27Mar2018 Market Close: Wall Street Falters, Dragged Down By Tech, DOW Closes Down 345 Points, WTI Crude Slips To The High 64 Handle, Goldman Sachs Computer Model Warns Bear Market Is Near

Exclusive: OPEC, Russia consider 10- to 20-year oil alliance – Saudi Crown Prince

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia and Russia are working on a historic long-term pact that could extend controls over world crude supplies by major exporters for many years.

Wall Street falters, dragged down by tech

(Reuters) – Wall Street gave up gains on Tuesday with technology stocks pulling the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq into negative territory.

Facebook’s Zuckerberg to testify before Congress: source

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg plans to testify before U.S. Congress, a source briefed on the matter said on Tuesday, as he bows to pressure from lawmakers insisting he explain how 50 million users’ data ended up in the hands of a political consultancy.

U.S. opens probe into fatal Tesla crash, fire in California

(Reuters) – The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is opening a field investigation of a fatal Tesla Inc crash and major vehicle fire near Mountain View, California, last week, the agency said on Tuesday.

Apple bid for education market: new software, same iPad price

CHICAGO/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc on Tuesday rolled out a new iPad and classroom software aimed at grabbing more of the U.S. education market, but did not cut the price of its entry-level tablet despite schools flocking to laptops costing a third less.

Wall Street rethinks blockchain projects as euphoria meets reality

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Wall Street has been much more excited about the system underpinning bitcoin than the cryptocurrency itself, but the global financial industry has not yet been able to do much with the technology known as blockchain.

Appeals court revives Oracle’s billion-dollar copyright claim against Google

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday resurrected a multi-billion dollar copyright case brought by Oracle Corp against Alphabet Inc’s Google.

Amazon targets French grocery market with Monoprix deal

PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon has made further inroads into food retail in France as Casino’s upmarket Monoprix chain became the first local retailer to agree to sell groceries via Amazon.

Google defeats lawsuit claiming YouTube censors conservatives

(Reuters) – Google has won the dismissal of a lawsuit in California accusing YouTube of censoring conservative content.

Momo Massacred, Tech Wrecked, & Bond Yields Battered

Today was yesterday’s alternative ending…

Only NASDAQ remains marginally green on the year…

Today’s fun and games started with comments from Wilbur Ross on “emergency” curbs on Chinese investment but then a series of headlines on megatech – NVDA self-driving car suspension, TSLA NTSB probe, FB hearings and more headlines, and GOOGL and TWTR being dragged into the furore. All in all – a bloodbath!

What goes up (on low volume) collapses on heavy volume… (Nasdaq – green, was worst; The Dow – blue, managed to hold some gains)…

37 State Attorneys General Demand Answers From Zuckerberg In Data Harvesting Scandal

Thirty-seven “profoundly concerned” U.S. state and territory attorneys general fired off a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, demanding answers over reports that personal user information from Facebook profiles was provided to third parties without the users’ knowledge or consent.

“Most recently, we have learned from news reports that the business practices within the social media world have evolved to give multiple software developers access to personal information of Facebook users. These reports raise serious questions regarding consumer privacy”

The letter notes the 50 million Facebook profiles which may have been “misused and misappropriated by third-party software developers,” noting that Facebook “took as much as 30%” of payments made through applications used by Facebook users.

“According to these reports, Facebook’s previous policies allowed developers to access the personal data of “friends” of people who used applications on the platform, without the knowledge or express consent of those “friends.” It has also been reported that while providing other developers access to personal Facebook user data, Facebook took as much as thirty (30) percent of payments made through the developers’ applications by Facebook users.”

In other words – while a Facebook user may have agreed in the fine print to allowing the social media giant to hoover up their information – their “friends” did not.

Stockman Warns Trump’s New War Cabinet Will Create A Fiscal Doom Loop

Authored by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

Last week the Donald’s incipient trade war got Wall Street’s nerves jangling, but that wasn’t the half of what’s coming.

To wit, Trump has now essentially formed a War Cabinet and signed a Horribus spending bill that is a warrant for fiscal meltdown.

Indeed, the two essentially comprise a self-fueling doom loop which means Washington’s descent into fiscal catastrophe is well-nigh unstoppable; it’s all over except for the screaming in the bond pits.

That is, Trump’s new War Cabinet of John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Gina Haspel and Mad Dog Mattis is arguably the most interventionist, militarist, confrontationist and bellicose national security team ever assembled by a sitting President. We cannot think of a single country that has even looked cross-eyed at Washington in recent years where one or all four of them has not threatened to drone, bomb, invade or decapitate its current ruling regime.

That means Imperial Washington’s rampant War Fever owing to the Dem-left declaration of war on Russia …

Netanyahu Rushed To Hospital With “High Fever, Cough”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been rushed to a hospital with a fever and for tests after an illness, local media reported, and a spokesman for the Prime Minister confirmed.

Netanyahu’s symptoms include high fever and coughing but this time they are not the result of what the UK has already decided is a Kremlin mandated nerve gas, but are apparently due to complications of a streptococcal throat infection, and is also undergoing additional tests on the advice of his doctor.

#BREAKING: ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU RUSHED TO HOSPITAL WITH HIGH FEVER

— Noga Tarnopolsky (@NTarnopolsky) March 27, 2018

“The prime minister is suffering from a high fever and is coughing,” a spokesman for the 68-year-old Netanyahu, said in a text message.

According to the spokesman, Netanyahu’s personal doctor, Ariel Berkowitz, believes the prime minister had not fully recovered from a …

Paint Giants Prepped for Merger Endgame

The sale of Akzo Nobel’s specialty-chemicals business for $12.6 billion will create a pure-play coatings company potentially attractive to U.S. paint giants Sherwin-Williams and PPG Industries.

A Trade War Might Be a Commodities Buying Opportunity

Oil and metals would probably take a big hit initially. But industrial metals in particular might benefit from China’s likely response.

Something’s Gotta Give in the Fed’s Forecasts

A big slug of fiscal stimulus will hit the economy over the next two years, but the Federal Reserve doesn’t seem all that impressed.

Market Extra: Stop saying the Dow is moving in and out of correction! That is not how stock-market moves work

Market technicians generally define a correction as a 10% decline from a recent peak in an asset. But once that security slips in to correction phase, that trend is viewed as in force until it trades above its previous peak.

Trump Today: Trump Today: President talks trade, Russia with Macron, Merkel

President Donald Trump on Tuesday held talks with the leaders of France and Germany as he continued to take a lower profile after the airing of a news program which alleged he had an affair with a porn star.

Bond Report: 10-year government bond yield slumps to lowest in 7 weeks on protectionist policy fears

Treasury prices rose on Tuesday, pushing yields higher, as fears over the U.S.’s protectionist policies makes a return on reports that the White House may crack down on Chinese investments in American tech companies.