30Dec2016 Market Close: Wall Street Closed Down On The Last Trading Day Of The Year, Crude, Prices Settled Slightly Higher, Major Indexes Still Posted Solid Gains In 2016

Wall Street closes out strong 2016 on weak note

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks slumped on the last trading day of the year on Friday, led down by Apple and other big tech stocks, but major indexes still posted solid gains in 2016.

Apple to cut iPhone production in first quarter of 2017: report

(Reuters) – Apple Inc will trim production of iPhones by about 10 percent in the January-March quarter of 2017, the Nikkei financial daily reported on Thursday, citing calculations based on data from suppliers.

Silicon Valley’s obscure unicorns could boost 2017 IPO market

(Reuters) – Social media firm Snap Inc may be the highest profile tech IPO planned for 2017, with the potential to raise billions.

Oil down, but ends year with biggest gain since 2009

(Reuters) – Oil prices settled slightly lower on Friday, the year’s last trading day, but attained their biggest annual gain since 2009, after OPEC and partners agreed to cut output to reduce a supply overhang that has depressed prices for two years.

FTC seeks more info on Bass Pro-Cabela’s deal

(Reuters) – U.S. fishing and hunting equipment retailer Cabela’s Inc , which is being bought by privately held rival Bass Pro Shops, said the Federal Trade Commission had sought more information from the companies about the deal.

Foxconn joint venture to build $8.8 billion LCD plant in China

BEIJING (Reuters) – A joint venture between Hon Hai Precision Industry Co , known as Foxconn, and Sharp Corp plans to build a 61 billion yuan ($8.8 billion) factory in China to produce liquid-crystal displays (LCDs).

China’s Midea receives U.S. green light for Kuka takeover

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – China’s Midea said it will complete its takeover of German robotics maker Kuka in the first half of January after the United States authorities gave the deal a green light.

U.S. dollar posts 2016 gain on Trump victory, Fed forecasts

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar slipped on Friday but notched its fourth straight year of gains against a basket of major currencies.

Oil, metals post stellar 2016 gains on output cuts, demand hopes

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Crude oil, rubber and metals are set to end 2016 with strong gains, bouncing back from several years of losses on output cuts and expectations of firmer demand.

Putin Responds To Obama Expulsion Of 35 Russian Diplomats With World’s Biggest Eye-Roll, Offers Hospitality To US Diplomats

Lame-cuck President Obama has decided to stuff his legacy into a Brazen Bull in a china shop and light a blazing fire underneath it. Just a week after fucking over Israel, the Obama administration and the FBI cobbled together an embarrassingly empty handed, heavily disclaimered, B-game hacking report. It’s been utterly shredded by experts. Also, John Pod …

2016 Ends With A Whimper: Stocks Slide On Last Minute Pension Fund Selling

When we first warned 8 days ago that in the last week of trading a “Red Flag For Markets Has Emerged: Pension Funds To Sell “Near Record Amount Of Stocks In The Next Few Days”, and may have to “rebalance”, i.e. sell as much as $58 billion of equity to debt ahead of year end, many scoffed wondering who would be stupid enough to leave such a material capital reallocation for the last possible moment in a market that is already dangerously thin as is, and in which such a size order would be sure to move markets lower, and not just one day.

Today we got the answer, and yes – pension funds indeed left the reallocation until the last possible moment, because three days after the biggest drop in the S&P in over two months, the equity selling persisted as the reallocation trade continued, leading to the S&P closing off the year with a whimper, not a bang, as Treasurys rose, reaching session highs minutes before the 1pm ET futures close when month-end index rebalancing took effect.

10Y yields were lower by 2bp-3bp after the 2pm cash market close, with the 10Y below closing levels since Dec. 8. Confirming it was indeed a substantial rebalancing trade, volumes surged into the futures close, which included a 5Y block trade with ~$435k/DV01 according to Bloomberg while ~80k 10Y contracts traded over a 3- minute period.

The long-end led the late rally, briefly flattening 5s30s back to little changed at 112.5bps. Month-end flows started to pick up around noon amid reports of domestic real money demand; +0.07yr duration extensi …

Here Are Some Of The Ridiculous New State Laws That Will Take Effect January 1st – Happy New Year!

Back in September we wrote about what we thought for sure would be the wackiest new state law passed in 2016. The law came from the state of California (of course) and demanded a 40% reduction in methane gas from cow flatulence by 2030. Here’s what we had to say about the bill:

In yet another attack on California businesses, yesterday Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill (SB 1383) that requires the state to cut methane emissions from dairy cows and other animals by 40% by 2030. The bill is yet another massive blow to the agricultural industry in the state of California that has already suffered from the Governor’s passage of a $15 minimum wage and a recent bill that makes California literally the only state in the entire country to provide overtime pay to seasonal agricultural workers after working 40 hours per week or 8 hours per day (see “California Just Passed A $1.7 Billion Tax On The Whole Country That No One Noticed”).

According to a statement from Western United Dairymen CEO, Anja Raudabaugh, California’s Air Resources Board wants to regulate animal methane emissions even though it admits there is no known method for achieving the the type of reduction sought by SB 1383.

“The California Air Resources Board wants to regulate cow emissions, even though its Short-Lived …

Israel First Or America First

Submitted by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

Donald Trump has a new best friend.

“President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support of Israel,” gushed Bibi Netanyahu, after he berated John Kerry in a fashion that would once have resulted in a rupture of diplomatic relations.

Netanyahu accused Kerry of “colluding” in and “orchestrating” an anti-Israel, stab-in-the-back resolution in the Security Council, then lying about it. He offered to provide evidence of Kerry’s complicity and mendacity to President Trump.

Bibi then called in the U.S. ambassador and read him the riot act for 40 minutes. Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer charged that not only did the U.S. not “stand up to and oppose the gang-up” at the U.N., “the United States was actually behind that gang-up.”

When Ben Rhodes of the National Security Council called the charges false, Dermer dismissed President Obama’s man as a “master of fiction.”

Query: Why is Dermer not on a plane back to Tel Aviv?

Some of us can recall how Eisenhower ordered David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai in 1957, or face sanctions.

Ben-Gurion did as told. Had he and his ambassador castigated Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, as the Israelis dissed John Kerry, Ike would have called the U.S. ambassador home.

Indeed, Ike’s threat of sanctions against Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s government, which had also invaded Egypt, brought Eden down.

But then Dwight Eisenhower was not Barack Obama, and the America of 1956 was a more self-respecting nation.

Still, this week of rancorous exchanges between two nations that endlessly express …

Trump Rally Darkens Skies for All-Weather Portfolio

All-weather and risk-parity portfolios designed to produce smooth returns have hit a rough patch since the U.S. election.

Waiting for the Big Post-Christmas Sales

It was surprisingly calm from a pricing standpoint at the retailers Heard on the Street visited two days after Christmas.

News at Gilead Is Better but Not Good

A slowing decline in prescriptions is a positive development for the battered biotech

Here’s why Tesla is Baird’s top stock-market pick for 2017

Analyst Ben Kallo is confident the company’s energy business and Model 3 electric sedan will surpass expectations.

Bond Report: Treasury yields rise for second consecutive year

Treasury yields retreat in a holiday-shortened session Friday, but end a volatile year with a second consecutive annual rise.

Mutual Funds Weekly: Smart investing in 2017 means saying goodbye to 2016

For investors, a new year offers an opportunity to accept the world for what it is, and then decide what to do about it.