03Mar2016 Market Update: US Markets Pausing After Two Day Rise, Gold Higher, US Dollar Lower, Indicators Bullish

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are mixed today. The Bovespa is up 3.55% while the IPC gains 0.06%. The S&P 500 is off 0.10%.

94.16

34.09%

U.S. tech companies unite behind Apple ahead of iPhone encryption ruling

(Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Google, Facebook Inc , Microsoft Corp and about a dozen other Internet companies will file a joint legal brief on Thursday asking a judge to support Apple Inc in its encryption battle with the U.S. government, sources familiar with the companies’ plans said.

Valeant reiterates key executive resigned, was not asked to go

(Reuters) – Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc , responding to investors’ queries, said on Thursday that Executive Vice President Deb Jorn had not been asked to leave, reiterating that she had resigned for personal reasons.

Energy pioneer McClendon dies in fiery car crash, a day after indictment

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – Former Chesapeake Energy Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon, a brash risk-taker who helped transform the U.S. energy industry with shale gas, died when his car slammed into an overpass on Wednesday, one day after being charged with breaking federal antitrust laws, police said. He was 56.

Business activity worldwide at weakest in three years in February

LONDON (Reuters) – Global business activity expanded at its weakest rate in over three years in February despite firms cutting prices for the first time since September, business surveys showed on Thursday.

Fed’s Kaplan calls for patience on raising U.S. interest rates

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) – Dallas Federal Reserve President Robert Kaplan called on Thursday for the U.S. central bank to be patient when it comes to raising interest rates, citing the effect of tighter financial conditions on U.S. economic growth.

Jumbo loans test U.S. leveraged market as demand dries up

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New jumbo leveraged loans for healthcare giant HCA Inc and chipmaker ON Semiconductor are expected to price at a premium, as a dent in demand and heightened volatility in the macroeconomic environment have made riskier loans more difficult to sell.

Dow, DuPont CEOs to get $80 million in ‘golden parachute’ payouts

(Reuters) – DowDuPont, the entity to be created by the merger of DuPont with Dow Chemical Co , said the chief executives of the two companies would get a combined $80 million in “golden parachute” payments after DowDuPont splits into three.

Exclusive: Airbus touts 400-seat ‘A350-8000’ jetliner

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Airbus is seeking airline support for a new 400-seat jetliner provisionally dubbed the A350-8000 as competition escalates with Boeing over the world’s largest two-engined jets, airline and aviation industry sources said.

What Do Bonds (And FX) Know?

It’s probably nothing…

Charts: Bloomberg

The European Union Was An AMERICAN Idea

A Unified Europe: Born In the USA

The former Bank of England head Mervyn King said this week that the “depression” in Europe “has happened almost as a deliberate act of policy”. Specifically, King said that the formation of the European Union has doomed Europe to economic malaise.

He points out that Greece is experiencing “a depression deeper than the United States experienced in the 1930s”.

The depths of Greece’s depression Credit: RBS economics/RBS

Indeed.

Moreover – as Martin Armstrong has warned for decades – letting countries like Greece join he Euro without first structurally adjusting their debts was a recipe for disaster.

So it is fascinating to learn that the U.S. was largely behind the creation of both the European Union and the Euro.

OPEC Ministers Now Resorting To Outright Lies In Desperate Attempts To Push Oil Higher

The key (recurring) catalyst for today’s early spike in oil, was the latest desperate attempt by an imploding OPEC member, this time Nigeria to push oil higher when overnight its petroleum minister Emmanuel Kachikwu said that key members of OPEC intend to meet with other producers in Russia on March 20 to renew talks on an agreement to cap oil output, Nigeria’s petroleum minister said.

The headlines in question:

NIGERIA OILMIN SAYS OPEC/NON OPEC TO MEET ON MARCH 20 IN RUSSIA

NIGERIA OIL MIN SEES DRAMATIC PRICE MOVE AFTER OPEC/NON-OPEC

NIGERIA OILMIN SAYS OPEC/NON OPEC TO MEET ON MARCH 20 IN RUSSIA

As Kachikwu hopefully added, “there will be a dramatic price movement when the meeting takes place.

As a reminder, oil-exporter Nigeria recently saw its dollar reserves dry up, forcing it to beg for a massive loan from the World Bank as the current price of oil dooms this particular nation to a very painful economic collapse.

Sure enough, the algos bought this hook, lie and sinker and proceed to force another attempt at squeezing near record shorts.

The only problem is that moments ago, we got confirmation that not only are such desperate attempts to prompt “dramatic price movements”, higher of course, laughable, they just suffered a spectacular loss of credibility when moments ago Reuters reported that no decision on the date or venue of a possible meeting between OPEC and non-OPEC producers has been made yet, a Gulf OPEC delegate said on Thursday.

“There has been no decision made regarding the meeting yet. No date or location decided yet. The Gulf countries prefer tha …

Just Two “Reasons” Why Gold Is Breaking Out

Aside from the legitimate, but largely irrelevant for the sake of this post, reasons including this morning surprisingly weak service data, in which both the ISM and the Markit PMI reports confirmed that the “malaise in manufacturing has spread to services”, JPM’s recommendation to sell stocks and buy gold, and the fact that slowly but surely the world is being flooded by negative rates, here are the two most actionable reasons why gold just broke out and soared to $1,260, and is fast approaching levels not seek since January 2015.

First, here is Goldman’s Jeff Currie telling CNBC’s viewers just two weeks ago to short gold: “we maintain our view of rising U.S. rates and hence lower gold prices with a 3-month target of $1,100 (per troy ounce) and 12-month target of $1000 (per troy ounce)” not to mention Goldman’s October 14 summary that gold is a “slam dunk sell.”

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But perhaps even more important, was the greenlight for the spike higher from none other than Dennis Gartman. Recall just yesterday, in a note in which Gartman said “We Were Stunningly, Shockingly, Stupidly Wrong”, he also had the following good news for gold longs:

… because we respect œreversals in equities and commodities, the fact that the shares of …

Washington Battles Over Munis: Safe or Hard to Sell?

Some federal regulators trying to shore up the banking system aren’t convinced municipal bonds would be easy to sell in a crisis. The contrast has led to an unusual showdown.

The Big Long: A 15-Year Bet Pays Off

Elliott Management’s wager on Argentinian government bonds has yielded $2.4 billion after many twists and turns in a contentious battle with the South American country.

January 2016 Manufacturing New Orders Improved?

Written by Steven Hansen

US Census says manufacturing new orders Improved. Our analysis says sales did improve BUT remain in contraction. Unadjusted unfilled orders’ growth remains in CONTRACTION year-over-year – but this is likely due to deflation in this sector.