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Seemingly unembarrassed for being exposed as funding the Trump Dossier, having benefited from various meddling efforts by Russia, The FBI, and The DNC during her campaign, and being involved in the Uranium One deal with Russia; failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called upon President Trump to act now.. because “the Russians are still coming.”

As The Hill reports, Clinton accused President Trump of ignoring a threat to national security after Adm. Michael Rogers, head of U.S. Cyber Command, said he has not been directed to counter possible Russian meddling in the 2018 midterm elections.

In a tweet, the former Democratic presidential nominee said “the Russians are still coming” and implored Trump to take steps to secure America’s voting infrastructure ahead of the midterms.

“I say this as a former Secretary of State and as an American: the Russians are still coming. Our intelligence professionals are imploring Trump to act. Will he continue to ignore & surrender, or protect our country?” Clinton tweeted.

I say this as a former Secretary of State and as an American: the Russians are still coming. Our intelligence professionals are imploring Trump to act. Will he continue to ignore & surrender, or protect our country?https://t.co/Z6uaSCgdF6

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 28, 2018

This was immediately leapt upon by the left with CNN political analyst and Democratic strategist Paul Begala accused Trump of being a “wuss” in responding to Russia.

“Why is Donald Trump, a man so tough he says he would rush into a school shooting unarmed, why is he such a wuss and a wimp about Russia?” Begala said on “Anderson Cooper 360.”

It appears they are forgetting… (via ABC News)

…despite Trump’s rhetorical embrace of the autocratic leader and his regime, his administration has taken some big steps to push back on Russia, including some steps that Obama avoided.

In December, his administration decided to arm Ukraine with lethal weapons, and his State Department has consistently criticized Russia for leading, arming, and supporting separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine. While the Obama administration increased aid to Ukraine, and rallied European partners to slap Russia with international sanctions, it never crossed the line into providing lethal support.

The Trump administration has kept those sanctions in place – and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said they will remain so until Russia withdraws from eastern Ukraine, abides by the peace deals it pledged to support – known as the Minsk agreements – and returns Crimea to Ukraine, four years after it began its illegal annexation of the territory.

In fact, in June, the Trump Treasury Department actually expanded those sanctions to include 38 new individuals and companies, including two Russian officials, for their alleged involvement in the ongoing violence in Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea. The move was largely meant to bring the U.S. up to date with the European partners’ sanctions and with the changing figures and aliases of the shadowy pro-Russian actors in Ukraine.

In response, however, Russia retaliated by forcing the U.S. to shrink its diplomatic missions in Russia. Trump responded by “thanking” Putin “because we’re trying to cut down on payroll,” again stoking outrage.

But his administration took a bold step, expelling a number of Russian diplomats, and more important, shutting down two Russian facilities in New York and Washington and the Russian consulate in San Francisco – reportedly a major spy hub for the country.

The other foreign policy pursuits that his administration has used to push back on Russia are the airstrikes on Russia’s client Bashar al-Assad in Syria for the use of chemical weapons; the expansion of domestic energy production and the sale of U.S. liquefied natural gas to counter Russia’s energy strong-arming of European neighbors; and more sanctions on Russian officials for corruption and human rights abuses under the Magnitsky Act.

Presumably, nothing short of bombing Moscow would resolve the Left’s insistence that Russian meddling is akin to Pearl Harbor or 9/11?

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2CRcWQo Tyler Durden

CNBC reports that billionaire (?) investor Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square, which as of February 20 was nursing a -5.6% P&L loss for the year…

… and is increasingly desperate for a successful hail mary investment amid rising redemptions and outflows, has been building an activist stake in multinational conglomerate UTX. The size of Pershing’s position, as well as what sort of changes Ackman may seek at the industrial conglomerate, were unclear at this time.

Speaking to CNBC’s Scott Wapner, Ackman said he thought it was a “great” company; news of the stake sent UTX shares over 3% higher.

Meanwhile, the company appears to have preempted the activist pressure and a conference last week, United Technologies’ chief executive said the defense contractor is thinking of splitting up key parts of its business. The comments spurred a rally in the company’s shares the following day.

“Is [United Technologies] a more valuable property together or is UTC better off in three separate businesses?” CEO Greg Hayes said at the Barclays Industrial Select Conference in Miami on Feb. 21. “That’s the question for the board. That’s the question we continue to study.”

“There are, as you can imagine, significant dis-synergies with splitting up the portfolio, as well as one-time costs,” Hayes added.

United Technologies would be the latest industrial conglomerate to explore such a move, after General Electric Co. said it may break out its primary businesses into publicly traded companies.

Ironically, in January, Reuters reported Bill Ackman is “looking to lower his public profile”  after several years of disappointing returns. The hedge fund’s returns fell 4% in 2017, dropped 13.5 percent in 2016 and declined 20.5 percent in 2015, according to its website. As noted above, it is also down 5.6% YTD.

* * *

In separate news, CNBC also reported that Ackman is now “all gone” from Herbalife, and has “unwound” his put position in the company which we said would face a dramatic short squeeze back in early 2013,  when his massive short bet – which became the basis for a long-running feud with Carl Icahn – was first announced.

Ackman famously stated that Herbalife is “going to zero.” Ealrier today, HLF stock hit an all time high.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2F8JScf Tyler Durden

Along the Israeli-Lebanon border, it’s about to get 2006 all over again.

At least that’s what Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters late Tuesday at a press conference with Democratic Sen. Chris Coons – with whom he sponsored a bipartisan immigration bill that ultimately failed to garner enough support from their fellow lawmakers. The press conference was called to share details about a bipartisan trip last week to the Middle East.

Graham of South Carolina told reporters that Israeli officials made it clear to visiting lawmakers last week that the IDF will need to launch a military action in Southern Lebanon if Hezbollah continues work on a guided-rocket factory being built in the region – a factory that’s purportedly being funded by Iran, according to Bloomberg.

“They’ve told us in no uncertain terms that if this threat continues – they keep making rockets that can hit the airport and do a lot of damage to the state of Israel – they are going to have to go in,” Graham said.

Iran’s decision to help fund the factory is a direct result of the US’s lack of a strategy for countering Iranian influence in the region. President Trump and US military commanders in charge of the battle against ISIS have said repeatedly that battling Iranian agents isn’t part of the coalition agenda.

Because of this, “they are testing Trump,” Graham said.

Graham said the major request from Israel in a meeting with that country’s leaders was “ammunition, ammunition, ammunition” and for diplomatic support

Graham said the major request from Israel in a meeting with that country’s leaders was “ammunition, ammunition, ammunition” and for diplomatic support if Israel strikes civilian targets in Lebanon where it believes Hezbollah is located.

The Israeli threat shouldn’t be taken likely. Over the past year, reporting from the region has exposed an Israeli shadow campaign – conducted in partnership with former foe Saudi Arabia – to push back against Iranian influence in the region, including the implicit threat of military violence.

Saudi Arabia famously forced the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri late last year, only to see him return to Beirut and put his resignation on hold.

Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to visit the White House next week, even though his administration is once again mired in scandal and his country’s police force has recommended that he be indicted.

* * *

In response to Graham’s comments, Lebanon President Michel Aoun condemned the Israeli regime’s repeated violations of Lebanon’s sovereignty, saying Beirut is prepared to counter any potential Israeli threat or violation.

“Lebanon is keen on maintaining stability and calm in South Lebanon, but it is also ready to defend itself shall Israel carry out an assault,” Aoun said in a meeting with UN Under-Secretary General Jean-Pierre Lacroix in Beirut on Monday.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah, which helped the Lebanese army defend the nation against two bloody Israeli wars in 2000 and 2006, has promised to defend the rights of its homeland in oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean region against any new Israeli aggression.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2FFsKJ1 Tyler Durden

A Washington judge has set a trial date of Sept. 17 for Paul Manafort, just weeks before the 2018 midterm elections.

On Wednesday, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort pleaded not guilty to a new indictment brought against him in the investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and will face trial in September.

Manafort’s trial is expected to last for several weeks, and could stretch on through November’s midterm elections – making headlines at a time when Republicans are fighting to maintain their majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, according to Reuters.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson also reprimanded the former Trump campaign manager for issuing a statement on former co-worker Richard Gates’ recent guilty plea.

Prosecutors allege that Manafort, with Gates’ assistance, laundered more than $30 million and duped banks into lending money. They say the pair used funds from secret offshore accounts to enjoy a life of luxury.

None of the charges against the pair make reference to alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election nor accusations of collusion between Moscow and Trump’s campaign.

Just last week, Mueller doubled down with new charges against Manafort and his business associate Richard Gates, who also worked on the Trump campaign.

The superseding indictment charged Manafort and Gates on 32 counts related to income from their work in Ukraine and accused them of engaging in a “scheme” to hide money from U.S. authorities.

Gates made a plea deal last week to charges that he lied to investigators and conspired against the United States. The move added to pressure on Manafort to cut a deal himself but he has maintained his innocence. Manafort responded to Gates’s guilty plea, saying he had hoped Gates would have had “the strength” to fight the charges and  that he would maintain his innocence.

As Reuters adds, Manafort is facing two separate indictments – one filed in the federal court in Washington, D.C., and a second in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. The Washington one charges him with conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States, making false statements, and charges in connection with failing to register as a foreign agent for Ukraine.

The Virginia indictment charges him with bank fraud, filing false tax returns and failing to report foreign bank accounts to the U.S. government.

Manafort is expected to appear for a second hearing in the Alexandria court on Friday, where he will also plead not guilty to the charges.

The two separate indictments against him in the District of Columbia and Virginia are seen as unusual. Normally such charges would be consolidated in one court, but Manafort has refused to allow this, which might be a legal tactic meant to make Mueller’s case more difficult.

The two parallel cases could complicate matters for both sides, since each indictment to a large extent relies on the same underlying evidence. Judge Jackson on Wednesday fretted about this, saying dueling cases could lead to a “duplicative” amount of work, particularly for the defense, and potentially “inconsistent rulings” by the two judges.

 

* * *

If found guilty, Manafort will face a lengthy prison sentence, however he has so far refused to join Gates in changing his plea, and becoming a cooperating witness in the Mueller probe.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2CMwKUX Tyler Durden

As we previously detailed, in a press release issued late Saturday night, the lawless sanctuary Mayor Schaaf tipped off illegal aliens in the region, that ICE is preparing to conduct extensive operations across the Bay Area.

Since she did this, she and her family have received death threats from disgruntled Oaklandians who feel increasingly unsafe but, as The Daily Caller’s Saagar Enjeti reports, the harhest criticism yet has come from Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan:

“What she did is no better than a gang lookout yelling police when a police cruiser comes to the neighborhood except she did it to entire community of the this is beyond the pale,” Homan declared in a Fox News interview.

“This is a whole new low to intentionally warn criminals that law enforcement is coming. I can’t believe it happened.”

“She intentionally put law enforcement officers at risk. Being a law enforcement officer is dangerous enough. But to give criminals a head’s up we’re coming next 24 hours, increases the risk.”

He continued that “there are 800 we were unable to locate because of that warning. That community is a lot less safe than it would have been.”

Schaaf warned Bay Area residents Sunday night that she had been tipped off to a forthcoming immigration enforcement raid targeting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

The mayor is unapologetic telling the Washington Post Tuesday “I think it’s my responsibility as a person in power and privilege to share the information I have access to, to make sure people know what their rights are.”

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2EZ2yMn Tyler Durden

When it comes to his recent forecasting track record, BofA’s Michael Hartnett is – as of this moment – a force to be reckoned with. Exactly one month ago, the bank’s Chief Investment Strategist warned clients that the bank’s “Biggest sell signal in 5 years was just triggered” and warned of a correction as much as 12% in the coming 3 months. Just a few days later, he was proven right as the S&P tumbled 10% the very next week.

Fast forward to today, one day the Jerome Powell “hawk shock” which resulted in yet another broad market plunge, when in a note titled aptly “Throwing in the Powell”…

… Hartnett takes us back in time 2 years, and writes that the 2nd day of Yellen’s Humphrey-Hawkins testimony on Feb 11th 2016 marked the last great “entry point” into the credit & equity bull market.

At the time the meltdown in China/EM/oil/HY induced extremely bearish Positioning (the BofAML Bull & Bear Indicator was 0), tumbling global Profit estimates (-7% YoY), and a big Policy stimulus (Chinese/ECB credit easing)…all of which swiftly followed Yellen’s defense of the Fed’s decision not to resort to a Negative Interest Rate Policy in the winter of 2016.

And what an entry point it was: little more than two years later on the 1st day of incoming Fed Chair Powell’s testimony, global stock markets are up 58% (a remarkable $30 trillion in market cap), CCC-rated US high yield bonds 69%, bank stocks 68%, Emerging Market equities 81%, tech stocks 92%, oil prices 139%. Only two asset classes have been in bear markets since Feb’2016: the US dollar (-8%), and volatility (both the MOVE & VIX indices recently hit 50-year lows).

* * *

However, this time around “Positioning, Profits, & Policy drivers are now the mirror image of Feb’16.” Specifically, according to the BofA CIO, the Fed is signaling the “Powell put” has a much lower strike price, “and as the Fed accelerates and leads the end of the global QE era, the bullish consensus is likely to capitulate to a more defensive posture through 2018.”

So what should traders worry about as the market starts digging to uncover what the Fed’s new – and reduced – Powell Put is?

Well, according to Hartnett, 2018 year-to-date global asset returns have thus far been more prosaic: stocks 3.3%, bonds 0.4%, US dollar -2.5%.

In the absence of a stock market bubble (which remains a big risk given a dormant $10tn of negatively-yielding debt that can be reallocated to equities), muted and more volatile returns seem likely this year.

Still, for now at least the general direction of risk assets remains higher. But for how much longer? The answer for traders – according to Hartnett – lies in the magic number which is…. 3

Between bullish Positioning, peaking Profits (in the absence of Productivity gains), & Policy tightening, the likely cocktail in coming months of:

• real GDP forecasts >3%,
• wage inflation >3%,
• 10-year Treasury yields >3%,
• and the S&P500 >3000

… will mark a big top in equity & credit prices, the BofA CIO predicts.

* * *

Here’s how this endgame to the biggest asset bubble in history will play out according to Hartnett in terms of Positioning, Profits and Policy.

On Positioning

• Positioning is extremely bullish: the BofAML Bull & Bear Indicator is 8.1, in stark contrast to the “0” level of early-2016 (Chart 2).
• The Icarus trade of 2017 has fueled “greed”: BofAML GWIM private client equity allocations are close to all-time highs (61.3%), global equity funds saw $103bn of inflows in Jan, and tech, financials, Emerging Markets & Japan funds have all seen record inflows in recent months.
• And market structure concerns continue to grow: short equity volatility AUM ($66bn) + volatility-based & risk parity equity leverage ($200bn) + CTA AUM ($250bn) + risk premium/factor allocation ($300bn; link) = $816bn of “market structure” that could make the recent VIX ETF/ETN implosion a dress rehearsal for a major market correction if volatility becomes contagious next time (our equity derivatives team estimates that in the Feb’18 correction, quant funds had to unwind $200bn in 2 days).

On Policy

• The central bank “liquidity supernova”, the primary driver of credit & equity prices in the past 9 years, will peak in 2018; central bank purchases of $4tn in the past 2 years will shrink to $0.4tn in 2018; assets such as tech stocks & high yield bonds, which have been the biggest winners under QE.
  
• “Don’t Fear the Fed” has been central to the BTD (Buy-The-Dip), FOMO (Fear-Of-Missing-Out) & TINA (There Is No Alternative to stocks) trades of recent years; yet Powell signaled in his Humphrey-Hawkins testimony that US “headwinds” have turned into “tailwinds”. The Fed is signaling the “Powell put” has a much lower strike price and as the Fed accelerates and leads the end of the global QE era, the bullish consensus is likely to capitulate to a more defensive posture through 2018.
• And note the central bank establishment (see Borio’s recent Bank for International Settlements link) has started to make the case that low policy rates have created “zombie companies” (estimated to now represent more than 10% of all OECD nonfinancial firms), leading to a misallocation of resources and low productivity…i.e. the “central bank of central banks” is making a positive case for a regime shift to higher rates

On Profits

• Profits remain the last visible bull catalyst, and thus the biggest risk to consensus in 2018 is weaker growth & lower interest rates (few predict Treasury yields below 2.5% and S&P500 below 2500 by end-year).
• We believe EPS growth is very close to a peak. A reversion to the mean in US manufacturing business confidence (i.e. ISM back to 54), payrolls (NFP back to 150K), and Asian exports (proxy for global trade) implies US EPS growth falling from 20% YoY% to 8% through 2018 (Chart 3). And Asian exports are now weakening: growth peaked last September at 21%, while the Feb China export PMI was below 50 for 2nd consecutive month signaling China exports stalling and weaker CNY once again ahead of us.

The gloom and doom from Hartnett continues as the strategist then warns that “the magnitude and duration of the bull market makes stocks more vulnerable to the peaking 3Ps in 2018”:

• S&P500 bull market became 2nd largest of all time on Friday Jan 26th (@ 2873).
• S&P500 bull market will become longest ever on August 22nd, 2018.
• Should equities outperform bonds for a 7th consecutive year in 2018 it would be the longest winning streak since 1928 (equities most certainly underperformed in 1929).

Put differently, BofA can see only two catalysts to make this the greatest bull market of all time (3498 on the S&P500):

• An unanticipated surge in productivity growth.
• A speculative bubble from a Great Rotation out of negatively yielding debt into stock markets.

* * *

So what should traders watch to decide when it’s time to bail? Well, if three is the magic number for the market, the decision when to get out of it depends – appropriately – on three letters: ABC. Here’s why”

Volatility set to increase in coming weeks with macro, policy & political events: US ISM March 1st, Italy elections/German coalition vote 4th, ECB 8th, BoJ & US non-farm payroll 9th, Pennsylvania special congressional election 13th, FOMC 21st. Key to watch: “ABC”: Average Hourly Earnings, Bond Sensitives & Chips (the
semiconductors)…

• A for Average Hourly Earnings: further wage growth acceleration is negative for bonds & equities, deceleration is positive for bonds & equities; in Feb payroll data AHE>0.3% is thus negative, AHE<0.3% would be positive.
• B is for Bond Sensitives: assets hyper-sensitive to interest rates such as utilities (UTIL), REITs (BBREIT), homebuilders (XHB), preferred shares (PFF) need to rally to confirm “bond shock” is over; in addition corporate bond spreads remain the “glue” that holds the bull market together…fresh weakness would be negative for all risk assets (watch European High Yield bonds, HE00, where yields have backed up 75bps since Oct 30th).
• C is for “Chips” aka the semiconductors; if semiconductor (SMH) & tech stocks (XLK) cannot make new highs in the next week or two, particularly at a time of soaring consumer confidence, then market highs could be seen in for the next couple of months.

Finally, here is Hartnett’s pair trade as we enter a period of extreme volatility: “Our favorite 2018 long remains volatility, our favorite short is credit, and the last move up in stocks should be led by a tech-banks barbell.“

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2t6RV4C Tyler Durden

S&P 500 is testing back to its 50DMA as WTI prices and breakevens plunge to the lows of the day…

 

 

As Breakevens plunge in an ugly echo of early Feb’s chaos…

 

And WTI/RBOB prices are plunging…

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2Fdhs0H Tyler Durden

In the latest chilling report about the Parkland, Fla. high school shooting that claimed the lives of 17 people (14 of them teenage students), CNN reports that shooter Nikolas Cruz had at least 150 rounds of ammunition left in his AR-15 when he stopped shooting and fled Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. His gun had reportedly jammed, forcing him to end the assault.

If the gun hadn’t jammed, the death toll could’ve been much, much higher, CBS said.

Cruz had also reportedly etched swastikas into the sides of the magazines that contained the left over ammunition.

It’s still not clear why Cruz stopped firing when he did (though we imagine it’s possible that the firearm jammed). The news follows reports that Cruz attempted to shatter a hurricane window on the third floor in the school’s teacher’s lounge during the shooting. Had he been able to penetrate the window, it’s probable that he could’ve killed many more people, who likely wouldn’t have been able to ascertain where the bullets were coming from. Police have speculated that he might’ve used this stairwell vantage point to kill first responders who arrived on scene.

Meanwhile, CNN also disclosed that one of Cruz’s former neighbors, a woman named Joelle Guarino, said she tried to warn authorities about Cruz seven years ago, and that he began displaying troubling behavior as early as age 12.

The shooting has sparked a national debate over the role of military-style semi-automatic weapons and whether more restrictions should be placed on their availability.

Earlier today, Dick’s Sporting Goods announced that it was “going to take a stand” and announced it would permanently ban sales of AR-15s and other assault-style rifles from its stores – a move that could benefit rivals like Cabela’s.

Cruz exhibited many warning signs that were reported to both local, state and federal authorities, but in each instance, were promptly ignored.

The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated Cruz in 2016, and police records show deputies were called to his home more than three dozen times over a seven-year period.

Cruz had begun refusing mental health treatment about a year before the shooting. Jordan Jereb, the leader of white nationalist group Republic of Florida, had initially claimed Cruz was a member of his group but later walked back the claim and local law enforcement said there was no proof that Cruz and Jereb ever met.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2oI8z58 Tyler Durden