Written by Gary
US markets closed higher for the second day, but traded all morning and afternoon in a narrow band that was mostly sideways. The DOW closed up 145 points and the Spooze closed up at 2091, just short of the 2100 resistance. Crude settled in the trading pit in the mid to high 49, just unable to pierce the $50 resistance barrier. Short-term indicators remain moderately bullish, but the SP500 has to pierce the 2100 level to have this bull rally continue.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Wall Street ascends for a second day(Reuters) – Wall Street rose robustly for a second straight session on Wednesday, helped by higher oil prices and investors becoming more comfortable with the prospect of an interest rate hike as early as next month. |
| Bayer could get ECB financing for Monsanto bid, rules showFRANKFURT (Reuters) – Bayer could receive financing from the European Central Bank that would help to fund a takeover of Monsanto , according to the terms of the ECB’s bond-buying program. |
| Exxon shareholders pass measure that may put climate expert on boardDALLAS/SAN RAMON, Calif. (Reuters) – Voters at Exxon Mobil Corp’s annual meeting on Wednesday approved a measure to let minority shareholders nominate outsiders for seats on the board, meaning a climate activist could eventually become a director at the world’s largest publicly traded oil company. |
| Fed survey lays bare U.S. economic divideWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Almost half of American families say they would struggle to pay for emergency expenses and those with a high school degree or less are most likely to say their well-being has declined, according to a Federal Reserve survey released on Wednesday. |
| McDonald’s headquarters closed due to worker wage protestsLOS ANGELES (Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp has temporarily closed its headquarters for the third year in a row as worker wage protests targeted the fast-food company’s annual meeting, it said on Wednesday. |
| Dollar stores’ results may shelter battered retail shareholdersSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Investors shell-shocked by dismal quarterly reports from department stores will look for new signs of hope for brick-and-mortar retailers on Thursday as discount sellers Dollar General Corp and Dollar Tree Inc hand in their results. |
| Takata hires Lazard Ltd as financial advisor to consider restructuring alternatives(Reuters) – Air bag manufacturer Takata Corp hired investment bank Lazard to lead efforts to seek new investment and help resolve financial issues stemming from its record-setting recall of tens of millions of inflators that can rupture, sources said Wednesday. |
| Bank ‘living wills’ light on information, but reveal problems: U.S. monitorWASHINGTON (Reuters) – There is not enough information in the public section of the “living wills” major banks file with U.S. regulators to fully explain how the organizations could undergo bankruptcy without taxpayer aid, the country’s financial monitor said on Wednesday. |
| HP Enterprise unit’s merger with CSC no shield from cloudburst(Reuters) – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co’s planned merger of its struggling IT services business with Computer Sciences Corp could generate considerable savings, but it won’t stop customers from defecting to cloud services. |
| Worst Economy Since the Great DepressionMany economic indicators are at their worst since the Great Depression … For example, we noted in 2009 that more Americans will be unemployed than during the Great Depression. We noted in 2010:
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| This Is The Maximum Amount Of Cash You Can Take Out At A Venezuela ATMAs Bloomberg’s Nathan Crooks demonstrates, this is the maximum amount of money one can take out from a Venezuela ATM each day.
For those wondering, the fistful of cash is worth about $25. The good news: those locals lucky enough to still have money in a Venezuela bank don’t need a wheelbarrow to carry it. The bad news: those same locals soon will.
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| Add It Up… And It Doesn’t Add UpSubmitted by Chris Hamilton via Hambone’s Stuff blog, The growth of population has been the primary driver of global demand growth and growth in consumption. Rising wages have been largely offset by rising prices (inflation), so the primary basis of growth in demand is good old growth in population…and the deceleration in population growth should be very worrying for those expecting the next decade or two to look anything like the past seven decades. The chart below gathers the combined 15-64yr/old annual growth of the 15-64yr/old population of the OECD, China, Brazil, and Russia against the Federal Reserve set Fed Funds Rate (%), global debt, and global GDP. To be honest, it’s a very good fit showing very bad things to come based on the current modus operandi. |
| Hewlett Packard and Microsoft: Why Focus Is In, Scale Is OutDownsizing at big tech companies is a cautionary tale that size doesn’t always win. |
| Greece and Europe: Why the Deal Is Good Enough for NowThe Eurogroup deal with Greece at least puts relations on a more normal footing, although it doesn’t provide a long-term solution. |
| Dollar General: Why This Buck Goes a Long WayDollar General has more than held its own nearly a year after Dollar Tree completed its deal for Family Dollar. |
| April 2015 Philly Fed Coincident Index Rate of Year-over-Year Rate Of Growth Essentially Unchanged
The year-over-year rate of growth of the US Coincident Index was unchanged from last month’s level. A comparison of this US Coincident Index with the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti business conditions index, Conference Board Coincident Index, ECRI’s Coincident Index, and the Chicago Fed National Activity Index follows. |
| Report On The Economic Well-Being Of U.S. Householdsfrom the Federal Reserve American families overall reported continued mild improvement in their financial well-being in 2015 although many families were struggling financially and felt excluded from economic advancement, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s latest Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households.
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| The Wall Street Journal: Takata seeks cash infusion and restructuring as air-bag recall costs balloonTakata seeks a cash infusion, and has hired restructuring bankers to help negotiate with auto makers as costs and liabilities from its air-bag safety crisis have ballooned. |
| Russian sentenced over spy plan that included high-frequency trading plotA banker was sentenced by a federal court to 30 months in prison for conspiring to work for Russia, in a plot that included an attempt to find out more about the ability of high-frequency trading to rock financial markets. |
| The Margin: Here’s the house Obama will live in after he moves out of the White HousePhotos show the house that Obama will reportedly live in after leaving the White House |
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