Written by Gary
US stock markets have risen higher after a brief morning stumble (SPY +0.3%). The SP 500 and the Nasdaq hit record levels today, the last trading day of the quarter, helped by gains in technology and financial stocks.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
North and South American markets are higher today with shares in Brazil leading the region. The Bovespa is up 0.78% while Mexico’s IPC is up 0.36% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is up 0.27%. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
S&P, Nasdaq hit record on gains in tech, financials(Reuters) – The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq hit record levels on Friday, the last trading day of the quarter, helped by gains in technology and financial stocks. | |
Hurricane Harvey curbs U.S. consumer spending; inflation mutedWASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending barely rose in August likely as Hurricane Harvey weighed on auto sales, while annual inflation increased at its slowest pace in nearly two years, pointing to a moderation in economic growth in the third quarter. | |
Bankers anxious over consumer reactions to Equifax breach(Reuters) – U.S. lenders are concerned their consumer loan and credit card businesses could be stymied if large numbers of people lock or freeze their credit reports to protect themselves in the wake of the Equifax Inc hack. | |
Lagging U.S. online giants, Europe split over web taxTALLINN (Reuters) – European Union leaders meeting on Friday to discuss how to boost the region’s online economy appeared divided where to put the emphasis: supporting the industry or taxing the mostly American companies that currently dominate. | |
Fed fines HSBC $175 million for lack of forex trading oversightWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve on Friday fined HSBC Holdings PLC $175 million for “unsafe and unsound practices” in its foreign exchange trading business, the latest in a series of fines for banks’ failures to prevent market manipulation. | |
Deutsche Bank in $190 million currency-rigging settlementNEW YORK (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank AG agreed to pay $190 million to settle U.S. litigation accusing it of rigging prices in the roughly $5.1 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market. | |
VW’s Dieselgate bill hits $30 billion after another chargeHAMBURG/BERLIN (Reuters) – Volkswagen is taking another $3 billion charge to fix diesel engines in the United States, lifting the total bill for its emissions-test cheating scandal to around $30 billion. | |
Murdoch opponent challenges UK regulator over Sky dealLONDON (Reuters) – Activist group Avaaz stepped up its battle to stop Rupert Murdoch buying Sky , launching a legal challenge to the regulator’s view that the pay-TV group would still be a “fit and proper” owner of a broadcasting license if the deal goes ahead. | |
U.S. auto sales for September to be highest in 2017: JD Power and LMC(Reuters) – Americans in hurricane ravaged cities are replacing their damaged vehicles and that is set to lift the pace of vehicles sales for September to its highest level this year, according to consultancies J.D. Power and LMC Automotive. | |
Jim Kunstler’s Solution To Uniting American Citizens – Overturn ‘Citizens United’Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, Poor old Karl Marx, tortured by boils and phantoms, was right about one thing: History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Thus, I give you the Roman Empire and now the United States of America. Rome surrendered to time and entropy. Our method is to drive a gigantic clown car into a ditch. Is anyone out there interested in redemption? I have an idea for the political party out of power, the Democrats, sunk in its special Okefenokee Swamp of identity politics and Russia paranoia: make an effort to legislate the Citizens United calamity out of existence. Who knows, a handful of Republicans may be shamed into going along with it. For those of you who have been mentally vacationing on Mars with Elon Musk, Citizens United was a Supreme Court decision — Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission 558 U.S. 310 (2010) — which determined that corporations had the right, as hypothetical “persons,” to give as much money as they liked to political candidates. This “right” devolved from the First Amendment of the constitution, the 5-4 majority opinion said — giving money to political candidates and causes amounts to “freedom of speech.” The Citizens United ruling opened the door for unlimited election spending by corp … | |
Vietnam Shows How To Clean Up The Banking System: Ex-Banker Sentenced To Death For FraudThe lack of prosecution of US bankers responsible for the great financial crisis has been a much debated topic over the years, leading to the coinage of such terms as “Too Big To Prosecute”, the termination of at least one corrupt DOJ official, the revelation that Eric Holder is the most useless Attorney General in history, and of course billions in cash kickbacks between Wall Street and D.C. And, naturally, the lack of incentives that punish cheating and fraud, is one of the main reasons why such fraud will not only continue but get bigger until once again, the entire system crashes under the weight of accumulated theft, corruption and Fed-driven malinvestment. But what can be done? In this case, Vietnam may have just shown the way – sentence embezzling bankers to death. Because if one wants to promptly stop an end to all financial crime, few things motivate as efficiently as a firing squad. According to the BBC, the former head of a major Vietnamese bank has been sentenced to death for his role in a fraud case involving some 800 billion dong (which sounds like a lot of dong, but equals roughly $35 million) of illegal loans. Nguyen Xuan Son, who served as general director of OceanBank, was convicted of embezzlement, abuse of power and economic mismanagement. Bank founder, tycoon Ha Van Tham, and dozens of other banking officials are also on trial, accused of lending violations.
Meanwhile, dozens of former employees also received lengthy prison sentences in the major corruption trial. Because OceanBank is partially-state owned, Son’s crime of mishandling state money was thought to … | |
The ‘Koyaanisqatsi’ EconomyAuthored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog, The film Koyaanisqatsi was released in 1982. The title means ‘life out of balance’ in the language of the Hopi, a Native American tribe who live(d) mainly in what is now north-east Arizona. It is directed by Godfrey Reggio with music by Philip Glass and cinematography by Ron Fricke. There are no actors, and no dialogue. Philip Glass’s music underlies a series of film fragments that contrast the beauty of American nature with the noise and pollution mankind has added to it. Wikipedia:
Due to its initial success, Reggio and Glass made two sequels to the film, Powaqqatsi (1988), meaning “parasitic way of life” or “life in transition”, and Naqoyqatsi (2002) which means “life as war”, “civilized violence” and “a life of killing each other”. If you haven’t seen them, they come highly recommended. | |
Coverup? FBI, DOJ Refuse To Comply With Congressional “Trump Dossier” SubpoenaIn what looks like a naked coverup meant to obscure the fact that the Department of Justice’s decision to launch a criminal investigation into possible Russia-Trump collusion was based on a lie, Reuters reports that the DOJ and FBI are resisting a Congressional subpoena from to turn over documents that would reveal details about how the infamous “Trump dossier” factored into their decision to launch said investigation. Despite receiving the subpoena from US Intel Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, the FBI is steadfastly refusing to turn over the documents because the agency says they would purportedly compromise an ongoing criminal investigation (the FBI’s investigation into Mueller). More likely, the agency’s intransigence stems from fears that the one Russia collusion narrative that Democrats have actively worked to suppress could come back to haunt them.
As we noted earlier this month when the sub … | |
What Barclays Should Do to Win Back Shareholder LoveBanks need a good story to explain what they are about. Barclays wants to tell a tale of growth, but its audience is struggling to suspend its disbelief. | |
The Long-Haul Airline Disruptor Isn’t Built for TurbulenceIf you’ve booked a cheap trans-Atlantic flight with Norwegian Air Shuttle, you can relax: It probably isn’t about to go bust. Whether the Oslo-listed airline’s high-risk business model can withstand more difficult market conditions is doubtful. | |
Screen Blues Aren’t Over for Many of Apple’s SuppliersDisplay makers such as Japan Display, LG Display and Sharp are falling behind in the screen arms race as Apple shifts to OLED technology. | |
Nvidia adds Google Assistant to Shield streaming device in challenge to Apple TVNvidia Inc. is adding Google’s virtual assistant technology to its Shield 4K video streaming and gaming device, beefing up its offering and positioning it as a direct competitor to Apple TV and other lower-cost streaming boxes, the company said Thursday. | |
Google Finance as you know it is going away — here is what will remainAlphabet Inc. informed users of its Google Finance product last week that the core of the offering, the portfolio feature, will soon disappear as the stocks-focused product undergoes a transformation that bundles it into Google’s core search offering. | |
Europe Markets: European stocks ring up best month of 2017European stocks advance on Friday, booking the best month of the year after a string of upbeat data and a rally for the banking sector on rising expectations for tighter monetary policy. |
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