07Dec2016 Market Update: US Stock Indexes Continue To Climb Higher, Crude Prices Halt Downward Slide, Investors Pausing To Take In Account Short-term Bearish Indicators

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are higher today with shares in U.S. leading the region. The S&P 500 is up 0.70% while Mexico’s IPC is up 0.53% and Brazil’s Bovespa is up 0.15%.

80%

83.43

11,042

Dow, S&P hit highs but Trump comments slam drug stocks

(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Dow hit record intraday highs on Wednesday, helped by gains in bank stocks, but President-elect Donald Trump’s comments on drug prices slammed the healthcare sector, pulling down the Nasdaq.

AT&T touts Time Warner merger at Senate hearing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – AT&T Inc Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday that his company’s planned $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc would increase innovation, bring “better-priced options” to consumers

Trump takes aim at drugmakers and pharma, biotech stocks fall

NEW YORK (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday took aim at drugmakers, promising in a magazine interview that “I’m going to bring down drug prices,” and shares of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies fell.

Exclusive: In mammoth task, BP sends almost three million barrels of U.S. oil to Asia

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Oil major BP is shipping almost three million barrels of U.S. crude to customers across Asia, pioneering a lengthy and complex operation likely to become more popular after OPEC last week announced deep production cuts.

Trump defends Boeing tweet, says companies shouldn’t worry

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his direct interventions with companies, including making statements on Twitter, saying businesses will benefit from his actions and his upcoming term in office.

U.S. mortgage rates rise to highest levels in over two years: MBA

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Interest rates on U.S. fixed-rate mortgages rose to their highest levels in more than two years, sending weekly home loan application activity to its weakest since early January, Mortgage Bankers Association data released on Wednesday showed.

OPEC, U.S. begin ‘cat and mouse’ oil game as producers pounce on hedges

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – As far as one of the world’s biggest commodities traders, Glencore’s chief Ivan Glasenberg, is concerned, the oil market will be at the mercy of “a cat and mouse game” between OPEC and its U.S. shale rivals in the coming year.

Linde resumes merger talks with Praxair, CEO resigns

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German industrial gases group Linde has invited U.S. rival Praxair to resume merger negotiations after Praxair offered concessions on the division of power in the combined entity, defusing a dispute which led to the collapse of talks two months ago.

EpiPen maker Mylan to restructure and cut its workforce

(Reuters) – Generic drugmaker Mylan NV , which has been under fire for its price hikes on the life-saving EpiPen allergy treatment, said on Wednesday that it would restructure and expected to cut less than 10 percent of its global workforce as it integrates acquisitions.

Lindsey Graham Launches 2 Russian ‘Hacking’ Probes, Demands Trump “Toughen Tone”

Having dropped out of the primary race almost exactly a year ago, prominent foreign policy hawk, Republic Senator Lindsey Graham told CNN during an interview today that he plans to launch two separate probes (from both of his subcommittees) into Russia’s “hacking” and demand that President-elect Trump “take a much tougher tone towards Russia… or they will break up our alliances.”

In intvw, GRAHAM announces plans for two new investigations into Russia hack, calls on Trump to toughen tone. Graham is the first Republican to call for an investigation into Russia after constant demands from the Democrats, and noted that he and John McCain support further sanctions on Putin.https://t.co/ZwnSKcxd5h

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) December 7, 2016

Denzel Washington Slams Mainstream Media For Peddling “Bullshit”

Denzel Washington had some “news” for the mainstream media peddling the narrative that the presidential election turned on “fake news:” It’s all bullshit.

Despite finding himself previously in the center of a “fake news” story, which falsely claimed the actor was switching his support of Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, Washington still slammed the media implying it was no better than those “fake” outlets it criticizes.

Speaking to the press agency ITK at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Hollywood celebrity paraphrased Mark Twain when he said: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you do read it, you’re misinformed,” Washington said, while promoting his new film “Fences” according to The Hill.

One of the effects of “too much information,” the 61-year-old Oscar winner says, is “the need to be first, not even to be true anymore.”

“So what a responsibility you all have — to tell the truth,” Washington exclaimed to the pack of reporters gathered on the red carpet.

“In our society, now it’s just first — who cares, get it out there. We don’t care who it hurts. We don’t care who we destroy. We don’t care if it’s true,” Washington continued.

“Just say it, sell it. Anything you practice you’ll get good at — including BS.

His new film “Fences,” based on an award-winning play of the same name, features Viola Davis and centers on the life of a black family in 1950s Pittsburgh. It is set to be released on Christmas and is considered one of the top Oscar contenders.

…

France: Decomposing In Front Of Our Eyes

Submitted by Yves Mamou via The Gatestone Institute,

Four officers were injured (two badly burned) when around 15 “youths” (Muslim gang-members) swarmed their cars and hurled rocks and firebombs at them. Police were aggrieved when the minister of interior called the attackers “little wild ones.” Police and opposition politicians replied that the attackers were not “little wild ones but criminals who attacked police to kill.”

Two students at a vocational training school in Calais attacked a teacher, and one fractured the teacher’s jaw and several teeth — because the teacher had asked one of the students to get back to work.

“This is a warning. These young people did not attack the school by chance; they wanted to attack the institution, to attack the State.” — Yacine, 21, a student at the University of Paris II.

The riot, which lasted for four nights, broke out after the arrest of a driver who did not stop when asked to by a policeman.

This revolt of one pillar of French society, the police, was the biggest that ever happened in modern France. Yet, virtually no one in France’s mainstream media covered the event.

“Everything that represents state institutions (…) is now subjected to violence based on essentially sectarian and sometimes ethnic excesses, fueled by an incredible hatred of our country. We must be blind or unconscious not to feel concern for national cohesion”. — Thibaud de Montbrial, lawyer and expert on terrorism.

France will elect a new president in May 2017. Politicians are already campaigning and debating about deficits, welfare recipients, GDP growth, and so on, but they look like puppets disconnected from the real country.

What is realit …

This Is the Purge We All Knew Was Coming: “Shutting Down Extremist Content”

Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,

There have been murmurs about it all along.

Someday, they simply wouldn’t allow certain things to remain on the Internet any longer. The potential to reach a global audience with important information, and the idea that it could be in the hands of anyone is just too big.

So it is no surprise that many corporate giants from Silicon Valley are now putting forward a unified front to silence free speech on social media.

Hashtags, keywords and flagged accounts, logged in various databases, will be shared and enforced across the web. Shutting down content identified as unacceptable will now be streamlined, and leave unpopular posters with fewer places to peddle their extremist, outside views.

According to Yahoo! News:

Web giants YouTube , Facebook , Twitter and Microsoft will step up efforts to remove extremist content from their websites by creating a common database.

The companies will share ‘hashes’ – unique digital fingerprints they automatically assign to videos or photos – of extremist content they have removed from their websites to enable their peers to identify the same content on their platforms.

&nb …

The Real Art Behind the Trump-SoftBank $50 Billion Deal

SoftBank’s big U.S. investment plan likely would have happened even without the input of the president-elect. Mr. Trump took credit anyway.

China’s Yuan and the Trillion-Dollar Numbers Game

There may be nothing significant per se about having more than $3 trillion in reserves. But markets have a way of getting antsy about these things.

The Promise and Peril of the Trump Trade

Long-term interest rates have risen sharply on the view that President-elect Trump will deliver on his pledge to bolster the economy. That needn’t be a problem—unless he can’t follow through.

The Tell: Gross warns investors of the ‘negatives’ of Trump policies

Investors need to pay attention to the “negatives” of President-elect Donald Trump’s policies, bond guru Bill Gross said in a Tuesday missive to investors.

Metals Stocks: Gold futures rebound after back-to-back drop

Gold prices rebound Wednesday after a back-to-back slump, helped as the dollar and Treasury yields all but stalled ahead of interest-rate policy decisions at the European Central Bank on Thursday and the Federal Reserve next week.

The Wall Street Journal: Trump picks Iowa Gov. Branstad as ambassador to China

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad to be the next U.S. ambassador to China, a move that would make the six-term governor the nation’s top diplomat to one of Trump’s frequent political targets.