Written by Gary
US equities markets declined today (SPY -1.3%) after Fed Chairman Powell gave an upbeat view on the U.S. economy, but fails to calm rate-hike concerns.
Todays S&P 500 Chart
The Market in Perspective
| Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
 | Fed’s Powell nods to stronger economy, backs gradual rate hike pathWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, in his first public appearance as head of the U.S. central bank, vowed on Tuesday to prevent the economy from overheating while sticking with a plan to gradually raise interest rates. |
| Comcast’s $31 billion Sky bid crashes Murdoch and Disney showLONDON (Reuters) – U.S. cable giant Comcast Corp has offered $31 billion for Sky Plc , threatening a plan hatched by Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox Inc and Walt Disney Co to seize control of Europe’s biggest pay-TV group. |
| U.S. trade officials meet auto executives amid latest NAFTA pushWASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. trade officials are due to meet auto industry executives on Tuesday, three sources said, in a possible sign of increased discussion of automotive content requirements that have become a sticking point in efforts to rework the NAFTA trade deal. |
| Wall Street falls as Powell’s comments fuel rate worriesNEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks declined on Tuesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave an upbeat view on the U.S. economy and said data has strengthened his confidence on inflation. |
| U.S. Supreme Court wrestles with Microsoft data privacy fightWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Supreme Court justices on Tuesday wrestled with Microsoft Corp’s dispute with the U.S. Justice Department over whether prosecutors can force technology companies to hand over data stored overseas, with some signaling support for the government and others urging Congress to pass a law to resolve the issue. |
| JPMorgan boosts profit outlook as CFO talks ‘digital everything’(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co offered a sunny business outlook on Tuesday, saying higher interest rates, increased automation and growth in all of its business units could boost pretax profit by 17.5 percent over the next few years. |
| U.S. manufacturing, goods trade data point to slow first quarter growthWASHINGTON (Reuters) – New orders for U.S.-made capital goods unexpectedly fell for a second straight month in January and shipments barely rose, pointing to a slowdown in business spending on equipment and in economic growth early in the first quarter. |
| Macy’s shares jump at first sign of sales turnaroundNEW YORK (Reuters) – Macy’s Inc on Tuesday said sales at established stores could mark their first annual gain in four years, pinning its hopes on a new loyalty program, more off-price selling and private-label brands. |
| Nike defeats appeal over iconic Michael Jordan photo, Jumpman logo(Reuters) – Nike Inc on Tuesday defeated an appeal by a renowned photographer who accused the sportswear company of ripping off his iconic photo of basketball superstar Michael Jordan, and using it to create its silhouetted “Jumpman” logo. |
| ‘Hawkish’ Powell Sinks Stocks & Bonds As VIX Curve Re-InvertsJust when you thought it was all over… Quite a chaotic day across asset-classes today – the most chaotic since the XIV crisis moves…
Once Powell had finished his prepared remarks and confidently expressed his expectations for the economy (and rate hikes), stocks tumbled (as rates spiked)…
Only The Dow managed to hold on to yesterday’s gains… |
| News Agencies Sue For External Parkland Massacre Video Footage, Ignore Internal InconsistenciesAuthored by Lexi Morgan via Intellihub.com, Why would media companies not want to see footage from inside of the school that would presumably show a heavily-cladded gunman wearing full body dress?
Three media companies filed suit in court on Monday, in an effort to obtain security camera footage captured on cameras mounted outside of the Majority Stoneman Douglas High School. But for some reason nothing was filed to obtain footage from inside the school? Footage that would presumably show a heavily-cladded shooter wearing full body dress, as reported by both teachers and students who admit there was a scheduled code Red drill on the day of the shooting. Moreover, as it turns out, at least four officers were told by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to stand down and to not enter the school unless they were wearing their body cam … |
| Libor-OIS Blows Out As Libor Rises Above 2% For The First Time In 10 YearsThere are those who will breathlessly tell you to ignore all marginal changes in the market, such as the “tiny” move in the VIX from 10 to 15, only to suffer a 96% loss on their inverse VIX ETF when the “tiny” move becomes just a “little bigger” after a short squeeze cascade is triggered because small moves are that much more more acute when starting from a small base. They are also those who will tell you to disregard “modest” moves in the FRA-OIS, the conventional metric for “funding pressures” as we said last week – “after all the move is tiny in the context of normal times” – yet forget to mention that the Fed’s balance sheet is $4.4 trillion, or 5x higher than normal, accentuating even the smallest rate moves. In fact, these are all the same people who will tell you to ignore all changes in the market, no matter how small (or not), until something snaps and then they lecture you how obvious the crash was all along Meanwhile, we’ll just note that the same Libor-OIS (or its intraday updated cousin, the FRA-OIS) we highlighted less than a week ago when it was “only” 32.7bps, has blown out by 8 bps in just the past week, and is now over 40bps, the widest since October 2016 and blowing out, a huge move when one considers the hundreds of billions in TRS and other layered swaps levering even one basis point. |
| Google Censors Guns, Removes Shopping ResultsAuthored by Douglas Stewart via Medium.com, It appears that Google may have silently joined the ranks of one side of the gun control debate.
On February 26, Twitter users LADowd and Xavier Dreyman noticed that results in the most-used search engine in the world were returning nothing in the “Shopping” tab when any query included a gun part, model, or manufacturer. His first result was for the rather broad term of “rifle scope”. This netted zero results while providing just two sponsored results below the main search. Curiosity must’ve taken over and he continued on looking for “remington razor” which also netted a whopping 0 results. Turns out, the problem was that Remington is most known for firearms. Twitter users became even more curious. Myself and others decided to test this and any shopping result for … |
| The Real Reason Behind the Bidding War for SkyThe world’s media titans are locked in battle over Sky. Comcast, Disney and Fox all believe Europe’s pay-TV leader will give them heft to fight back against Netflix. |
| Powell’s First Problem: Taming the Job MarketThe Federal Reserve says the economy is “near or a little beyond full employment.” Preventing it from getting too tight without causing trouble will be tough. |
| How Missed Red Flags Derailed Drug DealAkorn’s checkered history should have given Fresenius pause before it agreed to buy the generic-drug company. |
| Americans owe millennials a big apology — baby boomers overspend on eating out tooIt’s time to stop bullying young Americans over their food habits. |
| MarketWatch First Take: Powell’s first faux pas came quickJerome Powell’s first public testimony as Federal Reserve chairman wasn’t without error. |
| The New York Post: Baseball’s players union accuses four frugal teams of failing to deploy profit-sharing cashA grievance has been filed by the MLBPA against four teams: the Oakland A’s, the Miami Marlins, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Tampa Bay Rays. |
Summary of Economic Releases this Week
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