You’ve probably heard about how it’s critical to eat breakfast—that it may have health benefits, and even help you lose weight.
John Stossel looks at the evidence with nutritionist Ruth Kava, and finds that there’s no proof of any of those things.
For example, people push breakfast because, as one cereal maker’s ad puts it, “a study from none other than Harvard University states that men who regularly skip breakfast have a 27% higher risk of suffering a heart attack.”
That’s true—but that’s largely because the type of people who skip breakfast are also the type of people who are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol, and eat unhealthy foods. After adjusting for those things, breakfast itself has no significant effect.
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The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.
Eventually reality will intrude in this pleasant madness.
OK, let me see if I have this right: the stock market is soaring because the economy is softening, so the Federal Reserve panicked and went from raising rates to considering cutting rates.
It seems markets are now assuming a rate cut is already locked in, given the Fed’s commitment to cease trimming its balance sheet by September.
This dovish reversal means liquidity is flooding back into stocks and bonds, and so stocks are rising as once again “the Fed has our backs.”
OK, I get it. But the market is also rising because punters and pundits are assuming the soft spot in economic expansion has ended, and growth is already resuming globally. The positive data out of China is taken as proof-positive of this resumption of expansion.
Now wait a minute–the market is rising because growth is softening and also because growth has resumed? Sorry Stock Market, you can’t have it both ways. Either the global economy is stagnating, forcing central banks to flood the financial system with more liquidity, or growth is resuming, in which case raising interest rates are back on the table, especially if wage inflation kicks in.
If growth resumes, not only will the Fed have a green light to raise rates, it will also face pressure to resume trimming its bloated balance sheet.
Many observers have noted that the sharp decline in Treasury bond yields is signaling fear that the global economy is recessionary, and central bank goosing isn’t going to reverse the slowdown. Meanwhile, stocks are schizophrenic: going up because growth is slowing and Fed rate cuts are now in the bag and going up because growth has resumed.
Central bank and financial authorities are keen to continue the schizophrenia because markets have no excuse to drop: if growth has stagnated, markets will continue soaring, and if growth has resumed, markets can continue in overdrive.
Eventually reality will intrude in this pleasant madness: either the global economy slips into recession and corporate profits tank, kicking out the props of high stock valuations, or global growth resumes, opening the door to stock-market-killing rate increases and balance sheet reductions.
Here’s one way to visualize this moment in history: global financial markets are in the eye of a very large hurricane:
Despite the Chicago Police Superintendent, Mayor Rahm Emanuel and even comedian Chris Rock condemning Jussie Smollett for staging a hate-crime against himself, the Empire actor has at least one defender:
Maxine Waters
“It’s the correct thing that the charges were dropped,” said the 80-year-old Democratic Congresswoman from California in a Sunday interview with Extra at the NAACP Image Awards.
“First of all, we probably will never know all of the details. We’ve heard a lot of information,” said Waters.
“No one was hurt — that is, physically, killed, shot — he never committed a crime before, he forfeited the bail and it’s this kind of situation where they close the case all over the country every day. I have learned this isn’t unusual.“
Smollett, 36, was charged with 16 felony counts for allegedly filing a false police report after he told Chicago police he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.
He says he was assaulted by two men who beat him, placed a rope around his neck and poured a chemical substance on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs. Smollett later told police that the men shouted “This is MAGA country!” – a phrase Smollett’s manager heard as he spoke with Smollett on the phone during the ‘attack.’
The two men who conspired with Smollett are two Nigerian-born brothers and friends of the actor, who say Smollett paid them $3,500 to stage the attack. They were caught on video surveillance footage buying ski masks and black hats, while they later admitted to filling a hot-sauce bottle with the bleach that was thrown on Smollett. Of note, they also placed a noose around Smollett’s neck which he was still wearing when police arrived to his apartment later that evening.
At the 11th hour – as the two brothers and the Chicago PD were prepared to testify against Smollett – the charges against him were unexpectedly dropped, infuriating police and mayor Rahm Emanuel, who called it a “whitewash of justice.”
While Smollett has maintained his innocence, Cook County prosecutors said that he was not exonerated – but that 16 hours of ‘community service‘ he had previously done was a sufficient punishment. Smollett’s service to the community consisted of visiting Rev. Jesse Jackson’s civil rights group, and speaking with high school kids thinking about going to college.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2OIsflJ Tyler Durden
As global stocks soar back towards prior record highs, this time reportedly on the heels of ‘green shoots’ from China; it is hard not be stunned at the level of cognitive dissonance among the investing public (and their algorithmic partners) who seem capable of cherry-picking the data that supports their asset-gathering and commission-raking narratives… and yet suffer no consequences from the ugly reality that lurks beneath.
We have seen a few green shoots before… how’s that worked out?
But that doesn’t stop the re-creators of history from noting it must be different this time and as former fund manager and FX trader Richard Breslow notes, if all you did was read the contents of my inbox this morning, you would be convinced the world is just fine and about to get finer.
Via Bloomberg,
A mere sampling will give a sense of how the argument has gone…
Green shoots are popping out all over.
Ignore the central banks that, one after another, are being compelled to become more cautious.
Forget the Eurodollar strip that is nicely green across the board.
The second half of the year will float all boats.
Trade deals will be struck.
Remove those pesky tariffs and all of the, many other, geopolitical issues will fall into line.
After all, if Italy can embrace China will anyone else be able to resist?
Turkey is in turmoil, but it is way over there somewhere. Besides, contagion risk is so last century. Buy a peso.
The U.K. can’t agree on anything. An obvious precursor of a breakthrough and therefore the pound is a screaming buy.
It’s probably fortuitous that the overnight economic calendar was so light that analysts could concentrate on honing their forecasts rather than be encumbered with a lot of hard news. This all has the feel of the year-ahead forecasts that are produced after Thanksgiving, rather than a realistic scorecard of what is going on.
No one seems at all overly concerned this morning that the CPI miss in South Korea represents the fourth month in a row of falling numbers. Which is worth highlighting because, not only did the result confound economist estimates, falling below even the lowest prediction, but is at odds with what the BOK has been optimistically expecting. No matter, it’s still being described as “temporary” in the commentaries. This number followed weak export numbers the day before and on both days the Kospi Index rose. That’s central bank, not animal, spirits.
The dollar is going down has been a ubiquitous theme. The reasons given cover an amusingly wide range of causes. But being angry with the U.S. isn’t a great trading thesis. It’s hard for a trader to watch short dollar recommendations getting serially stopped out and accept this as a mere head fake, not to be taken advantage of. Look at the price action so far this year. The dollar is begging to be traded, not bet on with a stubborn big picture view.
The Bloomberg Dollar Index printed a three-week high today. It is back to being right up against resistance making this a good time to watch it carefully. Whatever it does from here, including staying put, will be usefully telling.
A lot of people have been citing the COFER data as a reason to be bearish. Reserve managers have been lightening up on the dollar. It is an important data point. Ultimately it might matter. But it’s not something all that useful for immediate positioning. If you knew this data in advance and traded from the short-side in the fourth quarter, you would have ended up sad. Investors more than compensated for the official sales. What does that tell you about perceived relative attractiveness and the need for safety? The dollar isn’t just another currency and can’t be analyzed as if it is. One day it will have company. But not yet.
As far as bonds are concerned, Monday’s foray by the 10-year Treasury yield back above 2.50% ran into large-volume bond buying as soon as the cash market opened.
Not to mention the 10-year JGB auction enjoyed its highest bid-to-cover since 2005. And Australian yields fell on a dovish RBA. That is indeed hard news and something of immediate import
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2uHuxbL Tyler Durden
Not even a week has passed since Lucy Flores, a former candidate for Nevada’s lieutenant governor, published an explosive article accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of inappropriately smelling her hair and planting a “big slow kiss” on the back of her head, reigniting the controversy surrounding Biden’s long history of creepily caressing women during public events. Yesterday, a second accuser came forward with a story about how Biden had rubbed his nose against hers in a non-sexual, yet still extremely strange and uncomfortable, manner, during a fundraiser in Connecticut.
The allegations have elicited intense blowback for Biden, as debate rages in the media about whether they should disqualify him from running for president, just as he was reportedly about to launch his campaign.
And unsurprisingly, the Biden team, with its future now in jeopardy, is looking for somebody – anybody – to blame (that is, except the candidate himself). And according to Axios, they have settled on a culprit: Vermont Senator and presidential rival Bernie Sanders.
Noting Flores’ association with and public support for Sanders, sources from within the campaign told Axios that the allegations of Biden’s inappropriate behavior are being fanned by his rivals.
Several around Biden think advisers to Bernie Sanders are at least partly behind the anti-Biden campaign. One prominent backer thinks Biden will run, and “is ready to kill Bernie.”
[…]
“VP directed staff this evening to reach out to supporters and donors with a simple message — full steam ahead.”
By “Kill Bernie”, we imagine he means kill him at the polls, that is.
This is a stark departure from the Biden team’s public statements, where the campaign has blamed “right wing trolls” for reigniting the controversy.
Still, despite the controversy, Biden has retained the highest polling numbers among his rival candidates, as the NYT’s Ross Douthat pointed out in an op-ed published Tuesday. But would it still be worth it for Biden to run against the “emerging consensus” of his party, Douthat asks?
If we believe these anonymous Biden advisors, the candidate hasn’t given that much thought.
Meanwhile, online betting odds of a Biden primary victory have fallen off a cliff since the scandal broke.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FKztSa Tyler Durden
Today is “Equal Pay Day,” which means wildly misleading information about workplace discrimination will be flowing in service of Democratic Party policy goals.
State legislators are also on the case. “California has the strongest equal pay laws in the nation — but there is still more work to do,” said Siebel Newsom, wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. She’s leading a campaign to “raise awareness of the gender pay gap as part of an effort to achieve pay equality for women,” as CNBC puts it.
But the most striking thing to be “aware” of about the gender pay gap is that a huge array of data show it’s driven by women’s choices. “The gender gap shrinks to between 8 percent and 0 percent when the study incorporates such measures as work experience, career breaks and part-time work,” as Baruch College economist June O’Neill has written.
“Women’s choices” may be a bit of shorthand for what’s really at play here—some preference on display, along with structural inequalities and differences (some quite biological and immutable, some more flexible) that lead to differences in employment situations, working hours, etc.
But what is certainly not at play is a simple matter of employer discrimination, or something that can be fixed by federal study groups, class action lawsuits, and mandates that companies must provide detailed justifications for employee pay scales to a centralized approval board.
People who oppose these sorts of interventions often get accused of sexism or (at best) indifference to “wage discrimination.” But nobody is helped by pretending that increasingly bureaucratic wage regimes are the answer. Instead, it’s on us to point out alternative soluttions—like getting rid of government barriers.
“The surest way to eliminate wage discrimination is to keep government from impeding the competitive process with such devices as occupational licensing, permits, minimum product standards, so-called intellectual property, zoning, and other land-use restrictions,” writes Sheldon Richman.
All government barriers to self-employment — and these can take implicit forms, such as patents and raising the cost of living through inflation, or burdening entrepreneurs with protectionist regulation — make workers vulnerable to exploitation. Being able to tell a boss, “Take this job and shove it,” because alternatives, including self-employment, are available, is an effective way to establish the true market value of one’s labor in the marketplace. With the collapsing price of what Kevin Carson calls the “technologies of abundance” (think of information technology and digital machine tools), sophisticated small-scale enterprise — and the independence it represents — is more feasible than ever.
In case you need more ammunition in battling bad ideas today, check out these pieces from the Reason archives:
Jesse Singal riffs on “left-wing identitarianism,” a more virulent cousin of the often-just-fine “identity politics.”
Left wing identitarianism “views the link between certain identities and marginalization as absolutely crucial to understanding America, and seeks to highlight it whatever possible,” Singal writes.
So its adherents are uncomfortable when people from marginalized groups don’t act marginalized. … Left-wing identitarians, again, have a strong bias toward essentialization. It seems to make them uncomfortable when members of marginalized groups aren’t particularly interested in talking about their marginalization, or — I hope you’re sitting down — don’t feel entirely marginalized.
What does all of this have to do with Mayor Pete Buttigieg? Find out here.
FREE MARKETS
“I’ll just close the border” with Mexico, President Donald Trump told reporters last week. ‘With a deficit like we have with Mexico and have had for many years, closing the border will be a profit-making operation.”
“Even by his ‘Trade Is Bad’ standards, President Donald Trump’s threat to shut America’s border with Mexico is a doozy,” writes Eric Boehm.
Even if the United States were a single large corporation—a bad analogy for many reasons, but one Trump seems to be grasping towards—closing the border would not be a “profit-making” move, any more than a business would be making a profit by deciding not to buy or sell anything. That’s actually a fine way to guarantee that you don’t make a profit. … And that whole analogy is flawed, because the U.S. is not a single corporation and the president is not our CEO. Cutting off trade between the U.S. and Mexico would have enormous negative consequences for businesses on both sides of the border, because cross-border trade is the result of countless individual decisions dictated by market signals. It’s not the United States that trades with Mexico and vice versa; individuals and businesses on both sides of the border trade with one another, seeking mutually beneficial deals.
The president is once again is talking as if Puerto Rico isn’t part of the United States.
Student protesters face criminal charges in Arizona:
There it is.
University of Arizona police are charging two UA students with misdemeanors for protesting Custom and Border Patrol agents during an on campus presentation. I can’t stress enough what a big deal this is. https://t.co/cqknNCA3Zs
Sen. Kamala Harris has already raised $12 million for her presidential candidacy.
A Colorado bill poised to be signed by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis “would allow police and family members to petition courts to temporarily seize guns from people deemed dangerous,” reports Meagan Flynn at The Washington Post. But “half of the state’s 64 county governments have now passed resolutions indicating they do not wish to enforce the red-flag law.” Weld County Sheriff Steve Reams said it’s unconstitutional, so he won’t enforce it.
Much was said about the “green shoots” and renewed global growth impulse that emerged from better Chinese and US data yesterday (big beat in China Mfg PMI, strong US ISM, Retail Sales revisions higher and Construction Spending beat), which then led to a flush of newly established positions across USTs, duration and rates, with the implied June 2020 rate cut tumbling from -42% to -27%.
More importantly, according to Nomura’s Charlie McElligott, the purge of outright deflation fears and the re-emergence of the “slow-flation” mindset led to popular “risk barbell” positioning: Long Secular Growth and Long Quality / Defensives / Bond Proxies vs Short Cyclicals / Value), any sustained re-pricing higher of Growth or Inflation Expectations, which paradoxically could once again become a driver of underperformance for consensual US equity positioning.
As a result, while stocks soared on Monday, many investors and hedge funds who had put on the popular growth/deflation trade not only did not participate in the rally, they actually ended up in the red.
Accordingly, US Equities saw a significant thematic shift yesterday off the back of the “positive global growth impulse” via data. Indeed, as McElligott shows, the “value” factor exploded higher thanks to leadership from US cyclicals and the significant macro catalyst of “Bear Steepening” in US Rates Curves. Some more details:
Top 3 S&P sectors on the day all “Deep Cyclicals”: Financials (+2.4%), Industrials (+2.1%), Materials (+1.5%)
Value factor proxies thus explode higher: Cash Flow / EV (+1.5%, a +3.3 z-score move over past 1Y); E/P (+1.3%, +2.1 z-score); Predicted E/P (+1.6%, +2 z-score); Sales / Price (+1.4%, +1.7 z-score); B/P (+1.2%, +1.7 z-score); EBITDA / EV (+1.2%, +1.2 z-score)
As a result of this sudden outperformance in “value”, the Nomura strategist observes that the dominant them of Monday’s price action was “Pain” for “1Y Momentum” strategies, as “Value” names/sectors make up significant portions of “1Y Momentum Shorts” being the largest “losers” of the past year, with too the additional macro headwind yesterday in the form of said “Bear Steepening” of the yield curve adding further pressure:
“1Y Price Momentum” was clobbered -1.4%, a -1.4 z-score move relative to 1Y returns
“Vol Adjusted Momentum” too suffered, -1.3%, a -2.1 z-score move
“Sector Neutral Momentum” (proxy for “quant” fund-style momentum) was -1.1%, a -1.4 z-score move
As “Value” led, “Consensus Shorts” were thus squeezed powerfully—1Y Momentum Shorts +2.3%, 2018 Worst Performers +2.3%, High Short Interest +1.4%
The chart below summarizes best the price action seen as a result of yesterday’s “Green shoots”, where “value” and “1M price reversal” factors exploded higher, while “momentum” factors were all crushed.
At the sector level, action was also all bout reversal, as the past year’s largest losers/laggards lead, while all winners suffered.
So in addition to the sharp repricing/steepening in the bond market – some of which has reversed this morning as growth fears re-emerge – and the painful underperformance of winners, McElligott also highlights the collapse of volatility, resulting from the world shifting back to “carry” mode as central bank vol suppression returns with a vengeance.
Cross-asset vols were again smashed yesterday, with Rates “carry” folks re-engaging into the recent jump in realized, while within Equities we saw fundamental funds “rolling-out” options which in turn pressured short-dated vol, while too systematic sellers remained active
It all comes down to the renewed “Carry is King” worldview in-light of Central Banks being scared of their own shadows and in max “vol suppression” mode
A look across Nomura QIS’ “Carry” strategies captures this incredible demand for carry / performance YTD, in light of the regime shift back to “short vol”
Finally, with the bitcoin explosion overnight, McElligott observes “things that make you go hmm”, and points out that the return of vol suppression by central banks (recall that in 2017 bitcoin was used by even conventional trading desks due to its massive volatility), and the resumption of speculative assets bubbles, has benefit cryptos which blasted off higher, with most rising above their 200DMA for the first time in a year. As the Nomura strategist puts it “Funny what some excess liquidity and “wealth effect” (likely / particularly in Asia) can do for a completely spec “asset” like Crypto” and recaps the recent action:
The BGCI Bloomberg Galaxy Crypto Index is now +58.6% off the Dec lows
Bitcoin is +51.7% off Dec lows
Bitcoin Cash is +139.2% off Dec lows
Dash is +111.1% off Dec lows
EOS is +165.6% off Dec lows
Ethereum is +86.4% off Dec lows
Litecoin is +201.0% off Dec lows
Monero is +69.1% off Dec lows
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2FJcO8V Tyler Durden
Whichever aggrieved Phoenixus board member leaked a story about Martin Shkreli running the pharma company from prison using a contraband cellphone has probably achieved their goal: After a year in New Jersey’s Fort Dix prison, Shkreli has been thrown into solitary confinement, rendering him incommunicado.
Though the Bureau of Prisons wouldn’t comment on Shkreli’s accommodations, a member of the Hacker crew Crackas with Attitude, who told Forbes he had befriended the one-time “most hated man in America” and “pharma bro”, Shkreli is currently in the “Special Housing Unit”, or “SHU”. The BOP did say, however, that “when there are allegations of misconduct, they are thoroughly investigated.” Of course, anybody who read the WSJ’s story about Shkreli’s big comeback plans – he’s hoping to build Phoenixus, essentially his old Turing Pharmaceuticals run under a different name – probably sensed that it would bring unwanted heat down on Shkreli, who was sentenced to seven years for allegedly defrauding investors (though, as his defense repeatedly pointed out during his trial, none of them actually lost any money).
It appears Shkreli has been in the SHU since the article was published on March 7. His lawyer, Ben Brafman, declined to comment to Forbes.
One source close to Shkreli’s legal team said the fraudster was in the special housing unit (SHU) a week and a half after the article was published on March 7, but the source had not received an update on his status. But according to Justin Liverman, a fellow inmate and ex-member of notorious hacker crew Crackas With Attitude, Shkreli was indeed put in solitary and was still there as of Sunday. “Martin is in the SHU,” Liverman told Forbes.
According to Justin Liverman, the hacker mentioned above, Fort Dix is “cellphone heaven” – that is, theere are hundreds of contraband phones floating around the prison, and inmates can rent time from holders or even buy one for $1,000. One inmate was sentenced to another 30 years after masterminding the murder of his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend from behind bars. Another group was busted using the phones to share child pornography.
Using a cellphone behind the vast redbrick walls of Fort Dix is against the rules, but Liverman claims it isn’t difficult to obtain one. Fort Dix is like a “cellphone heaven…. There are hundreds of phones on this compound. You can either rent phone time or buy one for $1,000,” says Liverman, who was given a five-year sentence for his involvement in the hacker crew Crackas With Attitude. In the outfit’s most notorious attack, they broke into the AOL account of then-CIA director John Brennan and shared emails and files with Wikileaks.
Fort Dix has had problems with contraband phones before. In the past year, guards caught inmates sharing child pornography using smuggled devices. In another incident in 2018, prisoner Omar Adonis Guzman-Martine was sentenced to an additional 30 years for using a cellphone to organize an attack on his girlfriend and murder her boyfriend.
By the sound of it, at least when Shkreli has been returned to genpop, he won’t have much trouble getting his business back up and running…if the company’s board hasn’t wrested control of Phoenixus in the mean time.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2UlPAiz Tyler Durden
LYFT shares are now down over 26% from their opening highs, having crashed well below their $72 IPO price as investors scramble to take profits (or reduce losses) on the cash-burning ride-share venture.
There is one little problem though – the shorts haven’t even started yet…
As Bloomberg reports, Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, blamed the drop on shareholders exiting the stock, rather than short sellers, because IPO shares aren’t finalized yet and therefore not in lending programs.
“It’s going to be interesting because you’ll have long holders that are already on the fence,” he said in an interview.
“If the shorts come in, they are going to push the longs out.”
“There’s going to be a ton of demand and not a lot of supply,” said Dusaniwsky, who expects the imbalance to result in borrow fees exceeding 10 percent, a level he called “very expensive.”
Short interest should steadily increase as more and more shares become available, and early indicators are pointing to strong demand from short sellers.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2HUgDeO Tyler Durden
Today is “Equal Pay Day,” which means wildly misleading information about workplace discrimination will be flowing in service of Democratic Party policy goals.
