17Apr2017 Market Close: Wall Street Closes Higher, DOW Up Triple Digits, US Dollar Climbs Back Into The 100 Handle, Bad News Major Indexes Stop Short Of Previous Resistance

Wall Street rises as earnings take focus from geopolitics

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose on Monday after the S&P 500 closed the previous session at a two-month low, in a broad rally lead by recently beaten-down bank and tech shares.

The long, rough ride ahead for ‘Made in America’

RUSTON, Louisiana (Reuters) – Mini motorcycle and go-kart maker Monster Moto made a big bet on U.S. manufacturing by moving assembly to this Louisiana town in 2016 from China.

Undaunted by oil bust, financiers pour billions into U.S. shale

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Investors who took a hit last year when dozens of U.S. shale producers filed for bankruptcy are already making big new bets on the industry’s resurgence.

Snap stock falls as alleged CEO comments rile some on social media

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Snap fell 1.5 percent on Monday as the Snapchat owner faced criticism for comments allegedly made by its CEO about not prioritizing growth in India and Spain because they were “poor” countries.

Wal-Mart seeks online fashion presence through acquisitions

(Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc’s bid for clothing retailer Bonobos, which surfaced last week, is the latest step in the company’s attempt to recover lost ground against Amazon.com Inc and others in the rapidly growing online fashion world, analysts and retail consultants said.

New York City taxi commission plans to force Uber to add driver tipping feature

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Ride-services company Uber Technologies Inc may be required to provide passengers a way to tip their drivers, despite its longstanding resistance, if a plan by New York City’s taxi regulator is implemented.

Harley offers rare incentives to shift bike overhang: dealers

(Reuters) – Harley-Davidson Inc has taken the rare step of offering rebates on its 2016 motorcycles to U.S. dealers as an incentive for them to shift a backlog that has restricted sales of its latest models, three dealers and two analysts said.

Boeing to lay off hundreds more engineers: source

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Boeing Co warned employees on Monday it planned another round of involuntary layoffs that would affect hundreds of engineers at its commercial airplanes unit, according to a source and a memo seen by Reuters.

Illinois bill would ban forcible removal of passengers after UAL incident

CHICAGO (Reuters) – It would be illegal for Illinois state or local government employees to forcibly remove travelers from flights under a bill introduced by a lawmaker on Monday after a United Airlines passenger was violently dragged from an aircraft last week.

“Hell To Pay”

Authored by Economic Prism’s MN Gordon, via Acting-Man.com,

Behind the Curve

Economic nonsense comes a dime a dozen. For example, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen “think(s) we have a healthy economy now.” She even told the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy so earlier this week. Does she know what she’s talking about?

Somehow, this cartoon never gets old…

If you go by a partial subset of the ‘official’ government statistics, perhaps, it appears she does. The unemployment rate is at 4.5 percent, which is considered full employment. What’s more, inflation is ‘reasonably close’ to the Fed’s 2-percent inflation target. But what does this mean, really?

According to Fed Chair Yellen, it means that now’s the time to tighten up the nation’s monetary policy.

Behold this display of awesomeness, citizen. Doesn’t it prove that central planning “works” after all? Un …

Mnuchin Agrees With Trump: “Strong Dollar Over Short-Period Of Time Is Hurting US Economy”

In an interview with the FT, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed Trump’s “tremendous” tax reform, and confirmed what many already knew: that the push to revise the US tax code has been dramatically slowed by the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare, and conceded that the administration’s timetable for ambitious tax reforms will be delayed. Mnuchin also said the target to get tax reforms through Congress and on President Donald Trump’s desk before August was “highly aggressive to not realistic at this point”.

However while his tax-related comments were predictable, it is what he said about the strength of the dollar that was most notable. Recall that during his confirmation hearing, Mnuchin stated that a strong-dollar is preferable “in the long-run.” The question then became how he would reconcile his strong dollar stance with Trump’s recent flip-flop, in which the president urged for not only lower interest rates but a weaker dollar. This is what he told the FT about what relative value of the USD he prefers:

He stressed that the US did not intervene in currency markets, saying: “The president was making a factual comment about the strength of the dollar in the short term . . . There’s a big difference between talk and action.”

Mnuchin rebuffed suggestions that Washington may be seeking to depreciate the currency via verbal interventions following remarks from Mr Trump last week. “As the world’s currency, the primary reserve currency, I think that over long periods of time the strength of the dollar is a good thing,” said Mr Mnuchin. “It’s a function of the confidence and the strength of the US economy.”

Illegal Immigrant Arrests Soar In Trump’s First 50 Days As Border Crossings Plunge

Even as so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ around the country ramp up their efforts to thwart the Trump administration on enforcing immigration laws, despite the risk of losing their federal subsidies, arrests of illegal immigrants spiked 33% YoY in the first 52 days of Trump’s presidency.

Of course, for the Washington Post, such a spike in the enforcement of federal laws is highly disturbing and perhaps even a direct attack on the rights of sexual assault victims.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 21,362 immigrants, mostly convicted criminals, from January through mid-March, compared to 16,104 during the same period last year, according to statistics requested by The Washington Post.

Arrests of immigrants with no criminal records more than doubled to 5,441, the clearest sign yet that President Trump has ditched his predecessor’s protective stance toward most of the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Advocates for immigrants say the unbridled enforcement has led to a sharp drop in reports from Latinos of sexual assaults and other crimes in Houston and Los Angeles, and terrified immigrant communities across the United States. A prosecutor said the presence of immigration agents in state and local courthouses, which advocates say has increased under the Trump administration, makes it harder to prosecute crime.

“My sense is that ICE is emboldened in a way that I have never seen,” Dan Satterberg, the top prosecutor in Washington state’s King County, which includes Seattl …

We’re All Yen Traders Now

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

Today’s post will have no answers. I am not sure anyone truly understands the strange day to day squiggles of the increasingly intertwined global financial system, but I wanted to highlight a relationship that cannot simply be monkeys typing Shakespeare.

Let’s start with the market developments over the past couple of days. Last week ended on a trading holiday, with markets closed for Good Friday. Weirdly, the U.S. Federal Government does not take the day off. With Wall Street deserted, there were a bunch of economic releases that shit the bed. Yup, they were not good.

I took the liberty of lifting a couple of charts from ZeroHedge that sum up the extent of the economic miss:

As traders huddled around their screens Easter Sunday evening, it was no surprise that U.S. Treasury futures were indicated to gap higher. When the opening bell rang for the GLOBEX session, the Five Year T-Note future opened up almost half a dollar (a big move for a five year not …

Elliott Wins an Early Round Against Arconic

The departure of Arconic’s CEO won’t end the bitter feud with Elliott Management.

China Gets Bailed Out by Its Consumers

A big ramp up in consumer debt is keeping growth chugging along in China, which has helped slow a dangerous buildup in corporate borrowing. But goosing household debt to bail out struggling firms is a risky growth strategy.

The Risk of Rising Consumer Borrowing

A rise in various forms of consumer debt will pose issues for banks eventually.

Trump Today: Trump Today: North Korea has ‘gotta behave,’ president says

President Donald Trump took to Twitter to bash a Georgia Democrat running for a House seat in a longtime Republican district, said North Korea has “gotta behave” and presided over the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Earnings Outlook: General Electric earnings: What to expect

General Electric is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on Friday, before the market opens. Will GE disappoint investors again, like they have with the past five quarterly reports?

Earnings Outlook: Bank of America earnings: Expect strong trading, weak loan growth

Bank of America Corp. is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings before the bell on Tuesday, and analysts are expecting similar trends to those seen at rivals last week of strong trading profits but weak loan growth.