via Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow,

A number of years ago, I began traveling to different trading rooms across continents. One of the things I shouldn’t have been surprised to learn, but was quite taken by, was the different answers I got to the question, “What’s the first thing you look at when you get up in the morning?”

Everyone was curious about the obvious big picture in the markets but first on the list was always what would affect them most immediately, directly and therefore personally.

During one of my first trips, I became well-acquainted with a fabulous trader in Singapore. Not surprisingly, especially given the era, he mostly traded emerging markets – strongly enough to have never missed a beat making two-way prices throughout the entirety of the Asian financial crisis. His answer, without hesitation, was “the Mexican peso.” Which, trust me, didn’t trade back then in South-East Asia. But he said it was his secret key to anticipating the mindset of the client base and gave a good idea how things would at least open locally.

If you posed that question to traders these days, you might hear S&P 500 E-minis, 10-year Treasuries o …

H&M May Never Catch Up

The world’s second-largest fashion chain by sales has fallen behind as consumers have moved online. Despite a big decline, the stock hasn’t priced in the new reality.

Videogames’ Epic Shootout Coming This Fall

This fall the industry will launch a series of major first-person shooters, while “Fortnite” is poised to begin a new season. That may prove to be a bit too much action for some game publishers.

Smucker Needs to Fix Peanut Butter and Jelly

Food company Smucker has made smart moves to adjust its portfolio, but without boosting its core brands the stock will keep struggling.

John McCain is a war hero—but think twice before saying he’s ‘battling’ cancer

The Arizona senator’s family announced Friday that he will discontinue medical treatment for brain cancer.

Commodities Corner: Sugar prices are the lowest in a decade, but have yet to hit bottom

Sugar prices have fallen to their lowest levels in a decade and are likely to drop further as record world-wide production collides with healthier eating.

Mark Hulbert: September is the worst month for stocks — but don’t bet on it

Overconfidence based on market patterns is dangerous, writes Mark Hulbert.