09Feb2018 Midday Update: Wall Street Slides In Choppy Trading, Texas Tea Prices Slide Into The 59 Handle On Strong US Production, US Dollar Showing Strength

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are sharply lower today with shares in Mexico off the most. The IPC is down 3.23% while Brazil’s Bovespa is off 1.67% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is lower by 1.27%.

Wall Street struggles for direction in choppy trading

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks indexes were little changed in volatile trading on Friday, after jumping more than 1 percent at the open and then briefly turning negative, as the market struggled for direction.

Bitcoin may not be worth all the hoopla: N.Y. Fed blog post

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Bitcoin and other digital currencies have, so far, not been formidable competition for cash, checks or credit cards as a payment method in the United States and other major economies, according to two economists at New York Federal Reserve.

Waymo and Uber settle trade secrets dispute, Uber CEO expresses ‘regret’

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Alphabet Inc’s Waymo self-driving vehicle unit and ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc settled a bitter legal dispute, allowing Uber’s new chief executive to move past one of the company’s many public controversies.

Exclusive: Amazon eyes new warehouse in Brazil e-commerce push – sources

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc is looking to lease a 50,000-square-meter warehouse just outside Sao Paulo, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as it steps up its push into Latin America’s biggest retail market, Brazil.

Qualcomm rejects Broadcom’s revised buyout offer, proposes meeting

(Reuters) – U.S. semiconductor company Qualcomm Inc on Thursday rejected Broadcom Ltd’s revised $121 billion buyout offer, but proposed meeting its peer to see whether they can address what it called the bid’s “serious deficiencies in value and certainty.”

Frenzied demand for Nvidia’s graphic chips shoot prices through the roof

(Reuters) – Nvidia Corp’s graphic processors, or GPUs, are so overwhelmingly popular that gamers and cryptocurrency miners are willing to pay up to three times the original list price to get their hands on its cards online.

Shares of UPS, FedEx fall after report Amazon to launch delivery service

(Reuters) – United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp shares fell 2 percent on Friday, after a report said Amazon.com Inc is preparing to launch a delivery service for businesses, which would directly compete with the U.S. package delivery companies.

Airbus agrees to $99 million penalty in Eurofighter Austria case

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Airbus said on Friday it had agreed to pay a penalty of 81.25 million euros ($99 million) demanded by the Munich public prosecutors office to conclude an investigation into the sale of Eurofighter aircraft to Austria in 2003.

Trump ‘energy dominance’ policy pits Washington against Moscow

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Last July, U.S. President Donald Trump stood beside his Polish counterpart, Andrzej Duda, in Warsaw and promised to help wean the nation off Russian energy imports. He offered U.S. fuel as an alternative, “so that you can never be held hostage to a single supplier.”

Dow Down 350Pts, VIX Tops 35, Nasdaq Enters Correction

Still not over…

The Dow is back below yesterday’s lows, down 350 points on the day

And NAsdaq is down 11% from its highs – entering correction…

Peter Schiff: Political Rhetoric Vs. Economic Reality

Via SchiffGold.com,

Just over a week ago, President Trump delivered the State of the Union speech. The president gave a speech with a decidedly optimistic tone. This was certainly welcome with the increasingly fractured and divided American political landscape. But it’s important to focus beyond the political theater and take a hard look at where the US economy really is and where it is heading. Unfortunately, the political rhetoric doesn’t always line up with economic reality.

As Peter Schiff has said on numerous occasions, President Trump has taken full ownership of the current bubble economy. In doing so, he’s setting himself up as the fall-guy when things turn sour. Peter put it in pretty stark terms during an interview with Stock Pulse at the Vancouver Resouce Investment Conference.

He is so caught up in this bubble now in the stock market. He’s branded it … The stock market has a big ‘T’ on it for Trump, like one of his buildings.”

So, how exactly does the political rhetoric coming out of the Oval Office stack up against the current economic realities?

Dan Kurz at DK Analytics provided a pretty good breakdown of some key issues where the positive talk doesn’t line up with what’s actually going on.

1. What used to be an ugly stock market bubble that would be pricked by higher interest rates, according to candidate Trump, is now proof that president Trump is doing a great job. Yet, t …

Federal Reserve: “In A Dystopian World, Bitcoin Would Dominate Payment Methods”

Amid a relentless barrage of doom and gloom – and then some more doom for good measure – establishment forecasts about the future of cryptocurrencies, including everyone from Goldman, to the BIS, to the World Bank, all of which have been some iteration on how cryptos have no future, this morning an unexpectedly objective and somber view on the future of bitcoin came from none other than the organization that prints (out of thin air) the nemesis to bitcoin: the Federal Reserve.

While the emphasis of the Q&A with New York Fed economists Michael Lee and Antoine Martin, which we have republished below, is the issue of “trust” and how it defines monetary exchange, there are several things that attracted our attention.

The first is the Fed’s take on what we have been saying since 2015, and the reason behind bitcoin’s original surge in 2015/2016, namely its use for illicit purposes:

The Drug Enforcement Administration reports a sharp decline in bulk cash smuggling in 2016, which is the traditional payment method for drug shipments and suggests that payments may have shifted toward cryptocurrencies. Cryptocurrencies are more convenient than cash for many illegal activities that now take place online.

… cryptocurrencies are ideal for circumventing legal or regulatory authorities, because they aren’t governed by any. China, which actively controls capital flow, banned banks from dealing with bitcoin in 2013 (this was relaxed later), because it was thought to be used for money laun …

Another Dead-Cat-Bounce Dies – Stocks Tumble Below Yesterday’s Lows

XIV’s ramp into the open offered some hope, but just like yesterday, that hope is gone as stocks tumble back into the red and below yesterday’s lows…

XIV is fading…

Rate spiked back above 2.85%…

And so stocks faded back into the red…

What Tech Giant SoftBank Wants With Boring Old Reinsurer

The idea of a Japanese tech company spending $10 billion on a stake in a reinsurer sounds crazy, but when you think about Softbank’s pursuit of Swiss Re, it starts to make frighteningly good sense.

Stocks Changed, but Bonds Still Sound the Same

Trouble for stocks has often been a boon to bonds in recent years. But recent turmoil seems unlikely to have the same outcome. The economic backdrop is simply too bond-unfriendly.

No-Wynn Situation Looks a No-Win for Investors

For the moment, investors seem to be hoping things will soon go back to normal at Wynn Resorts following Steve Wynn’s departure as chief executive. But many uncertainties remain.

Paul Brandus: This was Trump’s craziest promise yet

It seems Trump has completely forgotten about one of the crazier campaign pledges he made in 2016 — to eliminate the national debt.

This is the $21 billion reason Amazon wants to build its own UPS

Amazon is launching ‘Shipping with Amazon’ in Los Angeles, a service that will allow it to deliver packages to customers and perhaps save billions.

FA Center: Tony Robbins on stock market corrections: Get used to them

Regular market downturns are just part of being an investor, writes Tony Robbins.