02May2018 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street’s Three Major US Benchmark Indexes Are Set To Open Slightly Lower, WTI Crude Trading In The Low 67 Handle

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are broadly higher today with shares in Germany leading the region. The DAX is up 1.33% while London’s FTSE 100 is up 0.39% and France’s CAC 40 is up 0.20%.

Apple bumps up futures ahead of Fed decision

(Reuters) – Apple’s forecast-beating results helped U.S. stock futures edge higher on Wednesday, even as investors were wary ahead of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision.

Close Xi aide to meet U.S. trade delegation in Beijing

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, Vice Premier Liu He, will meet a top-level U.S. trade delegation in Beijing this week, the government said on Wednesday, amid a festering dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

EU will not negotiate U.S. tariffs under threat: EU’s Juncker

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Wednesday the European Union will not accept threats in talks with the United States to secure a permanent exemption from U.S. import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

GM to provide loans to Korean unit, state-run bank to receive shares: sources

SEOUL (Reuters) – General Motors’ planned $3.6 billion cash infusion to rescue its South Korean business will be in the form of loans, while Korea Development Bank (KDB) will receive preference shares for its $750 million investment in GM Korea, two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Chesapeake beats on profit as combined costs fall

(Reuters) – Chesapeake Energy Corp’s quarterly profit exceeded analysts’ estimates on Wednesday, as it produced more oil and natural gas at higher prices while continuing to lower costs, pulling shares in the company around 3 percent higher.

Apple surprises with solid iPhone sales, announces $100 billion buyback

(Reuters) – Apple Inc on Tuesday reported resilient iPhone sales in the face of waning global demand and promised $100 billion in additional stock buybacks, reassuring investors that its decade-old smartphone invention had life in it yet.

Unilever defends move to Dutch HQ

LONDON (Reuters) – Unilever defended its plan to move its headquarters to the Netherlands at what could be its last London annual general meeting on Wednesday, saying the decision had nothing to do with protectionism or Dutch takeover rules.

Tech shares bask in Apple glow despite Fed trepidation

LONDON (Reuters) – Forecast-beating results from the world’s biggest company, Apple, lifted tech shares on Wednesday, putting Wall Street on track for a firmer session despite some trepidation over a Fed meeting later in the day.

Exclusive: UTC set to win EU approval for $23 billion Rockwell Collins deal – sources

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – U.S. aerospace and industrial company United Technologies Corp is set to win EU approval for the largest aerospace deal in history – a $23 billion bid for avionics maker Rockwell Collins , people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

Moving Average Bounces Getting Weaker And Weaker: Mish Warns “Major Carnage Coming”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Bounces off the 200 Day exponential moving average lines keep getting weaker for all the major indexes.

S&P Daily

Russell 2000 Daily

ADP Prints Weakest Jobs Gain Since November (After March’s Biggest ‘Miss’ In 7 Years)

Following March’s big disappointment in BLS (and surge in ADP), perhaps today’s better than expected print for April of +204k (+198k exp) is less relevant than ever. Service-providing jobs rose 160k, goods-producing rose 44k, and March’s hot number was revised lower (from 241k to 228k).

Jobs rose in every cohort except “Information”…

“The labor market continues to maintain a steady pace of strong job growth with little sign of a slowdown,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, vice president and co-head of the ADP Research Institute.

“However, as the lab …

Apple Spent A Record $22.8BN On Buybacks In Q1, More Than Market Cap Of Most Companies

Critics of President Trump’s tax reform plan said corporations would just use the massive piles of cash repatriated under the new tax law to buy back more stock. And, as it turns out, Apple has proven them right.

During the first quarter, the iPhone maker bought back $23.5 billion of its shares, a record amount for any US company. And, the reason why the stock is higher this morning, is that the company isn’t nowhere close to being finished, as in its quarterly report Apple announced that it would earmark $100 billion for a new share-repurchase program.

Apple also doled out another $3.2 billion in dividends.

Apple’s buybacks were a direct result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed by Republican lawmakers in December. The law allowed Apple to repatriate more than $250 billion held overseas.

But in what’s perhaps the most shocking statistic, the amount of stock bought back by Apple is larger than the market capitalization of more than half – 275 to be exact – of the 500 companies in the S&P 500 index, including household names like Kroger, Best Buy and Hershey, according to

Greg “The Big Short” Lippmann Says Corporates Will Cause The Next Crisis

Former Deutsche Bank trader Greg Lippmann is best known for having worn t-shirts with the logo “I am short your house” just before the financial crisis hit, and the US housing market imploded (making Lippmann very rich in the process). Logically, he is also very well-known for designing the trade against subprime mortgages that became known as the Big Short.

Well, Greg “The Big Short” Lippmann is back with a new warning, telling Bloomberg that the next crisis will emerge from corporate debt (hardly a surprise to regular readers).

Speaking at the Milken Conference, the former MBS trader who now runs his own, $3 billion hedge fund LibreMax Capital, told Bloomberg’s Erik Shatzker that corporate debt and equities will face the biggest pain when the next downturn comes; meanwhile unlike the last crisis, investments linked to consumer debt should be relatively safe as companies have been the ones gorging the most on the ultra cheap interest rates during the past decade (alas, this is yet another analysis that avoids the impact of student and auto loans, which have taken consumer debt to new all time highs).

“If the first quarter’s volatility is a harbinger of something bigger, I think that you’re going to see a lot more trouble in the corporate market and the equity market than the structured products market,” Lippmann said during a Bloomberg interview in Beverly Hills. “The consumer is in much better shape than corporates. Consumers are less levered than they were pre-crisis. Corporates are more levered than they were pre-crisis, and I think structured products are not going to be the epicenter.”

Slippery Way to Grab a Slice of the Next Google

Everyone can be a venture capitalist. It is a seductive idea, conjuring up a rarefied world of Silicon Valley billionaires seeding the next Amazon or Airbnb. But “equity crowdfunding” opportunities have yet to prove their value to investors.

Big Pharma’s Strategy Is Music to Biotech Investors’ Ears

Big Pharma bosses say they are willing to invest for the long run. That means high prices for promising biotech stocks aren’t likely to fall any time soon.

Companies Cry the Transportation Blues

Company after company is complaining that the tight labor market is making it harder and more expensive for them to get their products to customers, creating a potential drag on profits

Market Extra: Here’s how the Fed could spook the market

The Fed is virtually certain to leave rates unchanged Wednesday, but tweaks to the policy statement’s language on inflation could spark jitters, analysts and investors say.

Economic Report: U.S. adds 204,000 private-sector jobs in April, ADP report shows

Employers added 204,000 private-sector jobs in April, according to an ADP report released Wednesday.

How investors could get ahead of Trump scrapping the Iran nuclear deal

Nigam Arora says investors should hold certain oil stocks and ETFs if the supply is disrupted.