24Oct2017 Market Update: DOW Sets New Record High, SP 500 And Nasdaq Remain So-so In The Green, US Crude And Dollar Climb Higher In Afternoon Trading

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 0.99% while Mexico’s IPC is up 0.92% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is up 0.19%.

3M, Caterpillar lift Dow to record high

(Reuters) – The blue-chip Dow Jones index was on track to record its biggest intraday percentage rise in more than a month on Tuesday, boosted by gains in industrial giants 3M and Caterpillar.

Auto industry tells Trump ‘We’re winning with NAFTA’

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Major automakers, suppliers and auto dealers are launching a new coalition on Tuesday to urge U.S. President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement.

GM’s earnings beat, forecast lift shares; supply glut shrinks

DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co posted stronger-than-expected pre-tax profit for the third quarter on Tuesday, helped by cost-cutting and a shift to higher-margin trucks and sport utility vehicles, and its shares jumped to a record high.

McDonald’s sales strong as deals, new burgers lure back diners

(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp reported strong restaurant sales on Tuesday, as $1 sodas and build-your-own burgers helped it lure more customers for the third straight quarter and beat back rivals in an intense battle for market share.

Fidelity chairman says U.S. regulations lag social media advances

BOSTON (Reuters) – U.S. financial regulations on data retention do not fit with the way people expect to communicate on social media, Fidelity Investments Chairman Abigail Johnson said on Tuesday.

U.S. industrial shares hit record high as earnings shine

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. industrial sector roared to a record high on Tuesday following strong financial results from stalwarts 3M Co and Caterpillar Inc , even as shares of General Electric Co continued to struggle.

Caterpillar smashes Wall Street estimates as North America sales rebound

(Reuters) – Caterpillar Inc on Tuesday blew past Wall Street’s profit and revenue estimates on surprisingly strong demand for its construction equipment in North America and robust sales in China, pushing its shares up 7 percent in early trading.

Amazon rivals turn to legal fine print to stem Whole Foods strategy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Whole Foods Market met a new foe this summer during talks to lease a top retail space in a San Francisco mall: the Target next door.

Deutsche Boerse board to consider Kengeter’s fate on Thursday: source

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Boerse’s supervisory board will meet on Thursday to consider the fate of Carsten Kengeter, a source said on Tuesday, after the embattled CEO suffered a court setback in an insider trading investigation.

A Frustrated David Einhorn Asks “Will The Market Cycle Never Turn?”

Just days after Third Point’s Dan Loeb took a victory lap in his latest letter to investors, boasting a 14.5% YTD performance, outperforming the S&P and virtually all of his peers, a decidedly more downcast letter was released today by Greenlight’s David Einhorn, who also had a good quarter, generating 6.2% in Q3, which brought his YTD return to 3.3% after a subpar first half. Yet despite the solid Q3 performance, Einhorn admits that “the market remains very challenging for value investing strategies, as growth stocks have continued to outperform value stocks. The persistence of this dynamic leads to questions regarding whether value investing is a viable strategy. The knee-jerk instinct is to respond that when a proven strategy is so exceedingly out of favor that its viability is questioned, the cycle must be about to turn around. Unfortunately, we lack such clarity. After years of running into the wind, we are left with no sense stronger than, “it will turn when it turns.”

Such an open-ended answer, however, is a problem for a fund which famously opened a basket of “internet shorts” several years prior, and which have continued to rip ever higher, detracting from Greenlight’s overall performance.

This, in turn, has prompted Einhorn to consider the unthinkable alternative: “Might the cycle never turn?” In other words, is the market now permanently broken.

Einhorn goes on to explain that his strategy “relies on the assumption that the equity value of a company equals the market’s best assessment of the current and future profits discounted at the company’s cost of capital. Our ability to outperform often comes from our skill in finding opportunities where the market has misestimated current or future profitability or miscalculated the cost of capital by ov …

House Launches Probe Into Comey’s Handling Of Clinton Email Investigation

Much like Hillary’s former IT consultant Paul Combetta who admitted to deleting Hillary’s emails despite the existence of a Congressional subpoena, it seems as though James Comey has just had his very own “oh shit” moment.

After months of inexplicable delays, the chairman of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), announced moments ago a joint investigation into how the Justice Department handled last year’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

Among other things, Goodlatte and Gowdy said that the FBI must answer for why it chose to provide public updates in the Clinton investigation but not in the Trump investigation and why the FBI decided to “appropriate full decision making in respect to charging or not charging Secretary Clinton,” a power typically left to the DOJ.

“Our justice system is represented by a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales. Those scales do not tip to the right or the left; they do not recognize wealth, power, or social status. The impartiality of our justice system is the bedrock of our republic and our fellow citizens must have confidence in its objectivity, independence, and evenhandedness. The law is the most equalizing force in this country. No entity or individual is exempt from oversight.

“Decisions made by the Department of Justice in 2016 have led to a host of outstanding questions that must be answered. These include, but are not limited to:

FBI’s decision to publicly announce the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified information but not to publicly announce the investigation into campa …

Buchanan Asks: “Are Our Mideast Wars Forever?”

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

“The Kurds have no friends but the mountains,” is an old lament. Last week, it must have been very much on Kurdish minds.

As their U.S. allies watched, the Kurdish peshmerga fighters were run out of Kirkuk and all the territory they had captured fighting ISIS alongside the Americans. The Iraqi army that ran them out was trained and armed by the United States.

The U.S. had warned the Kurds against holding the referendum on independence on Sept. 25, which carried with 92 percent. Iran and Turkey had warned against an independent Kurdistan that could be a magnet for Kurdish minorities in their own countries.

But the Iraqi Kurds went ahead. Now they have lost Kirkuk and its oil, and their dream of independence is all but dead.

More troubling for America is the new reality revealed by the rout of the peshmerga. Iraq, which George W. Bush and the neocons were going to fashion into a pro-Western democracy and American ally, appears to be as close to Iran as it is to the United States.

After 4,500 U.S. dead, scores of thousands wounded and a trillion dollars sunk, our 15-year war in Iraq could end with a Shiite-dominated Baghdad aligned with Tehran.

With that grim prospect in mind, Secretary Rex Tillerson said Sunday, “Iranian militias that are in Iraq, now that the fight against … ISIS is coming to a close … need to go home. Any foreign fighters in Iraq need to go home.”

Tillerson meant Iran’s Quds Force in Iraq should go home, and the Shiite militia in Iraq should be conscripted into the army.

But what if the Baghdad regime of Haider al-Abadi does not agree? What if the Quds Force does not go home to Iran and the Shiite militias that helped retake Kirkuk refu …

A New CEO Isn’t the Cure for BHP’s Ills

Big BHP shareholder Elliott is agitating for a board review of management—but the miner’s current leadership isn’t really the problem.

Insurers Unload Problems Into Private Equity’s Arms

With plenty of ready buyers looking to pounce, insurers’ struggling with promises from a high-rate past may soon get help.

Martin Shkreli’s Legacy Upends a Creative Financier

Martin Shkreli’s old company has turned into a dud investment for a financier who gained notoriety for​the wild ride taken by shares of DryShips.

The Fed: Active online investors would not a mind change in Fed leadership: poll

A survey by E*Trade of active online investors released Tuesday found a majority thought a change in leadership at the Federal Reserve would be positive for the economy.

Outside the Box: Trump should return NAFTA back to basics: Continental self-sufficiency

Donald Trump’s stand on NAFTA is too timid: He should turn the trading bloc in to a powerful economic machine for all of North America.