Written by Gary
US indexes closed higher today, (SPY + 0.6%) led by big tech names, building on gains from yesterday that were fueled by the Fed’s decision to stand pat on interest rates. Crude prices slightly off session highs ahead of OPEC decision-making oil ministers next week, gold lost half of today’s gains while the US dollar climbed off 2 week lows.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Wall Street builds on Fed-fueled rally; Nasdaq hits new high(Reuters) – U.S. stocks climbed on Thursday, led by big tech names, building on gains from a day earlier that were fueled by the Federal Reserve’s decision to stand pat on interest rates. |
| U.S. job market firming; tight inventories constraining housingWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to a two-month low, pointing to labor market strength that could pave the way for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates by December. |
| Senators seek Labor Department probe of Wells Fargo over wage, hour violationsWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Eight U.S. Democratic senators asked the Labor Department on Thursday to launch a probe into whether Wells Fargo may have violated wage and working hour laws by failing to pay overtime to tellers and sales representatives who worked late to meet sales quotas. |
| Yahoo says at least 500 million accounts hacked in 2014(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc said on Thursday information associated with at least 500 million user accounts was stolen from its network in 2014 by what it believed was a “state-sponsored actor.” |
| OPEC in new push to clinch first deal to curb output since 2008DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – As far as OPEC decision-making is concerned, Algeria, which plays host to oil ministers next week, has always been the land of surprises. |
| Airbus confident in supplier’s plans to fix engine delays(Reuters) – The commercial aircraft unit of Airbus Group SE is confident in plans from engine maker Pratt & Whitney to solve production delays for its next-generation single-aisle planes, the A320neo, Chief Operating Officer for Customers John Leahy said Thursday. |
| U.S. FCC fines Siemens $175,000 for failing to disclose feloniesWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Siemens Corp and Siemens Medical Solutions, units of Siemens AG , have agreed to pay a $175,000 fine for failing to disclose corporate felony convictions to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency said on Thursday. |
| U.S. companies welcome to invest in Iran, says RouhaniNEW YORK (Reuters) – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that American companies were welcome to invest in Iran. |
| Barclays to pay $500,000 to settle charges over record keeping: CFTCWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Thursday it had ordered Barclays Bank PLC to pay $500,000 to settle charges of record-keeping deficiencies. |
| Guns Sell Out In Charlotte As Local Police Refuses To Release Shooting VideoWith both a state of emergency implemented and the national guard deployed in Charlotte overnight following a second night of rioting, there was hope the mood in the city tonight would be less violent. That however, may prove optimistic now that the Charlotte police announced they do not plan – for now – to release a video showing the fatal shooting of Keith Scott by officers, and which that has sparked two nights of violent protests in North Carolina’s largest city, the department’s chief said on Thursday. The video will only be shown to the family of Keith Scott, 43, who was shot dead by a black police officer in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Tuesday afternoon, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Kerr Putney said. The reason the video is relevant is because many of the protesters dispute the official account of Scott’s death. Police contend he was carrying a gun when he approached officers and ignored repeated orders to drop it. His family and a witness say he was holding a book, not a firearm, when he was killed. “I’m not going to release the video right now,” Putney told reporters, the morning after nine people were injured and 44 arrested in riots over Scott’s killing. As Reuters notes, Charlotte’s reluctance to release the video stands in contrast to Oklahoma, where officials on Monday released footage of the fatal shooting of Terence Crutcher by police after his vehicle broke down on a highway. That shooting is now the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice probe. One potential reason for the unwillingness to play the video is that according to Putney, while the video supports the police account of what happened, it “does not definitively show Scott pointing a gun at officers.” As such, presenting the video would likely lead to further protests, state of emergency notwithstanding, and may have boiled over into violence and looting for y … |
| Why The Coming Wave Of Defaults Will Be DevastatingSubmitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, Without the stimulus of ever-rising credit, the global economy craters in a self-reinforcing cycle of defaults, deleveraging and collapsing debt-based consumption. In an economy based on borrowing, i.e. credit a.k.a. debt, loan defaults and deleveraging (reducing leverage and debt loads) matter. Consider this chart of total credit in the U.S. Note that the relatively tiny decline in total credit in 2008 caused by subprime mortgage defaults (a.k.a. deleveraging) very nearly collapsed not just the U.S. financial system but the entire global financial system.
Every credit boom is followed by a credit bust, as uncreditworthy borrowers and highly leveraged speculators inevitably default. Homeowners with 3% down payment mortgages default when one wage earner loses their job, companies that are sliding into bankruptcy default on their bonds, and so on. This is the normal healthy credit cycle. Bad debt is like dead wood piling up in the forest. Eventually it starts choking off new growth, and Nature’s solution is a conflagration–a raging forest fire that turns all the dead wood into ash. The fire of defaults and deleveraging is the only way to open up new areas for future growth. Unfortunately, central banks have attempted to outlaw the healthy credit cycle. In effect, central banks have piled up dead wood (debt that will never be paid back) to the tops of the trees, and this is one fundamental reason why global growth is stagnant. The central banks put out the default/deleveraging forest fire in 2008 with a tsunami of cheap new credit. Central banks c … |
| Oil Market Analysis 9-22-2016 (Video)By EconMatters We Look at the Fundamentals and Technicals of the Oil Market in this video. Football season and Back to School are important drivers for gasoline demand in the Fall. |
| Trump Blames Obama For Charlotte Violence: “The Level Of Hatred… Starts With Leadership”With The White House desperately calling for “peaceful protest” in Charlotte, the Justice Department urging “peaceful protest” and the need to “build trust,” and Hillary Clinton asking for “peace” saying the deaths of black men is “unbearable,” the Democrat public relations machine is in full swing as riots continue. Donald Trump, however, took a different angle. As opposed to clinging to politically correct and meaningless one-liners, Trump pointed the finger for this turmoil at President Obama (and Hillary) exclaiming: “You look at the level of hatred… the rocks being thrown and everything happening. It’s so sad to see. You know, this is the United States of America. I mean… it starts with leadership.”
As Politico reports, Donald Trump on Thursday subtly pinned the blame for the turmoil in Charlotte, North Carolina, on President Barack Obama, suggesting that the violent protests there highlight a racial divide in America that Obama has failed to mend as president. Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com “It just seems that there’s a lack of spirit between the white and the black,” Trump said Thursday during a phone interview with “F … |
| Cut the Cord on Overvalued UtilitiesUtility stocks could wipe out many years of excess yield by simply moving back to their average valuation relative to the broad market. |
| A Market-Timing Strategy That Just Might WorkTwo professors developed a hypothetical trading strategy around earnings announcements that, with hindsight, has a formidable track record. |
| Japan’s New Special Relationship With the Federal ReserveWhat matters for the yen, the dollar and interest rates in both the U.S. and Japan, is what the Fed does next. |
| Market Extra: Buy bonds, buy stocks, sell risk, blame the FedIt’s happening—again. Stocks are rallying to records and bond yields are retreating toward their lows, mostly thanks to the world’s central bankers. |
| Bond Report: Treasury yields end at 2-week low as Fed inaction sparks bond rallyTreasury prices gained Thursday, pushing yields to their lowest level in two weeks, as investors bought U.S. government debt a day after the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged. |
| The Margin: Good news for the rest of the U.S. — Chicago’s crime plague isn’t contagiousViolent crime in the nation as a whole is steady, and that’s nothing to shrug off, said the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice in a new report this week. |
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