02Jan2019 Market Close: Wall Street’s Tumultuous Session Finally Closed In The Green, DOW Closed Up 19 Points, WTI Settled In The Mid 46 Handle, US Dollar Index Trended Higher To 96.40

Wall Street edges up; economic concerns cap gains

Wall Street edged nominally higher on Wednesday after stumbling out of the starting gate on the first trading day of the new year as bargain-hunting was offset by fears of a global economic slowdown.

Tesla shares drop on price cut, disappointing Model 3 deliveries

Shares in Tesla Inc dropped as much as 9 percent on Wednesday on worries of future profitability, after the electric car maker cut U.S. prices for all its vehicles to offset lower green tax credits, while falling short on quarterly deliveries of its mass-market Model 3 sedan.

Oil volatile, ends up 2 percent but demand concerns still weigh

Oil prices rose about 2 percent in choppy trading on Wednesday, supported by a slight recovery on Wall Street, even as concerns remained about weakening global economic growth which could hurt demand for oil.

Global growth worries, higher oil flatten yield curve

The Treasury yield curve flattened on Wednesday afternoon as shorter-dated yields rose on higher oil prices, while at the long end, the benchmark 10-year U.S. government bond was driven to an 11-month low by concerns about a global growth slowdown.

Stocks pare losses but economic concerns linger

Stocks recovered much of their losses on Wednesday as investors took advantage of cheaper shares to ring in the new year, but lingering economic concerns from weak Chinese and European data boosted safe-haven assets including benchmark U.S. Treasury notes and the Japanese yen.

Google wins U.S. approval for new radar-based motion sensor

Alphabet Inc’s Google unit won approval from U.S. regulators to deploy a radar-based motion sensing device known as Project Soli.

Drug companies greet 2019 with U.S. price hikes

Drugmakers kicked off 2019 with price increases in the United States on more than 250 prescription drugs, including the world’s top-selling medicine, Humira, although the pace of price hikes was slower than last year.

GM sold 200,000 electric vehicles in U.S. by 2018, triggering tax-credit phaseout: source

General Motors Co hit 200,000 total electric vehicles sold in the United States by the end of 2018, reaching a threshold that triggers a phase-out of a $7,500 federal tax credit over the next 15 months, a person briefed on the matter said Wednesday.

Netflix poaches Activision’s Neumann for CFO role

Netflix Inc said on Wednesday it had appointed media finance veteran Spencer Neumann from Activision Blizzard as its chief financial officer.

Stocks Rebound From Early Rout, But Yield Curve Crushed On Global Growth Scare

Trump et al. were quick to reassure markets again that trade talks were going “very well”…

China was not happy overnight (ugly PMI data)…

Europe was not having a bonne annee… (ugly PMI data) but then ramped back to unch along with US stocks (France was down)

Because nothing says BTFD (to the worst start to a trading year since 2001) like dismal US, EU, and …

Stocks Slide After OCC Unexpectedly Says US Banks “Well Positioned” For Crisis

Curious what prompted US stocks to swoon lower around 2:45pm, having traded closely around the unchanged line? It may have been a reported by Reuters according to which the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said that the U.S. banking system has “strong capital and liquidity” and is “well-positioned” to manage more adverse market conditions.

If this sounds suspiciously close to what Steven Mnuchin said the weekend ahead of the Christmas Eve market massacre when, inexplicably, the Treasury Secretary announced that US bank liquidity levels are sufficient and that he had spoken to bank CEOs and summoned the Plunge Protection team, is because it is. Readers will hardly need a reminder that the market’s response to Mnuchin’s statement was one of shock: after all, nobody had even suggested that there may be any concerns with US bank, so Mnuchin’s statement stunned everyone, and prompted question about what if anything may be wrong with US banks for Mnuchin to try to “calm” markets in such a bizarre way which was last deployed during the financial crisis.

Well, now it was the OCC’s turn.

In a statement to Reuters, OCC spokesman Bryan Hubbard said the banking regulator was monitoring the effects of falling stock markets on the nearly 1,300 institutions it oversees and would share any relevant systemic information with fellow supervisors through the appropriate interagency forums.

“The federal banking system … is strong with capital and liquidity near historical highs and improved earnings and risk management. From this strength, the federal banking system is well positioned to manage more adverse market conditions.”

He added that OCC expects supervised institutions to understand exposures within their portfolios and take appropriate action to mitigate any risks, although just like in the case of Mnuchin, it was not at all obvious why the OCC would address bank liquidity levels …

China Issues A Stark Warning About Its Housing Sector

Something is afoot with China’s housing sector.

On Christmas Day 2018 we reported that the chairman of a leading Chinese state bank warned Chinese investors not to buy property now because “there’s no money to be made” due to high prices and alarming vacancy rates (an ominous development we first discussed last month in “The “Nightmare Scenario” For Beijing: 50 Million Chinese Apartments Are Empty”).

Offering some surprisingly blunt advice which would appear counterproductive to his business model – after all Guoli is incentivized to make as many mortgages as possible – Tian said that “there’s no money to be made if you buy a flat nowadays. If you insist on buying a home, aren’t you trapped at the high price level?” The CCB Chairman was speaking at a forum organixed by Peking University’s Guanghua school of management.

As the SCMP reported, the warning by Tian, who is an alternate member of the Communist Party Central Committee, came at a time when the country is in heated debate about the role of the property market – whether it will lead to an bust or whether it can help shore up the economy.

Now, in the latest warning about China’s housing sector, the Communist Party’s People’s Daily warned on Wednesday that China’s regional economies need to reduce their reliance on the property market for growth and instead focus on sustainable longer-term development.

The story is familiar: in recent year, hundreds of cities across China have seen upswings in their local property markets under a long-term plan by Beijing to further urbanize the country. The process of building new homes and revamping old ones has only accelerated i …

FBI Probing Theft Of 18,000 Documents Linked To Sept 11 Attacks

The FBI is investigating the theft of 18,000 documents related to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center by a hacking collective known as The Dark Overlord, according to FT, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Posting under the name “The Dark Overlord”, the hacker or hackers claimed on New Year’s Eve that they had taken emails and non-disclosure agreements relating to the 9/11 attacks that were sent and received by groups including insurers Hiscox and Lloyd’s of London and the law firm Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin, now called Husch Blackwell.

The Dark Overlord said it would sell the documents for bitcoin, inviting Isis, al-Qaeda and nation states to bid for them online. -FT

“Pay the fuck up, or we’re going to bury you with this. If you continue to fail us, we’ll escalate these releases by releasing the keys, each time a Layer is opened, a new wave of liability will fall upon you,” reads the hacking group’s demand letter.

“If you’re one of the dozens of solicitor firms who was involved in the litigation, a politician who was involved in the ca …

November 2018 CoreLogic Home Prices Up 5.1% Year-over-Year

Written by Steven Hansen

CoreLogic’s Home Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices in the USA are up 5.1 % year-over-year year-over-year (reported up 0.4 % month-over-month). CoreLogic HPI is used in the Federal Reserves’ Flow of Funds to calculate the values of residential real estate. The quote of the day was in this data release:

…. The rise in mortgage rates has dampened buyer demand and slowed home-price growth …. Home sellers are responding by lowering their asking price, which is reflected in the slowing growth of the CoreLogic Home Price Index ….

Key Words: Man who called Dow 20,000 says if ‘we avoid a recession, we’re going to have a really good’ stock market

The Wharton professor who forecast that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would soon see 20,000 at the end of 2015, says a combination of a better-than-expected corporate and economic results should embolden bulls in the near term.

Trump Today: President calls Syria ‘sand and death’ but backs off from quick pullout

President Donald Trump defended his foreign policy positions during his first cabinet meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, backing away from a quick U.S. pullout from Syria and asserting that there would be a “big fat war in Asia” if he had not met with North Korea’s leader in Singapore.

Capitol Report: After insider trading charges against a congressman, House set to ban members from serving on corporate boards

When Rep. Chris Collins was charged in August with insider trading, it sparked a push to bar House members from serving on the boards of publicly traded companies. The ban could come shortly.