Month: June 2016

Chiacgo PMI Spikes To 18-Month High – 7 Standard-Deviation Beat – As Employment Crashes?!

Seriously!! Chicago PMI spiked to 56.8 in June (from 49.3) – higher than the highest estimate and seven standard deviations above expectations. This is the highest since Jan 2015. Simply put, the number is beyond any credibility, as despite higher orders and output, demand for labor fell as employment contracted at the fastest pace since November 2009.

 

Only 4 components rose in June as PMI soared above the forecast range 48.8 – 54 from 40 economists surveyed

  • Prices Paid fell compared to last month
  • New Orders rose compared to last month
  • Employment fell compared to last month
  • Inventory rose compared to last month
  • Supplier Deliveries fell compared to last month
  • Production rose compared to last month
  • Order Backlogs rose compared to last month
  • Business activity has been positive for 7 months over the past year.

 

Just a little jump away from 'norms' as we have seen before…

 

As MNI reports,

New Orders increased sharply on the month to the highest since October 2014, while Order Backlogs rose to the highest since March 2011, breaking a 16-month run of below 50.0 readings. Production also increased significantly to the highest since January 2016.

 

From November 2015 through to May 2016 firms ran down inventory levels. June, however, saw a double digit increase from May's 6-1/2 year low, ending a seven month run in contraction, with an equal number of firms increasing inventories as decreasing them.

 

Companies, though, were not as confident as last year about the future level of orders. In response to a special question, 46% of respondents anticipated higher orders in Q3. This was little changed from the March result which showed 44% expected higher orders in Q2, but was significantly down from 57% in June 2015.

 

Despite higher orders and output, demand for labor fell. Employment contracted at the fastest pace since November 2009.

Commenting on the latest survey, Chief Economist of MNI Indicators, Philip Uglow said,

"June's sharp increase in the MNI Chicago Business Barometer needs to be viewed in the context of the weakness seen in April and May. Looking at the three-month average provides a better guide this month to the underlying trend in the economy with activity broadly unchanged between Q1 and Q2. Still, on a trend basis activity over the past four months is running above the very low levels seen around the turn of the year."

And even Wall Street's biggest nouveau permabear, Joe LaVorgna threw up on the number:

Finally, something "odd" happened into this print…Normally liquidity disappears into a major data point like this until the algos explode it the way they want… this time a suspicious 'buyer' was always at the ready…

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Mike Lee Gives Three Reasons He’s Concerned About Donald Trump, Says He Can List More—Not Something He Couldn’t Get Over Though

Asked by NewsmaxTV’s Steve Malzberg why he hadn’t yet endorsed Donald Trump, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) offered three reasons: Trump’s suggestion that “best friend” Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination, that Trump’s “made statements that some have identified correctly as religiously intolerant,” and that he’s “wildly unpopular” in Utah, a state with “people who are members of a religious minority church” and thus rightly nervous about Trump. A poll in early June showed Trump and Hillary Clinton tied in Utah with Libertarian Gary Johnson at 14 percent. Utah last voted for a Democrat for president when it chose Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964.

“I could go on if you’d like,” Lee offered, before saying Trump’s statements were not something he couldn’t get over, provided he “heard the right things” from Trump. Lee said he hoped he could “get over these concerns” and that “Trump can help me identify them.”

Watch the interview below:

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Andrews Air Force Base On Lockdown; Active Shooter Reported

Another day, another active shooter but this time it’s serious. Moments ago Joint Base Andrews, which is the technical name of Andrews Air Force base after its merger with the Naval Air Facility, reported that it is on lockdown due to a report of an active shooter. As a reminder, Andrews is president Obama’s favorite golfing venue.

This is a developing situation.

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Bill Clinton Holds ‘Private’ Meeting With Loretta Lynch As FBI Probes Hillary

With the release of the official report on Benghazi by the House Select Committee earlier this week, one of two major concerns for the Clinton campaign has been able to be put to bed. However, one very large concern continues to loom over Clinton, and that is the FBI investigation into whether or not Hillary improperly handled classified material as Secretary of State.

Since it was revealed that Huma Abedin and other close aides were being interviewed by the FBI back in May, news from the investigation has been relatively quiet. FBI Director James Comey said last month regarding the investigation that "We want to do it well and we want to do it promptly. As between the two things, we will always choose well."

As The Hill notes, it's been nearly a year since inspectors general from the State Department and federal intelligence agencies referred the case of Clinton's server to the Justice Department last July, and while many expected the investigation to be drawing to a close this spring, it is still ongoing. In May, Clinton said "I hope this is close to being wrapped up", while saying that "I made it clear I'm more than ready to talk to anybody, anytime."

Douglas Cox, a professor at the City of New York School of Law said "I, like other people, am a bit surprised that it hasn't come to a resolution yet. I would think internally that there would have to be a little bit of concern."

If the delay wasn't much of a concern for the Clinton campaign, the fact that the Justice Department blocked the terms of IT aide Bryan Pagliano's immunity agreement from being released during a Judicial Watch civil suite because it "could prematurely reveal the scope and focus of the pending investigation" would elevate some concerns. Pagliano invoked his Fifth Amendment rights over 125 times during a deposition in that case.

Cox went on to say  "I think that federal prosecutors would want to get all their ducks in a row. They would want to make sure that their decision was as insulated as it could be from any charges that a decision not to bring charges would be politically motivated or be driven by political considerations."

That's an interesting comment from Cox, because as it turns out, on Monday evening (coincidentally just before the Benghazi report was released), Bill Clinton and US Attorney General Loretta Lynch just happened to meet on the tarmac at a Phoenix airport – totally unplanned of course. Clinton saw the attorney general and wanted to say hello, so Clinton boarded Lynch's plane to talk for a bit. Sure, just a quick chat about the weather, his putting stroke, anything except oh, say, an update on what was about to be released on Benghazi, and especially not an update on the ongoing FBI investigation into Hillary of course.

"Our conversation was a great deal about his grandchildren. It was primarily social and about our travels. He mentioned the golf he played in Phoenix, and he mentioned travels he'd had in West Virginia. There was no discussion of any matter pending for the department or any matter pending for any other body. There was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of the State Department emails, by way of example" Lynch told reporters.

* * *

Well then, if Lynch says it was a completely random encounter with Hillary Clinton's husband on a tarmac (admit it, that happens often to most people), and nothing was discussed that pertains to official business, then that certainly must be the truth…

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Two Warning Signs That This Bounce is Not to Be trusted

The market has exploded higher based on verbal intervention.

The verbal intervention came from Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble. Yesterday Schauble announced that, “measures to avoid market chaos have been successful.”

Traders took this to mean that Central Banks were coordinated a massive intervention. So everyone on the planet bought stocks.

The reality however is that this is the usual end of the month performance gaming, combined with short covering. Volume has been ABYSMAL on this rally because no one actually believes it.

And why would they?

EU banks are imploding, trading at levels not seen since the depths of the 2011-2012 crisis.

In the US, the Russell 2000, which tends to lead the S&P 500, has failed to confirm the move higher. If anything, it suggests we’re going to new lows.

This whole situation is feeling just like late 2007/ early 2008. Once again stocks are holding up because investors believe Central Banks can save the world… despite the obvious warning signs that a major crisis is coming.

On that note, we are already preparing our clients for this with a 21-page investment report titled the Stock Market Crash Survival Guide.

In it, we outline the coming crash will unfold…which investments will perform best… and how to take out “crash” insurance trades that will pay out huge returns during a market collapse.

We are giving away just 1,000 copies of this report for FREE to the public.

To pick up yours, swing by:

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Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

 

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Meanwhile On Times Square, Naked Man Taunts Cops; Demands To Speak With Donald Trump

Update: the man has been taken into custody.

* * *

A man screaming “Donald Trump, where are you!” turned Times Square into an open-air peep show Thursday morning the NY Post is reporting, ambling to the top of the red staircase in Duffy Square completely naked.

Witnesses first spotted the man in the 47th Street/Rockefeller Center area.

He then took off to Duffy Square, where cops were trying to get him down.

 

via http://ift.tt/29cg0wS Tyler Durden

Is This Gary Johnson/Bill Weld Spot the Greatest Presidential Ad Ever?

Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson and his running mate Bill Weld have just released a masterful ad that touts their impressive records as two-term governors (of New Mexico and Massachusetts, respectively) while drawing sharp distinctions among their positions and those of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

This is hands down powerful, powerful stuff and highlights Johnson’s interest in capturing what he calls the “broad middle” of Americans who are socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and desperate for “small, efficient government” that gets core tasks done without blowing up the budget to pad the payrolls of favored businesses, bomb and drone foreign countries into the Stone Age, and strangle us all in regulatory red tape.

Take a look and comment it up below.

If you’re interested in presidential commercials dating back to 1952, check out The Living Room Candidate, an exhaustive archive of such strange and wonderful artifacts.

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Boris Johnson Out—Not Running to Replace David Cameron as U.K. PM

Former London Mayor Boris Johnson announced he would be not be running to replace David Cameron as leader of the Conservative party and prime minister of the U.K. Cameron stepped down last week after a referendum to leave the European Union received a majority of the vote despite Cameron’s opposition. He said he was stepping aside so that a pro-Leave Conservative could invoke Article 50 and begin the process of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union.

Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and Conservative co-chair of the official Leave committee, announced his own run for the position earlier, leading, some say, Johnson, who was widely believed to be planning a bid, to withdraw. “Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead,” Gove concluded in his announcement speech. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who supported Remain, is also running for the leadership spot. Results are expected September 9.

Johnson, a leading figure in the Leave campaign, said throughout that he was pro-immigration, supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants and suggesting immigration rates could go up if the U.K. decided to leave the European Union. Critics of Brexit have suggested the Leave vote was animated by xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. For his part, Gove, like other Leave campaigners from Parliament, had suggested immigration could increase after a Brexit, although from non-E.U. countries, calling the current system “racist.” Even Nigel Farage of the anti-immigration UKIP and a leading proponent of Brexit, said a post-Leave immigration system could allow “more black people” to qualify to enter the country.

On the Labor side, Jeremy Corbyn, who supported Remain but said he was 25 percent for Leave and maybe even voted Leave, is expected to face a challenge from Angela Eagle, one of 20 Labor shadow ministers who resigned after the Brexit vote and a supporter of Remain. Calls for Corbyn to resign have come out of all political quarters, from David Cameron to Tom Watson, Corbyn’s deputy. The Scottish National Party, which has 54 members of Parliament in the House of Commons, argued it should be the official opposition there because its leader has more support from SNP members than Corbyn does from Labor. Labor also unveiled a report on its anti-Semitism problem. In announcing the report, Corbyn appeared to compare Israel to the Islamic State.

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‘Self-Driving Cars and Back-Seat Regulators’ in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

SelfDrivingReasonCoverJasonFordThe June 2016 issue of Reason featured my article, “Will Politicians Block Our Driverless Future?” The article begins with this telling testimony at a Senate hearing that suggested that the answer might well be yes.

“So, I’m in the Tesla,” Sen. Ben Nelson (D–Fla.) told a March hearing of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. “And we’re coming back across the Anacostia River and getting up on—on the bridge then to get on to the ramp on to 395. And I’m instructed in the driver’s seat: ‘Engage the autonomous switch.’ I click it twice. ‘Take your hands off the wheel.’ And so all of a sudden the car is speeding up and they say: ‘It automatically will go with the flow of the vehicles in the front and back.’ But now we are approaching the on-ramp on to 395 and it is a sharp turn. And the vehicle is still speeding up. And they said, ‘Trust the vehicle.'”

But the senator could not quite manage to do that. “As we approach the concrete wall,” he said, “my instincts could not resist. And I grabbed the wheel, touched the brake and took over manual control. I said, ‘What would have happened?’ They said, ‘If you’d left your hands off of the wheel, it would have made that sharp turn and come on around.’ And so I am here to tell you that I am glad I grabbed the wheel.”

Making the senator’s panic even more metaphorically apt was the title of the Senate hearing: “Hands Off: The Future of Self-Driving Cars.”

After the article appeared, the folks over at the Pittsburg Tribune Review called me up to ask a few follow up questions. For example:

Q: What do you see ultimately happening when it comes to regulating these vehicles?

A: Regulators try to cover every possible contingency so that nobody can blame them later if anything goes wrong. They’re basically dreaming up every possible worst-case scenario and demanding in advance that it be taken care of, which obviously will slow down the technology. That being said, I believe the technology will be so useful and so consumer friendly and so eagerly adopted by people that government officials will have to get out of the way because otherwise consumers will just trample them.

Go here to read the TribLive Q&A.

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A.M. Links: Gary Johnson Polls 10 Percent, Boris Johnson Drops Out of British Prime Minister Contest, Is Hillary Clinton Eyeing Elizabeth Warren for V.P.?

  • New poll: Hillary Clinton 41 percent, Donald Trump 36 percent, Gary Johnson 10 percent.
  • Will Hillary Clinton pick Elizabeth Warren as her running mate?
  • “The question of who will lead Britain into its future outside the European Union—a muddled mess for nearly a week—was further scrambled Thursday, with the camp that had favored an exit splintering into warring tribes and forcing former London mayor Boris Johnson to drop from the contest to become prime minister.”
  • According to Turkish officials, the terrorists who attacked the Istanbul airport yesterday were from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.
  • Suicide bombers in Afghanistan killed at least 27 newly graduated police cadets.
  • Chicago is raising the legal age to buy tobacco products to 21 this week.

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