31Oct2016 Market Update: Wall Street Showing Weakness Before The Closing Bell, WTI Crude Falling Into The 46 Handle, Is This The Calm Before The Storm

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are mixed today. The Bovespa is up 0.72% while the S&P 500 gains 0.13%. The IPC is off 0.16%.

U.S. consumer spending ends third-quarter with strong momentum

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending rose more than expected in September as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and inflation increased steadily, which could bolster expectations of an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve in December.

M&A flurry lifts S&P, Nasdaq; Nike drags Dow

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were slightly higher on Monday as a raft of deals lifted sentiment, even as investors remained cautious ahead of the outcome of the U.S. election next week.

GE to merge oil unit with Baker Hughes to create service giant

(Reuters) – General Electric Co said on Monday it would merge its oil and gas business with Baker Hughes Inc , creating the world’s second-largest oilfield services provider as industry competition heats up to supply more-efficient products and services to the energy industry.

CenturyLink to buy Level 3 Communications for about $24 billion

(Reuters) – CenturyLink Inc said it would buy Level 3 Communications Inc in a deal valued at about $24 billion to expand its fiber optic network and enterprise business and compete with telecommunications rivals like AT&T Inc and Verizon VZ.N>.

Big Fidelity investor in Wells Fargo trimmed position in September

BOSTON (Reuters) – Fidelity Contrafund, one of the largest investors in Wells Fargo & Co , reduced its stake in the scandal-hit bank by 5 percent in September, according to the fund’s latest holdings report.

Atlanta Fed sees U.S. economy seen expanding at 2.7 percent

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is on track to grow at a 2.7 percent annualized pace in the fourth quarter, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP Now forecast model showed on Monday.

Xerox settles with large investor over spin-off

(Reuters) – Xerox Corp said on Friday it had settled with one of its biggest shareholders who had sued earlier to block a plan for spinning off its document outsourcing business into a new publicly traded company.

Traders see remote chance of Fed rate hike this week

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Traders on Monday placed a low probability the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates at its policy meeting later this week amid mixed economic data and ahead of the U.S. presidential election, according to interest rates futures.

EU ethics committee clears Barroso of wrongdoing over Goldman job

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – An EU ethics committee has cleared former European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso of breaking rules by taking a job at Goldman Sachs but said he did not show the “considerate judgment” one would expect from someone of his stature.

Two Early Voting Charts That Look Disastrous For Hillary

Both Clinton and Trump have highlighted early voting statistics that suggest their campaigns are performing well relative to the 2012 campaigns of Obama and Romney. That said, new statistics presented by the New York Times on early voting in several states seem to reveal some devastating trends for team Hillary.

As background, early voting has grown substantially over the past 2 decades and now accounts for roughly one-third of all votes cast.

More states are offering early voting, Michael McDonald, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said. “Once a state adopts early voting, more people vote early as a part of their election regimen,” he said.

The modern resurgence of early voting can be traced to 1980, when California lifted a requirement that voters must have an excuse to vote early. Other states in the West followed. In 1996, Southern states like Florida, Tennessee and Texas began to allow in-person early voting in special satellite polling locations.

Another landmark year in early voting was 2001, when a legal challenge was brought against Oregon’s early voting laws. The decision in that case, Voting Integrity Project v. Keisling, set a precedent mandating that early voting should be allowed, as long as votes were not officially counted before Election Day.

Meanwhile, most of the …

Welcome To The Halloween Nation

Submitted by Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

What was with James Comey’s Friday letter to congress? It looks to me like the FBI Director had to go nuclear against his parent agency, the Department of Justice, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, his boss, in particular. Why? Because the Attorney General refused to pursue the Clinton email case when more evidence turned up in the underage sexting case against Anthony Weiner, husband of Hillary’s chief of staff, Huma Abedin.

Over the weekend, the astounding news story broke that the FBI had not obtained a warrant to examine the emails on Weiner’s computer and other devices after three weeks of getting stonewalled by DOJ attorneys. What does it mean when the Director of the FBI can’t get a warrant in a New York minute? It must mean that the DOJ is at war with the FBI. Watergate is looking like thin gruel compared to this fantastic Bouillabaisse of a presidential campaign fiasco.

One way you can tell is that The New York Times is playing down the story Monday morning. Columnist Paul Krugman calls the Comey letter “cryptic.” Krugman’s personal cryptograph insinuates that Comey is trying to squash an investigation of “Russian meddling in American elections.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid chimed in with a statement that “it has become clear that you [Comey] possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers and the Russian government.” How’s that for stupid and ugly? It&r …

Brazile Exclaims “Please God, Let This End Soon” As CNN Fires Her For “Uncomfortable Interactions” With Clinton Campaign

Update: Politico reports that in yet another statement, CNN spokeswoman Lauren Pratapas said that on Oct. 14, the network accepted Brazile’s resignation.

“On October 14th, CNN accepted Donna Brazile’s resignation as a CNN contributor. (Her deal had previously been suspended in July when she became the interim head of the DNC.”

In a tweet, Brazile thanked CNN and her former colleagues there.

“Thank you @CNN. Honored to be a Democratic Strategist and commentator on the network. Godspeed to all my former colleagues,” she wrote.

* * *

As we detailed earlier, it seems DNC Chair Donna Brazile is hoping for rescue by a higher power as the net narrows around her lies and obfuscation. Following more examples of Brazile passing debate questions to the Clinton Campaign, CNN spokesperson Lauren Pratapas said in a statement that:

CNN “never gave Brazile access to any questions, prep material, attendee list, background information or meetings in advance of a town hall or debate.”

“We are completely uncomfortable with what we have learned about her interactions with the Clinton campaign while she was a CNN contributor.”

While there has ben no official statement from the DNC, here is Donna Brazile …

Big Mergers May Face a Higher Bar in Washington

The White House is looking at the impact on jobs and pay when approving corporate deals, including planned mergers like General Electric-Baker Hughes and AT&T-Time Warner.

WPP Gets a Boost, for Now, From Digital Competition

Intense competition is probably responsible for bumpy sales by WPP and other ad industry giants.

Chinese Capital Controls Aren’t So Scary for AIA

The Asian insurer is beginning to look more fairly priced now that capital controls are getting tighter.

Deep Dive: 15 third-quarter earnings winners include Netflix, Amazon and Adobe

S&P 500 member companies have turned around a profit slump, says Phil van Doorn.

Market Extra: Here are 4 ways a steeper yield curve could drive other financial markets

Investors can’t afford to ignore a steepening yield curve, because assets ranging from emerging-market debt to U.S. real estate will feel the bite of higher borrowing costs in the U.S.

The Tell: Know when to fold ’em: The stock market just gave us 3 ominous ‘tells’

Taking his place among some of the stock market’s most pessimistic doomsayers, Graham Summers, chief market strategist at Phoenix Capital Research, has been extremely bearish on equities for a long time. This is his latest warning.