STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 11 February 2016

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 11 February 2016[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 10 February 2016

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 10 February 2016
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Dow Jones 15,914.74 -99.64 (-0.62%)
S&P 500 1,851.86 -0.35 (-0.02%)
[font color=green]Nasdaq 4,283.59 +14.83 (0.35%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.68% -0.07 (-4.00%)
30 Year 2.50% -0.07 (-2.72%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.
09/21/15 Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizes for VW cheating on air quality standards with emission testing avoidance device. Stock drops 20%, fines may total $18B.
09/22/15 Stewart Parnell, CEO Peanut Corp. of America, sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-tainted peanut butter that killed nine.
12/17/15 Martin Shkreli, former CEO Turing Pharmaceuticals and notorious price gouger, arrested on securities fraud charges. Posted $5M bail, resigned as CEO.




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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[Tansy_Gold]

1. Outflows from China top $110bn in January

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/00c67d9a-cf92-11e5-986a-62c79fcbcead.html#axzz3zp58waRH


Chinese companies and residents sent more than $110bn out of the country in January alone, according to new estimates, as they continued to evade tightening capital controls amid another round of market turmoil.

Surging capital outflows from China have become a source of growing concern around the world and left Beijing scrambling to support its currency. Recently-released data showed the country’s foreign exchange reserves falling to their lowest level in almost four years in January.

[Tansy_Gold]

2. Twitter's Day of Reckoning is Here

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/twitters-day-reckoning-earnings-report-user-numbers/story?id=36838149

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey struck a hopeful tone for the year ahead in a call today with investors as the social media company revealed its user base remained stagnant in the last quarter.



Twitter reported fourth quarter revenue of $710 million, with advertising revenue for the quarter up 48 percent from the same time one year ago.

Dorsey, 39, one of the founders of the site, took over for the second time as chief executive last year. While the site has tremendous reach, it has lagged in attracting and retaining new users, who in turn entice businesses to advertise on Twitter and drive revenue.

The company reported having 130,000 active advertisers in the fourth quarter -- up 90 percent from the same time one year ago, as well as a 153 percent increase in user engagements with advertisements.

[Ghost Dog]

3. How to save the European Union (Soros)

(This from April 2013, because still relevant 3 years on...)

... The euro crisis has already transformed the European Union from a voluntary association of equal states into a creditor-debtor relationship from which there is no easy escape. The creditors stand to lose large sums should a member state exit the union, yet debtors are subjected to policies that deepen their depression, aggravate their debt burden and perpetuate their subordinate position. As a result, the crisis is now threatening to destroy the European Union. That would be a tragedy of historic proportions which can only be prevented with German leadership.

The causes of the crisis are so complicated that they boggle the mind. They cannot be properly understood without realising the crucial role that mistakes and misconceptions have played in creating them.The fatal flaw of the euro is that by creating an independent central bank, member countries have become indebted in a currency that they don't control. The risk of default relegates some member countries to the status of third world countries that became over-indebted in a foreign currency. This feature of the euro was ignored both by the authorities and market participants until the Greek crisis and it is still not properly understood today.

At first, both the authorities and market participants treated all government bonds as if they were riskless, creating a perverse incentive for banks to load up on the weaker bonds. When Greece revealed the extent of its deficit, financial markets discovered the risk of sovereign debt default and raised risk premiums not only on Greek bonds but on the bonds of all heavily indebted euro members with a vengeance. Since European banks were heavily loaded with exactly those bonds, this precipitated a twin sovereign debt and banking crisis.

Subsequently the so-called periphery countries were treated as if they were solely responsible for their misfortunes and the structural defects of the euro remained uncorrected. Germany and the other creditor countries did the minimum necessary to preserve the euro but they continued to apply the treaties that proved to be flawed and imposed new rules that prolonged and aggravated the recession. The pain and suffering is almost entirely self-inflicted by the eurozone. It has the quality of a nightmare.

The burden of responsibility falls mainly on Germany. The Bundesbank helped design the blueprint for the euro, whose defects put Germany into the driver's seat. This has created two problems. One is political, the other financial. It is the combination of the two that has rendered the situation so intractable.

The political problem is that Germany did not seek the dominant position into which it has been thrust and it is unwilling to accept the obligations and liabilities that go with it. Germany understandably doesn't want to be the "deep pocket" for the euro. So it extends just enough support to avoid default but nothing more, and as soon as the pressure from the financial markets abates it seeks to tighten the conditions on which the support is given.

The financial problem is that Germany is imposing the wrong policies on the eurozone. Austerity doesn't work. You cannot shrink the debt burden by shrinking the budget deficit. The debt burden is a ratio between the accumulated debt and the GDP, both expressed in nominal terms. And in conditions of inadequate demand, budget cuts cause a more than proportionate reduction in the GDP – in technical terms the so-called fiscal multiplier is greater than one. This means that for every million euro reduction in the budget deficit, the country's GDP falls by more than a million euros, leading to a rise in the ratio of national debt to GDP.

The German public finds this difficult to understand...

/... http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/apr/09/eurozone-crisis-germany-eurobonds

[Hotler]

4. This Is Why the Fed Is Paying Interest to Big Banks

Well isn't this special.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen ran into a bipartisan buzzsaw today over why the Federal Reserve is paying interest to banks on the trillions of dollars in reserves that they hold at the Fed. She tried repeatedly to supply the central bank's reasoning but didn't seem to make a dent.

"Please, please explain," Representative Maxine Waters (D- Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said at one point. Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said the Fed's interest-paying policy "can distort resource allocation and constrain economic opportunity."

In the heat of a presidential campaign in which candidates from both parties are going heavy on the big banks, the Fed policy of paying them interest on their so-called excess reserves was bound to come in for extra scrutiny. Last year, Waters said, the Fed paid about $7 billion in interest to banks, including more than $100 million to Goldman Sachs and more than $900 million to JPMorgan Chase. And since the Federal Reserve's board of governors voted in December to double the interest rate on those reserves to half a percent from a quarter percent, the payments will be even higher in 2016.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/this-is-why-the-fed-is-paying-interest-to-big-banks/ar-BBpmPC4?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp

[Hotler]

5. DIVE! DIVE! Aaahhooooga Aaahhooooga

Dow futures plunge 300 points, Yellen eyed

The plunge protection team will be working extra hard today and my be sweating a bit also.

U.S. stock index futures indicated a sharply lower open on Thursday as traders reacted to a sharp fall in European stocks and looked ahead to the second day of Fed Chair Janet Yellen's testimony in Washington.

Dow Futures were indicating a drop in excess of 300 points in pre-market trading, while the pan-European Stoxx 600 index (.STOXX) was down by more than 3.6 percent.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/dow-futures-plunge-300-points-yellen-eyed/ar-BBpnnhA?ocid=iehp

[Hotler]

6. Bass Says China Bank Losses May Top 400% of Subprime Crisis

Kyle Bass, the hedge fund manager who successfully bet against mortgages during the subprime crisis, said China’s banking system may see losses of more than four times those suffered by U.S. banks during the last crisis.


Should the Chinese banking system lose 10 percent of its assets because of nonperforming loans, the nation’s banks will see about $3.5 trillion in equity vanish, Bass, the founder of Dallas-based Hayman Capital Management, wrote in a letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg. The world’s second-biggest economy may end up having to print more than $10 trillion of yuan to recapitalize banks, pressuring the currency to devalue in excess of 30 percent against the dollar, according to Bass.

Bass, 46, scored big after betting against mortgages in 2007, racking up gains as the world’s largest banks wrote off more than $80 billion in subprime losses. All his calls haven’t been as prescient. He revealed wagering on a collapse in Japan’s government-bond market in 2010, a short position that Bass later acknowledged that other bond investors had nicknamed “the widow maker.”

“What we are witnessing is the resetting of the largest macro imbalance the world has ever seen,” he wrote in the letter. “Credit in China has reached its near-term limit, and the Chinese banking system will experience a loss cycle that will have profound implications for the rest of the world.”
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/bass-says-china-bank-losses-may-top-400percent-of-subprime-crisis/ar-BBpmj9m?ocid=iehp

The fan is spinning at high speed and are there are boat loads of shit just waiting to be thrown at it.

[Hotler]

7. JPMorgan: 'It's hard to imagine an uglier morning'

Except when Bush/Chaney got the Whitehouse.

Equities tumbling. Gold and silver gaining. Oil plummeting.
"It's hard to imagine an uglier morning," writes JPMorgan's trading desk.
There's nothing hyperbolic about that statement.

When Jamie Dimon and his crew start to fidget in their seats that a good thing. Of course what happens to them rolls down hill to us. I still like to see them sweat.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/jpmorgan-its-hard-to-imagine-an-uglier-morning/ar-BBpnY7q?ocid=iehp

[Punx]

8. I'd say...

The second time Bush-Cheney got the White House. There was no illusion there would be any competence or decency from them by that point. And the Ohio election results flipping from morning to afternoon...

Add to that that I had become unemployed a few days earlier, my wife's grandfather and father had just died within a month of each other and it wasn't a happy time.

Against my advice, the company I work for now put some extra $ into the stock market as an investment back in early August. Not looking like a great idea at the moment.

[Roland99]

9. "I've 'ad worse"

[font color="red"]
Dow 15,730 -177 -1.11%
Nasdaq 4,260 -24 -0.55%
S&P 500 1,833 -20 -1.07%
GlobalDow 2,057 -22 -1.06%
Oil 27.14 -0.27 -0.98%[/font]
Gold 1,235 +40 3.38%
U.S. 10yr 1.64 -0.03 1.84%

The 10yr yield actually dipped to 1.535%. Over a 3yr low.

[Roland99]

11. well...deepening now.

let's see how she bounces around today.

[Tansy_Gold]

14. Who had the bathtub scene?

Was that RummyIsFrosted?

[Roland99]

15. oh, perhaps

not quite to the bloodletting...yet. only -2.14%

Days of +/- 2% seem quite common nowadays.

Frightening when ya think about all those HFTs going on.

[DemReadingDU]

19. Bloodbath

Whatever happened to RummyIsFrosted?

[Tansy_Gold]

20. That's the one!

I have no idea what happened to RummyIsFrosted.

I'm glad you had or found this, because I went googling for it last night and all I got were really gross, disgusting, gory things, like to give me nightmares. I don't do icky stuff like that very well.

[Tansy_Gold]

10. Geithner cashing in on Wall Street

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/ex-t-man-geithner-cashing-in-on-wall-street

(Originally from USA Today)

Timothy Geithner is finally cashing in.

After an appropriate stint at a think tank to write his memoir and a quiet transition to Wall Street, President Obama’s first Treasury secretary, who left office in 2013, is now ready to make millions thanks to help from a big bank he used to regulate.

Bloomberg News this week disclosed that Geithner has gotten a line of credit from JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, to invest in a new $12 billion fund at the private equity firm where he works, Warburg Pincus.


And just to remind you, as if you needed a reminder. . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7922946

An excerpt from one of my posts in that thread:

If what he's [Obama]trying to do is keep the stock market from crashing, he's doing little to help the economy. The market and the economy are two different things, and they've become more and more divorced from each other as a direct result of policies implemented by Greenspan, Gramm, and their subordinates, including Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. They're all great supporters of The Markets, but not so much The Economy.

[Punx]

12. I've been thinking or maybe a better description would be "Worrying" about just this

"The economy and the stock market have already voted for the next president"

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-economy-and-the-stock-market-have-already-voted-for-the-next-president-2016-02-10?link=MW_popular

Now if true, I frankly think this would hurt Hillary more than Bernie, the latter being perceived as an outsider and not part of the establishment. I mean Hillary is running for Obama's third term and will be easy to tie (fairly or unfairly) to current banking and economic policies.

[Tansy_Gold]

13. Perhaps. Perhaps.

I won't disagree, however.

Unfortunately, after all the praise that's been hyped, er, heaped on Obama for the rise in the Dow, it's also possible that a crash could send power right back to the GOP. And I worry, to use your term, that this could be a manipulation by TPTB to engineer another GOP administration.

We here have known that the stock markets are not reflective of the economy as a whole, and we know that the Dow and other indices are easily, casually, and routinely manipulated, invariably to the benefit of TPTB, sometimes referred as The 0.1%.

If TPTB have consolidated their wealth over the past seven-goimg-on-eight years (with thanks to Timmy Geithner and his crew), then the Dow is even less a mirror of the economy than it used to be. It is entirely, or almost entirely, a bubble. BUT -- and here's the big question -- is it a bubble so carefully inflated that it can't burst? If all that wealth only exists on paper, or cyber paper, and the 0.1% owns all the paper, how does the bubble ever burst?

I don't have the answer. I don't even have a speculation.

[Punx]

17. Thanks for your reply,

I don’t have answers either.

I’m not so sure traditional rules will apply this year. I’m very fed up with the status quo at the moment and I get that feeling from others though many of them are easily directed toward blaming the wrong folks, ie brown skinned people.

Because of my financial background I get asked every once in a while about investing in the stock market. I often answer “I don’t know, if I did, I wouldn’t be working for a living!” The one thing I do believe is that the markets are manipulated as you say, and that’s a dangerous thing. Greed and psychopathy run rampant on Wall Street. That’s a very dangerous combination and likely to blow up badly at some point. This downturn seems early in timing to me. While the Street might like a GOP candidate, they can’t really dislike Hillary that much in comparison. She would be safe for them, if not gung-ho crazy like a Bush, Rubio or Kasich would be.

As to Bernie, guys like Rubin, Geithner and Summers must hate or fear him. Or perhaps dismiss him as a crank. But a market downturn might play right into his hands prior to being elected, assuming he wins the nomination. After being elected I wouldn’t be surprised to see them pull crap to destroy his presidency. God forbid someone who actually cares about the average person or calls themselves a socialist would have any success. There could be some very interesting conversations early on in a Sanders administration.

As to the market not being representative of the economy as a whole. The economy actually looks pretty strong here in my part of Oregon at the moment from an employment standpoint; lots of industrial development going on in Wa County. Traffic at 6 in the morning is at least triple what it was during the bottom of the recession. Those extra drivers aren’t out to visit Walmart for the weekly specials at that time of the day. Still my household income is only about 15% more than it was in 1995! And my pay has almost tripled since then. And a number of friend’s households are similar or worse. And of course everything (except gas at the moment) costs way more than it did then. A very tiny observation from a smallish state in a larger economy I know.

I’ve written a book here, so enough for now.

[Tansy_Gold]

18. Thanks for your observations!

Don''t worry about writing a book in this group. Some of us used to do it on a daily basis, and to lengths that make yours look like a chapter heading!

When we put all our observations together, we might actually get a big picture that tells us more than the sum of its parts.

[Hotler]

21. Welcome to SMW and thanks for you perspective.

As Tansy said don't worry about being long winded here.

[Fuddnik]

16. PPT is working double-time today!