03May2018 Market Close: Wall Street Closed Mostly Down, DOW Up 5 Points, SP 500 And Nasdaq Finish Lower After Volatile Session, WTI Crude Settles In The Mid 68 Handle

Ex-Volkswagen CEO Winterkorn charged in U.S. over diesel scandal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn was charged in federal court in Detroit with conspiring to mislead regulators about the German automaker’s diesel emissions cheating.

Wall Street mixed as weak earnings offset strong economic data

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks were mixed on Thursday, seesawing between positive and negative territory during the session as strong economic data offset disappointing earnings reports from several companies.

Musk’s conduct, Tesla stock slide make $700 million profit for short-sellers

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Short-sellers who had targeted Tesla Inc logged a $700 million paper profit on Thursday after the stock fell nearly 9 percent a day after Chief Executive Elon Musk stunned analysts by dodging “boring” questions about the electric car maker’s financial outlook.

Investors not convinced by AIG strategy; shares drop 6 percent

(Reuters) – American International Group Inc executives on Thursday defended their strategy for transforming the company, saying some key improvements would take hold by year-end, but failed to convince investors as shares slid more than 6 percent.

Last-minute Weinstein Co bidder returns with higher offer

WILMINGTON, Del. (Reuters) – Broadway producer Howard Kagan said he has raised his last-minute bid for the Weinstein Company in another push to acquire the TV and film producer, which filed for bankruptcy in the wake of harassment claims against co-founder Harvey Weinstein.

Last man standing: lonely Fed tightening spurs dollar surge

LONDON (Reuters) – As speculation about interest rate rises and policy ‘normalization’ in the euro zone, Japan, Britain and China falls away rapidly, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s now lonely monetary tightening has suddenly supercharged the dollar.

Trump praises China’s Xi as trade talks begin in Beijing

BEIJING (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday praised his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping as officials from the world’s two largest economies began trade talks in Beijing, while state media said China would stand up to U.S. bullying.

Spotify shares skid as inaugural results undermine Wall Street hype

(Reuters) – Music streaming service Spotify Technology SA’s shares fell 9 percent in early trading on Thursday as the company’s first quarterly report underwhelmed in the face of heightened Wall Street hype.

Sprouts ended Amazon Prime Now delivery partnership on May 1

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Sprouts Farmers Market Inc said on Thursday it ended its Prime Now delivery partnership with Amazon.com on May 1 and cut its full-year sales targets, sending shares of the U.S. supermarket chain down almost 12 percent.

Stocks Near Worst Start To A Year Since 2002; Bonds, Bitcoin, & Bullion Bid

Today’s market…

S&P and Dow both broke below their 200DMAs but the intraday chart of cash indices today shows the massive rebound off the 200DMA (that began as Europe closed)..

And took stocks back to unchanged… and by the miracle of machines and VIX crushing algos, The Dow closed green!!!

All thanks to a 50 point Dow rip in the last 90 seconds of the day…

ESPN Loses 500,000 Subscribers In 30 Days

ESPN lost nearly 17,000 subscribers a day in the month of April, costing them $48 million in annual revenue – and bringing the total subscriber count down to around 86 million, reports Outkick the Coverage.

Putting that into context, this is $48 million in revenue that ESPN has lost forever. (That’s $8 a month x 500,000 lost subscribers x 12 months in a year).

The loss in subscribers puts ESPN down to just north of 86 million, which is a precipitous decline from the 100 million subscribers the network had as recently as the end of 2011. -Outlook the Coverage

Not only is ESPN losing 17,000 subscribers PER DAY but ratings have imploded across the board — including the disastrous new WokeCenter AM (which is getting clobbered by Peppa the Pig). pic.twitter.com/6h27QSdiX8

— Outkick the Coverage (@Outkick) May 2, 2018

OtC’s Clay Travis says that part of the trend may be attributed to the fact that come tax season, penny pinching cable and satellite subscribers cut back, or “whether the end of the NFL, college football, and college basketball causes many sports fans to tune out for the summer.”

While the numbers of lost subscribers haven’t been as bad in the past few months, I suspect that’s because ESPN threw such a fit over last year’s numbers that Nielsen slowed down its subscriber attrition data for several months to make sure they weren’t off in their data measurements. -Outlook the Coverage

Here’s ESPN compared to other …

Bean Ban Blowback: Bunge CEO “China Deliberately Not Buying US Products”

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

In its trade dispute with the US, started by Trump, China is deliberately not buying US products.

Bunge Ltd. CEO Soren Schroder told Bloomberg on Wednesday China has essentially stopped buying U.S. supplies amid the brewing trade war. Bunge is the world’s biggest oilseed processor.

“They’re buying beans in Canada, in Brazil, mostly Brazil, but very deliberately not buying anything from the U.S.”

It’s “very clear” that the trade tensions have already stopped China from buying U.S. supplies, Schroder said.

“How long that will last, who knows? But so long as there is this big cloud of uncertainty, that’s likely to continue.”

Bunge has still been able to meet Chinese demand by filling shipments with supplies from outside the U.S., Schroder said. The White Plains, New York-based company has a large presence in South America.

Soybean Price

The futures symbol for soybeans is “ZS”. A chart shows the price of soybeans peaked in summer of 2012 near $1790.

Here’s Why The Goldman Of 2008 Would Be Shorting The Goldman Of 2018

Ten years ago, Goldman made a killing by betting – alongside some of its best clients such as John Paulson – against subprime Residential Mortgage Backed Securities (and their various synthetic and “squared” derivatives) and the various soon-to-be-bankrupt companies that lent money to subprime borrowers.

Now, a decade later, Goldman is once again hoping to profit off America’s sub-660 FICO population, only instead of betting against subprime borrowers, it is lending to them.

That’s right: Goldman is now a subprime lender itself, because through its retail-facing bank, which both collects deposits and issues loans, subprime borrowers have emerged as one of the most important client bases of the FDIC-backed hedge fund which until just 2 years ago had no conventional, retail-facing banking operations whatsoever.

However, as the contribution of prop, flow and FICC trading – historically Goldman’s bread and butter – to the company’s revenue declined as trillions in central bank liquidity removed risk and volatility from markets, Goldman was forced to find alternative revenue streams. As a result, over the past year and a half, Goldman built out a digital banking arm which it acquired from GE Capital Bank, and now has about $20BN in deposits and $2.4BN in unsecured consumer loans. The new business, named Marcus and which we profiled previously, is a key part of the bank’s plan to increase annual revenues by $5bn by 2020 after several years of lacklustre growth from its core businesses serving big companies, big investors and ultra-rich clients of its private-banking arm.

And herein lies the rub, because as the FT reports citing analysts, Goldman has been targeting riskier borrowers, supplying about one-fifth of its loans to people with credit scores below 660 on the commonly used FICO scale; there is a familiar name for this group of …

Apple’s iPhone Still Gushes Cash

Strong iPhone prices and services growth help Apple counter slowing unit sales.

What the Rising Dollar Says About Global Growth

Investors were happily betting on a synchronized global upswing, but that trade risks unwinding as economies appear to diverge.

Tesla Can’t Make Its Cash Problems Disappear

First-quarter results were grim, and conspicuously missing from its earnings release was a reference to how much cash Tesla burned.

March 2018 Manufacturing New Orders Improved

Written by Steven Hansen

US Census says manufacturing new orders improved, Our analysis shows the rolling averages were unchanged.

April 2018 ISM and Markit Services Again Mixed

Written by Steven Hansen

The ISM non-manufacturing (aka ISM Services) index continues its growth cycle but declined. Markit PMI Services Index improved and remains in expansion.

Economic Report: Jobless claims rebound only slightly from last week’s 49-year low

U.S. jobless claims rose a seasonally adjusted 2,000 to 211,000 in the week ended April 28, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The Fed: How the Fed’s removal of two words set off a firestorm of confusion

The Federal Reserve dropped ‘near term’ from its statement that risks are roughly balanced, setting off a debate over whether that was bullish or bearish.

Bond Report: Treasury yields fall after tepid eurozone inflation data spark German bund rally

Treasury yields retreat on Thursday by falling rates in European government bonds after eurozone inflation data came in weaker than expected.