09Apr2018 Midday Update: Wall Street Higher As Tech Stocks Gain, Trade War Worries Ebb, DOW Up 400 Points, Gold Volatile And Trending Higher

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

North and South American markets are mixed today. The S&P 500 is up 1.70% while the IPC gains 0.40%. The Bovespa is off 1.34%.

Facebook CEO says company did not do enough to prevent misuse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told Congress in written testimony released on Monday that the social media network did not do enough to prevent misuse of data and apologized.

Wall Street higher as tech stocks gain, trade war worries ebb

(Reuters) – The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P rose more than 1 percent, while the Nasdaq added 2 percent on Monday as strength in technology shares and a softer stance by U.S. policymakers on China trade tariffs powered a rebound from last week’s selloff.

Viacom asks CBS to raise its bid by $2.8 billion: sources

(Reuters) – Viacom Inc has asked CBS Corp to sweeten its merger bid by about $2.8 billion, or almost a quarter more than CBS’s offer, three people familiar with the matter said, indicating the wide gap in the U.S. media companies’ price expectations.

Merck’s Keytruda helps lung cancer patients live longer in trial

(Reuters) – Merck & Co’s blockbuster drug Keytruda helped previously untreated lung cancer patients live longer in a late-stage trial, potentially cementing its position as the dominant player in the lucrative lung cancer market.

SandRidge says to evaluate buyout offers, including Icahn’s

(Reuters) – SandRidge Energy Inc said on Monday it would evaluate any offer to buy the company from top shareholder Carl Icahn after the hedge fund manager said he could pay cash to buy the U.S. shale oil producer.

China blames U.S for trade frictions, says negotiations currently impossible

BOAO/BEIJING, China (Reuters) – China stepped up its attacks on the Trump administration on Monday over billions of dollars worth of threatened tariffs, saying Washington is to blame for trade frictions and repeating it was impossible to negotiate under “current circumstances”.

Deutsche Bank’s new CEO takes sober look at ‘ugly’ investment bank

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Deutsche Bank’s new chief executive faces the same strategic problem that has long preoccupied its top management – whether or not to override the rainmakers and big earners at its powerful investment bank to shrink that business.

Uber agrees to buy electric cycle-sharing startup JUMP Bikes

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] said on Monday it has agreed to buy electric bicycle service JUMP Bikes, allowing Uber to offer U.S. passengers an alternative to cars and further consolidating the crowded bike-sharing industry.

Novartis bets big on gene therapy with $8.7 billion AveXis deal

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Novartis is moving further into gene therapy by buying AveXis for $8.7 billion, adding a rare-disease treatment that could reap billions in sales.

Jack Ma Warns He’ll Abandon Job-Creation Promise If Trade War Worsens

In a show of support for China’s leadership by one of the country’s most visible companies, Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said Monday that he would abandon his vow to create 1 million jobs in the US if the trade relationship between China and the US continues to deteriorate.

Dismissing Trump’s complaints about the US-China trade deficit, Ma said US economic growth and jobs growth data show the US economy already has a remarkable low jobless rate (at least, it would appear that way at first glance).

“I don’t think trade deficit is a problem… In the past twenty or thirty years, through trade, China made revenue and America made profit,” said Ma.

“About jobs, last quarter, American unemployment was 4.1 percent, at historical low. There are about 6 million jobs waiting for Americans,” he said.

“If China and US have good relationship, we can not only make 1 million (jobs), we can make 10 million or 20 million jobs for both countries. If they have no good relationship, we’re going to destroy 10 million jobs,” said Ma.

Ma, who was being interviewed by IMF head Christine Lagarde at the Boao Forum in the island province of Hainan, said that while it’s normal that the world’s two largest economies might become embroiled in trade spats from time to time, solving this problem with a trade war would be like “treating a flu with chemotherapy.”

“We Understand The Chinese Government Has Halted Purchases Of US Treasuries”: SGH

On Friday, we reported that among the five “nuclear” options available to Beijing to retaliate against Trump’s latest $100BN in proposed import tariffs, was the choice whether to sell US Treasuries. But what if Beijing did not want to unleash a full-blown market nuke, and instead was hoping for a targeted, EMP hit?

Then it would simply stop buying US paper, instead of dumping it outright; in the process it wouldn’t hurt the US too much – avoiding a furious tit-for-tat response – but would still send a clear signal to the White House, whose fiscal spending plan will more than double net Treasury issuance this year from under $500BN to over $1 trillion, and which needs every possible marginal buyer of US paper, both domestic and foreign.

Which is precisely what a new report by SGH Macro Advisors claims.

According to the consultancy, a long-time favorite of macro hedge funds, Beijing has twice threatened deliberately targeted tit-for-tat punitive measures against the US to date: “first, in response to the Trump Administration’s threat of steel and aluminum tariffs, and second, in response to broader measures aimed at $50 billion of products that lie directly at the heart of Chinese technology transfers, intellectual property violations, and strategic, “Made in China 2025″ plan.”

But even as US cabinet officials lined up yesterday to calm jittery equity markets, SGH says in a note released over the weekend that “China had already signaled an aggressive and potentially more ominous escalation in the developing trade wars to the White House”:

From what we understand, the Chinese government has halted its purchases of US Treasuries. Despite the direct encouragement, according to Chinese sources, by US T …

Trade War Optimism Sparks Tech Buying-Panic – Nasdaq Futures Erase Friday’s Collapse

Facebook and the rest of the megatech stocks are soaring out of the gate today, sending Nasdaq Futures back to unchanged from Thursday’s close – pre-China-retaliation…

So no escalation in the trade war today means panic-buy stocks again?

And the S&P 500 is extending its bounce off the 200DMA…

Trump To Make “Major” Decision On Syria “By End Of Day”; Says “Assad Going To Pay A Price”

With Israel already having conducted a trial balloon, or rather trial F-15 airstrike on a Syrian airfield overnight, now comes the US response. And according to Donald Trump, who moments ago was speaking to reporters, he will make a “major decision” on Syria in the next 24-48 hours, subsequently clarifying that the decision will come “very quickly” probably “by the end of today”, adding that nothing is off the table.

Pres. Trump tells @jonkarl that Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin “may” bear responsibility for suspected chemical attack in Syria.

“Everybody’s going to pay a price. He will, everybody will.” https://t.co/XVBNMzyHKc pic.twitter.com/Q48LXfQRnG

— ABC News (@ABC) April 9, 2018

“Very concerned, when a thing like that can happen, this is about humanity,” the president told reporters during a Cabinet meeting. “We’re talking about humanity. And it can’t be allowed to happen. So we’ll be looking at that barbaric act and studying what’s going on.”

Taking a page from he Skripal affair, where the UK was recently humiliated for accusing Russia of being behind the attack only for UK chemical weapons experts to say there is zero evidence of this, Trump then also said that Assad is going to pay a price, even though here too there has been no evidence whatsoever that Assad, was actually behind the attack.

TRUMP SAYS ASSAD IS GOING TO PAY A PRICE

This entire episode of course is a rerun of what happened in February, when Rex Tillerson was the latest to …

Winning Trade Turns Money Loser

Corporate bonds have been the easiest way to eke out a higher gain in a yield-starved world. But this year they are doing the opposite.

Consumer Credit May Weigh on Economy

Weak consumer lending risks becoming a headwind for an otherwise healthy economy, as lenders slow their credit card, auto and other loans.

Novartis’s $9 Billion Bet Is Worth the Risk

Spending nearly $9 billion on a drug company that doesn’t yet generate revenue isn’t as risky as it seems.

March 2018 Conference Board Employment Index Growth Rate Modest Improvement

Written by Steven Hansen

The Conference Board’s Employment Trends Index – which forecasts employment for the next 6 months improved with the author’s saying “We interpret Friday’s disappointing job numbers as noise in an otherwise fast-growing labor market”.

The Margin: Mock pre-election Boston Globe front page goes viral again — for how accurate it was

Fast forward some two years instead of one, and the Boston Globe mock front page got things by and large right.

BookWatch: What Facebook and other tech leaders must do now to win back our trust

Tech sector needs to focus on ethics and user privacy or face government regulation, writes Mark Penn.

FA Center: You won’t believe how we’re going to take control of our money and finances

The future of investing will include virtual reality portfolios, chatbots, and ‘human enough’ advisers, writes Tim Burcham.