11Jun2018 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street Starts Week Off Pointing Towards A Flat Opening, G-7 Meeting; N. Korea Summit In Focus, DOW Up Fractionally, WTI Crude Traded Lower In The 64 Handle Earlier

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are higher today with shares in London leading the region. The FTSE 100 is up 0.65% while France’s CAC 40 is up 0.12% and Germany’s DAX is up 0.04%.

‘Fair trade, fool trade’, Trump’s tweets spew ire on NATO allies, Trudeau

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump fired off a volley of tweets on Monday venting anger on NATO allies, the European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the wake of a divisive G7 meeting over the weekend.

Stocks, euro climb as calm in Italy overshadows chaotic G7

LONDON (Reuters) – European stocks climbed on Monday, shrugging off the weekend’s fractious G7 summit as investors looked forward to a week packed with diplomatic, policy and political events while reassuring comments from Italy pushed the euro up.

KKR to take Envision private in $5.57 billion

(Reuters) – KKR & Co said on Monday it will take U.S. physician services provider Envision Healthcare Corp private in a deal valued at $5.57 billion, its second major acquisition in less than two weeks.

Takeda shareholder group aims to block $62 billion Shire deal

TOKYO (Reuters) – A group of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd shareholders is trying to build support to block the $62 billion acquisition of London-listed Shire Plc at an extraordinary general meeting, a leading member of the group told Reuters on Monday.

KPMG fined $4.3 million in Britain over audit of Quindell

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s accounting watchdog fined KPMG 3.2 million pounds ($4.3 million) on Monday for failings in its audit of Quindell Plc, after the legal services firm twice restated its accounts leading to heavy losses.

Audi CEO named as suspect in German emissions probe

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – German prosecutors on Monday widened an emissions cheating probe into Volkswagen’s luxury carmaker Audi to include the brand’s Chief Executive Rupert Stadler among the suspects accused of fraud and false advertising.

Fed up with rising costs, big U.S. firms dig into healthcare

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Reuters) – At its Silicon Valley headquarters, network gear maker Cisco Systems Inc is going to unusual lengths to take control of the relentless increase in its U.S. healthcare costs.

Biotech’s Soon-Shiong hiring bankers for Nant cancer drug IPO

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong plans to take an experimental cancer treatment company public this year and has begun hiring bankers, the biotechnology entrepreneur told Reuters.

Rolls-Royce, preparing to cut thousands of jobs, says engine problem has spread

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Rolls-Royce said a costly compressor problem that had grounded Boeing planes had now been found in a different type of engine, compounding pressures on a group that is due to cut more than 4,000 jobs this week.

Musk Delivers 1,000 “Not a Flamethrower” Units: 20,000 Sold at $500 Each

Submitted by Mish Shedlock

It turns out, Elon Musk’s flamethrower idea was not a joke as Musk’s Boring Co. delivers first 1,000 flamethrowers to customers.

Six months after Elon Musk raised the eyebrows of sane people everywhere by announcing his Boring Co. would sell flamethrowers for $500 a pop, the first 1,000 deliveries were made Saturday for customers who showed up at the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif.

The flamethrowers went like, well, flaming hotcakes when they went on sale in late January, selling out in just four days. In all, 20,000 were sold, raising about $10 million in revenue for Musk’s tunnel-boring startup. The devices, technically called “Not a Flamethrower” to skirt federal shipping regulations, shoot a two-foot flame.

Despite concerns about the wisdom of allowing personal flamethrowers in wildfire-prone California, state legislators last month shelved legislation that would have required them to come with a safety warning.

Green Eggs …

“We’re Going To Have To Do Something”: Erdogan Warns Austrian Mosque Closures Could Lead To Religious War

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted Austria’s decision to close mosques and expel Turkish-backed Imams as anti-Islamic and promised a response, saying the measures announced by Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz could lead to a “war between the cross and the crescent.” Erdogan’s comments came a day after the Austrian government said it would expel up to 60 Turkish-funded imams and shut down seven mosques as part of a crackdown on “political Islam”, leading to widespread fury in Ankara.

“These measures taken by the Austrian prime minister are, I fear, leading the world towards a war between the cross and the crescent,” Erdogan said in a speech in Istanbul, suggesting that a return of the Ottoman Empire is among the many ambitious “to do” items in Erdogan’s calendar: after all that was the last time the “crescent” decided to take on the “cross”, and coincidentally, the Turkish ambitions reached as far as Vienna before the Hapsburgs crushed the Ottoman ascent.

Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), the junior partner in Austria’s coalition government, said the move concerned imams with alleged links to the Turkish-Islamic Cultural Association – or ATIB – a branch of Turkey’s religious affairs agency, Diyanet. Kickl said he suspects the organization of violating a ban on the foreign funding of religious organizations. A spokesman for Turkey’s president said on Friday that the decision was “a reflection of the anti-Islam, racist and discriminatory populist wave in this country.” At the time, Kurz claimed the decision was meant to fight radicalization and “parallel societies”.

Pompeo: Making “Rapid” Progress In Talks With North Korea Ahead Of Historic Summit

During a press briefing Monday in Singapore, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo assured reporters who were present that talks between the North Korean and US delegations in Singapore have progressed “rapidly” ahead of the historic summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un, with Pompeo adding that the talks were still taking place.

“Our ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim met today with [North Korean] Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui,” Pompeo told reporters at a press conference. “They are moving quite rapidly and we anticipate they will come to their logical conclusion even more quickly than we anticipated,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner reported that members of the US and North Korean delegations met for a few hours at the Ritz Carlton hotel to discuss the terms of denuclearization.

“North Korea has previously confirmed to us its willingness to denuclearize, and we are eager to see if its words prove sincere,” Pompeo said. He added that he is hopeful the summit “will have set the conditions for future productive talks” between Washington and Pyongyang.

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Futures Flat As Nervous Traders Hunker Down For “The Week From Hell”

Bulletin Headline Summary From RanSquawk

European bourses higher ahead of Trump/Kim summit and as Italy reiterates plans to stay in the Eurozone

Sterling slides as industrial production has biggest monthly fall since October 2012 and trade deficit widens

Looking ahead, highlights include 3- and 10-year note auctions from the US

The “most important week of the year” started off with a session that has been a study in contrasts, with risk-off trades emerging early on in Asian trading, as Asian markets and US futures slipped pressured by the higher Yen in the aftermath of this weekend’s G-7 debacle which resulted in a communique that for the first time ever, was not signed by the US; concerns about a potential trade war, however, quickly morphed into optimism as investors shifted their attention to the historic summit between U.S. and North Korea as well as the meetings by three of the world’s three most important central banks, with the EUR spiking ahead of what may be the ECB’s announcement that it will end QE in early 2019, while Sterling returns to center stage with tomorrow’s critical Brexit vote.

The net result has been an offset of extremes, with US equity futures flat, but don’t expect this to last: as Deutsche Bank’s Jim reid writes, “today is actually the calm before the storm” and we’ll at least be able to monitor the fall out from the tense and quite remarkable G7 meeting over the weekend or G6 vs US meeting as it could be called.

Helping boost sentiment, Italy’s new finance minister, Tria, gave a strong endorsement of the euro in comments over the weekend, prompting UBS to suggest that Italy’s disagreements with the EU seem more likely to focus on immigration than on economics. Italian bonds and stocks surged while helping the Euro rise to session higher hig …

Debt and Groceries Are an Unappetizing Mix

Groupe Casino’s big debt pile is causing problems as Parisians take to online grocery shopping.

Bidding for Fox Will Get Serious After Court Ruling

Not so long ago, Rupert Murdoch’s decision to sell the crown jewels of his media company, 21st Century Fox, looked like an acknowledgment that the sun was setting on his reign. Now, as Disney and Comcast prepare to do battle over those coveted assets, Mr. Murdoch looks set to go out in a blaze of glory.

Winners in Traditional Retailing Are Also Winning Online

Macy’s and Kohl’s are fighting back against Amazon, while Sears and J.C. Penney fall farther behind.

Market Snapshot: Stock-market futures edge lower as attention swings to Trump-Kim summit

U.S. stock futures edged lower Monday, as investors turned their attention to a highly anticipated summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore following a tense Group of Seven meeting over the weekend.

Doctor’s offices are a hot investment — what does that mean for profit vs. patient care?

Private-equity firms are buying doctor’s offices across the U.S. — but critics say profits are coming before patients, and driving up health costs.

Need to Know: What could propel S&P to 5,000-plus — think Trump

Our call of the day is looking some ways into the future and thanking Trump for what will likely be a doubled S&P 500 in five years.