Sleepwalking Higher
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DOW – 11 = 18,526
SPX -0.32 = 2186
NAS + 8 = 5283
10 Y – .01 = 1.54%
OIL + 1.34 = 46.80
GOLD – 4.40 = 1346.00
World stocks hit their highest in more than a year and the dollar fell against the yen. Emerging market shares led the charge, touching their strongest levels since July 2015. European shares reversed early losses. The Stoxx 600 index edged up 0.1 percent towards eight-month highs hit on Monday, led by a rise of almost 1 percent in oil and gas shares.
Euro zone government bond yields fell as some investors bet the weak U.S. data, which followed weaker-than-expected jobs numbers on Friday, would pressure the European Central Bank to ease monetary policy further. The ECB meets tomorrow. While US markets were mixed, the Nasdaq Composite hit another record high close.
In a follow-up to last Friday’s Jobs Report, the Labor Department released the JOLT survey, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover, which provides detail on the labor market. Job openings jumped to 5.87 million openings, an all-time high, while hires increased to 5.23 million from 5.17 million in June. The number of people quitting jobs voluntarily was flat at 2.98 million, but that’s still up substantially from the depths of the recession, signaling more worker confidence in the ability to find another job.
The Fed published its Beige Book, an anecdotal look at economic conditions around the country, designed to provide guidance two weeks ahead of the next FOMC policy meeting. Overall, the Beige Book had the same modestly positive tone seen in the last few surveys. The latest report gave no hint of a second-half surge in growth or any reason for urgency to raise interest rates. Six Fed districts reported tight labor markets but overall “wage pressures remained fairly modest.” Three districts reported businesses are cautious ahead of the elections.
It “makes sense to get back to a pace of gradual rate increases, preferably sooner rather than later,” San Francisco Fed President John Williams announced late Tuesday. He also said the economy was in “good shape,” predicting unemployment, now at 4.9%, to fall to 4.5% in 2017 and inflation to rise to the Fed’s 2% target in the next year or two.
Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker and Kansas City Fed President Esther George testified at a congressional hearing this morning. Lacker said, “It looks like the case for a rate increase is going to be strong in September.” George said during the hearing she believes the US labor market is at or near full strength. We keep hearing from Fed officials that a September hike is possible but nobody seems to believe what we hear, in part because the data doesn’t seem to support a hike.
British manufacturing fell sharply in the wake of Brexit. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed manufacturing production fell 0.9% in July, missing expectations of a 0.4% decline. While the reading was disappointing, it should be noted that production fell 0.2% in June and 0.6% in May.
Today is an Apple Event Day. I know you’re all excited, so here are the details: the iPhone 7 has two camera lenses (wide angle and telephoto), it does not have a headphone jack but it will ship with a headphone adapter, they also introduced their own wireless headphone, it is water resistant – so go ahead and toss your $649 phone into 50 meters of water without trepidation.
If nothing else, the iPhone 7 packs a punch. With 256 gigabytes of storage for its most powerful version, Apple’s new iPhone has 64 times the amount of space as the company’s original smartphone nine years ago. Increased storage is a critical piece in convincing consumers to upgrade, as anyone with a 12 gig iPhone 5 can attest. They also unveiled an iPhone 7 Plus for people who don’t want a phone that can fit in their pocket; plus, an Apple Watch 2 for some reason.
Separately, Ireland’s parliament today debated the government’s decision to appeal the €13-billion-euro tax ruling against Apple by the European Commission. They will collect the tax but they will hold the revenue in escrow while they appeal the decision.
South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping has won a temporary order from a U.S. judge extending bankruptcy protections so its vessels can dock at American ports without fear creditors will try to seize its ships. The world’s seventh-largest container carrier and its clients are scrambling to move an estimated $14 billion worth of cargo off ships that are no longer operating normally in the wake of its collapse last week.
More than half of Hanjin’s ships have been blocked from docking at ports and denied service from lashing firms on fears they will not be paid while some vessels have been seized by creditors. With expectations high that Hanjin will eventually be liquidated, there is little clarity on just how the problem of cargo stranded ahead of the peak-year end shopping season will be resolved.
Poland is seeking formal U.S. approval to buy eight Patriot missile defense systems from Raytheon, marking a key move toward closing the estimated $5 billion deal. If cleared, the country will become the 6th NATO Patriot country and the 14th Patriot partner nation. Raytheon has agreed to perform at least half the value of the work in Poland.
Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square hedge fund has taken a 9.9% stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill, the once high-flying company battered by food-safety issues. Pershing Square says the stock was undervalued and attractive. Chipotle shares have dropped about 40% over the past year. Ackman also left the board of Canadian Pacific on Tuesday, marking the end of a four-year tenure that helped overhaul the ailing railroad company.
Apache Corp. stock was among the top gainers today after the oil and gas company revealed an “immense” oil and gas reserve in west Texas. Apache estimated that its more than 300,000 contiguous acres in the region hold about 3 billion barrels of oil and 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It called the field Alpine High.
New York has opened a probe into whether Mylan broke antitrust law under its EpiPen4Schools program, which gives many schools the devices for free, but may have barred institutions from buying rival products for a year. Meanwhile, new reports suggest Mylan pays no more than $30 per EpiPen, while some patients are forced to pay a little over $600 for a two-pack of the lifesaving medication.
Department of Justice prosecutors are considering criminal charges against HSBC related to conduct on its foreign-exchange desk, possibly upending an earlier deal that let the bank avoid prosecution. The new investigation could lead to a step that has often been threatened but rarely taken: prosecutors tearing up a deferred-prosecution agreement if a company fails to comply with the reform plan laid out by the Justice Department. HSBC is essentially on probation: It admitted in 2012 that it helped Mexican drug cartels launder money and did business with Iran and other sanctioned nations.
To avoid charges, it signed the so-called DPA, which required it to improve its internal controls and submit to an outside monitor. If HSBC is found to have broken the terms of the deferred prosecution, then the bank could find itself pulled back into the money laundering and sanctions case that it thought it had put behind it four years ago; prosecutors could invoke a section of the deal that says HSBC could be held responsible for the conduct it admitted to in 2012.
Prosecutors will consider many factors before deciding whether to file a criminal charge against the bank in the currency case, including the severity of the conduct on the foreign-exchange desk and the extent to which the bank moved to address it. A significant argument against charging the bank is that the foreign-exchange conduct on which the charge would be based appeared to be a one-time event that has not been linked to a wider pattern of behavior. Also, the conduct on the foreign-exchange desk predated the 2012 agreement.
Last year, the Justice Department voided a similar deferred prosecution agreement with UBS Group after the bank acknowledged unlawful conduct on its foreign-exchange desk. In 2012, UBS signed a non-prosecution agreement related to accusations that it and other banks attempted to rig benchmark Libor interest rates that affected trillions of dollars of derivatives and loans. But UBS was granted immunity because it self-reported the forex rigging, so…
The nation’s largest investment bank is barring its top employees from contributing to certain political campaigns. The new rules, which went into effect last week, prohibit partners at Goldman Sachs from donating to politicians running for state or local office, or to state officials who are seeking federal office. That applies to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Trump’s running mate, which means that the Goldman Sachs partners can’t contribute to the Republican ticket.
The policy, which was spelled out in a memo obtained by The Associated Press, is meant to remove any implication of a “pay for play” scandal. Four years ago, the bank paid $12 million to settle charges that a Boston-based banker had a bond underwriting business in the state while contributing funds to and working for the campaign of Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill.
The memo specifically highlights the Trump-Pence ticket – and Super PACs supporting the Republicans – as a campaign to which the partners at the New York-based firm can’t donate. But the rules do not apply to the Democratic ticket, since neither Hillary Clinton nor her running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine, are currently state officeholders, though Kaine is a former governor. The new rules apply to 467 Goldman partners and not the approximately 30,000 other employees.
