Expectations that the Boeing 737 MAX 8 will return to the skies any time in the near future have largely faded, and now, after dedicating billions of dollars to compensating customers, Boeing is finally facing their wrath in the courtroom. The FT reports that a Russian aircraft-leasing company has filed a lawsuit against the aerospace company seeking not only the return of the deposit it paid for the 35 MAX 8s that it ordered, but also punitive damages in the hundreds of millions.
Avia Capital Services, a subsidiary of Russian state conglomerate Rostec, accused Boeing of “negligent actions and decisions” that led to two deadly accidents and roughly 350 deaths. Regulators around the world grounded the 737 MAX 8 in response to the accidents, and investigations have pointed toward issues with the plane’s software as the culprit.
In its lawsuit, Avia also claimed that the design of the MAX 8 was “defective”, and – embracing a more conspiratorial tone – that Boeing knew about these defects bu withheld this “critical information” from US regulators and Boeing’s customers.
The lawsuit was filed in Cook County circuit court in Chicago, where Boeing is based.
Avia ordered 35 MAX 8s, and paid a cash deposit of $35 million to secure its order. In its lawsuit, the company is seeking the return of this deposit, along with another $75 million of lost profits plus additional punitive damages.
The company’s lawyer, Steven Marks of the Miami aviation law firm Podhurst Orseck, said Boeing had offered the company compensation for the MAX 8’s problems, but that this compensation was “inadequate.” Marks is also representing the families of some of the victims.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg has said it’s possible that the MAX 8 could be re-approved for passenger service by October. But it’s entirely possible that the CEO could be jawboning to convince customers to hold off from moving ahead with lawsuits. Of course, the families of the victims who died in the two plane crashes attributed to flaws in the 737 MAX 8’s anti-stall system are moving ahead with their lawsuits, even after Boeing set aside $100 million for payoffs.
In the meantime, orders for new 737 MAX 8s have dried up, and if the plane isn’t given the OK to return to the skies before the end of the year, it’s possible that Boeing could halt production of its most popular aircraft, according to CBS News.
American firms like Southwest (the 737 MAX 8s’ largest customer) have been far more understanding and willing to work with Boeing. But how much longer until their patience runs out, and they start filing lawsuits?
Though this hasn’t been reflected in Boeing shares, it’s still entirely possible that a flood of legal judgments could bankrupt Boeing.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2zltsJ0 Tyler Durden
Last week at a Bernie Sanders campaign stop, someone ask him a question that began with, “Yesterday, oligarch David Koch passed away…”
The Bolshevik crowd interrupted immediately with ebullient cheers, joyfully celebrating the death of a man they had never met and knew nothing about.
If you hadn’t heard, multi-billionaire David Koch died last week at the age of 79 after a prolonged battle with cancer.
Along with his brother Charles, David Koch was co-owner of Koch Industries, one of the largest private companies in the world.
Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at more than $40 billion, making him one of the wealthiest people on the planet.
That was Strike 1. Because we know how much Bolsheviks hate wealthy people.
Also, Koch Industries is primarily engaged in the oil business. And that was Strike 2. The only thing Bolsheviks hate more than wealthy people are wealthy people who make their money from oil.
I suspect the Bernie Sanders crowd would have had less of a problem with David Koch if he had become wealthy from clubbing baby seals.
David Koch was also a heavy donor to conservative causes.
Although his politics could be described more as libertarian– he favored sensible spending and limited government, was pro for gay rights, in favor of ending the war on drugs, and against foreign intervention– the Bolsheviks labeled him as a Republican donor.
And that was strike #3. Bolsheviks hate when wealthy people spend their own money on issues they find important.
(It’s perfectly fine, of course, for Bolsheviks to spend other people’s money on causes and issues that fit with the Bolshevik agenda.)
And for those reasons, a crowd of bitter, angry, ignorant strangers cheered Koch’s death.
Elizabeth Warren also decided to take a shot at Koch, the day after he passed away. The crowd at her campaign rally booed the recently deceased.
All across social media, tolerant and enlightened Bolsheviks gloated over Koch’s death. Despite the fact that he gave over $1 billion to charity… all they knew was that he was rich, he made it from oil, and he donated to non-Bolshevik causes.
These people love to celebrate ‘diversity’, as long as that diversity doesn’t include intellectual or ideological diversity.
In response, one columnist remarked on Twitter, “I can’t wait until the people who celebrate the death of their political opponents are in charge of healthcare.”
I couldn’t agree more.
And this sort of behavior is a pretty stark warning for everyone, regardless of how you feel about socialized healthcare, the Koch brothers, or anything else in politics.
When it gets to the point that “leaders” preside over celebrating the death of their political opponents, it’s time to take notice.
It reminds me of “two-minutes hate” from 1984.
Each day, the citizens of Oceania are directed to ritualistically scream, snarl, and froth at the mouth toward whoever their leaders tell them to hate. They’ve never met these supposed enemies. They don’t know anything about them apart from what they have been told by Party officials.
But if the leadership says to despise someone, the people do so without any independent thinking to reach their own conclusions.
This is what our society is decaying into. If you have a different opinion, other people want you to die.
It’s not the first time in history that society has become so fractured, and unfortunately it won’t be the last.
Throughout history, every time society reaches this point, intelligent people who see the writing on the wall take steps to protect themselves and their families from this type of madness.
Maybe it all blows over and people come to their senses. Perhaps they realize that death, chaos, and hate are not the answer.
Maybe everyone mellows out.
It’s also possible that the vitriol becomes much worse. And if it does, you want to be ready.
That’s what a Plan B is all about– taking sensible steps to safeguard what you have worked your entire life to build. It means preserving your family’s way of life by doing things that make sense no matter what happens or doesn’t happen next.
We also talk a lot about gold and silver, both great hedges in times of uncertainty.
If you don’t have a Plan B, all your eggs are in one basket. And in a time where crowds gloat over the death of people with differing political opinions, that is a substantial risk to your freedom and prosperity.
In case you’re looking for some guidance about how to get started, take a look at our complimentary Perfect Plan B guide.
Update 1: Michael Mann disputes the notion that he lost (and more): “There have been some wildly untruthful claims about the recent dismissal of libel litigation against Tim Ball circulating on social media.”
There have been some wildly untruthful claims about the recent dismissal of libel litigation against Tim Ball circulating on social media. Here is our statement (https://t.co/8tGoBZnE3Y): pic.twitter.com/ySeJcOktX9
Update 2: technology.news has a rather different take than Mann, noting that further legal steps are on their way.
Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S.
The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball … is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set to send shock waves worldwide within the climate science community as the outcome will be both a legal and scientific vindication of U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that climate scare stories are a “hoax.” (snip)
Michael Mann, who chose to file what many consider to be a cynical SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) libel suit in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Vancouver six long years ago, has astonished legal experts by refusing to comply with the court direction to hand over all his disputed graph’s data. Mann’s iconic hockey stick has been relied upon by the UN’s IPCC and western governments as crucial evidence for the science of ‘man-made global warming.’ (snip)
The negative and unresponsive actions of Dr Mann and his lawyer, Roger McConchie, are expected to infuriate the judge and be the signal for the collapse of Mann’s multi-million dollar libel suit against Dr Ball. It will be music to the ears of so-called ‘climate deniers’ like President Donald Trump and his EPA Chief, Scott Pruitt.
As Dr Ball explains:
“Michael Mann moved for an adjournment of the trial scheduled for February 20, 2017. We had little choice because Canadian courts always grant adjournments before a trial in their belief that an out of court settlement is preferable. We agreed to an adjournment with conditions. The major one was that he [Mann] produce all documents including computer codes by February 20th, 2017. He failed to meet the deadline.”
Punishment for Civil Contempt
Mann’s now proven contempt of court means Ball is entitled to have the court serve upon Mann the fullest punishment. Contempt sanctions could reasonably include the judge ruling that Dr. Ball’s statement that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State’ is a precise and true statement of fact. This is because under Canada’s unique ‘Truth Defense’, Mann is now proven to have wilfully hidden his data, so the court may rule he hid it because it is fake. As such, the court must then dismiss Mann’s entire libel suit with costs awarded to Ball and his team.
Michael Mann, a climatologist at Penn State University, is the creator of the “hockey stick graph” that appears to show global temperatures taking a noticeable swing upward in the era when humanity has been burning fossil fuels and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
The graph was firstpublished in 1998, prominently featured in the 2001 UN Climate Report, and formed part of Al Gore’s 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth.
The graph’s methodology and accuracy have been and continue to be hotly contested, but Mann has taken the tack of suing two of his most prominent critics for defamation or libel.
One case, against Mark Steyn, is called by Steyn likely toend up in the Supreme Court. But another case, against Dr. Tim Ball was decided by the Supreme Court of British Columbia, with Mann’s case thrown out, and him ordered to pay the defendant’s legal costs, no doubt a tidy sum of money. News first broke in Wattsupwiththat, via an email Ball sent to Anthony Watt. Later, Principia-Scientific offered extensive details, including much background on the hockey stick.
The Canadian court issued it’s final ruling in favor of the Dismissal motion that was filed in May 2019 by Dr Tim Ball’s libel lawyers.
Not only did the court grant Ball’s application for dismissal of the nine-year, multi-million dollar lawsuit, it also took the additional step of awarding full legal costs to Ball. A detailed public statement from the world-renowned skeptical climatologist is expected in due course.
This extraordinary outcome is expected to trigger severe legal repercussions for Dr Mann in the U.S. and may prove fatal to climate science claims that modern temperatures are “unprecedented.”
…
Dr Mann lost his case because he refused to show in open court his R2 regression numbers (the ‘working out’) behind the world-famous ‘hockey stick’ graph (shown above).
Real science, not the phony “consensus” version, requires open access to data, so that skeptics (who play a key role in science) can see if results are reproducible. Of course, there are no falsifiable experimental data associated with the global warming predictions of doom, so it doesn’t really stand as science as Karl Popper defined it
This is an important victory in the process of debunking the warmist scare.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/30OXwsk Tyler Durden
It appears that Jeffrey Epstein had really good timing when he, according to New York Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson, decided to hang himself in his Manhattan jail cell the morning of August 10th – crushing bones in his neck which can fracture during hangings, but are typically broken during homicide by strangulation.
Not only was his cellmate moved out the day before he died, overworked prison guards reportedly fell asleep – missing their assigned 30-minute checks on the highest profile inmate in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC). Epstein had recently been taken off suicide watch stemming from mysterious injuries he received weeks earlier. The convicted pedophile said he had been attacked.
He was placed on suicide watch for about a week after that — meaning he was monitored 24-7. He was placed back in the jail’s special housing unit late in the month and, for a time, had a new roommate.
But that person was transferred the day before Epstein’s death, and a new roommate was not assigned — despite the fact that at least eight jail officials knew Epstein was not to be left alone in his cell. –Washington Post
Now, the Washington Post reports that at least one of the cameras in the hallway outside Epstein’s cell had footage that is “unusable,” despite “other, clearer footage” which was captured in the area. v
In short, it looks like we may never know why sources heard “shouting and shrieking” from Epstein’s jail cell the morning he died.
It was not immediately clear why some video footage outside Epstein’s cell is too flawed for investigators to use or what is visible in the usable footage. The incident is being investigated by the FBI and the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, which are attempting to determine what happened and how to assess whether any policies were violated or crimes committed.
The footage is considered critical to those inquiries, and the revelation of an unusable recording is yet another of the apparent failures inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the short-staffed Bureau of Prisons facility in downtown Manhattan that held Epstein. –Washington Post
Epstein was arrested on July 6 on charges of sex-trafficking minors in Florida and New York. Despite pleading with the judge for pretrial release, the pedophile financier was ordered held without bond.
On August 10, the 66-year-old was found hanging by in his cell by bedsheets. He was rushed to the hospital and later pronounced dead.
And while prosecutors have filed to drop charges against Epstein, their investigation into his potential co-conspirators has continued. On Tuesday, a federal judge will hold a hearing to determine how to proceed – and will allow Epstein’s accusers to speak in court.
Lawyers for Epstein and his family have questioned the official suicide ruling, as well as the thoroughness of the investigation into his death.
“The defense team fully intends to conduct its own independent and complete investigation into the circumstances and cause of Mr. Epstein’s death including if necessary legal action to view the pivotal videos — if they exist as they should — of the area proximate to Mr. Epstein’s cell during the time period leading to his death,” said lawyers in an August 16 filing. “We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the medical examiner.”
Attorney General William Barr, meanwhile, described “serious irregularities” at the MCC, and announced an investigation into what happened.
“I was appalled to learn that Jeffrey Epstein was found dead early this morning from an apparent suicide while in federal custody. Mr. Epstein’s death raises serious questions that must be answered,” said Barr, adding. “In addition to the FBI’s investigation, I have consulted with the Inspector General who is opening an investigation into the circumstances of Mr. Epstein’s death.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZmgsSC Tyler Durden
By his own admission, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool socialist who wants the state to actually own the means of production. But he still wants the government to be very much in the mix of just about every sort of business that gets transacted. That’s scary enough when we’re talking about making widgets or reducing the number of people who are allowed to enter the country legally (the Democratic presidential hopeful is worried that too many poor people will show up). But it’s really bad news when it comes to regulating the media, which is very much on the senator’s mind these days.
Writing in Columbia Journalism Review (the self-proclaimed “voice of journalism”), Sanders has unveiled a plan that would halt all media mergers if his administration believes they would reduce the number of journalists employed, “adversely affect people of color and women,” or concentrate ownership in fewer hands (sort of a basic goal of all mergers). Sanders says that Facebook and Google have “monopolistic control” of online advertising because between them they account for 60 percent of “the entire digital advertising market” and swears that “after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download.”
“[President Donald] Trump’s authoritarian bullying of the media is totally unacceptable,” writes Sanders even as he lays out his plans to limit the ability of, for instance, Jeff Bezos to run The Washington Post as he sees fit. “We should not,” avers the senator,
want even more of the free press to be put under the control of a handful of corporations and “benevolent” billionaires who can use their media empires to punish their critics and shield themselves from scrutiny.
When I am president, my administration will put in place policies that will reform the media industry and better protect independent journalism at both the local and national levels.
So when Trump calls out Jeff Bezos for publishing “fake news” and threatens him with libel and other actions, he is an authoritarian bully who must be stopped. (Disclaimer: Bezos has donated money to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.) But when Bernie Sanders does exactly the same thing, he is a savior to an industry that has arguably been battered more by the gale of creative destruction than any other in the past 25 years or so.
Sanders’ distress over media consolidation rings hollow not simply because he merely rehashes old, played-out perennial complaints. Remember back in 2000 when the merger of AOL and Time Warner spelled the absolute doom of an independent press? Better yet, can you even remember AOL or Time magazine, once massive presences in media that are now desiccated ruins of their former selves? At a point when traditional broadcast TV and radio have never had less influence on public discourse, is the solution making sure that the “right” type and number of people—however defined—own the appropriate number of stations? Does anyone in their right mind think, as Sanders does, that a “targeted tax” on online advertising and “tech companies” will actually work to fund “independent public media” that will somehow report earnestly on the very government that ensures their existence?
This is malarkey and it doesn’t help that Sanders wraps it up in the same populist billionaire-baiting rhetoric he covers everything in, ideological maple syrup to sweeten what can only be understood as an unprecedented power grab over freedom of speech and the press.
More than two centuries after the constitution was signed, we cannot sit by and allow corporations, billionaires, and demagogues to destroy the Fourth Estate, nor can we allow them to replace serious reporting with infotainment and propaganda.
We must take action—and if we do, I know we can be successful. We can and will restore the media that Joseph Pulitzer and Walter Cronkite envisioned, and that America so desperately needs.
Legacy media have indeed been decimated over the past 25-plus years and the next decade doesn’t look so bright either. And yet, there is no question that Americans have more sources of information at our fingertips than ever before. Even left-wingers at The Nation, a publication that rarely misses an opportunity to call for more government control over virtually every aspect of our lives, understand this. Writing in 2014, Tom Engelhardt notes:
There has, in fact, never been a DIY moment like this when it comes to journalism and coverage of the world. Period. For the first time in history, you and I have been put in the position of the newspaper editor. We’re no longer simply passive readers at the mercy of someone else’s idea of how to “cover” or organize this planet and its many moving parts. To one degree or another, to the extent that any of us have the time, curiosity or energy, all of us can have a hand in shaping, reimagining, and understanding our world in new ways.
Writing a decade ago from a more libertarian perspective, press critic Jack Shafer (then at Slate, now at Politico) similarly captured exactly what eludes Bernie Sanders and others who equate journalism with the health of conventional daily newspapers that flourished in the postwar era.
Journalism has generally benefited by increases in the number of competitors, the entry of new and once-marginalized players, and the creation of new approaches to cracking stories. Just because the journalism business is going to hell and it may no longer make economic sense to maintain mega-news bureaus at the center of war zones doesn’t mean that journalism isn’t thriving.
Trump has easily been the most-dissected president of all of our lifetimes. That he hasn’t been hounded from office yet and stands to win reelection isn’t for lack of trying by professional and amateur journalists who have revealed all sorts of information about him and his dealings. Nobody is suffering from a lack of ideologically diverse and in-depth information about every possible topic under the sun. There may well be more chaff mixed in with the wheat, but that’s because we now have far more choice of what to read.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2MEctdC
via IFTTT
I noted in this past weekend’s newsletter the pick up in volatility over the last few weeks has made investing in the market difficult.
On Friday, the market plunged on new Trump was going to increase tariffs on China. Then on Monday, the markets rallied on comments from President Trump that China was ready to talk.
“China called last night our top trade people and said ‘let’s get back to the table’ so we will be getting back to the table and I think they want to do something. They have been hurt very badly but they understand this is the right thing to do and I have great respect for it. This is a very positive development for the world.” – President Trump, via CNBC
You simply can’t trade that kind of volatility. This was a point made to our RIAPRO subscriberslast week:
When you are ‘unsure’ about the best course of action, the best course of action is to ‘do nothing.’”
As we discussed previously, the President has learned that his comments will move markets. Given the shellacking of the markets on Friday, and what was looking to be a dismal open Monday morning, Trump’s comments to boost the markets weren’t surprising.
What the market disregarded were the comments from China:
Based on what I know, Chinese and US top negotiators didn’t hold phone talks in recent days. The two sides have been keeping contact at technical level, it doesn’t have significance that President Trump suggested. China didn’t change its position. China won’t cave to US pressure.
“The reason we suggest selling any rally is because, until the pattern changes, the market is exhibiting all traits of a ‘topping process.’ As the saying goes, a market-top is not an event; it’s a process.”
Let me restate from this past weekend’s missive where we are positioned currently:
“Over the past few months, we have reiterated the importance of holding higher levels of cash, being long fixed income, and shifting risk exposures to more defensive positions. That strategy has continued to work well.”
We have remained devoid of small-cap, mid-cap, international and emerging market equities since early 2018 due to the impact of tariffs on these areas.
For the same reasons we have also reduced or eliminated exposures to industrials, materials, and energy
With the trade war ramping up, there is little reason to take on additional risk at the current time as our holdings in bonds, precious metals, utilities, staples, and real estate continue to do the heavy lifting.”
As I noted previously, if you are told you have to “buy and hold” a little of everything to be diversified, then what are you paying an advisor for? There are plenty of “robo-advisors” that will gladly clip a fee from you to do something you can easily do yourself.
However, be warned. There are currently high correlations between asset classes, which suggests that when the next bear market ensues there will be few places to hide. What goes up together, will come down together as well. Being “diversified,” in the traditional sense, isn’t going to help you.
Markets Send Warning Signals
While large-cap stock indexes (S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq) have maintained a reasonably steady state over the past 18-months, such is not the case across the broader market. As I noted previously,share repurchases have provided much of the lift for large-capitalization stocks over the last couple of years.
“Corporate share buybacks currently account for roughly all ‘net purchases’ of U.S. equities in recent years. To wit:“
“It is likely that 2018/2019 will be the potential peak of corporate share buybacks, thereby reducing the demand for equities in the market. This ‘artificial buyer’ explains the high degree of complacency in the markets despite recent volatility. It also suggests that the ‘bullish outlook’ from a majority of mainstream analysts could also be a mistake.
If the economy is weakening, as it appears to be, it won’t be long until corporations redirect the cash from ‘share repurchases’ to shoring up operations and protecting cash flows.”
With portfolio managers needing to chase performance, the easiest, and safest, place to allocate capital is in highly liquid, large capitalization companies which are being supported by share repurchases. Despite trade turmoil, Fed disappointment, and weaker economic, and earnings growth, stocks still remain elevated and confined within the longer-term bullish trend.
However, once you step outside the large-capitalization universe, a very different picture emerges.
Since small and mid-capitalization companies don’t engage in massive share repurchase programs, and are directly impacted by early changes to consumer spending and tariffs. As such, it is not surprising that performance has been lagging that of its large-cap brethren.
Small-Cap 600 Index
Mid-Cap 400 Index
The same issue applies to international markets as well, where economic growth has been markedly weaker than in the U.S.
MSCI All-World (Ex-US) Index
Given the consumer makes up about 2/3rds of the U.S. economy, low unemployment, and retail sales data is often cited as reasons to be “bullish” on equities. However, as shown in the chart below, the ratio between consumer “discretionary” and “staples” companies suggests there is an emerging weakness in the retail sector.
“One way to gauge the real strength of the consumer is to measure how much they spend on what they want (discretionary items) relative to what they need (staples). The consumer discretionary sector is highly sensitive to what the overall stock market is doing, and to worries about economic growth and contraction.
To see this relationship in real time is through comparing consumer discretionary stocks, by way of the SPDR Consumer Discretionary Select Sector exchange-traded fund (XLY), to the consumer staples sector, as tracked by the SPDR Consumer Staples Select Sector ETF (XLP).”
Historically, when the S&P 500 is on a monthly sell signal, with an inverted yield curve, and discretionary stocks are underperforming staples, it has been a leading indicator of a recessionary economy and bear market.
As Tomi goes on to note:
“That by itself might lead one to believe that worries about the economy are overdone, until a chart of consumer confidence is placed side-by-side with a chart of retail stocks, as tracked by the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT).”
As one might expect, those charts usually move in tandem. But sometimes they move in opposite directions for short periods of time, and when they do, it’s the stocks that have been the leading indicator.
And the retail sector should still matter to investors, because when the XRT has diverged from the broader market at key turning points, it has been the XRT that has led the way.
Slow At First, Then All Of A Sudden
What all of this suggests is that “risk” is building in the markets.
However, risk builds slowly. This is why the investment community often uses the analogy of “boiling a frog.” By turning up the heat slowly, frogs don’t realize they are being boiled until its too late. The same is true for investors who make a series of mistakes as “risk” builds up slowly.
Investors are slow to react to new information (they anchor), which initially leads to under-reaction but eventually shifts to over-reaction during late-cycle stages.
Investors are ultimately driven by the “herding” effect. 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.
When the buildup of “risk” is finally released, the explosion happens all at once leaving investors paralyzed trying to figure out what just happened. Unfortunately, by the time they realize they are the “frog,” it is too late to do anything about it.
With President Trump on a warpath with China, increasing tariffs (a tax on businesses), at a time when economic growth and corporate profits are weakening, raises our concern over the amount of equity exposure we are carrying in the markets.
Given that markets still hovering within striking distance of all-time highs, there is no need to immediately take action. However, the continuing erosion of underlying fundamental and technical strength keeps the risk/reward ratio out of favor. As such, we suggest continuing to take actions to rebalance risk.
Tighten up stop-loss levels to current support levels for each position.
Hedge portfolios against major market declines.
Take profits in positions that have been big winners
Sell laggards and losers
Raise cash and rebalance portfolios to target weightings.
We are closer to the end of this cycle than not, and the reversion process back to value has historically been a painful one.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2ZuLJSP Tyler Durden
By his own admission, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) isn’t a dyed-in-the-wool socialist who wants the state to actually own the means of production. But he still wants the government to be very much in the mix of just about every sort of business that gets transacted. That’s scary enough when we’re talking about making widgets or reducing the number of people who are allowed to enter the country legally (the Democratic presidential hopeful is worried that too many poor people will show up). But it’s really bad news when it comes to regulating the media, which is very much on the senator’s mind these days.
Writing in Columbia Journalism Review (the self-proclaimed “voice of journalism”), Sanders has unveiled a plan that would halt all media mergers if his administration believes they would reduce the number of journalists employed, “adversely affect people of color and women,” or concentrate ownership in fewer hands (sort of a basic goal of all mergers). Sanders says that Facebook and Google have “monopolistic control” of online advertising because between them they account for 60 percent of “the entire digital advertising market” and swears that “after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download.”
“[President Donald] Trump’s authoritarian bullying of the media is totally unacceptable,” writes Sanders even as he lays out his plans to limit the ability of, for instance, Jeff Bezos to run The Washington Post as he sees fit. “We should not,” avers the senator,
want even more of the free press to be put under the control of a handful of corporations and “benevolent” billionaires who can use their media empires to punish their critics and shield themselves from scrutiny.
When I am president, my administration will put in place policies that will reform the media industry and better protect independent journalism at both the local and national levels.
So when Trump calls out Jeff Bezos for publishing “fake news” and threatens him with libel and other actions, he is an authoritarian bully who must be stopped. (Disclaimer: Bezos has donated money to Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.) But when Bernie Sanders does exactly the same thing, he is a savior to an industry that has arguably been battered more by the gale of creative destruction than any other in the past 25 years or so.
Sanders’ distress over media consolidation rings hollow not simply because he merely rehashes old, played-out perennial complaints. Remember back in 2000 when the merger of AOL and Time Warner spelled the absolute doom of an independent press? Better yet, can you even remember AOL or Time magazine, once massive presences in media that are now desiccated ruins of their former selves? At a point when traditional broadcast TV and radio have never had less influence on public discourse, is the solution making sure that the “right” type and number of people—however defined—own the appropriate number of stations? Does anyone in their right mind think, as Sanders does, that a “targeted tax” on online advertising and “tech companies” will actually work to fund “independent public media” that will somehow report earnestly on the very government that ensures their existence?
This is malarkey and it doesn’t help that Sanders wraps it up in the same populist billionaire-baiting rhetoric he covers everything in, ideological maple syrup to sweeten what can only be understood as an unprecedented power grab over freedom of speech and the press.
More than two centuries after the constitution was signed, we cannot sit by and allow corporations, billionaires, and demagogues to destroy the Fourth Estate, nor can we allow them to replace serious reporting with infotainment and propaganda.
We must take action—and if we do, I know we can be successful. We can and will restore the media that Joseph Pulitzer and Walter Cronkite envisioned, and that America so desperately needs.
Legacy media have indeed been decimated over the past 25-plus years and the next decade doesn’t look so bright either. And yet, there is no question that Americans have more sources of information at our fingertips than ever before. Even left-wingers at The Nation, a publication that rarely misses an opportunity to call for more government control over virtually every aspect of our lives, understand this. Writing in 2014, Tom Engelhardt notes:
There has, in fact, never been a DIY moment like this when it comes to journalism and coverage of the world. Period. For the first time in history, you and I have been put in the position of the newspaper editor. We’re no longer simply passive readers at the mercy of someone else’s idea of how to “cover” or organize this planet and its many moving parts. To one degree or another, to the extent that any of us have the time, curiosity or energy, all of us can have a hand in shaping, reimagining, and understanding our world in new ways.
Writing a decade ago from a more libertarian perspective, press critic Jack Shafer (then at Slate, now at Politico) similarly captured exactly what eludes Bernie Sanders and others who equate journalism with the health of conventional daily newspapers that flourished in the postwar era.
Journalism has generally benefited by increases in the number of competitors, the entry of new and once-marginalized players, and the creation of new approaches to cracking stories. Just because the journalism business is going to hell and it may no longer make economic sense to maintain mega-news bureaus at the center of war zones doesn’t mean that journalism isn’t thriving.
Trump has easily been the most-dissected president of all of our lifetimes. That he hasn’t been hounded from office yet and stands to win reelection isn’t for lack of trying by professional and amateur journalists who have revealed all sorts of information about him and his dealings. Nobody is suffering from a lack of ideologically diverse and in-depth information about every possible topic under the sun. There may well be more chaff mixed in with the wheat, but that’s because we now have far more choice of what to read.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2MEctdC
via IFTTT
Jeffrey Epstein’s tremendous wealth and power allowed him to continuously prey on young women for decades – even while serving a 13-month stint in a Florida jail for pedophilia.
According to multiple accounts, Epstein had a network of girls recruiting other victims for his sexual appetite, all under the direction of his long-time ‘Madam’ and partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell – who remains uncharged and has denied any wrongdoing.
And had authorities listened and taken action some twenty-four years ago when accuser Maria Farmer says she informed the FBI of Epstein’s predatory sexual abuse, dozens more victims would have been spared, according to the New York Times.
Farmer, an artist, says Epstein lured her into his world with promises to pay for her painting career – only to be ‘violently groped’ by Epstein and Maxwell, according to her account. She recalls entering Epstein’s orbit at the age of 25, where she says aspiring Victoria’s Secret models would come through for ‘auditions’ for the lingerie company.
According to Farmer, Maxwell would announce upon leaving the house “I’ve got to go get girls for Jeffrey.”
Ms. Maxwell would refer to the girls she was looking for as “nubiles,” Ms. Farmer said. “They had a driver, and he would be driving along, and Ghislaine would say, ‘Get that girl,’” she said. “And they’d stop, and she’d run out and get the girl and talk to her.” –New York Times
And when former President Bill Clinton was coming over, Epstein’s house “bustled in anticipation” of the visit – though Farmer says she never actually saw him there. Her mother, Janice Swain, claims she met Donald one day in Mr. Epstein’s office, to which Epstein reportedly told Trump “she’s not for you.”
Maria’s sister Annie, meanwhile, “had been subjected to a troubling topless massage at Mr. Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico,” after Maria introduced Annie to Epstein.
Annie Farmer had troubling encounters with Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell when she was 16.CreditTamir Kalifa for The New York Times
when she woke up in the house one morning, she recalled him coming into the room, saying he wanted to cuddle, and getting into bed next to her.
Ms. Farmer also recalled Ms. Maxwell repeatedly asking whether she wanted a massage. Eventually relenting, Ms. Farmer followed directions by taking off her clothes and bra and getting under a sheet on a massage table. Ms. Maxwell performed the massage, at one point having Ms. Farmer lie on her back as Ms. Maxwell pulled down the sheet to massage her chest.
“I don’t think there was any reason for her to be touching me that way,” Ms. Farmer said. –New York Times
Maria, meanwhile, also had a disturbing experience with Epstein and Maxwell.
One night, she recalled getting an unusual request: Mr. Epstein needed his feet massaged.
The foot massage was brief and awkward, Ms. Farmer recalled, as Mr. Epstein groaned with what seemed like exaggerated pleasure, followed by a yelp of pain. Then he invited her to sit on the bed, where he was watching a PBS program about math.
Ms. Maxwell joined them on the bed, Ms. Farmer said, and the night took a sudden turn: Both Mr. Epstein and Ms. Maxwell began groping Ms. Farmer over her clothes, rubbing her body, commenting on her features, and twisting her nipples to the point of bruising. She said they did so in unison, mirroring each other’s movements. Fearing that she was about to be raped, Ms. Farmer eventually fled the room and barricaded herself in another part of the house.
She soon discovered that three nude photographs she had kept in a storage box were missing. The photos were of Annie and a third Farmer sister, who was 12, modeling for Maria’s figurative paintings.
When Maria says she contacted the New York Police Department and the FBI about the parade of young women being offered up to the millionaire pedophile, her reports went nowhere.
Officers at the New York Police Department precinct took a report on the purported threat and on the art theft allegation, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. But they referred her to other agencies, including the F.B.I., concerning the assault allegation because Ohio was outside their jurisdiction, Ms. Farmer said.
Ms. Farmer said she called the F.B.I. and spoke for about half an hour with the agent who answered the phone. The agent did not say what would happen with her report, she said. She asked if she should phone other law enforcement officials in individual states, like Ohio and New Mexico, and was told that was “up to you,” she said. She recalled contacting at least one other jurisdiction — she did not remember which — and making no progress.
“I did not want another young lady to go through what Annie went through,” said Maria Farmer in a recent interview. “I could handle what happened to me. I could not handle what happened to her.”
Maria Farmer’s account is corroborated by art collector Stuart Pivar, who says he recalled running into Farmer at a flea market at the time – and says she mentioned having “serious concerns about Mr. Epstein that she said she had reported to law enforcement.”
Others ignored her as well
Farmer said she also raised her concerns about Mr. Epstein with leaders in the art community, including Ms. Guggenheim, the dean at the art school who had first put her in touch with Mr. Epstein. But she said Ms. Guggenheim did not seem to take the issue seriously. Ms. Guggenheim said in an interview that the details she was aware of at the time did not rise to a level that would require intervention.
The two Farmer sisters made another run at telling their story in 2003 to Vicky Ward, a reporter for Vanity Fair, which had commissioned an article about Mr. Epstein’s complicated finances that would also mention his proclivity for young girls. The article was published with no mention of the Farmers, and they felt they were left badly exposed.
Threats begin
After the Farmer sisters told Vanity Fair their story, they claim to have received angry phone calls – including one from Maxwell in which they were warned,”Better be careful and watch your back,” adding ” ‘I know you go to the West Side Highway all the time. While you’re out there, just be really careful because there are a lot of ways to die there.’”
Epstein continued to prey on young women for nine years before anyone began investigating his proclivities. After his 2008 stint in jail under a ‘sweetheart’ deal which allowed him to leave the jail and essentially roam free under loose guidelines his lawyers were able to secure. And after his second entanglement with the law – this time an arrest for sex trafficking underage girls, Epstein was found dead in his jail cell pending trial – which was ruled a suicide.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2NBtS6u Tyler Durden
Despite huge intraday swings, stocks have been range-bound for a month as Treasury yields tumble and the yield curve inversions extend to 12-year lows.
Source: Bloomberg
But, despite the relatively tranquile range of stocks, former fund manager and FX trader Richard Breslow notes that traders are having a devil of a time dealing with intraday volatility.
But, Breslow notes, perhaps the most useful skill one can have in these unsettled markets is picking your canaries judiciously. It’s easy to pick out ones that match your outlook and go with them. Ignoring the ones that don’t suit. Especially in an environment where it is hard to find all that many people who are feeling optimistic.
It’s as if investors have moved away from watching the stock ticker to watching the Trump Tweet ticker.
He is now seemingly responsible for every market move up or down 1/2 https://t.co/JtIIwGaic9
Emerging market currencies as an asset class certainly look ugly. That’s often a good one to keep an eye on. The MSCI Emerging Market Currency Index made a new year-to-date low today. The inversion of 2s/10s on the U.S. Treasury yield curve might fit the bill. Yet after the early August dramatics, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan equity index looks positively stable, and is trading currently at a price seen multiple times over the last few weeks. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, which has every right to be falling, sits some 2.5% above important technical support, having handily held that level — which it tested two weeks ago.
German economic numbers continue to look appalling while the spread of BTPs to Bunds, as wacky as it can be, traded today within 5 basis points of its narrowest levels of the year. There are a lot of conflicting signals out there. More than most traders probably expect. Even within the Governing Council of the ECB you can find diverging opinions to suit your view. Jens Weidmann’s “Dr. No” versus Olli Rehn’s “let’s give the market a package that will really impress them.”
Earlier this month there were suggestions that the Fed might consider convening an emergency rate meeting. A few days later the S&P 500 was attempting to get back above its 55-day moving average. Last Friday a lot of people were sure the gauge was going to collapse. It never took a serious look at its 200-DMA. And despite sometimes feeling like death, Monday’s close was at a price we saw on eight of the previous 15 trading days.
Source: Bloomberg
Particularly at this time of the summer, with two long weekends either side of the week, it is completely understandable if an individual proprietary trader decides to call a time-out. And who could fault someone working in Hong Kong for having a very different world view and perception of risk than a short-term interest rate trader with an office in Canary Wharf?
I’m sure quantitative models have taken down leverage on their own just based on their ability to forecast P&L volatility. They don’t like random social media broadsides either. Just less so than humans, who may find it’s prudent to pick their spots more selectively, be very mindful of lining up liquidity sources and stick closer to their knitting. In retrospect, taking a “nothing can go wrong” approach to Argentina was perhaps somewhat cavalier.
Source: Bloomberg
But there isn’t anything to suggest that the markets have become untradeable. And whether it’s appropriate or not, will ultimately do any good or not, central banks are unambiguously in easing mode. Think how easy it was earlier today for RBA Deputy Governor Guy Debelle to make it clear quantitative easing is very much in their toolkit if needed. Thankfully, he seemed to have steered away from the notion of negative rates. So, extra credit to him.
No one said it was guaranteed to be easy. Or even fun. Obviously things can go wrong. And there are plenty of candidates trying to make that happen. But as one of the most successful quantitative hedge fund managers I’ve ever known told me, to take off risk just because you are scared or tired is a self-defeating strategy.
You can forecast many things, but not when opportunities will present themselves.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/341FDsy Tyler Durden
