16Nov2016 Market Close: US Indexes Close Down Fractionally, WTI Crude Settles In The Mid $45 Handle, Gold Remains In Danger Of Falling Further

Dow, S&P 500 drop as U.S. bank rally wanes, tech boosts Nasdaq

New York – (Reuters) – The S&P and the Dow fell on Wednesday as financial stocks ended their seven-day rally, but gains in technology shares kept the Nasdaq in positive territory as investors continued to prepare their portfolios for a Donald Trump presidency.

U.S. manufacturing sector stabilizing; producer prices tame

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. manufacturing output increased for a second straight month in October amid gains in the production of motor vehicles and a range of other goods, suggesting that the battered factory sector was slowly recovering.

Citigroup CFO says U.S. tax rate cut could bring $4 billion charge

NEW YORK (Reuters) – If federal corporate tax rates decline 20 percent under President-elect Donald Trump, Citigroup Inc may have to take a $4 billion charge to profits to reflect lower values for its deferred tax assets, the bank’s chief financial officer said on Wednesday.

U.S. panel urges ban on China state firms buying U.S. companies

WASHINGTON/HONG KONG (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers should take action to ban China’s state-owned firms from acquiring U.S. companies, a congressional panel charged with monitoring security and trade links between Washington and Beijing said on Wednesday.

A post-Trump SEC could shake up current policy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – It will be a new day at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after President-elect Donald Trump installs his choice to run the agency.

Google CEO to meet with EU antitrust chief on Friday

(Reuters) – The chief executive of Alphabet Inc’s Google and the European Union’s antitrust chief will meet on Friday, following the U.S. technology group’s formal rejection this month of a spate of charges, including blocking rivals in online search advertising.

Janus’ Gross says Trump will be one-termer, in failure for populism

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump will last no more than four years in the White House, a period when corporations and Wall Street will retain the upper hand over the struggling workers who helped elect him in a populist wave, bond manager Bill Gross of Janus Capital Group Inc said on Wednesday.

U.S. FCC drops planned reform of business data services market

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is dropping plans to push through a proposed reform of the $45 billion business data services market in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president.

Ex-Goldman director Gupta seeks reversal in insider trading case

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday signaled it was unlikely to overturn the 2012 insider trading conviction of Rajat Gupta, a former director of Goldman Sachs Group Inc and global managing director of McKinsey & Co.

War On Cash Intensifies: Citibank To Stop Accepting Cash At Some Branches

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

Less than a week after India’s surprise move to scrap its highest denomination cash notes, another front in the War on Cash has intensified down under in Australia.

Yesterday, banking giant UBS proposed that eliminating Australia’s $100 and $50 bills would be “good for the economy and good for the banks.”

(How convenient that a bank would propose something that’s good for banks!)

This isn’t the first time that the financial establishment has pushed for a cashless society in Australia (or anywhere else).

In September 2015, Australian bank Westpac published its “Cash Free Report”, suggesting that the country would become cashless by 2022.

In July 2016, Australian payments firm Tyro published an enormously self-serving blog post touting the benefits of a cashless society and saying, “it’s only a matter of time.”

Most notably, two days ago, Citibank (yes, THAT Citibank) announced that it was going cashless at some of its Australian branches.

The media and political establishments have chimed in as well.

In February of this year, the Sydney Morning Herald released a series of articles, some of which were written by officials from Australia’s Department of the Treasury, suggesting that eliminating cash will “save billions”, and that “moving to a cashless society is the next step for the Australian dollar”.

This is how it works.

The government, media, banks, and even academia have formed a single, unified chorus to push this idea out to consumers that …

December Fed Rate-Hike Odds Near 100% (Despite Dismal Economic Growth Expectations)

“The market is expecting an interest-rate hike in December, and there is no fundamental reason for the Fed” to disappoint according to DZ Bank’s Birgit Figge, and judging by the spike in futures-market-implied rate-hike odds post-Trump, it’s a done deal.

As Bloomberg reports, the odds of a Fed move by December have risen from 68 percent at the start of November as inflation expectations surged to near 100%…

However, we are not quite sure what The Fed is seeing (apart from its ‘managed’ employment data) to justify this much jawboning and conviction…

Beyond December, swaps trading shows the expectation for a faster tightening cycle. Overnight index swap contracts implied the central bank’s benchmark rate will be 1.25 percent in two years’ time, compared with an expected 0.83 percent on Nov. 7, the day before the U.S. election. That means the market is pricing in another hike as Trump’s win and a Republican-controlled Congress portend a wave of spending to bolster the U.S. economy.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said there’s a chance the U.S. economy could get a medium-term boost if Trump increases infrastructure spending and tax reforms, though it’s too soon to say how the economy may be affected by the election.

* * *

So bottom line – 2017 is gonna be awesome, just you wai …

Bond Vigilantes Stir As Trump Team Hints At “Infrastructure Bank”

As part of Donald Trump’s “fluid” proposals and trial balloons on how to implement his economic policies, Trump adviser Steven Mnuchin told reporters on Wednesday that the Trump transition team is weighing an “infrastructure bank” to make investments in America’s aging infrastructure. Mnuchin, who is currently under consideration for Trump’s Treasury secretary, said that a “very big focus is regulatory changes, looking at the creation of an infrastructure bank to fund infrastructure investments” which to Wall Street was pure poetry, as it heard just two words: “more debt”, and thus greater probability of future QE.

Also, one wonders if maybe Mr. Mnuchin already has a private bank in mind to fast-track the “infrastructure funding” burden – perhaps his former employer?

Ironically, as Bloomberg notes, Trump’s campaign had previously criticized a similar infrastructure bank plan proposed by Hillary Clinton as being “controlled by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington” and funded by a “$275 billion tax increase on American businesses.” Trump’s economic advisers previously said infrastructure spending can be unleashed without creating a government entity. They released a plan in October advocating the provision of as much as $140 billion in tax credits to support $1 trillion in infrastructure investment, which would offset the credits through tax revenue from the projects’ labor wages and business profits.

In the past, outgoing president Obama also proposed a U.S. infrastructure bank to lend at maturities as long as 35 years to fund transportation, water and energy projects.

Such an entity would potentially emulate organizations from China, which led the establishment of …

Trump’s Biotech Rally Based on False Hopes

There have been a lot of big, somewhat dubious assumptions behind the rise in stocks since the election. But a big move higher in biotech shares isn’t likely to last.

European Banks Look Likely to Feel Stressed in U.S.

The Federal Reserve has given a first look at European banks’ U.S. finances and it’s not pretty.

In Trump’s China, Industrial Subsidies Loom Large

The president-elect has pilloried China for taking unfair advantages on trade. A key issue may be China’s substantial subsidies to business.

5 ways lifting weights helped me succeed at work

Even if you’re physically strong enough to make that 200 pound squat happen, building that mental resilience is what I’ve needed to be better in all aspects of life, whether it’s in the gym or at work.

Personal Finance Daily: How weight-lifting makes you a better employee and 5 ways to make kids smarter about money

Wednesday’s top personal finance stories

The Ratings Game: Trump-fueled rally in bank stocks has gone too far, analyst says

RW Baird turns cautious on bank stocks–the firm downgraded Bank of America–saying the postelection rally has gone a bit too far.