23Jan2018 Market Close: Wall Street Closes Mostly In The Green, DOW Flat Dragged By J and J And Procter, 125,000 Disney Employees To Receive $1,000 Cash Bonus Due To Tax Reform

S&P, Nasdaq get Netflix boost; Dow dragged by J&J, Procter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks advanced on Tuesday, as strong results from Netflix helped lift the S&P and Nasdaq Composite, but declines in Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble kept the Dow Industrials in check.

J&J takes $13.6 billion charge related to new U.S. tax law

(Reuters) – Healthcare conglomerate Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday took a $13.6-billion charge related to the new U.S. tax law and plans to bring back billions of dollars from overseas immediately.

Trump signs solar panel tariff, angering U.S. installers

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump signed into law a steep tariff on imported solar panels on Tuesday, a move billed as a way to protect American jobs but which the solar industry said would lead to thousands of layoffs and raise consumer prices.

NYSE sees no need to ‘bend over backwards’ to woo Aramco IPO

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – The New York Stock Exchange took a swipe on Tuesday at its London rival in their battle to attract the foreign listing of shares in oil giant Saudi Aramco, saying it didn’t need to “bend over backwards” to lure what could be the world’s biggest IPO.

Crunch time for NAFTA as negotiators open Montreal round of talks

MONTREAL (Reuters) – U.S., Canadian and Mexican negotiators opened a key week-long round of talks to modernize NAFTA on Tuesday amid persistent concerns the Trump administration is preparing to walk away from the trade deal, a move that could roil financial markets.

U.S. appeals court decertifies class action in Hyundai fuel economy settlement

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday overturned a lower court’s decision to grant class certification to car owners who settled with Hyundai Motors and its Kia affiliate over the fuel efficiency of its vehicles.

New York City sues drug companies over opioid epidemic

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City on Tuesday sued eight companies that make or distribute prescription opioids, blaming them for fuelling a deadly epidemic afflicting the most populous U.S. city.

Online lender SoFi nabs Twitter executive Noto as CEO

(Reuters) – Wall Street banker turned Silicon Valley executive Anthony Noto has left Twitter Inc to become chief executive officer of online lender Social Finance Inc, the companies said on Tuesday.

Qualcomm set to be fined by EU antitrust regulators: FT

(Reuters) – The European Union is set to fine U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc for taking advantage of its dominance when it paid Apple Inc to use its chips exclusively in Apple mobile devices, The Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

“That Was Easy” Stocks Up, Bonds Up, Gold Up, Crypto Up… Dollar Down Again

Come on now…

Nasdaq was the day’s big winner, Dow flatlined…

Nasdaq was all about NFLX…

Futures show the chaos best from the shutdown shrug and un-shutdown buying-panic…

Peak Hubris? Ray Dalio Mocks “Stupidity Of Holding Cash”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio says investors in cash are going to feel pretty stupid.

Speaking at Davos, the head of world’s largest hedge fund says ‘If You’re Holding Cash, You’re Going to Feel Pretty Stupid’.

“We are in this Goldilocks period right now. Inflation isn’t a problem. Growth is good, everything is pretty good with a big jolt of stimulation coming from changes in tax laws,” Dalio said, referring to the health of the U.S. market as well as what he sees as an improving global economic climate.

The prominent investor, who runs the largest hedge fund in the world with about $150 billion in assets, says a “blowoff rally”, or melt-up as some refer to it, in which investors begin to rush into equities for fear of missing out on gains, will take the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, the S&P 500 index SPX, and the Nasdaq Composite Index to ever-new height.

Apparently, the blow-off top has not even started.

Worried about rising interest rates? The Fed will need to figure it out says Dalio.

Trigger Not Needed

Meanwhile, economist Robert Shiller says Stock Markets Don’t Need a ‘Trigger’ to Correct.

A pullback for this Teflon stock market could come like a thief in the night.

That’s the view of Nobel Prize-winning Yale Universi …

“Something Strange Is Going On With VIX…”

At the end of last week, we noted that VIX and the S&P 500 were behaving in an unusual manner.

Specifically, for the second week in a row, S&P and VIX were higher together… the first time since Nov 2013.

And VIX was drastically decoupled from stocks since 2018 began…

But, even more ‘odd’ as noted by Eric Robertsen, head of global macro strategy and FX research at Standard Chartered, “something very strange is happening with the VIX term structure.”

Typically, as Bloomberg reports, the VIX curve flattens during market selloffs as investors bid up front-end volatility.

In recent days, however, the curve has flattened as the market kept rallying.

Here’s a look at the five-day mo …

Google Suspends Publisher Fact-Checking After Accusations Of Discrimination

Google is following in Facebook’s footsteps and abandoning a search feature that displayed fact checks for publishers after a malfunction prompted conservative media outlets to accuse Google of discrimination.

Facebook ditched its “Fake News” flag last month after it discovered that flagged stories actually saw a boost in readership. Last week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Facebook would try out a new system: It would rank news organizations by trustworthiness, using data gleaned from user surveys.

The feature in question is Google’s “Reviewed Claims” feature, which was launched last year.

A Google spokesperson said the company was withdrawing the service because “it’s clear that we are unable to deliver the quality we’d like for users.”

“We launched the reviewed claims feature in our Knowledge Panel at the end of last year as an experiment with the aim of helping people quickly learn more about news publications,” a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Poynter.

“We said previously that we encountered challenges in our systems that maps fact checks to publishers, and on further examination it’s clear that we are unable to deliver the quality we’d li …

Disney Won’t Have Same Problem With Regulators as Fox Did

The U.K.’s provisional move to block 21st Century Fox’s $15.5 billion bid for Sky is hardly a death sentence.

Consumer Brands Can’t Cut Their Way to Growth

Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark are under pressure to invest in expansion.

How Central Banks Doing Nothing Can Still Move Markets

The Bank of Japan stuck to its policy guns Tuesday. The European Central Bank is likely to do the same on Thursday. But even a lack of immediate action can’t stop market perceptions of shifting.

Earnings Outlook: Starbucks earnings: Digital platform expected to show a slowdown

Starbucks’ digital platform has experienced a slowdown analysts say, but there are opportunities for growth in 2018

Shark charities flooded with donations after Trump says he hopes sharks die

Raising money to protect the feared sea creatures can be a challenge.

Earnings Outlook: GE earnings: Can it possibly get any worse?

Can it possibly get any worse for General Electric Co.? Investors will find out when the struggling industrial conglomerate reports fourth-quarter results before Wednesday’s open.