08Jan2016 Market Update: Markets Flat And Trending Down, Volume Low And The Averages Are About Where We Closed Yesterday

Written by Gary

U.S. markets started out well into the green at the opening, took the morning dip into negative territory and have moved back up to flat status. The DOW is currently 21 cents in the green, but the averages are expected to trend down this afternoon. WTI crude is testing its 12 year old support, but volume is light and investors are seriously unsure of the future.

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money
	North and South American markets are lower today with shares in Mexico off the most. The IPC is down 0.34% while Brazil’s Bovespa is off 0.08% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is lower by 0.04%.

What Is Moving the Markets

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	Robust U.S. payrolls brighten economic outlook WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. payrolls surged in December and the job count for the prior two months was revised sharply higher, showing the economy on solid ground despite a troubling international backdrop.
	Oil prices steady but head for 10 pct weekly decline NEW YORK (Reuters) – Crude prices steadied on Friday, supported by higher stock prices on Wall Street, but oil was still headed for a 10 percent weekly decline as global oversupply and a bleak demand outlook made it hard to guess the market’s bottom.
	Wall St. bets on Apple bounceback despite iPhone shipment worries (Reuters) – Apple Inc has lost about $50 billion of its market value in the first four days of the year, but Wall Street brokerages remained confident the stock would bounce back.
	Wall St. turns negative as oil resumes downward spiral (Reuters) – U.S. stocks pared gains and turned negative on Friday, weighed down by energy stocks as oil prices dipped below $33 a barrel -their lowest in more than a decade.
	Volkswagen blasted for shielding emissions documents from U.S. probe (Reuters) – Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen blasted Volkswagen AG on Friday for citing German law to withhold documents from a group of U.S. state attorneys general investigating the German automaker’s use of illegal diesel emissions software.
	VW brand suffers first sales drop in 11 years, eyes tough markets BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen’s core brand suffered its first fall in sales in more than a decade last year and the carmaker said that markets will remain “challenging” in 2016 as it battles to contain the damage from its emissions scandal.
	Exclusive: Viacom to allow vote on expanding shareholder rights BOSTON (Reuters) – Media company Viacom Inc will allow investors to vote in March on whether to extend voting rights to all shareholders, according to documents provided to Reuters, as concern grows over the health of the company’s 92-year-old executive chairman Sumner Redstone.
	Strong U.S. wage growth boosts chances of Fed rate hikes WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An acceleration in U.S. wage growth reinforces the Federal Reserve’s view that inflation is poised to rebound and could lead the central bank to raise rates more this year than many investors expect.
	China stays in focus after tumultuous first week of 2016 DUBLIN (Reuters) – Having rocked world markets at the start of 2016, China will remain in the spotlight in the coming week, with data that may help gauge how sharply growth is slowing in the world’s second-largest economy.
	WTI Unimpressed Despite Plunge In US Oil Rig Count The oil rig count dropped 20 to 516 in the last week – the biggest weekly drop in 4 weeks to new cycle lows. Crude was unimpressed, jumping modestly and then fading…
	In Q4 When 282,000 Average Jobs Were Supposedly Added, The Atlanta Fed Sees GDP At A Paltry 0.8% Just over two hours ago, following the latest disappointing wholesale sales and trade, using the Atlanta Fed’s GDP methodology, we calculated just where the regional Fed would trim its famous “nowcast” estimate to: Atlanta Fed to revise Q4 GDP to ~0.8% shortly ” zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 8, 2016 Moments ago, that’s precisely what the Atlanta Fed’s revised Q4 GDP estimate was lowered to. To wit: Latest forecast ” January 8, 2016 The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2015 is 0.8 percent on January 8, down from 1.0 percent on January 6. The forecast for the contribution of inventory investment to fourth-quarter real GDP growth declined 0.2 percentage points to -0.8 percentage points after this morning’s wholesale trade report from the U.S. Census Bureau. So, to summarize: in a quarter in which GDP rose by 0.8%, and was likely negative when excluding the benefits – yes, that’s right, benefits – of the warm winter, the same way last year’s “harsh winter” supposedly subtracted from GDP, the US added on average over 270,000 workers per month. Just when you thought the Chinese Department of Truth couldn’t be topped…
	Investment Banks Share the Same Trading Algo Code By EconMatters Collusion on Wall Street If Michael Lewis thought Wall Street was rigged with his reveal in Flash Boys he would be stunned to know that he barely scratched the surface of not only the corruption on the street, but the overt collusion behind the scenes at the Investment banks. We used to have notions of ˜proprietary programmed code’ but the Investment Banks learned that they could make their life a lot easier by working together instead of cross purposes. In a nutshell, collusion pays much better than trying to outcompete each other for market profits.
	China’s Largest Bank Is Mystery Buyer Of Massive 1,500 Ton Gold Vault In London Back in June 2013, when Deutsche Bank opened a gold vault in Singapore which could hold up to 200 metric tons, the German bank was euphoric about the prospects for storing physical gold: “Gold has traditionally been stored in London, Zurich and New York, but there is a serious shift in dynamics going on as the global financial crisis continues to evolve,” Mark Smallwood, Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management’s head of wealth planning in the Asia-Pacific region, told The Wall Street Journal. This is what the outside, and inside, of the state of the art Singapore vault looked like: Mark was correct and thanks to the ongoing decline in gold prices, Chinese and Indian demand for the metal, the physical metal that is, not its various paper manifestations, has risen to record levels. Alas, one thing Mark did not know is that in early 2014, a German regulator would reveal that “precious metals manipulation was worse than the Libor scandal” and as a result the largest German bank (and
	The Junk-Bond Market’s Newest Big Buyer: Goldman Sachs Many investors are taking a break from the junk-bond market, but not Goldman Sachs. Buyout firms are increasingly calling on investors such as Goldman, which are willing to lend even in choppy markets.
	U.S. Stocks Trading Steady U.S. stocks steadied Friday after a turbulent week, as Chinese officials moved to reassure markets and data showed the U.S. economy created more jobs than expected in December.
	What Top U.S. Investors Are Saying About China DoubleLine Capital’s Jeffrey Gundlach says the sharp declines signal deep fundamental economic problems, while Eaton Vance’s Eddie Perkin says the selloff appears to be œan air pocket before corporate earnings.
	01 January 2016: ECRI’s WLI Growth Index Declined Again Remaining In Negative Territory ECRI’s WLI Growth Index which forecasts economic growth six months forward – declined again marginally and remains in negative territory. This index had spent 28 weeks in negative territory, then 15 weeks in positive territory – and now is in its 21st week in negative territory. Also released today was ECRI’s inflation gauge.
	Capitol Report: Only sour note in jobs report: Lower wages The only truly weak note in a muscular U.S. jobs report for December was a small decline in hourly pay for American workers.