12Sep2017 Market Close: Stocks Closed Higher, Bonds Declined, Dollar Flat While Oil Gained And Gold Slipped Lower

Apple launches $999 iPhone X in bid to regain innovation lead

CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) – Apple Inc on Tuesday rolled out its much-anticipated iPhone X, a glass and stainless steel device with an edge-to-edge display that Chief Executive Tim Cook called “the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone.”

Wall Street ends at record high, led by banks; Apple weighs

(Reuters) – The major Wall Street indexes hit record closing highs on Tuesday, with financial stocks leading the charge, but gains were stunted by a decline in Apple Inc shares after it unveiled its latest line of iPhones.

JPMorgan’s Dimon says bitcoin ‘is a fraud’

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bitcoin “is a fraud” and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co , said on Tuesday.

Jamie Dimon says his eventual successor works at JPMorgan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co , said on Tuesday that his eventual successor is an executive working at the bank.

Wal-Mart restructures U.S. operations to speed change

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Wal-Mart Stores Inc is restructuring its U.S. store operations and will consolidate its business divisions from six to four, the company said on Tuesday.

U.S. job openings at record high; qualified workers scarce

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. job openings rose to a record high in July, suggesting a slowdown in job growth in August was an aberration and that the labor market was strong before the recent disruptive hurricanes.

Wall Street executives have gloomy outlook on third-quarter trading results

(Reuters) – Executives from JPMorgan Chase & Co , Bank of America Corp and Goldman Sachs Group Inc warned on Tuesday that trading conditions during the third quarter were likely to be poor for their banks.

P&G’s business structure takes center stage in Trian proxy fight

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Trian Partners, the activist fund seeking a seat on Procter & Gamble Co’s board, stepped up its criticism of the company’s business structure on Tuesday, a day after P&G’s chief executive attacked Trian’s proposed reorganization as “dangerous.”

DowDuPont alters post-merger breakup plans amid investor pressure

(Reuters) – DowDuPont, formed through the merger of chemical giants Dow Chemical and DuPont, is shifting some operations in the three units it plans to create, potentially averting a prolonged fight with activist investors over its post-merger plans.

Dimon Doubles Down: “My Daughter Bought Bitcoin. It Went Up, Now She Thinks She Is A Genius”

Having slammed bitcoin earlier in the day during a Barclays financial conference, calling it a “fraud” which is “worse than tulip bulbs, it won’t end well” and that any JPMorgan “trader trading bitcoin” will be “fired for being stupid”, the JPM CEO doubled down later in the day during an interview on CNBC’s Delivering Alpha conference, saying bitcoin “is just not a real thing, eventually it will be closed.”

Making the bitcoin advocates’ case for them, Dimon said he’s skeptical authorities will allow a currency to exist without state oversight, especially if something goes wrong. “Someone’s going to get killed and then the government’s going to come down,” he said. “You just saw in China, governments like to control their money supply.”

Which, of course, is the whole point behind cryptocurrency: a method of exchange that is independent of and in apposition to conventionally accepted fiat and monetary mechanisms, one which the government frowns upon if not outright rejects, even if it is ultimately unable to block it. As an example of that, observe the reaction in bitcoin to this weekend’s news that China is (allegedly) closing bitcoin exchanges: BTC dropped from $4,700 to $4,200 and… that was about it. Of course, to the CEO of JPMorgan, which incidentally is a founding member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and which nearly two years ago started a trial project using blockchain to cut trading costs, such positioning only has negative connotations:

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What If Every Person Paid An Equal Share Of The Military Budget?

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Government employees and their apologists like to lecture Americans about how “freedom isn’t free.” And indeed it isn’t. In recent years, the US military establishment has cost the American taxpayer around $700 billion per year. Thanks to the hard work of the American taxpayer, the US military – and other “defense” agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security – the US government is the most well-funded in the world. In spite of numerous ongoing interventions worldwide, casualties in the US military are low thanks to highly-advanced technology funded by – you guessed it – the American taxpayer.

Now, for the sake of argument in this article, we’ll just assume that the full $700 billion per year has something to do with actual defense. This is a highly debatable notion, of course. As more astute observers have noted in the past decade, it is not at all clear that the trillions of dollars spent in Iraq and Afghanistan have done anything at all to augment security in the United States.

We’ll also conveniently ignore the catastrophic failures of our extremely-well-heeled American security states, such as those on September 11, 2001.

Source:

Bitcoin Tumbles After Jamie Dimon Calls It A Fraud: “Would Fire Anyone Trading It”

Surprised by the sudden air pocket below bitcoin? Curious if this was caused by some new, unconfirmed Chinese crackdown on bitcoin traders, exchanges, and other money launderers?

No, the answer is Jamie Dimon, who in an angry outburst during the same conference in which he preannounced JPM’s 20% trading revenue drop, lashed out at the cryptocurrency, calling it a “fraud” which is “worse than tulip bulbs. It won’t end well”, will “blow up” and “someone is going to get killed.” Oh, and in conclusion, “any trader trading bitcoin” will be “fired for being stupid.”

DIMON: BITCOIN IS A “FRAUD”; “WORSE THAN TULIP BULBS”

DIMON: BITCOIN WILL EVENTUALLY BLOW UP

DIMON: BITCOIN WON’T END WELL

DIMON: WOULD FIRE ANY TRADER TRADING BITCOIN FOR BEING STUPID

So how does Jamie really feel?

Of course, if “a trader” bought $100,000 of Bitcoin in 2010, they’d be roughly 3x richer than billionaire Jamie, but that’s another story.

What is more surprising, is that bitcoin actually reacted to this angry outburst by the JPM CEO, sliding sharply, and dragging the entire cryptocurrency space with it.

Or perhaps not surprising at all as hundreds of JPM traders quietly liquidated their accounts moments after hearing Dimon’s threat…

Curiously, as Bitcoin sold off, gold finally saw a modest bid:

What Fiduciary Duty? San Fran Politicians Try To Force Pension To Dump $470MM Of “Fossil Fuel” Stocks

We’ve frequently argued that public pension underfundings are perhaps the greatest threat to the long-term economic outlook of the United States, if not the globe. With aggregate underfunding levels of $5-$8 trillion, depending on what discount rate your local politicians decide to pull out of thin air, the forthcoming pension crisis will be too large for even the very generous American taxpayer to cover.

That said, and as if avoiding the next pension-induced global financial crisis weren’t hard enough, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors seems hell bent on accelerating the crisis by forcing their public pension board to completely ignore their fiduciary duty to retirees (and all taxpayers, frankly, as we’ll all be left holding the bag when these ponzi schemes implode) and immediately dump all “fossil fuel” investments irrespective of financial merit. You know, because restricting investing options is clearly in the best interest of retirees…even though we would venture to guess that most of them couldn’t care less where their money is invested as long as their benefits never get cut. Here’s more fromthe San Francisco Chronicle:

The San Francisco Employee Retirement System is facing mounting pressure to unload its roughly $470 million worth of investments in the fossil fuel industry, which would make it the first major pension fund in the nation to do so.

On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors is expected to pass a resolution urging SFERS officials to consider selling all fossil fuel investments. It’s the second time since 2013 that city lawmakers have asked the governing board of San Francisco’s $23 billion employee pension plan to reconsider the fossil fuel companies.

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Apple’s iPhone X Needs to Scale a New Peak

Apple’s latest smartphones are expected to push company past the peak set by iPhone 6 three years ago.

Why Hurricanes Hurt Weak Retailers, Help Strong Ones

Retailers that already were doing well before the hurricanes that hit Texas and Florida will do even better, and many that were already doing poorly will do worse.

What Apple’s iPhone Launch Could Mean for Its Suppliers

Shares of companies that provide Apple with iPhone parts tend to underperform in the months following a new model’s launch.

What We Read Today 12 September 2017

Econintersect: Every day our editors collect the most interesting things they find from around the internet and present a summary “reading list” which will include very brief summaries (and sometimes longer ones) of why each item has gotten our attention. Suggestions from readers for “reading list” items are gratefully reviewed, although sometimes space limits the number included.

This feature is published every day late afternoon New York time. For early morning review of headlines see “The Early Bird” published every day in the early am at GEI News (membership not required for access to “The Early Bird”.).

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Tracking Irma – 12Sep2017- Irma Threat Ending: Jose Watch Continues.

Written by Sig Silber

4:00 PM Sept 12: Last Remaining Distinct Threat of Irma to Sern North Carolina occurred this morning and that should complete the special reporting on Irma current and forecasted weather impacts. The Track of Jose is not yet clear but appears to have a low probability of impacting CONUS but may be a threat to Canada. Thus our frequent updates of this report will cease unless Jose or another storm becomes an imminent threat but we will later provide a comprehensive report on the Damages from Irma. We will also provide an update with our next Weekly Report on September 18, 2017

MarketWatch First Take: Apple Watch finally lives up to Dick Tracy’s standards, so maybe it will live up to expectations

Apple Inc. finally launched features that will make Apple Watch more like the stand-alone device consumers have clamored for since Dick Tracy spoke into his wristwatch decades ago.

New Apple Watch will cost an extra $10 a month for cellular connection

The new Apple Watch has a cellular connection that will allow it to work without an iPhone, but that freedom will come with a monthly cost.

Everything Apple announced at its iPhone event

Apple Inc. introduces three new phones including a high-end $999 phone, a new Apple Watch and a host of other new features at its special event Tuesday, it’s first-ever at the Steve Jobs Theater at its new “spaceship” campus after the first iPhone was introduced 10 years ago.