24Jan2018 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street To Open Moderately Higher, Dow Futures Rise Triple Points, Dollar Plunges To 3-year Low, Crude Prices And The Gold Index Trend Higher

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are lower today with shares in London off the most. The FTSE 100 is down 0.51% while France’s CAC 40 is off 0.19% and Germany’s DAX is lower by 0.09%.

U.S. defends America First agenda ahead of Trump visit to Davos

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) – Senior U.S. officials hit back on Wednesday against suggestions that Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda was hurting globalization and trade, setting an aggressive tone ahead of the U.S. president’s visit to the World Economic Forum.

GE posts $10 billion loss as quarterly revenue drops 5 percent

(Reuters) – General Electric Co reported a 5-percent fall in revenue and a $10 billion loss for the fourth quarter on Wednesday, driven by an already announced $11-billion charge for insurance losses and taxes.

Comcast beats profit estimates even as it loses video subscribers

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Top U.S. cable provider Comcast Corp’s adjusted quarterly profit exceeded analyst estimates on Wednesday, helped by more high-speed internet customers and greater theme-park revenue.

Dollar slides on U.S. Mnuchin remarks, booming Europe

LONDON (Reuters) – The U.S. dollar hit new lows on Wednesday after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he welcomed its weakness and figures showed that the euro zone economy started the year at its strongest pace in over a decade.

Futures rise as earnings from industrial giants roll in

(Reuters) – U.S. stock futures pointed to a positive open for Wall Street on Wednesday as a string of earnings from industrial giants buoyed market sentiment.

Abbott results beat on strong medical device business

(Reuters) – Abbott Laboratories’ fourth-quarter results topped analysts’ estimates on Wednesday, boosted by strong sales in its medical devices and generics businesses.

United Tech’s forecast lifted by buoyant commercial jet market

(Reuters) – U.S. manufacturer United Technologies Corp reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and forecast higher profit for the full year on Wednesday, benefiting from a record year for the commercial jet market.

Credit Suisse CEO says year off to good start

ZURICH (Reuters) – The year has got off to a good start as the U.S. economy performs well and market volatility picks up, Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam said on Wednesday.

Starbucks to boost pay, benefits after U.S. lowers corporate taxes

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Starbucks Corp will use some of the savings from the new U.S. corporate tax cuts to give domestic employees pay raises, company stock and expanded benefits with a combined worth of more than $250 million, the company said on Wednesday.

Ray Dalio Says Bond Bear Market Has Begun, Expects Historic Crash

Joining the likes of Bill Gross and Jeffrey Gundlach, and echoing his ominous DV01-crash warning to the NY Fed from October 2016, Bridgewater’s billionaire founder and CEO Ray Dalio told Bloomberg TV that the bond market has “slipped into a bear phase” and warned that a rise in yields could spark the biggest crisis for fixed-income investors in almost 40 years.

“A 1 percent rise in bond yields will produce the largest bear market in bonds that we have seen since 1980 to 1981,” Bridgewater Associates founder Dalio said in a Bloomberg TV interview in Davos on Wednesday. We’re in a bear market, he said.

Readers may recall that when addressing the NY Fed in October 2016, Dalio made virtually the same prediction when he commented on the bond market’s DV01:

… it would only take a 100 basis point rise in Treasury bond yields to trigger the worst price decline in bonds since the 1981 bond market crash. And since those interest rates are embedded in the pricing of all investment assets, that would send them all much lower.

Dalio is referring to the record DV01 in the bond market, which according to the

Gartman On His Dollar Long: “We Have Handled This Trade Very Badly”

To all the long-suffering dollar bulls out there, rejoice, for the dollar may be about to surge. Why? Gartman is about to liquidate his long.

Comedic interlude aside, here is Gartman’s latest take on the market:

STOCK PRICES CONTINUE ON THEIR VERY MERRY WAY HIGHER as seven of the ten markets in our International Index have risen and as three have fallen, with the only material move… by more than 1%… coming at the hands of equity traders/investors in Brazil. Our index has gone on to new all-time highs once again and as Old Turkey once again reminds us, “After all, this is a bull market.”

When appearing yesterday on Fox Business’ show with Stuart Varney we were asked why it was that we had missed the high tech rally. Mr. Varney showed a chart of Microsoft whose shares were up 51% over the course of the past year, and he cited this as a how badly we had invested, having missed the tech rally. We responded by saying simply that we prefer dealing in the things we understand and we understand steel; we understand shipping companies; we understand copper and grains. We understand “The things that will hurt if you drop them on your foot” as we’ve so often euphemistically said. Our interest in “steel” was derided, except that US Steel shares have risen by nearly 50% in the course of the past two month… something it has taken Microsoft a year to do. Copper and industrial metals, represented …

Frontrunning: January 234

Trump Team at Davos Backs Weaker Dollar, Sharpens Trade War Talk (BBG)

Dollar skids to three-year low as Mnuchin welcomes currency weakness (Reuters)

State Tax Workarounds Could Mean $154 Billion Lost to Treasury (BBG)

Truck Shortage Forces Firms to Cut Shipments or Pay Up (WSJ)

Dalio Warns That Rise in Yields Could Spark Bond Crash (BBG)

Great Ormond Street to return donations from men-only dinner (FT)

Amazon agrees to turn over third-party seller data (CNBC)

This Is Why the Pentagon Isn’t Happy With the F-35 (BBG

Founder and Protégé Clash, Pushing Och-Ziff Into Crisis (WSJ)

GE posts $10 billion loss as quarterly revenue drops 5 percent (Reuters)

Beleague …

“I’m So Proud Of Me”: 50 Cent Makes Millions From Album Sales In Bitcoin

It’s “Get Rich or Die Tryin”, the Crypto edition.

Rapper and actor 50 Cent recently revealed that he made one of his best business decisions a few years back when he decided to accept payment in bitcoin for his new album, Animal Ambition, released in June 2014, back when a single coin was worth about $660.

50, i.e. Curtis James Jackson III, eventually amassed around 700 bitcoins from the album, totaling about $400,000 in sales during the time frame. That sum has since swelled to roughly $8 million (depending on what time of day one checks).

At the time he forgot about the virtual transactions only to be reminder this week when he took to Instagram on Tuesday to boast about the savvy business move, writing in a series of posts, “A little bit coin anyone ? LOL. l know l make you sick but excuse me I’m getting to the bag.”

He added, ‘Not Bad for a kid from South Side, I’m so proud of me.’

A little bitcoin anyone? LOL. l know l make you sick but excuse me…I’m getting to the bag 💰 #denofthieves pic.twitter.com/DCJu2thDr9

— 50cent (@50cent) January 23, 2018

In response, some asked if the news makes 50 the first celebrity hodler.

TMZ / Daily Mail:

Rapper 50 Cent accidentally accepted 700 bitcoins in 2014 for his album. Now worth $70 million. 50 said “I’m so proud of me.”

Does that make 50 officially the first celebrity hodler?

Foreign Retailers in China Find a Buyer Just in Time

Tencent’s potential investment in Carrefour is the latest example of a Chinese tech giant putting money into a brick-and-mortar retailer.

Consumer Brands Can’t Cut Their Way to Growth

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

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.

Trucking Growth Is Up or Down In December 2017 – It Depends On the Source.

Written by Steven Hansen

Headline data for truck shipments were mixed.

Key Words: Jamie Dimon doesn’t ‘see any potholes’ for the U.S. economy

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon says he isn’t expecting any potholes ahead that could disrupt what has been a stellar run for the stock market and the economy.

Market Snapshot: Dow set to open at all-time high as market rally ‘shows no sign of abatement’

U.S. stock futures on Wednesday point to a rally at the open, setting up the main benchmarks for another round of records.

CryptoWatch: Most ICOs are unjustified, but soaring due to FOMO

One of the most important findings in the E&Y study is that the vast majority of these projects had no need for an application-specific exchange token. In other words, they had a solution for a nonexisting problem.