19Mar2018 Market Close: Trump Twitter Meltdown And Facebook Hit Wall Street Hard; Dollar And Oil Weaken, While Gold Rallies

Wall Street drops as regulation worry sinks tech shares

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks dropped on Monday, with the S&P and Nasdaq suffering their worst day in just over five weeks, as concerns over increased regulation for large tech companies was spearheaded by a plunge in Facebook shares.

Self-driving Uber car kills Arizona woman crossing street

TEMPE, Ariz./SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – An Uber self-driving car hit and killed a woman crossing the street in Arizona, police said on Monday, marking the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle and a potential blow to the technology expected to transform transportation.

Facebook under pressure as EU, U.S. urge probes of data practices

(Reuters) – Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg faced calls on Monday from U.S. and European lawmakers to explain how a consultancy that worked on President Donald Trump’s election campaign gained access to data on 50 million Facebook users.

Kroger’s Fred Meyer plans to phase out firearms business

(Reuters) – Kroger Co’s Fred Meyer said it would exit its firearms business, two weeks after deciding to stop selling guns and ammunition to buyers under the age of 21.

McDonald’s agrees settlement in franchisees’ U.S. labor case

(Reuters) – McDonald’s Corp said on Monday it had agreed to settle a U.S. labor board case on whether the company is accountable for its franchisees’ alleged labor law violations.

Tech stocks wobble in U.S.; some investors worry party is ending

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A deep sell-off across technology companies on Monday on U.S. stock markets left some investors worrying how much longer those high-flying stocks’ market leadership would last.

Whole Foods calls supplier summit amid Amazon angst

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Whole Foods will host a summit beginning Tuesday for up to 200 of its suppliers in its hometown of Austin, Texas, amid anxiety and speculation about how its ongoing business revamp will play out under new owner Amazon.com.

Judge weighs what evidence U.S. can use to block AT&T, Time Warner merger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – AT&T Inc sought to persuade a judge on Monday to throw out evidence the government seeks to use in a trial that begins this week to show that the company’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc would harm consumers and competitors.

U.S. bans transactions with Venezuela’s digital currency: White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order barring any U.S.-based financial transactions involving Venezuela’s new petro cryptocurrency, as U.S. officials warned that it was a “scam” by President Nicolas Maduro’s government to further undermine democracy in the OPEC country.

The FBI’s Blood Feud: “This Is Going To Get A Lot Uglier Before It’s Over”

The FBI’s pro-Hillary, anti-Trump campaign has backfired dramatically, as one-by-one Trump seems to be draining the real swamp, most recently exemplified by what The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, calls The McCabe March Madness…

For a microcosm of the current madness of American politics, look no further than the weekend meltdown after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe late Friday.

Mr. Sessions acted on a recommendation by the FBI’s own Office of Professional Responsibility, but Democrats and the media ignored that and called the firing part of Donald Trump’s plot to undermine the FBI and steal American democracy.

Mr. Trump then seemingly tried to confirm the accusations with a Twitter fusillade hailing Mr. McCabe’s firing and escalating without cause to attack special counsel Robert Mueller. Which triggered another round of claims that Mr. Trump’s days in office are numbered, or should be.

What Excites Millennials? A Stock Market Crash!

As markets careened lower to the tune of 10% in February, millennial investors got a thrill up their legs versus their older peers.

According to a survey by Bankrate.com, 19% of millennials aged 18 through 37 said they had “feelings of excitement” during the correction vs. 8% for Generation-X and just 4% for Baby Boomers.

“If you’re a long-term investor you want to be able to buy low, and millennials had a chance to add to their retirement accounts at a lower price,” Bankrate analyst Taylor Tepper told Bloomberg. “In that sense, it’s very exciting.”

Over 25% of the giddy millennial investors reported adding to their stock holdings during the correction – far more than the other demographics.

The survey conducted from February 28 through March 1, questioned 2,287 U.S. adults, only 1,063 of whom said they have an investment account. Of that, just 30% of millennials had investments vs. 46% of Gen-X and 54% of Baby Boomers.

Bankrate’s Tepper also noted that millennials – who are disproportionately anti-Trump, saw February’s selloff as the first “Trump correction” afte …

“…The Ends Don’t Justify The Means!”

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

Various readers, fans, blog commenters, Facebook trolls, and auditors twanged on me all last week about my continuing interest in the RussiaRussiaRussia hysteria, though there is no particular consensus of complaint among them — except for a general “shut up, already” motif. For the record, I’m far more interested in the hysteria itself than the Russia-meddled-in the-election case, which I consider to be hardly any case at all beyond 13 Russian Facebook trolls.

The hysteria, on the other hand, ought to be a matter of grave concern, because it appears more and more to have been engineered by America’s own intel community, its handmaidens in the Dept of Justice, and the twilight’s last gleamings of the Obama White House, and now it has shoved this country in the direction of war at a time when civilian authority over the US military looks sketchy at best. This country faces manifold other problems that are certain to reduce th …

Aramco Kills Massive Offshore IPO, Will Only Offer Shares Domestically

The question that many oil traders were asking for the past two years – and certainly all of Wall Street’s investment banks – was answered moments ago when the WSJ reported that as some had predicted, Saudi Arabia has decided to scale back its ambitions for a public offering for oil giant Aramco, either on the NYSE or elsewhere, and instead is moving ahead with a listing next year solely on the Saudi stock exchange while taking more time to decide if an international venue is worth it.

The news, which means Wall Street banks will make several hundred million less in IPO proceeds this year by not taking public the Saudi company which by some estimates was worth $2 trillion and had hoped to raise up to $100 billion, followed a Bloomberg report from last Friday according to which “Aramco said to get cool response on IPO from U.S. investors.”

While the original Bloomberg story was mysteriously taken down, what it reported was spot on: there was simply not enough demand for what would have been the world’s biggest IPO – at least, not at the $2 trillion price tag demanded by the Saudis.

At the informal dinners and meetings in New York, Houston and Washington, investors pushed back at several aspects of the deal, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private meetings. Among the issues raised were the $2 trillion valuation Saudi Arabia wants for the world’s largest oil producer, the scale of dividends Aramco’s prepared to pay and the impact of the shale boom on oil prices over the next few years.

Aramco said in a statement it wouldn’t …

Why Facebook Could Lose Friends in High Places

Facebook’s huge business rides on user trust, and that could be in danger for the social network.

Death of the Mall? Greatly Exaggerated, Says Big Money

The world’s top shopping mall companies are betting that e-commerce isn’t such an existential threat. The latest sign is a tentative bid for U.K. real-estate investment trust Hammerson from its French peer Klépierre.

Why Global Markets Are Still Far From Normal

The world has felt more normal in recent months, in economic terms at least, but things are still far from settled. The widening gap in a key bond trade is one piece of evidence, which also highlights the puzzle of the weaker dollar.

19Mar2018 Pre-Market Commentary: Markets Tread Water Waiting For Fed Announcement On Wednesday

Written by Gary

According to Reuters:

Shares were stuck on their worst run since November on Monday, as caution gripped traders in a week in which the Federal Reserve is likely to raise U.S. interest rates and perhaps signal as many as three more hikes lie in store this year.

Addressing The Dark Side Of The Crypto World

from the International Monetary Fund

— this post authored by Christine Lagarde

Whether Bitcoin’s value goes up or Bitcoin’s value goes down, people around the world are asking the same question: What exactly is the potential of crypto-assets?

Earnings Outlook: Oracle stock falls as earnings, outlook fuel doubts about cloud software growth

Oracle Corp. shares declined in the extended session Monday after the enterprise software company’s quarterly earnings report and forecast did not show the cloud-software growth Wall Street expected.

Howard Gold’s No-Nonsense Investing: How Donald Trump is re-emerging as a risk for the stock market

What the “good” Trump giveth, the “bad” Trump may taketh away, writes Howard Gold.

Market Extra: The stock market meltup is over: Morgan Stanley

The stock market’s glory days may be behind us. At least, that’s the prognosis of one prominent Wall Street strategist who believes January may have been the market’s peak and the remainder of the year won’t be able to measure up to the rally at the beginning of the year.