02Jul2018 Midday Update: Energy Stocks, Trade Fears Weigh On Wall Street, DOW Down Triple Digits, Worries Of A Trade War Do Not Let Up, WTI Crude Prices Trending Higher, Gold Index Falling Sharply

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

Energy stocks, trade fears weigh on Wall Street

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks fell on Monday as a drop in oil prices dragged energy stocks lower, while the risk of an escalating tariff war between Washington and its trading partners continued to weigh on the broader market sentiment.

Largest U.S. business group attacks Trump on tariffs

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobbying group and customarily a close ally of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, is launching a campaign on Monday to oppose Trump’s trade tariff policies.

Tesla hits Model 3 production target, backs profit view

(Reuters) – Tesla Inc reaffirmed a positive cash flow and profit forecast for the year on Monday after achieving its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 electric cars in the final week of June.

Report of Trump bill rejecting WTO seen by trade experts as hot air

GENEVA (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered the drafting of legislation that would mean abandoning key disciplines agreed at the World Trade Organization, Axios news website reported late on Sunday, to a skeptical response from trade experts.

Dell makes move to go public again after months-long review

(Reuters) – Dell Technologies Inc is moving a step closer to becoming a public company again with a deal to buy the tracking stock of its majority-owned VMware unit, simplifying its balance sheet and ending a months-long review of the company.

U.S. fund managers zero in on software as tariffs upend tech sector

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Worries that a broadening trade war between the United States and China will upend the global supply chain are prompting some U.S. fund managers to buy shares of companies they believe will shield them from such disruptions.

Investors seek cover as trade battles rattle world markets

LONDON (Reuters) – Investors have sharply increased their use of hedging strategies, signaling concerns that the intensifying trade battle between the United States and China might hit economies from Germany to South Korea.

NYC taxi commission study backs pay rise for NYC Uber, Lyft drivers

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City’s cash-strapped Uber and Lyft drivers have been campaigning for bigger paychecks, and their effort got a boost on Monday from a study two economists conducted for the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

Volkswagen components business to become independent entity

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Volkswagen said its components development and manufacturing business would become an independent entity within the group from January 2019, alongside the VW Passenger Cars business and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles.

Martin Shkreli Starts A Blog, Teaches Discounting To Convicts, Offers Biotech Research From Prison

“America’s most hated man” Martin Shkreli may be serving a 7 year prison sentence (for various offenses among which having the temerity to raise drug prices, something which Pfizer just did today) but that does not mean he has any interest in disappearing from the public spotlight.

To confirm that, on July 1, Shrekli launched a new blog at the martinshkreli.com address (the URL was registered on May 5, 2015 with godaddy) in which he will share “My thoughts on biopharma and other topics like my friendship with my best friend mo she is seriously the best and i love her dog ringo i do not compare to him at all.”

This is how his first blog post begins:

Welcome to my first blog. I’ll be discussing biopharmaceuticals and other topics. I’ll try to mark sections clearly for those who are here for industry commentary as compared to my personal life.

He then lays out his thoughts on several recent developments in the biotech space, before highlighting that he is now teaching discount rates to convicted felons:

In teaching discount rates to some of the guys here, we find dogma like ‘sovreigns always have less default risk than corporates’, when obviously most S&P 100 companies have lower default risk than the Eastern European countries I come from. Or my notion that a conglomerate should always have (all else being equal) less default risk than an industry-focused company. Certainly GE has more default risk than Amgen. You can slap together a lot of low-margin businesses with leverage and you’re far less safe than a well-run industry leader. But, ceritus paribus, the Novartis move is risk-neutral since healthcare conglomerates aren’t really conglomerates. Having an eye healthcare business isn’t particularly diversifying other than somewhat eliminating concentration r …

The Most Important Geopolitical Meeting This Year

Authored by Venand Meliksetian via OilPrice.com,

Relations between the United States and Russia have deteriorated dramatically over the years due to Moscow’s intervention in neighbouring Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea. This change in foreign policy has some analysts talking about a ‘new cold war’. Moscow’s participation and support for President Assad of Syria put Russian interest and soldiers against America’s. One of the reasons the intervention took place during the height of the Ukraine crisis was the Kremlin’s intention to reduce the effectiveness of the isolationist policy of the West vis-à-vis Russia by making itself indispensable for solving the crisis.

The alleged meddling of Moscow in the American presidential elections of 2016 created a political minefield for President Donald Trump when trying to meet with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Although they have spoken several times on the fringes of international events such as the G20 gathering in 2017, an official bilateral visit has not yet been organised. Recent developments, however, ha …

Nassim Taleb Slams “These Virtue-Signaling Open-Borders Imbeciles” In 3 Short Tweets

As liberals across America continue to attempt to one-up one another with the volume of virtue they can signal, specifically on the question of ‘open borders’ – especially since ‘jenny from the bronx’ victory over the weekend, none other than Nassim Nicholas Taleb unleashed a trite 3-tweet summary of how farcical this argument is…

What intellectuals don’t get about MIGRATION is the ethical notion of SYMMETRY:

1) OPEN BORDERS work if and only if the number of pple who want to go from EU/US to Africa/LatinAmer equals Africans/Latin Amer who want to move to EU/US

2) Controlled immigration is based on the symmetry that someone brings in at least as much as he/she gets out. And the ethics of the immigrant is to defend the system as payback, not mess it up.

Uncontrolled immigration has all the attributes of invasions.

3) As a Christian Lebanese, saw the nightmare of uncontrolled immigration of Palestinians which caused the the civil war & as a part-time resident of N. Le …

CIA Teams Up With Defense Industry To Undermine Korea Negotiations

Via Disobedient Media

In a new development that will shock no one, factions within the CIA attempted for the second time in just over a month to undermine President Trump’s peace overtures towards North Korea by leaking information calculated to decrease confidence in Kim Jong Un’s willingness to earnestly negotiate.

On June 29, 2018, NBC News released a report quoting anonymous CIA officials who claimed that North Korea was increasing nuclear production at “secret sites” without providing any actual evidence for such claims. The report’s credibility is further weakened by the fact that it also cited reports from a think tank which has strong connections to the defense industry and other private special interests.

In disseminating their report, the CIA used NBC reporter Ken Dilanian as an outlet for leaks. As Disobedient Media previously reported, Dilanian was outed by the Intercept in 2014 as a CIA asset. In the aftermath of the disclosure, Dilanian’s previous employers at the Tribune Washington and Los Angeles Times disavowed the disgraced journalist. In at least one instance, the CIA’s instructions to Dilanian appears to have led to significant changes in a story that was eventually published in the Los Angeles Times.

Since that time, Dilanian has persisted in pushing articles written by former CIA officials who continue to perpetuate the “Trump-Russia” collusion narrative without any regard to facts, such as Steven Hall’s Washington Post article titled: “I was in the CIA. We wouldn’t trust a country whose leader did what Trump did.”

Tariffs Aren’t China’s Strongest Weapon Against the U.S.

China has yet to really deploy one of its most effective means of economic blackmail.

June 2018 Manufacturing Survey Growth Trends Mixed

Written by Steven Hansen

The ISM Manufacturing survey improved and continued in expansion. The key internals are in expansion but were softer. The Markit PMI manufacturing Index is in positive territory but declined.

May 2018 Headline Construction Spending Up But Inflation Adjusted Growth In Contraction

Written by Steven Hansen

The headlines say construction improved month-over-month but was below expectations. Our view disagrees.

Called to Account: Investors who paid attention to GE’s accounting saw trouble coming

General Electric Co.’s decline over the last year feels, to quote Ernest Hemingway, like it came slowly, then all at once, but investors who were paying attention to its financial reporting over the years shouldn’t be surprised.

Adamis has a partner to market its EpiPen competitor after a year-long search

Shares of biotech Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corp. soared more than 35% Monday, after the company said its search for a commercial partner for its competitor to Mylan N.V.’s EpiPen allergic reaction treatment is over.

Market Snapshot: Stocks fall broadly to start July on a negative note as trade war remains a risk

U.S. stocks mostly fell on Monday, opening the third quarter of 2018 on a negative note as trade tensions between the U.S. and its major trading partners continued to show signs of escalating.