Written by Gary
US stock markets closed higher after a negative opening bell this morning (SPY +0.1%). US crude has risen to the mid 57 handle while the gold index is showing strength.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Broadcom offers $103 billion for Qualcomm, sets up takeover battle(Reuters) – Chip maker Broadcom Ltd made an unsolicited $103 billion bid for Qualcomm Inc on Monday, setting the stage for a major takeover battle as it looks to dominate the fast-growing market for semiconductors used in mobile phones. |
| Fox held talks to sell most of company to Disney: CNBC(Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox film and television conglomerate has held talks to sell most of the company to media giant Walt Disney Co, CNBC reported on Monday, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. |
| Head of U.S. government financial agency to resignWASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of a U.S. government agency created to monitor financial markets after the 2007-2009 financial crisis will resign from the post at the end of this year. |
| Commerce chief Ross: Nothing improper about his Russia-tied investmentsWASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday he had done nothing wrong and did properly disclose his investments in a shipping firm that has significant business ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. |
| Exclusive: General Electric mulls options for aircraft leasing unit – sources(Reuters) – General Electric Co is exploring options for its aircraft leasing operations, including the sale of all or part of that business, as the company’s new chief executive, John Flannery, searches for new divestitures, according to people familiar with the matter. |
| Wall Street hits record, investors eye major chip deal(Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose to record highs on Monday after Broadcom made a monster bid for Qualcomm and investors bet that a Republican plan to cut corporate taxes would bolster earnings. |
| Sprint shares plunge after T-Mobile merger talks called offNEW YORK (Reuters) – Sprint Corp’s shares fell more than 13 percent on Monday after the No. 4 U.S. wireless carrier called off merger talks with T-Mobile US Inc and a wireless partnership with cable company Altice USA failed to appease investors. |
| Supreme Court rejects Samsung appeal of patent loss to Apple(Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to step back into the years-long feud over patents between the world’s top smartphone makers, declining to hear Samsung’s appeal of a lower court ruling that reinstated a jury award of about $120 million in favor of Apple. |
| Goldman Sachs, China’s CIC to launch up to $5 billion fund: sourcesHONG KONG (Reuters) – Goldman Sachs is partnering with sovereign fund China Investment Corp (CIC) to jointly launch an up to $5 billion fund to invest in U.S. manufacturers, according to people familiar with the situation. |
| Trump Says Trade With Japan Is Not Fair And Not Open – Awkward Moments EnsueThe first stage of Donald Trump’s five-nation tour of Asia began well with the President playing golf with Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, describing their relationship as “really extraordinary”.
This suggested progress following the awkward moment during their previous meeting in February 2017. Abe was the first foreign leader Trump met after his election victory and Trump was mocked on social media after refusing to give Abe his hand back during their 19-second handshake. Today their budding relationship was tested as Trump lashed out at Japan’s unfair trade practices and his related attempts at humour. In rhetoric that sounded familiar to his campaign speeches Trump complained that Japan has been “winning” on trade, alluding to the $69 billion trade deficit in 2016.
One way that Trump is aiming to fix the trade deficit by making it easier for Japanese companies to do business in the US. However, his decision to highlight the auto industry was perhaps unfortunate. Nonetheless, Trump lamented.
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| Dear Justin Trudeau: Selfies Won’t Cut ItDear Justin Trudeau: Selfies Won’t Cut It Written by Peter Diekmeyer, Sprott Money News When Justin Trudeau took office as Prime Minister two years ago, he also took on the Minister of Youth portfolio. It was a tough assignment, atop a government infrastructure designed from its core to disregard the interests of Canadian youth. Government is about power and Canadian youth have none. Without interest group backing, it’s almost impossible for anyone, even a Prime Minister, to make meaningful change. That said, a quick survey suggests that unless Trudeau takes concrete steps, the government apparatus will leave the country’s youth as a generation, for the first time, worse off than their parents. It also suggest key takeaways about how younger Canadians might want to prepare for the future. Consider: Government h … |
| What Could Go Wrong?Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com, Everybody and his uncle, and his uncle’s mother’s uncle, believes that the stock markets will be zooming to new record highs this week…
And probably so, because it is the time of year to fatten up, just as the Thanksgiving turkeys are happily fattening up – prior to their mass slaughter.
President Trump’s new Federal Reserve chair, Jerome “Jay” Powell, “a low interest-rate kind of guy,” was obviously picked because he is Janet Yellen minus testicles, the grayest of gray go-along Fed go-fers, going about his life-long errand-boy duties in the thickets of financial lawyerdom like a bustling little rodent girdling the trunks of every living shrub on behalf of the asset-stripping business that is private equity (eight years with the Deep State-ish Carlyle Group) while subsisting on the rich insect life in the leaf litter below his busy little paws. Powell’s contribution to the discourse of finance was his famous utterance that the lack of inflation is “kind of a mystery.” Oh, yes, indeed, a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery dropped in a doggie bag with half a pastrami sandwich. Unless you … |
| Comcast Users Report Massive Nationwide Internet OutageAccording to DownDetector.com, and numerous twitter complaints, Comcast’s internet service, Xfinity, is suffering an outage across the country. DownDetector.com shows XFinity internet being down around the United States, mostly on the east coast, but also in in large west coast cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle. So far, online reports don’t suggest that TV service or home phones are affected.
Comcast customer care first confirmed the outage at 1:36pm: “Some customers are having issues with their XFINITY Internet service. We apologize & appreciate your patience while we work to fix.”
As of 2:40pm, the outage had not been resolved, with Comcast blaming an “external network issue”:
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| Saudi Crackdown Doesn’t Guarantee Aramco IPO — Or Higher OilOil markets are rising after the Saudi heir apparent – a big proponent of state oil firm Aramco’s planned IPO – rounded up a swathe of potential rivals on Saturday night. Investors should be careful not to interpret this as the all-clear for oil prices or Aramco. |
| SoftBank’s Blurry VisionThe Japanese tech giant’s boss Masayoshi Son likes control. The collapse of the Sprint/T-Mobile deal talks suggests that is slipping from his grasp. |
| Why Companies Are Betting Big on GrowthInvestors are rewarding companies that are investing to boost growth, and with ample cash available, the trend of strong business investment should persist. |
| Valeant has officially given up its $1 billion bet on the ‘female Viagra’Despite predictions of a huge market, Addyi’s sales have faltered, even after a bid earlier this year to invigorate them. |
| Called to Account: Companies are using ‘ghost revenue’ to calculate executive bonusesDespite an SEC crackdown on non-standard numbers, some companies’ write-downs of acquired deferred revenues get added to non-GAAP metrics that are used for executive compensation calculations. |
| Market Extra: Despite big 2017 rally, emerging-market rise still in its ‘early innings,’ analysts sayOne of the best trades of the year may just be getting started. |
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