16Feb2016 Market Close: Crude Oil Down 4%, Averages Up, Dow Closes Up Over 200 Points, The Wall Street Casino Will Be Open Again Tomorrow

Written by Gary

US averages remained in the green all day with the DOW mostly over 200 points as the equities traded sideways during the afternoon. WTI crude traded in the low 29’s for most of the session with little volatility after the Russian / Saudi Arabia ‘Cut Accord’ failed to impress investors. Short-term indicators are mildly bullish, but that doesn’t stop some analysts to claim tomorrow will be down.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

xxxxxxxxxxx

The Market in Perspective

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	Saudis and Russia agree oil output freeze, Iran still an obstacle DOHA (Reuters) – Top oil exporters Russia and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to freeze output levels but said the deal was contingent on other producers joining in – a major sticking point with Iran absent from the talks and determined to raise production.
	Oil loses nearly 4 percent as hopes over Saudi, Russia deal fade NEW YORK (Reuters) – Brent oil fell almost 4 percent on Tuesday, erasing early gains after top producers Russia and Saudi Arabia dashed expectations of an outright supply cut by agreeing only to freeze output if other big exporters joined them.
	Wall St. rises as battered consumer, bank stocks gain favor (Reuters) – Wall Street gained on Tuesday, extending a rally from Friday, as investors snapped up beaten-down consumer discretionary, industrial and financial stocks.
	U.S. agency rejects Boeing protest of Northrop bomber contract WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. government agency on Tuesday rejected a protest filed by Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp against a multibillion-dollar bomber contract awarded to Northrop Grumman Corp by the U.S. Air Force in October.
	Fed’s Kashkari, in first speech, suggests radical Wall St. overhaul WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve’s newest policymaker and a former point man for the government’s bailout of the financial industry on Tuesday called on lawmakers to take radical action to rein in banks and protect taxpayers.
	Hedge funds place bets on Morgan Stanley; some exit Valeant NEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. hedge fund management firms, including Dan Loeb’s Third Point LLC, took new positions in Morgan Stanley during the fourth quarter, ahead of the bank’s cost-cutting measures and bond-management reshuffling.
	Apollo Global’s ADT deal shows appetite for M&As still strong (Reuters) – Private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC will buy ADT Corp in the biggest leveraged buyout so far this year to create a business with nearly a third of North America’s electronic security products market.
	Drinks can makers Ball, Rexam launch $3 billion asset sale ahead of merger: sources FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Drinks can makers Ball Corp and Rexam Plc have begun the process of selling assets, potentially worth more than $3 billion, to meet antitrust regulations ahead of their planned merger, several people familiar with the matter said.
	Fed to hike twice in 2016, undeterred by external risks: Reuters poll BENGALURU (Reuters) – Growing concerns about weak global growth and inflation are unlikely to deter the U.S. Federal Reserve from tightening policy, according to a Reuters poll that suggested two interest rate hikes are likely this year.
	Capital Controls: Hayek versus the IMF Authored by Steve H. Hanke of The Johns Hopkins University. With each financial crisis, politicians of all stripes go into overdrive. They busy themselves by ducking any examination of the policy blunders that created the crisis in the first place. A favorite tactic is to fan anti-market flames. Markets get a bum wrap, and a cascade of new laws and regulations ensue. Par for the course, the Great Recession has served up a plethora of wrongheaded laws and regulations. Capital controls designed to throw sand in the gears of unrestricted capital flows are but one example. Even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has climbed on this bandwagon. Capital controls as a panacea for economic ills are nothing new. Their pedigree can be traced back to Plato, the father of statism. Inspired by Lycurgus, the tyrant of Sparta, Plato embraced the idea of an inconvertible currency as a means to preserve the autonomy of the state from outside interference. Before more people come under the spell of capital controls, they should reflect on the following passage from Friedrich Hayek’s 1944 classic, The Road to Serfdom: œThe extent of the control over all life that economic control confers is nowhere better illustrated than in the field of foreign exchanges. Nothing would at first seem to affect private life less than a state control of the dealings in foreign exchange, and most people will regard its introduction with complete indifference. Yet the experience of most Continental countries has taught thoughtful people to regard this step as the decisive advance on the path to totalitarianism and the suppression of individual liberty. It is, in fact, the complete delivery of the individual to the tyranny of the state, the final suppression of all means of escape ” not merely for the rich but for everybody. The imposition of capital controls leads to an instantaneous reduction in the wealth of the cou …
	Oil Commentary 2 16 2016 (Video) By EconMatters A choppy day in the oil market with a very tight pit trading range. API will set the tone for Thursday`s EIA Inventory report, API is out tomorrow night after the pit close. Â© EconMatters All Rights Reserved \| Facebook \| Twitter \| YouTube \| Ema …
	The Most Hated Dead Cat Bounce Ever? Wall Street Is Throwing Up All Over This Rebound For the longest time, it was “the most hated rally ever” and, as even the Davos crowd has now admitted, with good reason: it was all central bank manipulation and intervention, both of which are about to lose all potency forcing even the billionaires to admit that “the trade now is to hold as much cash as possible.” As the WSJ summarized three weeks ago, the billionaires’ “mood here was irritated, bordering on affronted, with what they say has been central-bank intervention that has gone on too long.” Well, be careful what you wish for, because as Deutsche Bank explained moments ago the central-bank intervention must go on, or else these billionaires will be even more irritated when their stocks crash and they become millionaires first, then hundred thousandaires, and so on. In the meantime, the markets have rolled over, and after twice testing the key support level of 1,812 in the S&P 500, violent dead cat bounces have emerged every single time. And yet in an unexpected twist, this time the majority of Wall Street “experts” is not only not cheering this rally on but is urging anyone who cares to listen to use it to liquidate positions; in fact thus may well be the “most hated repeat dead cat bounce ever.” Here are some observations, first from the technicians courtesy of BBG: MKM’s Jonathan Krinsky says 1,810-1,820 support “unlikely to hold,” next test at S&P 500 falling to 1,740. There are œsome bullish divergences that give merit to this counter-trend rally, [but] we are hard press …
	U.S. Stocks Rally U.S. stocks rose Tuesday, lifted by a rally in some of this year’s most battered sectors. Financial, consumer and technology stocks helped lift major indexes, which are each down about 10% in the past year.
	What Saudi Arabia’s Freeze Means for Oil Prices Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela have agreed to freeze oil output at January’s levels. The effect on the oil market is less than meets the eye.
	Hotel Investors Check Out Investors are shrugging off the lodging industry’s best fundamentals in years to dump hotel stocks, a move that could signal a broader downturn for the commercial real-estate sector.
	The Tell: The risky oil ETF that’s super popular with millennials The Velocity Shares 3X Long Crude ETN came in number 5 on the list of top 10 stocks traded by millennials in 2015.
	Deep Dive: 5 dividend stocks that have only gotten more attractive T. Rowe Price and Microsoft are among companies that can provide you with income for years to come.
	Deep Dive: Steer toward more ˜reasonable’ momentum stocks, J.P. Morgan says That’s as some familiar companies are ˜at risk’ of underperforming, the bank says.