17Jan2018 Market Close: Wall Street Rises On Investor’s Enthusiasm For Higher Earnings, WTI Crude Slips Into The 94 Handle, DOW Closes Up 323 Points

Exclusive: Trump considers big ‘fine’ over China intellectual property theft

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States was considering a big “fine” as part of a probe into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property, the clearest indication yet that his administration will take retaliatory trade action against China.

Apple plans second U.S. campus, to pay $38 billion in foreign cash taxes

(Reuters) – Apple Inc will open a second U.S. campus as part of a 5-year, $30 billion U.S. investment plan and will make about $38 billion in one-time tax payments on its overseas cash, one of the largest corporate spending plans announced since the passage of a tax cut signed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Enthusiasm for earnings lifts Wall Street

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street’s main indexes rose on Wednesday as investors’ expectations for higher earnings lifted stocks across sectors.

FTC investigating Broadcom for antitrust practices

(Reuters) – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating whether chipmaker Broadcom Ltd engaged in anticompetitive tactics in negotiations with customers, the company said on Wednesday.

Regulatory fears hammer bitcoin below $10,000, half its peak

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) – Bitcoin fell as much as 20 percent on Wednesday, piercing below $10,000, while other cryptocurrencies took similar spills due to investor fears that regulators could clamp down on them in an effort to curb speculation.

Shari Redstone explores adding new CBS directors: WSJ

(Reuters) – Shari Redstone has discussed adding new directors to the board of CBS Corp as she renews her push to merge the company with Viacom Inc, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Mining, demand for heating power U.S. industrial production

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. industrial production increased more than expected in December as unseasonably cold weather at the end of the month boosted demand for heating, but manufacturing output barely rose, pointing to moderate growth in the industrial sector.

GE’s 2018 gains wiped out as worries about turnaround plan persist

(Reuters) – Shares of General Electric Co continued its slide on Wednesday and wiped out all its gains in 2018, a day after the U.S. industrial conglomerate announced more than $11 billion in charges and hinted about a potential breakup.

Major shareholder demands Xerox disclose JV agreement with Fuji

(Reuters) – Major Xerox Corp shareholder Darwin Deason has urged the photocopier pioneer to make public its joint venture agreement with Japan’s Fujifilm Holdings Corp , saying U.S. securities laws require it should do so.

South Korean Petition Against Crypto Regulation Gets 200K Signatures, Government Must Respond

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

This morning, Jan. 17, a South Korean petition against the regulation of virtual currency reached the amount of signatures required to compel a response from the government.

The online petition calling the government to reconsider its stance on cryptocurrency regulation was started on the website of the South Korean presidential office on Dec. 28.

On January 17, the petition obtained more than 218,000 signatures. According to the website of the presidential office, the minimum required for a government response is 200,000, thus officials are expected to react to the requests listed in the petition in the next 30 days.

The petition asks the government to renounce proposed trading regulations that would ruin …

Trump Fires Trade War Shots: “If There Is A Trade War With China, There Is”

With Reuters having published the part of its exclusive Trump interview in which the president discusses North Korea and Russia, and in which he said that it is “very possible” the crisis with North Korea can’t be resolved in a peaceful way, moments ago Reuters published highlights from the remainder of Trump’s interview, which discloses more from Trump’s trade agenda.

Here are the Reuters headlines:

TRUMP SAYS HE HOPES THERE WON’T BE A TRADE WAR WITH CHINA, BUT “IF THERE IS, THERE IS.”

TRUMP SAYS U.S. IS CONSIDERING “BIG DAMAGES” IN PROBE OVER ALLEGED CHINA INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT

TRUMP SAYS HE MAY TERMINATE NAFTA AGREEMENT, A LOT OF PEOPLE WOULD BE UNHAPPY IF HE DID: RTRS

Mexico’s peso pared some of today’s gains on the news Trump “may” terminate Nafta agreement, with the MXN falling 0.5% to 18.6833/USD vs session high 18.58, although the bullet hardly says something we haven’t known already.

And touching on China’s threat to sell Treasurys if there is a trade war, Trump said:

TRUMP SAYS ANY CHANGE IN CHINA’S PURCHASES OF U.S. TREASURIES WOULD NOT HURT U.S. ECONOMY, SAYS EVERYBODY WANTS TO BUY TREASURIES

Some more details from the full interview:

In an interview with Reuters, Trump and his economic adviser Gary Cohn said China had forced U.S. companies to transfer their intellectual property to China as a cost of doing business there. The United States has started a trade investigation into the issue, and Cohn said the United States Trade Representative would be making recommendations about it soon.

“We have a very big intellectual property potential fine going, which is going to come out soon,” Trump said in the interv …

“He Slipped Up”: The One Thing Bannon Told Congress Yesterday That Could Haunt Trump

As discussed earlier, one of the major concerns about Steve Bannon’s closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, is that he refused to discuss any of the things that were of biggest interest to his interrogators.

As we reported, Bannon invoked executive privilege during his meeting to avoid sharing details about his time in the Trump administration, where he served as chief strategist, or during the presidential transition. In fact, Bannon reportedly stopped answering questions once his lawyers had alerted the White House that the scope of the House panel’s questions would be expanded to include his time in the White House.

However, as Axios reports, Bannon made one conspicuous slip up: he admitted that he’d had conversations with Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and legal spokesman Mark Corallo about Don Junior’s meeting with the Russians in Trump Tower in June 2016. As a reminder, this is the meeting that Bannon allegedly told Michael Wolff was “treasonous”, and led to the violent fallout in relations between Trump and Bannon.

This matters because the meeting — and the subsequent drafting of an allegedly misleading statement on Air Force One — has become one of the most important focal points of the Russia investigations, both on Capitol Hill and within Robert Mueller’s team, as it provides the closest thing that exists to evidence that the Trump campaign was willing to entertain collusion with Russians, according to Axios’ Jonathan Swan.

Bannon immediately realized he’d slipped up and disclosed conversations he wasn …

CDC Cancels Nuke Talk, Warns About “Widespread” Flue Epidemic

In late December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that it would conduct a briefing on January 16 regarding the “public health response to a nuclear detonation” over the skies of the United States. Now, the CDC has canceled the nuclear briefing and focused on something much more important: the flu epidemic across the continental United States.

The agency announced the switch in topics late Friday, citing the ‘out of control’ flu cases as the main reason for the shift.

“To date, this influenza season is notable for the sheer volume of flu that most of the United States is seeing at the same time which can stress health systems,” according to a CDC statement. “The vast majority of this activity has been caused by influenza A H3N2, associated with severe illness in young children and people 65 years and older.”

A weekly Influenza Surveillance Report prepared by the Influenza Division Weekly Influenza Activity Estimates reported by State and Territorial Epidemiologists warns of a “widespread” breakout across the entire United States for the week ending Jan 06, 2018.

Goldman’s Tax Wobble Is a Buying Opportunity

Goldman’s share buybacks will take a hit from tax reform, but the long-run benefits will be substantial.

Can Mark Zuckerberg Bend Facebook Without Breaking It?

Mark Zuckerberg’s main challenge now is fixing the social network without breaking it. That dilemma was apparent last week when the 33-year-old chief executive announced changes to the company’s News Feed tool.

Why Oil Is About to Hit Troubled Waters

Brent crude hit a three-year high last week, and the obvious question was when would the shale drillers turn on the taps. The better question this time around is what will happen to demand and volatility in the oil market.

January 2018 Beige Book: Reading Between The Lines – Rate Of Economic Expansion Little Changed

Written by Steven Hansen

The consolidated economic report from the 12 Federal Reserve Districts (Beige Book) stated the “economy continued to expand from late November through the end of the year, with 11 Districts reporting modest to moderate gains and Dallas recording a robust increase”. The previous report stated “activity continued to increase at a modest to moderate pace in October and mid-November”.

CryptoWatch: 5 key reasons bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies have lost a stunning $370 billion in 10 days

The No. 1 digital currency and its cohort continue to unravel on Wednesday, extending a downturn in the market for virtual currencies that has seen the entire sector shed a whopping $370 billion in value since Jan. 7, or more than 40% of their total value.

CryptoWatch: Why bitcoin’s ugly rout could get worse before it gets better

A brutal, sustained rout in the No. 1 cryptocurrency in the world could accelerate, bringing the digital asset to a level around $8,000 before it attempts to stabilize.

SportTechie: NFL, Intel are closer to putting you on the football field using immersive technology

What could happen when you wear a virtual-reality headset while watching a game.