26Apr2016 Market Update: WTI Crude Prices Rises Modestly, US Dollar Melts Back Up From Support, Averages Mixed As Are Indicators

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are mixed today. The Bovespa is up 1.88% while the S&P 500 gains 0.10%. The IPC is off 0.32%.

S&P boosted by energy shares; Nasdaq, Dow flat

(Reuters) – Energy shares lifted the S&P 500, while the Dow and Nasdaq remained little changed as investors await the outcome of a two-day meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Apple revenue to shrink but options traders unfazed

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc on Tuesday is likely to report its first decline in revenue in more than a decade, and analysts expect to hear bad news on iPhone sales, but traders in the options market are not running scared.

Crude prices jump 3 percent on weak dollar, firmer oil product markets

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil markets rose about 3 percent on Tuesday as a tumbling dollar boosted commodities denominated in the greenback after bets the Federal Reserve will hold U.S. interest rates where they are.

Weak U.S. factory, consumer confidence data cloud growth outlook

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods rebounded far less than expected in March as demand for automobiles, computers and electrical goods slumped, suggesting the downturn in the factory sector was far from over.

Mitsubishi Motors says cheated on mileage tests for 25 years

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese car maker Mitsubishi Motors Corp said on Tuesday it used fuel economy testing methods that did not comply with Japanese regulations for 25 years, much longer than previously known.

House Democrats question if Valeant is wrongfully withholding records

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats on a powerful U.S. congressional panel are questioning whether Canada-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals may be wrongfully withholding documents in connection with its ongoing probe into sky-rocketing drug prices, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

P&G profit beats estimates on cost cuts, price hikes

(Reuters) – Procter & Gamble Co , the maker of Tide detergent and Gillette shaving products, reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, boosted by cost-cutting and higher selling prices.

VW takes global sales lead from shutdown-hit Toyota

BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen eclipsed Toyota as the world’s top-selling carmaker in the first quarter as the Japanese rival grappled with a series of production stoppages.

U.S. proposes rule to shrink big banks’ liquidity risk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. banking regulator on Tuesday released its proposal for establishing a Net Stable Funding Ratio, a final piece in the puzzle to strengthen banks’ liquidity in case they come under financial stress.

Treasury Sells $34 Billion In 5 Year Paper In Another Mediocre, Tailing Auction

Yesterday’s 2 Year auction was surprisingly poor because, among other things, it was the first tailing auction since 2014. Moments ago the US Treasury sold $34 billion in another lackluster auction which saw the high yield print at 1.41%, tailing 0.2 bps through the When Issued.

The Bid to Cover was 2.41, modestly better than last month’s 2.38, if in line with the 6 month average.

The internals were modestly better, with Indirects taking down 63.4%, 10 bps higher than a month ago, while Directs took down 6.8%, leaving 29.8% for the Dealers, a rather conventional distribution.

To be sure, the weakness was not unexpected: not only was the OTR not trading special in repo this morning suggesting little short overhang, but with the Fed announcement in just two days, we doubt many were eager to put down capital in an auction that may see substantial whipsawing in just over 48 hours.

Venezuela Starts Power Rationing, Oil Production Likely To Fall

Submitted by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

Venezuela – home to the largest oil reserves in the world – will for the next 40 days experience a four-hour blackout every single day, and there are fears that the rationing could lead to unrest and trigger a decline in oil output at a time when the country is barely hanging on.

The decision to ration electricity was brought about by a severe drought that has rendered the level of the Guri dam – the country’s major source of power generation – so low that if the weather doesn’t change, the authorities will have to shut it down.

The blackouts will affect households and industrial users alike–and it’s very likely that oil production will drop. This drop, however, will not be too significant, especially in the current state of oversupply.

The Financial Times last week quoted analysts as estimating that irregular power outages could lead to a daily decline in oil output of between 100,000 and 200,000 barrels. That’s a little less than 10 percent of the average daily output in the country for last year, according to OPEC data.

Besides the power outages and the 40-day power rationing, the Venezuelan oil industry has been hit extremely hard by the recession that Venezuela has plunged into because of the oil prices crash. No cash for investments and infrastructure deterioration are the main problems of the industry and they are unlikely to get a solution anytime soon.

Venezuela’s economy is entirely dependent on oil revenues, which is why the country was so insis …

Iconic Hedge Fund Brevan Howard Slammed With $1.4 Billion In Redemption Requests

It had already been a very bad several years for hedge funds with 2016 starting off especially brutally, as Goldman’s own Hedge Fund VIP basket demonstrates…

… when moments ago we learned that it is about to get even worse for one of the most iconic names in the macro hedge fund space, Brevan Howard, which according to Bloomberg has been served with $1.4 billion in cash redemption requests.

Brevan Howard co-founder Alan Howard

As Bloomberg writes, investors in Brevan Howard Asset Management have asked to pull about $1.4 billion from the firm’s main hedge fund after successive annual declines followed by losses during the first quarter, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The Brevan Howard Master Fund, which bets on macroeconomic trends to invest across asset classes, will have to meet the redemption requests by the end of June, said the people who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The fund managed $17.6 billion at the end of March, down from about $27 billion two years ago, according to a company website.

While the firm’s billionaire co-founder Alan Howard has previously said that there will be œexceptional opportunities to make money this year, those have so far failed to materialize. What is odd is that Brevan’s losses are once again not even that mat …

These Are The Best And Worst U.S. Cities To Own A House

Moments ago, in its latest update, Case Shiller pointed out that for another month “Home prices continue to rise twice as fast as inflation.” Actually that is an understatement: in two-third of the tracked metro areas, the pace of home appreciation over the past year was 6% or higher, or equivalent to three times as fast as inflation. And with rents continuing to soar across the country, in many cases at a double digit clip, not to mention exploding healthcare costs, one wonders just what the BLS “measures” with its monthly CPI update.

In any case, for those lucky Americans who can afford to own a house instead of being stuck renting the New Normal American dream where they are prohibited from peddling fiction as their annual rent increases by 10% or more each year, here is the breakdown of the best and worst cities for housing in the U.S.

At the top, with annual price increases over 9% and as high as 11.9% in the case of Portland, we also find Seattle Denver and – of course – San Francisco. On the other end are Washington, Chicago and oddly enough, New York. We wonder if Case Shiller used the UMich “random” telephone directory to calculate that NYC home prices rose at precisely the rate of core inflation in the past 12 months while ignoring the dramatic moves in the ultra luxury high end segment.

Why China Will Struggle to Turn Toxic Loans Into Beautiful Bonds

China’s latest program to clean up bad loans “securitizing toxic assets into bonds “faces serious challenges.

Why Oil Isn’t Everything for Standard Chartered

The emerging markets bank is cleaning up its books, but has lost a lot of revenues permanently.

Oil Fallout: Husky’s Relief Comes at Somebody Else’s Expense

Husky Energy’s deal to sell assets to sibling companies also controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing leaves some investors without a say.

April 2016 Chemical Activity Barometer Improves

from the American Chemistry Council

The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB) expanded 0.6 percent in April following a revised 0.1 percent increase in March and 0.2 percent decline in February. All data is measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA)..

The Margin: Lunch with Tim Cook is much more affordable than it used to be

The Apple boss’s stock is dropping. No, not his actual shares, though they are, too.

Market Snapshot: U.S. stocks struggle to stay positive as weak tech shares drag

U.S. stocks are marginally higher Tuesday but are struggling to remain in positive territory ahead of several prominent tech earnings after the bell, including bellwether Apple Inc.

Deep Dive: These 12 U.S. companies have increased sales for at least 60 straight quarters

And their stock prices reflect that remarkable track record, writes Phil van Doorn.