13Jun2017 Market Close: New Record For The Dow, Other Stocks Gain With Tech Rebound, Investors Now Wait On The Fed

Tech recovery sends Wall St. to records with Fed next

(Reuters) – Wall Street gained on Tuesday, with the S&P 500, Dow industrials and Russell 2000 setting record closing highs, as technology stocks bounced back and investors positioned for an expected Federal Reserve interest rate hike.

Fed set to raise interest rates, give more detail on balance sheet wind-down

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise its benchmark interest rate this week due to a tightening labor market and may also provide more detail on its plans to shrink the mammoth bond portfolio it amassed to nurse the economic recovery.

Verizon closes Yahoo deal, Mayer steps down

(Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc said on Tuesday it closed its $4.48 billion acquisition of Yahoo Inc’s core business and that Marissa Mayer, chief executive of the internet company, had resigned.

Uber CEO Kalanick takes leave of absence, to lose some power

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] Chief Executive Travis Kalanick told employees on Tuesday he will take time away from the company he helped to found, citing the need to grieve for his recently deceased mother and to work on his leadership skills, according to an email from Kalanick seen by Reuters.

Time Inc to cut 300 positions, or 4 percent of workforce: memo

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Time Inc said on Tuesday it is eliminating 300 positions, or 4 percent of its workforce, through layoffs and buyouts, according to an internal memo reviewed by Reuters.

Boeing to restructure its defense and space unit

(Reuters) – Boeing Co said on Tuesday it would restructure its defense, space and security (BDS) division into smaller units and cut about 50 jobs this year, as the world’s largest plane maker looks to make the business more agile.

Big investors, unfazed by techs’ roller coaster, buy ‘FANG’ stocks

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Large investors, whose high exposure to large-cap technology stocks boosted their returns during the first quarter of the year, are doubling down on their investments even as stocks like Apple Inc and Facebook Inc stumble.

Apple focusing on autonomous car system: CEO Cook on Bloomberg

(Reuters) – Apple Inc is concentrating on technology for self-driving cars, Chief Executive Tim Cook said for the first time in an interview with Bloomberg.

Nasdaq seeks to block Bats push for market-close orders

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Nasdaq Inc has urged regulators to reject a proposal by rival exchange operator Bats to compete for stock orders at the market close, saying it would undermine Nasdaq’s closing process and harm publicly-listed companies and their shareholders.

US Accuses North Korean Government Of Cyber Attacks Since 2009

Step aside Russia: there is a new global cyber villian in the house – North Korea.

On Tuesday, the U.S. government via the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) issued a rare alert on the activities of a hacking group called “Hidden Cobra,” saying the group was part of the North Korean government and that more attacks were likely. The joint alert from DHS and the FBI said that “cyber actors of the North Korean government” had targeted the media, aerospace and financial sectors, as well as critical infrastructure, in the United States and globally. Hidden Cobra has reportedly compromised a range of victims since 2009 and that some intrusions had resulted in thefts of data while others were disruptive.

The alert said Hidden Cobra targeted systems that run older versions of Microsoft Corp operating systems that are no longer patched.

The group’s capabilities include denial of service attacks, which send reams of junk traffic to a server to knock it offline, keyloggers, remote access tools and several variants of malware, the alert said.

From the report’s description:

Since 2009, HIDDEN COBRA actors have leveraged their capabilities to target and compromise a range of victims; some intrusions have resulted in the exfiltration of data while others have been disruptive in nature. Commercial reporting has referred to this activity as Lazarus Group (link is external) and Guardians of Peace. (link is external) DHS and FBI assess that HIDDEN COBRA actors will continue to use cyber operations to advance their government’s military and strategic objectives. Cyber analysts are encouraged to review the information provided in this alert to detect signs of malicious network activit …

WTI/RBOB Slump After Another Shocking Crude & Gasoline Inventory Build

Following last week’s surprising builds (which sent WTI/RBOB prices lower), API reported another big crude build (+2.75mm vs an expected draw of 2.45mm) and surprise gasoline build. Crude and Gasoline futures prices immediately gave up the day’s gains.

API

Crude +2.75mm (-2.45mm exp)

Cushing -833k

Gasoline +1.794mm (-1.15mm exp)

Distillates -1.451mm

Last week’s surprise builds in crude, gasoline, and distillates upset the OPEC narrative of movement towards rebalancing and tonight’s API data further weakens that case…

WTI topped $46 in the day session ahead of the API print, but as the data hit, both saw significant selling pressure…

As Bloomberg noted prior to the data, “people feel like the inventory report should be at least moderately bullish, but they don’t want to bet the farm on that,” Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts, says by phone. “It is the time of year when you expect inventory draws and high gasoline demand. Gasoline demand last week was not robust to put it lightly.”< …

The Dead Giveaways Of Imperial Decline

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Nothing is as permanent as we imagine–especially super-complex, super-costly, super-asymmetric and super-debt-dependent state/financial systems.

Identifying the tell-tale signs of Imperial decay and decline is a bit of a parlor game. The hubris of an increasingly incestuous and out-of-touch leadership, dismaying extremes of wealth inequality, self-serving, avaricious Elites, rising dependency of the lower classes on free Bread and Circuses provided by a government careening toward insolvency due to stagnating tax revenues and vast over-reach–these are par for the course of self-reinforcing Imperial decay.

Sir John Glubb listed a few others in his seminal essay on the end of empires The Fate of Empires, what might be called the dynamics of decadence:

(a) A growing love of money as an end in itself.

(b) A lengthy period of wealth and ease, which makes people complacent. They lose their edge; they forget the traits (confidence, energy, hard work) that built their civilization.

(c) Selfishness and self-absorption.

(d) Loss of any sense of duty to the common good.

Glubb included the following in his list of the characteristics of decadence:

— an increase in frivolity, hedonism, materialism and the worship of unproductive celebrity (paging any Kardashians in the venue…)

— a loss of social cohesion

— willingness of an increasing number to live at the expense of a bloated bureaucratic state

Historian Peter Turchin, whom I have often excerpted here, listed three disintegrative forces that gnaw away the fibers of an Imperial economy and social order:

1. Stagnating real wage …

Visualizing Baltimore’s Opiate Experience

Authored by Michael Hart and StockBoardAsset,

A quick drive through some of the more desolate parts of East Baltimore will give you some insight into a crisis that is consuming not just Baltimore, but almost every corner of the United States.

The streets are littered with boarded up warehouses and tenement housing-rows and rows of dilapidated, graffiti covered buildings that litter the landscape like tombstones, commemorating a once vibrant city that has succumbed to a trifecta of affliction: economic hardship, racial tension, and rampant drug addiction.

The visceral decay of the city of Baltimore gives insight into the decay of the lives of the people who live there. The riots that shook the city in April of 2015 after Freddie Gray died in police custody came as a shock to many, but the rampant desperation of the city’s residents served as the perfect incubator for the discontent that reached a boiling point not seen in Baltimore since April of 1968 in the aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. There seems to be a fine line between boredom and rage, and recent events in Baltimore, Ferguson, and elsewhere in the U.S. straddle that line with a dangerous frequency.

In this recent video by Stock Board Asset, we see a city ravaged by a brutal epidemic of opioid addiction, where the only businesses that seem to be thriving in the city are the opioid treatment centers. Gone are the local businesses, social clubs, parks …

Hidden in Plain Sight: A Powerful Way to Beat the Market

Few investors read corporate disclosures because they are boring and rarely change. But a strategy based on changes in the documents beats the market by 22 percentage points a year.

Trump Regulation Plan Makes for Pleasant Reading on Wall Street

The U.S. Treasury Department’s report on bank regulation recommends several changes that would greatly benefit top Wall Street institutions

Here’s a Bright Idea for GE’s New Boss

The embattled conglomerate should move quickly on a sale of its iconic lightbulb business, exploiting investors’ surprising appetite for the digitally challenged industry

Average Gasoline Prices for Week Ending 12 June 2017 fell Almost Five Cents

Average gasoline prices fell 4.6 cents this past week following the previous week’s 0.9 cent rise.

Average prices by region and a breakdown by grade follow after “Read more….”.

13Jun2017 Market Update: Wall Street Trading Higher, DOW Sets New Historic High, US Producer Prices Were Unchanged, WTI Crude Pares Loses Somewhat, Is The Market About To Roll Over

Written by Gary

US stock market index futures are pointing to a moderate higher opening (SPY +0.2%) as investors breathe a sigh of relief as Technology companies recover and are helping drive a bounce for the session.

Cuban women urge Ivanka Trump to lobby on their behalf

President Donald Trump is rumored to roll back Cuba policies soon.

What Megyn Kelly, Julius Caesar and Kathy Griffin have in common

There have been several high-profile cases where advertisers have pulled funding.

The Wall Street Journal: Sweden’s Hexagon reportedly mulling $20 billion sale

Hexagon AB has held talks on a possible sale to a U.S. or European rival that could value the industrial-technology company at some $20 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.