Feds Prepare To Bail Out “Vast Majority” Of 90,000 Sears Pensions

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC) said in a Friday press release that it believes Sears Holdings Corp's "continuation of the plans is no longer possible" following the Company's October bankruptcy, after it was revealed in a Friday filing that Chairman Eddie Lampert's $5.2 billion rescue package does not include pension plans.  PBGC, a government agency, covers ...

US Stocks Led Last Week’s Rebound

Global equities, real estate and commodities posted solid gains last week, offsetting losses in bonds. Overall, it was a mixed week for the major asset classes, but an upside bias clearly dominated. Vanguard Total Stock Market (VTI) topped the winner’s list for the trading week ended Friday, Jan. 18. The ETF rose 2.9%, marking the fourth straight weekly increase and lifting the fund to its highest close since Dec. 4. According to one analyst’s...

Chinese Data and UK Brexit Start New Week

Overview: Mixed data from China and the anticipation of Prime Minister May's "Plan B" are the main talking points, while US stock and bond markets are closed today.  Asia Pacific equities were higher, while European markets have failed to follow suit.  Benchmark 10-year bond yields are mostly softer, with the on-the-run Japanese Government Bond yield dipping back into negative territory.  The US dollar is narrowly mixed, gaining a...

There is No Plan B: Theresa May to Resubmit Plan A on Monday

UK Parliament gave Theresa May three days to come up with Plan B. Instead, she will represent Plan A. Diplomatic Eye-Rolling Theresa May has left European diplomats in a state of “disbelief” following a series of phone calls to EU leaders in which she made no change to her demands despite her Brexit plan being voted down by a 230-vote margin this week. Senior EU diplomatic sources said that Mrs May’s unchanged stance was “greeted with...

Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee, December 18-19, 2018

The Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday released the attached minutes of the Committee meeting held on December 18-19, 2018. A summary of economic projections made by Federal Reserve Board members and Reserve Bank presidents for the meeting is also included as an addendum to these minutes. The minutes for each regularly scheduled meeting of the Committee ordinarily are made available three weeks after the...

Behind USD Rise and 3 Options for Brexit Plan B

Behind USD Rise and 3 Options for Brexit Plan B Daily FX Market Roundup Jan 18, 2019 The U.S. dollar traded higher against all of the major currencies today with the exception of the Canadian dollar because as it turns out, the U.S. government shutdown has been good for the dollar and stocks. Outside of the decline on the first day of 2019 trade, there has not been a down day for the Dow or S&P. But don’t mistaken the government shutdown...

Oil: A huge drop in rig counts

A few comments from Steven Kopits of Princeton Energy Advisors LLC on January 18, 2019:• A huge drop in oil rig counts, -21 to 852• Horizontal oil rig count collapsed, -17 to 765• The Permian lost 10 horizontal oil rigs, ‘Other US’ lost 16• Curiously, the Williston (+2), the Eagle Ford (+2) and the Cana Woodford (+5) all gained horizontal oil rigs• Breakeven to add rigs fell rose to $61 WTI compared to $52.60 WTI on the screen as of the...

Schrödinger’s Staredown

Friends, the gyre has widened. Again. In September, Ben wrote a Brief called Schrödinger’s Senate Hearing. It explored the effect of the widening gyre on our conscious intellectual processes – on our capacity to effectively reason. Presenting the Kavanaugh confirmation in terms of Schrödinger’s Cat, Ben showed how political polarization makes it nearly impossible for us to entertain, much less maintain, a probabilistic framework for...

The West’s Descent into ‘Cultural Revolution’

The goal of the Cultural Revolution isn't to persuade, it's to enforce compliance. A Cultural Revolution is a movement designed to preserve the political and financial power of a ruling elite by social rather than political or financial means. Thus the primary tools of a Cultural Revolution are not redistributing power via elections (politics) or financial reforms; the primary tools are public shaming and denouncements, purges of those in...

Weekly Indicators for January 14 – 18 at Seeking Alpha

- by New Deal democratMy Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.Evidence of the government shutdown may have shown up in tax withholding payments.As always, clicking over and reading brings you fully up to date, and puts a penny or two in my pocket to reward me for my efforts.

Could Trump Have a Point about Rate Hikes?

(Cross-posted from The Next New Deal at The Roosevelt Institute.) At its December meeting, the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate a quarter point. The move, while widely expected, represented a clear rebuke to President Trump, who has repeatedly urged the Fed to keep rates low. He took to Twitter after the move to attack Fed head Jerome Powell as a golfer who has no touch (“he can’t putt”)—strong words in the president’s social...

17/1/19: Why limits to AI are VUCA-rich and human-centric

Why ethics, and proper understanding of VUCA environments (environments characterized by volatility/risk, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) will matter more in the future than they matter even today? Because AI will require human control, and that control won't happen along programming skills axis, but will trace ethical and VUCA environments considerations.Here's a neat...

Revisiting Hong Kong (For Reasons We Wish We Wouldn’t Have To)

This is perhaps the perfect day to review what’s going on in Hong Kong (thanks J. Fraser). I’ll be in Vancouver over the weekend to talk about curves, so why not preface it with a little HKD update. With everyone focused elsewhere, the story of 2017, in my view, wasn’t so big in 2018. For reasons that will further disturb Economics convention the city is making a comeback in 2019 (really last December). This is what happened today: A string of...

Stock Exchange: Bear Market Relief Rally?

The Stock Exchange is all about trading. Each week we do the following: discuss an important issue for traders;highlight several technical trading methods, including current ideas;feature advice from top traders and writers; andprovide a few (minority) reactions from fundamental analysts.We also have some fun. We welcome comments, links, and ideas to help us improve this resource for traders. If you have some ideas, please join in!...

The 20 Most Valuable Companies in the World – Jan 2019

This post lists the 20 publicly traded companies with the largest market capitalization as of today. Since my November 2017 list of the 20 most valuable stocks the value of 2 companies increased by more than $150 billion and 4 companies value decreased by over $100 billion. In the 20 most valuable companies list there are 13 USA companies, 4 Chinese companies and 1 each for Korea, Netherlands and Switzerland. The remaining 15 companies with...

The Oversight Options Available to the House Ways & Means Committee

Earlier this month, Richard Neal, the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the one Democrat with the power to obtain Trump’s tax returns, announced his intention to slow-walk the process of requesting the President’s returns. We here at the Revolving Door Project believe this game has already gone on long enough. ...

3rd Quarter GDP Grew at a 3.4% Rate Because Inventories Grew at a 31.9% Rate

The Third Estimate of our 3rd Quarter GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicated that our real output of goods and services increased at a 3.4% annual rate in the quarter, revised from the 3.5% growth rate reported in the second estimate last month, as growth in personal consumption, fixed investment, and exports were revised lower than was previously reported even as the change in our inventories was a greater addition to GDP than in...

2:00PM Water Cooler Martin Luther King Day 2019

Dear patient readers, since this is both a travel day for me and Martin Luther King Day, I’m going to be lazy and put up some MLK material only. Tomorrow I will return at full force. Talk amongst yourselves! –lambert * * * By Lambert Strether of Corrente. That was then: The FBI's 'suicide letter' to #MLK “There is only one thing left for you to do,” the author warns vaguely in the final paragraph. “You know what it is.” Part of J. Edgar...

Should Retirees Worry About Bear Markets?

Michael’s assumptions on expanding inflationary pressures later in retirement is correct, however, they don’t take into account the issue of taxation. So, let’s adjust Kitces’ chart and include not only the impact of inflation-adjusted returns but also taxation. The chart below adjusts the 8% return structure for inflation at 3% and also adjusts the withdrawal rate up for taxation at 25%. By adjusting the annualized rate of return for the...

S&P 500 Snapshot: Up 1.32% from Thursday, 6.5% YTD

[unable to retrieve full-text content] The S&P 500 closed Friday up 1.32% from Thursday and up 2.87% from last Friday. The index is up 6.54% YTD and out of correction territory for the first time since mid-December.

As IMO 2020 lures newcomers to bunker sector, profit is far from guaranteed: Fuel for Thought

A pharmaceutical company’s ill-fated attempt to focus on trading bunker fuel derivatives highlights the unpredictability that IMO 2020 has injected into oil markets. Having sold off its opioids business the previous year, in early 2018, Norway’s Vistin Pharma announced it would set up a new oil trading unit focusing on profiting from the International Maritime Organization’s lower sulfur limits for shipping in 2020. Ten months and $9.8 million...

Government debt down to 86.1% of GDP in euro area

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Gold Slips to One-Month Low As Investors Jump Back Into Equities

Gold futures slipped to their lowest levels in a month as investors have renewed their interest in the equities market. With a greater risk appetite among traders, precious metals have not garnered the same amount of attention in recent sessions, which could explain last week’s decline. February gold futures tumbled $3.10, or 0.24%, to $1,279.50 per ounce at 16:42 GMT on Monday. Gold prices suffered a 1% weekly loss, bringing the yellow...

Personal Income and Outlays, November 2018

Personal income increased $40.2 billion (0.2 percent) in November according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Disposable personal income (DPI) increased $37.8 billion (0.2 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $54.4 billion (0.4 percent). Real DPI increased 0.2 percent in November and real PCE increased 0.3 percent. The PCE price index increased 0.1 percent. Excluding food and energy, the...

A rare “what’s my credit card limit” buy signal

The Zweig Breadth Thrust (ZBT) is a variant of the IBD Follow-Through day pattern, but on steroids. Steven Achelis at Metastock explained the indicator this way [emphasis added]: A “Breadth Thrust” occurs when, during a 10-day period, the Breadth Thrust indicator rises from below 40% to above 61.5%. A “Thrust” indicates that the stock market has rapidly changed from an oversold condition to one of strength, but has not yet become overbought....

Why Won’t the Fed Raise Rates?

Guest post by Norman Mogil When the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets in the coming week, there will be pressure from various quarters to raise the federal funds rate. Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan, has stated blankly “Let’s just raise rates."  Furthermore, he has said a quarter point is just a “drop in the bucket."  We know where the big money banks stand on the issue. They need higher rates to achieve...

Here’s What is Happening in the Economy Right Now

[embedded content]Jordan Roy-Byrne: Welcome back to The Atlas Investor podcast with Tiho Brkan. Thank you so much for tuning in today for episode number 22, Tiho, and in this episode, I know you want to cover the global economic situation and what’s going on. Please tell us why you think it’s important to cover that right now.Tiho Brkan: Hello, everybody. Hello, Jordan. I hope you’re doing well. Thank you for having me on for another podcast....

How Democrats Should Counter Trump

The Dems need to counter Trump. It’s a no-brainer.   They can draw it up with a crayon. Open the government (a deal breaker) $2 billion for border security Complete resolution of DACA, including a path to citizenship The president can’t win politically but the above provides Trump with a way out of the corner he has painted himself into.  Intense negotiations begin on  #2 and #3 provided the government opens on Monday. Not A Normal Negotiator...

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