In Twitter Meltdown, Elon Musk Calls Thai Cave Diver A Pedophile

What does a billionaire Silicon Valley liberal whose giant “Thai cave rescue” diversion from auto production woes goes sideways after authorities tell him to back off?

Handle rejection poorly and question the rescue chief’s credibility, of course… 

And what does said billionaire do when the Thai rescue chief tells him to “stick his submarine where it hurts” before being outed as a top donor to a GOP PAC?

Engage in a weird Twitter exchange with the Sierra Club about climate change to show the world you’re an environmentalist, then call the Thai rescue chief a pedophile!!! 

After Musk’s boy-rescuing submarine was rejected by Thai authorities and his idea called a “PR stunt” by rescue chief Vern Unsworth, the Tesla CEO began melting down over Twitter – saying Unsworth had been “inaccurately described as rescue chief.” 

Unsworth, an explorer and expert cave diver who lives in Thailand’s Chiang Rai province, said that Musk was “asked to leave” the cave “very quickly” – and that the Tesla CEO had “no conception of what the caves would be like. 

Musk hit back – tweeting “Never saw this British expat guy who lives in Thailand (sus) at any point when we were in the caves … Only people in sight were the Thai navy/army guys, who were great. Thai navy seals escorted us in — total opposite of wanting us to leave.”

I challenge this dude to show final rescue video,” he continued. “Huge credit to pump & generator team. Unsung heroes here.”

It was then that Musk accused the man heralded worldwide as a hero – a pedo.

After Musk’s shocking pedo claim, he doubled down – betting a Twitter user a “signed dollar it’s true.” 

Maybe Thai officials had a bad feeling about his boy-rescuing submarine after Musk promised to send two tourists to the moon in 2018, only to delay the grandiose plan due to “technical challenges“? Maybe they saw pictures of Musk’s makeshift tent city assembly line and didn’t want to risk Elon rescuing a fraction of the boys he promised despite reassuring investors Thai officials it would be no problem? Perhaps they wanted to avoid a mid-cave battery fire? 

Either way, Musk then responded to a nine day old tweet from Texas Observer journalist Christopher Hooks by calling him a jackass

Musk’s latest gaffe comes on the heels of a Bloomberg interview in which he acknowledged the need to tone down his Twitter spats, saying “I have made the mistaken assumption – and I will attempt to be better at this – of thinking that because Somebody is on Twitter and is attacking me that it is open season,” adding “This is my mistake. I will correct it.” 

Meanwhile, Musk’s pedo comment is not going over well…

 It’s true…

via RSS https://ift.tt/2uBcPWW Tyler Durden

As Goes China, So Goes The World

Via Nordea 

China and the CNY are key for the global cycle. If USD/CNY continues higher, it may worsen the global slowdown already predicted by our models.

In the latest FX weekly we suggested it was time for a little breather in the trade war, at least between the EU and the US. This has been temporary good news for e.g. cyclical equities but bad news for bonds. However, when we look a bit further ahead, we continue to see worrisome signs for the global industrial cycle, as for instance signalled by recent pain in industrial metal prices. We also suspect EM turmoil will “spill back” on Euro-area and US data after summer, see Global: Could spillbacks trigger a Buenos Aires accord?

Looking at China, the humongous trade surplus in June might also boost China/US tensions. USD/CNY has re-jumped above 6.70, spilling over negatively to ADXY (which has hit new lows), as well as buoyed USD/JPY (sadly erasing earlier performance from our NZD/JPY short).

CHART 1: WHAT CHINA ALLOWS, OR DECIDES, WILL BE KEY FOR THE GLOBAL CYCLE

What China allows, or decides, will be key for global assets and for the manufacturing cycle (a stronger dollar tightens EM financial conditions). If USD/CNY continues higher, then it may worsen the global slowdown already predicted by our models.

CHART 2: EUR SWAP RATES – GETTING READY TO BREAK DOWN?

In the Euro-area, the 10y swap rate has been sniffing at the lows of its uptrend since late 2016. ECB’s minutes and slightly softer US inflation make a hawkish shift seem distant. Trump criticizing of May’s Brexit approach also triggered plenty of Bund purchases on Friday.

CHART 3: ENERGY PRICE BASE EFFECTS PEAK IN AUGUST, DWINDLE AFTERWARDS

In a bigger picture, some of the reflationary ammunition which has helped weaken bonds this year – higher energy prices – is about to run out of steam. WTI spot recently plummeted 6% on the day. Unless oil prices keep rising the effect on US CPI will peak in August, and dwindle afterwards. This may help bonds perform further, and a painful squeeze of duration shorts surely cannot be ruled out at this juncture.

CHART 4: ED CURVE HAS INVERTED

The Eurodollar curve is now inverted between Dec20 and Dec19 for the first time since 2007, and the Fed Funds curve is almost there too (only a ~2-3bp slope). An inversion of ED10 vs ED6 curve has predicted the three recent US NBER recessions while sending a false signal once (in 1994). We suspect real rates are too low to bring about a new recession even as we predict a distinct growth slowdown. Either this part of the ED curve must steepen, or cyclicals will underperform.

CHART 5: GOLD PRICES (IN EUR) MIGHT SOAR IF WE GET A SQUEEZE OF BOND SHORTS

If things are turning sour, and we do get a bond squeeze, one way to play it might be via long gold (or, perhaps gold volatility). Or perhaps, via falling US breakeven inflation?

CHART 6: IF YOU LISTEN TO DR. COPPER, IT’S TIME TO BET ON LOWER BREAKEVEN RATES

Being long cyclical equities vs defensives also seem like a bad idea, if ISM manufacturing starts to mean-revert as we expect.

CHART 7: ISM MANUFACTURING VS CYCLICALS & DEFENSIVES

If ISM heads to its-long-term average of 52.7, cyclical equities could underperform defensives by 15% on this chart.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2zH0PsK Tyler Durden

Mueller Prepares To Target Key Individuals Once Special Counsel Probe Wraps Up

As special counsel Robert Mueller faces pressure to wrap up his investigation with or without the illusive collusion charge, the Washington Post reports that the Department of Justice and Mueller’s team have been preparing to pass the baton of various ongoing investigations once the probe is complete.

Meanwhile, inside the Justice Department, law enforcement officials have discussed several scenarios in which the prosecutions of people who may be charged as a result of Mueller’s investigation are farmed out to other offices to handle any future trials.

In those scenarios, these people said, some prosecutors on Mueller’s team could move with their cases to Justice Department headquarters or individual U.S. attorney offices, these people said. –Washington Post

The Post also reveals that “the transferring of some cases has already begun,” while Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said on Friday that Mueller’s case against 12 indicted Russian military officers would be handled by DOJ prosecutors at the Justice Department headquarters (it also doesn’t take that much to sit on a case that will never see a courtroom, and the open file may linger for years, but we digress). 

There are also practical reasons to begin shuffling cases and attorneys over to the DOJ. For one, President Trump could fire Mueller if this continues to drag on – a prospect made more and more likely as time goes on without the emergence of any actual evidence of collusion. But the most logical answer is that the investigation may simply be nearing its natural end, as cases against several individuals targeted by the probe are approaching resolution. Sentencing dates have already been set for two people who cooperated with Mueller’s probe and pleaded guilty to charges; George Papadopoulos and Richard Pinedo – a California man who was charged with operating a Russian internet trolling outfit. The Sentencing of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, however, has been pushed back several times, with the next court appearance being August 24. 

Then there are all the loose strings with Paul Manafort, the Podesta Group (ah who are we kidding), Michael Cohen and others the public may or may not know about. Mueller’s probe ballooned in size as “mission creep” set in and investigatory avenues led to yet more investigations – requiring more attorneys. 

In the past six months, the number of prosecutors working on cases he has brought has expanded significantly, with new additions casting light on the special counsel’s potential priorities and focuses. Court filings show that at least half a dozen new names are participating in Mueller’s work, all current Justice Department prosecutors. Their backgrounds vary widely, from prosecuting violent crimes to cyber attacks.

Sol Wisenberg, who worked on Ken Starr’s independent counsel investigation of the Clinton White House, told The Daily Beast that the expansion of Mueller’s probe was to be expected. –Daily Beast

“I don’t think it’s unusual at all,” says Wisenberg. “That’s what happened with us. You get more cases or your cases become more complex, you need more prosecutors and you need more agents.”

“They wouldn’t bring them on if they didn’t need them,” he added. “They’re not bringing them on for grins. There’s work there that needs to be done or they would not be bringing them in.”

About that Trump interview

Member Trump’s inner circle and legal team tell the Post that Mueller may decide against a lengthy subpoena battle for Trump to testify – while Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, leery of a “perjury trap,” has insisted that the president not be required to answer certain questions. 

Among them: that Mueller not ask any questions about actions Trump has taken as president, including his private discussions with then-FBI Director James B. Comey.

Giuliani said Trump does not recall asking Comey to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and he does not want the president to be accused of lying about the episode. –Washington Post

The president firmly believes he didn’t say it,” Giuliani said.

“He doesn’t recall it. . . . But Mueller could come out the other way,” he added. “They’ll say he’s lying. We don’t want to expose him to perjury [accusations].”

Trump’s attorneys haven’t received a response from Mueller regarding their terms, however one person briefed on the discussions doesn’t expect Mueller to agree to them. “But if he did, well, then we’d face a really interesting choice.” 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2zCElsR Tyler Durden

France Wins World Cup, Trump Congratulates Putin On “One Of The Best Tournaments Ever”

Despite the absence of a USA team, many have argued that 2018’s FIFA World Cup was the best in history and following France’s victory over Croatia by 4 goals to 2, President Trump added his congratulations: ” Congratulations to France, who played extraordinary soccer, on winning the 2018 World Cup. “

Macron was pleased…

And then, likely stirring the ‘resistance’ into fits, he dared to congratulate President Putin: ” congratulations to President Putin and Russia for putting on a truly great World Cup Tournament — one of the best ever! “

France were fantastic.

And for those who will immediately become football experts to proclaim Trump’s congratulatory proclamation, here is USA Today’s Martin Rogers to explain why Russia just staged the best tournament in history…

History suggests there is every reason to distrust the figures who control world soccer and therefore, every reason to be highly skeptical when the president of FIFA says that this was the best World Cup ever.

But when Gianni Infantino made that bold claim in the lead-up to Sunday’s final between France and Croatia, he was, against all odds, met with nods of agreement from around the globe.

This wasn’t supposed to be a great World Cup. Awarding the tournament to Russia seemed like a flawed and possibly corrupt decision to begin with. The Sochi Winter Olympics, Russia’s previous attempt at hosting at worldwide festival of sports, was good but not great — was hideously expensive, and was severely tainted by coordinated drug use by the host nation’s athletes.

Politics threatened to spill over into the sporting sphere here too, and indications were that not only would droves of fans stay away, but those that did come would be given either an indifferent or even hostile welcome.

On the field itself, it was suggested that the increasingly powerful status of club soccer, with leading teams now serving as almighty brands capable of influencing the sport at their whim, could leave the World Cup nursing a lesser role of importance.

And on a purely provincial level, the United States’ absence for the first time in 28 years was a serious blow to fans of the national team and to Fox, which paid handsomely for broadcast rights.

Yet somehow, it was all those dissenting voices that were wrong. Infantino’s remarks had already been uttered by players, supporters both on the ground and back home and a general consensus of agreement had been reached.

A tournament that started strongly only got better and by the time the final week was upon us, had etched its place decisively in soccer’s psyche as one of the very best in history, and quite possibly the greatest of all.

The hostile welcome … didn’t happen. Vladimir Putin’s politics leave much to be desired but the Russian people rolled out their charm and embraced both the spirit of the event and the opportunity to show a different side to their country.

As the field narrowed and the knockout rounds built towards their climax, the soccer community realized that not only does the international game still matter, but that this tournament will forever matter the most.

It wasn’t dominated by one team or one player, although both Kylian Mbappe and Luka Modric went into the final with an opportunity to place their name alongside the past’s key World Cup influencers.

But there was a treasure trove of treats to keep a worldwide audience occupied and wove a gripping narrative over the course of a month and more.

Giants like defending champion Germany fell, rose and then crashed again. Brazil brought flair, color and Neymar’s dubious theatrics before being bumped off by Belgium. England believed briefly that football was coming home, only to find that no, they were. Mexico battled, Belgium dazzled, Uruguay tussled and Spain got frazzled.

Russia came within a whisker of a semifinal place no one thought possible, not even Putin and his penchant for bluster.

The biggest individual names in the sport left yet another World Cup without winning it, but Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi spun us a stirring tale regardless. Ronaldo began with a bang — three of them in a hat-trick against Spain — but then lost his mojo, his cool and his place in the tournament, before trying to upstage the whole thing post-departure by revealing his move to Juventus just before the semifinal.

Messi’s journey looked to dissolve into a nightmare before a late revival in the final group match, before Argentina got edged in a thriller after giving France more problems than anyone.

The goals kept coming, not as a trickle but wave upon wave of them, with only one scoreless game in the whole tournament leading into the final. There were the cruel thrills of penalty shootouts, late winners in plentiful supply and a platform for the best to showcase their tricks and abilities.

Perhaps best of all, was the experience for those who did travel. Anyone who did not visit this World Cup and won’t visit the next one on grounds of conscience is only to be admired, but for those who pay their money and give their time there is nothing to be guilty of.

European teams occupied each of the four semifinal places but South American fans (plus Mexico) won the imaginary championship for the best supporters. They came in their droves, adding joy and energy to cities around Russia, but especially to Moscow, where most international visitors based themselves.

Peru was eliminated in the group stage but its followers stayed long after, partying hard and singing long and loud. Argentina’s followers didn’t let their team’s dismal campaign negate their fun entirely. CONCACAF’s banner was flown admirably by Mexico, not just the team but the vast number of loyal fanatics with their smiles and enthusiasm.

It was a strange summer, in that it kept on giving even after it seemed like there was nothing left to offer. It will be missed and looked back upon with reverence and affection. It promised little and delivered much, even more perhaps, than any World Cup before it.

*  *  *
We can’t wait for Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters to denounce Trump’s unpatriotic comments, seemingly downplaying the occasion when USA hosted The World Cup.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2uCe7kv Tyler Durden

Survival Of The Richest…

Authored by Douglas Rushkoff via Medium.com,

Last year, I got invited to a super-deluxe private resort to deliver a keynote speech to what I assumed would be a hundred or so investment bankers. It was by far the largest fee I had ever been offered for a talk  –  about half my annual professor’s salary  –  all to deliver some insight on the subject of “the future of technology.”

I’ve never liked talking about the future. The Q&A sessions always end up more like parlor games, where I’m asked to opine on the latest technology buzzwords as if they were ticker symbols for potential investments: blockchain, 3D printing, CRISPR. The audiences are rarely interested in learning about these technologies or their potential impacts beyond the binary choice of whether or not to invest in them. But money talks, so I took the gig.

After I arrived, I was ushered into what I thought was the green room. But instead of being wired with a microphone or taken to a stage, I just sat there at a plain round table as my audience was brought to me: five super-wealthy guys  –  yes, all men  –  from the upper echelon of the hedge fund world. After a bit of small talk, I realized they had no interest in the information I had prepared about the future of technology. They had come with questions of their own.

They started out innocuously enough.

Ethereum or bitcoin? Is quantum computing a real thing?

Slowly but surely, however, they edged into their real topics of concern.

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska?

Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one?

Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?”

The Event.

That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time.

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape.

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

It’s a reduction of human evolution to a video game that someone wins by finding the escape hatch and then letting a few of his BFFs come along for the ride. Will it be Musk, Bezos, Thiel…Zuckerberg? These billionaires are the presumptive winners of the digital economy  –  the same survival-of-the-fittest business landscape that’s fueling most of this speculation to begin with.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way. There was a brief moment, in the early 1990s, when the digital future felt open-ended and up for our invention. Technology was becoming a playground for the counterculture, who saw in it the opportunity to create a more inclusive, distributed, and pro-human future. But established business interests only saw new potentials for the same old extraction, and too many technologists were seduced by unicorn IPOs. Digital futures became understood more like stock futures or cotton futures — something to predict and make bets on. So nearly every speech, article, study, documentary, or white paper was seen as relevant only insofar as it pointed to a ticker symbol. The future became less a thing we create through our present-day choices or hopes for humankind than a predestined scenario we bet on with our venture capital but arrive at passively.

This freed everyone from the moral implications of their activities. Technology development became less a story of collective flourishing than personal survival. Worse, as I learned, to call attention to any of this was to unintentionally cast oneself as an enemy of the market or an anti-technology curmudgeon.

So instead of considering the practical ethics of impoverishing and exploiting the many in the name of the few, most academics, journalists, and science-fiction writers instead considered much more abstract and fanciful conundrums: Is it fair for a stock trader to use smart drugs? Should children get implants for foreign languages? Do we want autonomous vehicles to prioritize the lives of pedestrians over those of its passengers? Should the first Mars colonies be run as democracies? Does changing my DNA undermine my identity? Should robots have rights?

Asking these sorts of questions, while philosophically entertaining, is a poor substitute for wrestling with the real moral quandaries associated with unbridled technological development in the name of corporate capitalism. Digital platforms have turned an already exploitative and extractive marketplace (think Walmart) into an even more dehumanizing successor (think Amazon). Most of us became aware of these downsides in the form of automated jobs, the gig economy, and the demise of local retail.

But the more devastating impacts of pedal-to-the-metal digital capitalism fall on the environment and global poor. The manufacture of some of our computers and smartphones still uses networks of slave labor. These practices are so deeply entrenched that a company called Fairphone, founded from the ground up to make and market ethical phones, learned it was impossible. (The company’s founder now sadly refers to their products as “fairer” phones.)

Meanwhile, the mining of rare earth metals and disposal of our highly digital technologies destroys human habitats, replacing them with toxic waste dumps, which are then picked over by peasant children and their families, who sell usable materials back to the manufacturers.

This “out of sight, out of mind” externalization of poverty and poison doesn’t go away just because we’ve covered our eyes with VR goggles and immersed ourselves in an alternate reality. If anything, the longer we ignore the social, economic, and environmental repercussions, the more of a problem they become. This, in turn, motivates even more withdrawal, more isolationism and apocalyptic fantasy — and more desperately concocted technologies and business plans. The cycle feeds itself.

The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we come to see human beings as the problem and technology as the solution. The very essence of what it means to be human is treated less as a feature than bug. No matter their embedded biases, technologies are declared neutral. Any bad behaviors they induce in us are just a reflection of our own corrupted core. It’s as if some innate human savagery is to blame for our troubles. Just as the inefficiency of a local taxi market can be “solved” with an app that bankrupts human drivers, the vexing inconsistencies of the human psyche can be corrected with a digital or genetic upgrade.

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Our movies and television shows play out these fantasies for us. Zombie shows depict a post-apocalypse where people are no better than the undead — and seem to know it. Worse, these shows invite viewers to imagine the future as a zero-sum battle between the remaining humans, where one group’s survival is dependent on another one’s demise. Even Westworld — based on a science-fiction novel where robots run amok — ended its second season with the ultimate reveal: Human beings are simpler and more predictable than the artificial intelligences we create. The robots learn that each of us can be reduced to just a few lines of code, and that we’re incapable of making any willful choices. Heck, even the robots in that show want to escape the confines of their bodies and spend their rest of their lives in a computer simulation.

The mental gymnastics required for such a profound role reversal between humans and machines all depend on the underlying assumption that humans suck. Let’s either change them or get away from them, forever.

Thus, we get tech billionaires launching electric cars into space — as if this symbolizes something more than one billionaire’s capacity for corporate promotion. And if a few people do reach escape velocity and somehow survive in a bubble on Mars — despite our inability to maintain such a bubble even here on Earth in either of two multibillion-dollar Biosphere trials — the result will be less a continuation of the human diaspora than a lifeboat for the elite.

When the hedge funders asked me the best way to maintain authority over their security forces after “the event,” I suggested that their best bet would be to treat those people really well, right now. They should be engaging with their security staffs as if they were members of their own family. And the more they can expand this ethos of inclusivity to the rest of their business practices, supply chain management, sustainability efforts, and wealth distribution, the less chance there will be of an “event” in the first place. All this technological wizardry could be applied toward less romantic but entirely more collective interests right now.

They were amused by my optimism, but they didn’t really buy it. They were not interested in how to avoid a calamity; they’re convinced we are too far gone. For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future. They are simply accepting the darkest of all scenarios and then bringing whatever money and technology they can employ to insulate themselves — especially if they can’t get a seat on the rocket to Mars.

Luckily, those of us without the funding to consider disowning our own humanity have much better options available to us. We don’t have to use technology in such antisocial, atomizing ways. We can become the individual consumers and profiles that our devices and platforms want us to be, or we can remember that the truly evolved human doesn’t go it alone.

Being human is not about individual survival or escape. It’s a team sport. Whatever future humans have, it will be together.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2Lf2BWq Tyler Durden

“Such Hatred & Dissension In Our Country” – Trump Decries Media, Dems Predjudiced Criticism Of Putin Summit

Hours after CBS News aired an interview with President Trump where he described the EU, Russia and China as “foes” of the US when it comes to matters of trade (eliciting a shocked response from European Council President Donald Tusk) and said he’s going in to his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin with “low expectations,” Trump continued to prep his followers for an outpouring of negative media coverage in a series of tweets where he lamented that no matter what he achieves in Helsinki, journalists will bash him for being “not good enough” or for “kowtowing to Putin.”

As Trump pointed out, “[t]here hasn’t been a missile or rocket fired in 9 months in North Korea, there have been no nuclear tests and we got back our hostages. Who knows how it will all turn out in the end, but why isn’t the Fake News talking about these wonderful facts? Because it is FAKE NEWS!”

And as he prepares to met with Putin, Trump complained that “no matter how well I do at the Summit, if I was given the great city of Moscow as retribution for all of the sins and evils committed by Russia over the years, I would return to criticism that it wasn’t good enough.”

Trump also highlighted the “dissension in our country” that is a product of all of these criticisms…

…Thanks to the “tolerant” left.

Left

via RSS https://ift.tt/2uCp0T8 Tyler Durden

Greek Court Rules To Extradite Alexander Vinnik, Accused Of Laundering $4 Billion In Bitcoin

Authored by Helen Partz via CoinTelegraph.com,

A Greek court has ruled to extradite the alleged former operator of crypto exchange BTC-e, Alexander Vinnik, to France, local news outlet CNN Greece reported Friday, July 13.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

The 39-year old Russian national Vinnik, also known colloquially as “Mr. Bitcoin,” was indicted by U.S. authorities on charges of fraud and money laundering last year, reportedly involving up to $4 billion in Bitcoin (BTC).

Vinnik’s Greek lawyer Ilias Spyrliadis confirmed to Russian news agency TASS that “the court has granted France’s request for Vinnik’s extradition.” Spyrliadis also revealed that he is planning to appeal against the court’s decision in the Greek Supreme Court.

According to CNN Greece, Vinnik himself challenged the decision of the Greek court on extradition to France, denying the allegations of French authorities, who issued a warrant, in which the alleged BTC-e owner was accused of “defraud[ing] over 100 people in six French cities between 2016 and 2018.”

Vinnik responded that he was “transferring e-money through a platform,” considering it as “legitimate personal transactions.”

Vinnik’s lawyer Spyrliadis assured Russian BBC that the latest extradition to France would lead to a further extradition to the U.S., because “otherwise the U.S. cannot get him, since the extradition process was blocked.”

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a comment July 13 in response to the events, accusing the Greek authorities of “continu[ing] to complicate relations with Russia.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that Russia’s request to extradite Vinnik should have been given priority over France’s, concluding “[i]t is obvious that Russia cannot leave these actions unanswered.”

On July 25, 2017, Vinnik was arrested by Greek police under the order of of the U.S. Ministry of Justice, following the closure of once major cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, allegedly owned and administered by Vinnik.

Having publicly stated his innocence in September 2017, Vinnik also denied his involvement in the Mt. Gox hack back in 2011 after a group of Bitcoin security experts claimed that Vinnik had a direct relationship to the incident.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2LkLbVd Tyler Durden

Tusk Says US, EU “Best Friends” As Trump Calls EU “Biggest Global Foe”

Following President Trump’s controversial interview with CBS, in which he called Europe one of America’s biggest foes, European Commission president Donald Tusk fired back

As we detailed earlier, when asked who America’s biggest foe globally is, Trump responded…

“I think we have a lot of foes…

I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn’t think of the European Union, but they’re a foe.”

The president went on to add that Russia and China are also on his list of enemies.

“Russia is foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically, certainly they are a foe. But that doesn’t mean they are bad,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything. It means that they are competitive. They want to do well and we want to do well.”

Tusk immediately responded with a pointed tweet arguing that in fact “America and the EU are best friends,” and jabbing Trump specifically by adding that “Whoever says we are foes is spreading fake news.

As The Hill notes, Trump was not entirely negative as he said he could not take a fully combative stance to the EU because “both” of his parents were born there. His mother was born in Scotland, while his father was born in New York.

“You know I love those countries. I respect the leaders of those countries,” Trump said. “But, in a trade sense, they’ve really taken advantage of us, and many of those countries are in NATO and they weren’t paying their bills.”

Tusk’s comments come just 5 days after he also warned President Trump to “appreciate you allies” as there are fewer and fewer of them.

“America does not have, and will not have, a better ally than Europe.”

Tensions have been evident between Tusk and Trump for a while, as the European Commission President said that the American president appeared to gloat about the EU’s frailty when the two men first spoke (governments in several Eastern EU nations, such as Poland and Hungary, view Trump as a political ally in their fight against Europe’s liberal elites).

“Trump’s aversion to the EU and NATO exceeds standards, while his openness to people like the dictator of North Korea and President Putin is quite significant,” Tusk told Polish broadcaster TVN24 on Friday.

“I’m warning those in Europe who are happy to see that Trump can punch Europe” that a re-balancing of strategic U.S. relationships “should be a source of concern in our part of the continent, including in Poland,” he said.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2NhFwQf Tyler Durden

The Bulls’ “Maginot Line” & The Bears’ Big Milestone

Authored by Lance Roberts via Real InvestmentAdvice.com,

Bull’s Maginot Line

“The Maginot Line, named after the French Minister of War André Maginot, was a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations built by France in the 1930s to deter invasion by Germany and force them to move around the fortifications. The Maginot Line was impervious to most forms of attack, including aerial bombings and tank fire, and had underground railways as a backup.” – Wikipedia

For the market, the bulls are currently testing the respective “Maginot Line” going back to February of this year.

While the longer-term sell signal remains intact currently, the market has now risen enough to test the last line of resistance standing between the “bulls” and a charge to this year’s highs. With the Nasdaq hitting all-time highs on Thursday, it is now quite likely traders will try to also push the S&P 500 to new highs as well.

However, as of now, the market stands at a critical juncture. As we laid out a couple of week’s ago, it continues to be a “battle of wills” between the bulls and bears. A break above current resistance will bring Pathway #1 into focus as a push to previous highs becomes a very high probability event. If, however, the market fails to move higher, then Pathway #2 will suggest a retest of recent support at the 50-dma which has now also turned positive. The cluster of support which has gathered around the 100-dma reduces, but doesn’t eliminate, the probabilities of a larger drawdown in the short-term.

As I stated previously, these “pathways” are not predictions. The analysis is used to make some “assumptions”about where the markets will likely head given the various risks we are currently weighing in our portfolio allocation models.

Those risks include:

  • Trade risk

  • Yield curve

  • Tweets from the White House (who would have ever thought such would be a risk)

  • Interest Rates

  • Monetary Policy

  • Earnings

  • Geopolitical

  • Corporate Guidance

You get the idea.

For now, the risk of a bigger correction has been somewhat mitigated particularly as we move deeper into earnings season. Earnings should be somewhat supportive to the bulls as once again, miraculously, there will be a high “beat rate” of earnings estimates. Of course, this is always the case as estimates are lowered prior to entering earnings season so the bar is set low enough to achieve “beat rates.”

In just the last two months, estimates have been lowered sharply. The reality is that if analysts were required to stick to their initial estimates; 1) roughly all companies would fail to exceed their goals, and; 2) Wall Street would be much more prudent, and honest, about their estimates.

But, while that is a philosophical argument, the reality is that we must also “play the game,” and lowered earnings estimates will make “earnings season” more supportive for the bulls.

The “risk” will be the “forward guidance” as companies start talking about the risk to higher commodity prices, a strong dollar, and tariffs. The chart makes an adjustment to account for the risk of a trade war which could effectively eliminate the benefit of the “tax cut” boost entirely.

On a weekly basis, the bull’s “Maginot line” becomes clearer.

A couple of weeks ago, I “jumped the gun” and assumed that a weekly “buy” signal was about to be triggered. I quickly relearned my lesson to wit:

“I made a mistake. It happens.

While we strictly adhere to our discipline, sometimes we have to relearn lessons the hard way.

‘Last week, I wrote:

However, if you are so inclined, the pullback to support last week does provide an opportunity to increase exposure modestly. (I said modestly, not ‘jump in with both feet.’)’  

That was a mistake as I was ‘anticipating’ a reversal of the ‘sell signal.’ ‘Anticipation’ is an emotion and has no place in portfolio management. 

Lesson learned, once again.”

Of course, it is hard to believe that just a few weeks ago we were sitting basically where we are today. With the markets rallying, bullish optimism rising, and the market close to registering a “buy signal,” this time looks a whole lot like “last time.” However, the question is now whether the bulls can succeed where they failed previously.

Next week, either the bulls will breach the “Maginot Line” and claim “victory,” or they will be repelled back to defensive positions.

Currently, based on the very short-term risk/reward analysis, we find the bulls have the edge. With our portfolios are already mostly exposed to equity risk, there isn’t much for us to do expect to wait for a confirmed break higher to begin moving portfolios back to full target allocation weightings.

Bearish Milestone

Ryan Vlastelica had an interesting post at MarketWatch last week discussing the long “correction” periods. To wit:

“Amid months of rangebound trading, neither index has been able to fully recover and notch new records, which is what would be needed for them to exit correction territory.

Including Friday, both the Dow and the S&P have been in correction territory for 108 trading days. This matches the longest such stretch since the financial crisis in 2008.

Should the two primary market gauges stay in correction through the close of trading on Monday, that will mean they are in their longest such stretch since 1984. In that stretch, it took the S&P 122 days to emerge from correction territory, and the Dow 123 days, according to the WSJ Market Data Group.”

“Despite the bearish record that could be set on Monday, the market is also nearing a more positive milestone. On a total-return basis, the S&P 500 is just days away from its longest stretch above its 200-day moving average in its history.”

There are two very important takeaways from this article.

The first is that long-corrective periods tend to ultimately resolve themselves relative to the level of valuations.

  • The long corrective period that ended in 1984 was just coming out of the 1974 crash and two back to back recessions. Valuations were extremely depressed at the time and inflation and interest rates were high and falling.
  • The next series of corrections that started in 1998 were early warning signs to a market frenzy but the bigger corrective period preceded the “dot.com” crash.  Valuations were elevated and rates and fears of inflationary pressures were rising.
  • The next corrective periods were near the 2003-2004 lows of the market as the markets begin to consolidate the bear market bottom. Valuations had fallen markedly, rates and inflation were falling, and excesses had been wrung out of the markets.
  • Following the credit-driven rise in the market from 2004-2007, the market once again began a long consolidation period which marked the top of the bull market cycle. Once again, rates and fears of inflationary pressures were rising, the Fed was tightening monetary policy, and valuations were elevated.

Where are we today?   

Are valuations low with rates and inflationary pressures falling? Or, is it the opposite? 

The second point from Ryan was noting the S&P 500 is about to achieve its longest, total-return, run in its history.

  • What happened the last time such an incredible feat was achieved?

It is worth remembering that “records are records for a reason.”

Records are never achieved at the beginning of a cycle.

Momentum Is The Last Stage Of The Investment Cycle

While our short and intermediate-term views are more bullishly biased, we are most definitely long-term bears. Ryan’s data points above further support that view.

The laws of physics apply to the markets just like everything else in life. Trying to deny those laws is akin to saying “gravity doesn’t exist.”

Currently, there is little doubt that we are in both the late stages of an economic cycle and a momentum-driven market. Breadth has narrowed substantially, valuations are elevated, rates and inflationary pressures are rising, and price deviations and overbought conditions are at extremes.

From an investment standpoint, we must maintain an investment focus which is adjusted to current market dynamics. As stated, given we are in a “momentum” market, we must adopt strategies that incorporate relative strength and momentum based measures. The chart below shows the overlay between market and economic cycles and investing strategies.

Momentum cycles are the “last phase” of an investment/market cycle. Eventually, momentum will give way to a “mean reversion” process at which point our focus will switch to a valuation-based strategy.

But this is the risk that most investors are overlooking currently as individuals chase“hot stocks.” The belief is that if they have doubled once, they will double again.

In the short-term, this is not entirely wrong. There have been many studies published that have shown that relative strength momentum strategies, in which as assets’ performance relative to its peers predicts its future relative performance, work well on both an absolute or time series basis. Historically, past returns (over the previous 12 months) have been a good predictor of future results. This is the basic application of Newton’s Law Of Inertia, that states “an object in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

In other words, when markets begin strongly trending in one direction, that direction will continue until an “unbalanced” force stops it. Momentum strategies, which are trend following strategies by nature, have been proven to work well across extreme market environments, multiple asset classes and over historical time frames.

While there is substantial evidence that market valuations and fundamentals are not supportive of asset prices at current levels, the “momentum chase” can keep markets “irrational longer than logic would dictate.” 

But, not indefinitely. 

The problem for solely “fundamentally based” investors is they tend to be slow to react to new information (they anchor), which initially leads to under-reaction but eventually shifts to over-reaction during late cycle stages.

The other inherent problem of primarily data-based investors is the “herding” effect.

As prices move higher, valuation arguments lose relevance. However, the need to produce investment performance in a rising market, leads to “justifications” to explain over-valued holdings. In other words, buying begets more buying.

Lastly, as the markets turn, the “disposition” effect takes hold and winners are sold to protect gains, but losers are held in the hopes of better prices later. The end effect is not a pretty one.

Understanding these issues is why we apply momentum strategies to fundamentally derived investment portfolios. This allows the portfolio to remain allocated during rising markets while managing the inherent risk of behavioral dynamics.

While we discuss the risk of investing as it relates to the destruction of both “capital” and “time,” our portfolio models have remained “bullishly” allocated during the market’s advance. But such will change when the markets change.

Our job as investors is to make money when markets are rising during the first half of an investment cycle, and avoid potentially catastrophic losses during the second half.

For now, the markets are rising, and we need to participate until the trends change. Of course, if your current portfolio management philosophy doesn’t have a method to understand when “trends” have changed, how will you know when it is time to step away from the poker table? 

To paraphrase Kenny Rogers:

“As every good investor knows…you gotta’ know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em.” 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2NRJQXJ Tyler Durden

Dianne Feinstein Loses California Democratic Party Endorsement To Upstart Progressive

The wave of far-left and socialist candidates triumphing over long-serving establishment figures continued Saturday night as former California state senate leader Kevin de Leon defeated Sen. Dianne Feinstein for the endorsement of the state Democratic Party, according to the Los Angeles Times. By winning, De Leon joins Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a handful of other left-wing candidates, many of whom were endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, in a wave of victories that are pushing the Democrats further and further left ahead of the 2018 midterms.

Ocasio-Cortez, a Latina “girl from the Bronx” (who spent most of her childhood in wealthy Westchester County), defeated longtime Queens Rep. Joe Crowley during a Democratic primary last month. Crowley, the chairman of the Congressional Democratic Caucus, was reportedly a contender to succeed Nancy Pelosi in the party leadership.

deLeon
Kevin de Leon

Roughly 65% of the 330 state party executive board members voted for de Leon, a lawmaker from Los Angeles. Feinstein, who had pushed the party leaders meeting in Oakland this weekend not to endorse any candidate after realizing that the party was drifting toward her opponent, received a meager 7% of the vote, while 28% voted for “no endorsement.”

Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein

While the endorsement is certainly an important victory for de Leon, it’s unclear whether it will have a major impact on the general election, according to the LAT.

Feinstein destroyed De León in the June primary, winning every county and finishing in first place with 44% of the vote, a clear plurality. De León finished far behind, with just 12%. But that was enough to qualify him for a spot on the ballot in the November election under the state’s top-two primary system. And the party endorsement will allow de Leon to receive potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money, as well as organizing assistance from the state party.

“We have presented Californians with the first real alternative to the worn-out Washington playbook in a quarter-century,” De León said in a statement shortly after the endorsement was announced.

Party members who voted for de Leon over Feinstein said they wanted to “send a message” – even though he has little chance of winning in November.

Lynne Standard-Nightengale, a member of the Amador County Democratic Central Committee, said she supported De León even though she realizes he has almost no chance of beating Feinstein. She said she wanted to send a message.

“I just think we need a younger, progressive person there,” she said. “The Democratic Party in California has moved to the left, and he personifies those values.”

De León had some inherent advantages with the California Democratic leaders who decided the endorsement. He’s been a fixture at state party conventions and has spearheaded legislation in a Democratic-dominated state legislature. Feinstein, who spends much of her time in Washington, has had a distant relationship with party activists for years.

“Kevin, by nature of his job, is visible and active here at home,” said state Party Chairman Eric Bauman said.

Per the Mercury News, Feinstein has a history of losing during state party nominating conventions.

Neither Feinstein nor De León won the endorsement in the primary campaign at the Democratic convention in February, when De León got the support of 54 percent of the delegates — just under the 60 percent threshold necessary.

[…]

Losing the party endorsement doesn’t always mean much. When Feinstein ran for governor in 1990, she dramatically declared her support for capital punishment at the state convention, over loud boos from the hall. The party’s delegates endorsed her more liberal rival, Attorney General John Van de Kamp. But Democratic voters as a whole agreed with Feinstein on the issue, and she won the primary that year.

Feinstein also lost the party endorsement during her first run for Senate in 1992.

As one strategist put it:

“The folks who show up at Democratic executive board meetings have never been Dianne Feinstein’s base,” said Darry Sragow, a strategist who ran Feinstein’s 1990 campaign and isn’t working for either camp this year. “[De León] gaining the endorsement is not going to get him the votes he needs to win – but it’ll be an opportunity to put a point on the board when he has very few of those.”

But even if Feinstein wins in November, de Leon will likely have succeeded in one thing: pushing his 85-year-old opponent further to the left, which is reflective of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party’s strategy. In recent weeks, Ocasio-Cortez and other “Democratic Socialists” have sought to make positions like “abolish ICE” – a radical position that until very recently had no support among mainstream Democrats – part of the core Democratic Party platform.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2uxmKg8 Tyler Durden