Written by Gary
U.S. stocks declined late this afternoon as Greek debt talks hit a stalemate about the country’s ability to reach a bailout deal and worries have resurfaced over how soon the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates.
The dollar edged lower against the euro and the yen today as investors seem uncertain whether Fed will be clearer next week on its rate plans sending the DOW down 141 points.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Grexit Anxiety Sparks Bond Bid As Stocks Skid To Worst Streak Since JanSumming up the week (in Washington and NYC)… A hope-strewn squeeze at the open was dominated by the Grexit contagion spreading across the pond..
On the week. the S&P just managed a gain with the Nasdaq on a 3-week losing streak – its worst since January…
But Futures show the real volatile swings in the markets this week…
On the week, Energy stocks were the biggest losers (despite Crude’s gains) and Homebuilder led (WTF!?)
Bonds & Stocks decoupled… |
| Looking for the Mysterious Mr. NedevNedko Nedev, the Bulgarian man alleged to be at the center of a bogus takeover attempt that drove up prices of Avon Products last month, appears to be as much a mystery at home as in the U.S. |
| One Week After “Massive” Outflow, Greek Depositors Yank Another 600 Million From Local BanksOne week ago we reported that, according to Greek sources, Greece had suffered a “massive” deposit outflow to the tune of 700 million just last Friday, culminating a week of 3.4 billion in total outflows following the acrimonious failure by the Greek government to reach a deal with the Troika. This was confirmed by Wednesday’s news that Greek banks had received another weekly boost in their ELA allottment, the biggest since February, amounting to 2.3 billion and bringing the total to a record 83 billion.
… even as deposits continued to slide inexorably toward parity with the ECB’s funding of Greek banks, at last official check at 130 billion although realistically much lower as of this moment.
Today, following yet another diplomatic snafu when yesterday the IMF announced unexpectedly that it had cut off negotiations on with an intransigent Greek delegation, which hardly restored depositor confidence in their local banks (hit by the double whammy of yet another S&P downgrade) Greek medi … |
| Google launches a YouTube built for gamers (Reuters) – Google Inc said on Friday that it is launching a live streaming gaming service called “YouTube Gaming”, creating a rival to Amazon.com Inc’s Twitch service. |
| The Front-Runners In Fusion EnergySubmitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com, Fusion power has been something of a holy grail in the energy field for decades. The idea of harnessing the same energy that powers the sun naturally excites many. At the same time, despite decades of research, fusion energy has yet to come close to being a reality. The only significant practical advance in fusion reactions has been the development of thermonuclear weapons like the hydrogen bomb which, for all intents and purposes, serve the same purpose as conventional nuclear weapons. Still, even today billions of dollars continues to be poured into fusion research at research labs around the world. And in the last decade, there has been a proliferation of interest in fusion power from commercial sources. The largest company doing work in fusion power is probably Lockheed Martin. Lockheed claims that it will have a prototype reactor in a just a few years’ time and that a commercial product could be coming within a decade. If that occurs it would be enormously exciting – fusion power offers the potential for vastly more energy production than traditional nuclear energy with virtually no nuclear waste and no greenhouse gases. It is also practically limitless, as its fuel source comes from materials already found abundantly around the world. But, many have rightly expressed skepticism about Lockheed’s claims, given fusion’s long history of near-breakthroughs that don’t come to pass. Thus the onus is very much on the company to show th … |
| Stocks Could Lose 90% of Their Value in the Next Two YearsIn the early 2000s, Alan Greenspan was worried about deflation. So he hired Ben Bernanke, the self-proclaimed expert on the Great Depression from Princeton. The idea was that with Bernanke as his right hand man, Greenspan could put off deflation from hitting the US. Indeed, one of Bernanke’s first speeches was titled “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here” The US did briefly experience a bout of deflation from late 2007 to early 2009. To combat this, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke unleashed an unprecedented amount of Fed money. Remember, Bernanke claims to be an expert on the Great Depression, and his entire focus was to insure that the US didn’t repeat the era of the ’30s again. Current Fed Chair Janet Yellen is cut of the same cloth as Bernanke. And her efforts (along with Bernanke’s) aided and abetted by the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in history, have recreated an environment almost identical to that of the 1920s. Let’s take a quick walk down history lane. In the 1920s, most of Europe was bankrupt due to after effects of WWI. Germany in particular was completely insolvent due to the war and due to the war reparations foisted upon it by the Treaty of Versailles. Remember, at this time Germany was the second largest economy in the world (the US was the largest, then Germany, then the UK). Germany attempted to deal with the economic implosion created by WWI by increasing social spending: social spending per resident grew from 20.5 Deutsche Marks in 1913 to 65 Deutsche Marks in 1929. Since the country was broke, incomes and taxes remained low, forcing Germany to run massive deficits. As its debt loads swelled, the county cut interest rates and began to print money … |
| Wealth Matters: Tough Choices for Succession in the Family Business When it’s time for founders to pass the torch, a fallout can occur, leaving adult children feeling slighted. But proactive steps can help ease the transition. |
| Wall Street falls as Greece crisis unresolved; energy shares drop (Reuters) – U.S. stocks declined late Friday afternoon as Greek debt talks hit a stalemate and worries resurfaced over how soon the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates. |
| Alibaba Affiliate’s Online Bank Constrained by RegulatorsAn online bank backed by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s financial affiliate will make its highly anticipated launch with only limited offerings, constrained by risk-averse government regulators. |
| Stocks Drop Amid Worries on GreeceU.S. stocks declined Friday as a setback in the financing talks between Greece and its creditors raised worries about the country’s ability to reach a bailout deal. |
| How Companies Mask Runaway InflationDo you feel like you’re running out of pepper more often these days? Or maybe you recently realized that no, you are not in fact sweating more, the deodorant sticks you’ve been buying for years have simply gotten smaller lately. Or worst of all, have you noticed that Slim Jims have gotten shorter? If any of the above applies, rest assured it is not your imagination, it is simply a symptom of corporate America attempting to hide runaway inflation — you know, that runaway inflation which the Fed has certainly not created by running the printing presses at full tilt for five years. Known as “weight out” in the corporate world and “slack fill” in litigation, it’s a simple strategy that’s been readily apparent in bags of potato chips for years and although it can, in some instances, get companies sued, that’s nonetheless preferable to eating the cost of higher input prices. WSJ has more:
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| Twitter seeks new CEO, and more users, as Costolo exits (Reuters) – Some things can’t be summed up in 140 characters. |
| Dollar Slips on Uncertainty Over FedThe dollar edged lower against the euro and the yen on Friday as investors seem uncertain whether Fed will be clearer next week on its rate plans. |
| EU holds first talks on Greek default as Athens holds out hope ATHENS/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU officials have held their first formal talks on the possibility of a Greek default, officials said on Friday, but the darkening outlook failed to fluster Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who holed up with his negotiators after proclaiming optimism at an open air concert. |
| You’re Fired — Now Train Your Much Cheaper Foreign ReplacementSubmitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If you were laid off from your job, would you be willing to train your replacement if your company threatened to take away your severance pay if you didn’t do it? And how would you feel if your replacement came from India, and the only reason your company was replacing you was because the foreign worker was a lot less expensive? Sadly, this is happening all over America – especially in the information technology field. Huge corporations such as Disney and Southern California Edison are coldly firing existing tech workers and filling those jobs with much cheaper foreign replacements. They are doing this by blatantly abusing the H-1B temporary worker visa program. Workers that had been doing a solid job for decades are being replaced without any hesitation just because it will save those firms a little bit of money. There is very, very little loyalty left in corporate America today. Even if you have poured your heart and your soul into your company for years, that ultimately means very little. The moment that your usefulness is over, most firms will replace you in a heartbeat these days. When I learned that Disney was doing this, I was absolutely outraged. Talk about a company that is going down the toilet. The following comes from the New York Times…
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