27Nov2015 Market Close: Early Close, Little Movement

Written by Gary

The major averages were mixed but there was little overall change. Disney was the big mover, closing down on declining sales worries.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

The Market in Perspective

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	EU wants to give national privacy regulators more clout in new U.S. data pact BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union wants to enhance the power of the bloc’s national privacy regulators in policing a planned new EU-U.S. data pact after the previous one was struck down by a top EU court on concerns about mass U.S. surveillance.
	Exclusive: Lazard works with Sanofi on $12.7 billion animal health unit deal – sources LONDON/NEW YORK/FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Investment bank Lazard is working with Sanofi’s management to prepare a sale or listing of its Merial animal health unit, aiming to land the leading advisory job for the deal, which could value the business at up 12 billion euros ($12.7 billion), sources familiar with the matter said.
	Wall St ends flat; Disney, retailers dip on sales worries (Reuters) – U.S. stock indexes ended little changed in light trading on Friday, with consumer stocks falling as investors fretted over early reports on the U.S. holiday shopping season and Disney’s subscriber losses weighed on the market.
	Class action suit against Barclays alleges forex rigging losses (Reuters) – A New York-based investment adviser filed a class action lawsuit against Barclays Plc on Friday alleging that rigged foreign exchange trading practices at the bank caused “significant damages” to its trading partners.
	Black Friday crowds thin in subdued start to U.S. holiday shopping CHICAGO/PITTSBURGH (Reuters) – America’s annual Black Friday shopping extravaganza was short on fireworks this year as U.S. retailers’ discounts on electronics, clothing and other holiday gifts failed to draw big crowds to stores and shopping malls.
	Holiday shopping unlikely to cheer many investors SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The holiday shopping rush that kicked off on Friday is unlikely to bring much cheer to investors looking for a revival in retail stocks.
	Musk’s Tesla faces German battle over battery-powered homes FRANKFURT (Reuters) – If Elon Musk’s vision of millions of households producing all their own power becomes a reality, it will probably happen first in Germany. But he will face a battle for market share against local firms with years of experience in renewable energy.
	Microsoft’s Gates to start multi-billion-dollar clean tech initiative NEW YORK/PARIS (Reuters) – Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will launch a multi-billion-dollar clean energy research and development initiative with heads of state on Monday, the opening day of the U.N. climate change summit in Paris, the French government said Friday.
	Dutch government to appeal EU ruling on Starbucks tax deal AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch Finance Ministry said on Friday it will appeal against a European Commission ruling ordering it to recover up to 30 million euros ($31.8 million) in taxes from Starbucks.
	The Death Of Damascus: Images From Syria’s War-Torn Capital Last month, as the IRGC and Hezbollah rallied their ground troops to prepare for an assault on Aleppo, we brought you a series of stark images from a city deciminated by years of war. A week later, we highlighted new, high-def drone footage of Syria’s eerily desolate urban landscapes rendered barren by mortar fire, barrel bombs, and airstrikes. If you follow the war closely, it’s easy to get swept up in the World War III, global conflict hysteria. After all, what’s more intriguing from a geopolitical perspective than the distinct possibility that Moscow and NATO may be headed for an armed conflict after Turkey became the first alliance member to engage a Russian or Soviet aircraft in some six decades. Throw in the fact that at the center of it all is a wealthy, brazen terrorist organization funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, whose mission is to rid the Arabian Peninsula of Iranian influence and you have the recipe not only for a renewal of Cold War hostilities, but also for an explosive sectarian conflict.
	Dirty Connecticut Mayor (Sentenced To Prison For Corruption) Reelected In Landslide After East Chicago re-elected an accused drug dealer and murderer as councilman, we thought the bar had dropped as low as it gets for the ignorance of an electorate. But, no! Bridgeport, Connecticut residents just took the proverbial biscuit by re-electing Mayor Joseph P. Ganim – who during his last ‘reign’ was convicted of 16 felonies including racketeering, extortion, and bribery. As TheAntiMedia.org’s Lou Colagiovanni details, Ganim spent seven years of his life in federal prison as a result of the convictions. Political pundits originally saw Ganim’s candidacy as a sideshow with no hope of electability, but the joke was on them. In September, Ganim defeated Bridgeport’s incumbent mayor, Bill Finch, by 400 votes during the Democratic primary. Mary-Jane Foster, the Vice President of the University of Bridgeport, was Ganim’s closest opponent and lost the election by a landslide margin of almost 2 to 1.
	Goldman’s Meteoronomists Have A Dire Forecast: “Winter Is Coming” What little credibility the shamanistic voodoo religion that is economics had, it lost over the past 2 years when even the most modest downtick in economic activity was blamed on the “weather.” It appears that as part of their conversion from “economist” to pure-play weathermen, nobody advised Wall Street’s if not best and brightest, then certainly dumbest Keynesians, that adjusting for the seasons, is precisely what seasonal adjustments are for, and why they spend hundreds of hours goalseeking every data point with Arima-X-13 models until they get the result they want. It was not enough, and in the winter of 2013 and 2014, the farce was indeed complete, when none other than the Bureau of Weather Economic “Analysis” incorporated double seasonal adjustments, to smoothe away what to most was an “inexplicable” slowdown in the US economy, and which was simply a function of two consecutive credit crises hitting China in the latter part of 2013 and 2014. However, instead of modeling how two consecutive years of China’s slowing credit impulse slammed US growth, the economisseds instead decided to blame it all on the unprecedented events of cold and snow in the winter as they relied on their favorite forecasting tool… So with the winter of 2015 so far shaping up to be what some have dubbed “abnormally hot”, we thought that at least this year the weatherconomists would keep their mouth shut: after all, if you blame cold …
	Why China Hit The Panic Button On Metals Traders (In 1 Simple Copper Chart) Within the last week China appears to have hit the panic button with regards the seemingly unstoppable collapse of commodity prices. First, desperate Chinese producers began to demand a QE-for-commodities bailout; then, following the well-trodden (and failing) path of China’s equity market maipulation, authorities began to crackdown on “malicious” commodity short-sellers. So why now? Why focus attention on the commodity markets? Perhaps this chart holds the key… Having suddenly lost control of the stock market again… Maybe commodities are a renewed focus as, we showed earlier in the week, there is “No End In Sight For Commodity Carnage As Chinese Fear Fed Hike Blowback”, a post which can be summarized with the following chart showing that at least for nickel, copper, zinc, iron ore and aluminum it will be a very unhappy holiday season: The one-word reason for this condition, as we explained here: …
	Downed Jet Disrupts Russia and Turkey Wheat Trade Tensions following Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet are disrupting the Black Sea wheat trade, which could push prices higher as some customers look for alternative supplies.
	Bonds, Dollar Gain as Investors Watch ECB, Fed Traders are watching readings from the ECB and the U.S. job market for signs that economies and rates in the U.S. and Europe will diverge even more.
	Dow Ends Slightly Lower in Shortened Session The Dow industrials ended lower in an abbreviated, post-Thanksgiving session Friday as energy and consumer discretionary shares posted losses.
	Future Train Traveling Are you folks interested in seeing how we will travel tomorrow? Well, science is getting there. Whether you or I will see this body of accomplishment in our day, remains to be seen. It’s not that far away. It’s pretty nifty. Enjoy.
	Building A Smarter Grid. Can Smart Grid Technology Change The Way We Use Electricity? from the Richmond Fed — this post authored by Eamon O’Keefe On the hottest days of summer, when many Americans turn down their thermostats and crank up their air conditioners, electric utilities have to boost production to meet high demand. The power plants they bring online often are more expensive to operate, yet electricity prices rarely change. Economists envision an electricity marketplace in which prices reflect the true cost of producing electricity so that consumers and producers are constantly adapting to real-world conditions.
	NewsWatch: A tribute to Richard Russell, who edited Dow Theory Letters for 57 years The late investment-newsletter editor correctly called major trend changes in the stock market since the 1950s.
	3 police officers confirmed wounded in Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting Police and firefighters in Colorado Springs, Colo., are responding to reports of an active at the local Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday.
	The Wall Street Journal: NSA to cease collection of phone records The National Security Agency will follow through on a plan to cease collecting bulk telephone records on Sunday, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Friday, despite the urging of some Republicans that the program be extended in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.