14Jan2016 Market Update: Markets Continue To Post Positive Gains, Oil Creeping Upwards, Major Supports Hold Firm

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are mixed today. The S&P 500 is up 1.84% while the IPC gains 0.44%. The Bovespa is off 1.01%.

Wall St. rallies as oil prices rebound

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks rallied strongly on Thursday, with the S&P 500 crossing a key technical level, as a rebound in oil prices boosted energy companies.

JPMorgan strikes confident tone after better-than-expected results

(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co ended the year with a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by cost cuts and a smaller legal bill, and expressed confidence about its businesses in 2016 despite a grim start for stocks and energy prices.

Renault searched in emissions probe, says no sign of defeat devices

PARIS (Reuters) – French carmaker Renault said fraud investigators had inspected three of its sites to look into its vehicle emissions technology – news that wiped billions off its market value in an echo of the scandal engulfing German rival Volkswagen.

Falling inflation expectations could mean policy rethink: Fed’s Bullard

MEMPHIS (Reuters) – The continued rout on global oil markets has caused a “worrisome” drop in U.S. inflation expectations that may make further rate hikes hard to justify, St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard said on Thursday.

Boeing sets sights on $2 billion United small jets order: sources

PARIS/NEW YORK (Reuters) – United Airlines is close to deciding an order for about 30 small jets worth around $2 billion at list prices and Boeing looks well placed to win at least part of the deal after undercutting smaller rivals, industry sources said.

Oil rebounds, snaps eight-day rout after new 12-year low on Iran worry

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil prices rebounded on Thursday, snapping an eight-day rout, as some players covered short positions after crude prices plumbed new 12-year lows amid concerns over Iran adding to a global glut faster than expected.

U.S. jobless claims rise; import prices sharply weaker

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, but remained at levels associated with a healthy labor market.

Momentum fading for global economic growth and inflation: poll

BENGALURU (Reuters) – Economic growth is losing momentum across emerging and developed economies as is inflation, with trouble in China now the biggest worry for 2016, according to the overwhelming majority of hundreds of economists polled by Reuters around the world.

Daimler boss criticizes VW over emissions scandal

BERLIN (Reuters) – An emissions scandal like the one engulfing Volkswagen would not be possible at Daimler, Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche said on Thursday in an unusual dig at another carmaker.

JPM Warns “Sustained Closes Here Would Not Be Welcome” – What The Charts Say

Via JPMorgan’s Jason Hunter,

S&P 500 Index closes in on the 2014-2015 range lows and critical support for our 2016 outlook

Broadly speaking, our 2016 Outlook for the S&P 500 Index favored a continuation of a broad and volatile range into the first half of the year, below 2,100 and above 1,820-1,870 longer-term range support. While the unexpected early-January weakness has not violated the Oct 2014 and Aug 2015 lows and other support parameters near that area, the nature of the current decline raises some concern for what has been a constructive longer-term view.

First, what started out as a very choppy and corrective looking pullback from the 2,116 Nov 2 high has taken on a much more impulsive wave structure (Chart 1).

That may still prove to be part of a large and convoluted corrective Elliott wave formation that encompasses all of the price action following the 2,135 May 2015 peak (Chart 2).

But the structure that has developed in Jan complicates our job of discerning the completion of a more benign medium-term C-wave within the expected range parameters versus the early stages of a much more aggressive bearish 5-wave st …

So You Want To Be A Citadel Trader: Here Are The Requirements

In the current turbulent times, in which one after another hedge fund is posting miserable performance numbers, gating or simply shutting down, one stalwart remains: Chicago’s appropriately named financial megalith Citadel, which year after year posts tremendous returns purely on the back of its retail orderflow frontrunning HFT platform.

No surprise then that thousands of disenchanted traders are eager to move from their current underpaying employer, to Ken Griffen’s financial powerhouse. But what skills would one need to be considered for employment and make the cut: fundamental, technical, charting, “blue horseshoe”?

Here is the answer from a just issued job seach posting by Citadel:

Quantitative Trading Systems Developer: Undergraduate, Master’s, PhD and Postdoc (New Grads)

Location: Chicago, IL

Are you a natural programmer who loves to optimize and make systems more efficient? Do you have a sophisticated computational skillset ” code optimization, systems architecture and library design? Do you know your core languages like you do your native tongue?

At Citadel, Quantitative Trading System Developers are responsible for designing, building, and optimizing our automated trading platform. Developers work closely with our research, simulation and live trading teams. We are seeking top undergraduate, master’s, and PhD students who are entrepreneurial self-starters and enjoy being in a fast-paced and dynamic environment for exciting opportunities in our automated quantitative trading businesses. This opportunity offers excellent exposure to a quantitative trading career path in one of the world’s leading global financial institutions.

If this is what excites you:

Norway’s Black Gold Fields Are A Sea Of Red – A Real-Time Map Of Crude Carnage

Norway is in trouble. As we have detailed previously (here, here, here, and here), the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund has begun liquidating assets (after its largest quarterly loss) as the nation faces recessionary fears (key data deterioration as oil stays lower for longer) with expectations building (despite denials by the central bank) that ZIRP (or even NIRP) is coming. Why? Simple – as the following real-time map shows – every one of Norway’s oil fields are currently underwater!

As we explained previously, while the slump in oil has pressured the krone and thus helped the country preserve some semblance of export competitiveness, the fact that i) everyone else is easing, and ii) global demand and trade are in the doldrums, serves as a kind of counterweight, leading directly to a situation wherein the currency, in Bloomberg’s words, “just can’t get weak enough.”

Now, Svenska Handelsbanken is out predicting that “lower for longer” crude will eventually force Norway to cut rates to zero.

Here’s more, via Bloomberg:

U.S. Stocks Climb in Volatile Trading

U.S. stocks pushed higher in volatile trading Thursday, as oil prices jumped and European shares pared losses.

J.P. Morgan’s Dimon Warns Economy Likely to Worsen

J.P. Morgan said cost-cutting helped its fourth-quarter profit beat expectations, but CEO James Dimon said the U.S. economy is likely to worsen after years of growth.

J.P. Morgan Builds Up Its Loss Reserves

J.P. Morgan did something Thursday that none of the big national banks has done for the past six years: It built up its reserve for bad loans.

The Margin: ˜Money Monster’ trailer with George Clooney and Julia Roberts is out, and it’s intense

A fast-paced trailer for the financial thriller œMoney Monster has been unleashed, promising to continue Hollywood’s foray into Wall Street excess and the darker side of finance.

The Margin: Fox films prove dominant, racking up 26 Oscar nominations

œThe Martian, œThe Revenant and œBrooklyn help the film arm of 21st Century Fox Inc. collect 26 Oscar nominations ” more than any other studio.

The Tell: Would you take the ˜sell everything’ bet?

MarketWatch readers are siding with Stephen Koukoulas against Andrew Roberts.