22Oct2018 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street To Open Fractionally Higher, DOW Futures Up Almost 100 Points, WTI Slips To 69.10, US Dollar Index Trending Higher To The Mid 95’s

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 0.85% while Germany’s DAX is up 0.61% and France’s CAC 40 is up 0.39%.

Global banks curb China travel after UBS banker stopped from leaving

Global banks including Citigroup and Standard Chartered have asked their private banking staff to postpone or reconsider travel to China after authorities there prevented a UBS banker from leaving the country, sources said.

Bombardier sues Mitsubishi jet program over trade secrets

Canadian airplane maker Bombardier Inc has sued the aircraft unit of Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd , saying former Bombardier employees passed on trade secrets to help Mitsubishi’s oft-delayed regional jet project.

Hasbro results dented by lingering Toys ‘R’ Us woes, shares fall

Toymaker Hasbro Inc missed analysts’ estimates for quarterly revenue and profit on Monday, as the demise of major retail partner Toys ‘R’ Us hurt sales in the United States and Europe, sending its shares down 9 percent in early trading.

PayPal backs emerging markets lender Tala

PayPal Inc Holdings Inc has made a strategic investment in Tala, a financial technology startup that lends to underserved consumers in emerging markets, the companies said on Monday.

Oil holds near $80 as Saudi Arabia plans output increase

Oil hovered around $80 a barrel on Monday, lifted by a diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and the West, just two weeks before U.S. sanctions potentially choke off Iranian crude supplies.

French company Danone expects to triple size of plant-based business by 2025

French food group Danone expects to triple the size of its plant-based business to 5 billion euros ($5.75 billion) by 2025 as it pushes further into the field of healthy eating trends.

KKR’s Calsonic buys Fiat Chrysler parts firm Magneti Marelli for $7.1 billion

Japan’s Calsonic Kansei, owned by U.S. private equity firm KKR, has agreed to buy Fiat Chrysler’s Magneti Marelli for 6.2 billion euros ($7.1 billion) to form the seventh-largest independent car parts supplier.

Exclusive: Sears chairman Lampert seeks partner for bankruptcy financing – sources

Sears Holdings Corp Chairman Eddie Lampert is in discussions with at least one potential partner to contribute to a $300 million bankruptcy loan the U.S. retailer is seeking, people familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

Philip Morris stop-smoking campaign attacked as PR stunt

Marlboro cigarette maker Philip Morris International drew accusations of hypocrisy on Monday after using a four-page newspaper advertisement to urge smokers to quit cigarettes.

Russia Signals Renewed Arms Race, Says Scrapping INF Would Force It To ‘Restore Balance’

Now that President Trump has officially declared his intention to scrap the INF arms control treaty to remove constraints preventing the US from countering China’s menacing military presence in the Western Pacific, as well as what many military officials see as an increasingly belligerent Russia, Russian officials have predictably responded by repudiating accusations that Russia had violated the treaty. One official warned that, by scrapping the treaty, the US could force Russia to “restore the balance”, a veiled reference to developing even more dangerous weapons that would confirm fears that a modern “arms race” between the three global superpowers – the US, China and Russia – has already begun.

Per RT, Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said scrapping the deal would make the world “a more dangerous place.”

“Such steps [US quitting the deal], if they are undertaken, will make the world a more dangerous place.”

Peskov said Moscow remains committed to the accord and added that the US hasn’t taken any formal steps to abandon the agreement yet – though the New York Times has reported that the US government is preparing to officially not …

‘You’ Are Different This Time

Authored by John Coumarianos via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

You don’t always see a respected member of the financial commentariat argue that it’s different this time. But that’s almost what Morningstar’s Christine Benz has done in an excellent recent article.

What Benz means is that you’re different now than you were during past market cycles. More specifically, you’re older now than you were during the last market debacle, so you have less time to recover from another one if it should occur. That might not mean much if you were 10 in 2008 and 20 now. But it means a lot if you were, say, 50 in 2008 and 60 now or even 45 in 2008 and 55 now. If you’re five to 10 years from retirement, the risk of encountering a period when bonds outperform stocks is high enough – and dangerous enough to your retirement plans – so that you should reduce stock exposure.

The Math Is Different in Distribution

And, if you’re retired and withdrawing from your portfolio, the “sequence-of-return” risk – the problem of the early years of withdrawals coinciding with a declining portfolio – can upend your entire retirement. That’s because a portfolio in distribution that experiences severe declines at the beginning of the distribution phase, cannot recover when the stock market finally rebounds. Because of the distributions, there is less money in the portfolio to benefit from stock gains when they eventually materialize again.

I showed that risk in a previous article where I created the following chart representing thre …

Italy Responds To EU Commission, Admits Deficit Breach But Refuses To Budge

Initial relief over a favorable Moody’s downgrade of Italy, which pushed the rating just one notch above junk but kept the outlook stable (which in turn prompted the following sarcastic remark from Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid “If there’s one thing the outlook isn’t for Italy at the moment it’s stable but rating agencies are unlikely to want to create a vicious circle”) faded after Italy’s populist government promised it won’t let its budget deficit widen further than currently planned and called for dialogue with the European Union to address their differences.

In its letter response to the European Commission published Monday and seen by Bloomberg, Italy acknowledged Europe’s concerns about the budget, but refused to change the proposed plan.

Finance Minister Giovanni Tria said the government is ready to act to ensure it doesn’t exceed the 2.4% target for 2019, noting that he’s aware that his spending plans don’t comply with EU rules and he wants “constructive” talks with officials in Brussels.

The decision to increase spending was “difficult though necessary,” Tria said in his letter. He cited slow economic growth and the “difficult economic situation the poorest segments of the Italian society are facing.”

Seeking to placate Brussels, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, speaking in Rome, said the deficit target should be seen as an upper limit and it could still be narrower.

“We can still reassess during the budget implementation whether to contain the target so we don’t necessarily need to reach that 2.4%, for sure we won’t exceed it” Cointe said even as he refused to budge from the controversial target which assures that Italy remains on collision course with the EU.

As Bloomberg notes, Italy’s PM and finmin have both come under fire from officials and investors since bowing to pressure from Italy’s coalition heavyweights Matteo Salvini and Luigi D …

US Futures Rise After Chinese Stocks Soar; Italian Bonds Boosted By Moody’s

After some initial weakness early in the Monday session which pushed S&P futures as low as 2,750 on Sunday night, below their Thursday lows, animal spirits were rekindled and S&P futures rebounded by almost 30 points from session lows…

… with global stocks and futures generally a sea of green…

… after Chinese stocks extended the torrid Friday rally, soaring by 4.1% and jumping the most in three years after Beijing doubled down its pledge of support for the economy and companies which included promises of tax cuts and coordinated official statements of …

Consumer Giants’ Have an Emerging Market Problem

Big footprints in emerging markets are often considered the crown jewels of European consumer-products giants like Nestlé and Unilever. But the downside is apparent.

Wall Street’s Fear Gauge Flashes Green Again

Panic in the stock market is officially over—at least according to derivatives markets.

The Table Is Rigged Against Macau Stocks

Shares in major casino operators in the world’s largest gambling market have been tumbling, but it isn’t time for investors to up their bets.

Market Snapshot: Stock futures point higher as China equities rise; earnings in focus

Stock-index futures traded slightly higher Monday as global equities took a cue from a continued recovery in China’s markets. Investors are gearing up for a heavy week of earnings.

Futures Movers: Oil pauses for direction as traders monitor U.S.-Saudi tensions

Oil futures edge slightly higher Monday as investors keep an eye on U.S.-Saudi tensions over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Key Words: Gorbachev says Trump threat to ditch INF says more about Trump than about treaty

Mikhail Gorbachev, 87, reportedly sees President Donald Trump’s threatened U.S. pullout from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty as saying more about Trump than about the treaty.