Written by Gary
US stock index futures are fractionally higher today (SPY +0.05%), setting up Wall Street to build on a week-long rally.
Here is the current market situation from CNN Money | |
European markets are mixed. The FTSE 100 is higher by 0.07%, while the DAX is leading the CAC 40 lower. They are down 0.30% and 0.24% respectively. |
What Is Moving the Markets
Here are the headlines moving the markets. | |
Futures higher; healthcare, tech stocks in focus(Reuters) – U.S. stock index futures edged higher on Friday, setting up Wall Street to build on a week-long rally, but focus will be on technology and healthcare stocks after tepid results from Nvidia and President Donald Trump’s renewed focus on drug pricing. | |
Thomson Reuters beats estimates, sees higher 2018 revenue(Reuters) – Thomson Reuters Corp on Friday reported slightly higher-than-expected first-quarter sales and earnings, and forecast low single-digit growth in 2018 revenue in its remaining business. | |
Trump to sit down with major automakers on Friday on fuel rulesWASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will meet 10 major automakers at the White House on Friday to discuss the fate of landmark fuel efficiency standards and a looming confrontation with California and other major states. | |
Symantec shares set for worst fall in 17 years(Reuters) – Symantec Corp’s shares sank as much as 25 percent on Friday after the cyber-security firm said it was investigating concerns raised by a former employee but gave little other detail, puzzling investors and Wall Street analysts. | |
U.S. activist fund Elliott to vote against Hyundai restructuring planSEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. activist fund Elliott Management said it will vote against Hyundai Motor Group’s restructuring plan and urged other shareholders to reject the proposal to reform South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate. | |
Crypto concerns push Nvidia shares lower(Reuters) – Shares of Nvidia Corp fell 2 percent on Friday as investors worried that a short-term surge in demand for graphics chips from cryptocurrency miners may be undermining its core business with computer gamers. | |
Stocks set for strongest week since March, dollar erases week’s gainsLONDON (Reuters) – Shares rose worldwide on Friday, getting a boost from soft U.S. inflation numbers that helped soothe worries of faster Fed monetary tightening and pushed the dollar to its lowest for a week. | |
Exclusive: Banks to seek special exemptions for foreign staff post Brexit – sourcesLONDON (Reuters) – Global banks in Britain are calling for a special work visa waiver after Brexit to preserve the City of London’s standing as a top global financial center, two industry sources said, a move that would be more generous than the current arrangements. | |
South Korea takes more cautious view on GM Korea turnaround than U.S. automakerSEOUL (Reuters) – General Motors’ South Korean unit is expected to swing to a profit from 2022, state-run Korea Development Bank (KDB) said on Friday, offering a more subdued outlook for the troubled unit compared with the U.S. automaker which sees a profit from 2019. | |
Elon Musk Releases Video Of First Completed “Loop” Tunnel Under Los AngelesNow that NHTSA has joined the NTSB in probing the “secret sauce” inside Tesla’s unexpectedly inflammable batteries after the latest deadly Model S crash in which two teenagers were burned to death, trapped inside the electric vehicle, Elon Musk needed another distraction. He delivered it late on Thursday when the CEO released a video of the first completed tunnel that makes up the “Loop” electric transit network under Los Angeles, being currently built by Musk’s The Boring Company. As reported previously, the Boring Company had already completed a 305-feet (100 meters) tunnel with an entrance in SpaceX’s parking lot in Hawthorne last year when they also started working on extending the tunnel by 2 miles in Hawthorne toward the Los Angeles International Airport, according to a proposal with the municipality. With last nith’s update, it looks like they have now completed that tunnel. This is what Musk wrote on Instagram:
The post included a time-lapse video of movement through the Loop tunnel: | |
Beware Of The Coming Economic Debt BombAuthored by Peter Tanous, originally posted at The Street.com,
Sorry for the drama, but I need to get your attention. We know that the Fed has kept interest rates low for many years until recently. Why did it do so? Here are some of the reasons we have been told: The Fed wanted to stimulate the economy. The Fed wanted to make it easier for Americans to borrow. The Fed wanted to create a “wealth effect” to encourage spending. Which of these statements do you think explains the primary reason for the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates low? Don’t bother. It is none of the above. The primary reason the Fed kept interest rates low was to avert an economic catastrophe. Today, that catastrophe can no longer be avoided. The trigger for the economic explosion is the rising interest payments on the federal debt. | |
AT&T Paid Cohen Up To $600,000 For “Insight” On Time Warner MergerWhen Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti first leaked wire transfer records showing that corporations including AT&T, Novartis, Korea Aerospace and Viktor Vekselberg’s Columbus Nova had paid hundreds of thousands in “consultant” fees to Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen (which, it turns out, while frowned upon are perfectly legal in the Washington swamp, just as it is legal to “donate” millions to a Clinton charity to buy influence), we congratulated Cohen for having the sheer temerity to hustle major corporations into believing he knew something he did not (as all his brand new clients would soon find out). Then overnight, we learned that Cohen’s corporate hustling was even more remarkable than initially reported, with the WaPo reported that AT&T paid Cohen up to $600,000 for “insights” – about $400,000 more than that alleged by Michael Avenatti – and asked him to specifically look into its proposed $85 billion merger with Time Warner Inc as it sought government antitrust approval. | |
Cryptos Crushed By 24-Hour Triple-WhammyThe last 24 hours have not been pretty for cryptocurrency bulls… Around 1pmET, the entire space tumbled almost instantly as large blocks went through in Bitcoin, with chatter suggesting the MtGox custodian was unloading once again. Prices quickly stabilized once that selling pressure abated. However, shortly after the US market closed at 4pmET, Nvidia announced its results, posting quarterly sales that topped expectations. However, NVDA shares fell as the company revealed for the first time that a bigger-than-anticipated portion of the demand for its powerful graphics processors came from the volatile cryptocurrency market. And then the company said that while it generated $289 million in sales to cryptocurrency miners in the first quarter, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said that the company expects cryptocurrency-related revenue to fall 65% to about $100 million in the next quarter…sparking a second leg of selling pressure across the crypto-space. And then overnight the third ‘whammy’ of the triple whammy struck when South Korean prosecutors raide … | |
Why Box Office Flops Really, Really HurtThe share of box-office receipts by blockbuster movies has risen as shown by the Gini Coefficient, but that makes rare flops even more painful to the entertainment industry. | |
Still Too Early to Get Back on Wells Fargo’s WagonWells Fargo said it expects to remain longer than initially expected under an onerous asset cap. | |
What France’s Car Makers Have to Lose in IranPeugeot and Renault are among the few companies that have bet on Iran since the 2015 nuclear deal. Their history risks repeating itself. | |
Fed’s Bullard says households on same footing as employers in labor marketSt. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Friday that employers are on equal footing with suppliers of labor and the Fed should be careful not to interfere. | |
The Conversation: Silicon Valley’s idea of successful young entrepreneurs is all wrongThe most successful starters of new businesses are in their 40s, not their 20s | |
The New York Post: Job with Trump costs Giuliani position at his own law firm: reportRudy Giuliani resigned from his law firm after his partners got fed up with his bloviating defense of President Trump during a series of over-the-top media appearances, a new report indicated Thursday. |
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