STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 22 March 2016

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 22 March 2016[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 21 March 2016

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 21 March 2016
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Dow Jones 17,623.87 +21.57 (0.12%)
S&P 500 2,051.60 +2.02 (0.10%)
Nasdaq 4,808.87 +13.23 (0.28%)


[font color=red]10 Year 1.92% +0.02 (1.05%)
[font color=black]30 Year 2.72% 0.00 (0.00%) [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.
2/25/16 Jason Keryc sentenced to 9 years in prison, 3 years supervised release and to pay back $180MM to investors he bilked in a Ponzi scheme while an acct. mgr at Agape World.



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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]

[Hugin]

1. Would you look at those candles on the crude chart!

Something is seriously wrong here.

My guess is it's the Fed devaluing the Dollar to keep the indexes high.

[Hotler]

2. A little bit about Chandlestick Charting.

Candlestick Charting is an esoteric art originating from Japan where Rice Traders centuries ago developed this tool for forecasting market movements. Each period's movement is recorded in a Candle (Doji), where a White Candle shows that the Closing price for the period (whether an Hour, Day, 3-days or Week) has been higher than the Opening, while a Black candle shows that the market has fallen to close below the opening in that particular period. In this, Candlestick Charts are visually more informative than the Bar Charts developed by the West. Proper Candlestick Charting involves the recognition of a diverse range of patterns involving clusters of 2-3 candles, with names such a Morning Star, Three Crows, Hammer, Haging Man etc. Trading using Candles requires a lot of patience, but those who have mastered this art swear by its effectiveness and accuracy.

http://www.kshitij.com/graphs.shtml

Hhmmmm! Something I never knew.

[Hugin]

8. I guess I should start calling them Dojis.

Yes, very informative.

[Gungnir]

15. Facinating!

Fun mind candy, and useful. Good find!

[Hotler]

3. The Fed's Credibility Dilemma.

Federal Reserve officials often use two words to summarize their plans for monetary policy over the next three years or so: "gradual normalization," meaning that interest rates will move slowly and in an upward direction. It's a phrase that could prove problematic if economic developments require a different response.

In public statements and projections, Fed officials have suggested that gradual normalization would entail increasing interest rates by less than a percentage point in each of the next three years. Their aim is to provide markets with confidence-building guidance, but the strategy will work only if the economy proceeds along the trajectory that the officials expect.

Imagine, for example, what will happen if inflationary pressures prove stronger than expected over the next year or so. In principle, the Fed can curb inflation by raising its interest-rate target sufficiently rapidly. In practice, however, it faces a dilemma: It must break either its commitment to move gradually, or to keep inflation close to 2 percent. No matter what it does, it will lose credibility.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-03-22/the-fed-s-credibility-dilemma

Losing credibility in whose eyes? The little people or the 1%ers.? More at the link.

[Hotler]

4. Speaking of Fed credibility....Forbes, 2/6/2012

The Federal Reserve's Explicit Goal: Devalue The Dollar 33%.

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level.

An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of modest inflation would be followed, in time, by declining prices. As a consequence, over longer periods of time, the price level was unchanged. A dollar 20 years hence was still worth a dollar.

But, an increase of 2% a year over a period of 20 years will lead to a 50% increase in the price level. It will take 150 (2032) dollars to purchase the same basket of goods 100 (2012) dollars can buy today. What will be called the “dollar” in 2032 will be worth one-third less (100/150) than what we call a dollar today.

The Fed’s zero interest rate policy accentuates the negative consequences of this steady erosion in the dollar’s buying power by imposing a negative return on short-term bonds and bank deposits. In effect, the Fed has announced a course of action that will steal — there is no better word for it — nearly 10 percent of the value of American’s hard earned savings over the next 4 ye

Quit stealing from us and your credibility will go up, maybe.
<snip>
The Fed’s finger prints in the form of monetary manipulation are all over the dozen financial crises and spikes in unemployment we have experienced since abandoning the gold standard in 1971. The financial crisis of 2008, caused in no small part by the Fed’s efforts to stimulate the economy by keeping interest rates too low for, as it turned out, way too long is but the latest example of the Fed failing to fulfill its mandate to achieve either price stability or full employment.
More to piss you off at the link.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/02/06/the-federal-reserves-explicit-goal-devalue-the-dollar-33/#5ee0ea97865a

[Hotler]

5. As Hugin mentioned above, the fed messing with the dollar.

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” – Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” –Thomas Jefferson

“When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.” – Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815

“The few who understand the system, will either be so interested from its profits or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class.” . . . “Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.” – Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild, 1744-1812

[Hugin]

9. The only people who benefit from a weak Dollar are those people who have lots of Dollars.

And a steady influx of more... The rest of us who exist on nearly fixed minimum wage incomes? Well, we're screwn.

[Hotler]

6. An interesting wesite.

http://philosophyofmetrics.com/about/

What is Philosophy of Metrics?

Philosophy of Metrics is the methodology of understanding the world through logical patterns and esoteric processes. From the ancient philosophy of primitive man, to the stock market of today, there is a pattern in everything and a process which can explain anything. We simply need to observe and trend the simultaneous micro and macro transitions which exist around us everyday for the purpose of internal and external transformation.

One of the biggest patterns is the one of ignorance. We are subjected daily to methods of misdirection and direct obfuscation which serve to keep us blind to the realities which have shaped, and continue to shape, our world. This state of ignorance prevents the natural transmutation of the human condition.

The modest intent of POM is to lift the fog on these Mysteries and allow some of the patterns to become visible to those with eyes open. Whereby we may better understand the world, our place within it, and the great work of self-realization.

Wow!

[Gungnir]

11. I'm definately going to do some digging around on this site, has great potential.

I'm interested if they have anything on being deliberately F'd with. How early can an attempt to corner a market be picked out? Can psy-ops be teased out? etc.

[Hotler]

7. And another interesting website. I hit the motherload today.

http://www.icij.org/

International consortium of Investigative Journalist. The Worlds Best Cross-Border Investigative Team

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is a global network of more than 190 investigative journalists in more than 65 countries who collaborate on in-depth investigative stories.

Founded in 1997 by the respected American journalist Chuck Lewis, ICIJ was launched as a project of the Center for Public Integrity to extend the Center’s style of watchdog journalism, focusing on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power. Backed by the Center and its computer-assisted reporting specialists, public records experts, fact-checkers and lawyers, ICIJ reporters and editors provide real-time resources and state-of-the-art tools and techniques to journalists around the world.

[Tansy_Gold]

10. Thanks!

I may have to start following this one as well!

[Gungnir]

12. Excellent find! Has details on what casts the shadow of what we see/ are fed in the regular media.

Examples:
Report on HSBC's rocky road to reform in US to be made public

Presented to the courts last year, the report is said to detail a rocky road to reform that has reportedly faced resistance from leaders of HSBC’s investment unit, who were accused in the report of dragging their feet, bullying auditors and delaying progress.

A member of the public, Hubert Dean Moore, asked courts to unseal the report so he could search for information that could be used in his own pending case over a mortgage dispute.

(Who says one person can't change the world; Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur)

The request to make the report public was opposed by both HSBC and the Justice Department amid concerns it would undermine ongoing monitoring. Both argued that the report was intended for use only by regulators and that making it public violated terms of the deferred prosecution agreement that contained assurances such reports would remain secret.
...

US targets 'dirty money' hidden in luxury real estate

The United States will begin identifying and tracking secret buyers of high-end real estate, in order to crack down on what US officials fear has become a popular method of money laundering.

“We are concerned about the possibility that dirty money is being put into luxury real estate,” Jennifer Shasky Calvary, the director of the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, told The New York Times in a Jan. 13 article outlining the new initiative.

The program will focus on New York City and Miami, two of the country’s top luxury housing markets, and will require real estate companies to disclose the names of the flesh-and-blood individuals behind multimillion dollar purchases that are often paid in cash using shell companies.

In 2014, ICIJ reported on the emergence of Manhattan real estate as a magnet for shadowy offshore wealth. The story revealed a colorful cast of international buyers, including a former president of Taiwan who was convicted of corruption and a Russian fertilizer tycoon whose ex-wife claimed he was hiding assets in a divorce, plowing huge sums into luxury penthouses and swanky apartments in Manhattan.

...
Interpol's Red Notices used by some to pursue political dissenters, opponents
When Iranian political activist Rasoul Mazrae sought shelter from his own government, he fled, headed for Norway via Syria.

He was followed by a petition from Iranian officials that Interpol, the international police agency, list him as a fugitive. Despite the United Nations recognizing him as a political refugee, the same Syrian government that today is cracking down on its own dissidents used that Interpol alert to deport Mazrae to Iran in 2006.

Mazrae was jailed for two years. His family told a UN rapporteur he was tortured to the point of paralysis, had blood in his urine and lost all of his teeth.

Mazrae was sentenced to death, and human rights observers lost track of him. “We are not aware that his death penalty has been carried out, but we cannot be absolutely sure,” said James Lynch of Amnesty International.

[Gungnir]

13. How 50 reporters exposed the World Bank’s broken promises

Some of the thought and mechanics of it.

http://www.icij.org/blog/2015/06/how-50-reporters-exposed-world-banks-broken-promises

At ICIJ, we operate on the principle that many stories are too big, too complicated and too global for a lone-wolf muckraker – or even a single news organization – to tackle.

Putting together the team
The investigation began when Chavkin, an ICIJ staff reporter, noticed a pattern of complaints from communities around the globe that claimed they had been hurt by World Bank projects.

Chavkin spent a month doing an “investigative sniff” — poring over written complaints and interviewing experts. He found enough promising leads that ICIJ’s editors decided to launch a full investigation.

The next step: putting together a team.

To be part of a ICIJ project, journalists and their news organizations must agree to share information with other media outlets and hold off releasing their stories so that everyone can publish or broadcast together — an arrangement that often goes against journalists’ ingrained instincts.
...
The golden rule for collaboration is simple: the more you give, the more you get back.

[Gungnir]

14. Two suggestions for the "Handy Links" from ICIJ

Not sure under what heading. Essential reading? A new one, "How to"?

1) Data dive: How to mine World Bank resettlement documents
http://www.icij.org/blog/2015/04/data-dive-how-mine-world-bank-resettlement-documents
(I think a lot of young DUers would have the natural computer skills to dive deep into data mining )


2) Four ways to embrace a cross-border state of mind
http://www.icij.org/blog/2015/11/four-ways-embrace-cross-border-state-mind

And maybe posting this quote right above the "Handy Links"
The golden rule for collaboration is simple: the more you give, the more you get back.

Thoughts?