16Apr2018 Market Close: Wall Street Closes Higher, DOW Up 213 Points, Dollar Slips, WTI Crude Settles In The Low 66 Handle

U.S. bans American companies from selling to Chinese phone maker ZTE

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Commerce has banned American companies from selling components to leading Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp for seven years for violating the terms of a sanctions violation case, U.S. officials said on Monday.

Wall Street climbs as investors focus on earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks closed higher on Monday, with the biggest boosts from the technology and healthcare sectors as investors turned their focus to earnings season and appeared less worried about U.S.-led missile attacks in Syria.

Netflix shares dip as Wall Street braces for quarterly report

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Shares of Netflix slipped 1 percent on Monday ahead of the video streaming service’s quarterly report as investors braced for signs of whether it and other leading stocks are likely to carry the market higher over the next few weeks.

Fed’s Kaplan says he has no problem with being ‘restrictive’

(Reuters) – Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan on Monday said he expects the U.S. central bank to raise interest rates three times this year and further next year to levels that could put the brakes on U.S. economic growth, but that he does not want to push short-term rates above long-term borrowing costs.

Exclusive: Google unveils vetting process for drug rehab ads

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google told Reuters Monday it would resume accepting ads from U.S. addiction treatment centers in July, nearly a year after the Alphabet Inc unit suspended the lucrative category of advertisers for numerous deceptive and misleading ads.

Drug suppliers’ shares rise as looming Amazon threat appears to ease

(Reuters) – Shares of U.S. drug suppliers rose on Monday after a report that Amazon.com Inc had dropped plans to sell drugs to hospitals, in a boost to a pharmaceutical supply chain rattled by the looming threat of competition from the online retailer.

Pentagon revises request for cloud computing services

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Defense on Monday updated its request for proposals from potential bidders on a $10 billion project for cloud computing services, in a deal that has been closely watched because Amazon.com Inc has been considered to be a top contender.

Big activist investors have first-quarter losses while small counterparts thrive

BOSTON (Reuters) – Well known U.S. activist investors including Nelson Peltz and William Ackman took a hit from the first-quarter U.S. stock market slump, with their funds losing money while some smaller players delivered gains.

BofA profit beats estimates on higher interest rates, loan growth

(Reuters) – Bank of America reported a 34 percent rise in first-quarter profit on Monday, topping Wall Street estimates, as the lender benefited from higher interest rates and growth in loans and deposits.

Missile-Mania Sparks Stock-Buying Bonanza As Yield Curve Tumbles

As a reminder, here’s what happened in 2017 when Trump shot missiles at Syria…

And here’s what happened this time…

Missiles were dropped…

Correlations broke everywhere today…

Welcome To ‘Kabuki Warfare’

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

When this chapter of US history is finally written, it will look like a deep dive into a vat of lentil soup. In Syria Friday night, we came, we saw, and we slung 103 cruise missiles into largely symbolic targets, including a supposed chemical weapons plant just outside Damascus, and some other places where we were not likely to kill Russian military personnel. The Russians apparently decided to just suck it up, knowing that the civil war in Syria is nearly over.

Then what?

Will the US tolerate what has effectively become a Russian client state in the Levant, with some Iranian sprinkles on top?

The Saudi Arabians clearly don’t relish that prospect, and one wonders how much the nominal Saudi leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, put the squeeze on US officials (including the Golden Golem of Greatness) to do something (!) when he paid a call here a few weeks ago. Israel may not like having Hezbolah’s patron, Iran, camped on their doorstep, but there’s …

“The World Is A Safe Place… And No One Hedges Anymore”

A major geopolitical event takes place and stocks (and risky assets) surge while bonds (and safe havens) slide…

As former fund manager Richard Breslow says in his latest letter, “I see it and, unfortunately, it’s all too familiar not to be believed.”

Via Bloomberg,

The world is a safe place, it is being put about, as traders reassess the dangers from the Middle East and every other global hot spot. Friday night was spent watching and wondering about missiles, sanctions and retaliation. The weekend was full of verbal clashes with a strong dose o …

Russia Reveals Who “Staged” Syria Gas Attack, As US Claims Moscow “May Have Tampered” With Site

The Russian envoy to the chemical weapons watchdog group, OPCW, said that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) funded by the UK and US carried out the April 7 chemical attack in the Damascus, Syria suburb of Douma.

Russia’s permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, said Russia has irrefutable evidence that there was no chemical weapons incident in Douma.

“Therefore, we have not just a “high degree of confidence,” as our Western partners claim, but we have incontrovertible evidence that there was no incident on April 7 in Douma and that all this was a planned provocation by the British intelligence services, probably, with the participation of their senior allies from Washington with the aim of misleading the international community and justifying aggression against Syria,” he stated. -Sputnik

Shulgin added that the US, UK and France are not interested in conducting an objective investigation of the attack site. “They put the blame on the Syrian authorities in advance, without even waiting for the OPCW mission to begin to establish the possible facts of the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” he said.

The nine-member OPCW mission people has yet to deploy to the city of Douma according to the organization’s Chief, citing pending security issues.

“The Team has not yet deployed to Douma. The Syrian and the Russian officials who participated in the preparatory meetings in Damascus have informed the FFM Team that there were still pending security issues to be worked out before any deployment could take place. In the mean …

Is This as Good as It Gets for the Big Banks?

The laggards of American banking are at last producing unambiguously good results. The challenge for the banks now is to prove they can deliver healthy profits in less than ideal conditions.

Why WPP Is Better Off Without Martin Sorrell as CEO

WPP faced serious disruption to its business long before CEO Martin Sorrell stepped down. His exit won’t clear away those problems, but it might set the company on the path to addressing them.

Bristol-Myers Has Farther to Fall

Bristol-Myers Squibb shareholders have a valuation problem after releasing mixed clinical data in a carefully watched trial for patients with lung cancer.

The Tell: Stop! Read these two paragraphs before making your next trading decision

In his book “Stock market profit without profit,” Edgar Genstein offered up two of the most important paragraphs ever written on investing, according to Jeffrey Saut, chief investment strategist at Raymond James.

CryptoWatch: Can blockchain technology live up to the hype? Barclays analysts say no

The revolutionary blockchain technology hasn’t yet lived up to the hopes and dreams of advocates, who are aspiring to put to use the secure, cost-efficient infrastructure that it promises.

Currencies: Dollar slips as traders shrug off Syria strikes, but geopolitics remain in focus

The U.S. dollar starts the week in a defensive posture versus major rivals, as traders appeared to perceive U.S.-led airstrikes on Syria over the weekend as an isolated event.