05Apr2018 Midday Update: Wall Street Continues Rally, Investors Calmer After Trump Modifies Trade Actions, DOW Currently Up Over 300 Points, WTI Crude Volatile In The High 63 Handle, US Dollar Slowly Trending Upwards

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are broadly higher today with shares in Brazil leading the region. The Bovespa is up 1.71% while Mexico’s IPC is up 1.41% and U.S.’s S&P 500 is up 0.84%.

Facebook, Amazon buoy Wall St. as trade concerns cool

(Reuters) – Facebook , Amazon and industrial stocks helped Wall Street extend its recovery on Thursday as fears over a trade war between the United States and China eased.

NAFTA nations ‘moving forward in significant way’: Canada’s Trudeau

OTTAWA (Reuters) – The United States, Mexico and Canada are “moving forward in a significant way” at talks to modernize the NAFTA trade pact, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday.

Facebook shares rise as Zuckerberg soothes investors

(Reuters) – Shares of Facebook Inc rose as much as 4.2 percent on Thursday, after Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the social network had not seen any meaningful impact on usage or ad sales in the wake of a data privacy scandal.

China will win any trade war with U.S.: state media

BEIJING/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China has never surrendered to external pressure and it will win any trade war with the United States, the nation’s state media stressed in the hours after the world’s two top economies targeted each other with planned steep tariffs.

U.S., China rivalry poses risks, benefits for Latin America

MENDOZA, Argentina (Reuters) – As the trade dispute between the United States and China was gaining steam last month, a half-dozen Chinese dancers and a person in a panda bear suit paraded across a stage inside a hotel lobby in the heart of Argentina’s wine country.

JPMorgan’s Dimon praises Trump’s deregulatory efforts in annual letter

NEW YORK (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon complimented the administration of President Donald Trump in an annual letter to shareholders on Thursday, saying tax cuts and deregulatory efforts were helping his bank make more money.

Investors scope out potential European wins from U.S.-China frictions

LONDON (Reuters) – Nobody wins a trade war, International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde said in March. But for some European companies, a bit of friction couldn’t hurt.

Monsanto misses profit estimates as corn disappoints

(Reuters) – Monsanto Co on Thursday reported weaker-than-expected earnings for a second straight quarter, saying its corn business dropped as U.S. farmers planted fewer acres this spring, while low crop prices continued to drag the sector.

China’s HNA to sell some or all of $6.3 billion Hilton stake

(Reuters) – China’s HNA Group Co Ltd, the heavily indebted aviation-to-financials conglomerate, plans to sell some or all of its $6.3 billion stake in Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc , underlining its need to shed assets and tackle a cash crunch.

Breslow: “Everyone But Me Seems Sure They Know How Things Will Play Out”

If there is a recurring theme among trader commentary this morning – and over the past few days as market volatility has come back with a vengeance and as stocks make increasingly more frustrating daily moves – it is this: confusion. And whether it was a short squeeze, as Bill Blain claims, or a logical progression after a “long overdue correction” as most pundits on CNBC claim, everyone seems to have an opinion about what will happen next.

Everyone, except for Bloomberg macro commentator Richard Breslow whose note this morning slams all those who seem “adamantly sure they know how things will play out and therefore where asset prices are going.”

He then mocks the almost instant U-turn in opinions, noting that “from a purely mental health point of interest, it should be surprising that so many traders who were saying just yesterday morning that the world was coming to an end aren’t taking this reprieve to do something about it. It would appear that too much trade location was sacrificed and this leap higher looks painful rather than amazingly fortuitous.”

Clearly angry, he says that “we’ve gone from “get out, don’t you know we’re in a correction that’s heading straight to becoming a bear market” to “Yo loser, you have to be in it to win it. And by the way, where’s your stinkin’ correction now?”

That’s an awfully big leap that equity traders seem hell-bent on making over and over. The market has been volatile enough on its own without traders manufacturing a bunch all by themselves.

Of course, by traders Breslow means algos, for whom intraday market “logic” is something totally different than for ordinary humans, who needs patterns, momentum and repeatability (not to mention at least some fundamental analysis) to make sense of what is coming next.

And while we commiserate with Breslow’s frustration, especially after the lat …

Median San Fran Home Price Soars By Over $100,000 In One Quarter To Record $1.6 Million

In San Francisco, a boom is always associated with its essential – and subsequent counterpart – the bust. They’re as typical to the city as sun and fog. And currently, judging by the insatiable appetite of homebuyers in the city’s red-hot real estate market who appear completely unfazed stock-market volatility, tax-law changes, and tech sector gyrations, the city is in one heck of a housing boom, perhaps the biggest one ever, and national indices don’t do justice to how over-the-top mind-blowing crazy the situation has gotten.

Take for example, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home price index which covers not just the city (or county) of San Francisco but includes four other Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo. There are more counties in the Bay Area, but they’re not included in the index. In terms of home prices, the five-county Case-Shiller index for “San Francisco,” though showing a significant, double digit annual gain of just over 10%, waters down the insanity happening every day on the streets of San Francisco.

To get a far more accurate, and granular neighborhood-by-neighborhood data for San Francisco itself, we go to Paragon Real Estate Group’s March-April 2018 report, and what we find are vertigo-inducing price increases that have now beautifully spiked.

During the prior nationwide housing bubble that blew up with such fanfare, helped take down the world financial system, and caused central banks and governments to instigate the largest bail-out schemes the world has ever seen – from banks to entire countries – well, during that bubble, while it was still going on, homes in San Francisco reached what afterward were called totally crazy valuations, with the median …

Dow Soars 1,000 Points From Wednesday Open

While it was even lower in yesterday’s premarket, the Dow Jones opened at 23,521 yesterday morning. Since then, despite the most aggressive trade war overtures between the US and China in history which nobody has explained just why or how will be “negotiated” away when neither Trump nor Xi will be willing to concede one iota, the Dow has moved in a straight line, and moments ago was up 300 points on the day, and with yesterday’s gains, is now over 1000 points in just over 24 hours.

The Big Risk of a Trade War: Inflation

There is never a good time to start a trade war, but the shots exchanged by the U.S. and China could be particularly troubling as they stoke a fear that has already rocked markets: inflation.

CBS-Viacom Fight Is Fixed

Media titans don’t like to lose their empires. But if they must, they prefer to do so on their own terms. For Les Moonves, the long-time chairman and CEO of CBS, the possibility of doing so is rapidly dwindling.

Smucker’s Bite-Sized Pet-Food Deal Goes Down Easy

Not all pet-food acquisitions are the same. J.M. Smucker’s $1.7 billion deal for Ainsworth Pet Nutrition looks like a winner.

February 2018 Trade Balance Again Worsened

Written by Steven Hansen

Trade data headlines show the trade balance again worsened from last month.

CryptoWatch: A ‘seismic shift’ is taking place in the cryptocurrency sector, analyst says

The days of overnight bitcoin millionaires are fading fast. As the price of the No. 1 digital currency continues to fall — declining more than 40% in the first-quarter — the crypto hall of fame is fast becoming a hall of shame.

NewsWatch: Forget trade — here’s the real risk to the stock market

Over the past several weeks, policy uncertainty has been the biggest driver of moves in the U.S. stock market, with investors fretting that protectionist measures pushed by President Donald Trump could escalate into a trade war, or that recent issues surrounding internet companies could herald a more aggressive regulatory environment against some of the economy’s biggest names.

Market Extra: Trump isn’t tweeting nearly enough, these Amazon stock investors say

Over the past week, President Donald Trump has engaged in something of an one-man attack against the online retail giant Amazon.com Inc., repeatedly criticizing it and Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, over a variety of issues.