Written by Gary
US stock market future indexes are pointing to new historic highs for the start of the 4th quarter (SPY +0.2%). The Dow is slightly off its high at 22,400, but still recorded a 4.9% gain in Q3.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
 | European markets are higher today with shares in London leading the region. The FTSE 100 is up 0.59% while Germany’s DAX is up 0.26% and France’s CAC 40 is up 0.13%. |
What Is Moving the Markets
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Dollar surges as Fed talk boosts Treasury yieldsLONDON (Reuters) – The dollar soared on Monday as U.S. Treasury yields hit their highest level since mid-July, while Spanish borrowing costs rose and stocks fell as a violent police crackdown on an independence vote in Catalonia rattled investors. |
| Exclusive: Uber’s UK boss quits as firm battles to keep London license – emailLONDON (Reuters) – Uber’s [UBER.UL] top boss in Britain will quit the taxi hailing app just as the firm battles to overturn a decision to strip it of its license in London, according to an email seen by Reuters. |
| OMERS buys landmark Berlin property Sony Center for 1.1 billion eurosFRANKFURT (Reuters) – Canadian pension fund OMERS and U.S. buyout group Madison are acquiring Berlin’s landmark property Sony Center from Korea’s national pension fund NPS for 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), the companies said on Monday. |
| Uber’s path to win back London: data, fines and fees(Reuters) – If history is a guide, Uber Technologies new Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi is likely to dangle data sharing and a promise to pay fines and fees when he sits down with London officials to negotiate the ride service’s future in one of its most important markets. |
| Oil falls to below $56 on signs of higher outputLONDON (Reuters) – Oil fell more than $1 a barrel to below $56 on Monday as a rise in U.S. drilling and higher OPEC output put the brakes on a rally that saw prices score their biggest third-quarter gain in 13 years. |
| Drugs firm AstraZeneca wants three-year Brexit transitionSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) – British pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca wants a transition period of at least three years when Britain leaves the European Union in 2019 and more clarity on what will happen in the longer term, its chairman said on Monday. |
| Disney, Altice reach deal that avoids ESPN blackoutLOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Walt Disney Co and cable operator Altice USA reached a tentative programing deal that keeps ESPN and other networks in the homes of millions of New York-area pay TV customers, the companies said in a statement on Sunday. |
| Britain will lobby U.S., Canada over Bombardier dispute: HammondMANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Finance minister Philip Hammond said on Monday Britain would continue to lobby the United States over a trade dispute with Canadian planemaker Bombardier , but said there were limits to what it could achieve. |
| Bain says aims to buy Japan ad agency Asatsu-DK for $1.4 billionTOKYO (Reuters) – U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital said it aims to buy 100 percent of Japan’s third-largest advertising agency, Asatsu-DK Inc , for 152 billion yen ($1.35 billion), in one of the largest buyouts in Japan this year. |
| Russia Gold Rush Sees Record Reserves For Putin EraRussia Gold Rush Sees Record Reserves For Putin Era by Yuliya Fedorinova of Bloomberg via Irish Indepedent Vladimir Putin is doing his part to keep the upswing in gold alive. Since the Russian president went on a geopolitical offensive in Ukraine in 2014, the haven asset had its first annual gain in four years in 2016 and is on track for another in 2017.
A beneficiary of economic and political perils from North Korea to Brexit, … |
| Monarch Airlines Files For Insolvency: Britain’s Biggest-Ever Airline CollapseU.K. leisure carrier Monarch Airlines filed for insolvency on Monday, the biggest ever failure of a British airline, stranding tens of thousands of travellers overseas and prompting the country’s biggest-ever peacetime repatriation effort, as the government has to find a way to to arrange the return of 110,000 tourists, and marking the third failure of a major European operator in five months. Monarch cancelled about 300,000 future bookings and apologized to customers and staff as it became the UK’s largest carrier to go into administration, according to Reuters.
Monarch CEO Andrew Swaffield said the carrier had fallen victim to “outside influences,” especially a flood of seating into its core Mediterranean markets after a spate of terrorist attacks prompted holiday companies to reduce their exposure to Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. Attempts to sell the short-haul business prior to the insolvency filing failed, he added.
|
| North Korean Ship Carrying 30,000 Rocket Launchers Seized By EgyptIn a fascinating report that provides a glimpse into the shadowy North Korean black-market economy, the Washington Post has published a story about a 2016 incident in which Egyptian authorities intercepted a North Korean ship bearing a Cambodian flag after being alerted by US authorities. After searching the ship, Egyptian law enforcement discovered something unexpected: a trove of nearly 24,000 rocket launchers, and components for 6,000 more weapons, hidden below a large pile of loose iron ore. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the Egyptian authorities emerged when they tried to determine for whom the weapons were intended, and discovered that they had been secretly purchased by the Egyptian military in violation of international sanctions against NK arms sales. Further compounding the irony, Egypt had recently joined the UN Security Council – the international body sponsoring said sanctions – before deciding to circumvent them and buy the weapons. As has been widely reported in the US media, North Korea reaps profits from several illegal rackets, believed to include counterfeiting of US dollars to the sale and distribution of methamphetamine. Now, we can add to that list the clandestine sale of Soviet-area conventional weapons, of which the North retains a massive stockpile, though it also manufactures its own copies.
According to |
| Chilling Warning Before Shooting Attack: “You Are All Going To Die”45 minutes before 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on unsuspecting concert goers on the Las Vegas strip, killing at least 50 and wounding more than 200, in what the AP described as the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, an unknown female reportedly made a chilling warning. According to The Express, one woman who was at the Route 91 music event, claimed an unidentified woman had told other concert-goers they were “all going to die” after pushing her way to the front of the venue. The witness, 21, told local news: “She had been messing with a lady in front of her and telling her she was going to die, that we were all going to die.
“They escorted her out to make her stop messing around with all the other people, but none of us knew it was going to be serious.” She described the lady as Hispanic and was escorted from the venue along with a man. The unnamed witness, who was attending the event on her 21st birthday, described the pair as short, both around 5 ft 5ins to 5ft 6ins tall, and looked like “everyday people”. She added she and her friends had just made it back to their hotel room when the gunfire … |
| Catalonia: A Headache for Spain, Not EuropeSpain wasn’t supposed to be on the list of political risks for investors in 2017. The violence in Catalonia is an ugly reminder of Europe’s complexities, but it is a bigger problem for Spain than for Europe. |
| China Throws Its Sinking Private Sector a Life VestPrivate capital in China is reeling from a one-two punch of forced factory closures and higher borrowing costs. This weekend’s move by China’s central bank to boost small enterprise lending-the first real monetary easing since 2016-won’t do much to improve the dark mood among Chinese entrepreneurs. |
| Why Food CEOs Are Rushing for the ExitsPackaged food companies are in trouble, squeezed by changing consumer preferences, more aggressive supermarkets and stagnant prices. More mergers may be on the way. |
| Market Extra: Low volatility, correlations, and other confounding market riddlesLooking at the trends of the market that make little obvious sense. |
| Market Extra: October’s performance could decide if stocks have a great, or middling, run deep into 2018The market’s hardest period of the year, in terms of historical seasonal patterns, is just about over, though investors can be forgiven if they didn’t realize things were supposed to be risky. |
| Rex Nutting: This tax cut isn’t for the middle class, which pays little nowThe 60% of families in the middle of the income distribution — those between about $32,000 and about $140,000 — pay an average of just 3.4% of their income in federal income taxes. |
Click to enlarge. Russia added another 500,000 ounces of gold to it’s reserves in August. Source: Goldchartsrus.com
Earnings Summary for Today
leading Stock Positions
Current Commodity Prices
Commodities are powered by Investing.com
Current Currency Crosses
The Forex Quotes are powered by Investing.com.
To contact me with questions, comments or constructive criticism is always encouraged and appreciated:
