30Nov2016 Market Close: Oil Surges Over 8 Pct, Energy Stocks Gain But Broad Indexes Mixed; Dollar Stronger, Gold Down

Oil jumps over 10 percent as OPEC finalizes output cut deal

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil soared more than 10 percent on Wednesday to over $50 a barrel and its highest in a month as some of the world’s largest producers agreed to curb production for the first time since 2008 in a bid to support prices.

OPEC in first joint oil cut with Russia since 2001, Saudis take “big hit”

VIENNA (Reuters) – OPEC agreed on Wednesday its first oil output cuts since 2008 after Saudi Arabia accepted “a big hit” on its production and dropped its demand on arch-rival Iran to slash output.

S&P slips despite massive rally in energy shares

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks edged lower on Wednesday as declines in technology more than offset a rally in the energy sector, but major indexes posted solid gains for the month on the back of a rally following the U.S. presidential election.

U.S. private jobs, consumer spending data support Fed rate hike

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. private employers stepped up hiring in November and consumer spending increased last month, the latest signs of economic strength that could further cement the case for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next month.

After OPEC deal, oil expected to rally – for the moment

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil’s blistering rally of up to 10 percent to $50 a barrel on Wednesday should continue into next week, analysts and fund managers said, after the world’s top producers announced a historic deal to rein in output.

Goldman shares hit highest level since financial crisis in post-election rally

(Reuters) – Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Wednesday climbed to their highest levels since the financial crisis, as the bank benefited from a post-U.S. presidential election rally.

Actelion shares fall on report it rejects J&J offer

ZURICH (Reuters) – Shares in Swiss biotech company Actelion fell more than 6 percent after news outlet streetinsider.com reported on Wednesday the company had rejected a full takeover offer by U.S. healthcare group Johnson & Johnson and may sell a unit.

Trump’s Treasury pick targets taxes, trade reforms: media

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, said on Wednesday the administration would make tax reform and trade pact overhauls top priorities as they seek a sustained pace of 3 percent to 4 percent economic growth.

Philip Morris looks beyond cigarettes with alternative products

LONDON (Reuters) – Philip Morris International , the world’s largest international tobacco company, said it could eventually stub out cigarette sales as it launched an alternative product in Britain on Wednesday.

November To Remember – Unprecedented Month In Markets Ends Weak

What else could we use for today…

November was quite a month…

Russell 2000 +11% – best since October 2011

Dow +5.5% – best since March 2016

US Financial Stocks +14% – best since April 2009

Goldman Sachs +23% – best since December 2000

US Energy Stocks +9% – best since October 2015

FANG Stocks -6.2% – worst since March 2014

“Most Shorted” Stocks +11% – best since September 2010

US Treasury Bonds (TLT) -8% – worst since January 2009

Treasury ‘VIX’ +18% – worst since January 2015

Emerging Market Bonds -4.7% – worst since May 2013

Risk-Parity Funds -3.1% – worst since December 2015

USD Index +3.8% – best since September 2014

Mexican Peso -8.6% – worst since May 2012

Japanese Yen -8.9% – worst since August 1995

Chinese Yuan -2% – worst since December 2015

Emerging Market FX -4.5% – worst since May 2012

Gold -8% – worst since June 2013

Silver -8% – worst since May 2016

Copper +19% – best since March 2009

BIS “Fear’ Index (Global Basis Swap) -3bps – worst since Feb 2016

The Last Ride Of The Unemployment Rate

Submitted by Jeffrey Snider via Alhambra Investment Partners,

It’s easy to set aside the nostalgia, so to speak, since this is likely the last Christmas holiday season to be talked about in the media in the positively glowing terms of the unemployment rate. Ever since the “recovery” began, each and every year the internet and TV channels are filled with stories about how strong the consumer is and therefore how great the economy must be. This tendency is greatly amplified as the holidays roll in, as it is the Christmas season where all of this is given its rightful importance.

This year is already no different; almost all of the content generated for the mainstream is downright giddy. Such as:

Shoppers lined up at stores and flocked to their computer screens in search of bargains on Black Friday, putting the retail industry on track for what it hopes will become a record sales weekend.

Shoppers appeared ready to open their wallets, buoyed by a generally strong economy and rising stock market. And major store chains did their part, offering dramatic discounts on their traffic-building “doorbuster” opening specials.

Those paragraphs were written under a headline of Retailers Aim To Smash Four-Day Weekend Sales Records as if the narrative of the past almost eight years weren’t perfectly clear by now. Retailers have been “smashing” all sor …

Caught On Tape: Man Steals $1.6 Million Bucket Full Of Gold In Midtown Manhattan In Broad Daylight

Police released footage on Tuesday of what may be the luckiest theft in recent history. In the clip, a man brazenly swipes an 86-pound bucket full of gold worth $1.6 million from the back of an unattended armored truck on West 48th Street in the Diamond District on Sept. 29, in broad daylight, as tourists and locals were walking in and out of the jewelry stores that line the block.

The footage, first obtained by NBC 4 New York showed the man capitalizing on a 20-second window left open by the guards, one of whom was making a pickup while the other was walking to the front seat. The suspect allegedly cased the open Loomis International truck as it parked outside 48 W. 48th St., near Sixth Avenue. Realizing no one was looking, he then grabbed a black 5-gallon bucket carrying 86 pounds of gold flakes bound for Ontario and ran away with it in his arms, police said.

The heist, which was captured on tape, showed the man making off with the 86-pound bucket. Throughout his hour-long escape, he appears to struggle with the gold flakes, stopping to set them down several times and even attempting to carry them on his shoulder at one point.

Surveillance cameras tracked him weaving around a crowded sidewalk and onto Sixth Avenue where he disappears from view.

The suspect, who hadn’t been arrested as of Wednesday morning, is about 5
feet 6 inches tall, 150 pounds and in his 50s, police said. Cops suspect that the man is lying low in Orlando or Miami until things blow over in the Big Apple. He was last seen wearing a black vest, green shirt, blue jeans and carrying a black messenger bag, police said.

Multiple Simultaneous Threats: Nexit Next?

Submitted by Michael Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

The nannycrats in Brussels face yet another attack on the anti-immigration front: Geert Wilders’ Far-Right Party Tops Polls in the Netherlands.

Geert Wilders, chairman of the Party for Freedom (PVV), has been celebrating on Twitter today. The reason? His party is now the biggest party in the Dutch polls. With elections coming up in March 2017, the populist politician seems to be on track to become the Netherlands’ next prime minister.

According to the latest poll of Maurice de Hond, the Netherlands’ most famous pollster, the PVV would become the biggest party in parliament if elections were held today they’d get 33 seats in the 150-seat lower chamber.

Wilders is especially well-known for his criticism of Islam and Europe’s open-borders policy, which he routinely — and accurately — describes as suicidal. His main goal is to end “the Islamization” of Europe generally and of the Netherlands specifically.

Additionally, Wilders and his party are the most Eurosceptic of all the parties currently in parliament. He is the Netherlands’ very own Nigel Farage, which he once again proved earlier this year when he and his allies won the Dutch referendum on the EU’s upcoming treaty with Ukraine. Wilders campaigned hard against the deal, arguing that it would eventually lead to the poor (and not entirely democratic) Eastern European country joining the European Union. Although proponents of the treaty said that would not be the case, the Dutch voter …

Altice Chooses Spending Over Saving

Altice’s planned fiber-to-the-home project could eat up the cost savings it promised to wring from its purchase of Cablevision.

Numbers Don’t Add Up for Trump’s Trillion-Dollar Building Plan

Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan has sent construction stocks soaring, but the proposed funding plan has glaring flaws.

GoPro’s Hero Shot Comes at a Price

Hero5 camera is selling, but failed expansion leaves company too reliant on a single market.

Adjustments to 3Q 2016 GDP Include Increased Consumer Spending

by Rick Davis, Consumer Metrics Institute

BEA Estimates 3rd Quarter 2016 GDP Growth to be 3.15%:

In their second estimate of the US GDP for the third quarter of 2016, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the growth rate was +3.15%, up +0.24% from their previous estimate and up +1.73% from the prior quarter.

Read more >>

November 2016 Beige Book: Reading Between The Lines – No Change in the Rate of Growth

Written by Steven Hansen

The consolidated economic report from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts (Beige Book) stated “that the economy continued to expand across most regions from early October through mid-November”. The previous report stated the economy expanded at “outlooks were mostly positive, with growth expected to continue at a slight to moderate pace in several Districts.”.

The Tell: Here’s why Trump’s cash repatriation plan could spell trouble for the S&P 500

President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to encourage firms to bring home cash parked overseas may actually be bearish for large U.S. stocks over the long run, according to Société Générale analysts

Brett Arends’s ROI: Romney’s embrace of Trump should be no surprise

Shifting from critic of Donald Trump to cheerleader is no problem for Mitt Romney, writes Brett Arends.

The Tell: Trump just unleashed the stock market’s ‘animal spirits’

Steve Barrow, currency and fixed-income analyst at Standard Bank, said in a Wednesday research note “whatever fears might exist in some quarters about Trump’s win, some sort of animal spirits might have been spurred.”