03Aug2016 Market Close: Wall Street Closed Moderately Higher, Texas Tea Shot Back Up To The 41 Handle, More Worries Coming This Week

Wall St. ends up; oil lifts energy shares

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street ended modestly higher on Wednesday after a sharp rise in oil prices boosted energy shares, while better-than-anticipated data on the labor market helped financial stocks.

U.S. private sector adds 179,000 jobs in July: ADP

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. private employers added 179,000 jobs in July, above economists’ expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

U.S. loan demand for home purchases lowest since February: MBA

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Weekly applications for U.S. home mortgages fell to their lowest level in five months even as borrowing costs declined, according to data from an industry group released on Wednesday.

Icahn to close Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City at summer’s end

(Reuters) – Atlantic City’s Trump Taj Mahal casino, owned by billionaire investor Carl Icahn, will close after Labor Day at the end of the summer, the company said on Wednesday.

Fed’s Kashkari says low inflation affords ‘luxury’ of low rates

MINNEAPOLIS (Reuters) – Low inflation allows the Federal Reserve to keep U.S. interest rates lower for longer in order to boost the economy and jobs, a top Federal Reserve official said on Wednesday.

Fed penalizes Goldman Sachs for use of confidential data

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve Board said on Wednesday it had ordered Goldman Sachs Group Inc to pay a $36.3 million civil penalty for the unauthorized use and disclosure of confidential information.

Wal-Mart in talks to buy online retailer Jet.com: report

(Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc is in talks to buy Jet.com, a year-old online rival, as part of a multibillion-dollar revamp of its e-commerce division aimed at boosting online sales growth.

Office Depot to shut another 300 stores; initiates dividend

(Reuters) – Office Depot Inc , which scrapped a plan to merge with larger rival Staples Inc in May on antitrust concerns, said it would close about 300 more stores in the next three years to help cut annual costs by $250 million by the end of 2018.

Time Warner takes stake in Hulu, lifts profit forecast

(Reuters) – Time Warner Inc disclosed a 10 percent stake in video streaming site Hulu on Wednesday, setting its sights on the web TV market, and it raised its 2016 forecast on expectations of sustained growth in its traditional media business.

Japanese Government Shifts Further Toward Authoritarianism And Militarism

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

We’re going to war — either hybrid in nature to break the Russian state back to its 1990s subordination, or a hot war (which will destroy our country). Our citizens should know this, but they don’t because our media is dumbed down in its “Pravda”-like support for our “respectable,” highly aggressive government. We are being led, as C. Wright Mills said in the 1950s, by a government full of “crackpot realists: in the name of realism they’ve constructed a paranoid reality all their own.” Our media has credited Hillary Clinton with wonderful foreign policy experience, unlike Trump, without really noting the results of her power-mongering. She’s comparable to Bill Clinton’s choice of Cold War crackpot Madeleine Albright as one of the worst Secretary of States we’ve had since … Condi Rice? Albright boasted, “If we have to use force it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”

Hillary’s record includes supporting the barbaric “contras” against the Nicaraguan people in the 1980s, supporting the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, supporting the ongoing Bush-Iraq War, the ongoing Afghan mess, and as Secretary of State the destruction of the secular state of Libya, the military coup in Honduras, and the present attempt at “regime change” in Syria. Every one of these situations has resulted in more extremism, more chaos in the world, and more danger to our country. Next will be the borders of Russia, China, and …

Traders Have Only One Position And One Question

From Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow

Yesterday certainly held everyone’s attention. Which is a result on an August day when allegedly no one was around and even fewer felt like doing anything. The world doesn’t really permit that anymore. Opportunity and dangers can’t be timed for the convenience of beachgoers and happen when they happen.

It wasn’t just the P&L pain that seemed to be shared so generally. Rather, how quickly assumptions that have long driven global investing were suddenly being angsted over again with such passion. And this, after only a few days of upset. What an illustration of the fragility of conviction that’s propelled markets

Many systemically relevant portfolios, by necessity, have been constructed in the belief there’s no option but to hyper-extend out every risk curve

The biggest fiction that has to be maintained is that the exit will be able to accommodate when needed. Which is why rapid sell-offs are so heart wrenching. And the sad reality is that, at least so far, getting out hasn’t paid off. But oh the temptation is so great.

Only a week ago, Japanese 10-year yields were at a record low. Today, 20 bps higher. It isn’t that all of a sudden we realized that monetary policy has diminishing returns or that the Japanese establishment is incapable of successful messaging. We know all that

The existential question, affecting every bond market in the world, is suddenly this: are increasingly negative rates and the yield structures they export of any transmissionable benefit? Is the cure at some point worse than the disease? And are they really sustainable? If the answer to that changes from currently accepted theory, everything is mispriced.

I suspect that the answer to the questions are inevitable, but the timing once again will prove problematic.

In 2008, we realized that those cleverly hedged portfolios actua …

Jet.com Is No Amazon Killer for Wal-Mart

Buying Jet.com could help Wal-Mart compete against Amazon.com. But it could be a high price to pay for something that may not be enough to move the needle.

How AIG Shut Down Its Critics

Six months ago, American International Group was defending itself from activist investors calling for a three-way split of the company. Now, strong earnings are helping to silence those critics.

Big Pharma’s Biogen Dilemma

After a recent lull, health-care megadeals are once again percolating. But any suitors for Biogen will need to take a risk.

The Tell: This high-risk, low-return stock market has Gross contemplating cats and sex

The fixed-income expert, who manages Janus Capital’s unconstrained bond fund, drew parallels between an important childhood chat he had with his mother—and later with his child—about sex and the creation of life.

Currencies: Dollar rises as ISM services index bodes well for GDP growth

The dollar strengthened Wednesday after a widely watched report from the Institute for Supply Management showed economic growth has already accelerated in the third quarter.

Kate Spade’s merchandise missteps added to its second-quarter pain

Kate Spade’s weak second-quarter showing was caused, in part, by errors the company made.