14Mar2016 Market Close: US Markets Close Flat And Uninteresting, Crude And Gold Slip, Investors Are Playing It Safe Ahead Of The Fed Meeting

Written by Gary

US markets close mixed and flat as losses in energy shares were offset by consumer discretionary gains and investors laid low ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting. Crude and gold trended down while the US dollar climbed from its morning lows to put in a strong finish. Elevator Tuesday is tomorrow and let’s see if that holds true.

Todays S&P 500 Chart

The Market in Perspective

Here are the headlines moving the markets.
	VW institutional investors file $3.61 billion suit in Germany BERLIN (Reuters) – Almost 300 institutional investors in Volkswagen have filed a multi-billion euro suit against the carmaker for what they see as breaches of its capital markets duty in the emissions scandal, the law firm representing them said.
	Wall St. ends flat as investors brace for Fed NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street closed little changed on Monday as consumer discretionary gains countered losses in energy shares and investors laid low ahead of a U.S. Federal Reserve meeting.
	Canada government will not unveil Bombardier decision before budget TORONTO (Reuters) – Canada’s federal government on Monday made clear it will not announce before the March 22 budget whether it plans to help struggling plane maker Bombardier Inc .
	Bill Gross is cleared to pursue Pimco lawsuit (Reuters) – Bond manager Bill Gross will be able to pursue his lawsuit to recoup hundreds of millions of dollars from Pacific Investment Management Co in the wake of his 2014 ouster from the firm he co-founded.
	China’s Anbang challenges Marriott with $13 billion Starwood offer (Reuters) – China’s Anbang Insurance Group Co has challenged Marriott International Inc’s merger with U.S. hotel operator Starwood with a $12.8 billion cash offer, burnishing its credentials as one of China’s top corporate acquirers.
	Apple, McDonald’s, Google and IKEA to face EU lawmakers over tax deals BRUSSELS – Apple , Google , McDonald’s and IKEA[IKEA.UL] will be asked about their European tax deals on Wednesday as EU lawmakers ratchet up the pressure on multinationals to pay more tax on their profits locally.
	Caution persists as financial markets hit the reset button NEW YORK (Reuters) – After a miserable start to the year, financial markets are looking for a do-over.
	Viacom shareholders re-elect directors, reject voting rights proposal MIAMI (Reuters) – A substantial majority of Viacom Inc independent shareholders on Monday voted to re-elect the media company’s directors and rejected a move to extend voting rights to all shareholders, going against recommendations by the leading proxy advisory firm.
	Debt deadlines loom for SandRidge, Venoco and Energy XXI NEW YORK (Reuters) – The first major upstream oil and gas bankruptcy filing of the year could occur this week as SandRidge Energy Inc, Venoco Inc [DNVRPV.UL] and Energy XXI Ltd reach the end of grace periods following millions in missed interest payments.
	The Narrative ‘Fix’ Is In – “Bold” Is The New “Buy” Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partners’ Epsilon Theory blog, With regard what’s happening in Europe, we’ve seen this movie before. On August 2, 2012 Mario Draghi gave the most disastrous ECB press conference of all time. The market anticipation was enormous leading up to the event, as this was the moment where the ECB would unveil the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program — a new, ultimate weapon to be deployed to rescue the euro. In truth, the OMT then (and now) was just a bunch of words. Powerful and nice-sounding words, to be sure, but just words. All hat and no cattle, as they might say in Texas. The Germans then (and now) were clearly not on board with the OMT, and European markets broke hard. Spain’s stock market dropped more than 5% that day, and Italy’s was close to that. Spain’s 10-year bonds hit a 7.2% yield, and Italy’s hit 6.3%. You can imagine what happened in Portugal and Greece. But the most amazing thing happened the next day on August 3. What the Financial Times had originally called “Draghi’s Blunder” was now written up as “Draghi’s Bold Move”. Every talking head and person of media influence (what game theory calls Missionaries) with access to the ECB or a European central bank started reading from the same playbook (“Mario is a genius”, “markets got it wrong”, etc.). I thought my head would explode if I heard the word “bold” one more time. Combine this with the European Plunge Protection Team buying up every risk asset in sight at the opening bell, and the rest, as they say, was history. European (and global) markets rocked on in risk-on mode for months … years, really, if you focus on Eurozone sovereign rates. It’ …
	This Chart Depicts Brazil’s Stagflationary Nightmare On Sunday, millions of Brazilians took to the streets to call for the ouster of President Dilma Rousseff, who is thought to have cooked the fiscal books in 2014. She’s not yet implicated (directly anyway) in the long-running Carwash probe, but some think that may change soon as the investigation seems to get closer and closer to her officer with each passing week. But it’s not just corruption that Brazilians are fed up with. The economy is in shambles and a PT party proposal to use more than 30% of the country’s FX reserves to fund infrastructure projects risks sparking capital flight and jeopardizes debt service capacity, Barclays wrote, in a note out today. On Monday we also got a look at the monthly real GDP tracker and wouldn’t you know it, IBC-Br missed by a mile, printing at -0.61 M/M and -8.1% Y/Y – the latter was the worst reading on record. As we first noted last summer, Brazil is stuck in stagflation. Not only is output plunging, but inflation is running in the double-digits. Nearly every other economic indicator is in the doldrums as well, but if you want one chart which shows why Brazilians are really mad, look no further than the following, which vividly depicts the country’s stagflationary nightmare: We’ll leav …
	Dow Ticks Higher Ahead of Central Bank Meetings The Dow industrials edged higher Monday to kick off a week that will offer fresh clues about the course of monetary policy around the world.
	Oil Prices Fall Sharply on Oversupply Concerns Oil prices fell sharply after Iran said it wouldn’t abide by the terms of a production freeze sought by other nations, raising the prospect of a fresh new source for the global crude glut.
	Goldman Buys Online Retirement Benefits Business Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday it was purchasing Honest Dollar, a sign big banks are increasingly responding to the fintech threat with their checkbooks.
	The Techonomist In The Machine – When Tech Companies Need To Understand Marketplaces from the Richmond Fed — this post authored by David A. Price When Tom Blake was on the job market in 2012 as an economics Ph.D. student, he assumed he would land at a university or a government research department. But Blake, then studying at the University of California, Davis, accepted an on-site interview from San Jose, Calif.-based eBay. He remembers the moment during the visit when he decided he might be ready to leave academia behind.
	Bonds backed by car loans made to subprime borrowers are showing cracks Delinguencies on U.S. subprime auto ABS are at a 20-year high, according to Fitch.
	Deep Dive: These U.S. shale-oil companies are poised to profit when prices rise Companies are leaving drilled wells uncompleted for later harvesting at higher prices, writes Phil van Doorn.