31May2018 Market Close: Wall Street Closes Lower, DOW Down 252 Points, WTI Crude Slides Again Into The High 66 Handle, Gold Index Slips

U.S. hits allies with tariffs as risk of trade war rises

WASHINGTON/PARIS (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday said it will impose tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union, reigniting investor fears of a global trade war as Washington’s allies took steps to retaliate against U.S. goods.

Wall St. slips as U.S. tariffs spark trade war worries

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Thursday after the United States moved to impose tariffs on metal imports from Canada, Mexico and the European Union, prompting retaliatory measures from some of its trading partners.

U.S. consumer spending accelerates; job market strengthening

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending posted its biggest gain in five months in April, a further sign that economic growth was regaining momentum early in the second quarter, while inflation continued to rise steadily.

Facebook says all directors elected, shareholder proposals rejected

BOSTON (Reuters) – All eight of Facebook Inc’s director nominees were elected at its annual meeting on Thursday, and all six shareholder proposals urging reforms, including to its voting structure and content oversight, were rejected, company executives said.

Goldman says market activity ebbs in second quarter

(Reuters) – Goldman Sachs Group Inc President David Solomon said on Thursday that second-quarter market activity had decreased from the first quarter, when heightened volatility helped Wall Street banks record huge profits.

SoftBank joins GM in self-driving car race; GM shares soar

(Reuters) – Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp will invest $2.25 billion in General Motors Co’s autonomous vehicle unit Cruise, the companies said on Thursday, a deal that validates the venerable Detroit automaker’s leadership in self-driving cars and sent GM shares up more than 10 percent.

Walmart launches order-by-text service to challenge Amazon Prime

BENTONVILLE, Ark. (Reuters) – Walmart Inc is starting a new same-day delivery service where customers can place orders using a text message, another step in its effort to scale up its e-commerce offerings and compete with rival Amazon.com Inc .

Exclusive: Russia’s Deripaska empire bets on mid-summer plan to escape U.S. sanctions

LONDON (Reuters) – The aluminium empire of Russian magnate Oleg Deripaska is in close contact with the U.S. Treasury, but needs until mid-summer to come up with a plan to meet U.S. requirements to escape sanctions, the chairman of its holding company told Reuters.

Workers to vote on ‘micro union’ at Boeing South Carolina plant

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A small group of workers at Boeing Co’s South Carolina jetliner factory is voting on Thursday on whether to form a “micro union,” despite efforts by Boeing to challenge the election.

Did You Sell In May?

May-hem: Small Caps Surge Most Since US Election As Crypto, Credit, & The Yield Curve Crash

It all started off quite calmly and then…

Or put another way…

May was quite a month. Here’s the high- (and low-) lights…

All major US Equity indices rose in May

Small Caps surged over 6% – best month since Nov 2016 (US election)

General Motors best month since Oct 2015 (thanks to Softbank)

Conte Reveals New Italian Government

With the fate of the Italian finance ministry post resolved amicable earlier in the day, Giuseppe Conte, Italy’s new prime minister, accepted the offer to form the new Italian government and revealed the following key members of the his cabinet:

DI MAIO NAMED NEW ITALY ECON DEV MINISTER, DEPUTY PREMIER

SALVINI NAMED NEW ITALIAN INTERIOR MINISTER, DEPUTY PREMIER

DI MAIO, SALVINI TO BE MINISTERS IN NEW ITALY GOV

SAVONA NAMED NEW ITALY EUROPEAN AFFAIRS MINISTER

TONINELLI NAMED NEW ITALY TRANSPORT MINISTER

GIORGETTI NAMED NEW ITALY PREMIER’S UNDERSECRETARY

But the most important nomination was the following:

GIOVANNI TRIA NAMED NEW ITALIAN FINANCE MINISTER

Why most important? Because Tria is the supposed compromise finance minister, replacing Savona, who will instead be in charge of European Affairs. And, as we noted earlier, Tria was expected to be far more moderate (read: “not Euroskeptic”) than Savona; and the moment his nomination was announced earlier in the day it sparked a sharp rally in Italian bonds ad stocks.

Italy’s designated finance minister, Giovanni Tria

13 Of 19 Bear Market Indicators Have Now Been Triggered – BofA

At the end of January, just as the S&P hit all time high, Bank of America caused a stir when it announced that one of its proprietary “guaranteed bear market” indicators created by the Bank of America quants was just triggered.

As we said at the time, what was remarkable about this particular indicator is that it predicted not only the size of the upcoming drop (-12% on average) but also the timing (over the coming three months). Also notable: its uncanny accuracy: it was correct on 11 out of 11 previous occasions after it was triggered.

This is what BofA said then:

BofAML Bull & Bear indicator surges to 7.9, highest since last sell signal >8 triggered Mar’13;

BofAML Bull & Bear indicator has given 11 sell signals since 2002; hit ratio = 11/11; average equity peak-to-trough drop following 3 months = 12% (backtested, Table 1); note the last Bull & Bear indicator flashed was a buy signal of 0 on Feb 11th 2016

And this was BofA’s conclusion: “a tactical S&P500 pullback to 2686 in Feb/Mar now very likely.”

In retrospect, BofA was absolutely spot on, with a 10% correction hitting the very next week, and another 10% correction hitting for a se …

Bitcoin For America: Cryptocurrencies In Campaign Finance

Authored by Kirill Bryanov via CoinTelegraph.com,

Last week, Secretary of State of Colorado Wayne Williams proposed a new set of rules for financing political campaigns, which now includes a section on cryptocurrencies. The original edition of the draft introduces the same caps for crypto donations as for fiat ones, while limiting anonymous contributions to $20. The move renders the overall picture of individual states’ handling political crypto contributions spottier than ever, as the last few months saw states adopting divergent approaches to the issue.

The Real End Game for CBS-Viacom

A little-noticed part of lawsuit says Redstone could sell a combined company and give up control.

Clean Bill of Health for Insurance Deals

WellCare’s planned acquisition of Meridian shows why small health insurers should bulk up.

Hong Kong’s Stock Market Is Running Short of Integrity

Leading lights of the hedge fund world have gathered in Hong Kong to float their big bets on stocks at the annual Sohn conference. One of their biggest challenges: The local market’s setup.

Capitol Report: Here’s what is behind Trump’s pardons

President Donald Trump has pardoned only five people to date, but analysts say he’s off to a start that suggests score-settling and a desire to stoke his political base.

Economic Report: Consumer spending surges for second straight month — inflation, not so much

Spending on consumer goods in April rose sharply for the second straight month, pointing to a pickup in the U.S. economy in the spring. Consumer spending jumped 0.6% in April.

Capitol Report: Trump steel tariffs to hit these 8 countries the hardest — and China isn’t one of them

Donald Trump plans to proceed with tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum in an effort to protect American producers, joining a long list of presidents who’ve tried to bring back steel jobs. None have succeeded.