16Oct2017 Market Close: Wall Street Closes At Record Highs Helped By Finance And Energy Sectors, WTI Settles In The High 51 Handle Just Fractionally Off Morning Highs

Wall St. closes at records helped by finance, energy sectors

(Reuters) – Major U.S. stock indexes rose to record high closes on Monday as financial shares recovered from last week’s losses and higher oil prices lifted energy shares.

Colony Capital injects cash, in talks to buy Weinstein Co

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Weinstein Company has entered talks to sell the bulk of its assets to private equity firm Colony Capital, the companies said on Monday, as the film production company looks for stability after the departure of co-founder Harvey Weinstein.

Exclusive: China offers to buy 5 percent of Saudi Aramco directly – sources

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – China is offering to buy up to 5 percent of Saudi Aramco directly, sources said, a move that could give Saudi Arabia the flexibility to consider various options for its plan to float the world’s biggest oil producer on the stock market.

Nordstrom family suspends attempt to take U.S. retailer private

(Reuters) – Nordstrom Inc said on Monday that a founding family group had suspended attempts to take the U.S. department store operator private because of difficulties in arranging debt financing for its bid ahead of the key holiday shopping season.

Tough U.S. NAFTA demands send ball back into lobbyists’ court

ARLINGTON, Va. (Reuters) – Lobbying efforts on the North American Free Trade Agreement hit a crucial stage this week after the Trump administration ignored the U.S. business community’s advice and pitched proposals to radically reshape NAFTA, leaving its future in doubt.

Striking Canadian union approves deal with GM

MONTREAL (Reuters) – General Motors Co. on Monday welcomed the ratification of a new four-year agreement by unionized workers at its SUV plant in Ontario, Canada, ending a near month-long strike.

Exclusive: T-Mobile, Sprint plan merger without selling assets

(Reuters) – T-Mobile U.S. Inc and Sprint Corp plan to announce a merger agreement without any immediate asset sales, as they seek to preserve as much of their spectrum holdings and cost synergies as they can before regulators ask for concessions, according to people familiar with the matter.

U.S. buyers favor iPhone 7 over 8: research

(Reuters) – Apple Inc’s older iPhone 7 models are outselling the recently launched iPhone 8 ahead of the early November debut of the premium iPhone X, broker KeyBanc Capital Markets said, citing carrier store surveys.

As the quartet breaks up, central banking leadership flux looms

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The leaders of the world’s top central banks who risked trillions of dollars and their reputations to rescue the global economy are now set to walk off stage at a time when the lingering effects of the crisis, evolving technology and a combustible political landscape will challenge their successors.

Taleb Explains How He Made Millions On Black Monday As Others Crashed

Former trader and author of best-selling book “The Black Swan” sat down for an interview with Bloomberg News to mark the upcoming thirtieth anniversary of the stock-market crash that occurred on Oct. 19, 1987 – otherwise known as Black Monday.

Taleb famously supercharged his career – and earned a considerable sum of money (though turns out it was less than Taleb felt he deserved) – thanks to his trading profits from that day, which he said were in the “tens of millions of dollars.”

But what did he trade, and how? And furthermore, what was going through his head as he watched the market crumble around him?

Answering a question about what specific strategies he employed, Taleb explained that he relied on “tail options” – contracts that, because they were way out of the money, could be purchased for negligible sums – and placed most of his bets in “professional” markets like currencies and Eurodollar futures.

“The dollar of course collapsed. Dollar-yen options – we had options we had bought for $10,000 in inventory that were selling for 17 million.

The thing was going…it was out of control. The big payoffs weren’t in the main, big currencies, but in the ones where the move was a big surprise like Eurodollar or yen. The Swiss franc also had high volatility.”

Asked why the movements in currency and fixed income markets weren’t as heavily covered as the moves in the stock market – which is where the bulk of that day’s carnage unfolded – Tal …

Should The Middle Class Pay More For A Loaf Of Bread Than The Poor?

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Iowa seeks to become the first state to dump Obamacare in favor of a state-run program that will allegedly lower costs.

I suggest Iowa’s replacement plan can’t work. My reason pertains to the title question.

Please consider New Test for Obamacare, Iowa Seeks to Abandon Marketplace.

With efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act dead in Congress for now, a critical test for the law’s future is playing out in one small, conservative-leaning state.

Iowa is anxiously waiting for the Trump administration to rule on a request that is loaded with implications for the law’s survival. If approved by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, it would allow the state to jettison some of Obamacare’s main features next year — its federally run insurance marketplace, its system for providing subsidies, its focus on helping poorer people afford insurance and medical care — and could open the door for other states to do the same.

Iowa’s Republican leaders think their plan would save the state’s individual insurance …

One Bank’s Shocking Warning: Central Banks Will Lead To “An Orgy Of Blood”

Whereas several years ago, forecasting that central banks would unleash wars, bloodshed and social conflict was considered so preposterous, it was relegated to the domain of fringe, tinfoil hat blogs, it has gradually been “normalized” as even the mainstream realized just how clueless the world’s central planner truly are, and this scandalous topic ghas since migrated to the permitted list of items for discussion by respected, establishment institutions including banks and wealth managers, such as the UK’s Clarmond Wealth.

Case in point, in the latest market comment note by Clarmond’s Chris Andrew and Mustafa Zaidi, titled aptly enough “An Orgy of Blood” the duo warn, in no uncertain terms, that “central banks are currently furnishing the excess credit that, in the past, has been followed by an orgy of blood.”

Below we repost the full Clarmond note which just a few short years ago would have prompted scandalous outrage across the “very serious people’s” world of finace, and now is more or less considered common knowledge as to how “this” all ends, and hardly generates any reaction.

* * *

An Orgy of Blood (link)

The Bank of Japan’s current path provides an ominous reminder of a similar era 80 years ago. These policies, which are also being followed by the other world central banks, will lead to disaster.

“One man – one kill” railed inoue Nissho, leader of the Ketsumeidan (the Bloo …

10Y Spikes Over 3.00% Or Copper Crashes – What Happens Next?

The spread between 10Y Treasury yields and the ratio of copper-to-gold has never been wider as the former signals recessionary economics (flattest curve since 2007) and the latter reflationary recovery (highest in 3 years)… so who is right?

Bond yields are sliding as Gundlach’s favorite signal (copper/gold) soars… implying 10Y over 3.01% (75bps higher than the current level!)

In fact, the gold-to-copper ratio is on the cusp of dipping beneath four for the first time since November 2014.

As Bloomberg comments, that’s a good sign for the global economy. Rising prices of copper indicate a pick-up in industrial production while falling or stable gold prices show that investors are less concerned about hedging against economic uncertainty.

But the US economic ‘hard’ data – not the ‘soft’ survey data – seems to be siding with the yield curve, not Dr.Copper…

The question is – does the lagged impact of China’s Credit Impulse start to kick in right on time (and crush the …

Drugstore Favorites May Be Catching the Common Consumer Cold

Customers may be starting to shop for over-the-counter drugs in the same way they shop for groceries—with a keener eye for cost and content—and this could be painful for consumer-health companies.

China’s Greatest Challenge

The country’s financial system has fueled its debt-driven growth and reforming it may be President Xi Jinping’s toughest task.

Why Beijing Won’t Just Let the Yuan Go

China has always been a pressure cooker—too many people, not enough land, and a long tradition of authoritarian governments with a flexible approach to the rule of law that depends on who you are and who you know.

The scary thing Hollywood does when it runs out of reboots

‘Happy Death Day’ is a genre-bending movie marketed as ‘Groundhog Day’ meets ‘Scream.’

Market Extra: Wall Street pros recall ‘sheer panic’ of October 1987 stock-market crash

The U.S. stock market plunged into a bear market in a single day on October 19, 1987. Here’s how some analysts, traders and strategists remember that moment.

Market Extra: What would ETFs do in a 1987-style stock-market crash?

The stock market of 2017 is very different than the market of 1987, when a historic one-day collapse occurred, and one of the biggest changes is the now-ubiquitous presence of ETFs.