Written by Gary
US stocks close lower (SPY -02%), tech slides (Nasdaq -0.5%) Apple, Alphabet fall has drawn comparisons to the abrupt end of the original dot-com run-up. Investors who have been in the markets for at least 20 years are having an unsettling sense of déjà vu lately.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
Stocks close lower as tech slides; Apple, Alphabet fall
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Wall Street stumbles as tech slide deepens(Reuters) – Wall Street fell on Thursday as a recent selloff in technology stocks deepened and investors fretted about the economy’s health as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates. |
| Snap’s stock price sinks to IPO priceSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Snap Inc dropped 4.5 percent on Thursday and briefly touched its initial public offering price, highlighting investors’ loss of confidence in the social media company that faces fierce competition from Facebook. |
| U.S. seeks to recover $540 million ‘stolen’ from 1MDB wealth fundWASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. authorities moved to seize a set of 11-carat earrings, a Picasso painting and the rights to two Hollywood comedies, all assets authorities say were bought with billions of dollars stolen from a state-owned Malaysian investment fund. |
| Verizon to incur $500 million in pre-tax costs from Yahoo deal(Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc said on Thursday it expected to incur about $500 million in pre-tax expenses in the second quarter as a result of its $4.48 billion purchase of Yahoo Inc’s core business. |
| Nestle may sell U.S. confectionery businessLONDON (Reuters) – Nestle may sell its roughly $900 million-a-year U.S. confectionery business, which includes Butterfinger and BabyRuth, in the Swiss food group’s latest effort to improve the health profile of its sprawling portfolio. |
| Rape victim sues Uber, claiming it wrongly obtained her medical recordsSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A woman sued Uber Technologies Inc on Thursday claiming top executives at the ride-hailing company improperly obtained her medical records after she was raped by a driver in India, according to court documents. |
| Air bag maker Takata to file bankruptcy this month: sourcesNEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Japanese air bag maker Takata Corp is preparing to file for bankruptcy as early as next week as it works toward a preliminary deal for financial backing from U.S. auto parts maker Key Safety Systems Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday. |
| Dollar Tree’s plans to expand in Canada seen as risky(Reuters) – Dollar Tree Inc’s plan to more than quadruple its store count in Canada, as it fights rising competition and slowing sales growth back home, is fraught with risks and will pit it against a formidable rival – market leader Dollarama. |
| Goldman Sachs raises $7 billion to buy secondhand stakes in private equity: sources(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc has collected more than $7 billion for a fund which purchases secondhand stakes in private equity funds, far exceeding its initial target, according to two people familiar with the matter. |
| Anbang Just Became A “Systemic Risk”: Revenues Crash 90% As Its Chairman Is “Detained”As reported earlier this week, overnight Bloomberg confirmed that Wu Xiaohui, the chairman of China’s insurance conglomerate which recently made headlines in the US for nearly reaching a deal with Jared Kushner over 666 Fifth Ave., was detained by a joint team of Central Commission for “Discipline Inspection” and police for questioning. It adds that that Chinese investigators who detained Wu are carrying out a wide probe that includes looking into the sources of funding for the firm’s acquisitions overseas, possible market manipulation by insurers, and “economic crimes.”
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that investigators were een checking whether Wu – whose fortune last year was calculated to be just over $1 billion – was involved in bribery and other economic crimes at Anbang and that Wu couldn’t be contacted for comment. As noted on Wednesday, Anbang said Wu couldn’t perform his duties for personal reasons, a story which has since been disproved. The authorities are said to be examining Anbang transactions including acquisitions overseas and their funding. According to Bloomberg;s sources, the probe also fits into a broader investigation of possible market manipulation by insurers, although they didn’t specifically define the term “economic crimes.” The action is the result of the government’s crackdown on a sector that is “supposed to help famil … |
| 1984 Was A Warning, Not An Instruction Manual (& Why You Should Buy FANG Puts)Authored by Jared Dillian ‘The 10th Man’ via MauldinEconomics.com, A little bit of paranoia is always healthy. In the 1980s, the totalitarian fear was that some overenthusiastic government agent would go to the library and pull your library card to see if you were reading seditious texts. Seems a bit quaint now, doesn’t it? It didn’t at the time. Of course, the East German Stasi went to those lengths to spy on its citizens, but there was never any real danger of it happening in the US. Fast forward to today. Facebook knows who your friends, friends of friends, and acquaintances are. It knows what you look like, and what your friends and family look like. It knows what TV shows you watch, what music you listen to, and in all likelihood, your political activities. Amazon is today’s library card—it knows every book you’ve ever ordered, along with more pedestrian purchases like vitamin supplements. Netflix is a database of pretty much every TV show and movie you’ve ever watched. Google has a repository of every Internet search made by every American citizen. F, A, N, G. What does that spell? Those four stocks have outperformed over just about any timespan. Does anyone else find it more than a coincidence that they are also potentially the biggest threat to online privacy? Like I said, that library card thing seems a bit quaint. Citizenfour Upon hearing the Edward Snowden revelations, we discovered we were living in a turnkey totalitarian state. We learned that the NSA was using pretty muc … |
| DNI Director Coats To Testify In Closed Session Before Senate Intel CommitteeAccording to NBC, the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will go back before the Senate Intelligence Committee tomorrow to answer questions in a closed session. This new hearing comes after Coats testified before the same committee in an open session last week but refused to discuss direct conversations with the President in a public session. Of course, just like with Comey’s ‘private session’, somehow we suspect that if anything material is divulged in tomorrow’s ‘private session’ with Coats it will be promptly leaked to the media.
As we pointed out last week, Intel Committee Vice Chair Mark Warner didn’t get the response he had hoped for when he asked DNI Director Coats and National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers whether they had ever been pressured by the Trump administration to downplay the Russian investigation. Here are the headlines:
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| Stockman Slams Trump Administration’s Budget Projections As “Fantasy”Authored by Craig Wilson via The Daily Reckoning, David Stockman joined Bloomberg Markets to discuss President Donald Trump’s latest budget projections. After the White House and current Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney released various statements on the budget proposal viability conversations already began within the GOP and Congress. When prompted by host David Gura over his thoughts, even reflecting on former Treasury Secretary Summers comments that the budget is ludicrously optimistic, David Stockman did not mince words speaking on Washington.
During the conversation the Bloomberg host then inserted that the budget offers a “double count” with reference to the math completed by the Administration. Stockman remar … |
| Loxo Strikes While the Biotech Iron is HotBiotech equity offerings at opportune moments maximize chances for commercial success. |
| Why the Fed Is an Overrated Risk for Emerging MarketsEmerging markets are having a good year even as the Fed lifts rates and politics swirls. There is still reward for taking risk |
| Bank of England Vote Sends Warning to Global InvestorsThree of the Bank of England’s eight policy makers vote for higher rates as it gets harder to justify the ultraloose policy that markets are used to. |
| Personal Finance Daily: This is what millennials and baby boomers have in common and the movie-worthy 500-mile Uber rideThursday’s top personal finance stories |
| Finally, here’s something millennials have in common with baby boomersThese two generations may be more similar than other studies suggest. |
| Time Inc. is still struggling to make up for its declining print businessAnalysts at Macquarie Research downgraded Time Inc.’s stock to neutral from outperform on Thursday after the company announced cutting 300 jobs in a major restructuring meant to focus on its digital business |
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