20Mar2018 Market Close: Stocks Up As Fed Kicks Off Meeting; Oil Surges While Dollar Rises And Gold Sinks

U.S. FTC to question Facebook over consultancy’s access to user data

SAN FRANCISCO/LONDON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc said Tuesday it faced questions from the lead U.S. consumer regulator about how its users’ personal data was mined by a political consultancy hired by Donald Trump’s campaign.

Wall Street advances on energy bump; Facebook woes continues

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks advanced modestly on Tuesday as higher oil prices lifted the energy sector, but another slump in Facebook Inc shares curbed gains.

Salesforce to buy MuleSoft in $6.5 billion deal

(Reuters) – Salesforce.com Inc said on Tuesday it would buy software maker MuleSoft Inc for about $6.5 billion, including debt, just a year after the software company went public.

Amazon is now second most valuable U.S.-listed company, tops Alphabet

(Reuters) – Amazon.com became the second most valuable publicly listed U.S. company on Tuesday, surpassing Google parent Alphabet Inc for the first time.

Fatal U.S. self-driving auto accident raises novel legal questions

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The death of a pedestrian hit by a self-driving Uber vehicle in Arizona this week could offer a test of who can be held legally responsible for accidents when a human is no longer at the wheel, legal experts said.

Toys ‘R’ Us says ‘making every effort’ to pay vendors

(Reuters) – Toys ‘R’ Us said at a bankruptcy court hearing on Tuesday that it was working hard to maximize payments to suppliers and lenders, as it starts to shutter 735 big-box toy stores across the United States.

On eve of trial on Time Warner deal, AT&T, U.S. government lay out cases

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In a preview of arguments in the upcoming trial over AT&T’s deal to buy Time Warner Inc , government lawyers said on Tuesday it will raise prices for consumers while AT&T’s lawyer argued the company has no reason to withhold programming from competitors as feared.

Prosecutors search Volkswagen headquarters in new emissions investigation

BERLIN (Reuters) – German prosecutors said on Tuesday they had searched Volkswagen’s headquarters as part of a new investigation into whether the carmaker had overstated the fuel efficiency of more vehicles than previously disclosed.

Spotify CEO to sell up to $2 billion stake in public listing

(Reuters) – Daniel Ek, the Swedish CEO and co-founder of streaming music leader Spotify Technology SA , is set to sell 15.8 million shares of the company worth up to $2 billion in its direct listing, the company disclosed in a new filing on Tuesday.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Net Worth Tumbles – Now ‘Only’ World’s 5th Richest Man

While Amazon’s Jeff Bezos walks his new dog and remains head and shoulders above everyone else in the world in terms of net worth, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg is sliding down the ranks to a lowly 5th on the world’s richest person list…

After the carnage in Facebook’s shares, CEO Zuckerberg lost $5 billion yesterday and another $4 billion today (and is down around $14 billion from his highs)…

Which knocked him back below Amancio Ortega into just 5th place on the “world’s richest” list…

And after today’s bloodbath, Zuck may end up in 6th place… or even 7th place!!!

“Whataboutism” Is A Nonsensical Propaganda Term Used To Defend The Failed Status Quo

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

If you spend any time on Twitter, you’ll probably be familiar with the latest pathetic attempt to defend and insulate the U.S. status quo from criticism. It centers around the usage of an infantile and meaningless term, “whataboutism.”

Let’s begin with one particularly absurd accusation of “whataboutism” promoted by NPR last year:

When O’Reilly countered that “Putin is a killer,” Trump responded, “There are a lot of killers. You got a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?”

This particular brand of changing the subject is called “whataboutism” — a simple rhetorical tactic heavily used by the Soviet Union and, later, Russia. And its use in Russia helps illustrate how it could be such a useful tool now, in America. As Russian political experts told NPR, it’s an attractive tactic for populists in particular, allowing them to be vague but appear straight-talking at the same time.

The idea behind whataboutism is simple: Party A accuses Party B of doing something bad. Party B responds by changing the subject and pointing out one of Party A’s faults — “Yeah? Well what about that bad thing you did?” (Hence the name.)

It’s not exactly a complicated tactic — any grade-schooler can master the “yeah-well-you-suck-too-so-there” defense. But it came to be associated with the USSR because of the Soviet Union’s heavy reliance upon whataboutism throughout the Cold War and afterward, as Russia.

Here’s What The Fed Will Say Tomorrow

There is one thing that is certain ahead of tomorrow’s FOMC meeting, at least according to the market: the Fed will hike rates.

Besides the Fed Funds futures markets, one big tell that markets have taken a hawkish turn as Steven Englander points out is that 2yr yields went up yesterday despite the absence of economic data and a seriously downbeat equity market. Today, equities were generally flat, with no data released, and short term yields keep rising. Additionally, the sharp bounceback in 10yr yields on flat S&P futures indicates that fears of a hawkish FOMC outcome are growing.

The question then is whether the Fed will hike rates 3 or 4 times in 2018 and 2 or 3 times in 2019. Here opinions differ, and as Morgan Stanley writes, based on our stress-testing of the dot plot, it is possible to get to a full median of 4 hikes in 2018, particularly if the Chair moves, “but we think it is too early in the year for the FOMC to agree more tightening is needed, particularly in light of continued uncertainty about just how much tightening the first full year of balance sheet shrinkage will deliver. Also, having over-promised and under-delivered on rate hikes in 2015 and 2016, we think the FOMC will be reluctant to raise the median path too aggressively early this year and risk a repeat scenario—at least at this meeting.”

Here the gating factor will be the yield curve, which at the current rate, will likely be flat or inverted by September:

By September, a flat-to-inverted yield curve, continued balance sheet runoff and tighter financial conditions, as well as higher positive real rates will warrant close examination of how much further the FOMC wants to push rates in this cycle. Thereafter, we expect that in early 2019, fiscal stimulus will push a very late-cycle economy to new heights, leading the Fed to hike two additional times—in March and June. With the midpoi …

WTI/RBOB Extend Gains After Surprise Crude Inventory Draw

WTI/RBOB prices spiked today on OPEC chatter about how well they are doing, and extended those gains after API data showed a surprise crude draw (3.25mm build expected) and bond gasoline and distillates saw draws.

API

Crude -2.739mm (+3.25mm exp)

Cushing +1.644mm (-200k exp)

Gasoline -1.063mm

Distillates -1.926mm

After 6 of the last 7 weeks showing builds, crude inventories fell notably on the week

“The bottom line is, with oil at these prices, it’s hard to slow down the shale in the U.S.,” said Michael Corcelli, chief investment officer of hedge fund Alexander Alternative Capital in Miami. Activity in the oil patch is “out of control and you can see it in the output that we’re actually generating.”

The reaction was a swift rebound to the day’s earlier highs…

Banking on Deregulation Is Still a Good Bet

Despite some last-minute jitters in Washington, regulatory relief looks to be coming for small and medium-size banks.

Venture Capital vs Private Equity: Who’s the King of Cash?

Venture capital is seen as private equity’s more glamorous cousin and that’s no surprise, but there is a wrinkle.

Oracle Gets a Bit Cloudier

New program lures more licensing customers to the cloud but at a cost to some visibility.

March 2018 Chemical Activity Barometer Rate Of Growth Slows

from the American Chemistry Council

The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB) expanded 0.2 percent in March on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis, its sixth consecutive gain following the 2017 hurricanes.

Policy Actions To Sustain Growth And Guard Against Risks

from the International Monetary Fund

— this post authored by Christine Lagarde

When the Group of Twenty finance ministers and central bank governors met last October, there was a sense of optimism about the global economic upswing and the opportunities for much-needed reforms.

The Fed: 5 things to watch from the Fed decision

Here are five things that economists are watching closely at this week’s Fed interest-rate committee meeting.

How driverless cars could save lives even sooner than we think

An Uber self-driving vehicle hit and killed a pedestrian in Arizona.

NewsWatch: Historic jump in ‘fear index’ in February sounds a stock-market warning

February’s historic surge in a prominent gauge of stock-market volatility may have ushered in an end to a protracted period of calm on Wall Street, but it also offers a worrisome sign about market structure during times of extreme turmoil.