Tag: news

As part of the terms of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk agreed in September to appoint a new chairman and two new independent board members to Tesla’s board. The reason: to create some independence on the Board and oversight on Musk, who can’t seem to stay out of his own way.

So this morning, Tesla announced that its board had proposed the appointment of self-described “very close friend” of Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and also Kathleen Wilson-Thompson, who is global head of human resources at Walgreens Boots Alliance and was at the company during the Theranos debacle. Shares of Tesla were higher by about 3% on the news early Friday morning.

The company’s existing Board members stated : “In conducting a widespread search over the last few months, we sought to add independent directors with skills that would complement the current board’s experience. In Larry and Kathleen, we have added a preeminent entrepreneur and a human resources leader, both of whom have a passion for sustainable energy.” 

… And another one of Elon’s pals. 

It is well-known that Ellison has been a long-term investor in Tesla and a fan of Elon Musk. Back in October of this year, he disclosed that Tesla was his second largest personal investment. At the time, Ellison referred to Musk as his “very close friend”:

“My second-largest investment, I will disclose it now, I am not sure people know I am very close friends to Elon Musk and I am a very big investor in Tesla. And so Tesla had a good day, and I think Tesla has a lot of upside.”

In the same call, Ellison referred to Musk as his “friend” again and defended the CEO smoking pot on the Joe Rogan podcast:

“I loved all the articles about how Elon doesn’t know what he is doing, the pictures of him smoking dope, you know, and The Wall Street Journal writing all these articles [saying] he is going to have to go out for money,” he said. “This is not just about The Wall Street Journal.”

He asked, “Why should I believe you as opposed to my friend Elon while I am out here watching this rocket land, which I think is really cool, and you are there in front of your Apple Mac typing up an article saying Elon is an idiot?”

Ellison’s amusement with Musk’s self-landing rockets – a technology that has been around for decades – seems to have him sold on his investment. And to say that Ellison has a penchant for “too good to be true” technology stories might be an understatement as he was also an investor in Theranos. 

From this point forward, Tesla will be in charge of forming a committee to oversee other portions of the SEC settlement.

These new board appointees are still pending a shareholder vote to confirm them.

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In an early morning comment, Citigroup was painfully honest about how traders enter today’s session: “how the market moves today is really anyone’s guess. As the end of 2018 approaches, price action is becoming ever more bewildering.”

Those two sentences perfectly encapsulate trader confusion this morning following 3 weeks of violent, historic moves that have left analysts, portfolio managers, strategists and ordinary mom and pop traders dazed, confused and stunned, with feeling as if they are “watching Pulp Fiction.”

It’s “completely bizarre,” says Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda Corp. “It’s incredible just how harmful markets veer when sentiment slides.”

While December was shaping up as the worst month for markets since the Great Depression until this Wednesday, the late arrival of the biggest ever pension fund rebalancing out of bonds and into stocks, sent markets screaming higher, stopping out countless limit orders and sending momentum-chasers reeling yet again, just as CTAs and other trend followers had turned “max short” every single major market…

… ramming their shorts and forcing yet another panic scramble.

Yet while nobody can agree on whether the action of the past few weeks is a signal to buy the dip, or a bear market rally, there’s one idea traders and investors can agree on according to Bloomberg: these are not usual times, especially for this time of year.

Commenting on the market insanity observed in past week, Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia Pacific at Oanda said “it’s “completely bizarre,” adding that “it’s incredible just how harmful markets veer when sentiment slides.”

He is right: as we noted yesterday, the furious rally of the past two days may have done more harm than good as the “inexplicable” ramp has further hurt the most important commodity in the market: confidence, not confidence that stocks eventually go higher, but confidence in the integrity of capital allocation decisions.

Understandably, Innes has been taking profit on winning investments while snapping up blue-chip stocks whose valuations have dropped in the December sell-off, but for the most part he’s keeping his money on the sidelines. And, like many other traders in Asia, he’s been watching events play out in the U.S. from a distance, amazed at what he sees.

“I’m on the golf course,” Innes says about how he’s responding. “As I have been most of the week.”

Others also focused on just how different the end of year trading has been in 2018: Mark Matthews, head of Asia research at Bank Julius Baer in Singapore, said two “golden rules” have been broken. First, since 1945, December has produced the highest average gains of any month but this month is set to be the worst of the year. Second, since the 1970s, the S&P 500 has never slumped when earnings growth was more than 10 percent, according to him. But as a long-only investor, Matthews is planning to ride it out.

Still, despite the unprecedented moves, he remains confident that markets will emerge unscathed on the other side, and resume their levitation: “I remain invested through good times and bad,” he says. “Not being invested, over the long term, is like betting against the house in a casino.”

“It’s certainly unusual for this time of year,” said Sean Fenton, portfolio manager at Tribeca Investment Partners, commenting on the market moves. “You see people take holidays and sort of shutting up shop, not surges in volatility.”

Fenton, like Matthews, is also hunkering down, betting that the U.S. economy is robust and the sell-off will bottom out. For this time of year, he’s “probably a little more focused on the market,” he says, but that doesn’t mean he’s got reasons for the moves. “Trying to explain short-term movements in the markets is an exercise in futility because generally it’s pretty random,” he says.

While most are waiting on the sidelines until the volatility tempest that has sent the 10-day vol on the S&P to the highest level since 2015…

… passes, others are bravely jumping into the maelstrom and waving it in:

“The magnitude of the increase in volatility over the past week was not expected,” said William Davies, head of global equities at Columbia Threadneedle. “I don’t believe it’s easy to predict market movements over the short term but if we see attractive companies’ value decline as a result of the market sell-off, it makes sense to take advantage and add at the lower prices.”

That said, most traders increasingly refuse to participate in an algo-dominated, illiquid market which nobody has any idea how to trade:

“We have never seen the U.S. market dropping at this magnitude and speed for the past eight to nine years,” says Margaret Yang, a market analyst at CMC Markets in Singapore. Yang’s solution is to go overweight cash for the time being. She expects the volatility to continue until year-end, until investors get a clearer picture from the holiday earnings season.

The real question, however, is what happens after this week – and year – are over: is this just year-end jitters including fund rebalancing and tax-loss selling, or is this a more ominous, if simple, bear market rally?

Longer-term, she doesn’t know if this will prove a “healthy correction” as investors find the S&P 500’s low valuations attractive and earnings come in above expectations, or if it will mark the end of the 10-year bull run. Either way, one thing’s for certain: “The recent movement is definitely unusual,” she says.

Lee Dong-jun, global investment team at DB Asset Management in Seoul, agrees. He, too, has also been staying as clear of the market as possible this week.

“This isn’t normal,” Lee said of the market turbulence. “Investor sentiment is very bad.” And while “we don’t think this kind of huge volatility will persist,” he says, “our thinking is that it’s not a good idea to actively trade stocks in a market like this.”

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Following a string of stories published this year about its work for autocratic regimes in Saudi Arabia (including work that helped the Saudi government crack down on dissidents living abroad), China and elsewhere, vaunted consulting firm McKinsey has endured a firestorm of criticism. But a story published Friday by the Wall Street Journal revealed that a former partner for the consulting firm has languished in a Saudi prison since Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s now-infamous “anti-corruption purge” cash grab/political crackdown.

But instead of rallying to its employees defense, McKinsey has apparently severed ties with Hani Khoja, the founder of Elixir Consulting, a local firm that McKinsey purchased, making Khoja a partner at the firm. Khoja’s physical abuse and detention underscores “the ethical quandaries multinational companies face working in Saudi Arabia,” WSJ said. And of course, news of the McKinsey partner’s detention on vague “corruption” charges, the justification for which remains murky (some of WSJ’s anonymous sources from within the kingdom said Khoja’s relationship with the kingdom’s economy minister is what lead to his arrest), could revive some of the international criticism about the kingdom’s abysmal human rights record just as the controversy over the killing of Jamal Khashoggi was beginning to subside.

While Khoja’s charges haven’t been made public, he has reportedly been detained on suspicions of corruption, bribery and plotting to overthrow the Saudi government.

Though, for what it’s worth, McKinsey says it plans to continue working for the Saudi government. Tellingly, the firm also specifically said it didn’t buy Khoja’s firms because of his connections with the Saudi state, but rather because it had demonstrated real tangible results.

The McKinsey spokesman said the firm continues to pay Mr. Khoja under the terms of his contract. The spokesman declined to say why Mr. Khoja’s employment ended during his absence.

Recent events like the Khashoggi killing have forced McKinsey, like other businesses, to decide whether they want to remain in Saudi Arabia. McKinsey, which says it plans to stay, began working for the Saudi state oil company in 1974, and has over the decades formed deep ties in government and the private sector.

[…]

McKinsey said it didn’t buy Elixir for its connections to the government. “We acquired Elixir because of its capabilities and strong local track record of implementing change programs with private, nonprofit and public-sector clients,” the McKinsey spokesman said.

Khoja was moved out of the Riyadh Ritz Carlton earlier this year. Since then, even his former employer hasn’t been able to determine his whereabouts.

Detainees including Mr. Khoja were initially held at Riyadh’s Ritz-Carlton hotel. Some were released after paying fines or relinquishing assets to the government, while others like Mr. Khoja were moved to detention centers where certain prisoners—including some human-rights advocates—have been beaten in recent months, the Journal reported in November.

A spokesman for McKinsey said the firm doesn’t know where Mr. Khoja is and hadn’t been told that he was physically abused. “We have sought information from the authorities. We are anxious to know more and are in regular touch with Mr. Khoja’s family,” the spokesman wrote in an email.

According to Khoja’s biography, he was educated in the US before returning the Kingdom, where he worked in marketing for Procotor & Gamble for years before deciding to leave and start his consulting firm back in 2005. Elixer’s aim was to help Saudi startups. Before his arrest, he was reportedly a staunch believer in the ability of Saudi firms to diverse the kingdom’s energy based economy (which, in theory, should have made him an ally to the Crown Prince).

After its deal with McKinsey, Khoja lasted only six months before the corruption crackdown began. At the time of his arrest, McKinsey decided not to publicize it. 

McKinsey operated Elixir only for about six months after the deal before the crown prince’s corruption crackdown started. Elixir consultants learned of Mr. Khoja’s arrest via WhatsApp messages from him, according to a person who saw the message.

“Don’t talk about this with anyone,” Mr. Khoja wrote to a staff WhatsApp group at the time. That was the last they heard of him.

McKinsey made no public statements on the arrests. It replaced Mr. Khoja as CEO of Elixir with a Dubai-based McKinsey executive and appointed a California-based McKinsey partner as chairman. The firm has continued working for Prince Mohammed’s government.

Despite the brutal treatment Khoja has received, we wonder how many more McKinsey employees will need to suffer at the hands of the government before the firm reevaluates its decision to continue doing business in the kingdom.

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Submitted by Tapainfo.com

“Nation states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty”, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.

No this wasn’t something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel told attendants at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won’t seek re-election in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands down.

“In an orderly fashion of course,” Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:

“There were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are representing The People”.

“[But] the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German] people,” she stressed.

Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic, saying “That is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations”.

Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day speech that “patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason.”

The French president’s words were deeply unpopular with the French population and his approval rating nosedived even further after the comments.

Macron, whose lack of leadership is proving unable to deal with growing protests in France, told the Bundestag that France and Germany should be at the center of the emerging New World Order.

“The Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace”.

“Europe must be stronger… and win more sovereignty,” he went on to demand, just like Merkel, that EU member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels over “foreign affairs, migration, and development” as well as giving “an increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources”.

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The last week of December has, traditionally, been the quietest week for the market. Not so this year, when the market is set to close out 2018 with three days for the record books: first, a record Christmas Eve plunge in the S&P, followed by the biggest point gain in Dow Jones which soared more than 1000 points the day after Christmas Day as a massive, $64BN pension asset-reallocation program kicked in, and finally concluded with a historic, “insane” intraday reversal which saw Dow soar nearly 900 points off its session lows in 90 minutes of trading.

The result, as Bloomberg puts it, “Wall Street mouths were again agape at the sight of frantic moves in equities.”

And as traders beg for at least a little stability to close out the week and the year (with just one more session left after today), and look for the pension fund buy program to continue the rebound to extend, here is a sample of trader reactions to both yesterday’s unprecedented move as well as the overall insanity in the stock market, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Nancy Tengler, chief investment strategist at Tengler Wealth Management:

“There’s a couple of things going on: one is that the tax-loss selling is most likely done. People, like me, who try to do it for clients, tried to do it last week. That improves liquidity in markets. There’s buyers and typically what we see in a normal market if people believe the economy is sound and that earnings will be decent, is they’ll tend to buy the dip. We saw some of that today. There was no major news that prompted the reversal. And buyers tend to come in at the end of the day, especially with program buyers. That’s a lot of what we’re still seeing.

Some people said this is what bottoms look like. I don’t know if we are at the bottom yet. I’m not saying we’re not, but sellers are drying up because of tax loss harvesting and you have end-of-the-day buyers coming in. I had a sense we’d end up today, but you certainly never know.”

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer at the Independent Advisor Alliance:

“Typically you look at the last hour of trading and see where professional money is. Yesterday the markets was up for most of the day, but we had a dramatic rally in the last hour of trading, and the same thing today — it was flat for most of the day and then rallied in the last hour. It could be a lot of mutual funds and institutions buying. It does seem like a switch in sentiment — from being a seller in every rally to buying the dips now.”

“We are seeing investors bringing the market pricing back in line with fundamentals. Over 90 percent of stocks in New York Stock Exchange traded higher on Wednesday – that was crazy, it made me think – maybe the bottom is in. Maybe it’s a very late Santa Claus rally. Being down 20 percent without a recession doesn’t make too much sense. Maybe people were waiting for the last minute and once we got really close to 20 percent they decided to buy. I wasn’t one of them, but after what happened yesterday I was. It looks like the bottom is in.”

Gary Bradshaw, a portfolio manager at Hodges Capital Management.

I compiled a ‘To Buy in 2019’ list on December 7 and I just looked at it again – I couldn’t believe how much they’ve plunged since then. I said ‘That’s it, I need to buy,’ and so has everyone else. The market has turned the corner – fundamental are strong, the economy is doing well, the consumer is strong, the bull markets is still intact. It’s a screaming buy. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. The negative news is out there – and investors said, give me some positive news – a good holiday season for retailers, the absence of negative headlines on trade, and we’ll buy.

John Carey, managing director and portfolio manager at Amundi Pioneer Asset Management

The market just got a second wind and decided to go up a bit in the end after having been driven down so much in the past few weeks. It was because bargain hunters are still looking for stocks that could do well next year if earnings do hold up and the economy stays reasonably strong. It’s been a real roller coaster ride. I normally expect calm markets and low volume during the last week of the year. You can have some more trading activity on New Year’s Eve because people are tidying up their portfolios and getting ready for the new year.

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Congress has departed for the holidays and it’s looking as if striking a deal and passing a bill to end the partial government shut down won’t happen until Congress reconvenes in the new year (and with both sides digging in their heels, many Wall Street analysts expect the affected government agencies will remain closed for at least a little while longer). But that didn’t stop President Trump from reviving his threat to close the southern border if Democrats don’t sign off on the $5 billion Trump needs to ramp up construction of his promised border wall.

“We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!”

We will be forced to close the Southern Border entirely if the Obstructionist Democrats do not give us the money to finish the Wall & also change the ridiculous immigration laws that our Country is saddled with. Hard to believe there was a Congress & President who would approve!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2018

Trump first threatened to send in the military and close the border earlier this year, warning that if Congress wouldn’t act to prevent caravans of migrants heading north from Central America from successfully crossing into the US, that he would do so unilaterally. He eventually followed through with the first part of that threat (though he also threatened to withhold aide from Honduras and other central American countries if they failed to stop the caravans, which…well).

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Following two days of violent, historic swings in the US stock market, S&P500 futures climbed to session highs, up as much as 0.9% and back over 2,500 after swinging between gains and losses following the biggest upside reversal in the index since 2010 on Thursday and the single biggest point gain in the index on Wednesday as a result of a massive, 11th-hour pension fund rebalancing trade which has seen over $60 billion shifted out of bonds and into stocks into what has been a historically illiquid market.

The US rally followed a sharp rebound in European shares and a mixed Asian session as traders struggled to make some sense of the ridiculous, wild price swings in the final sessions of the year which prompted comparisons to watching the cult favorite Pulp Fiction. The dollar tumbled and gold climbed.

The active S&P 500 future contract gained as much 0.9 percent, after dropping as much as 0.7 percent earlier in the session. Contracts on the Nasdaq 100 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5 percent and 0.6 percent, respectively. The benchmark index for American equities erased a 2.8 percent tumble late Thursday afternoon, finishing the day with a 0.9 percent gain, following a historic point gain the day prior which in turn followed the biggest ever Christmas Eve drop the day prior.

European shares, which tumbled the day prior, extended gains on Friday, after a mixed session for Asian stocks as traders struggled to make sense of wild price swings in the final sessions of the year. All sectors were in positive territory, as cyclical equities led gains in Europe, with construction materials and technology the top performers in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index according to Bloomberg.

Volatility in Europe and in the United States has spiked to highs not seen since the sharp global correction in stock markets in February.

Top European News

• SNB Disregards Critics as Franc Keeps Negative Rates in Play
• DIA Trading Suspended by Spanish Regulator
• ECB Officials Request Carige Capital Increase at Meetings: Sole
• Baloise Buys 20% Stake in Aevis Victoria’s Infracore

Earlier in Asia, Japan and China – which had their final trading day of the year Friday – had opposing fates with the Nikkei closing down 0.3% due to yen strength, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.4% but closed below the critical 2,500 level.

Top Asian News

• One of World’s Top LNG Users Buys Into Offshore Wind Farms
• Japan Shares Fall, Capping Worst Annual Performance Since 2011
• Philippines Increases Bills and Bonds Offers to 360b Pesos in 1Q
• India Is Said to Announce Universal Basic Income Program: AajTak

Even with the latest pension rebalancing rebound, the yearly picture for world stocks remains grim, with the MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 47 countries, losing close to 12% so far in 2018. Indeed, the last-minute rebound is doing little to mend the damage from the worst year for global stocks since 2008 and the gains in haven assets show investors are still looking for value in safer investments. Plenty of event risks loom in the coming quarter, from the U.K. vote on the Brexit deal to U.S.-China trade talks to the continuing showdown between President Donald Trump and Congress over the budget.

While stocks showed signs they might recoup more losses in the year’s final days, lingering doubts about the stability of the market sustained demand for safe-haven currencies, as the following strategist quotes demonstrate:

• “Markets are a bit more cautious on risk appetite, with the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc gaining,” said Lee Hardman, an FX strategist at MUFG. “The dollar continues to be soft across the board as volatile stock markets are reducing the relative safe haven appeal for U.S. assets.”
• “We’re heading into a period of higher volatility,” said Manpreet Gill, head of fixed income, currency and commodities strategy at Standard Chartered. “You need to have some dry powder on the side to take advantage of that. That’s where we particularly think that cash plays a bit of a role.”
• “Consensus is firmly set on a 2020 recession, but the question for investors is whether they are willing to stay away from equities for all of next year when the U.S. is still expected to grow, albeit at a slower pace than this year,” said Edward Park, investment director at Brooks Macdonald Asset Management. “The current market bounce may have been catalyzed by institutional portfolio re-balancing, however valuation levels seem to be tempting investors to become incrementally more bullish.”
• “Where stocks head from here is anyone’s guess as uncertainty looks set to seep into the first quarter of 2019”, said Ben Emons, managing director at Medley Global Advisors. “While a bounce is positive news, it’s coming with much more volatility – which normally falls when stocks rally”, he told Bloomberg TV.

Sentiment was boosted by a sliding dollar as the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index extended declines, falling to lowest level since Nov. 8, as the greenback slipped against all G-10 peers; meanwhile the Norwegian krone among top performers after rebounding from the lowest in a decade.

In fixed income, US Treasurys were slightly higher with yields dipping to 2.7556%, with the yield curve flattening with 10-year rate down almost 2bps.

Elsewhere, European bonds trade mixed, with short end of bund curve underperforming. Italian yields rose as investors made space for the last auction of the year. A strong auction of zero coupon bonds on Thursday led to a mini-rally in Italian government debt as investors saw this is a good omen for today’s up to 5 billion euro bond sale, which caps one of the largest borrowing programs. The Treasury is hoping the auction will decisively show that Italy has turned a corner after months of volatile trading on the back of fractious talks between Rome and Brussels over its spending plans.

Finally, Japan’s 10-year yield turns negative for first time since 2017.

Oil bounced with commodities and emerging-market equities. Oil prices rebounded and took back some of the ground lost this week, but remained close to their lowest levels in more than a year as rising U.S. inventories and concern over global economic growth kept markets under pressure. Brent crude oil was up $1.10, or 2.1 percent, at $53.26 a barrel, having earlier risen more than 3 percent. It had dropped 4.2 percent on Thursday.

Spot gold, which has benefited this week from the global market turmoil, was just slightly higher at $1,276.33 an ounce following an ascent to a six-month high of $1,279.06 on Wednesday.

Aside from any further developments on the American political front – where departures of senior officials and tensions at the White House over the Federal Reserve have unsettled investors, upcoming manufacturing PMIs from China and the U.S. may be a focus in the coming week. Among key events next quarter are the Brexit-deal vote in the U.K., a U.S.-China trade-talks deadline and the annual gathering of China’s legislature.

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures up 0.8% to 2,515.50
• STOXX Europe 600 up 1.4% to 334.23
• MXAP up 0.4% to 146.06
• MXAPJ up 0.8% to 475.47
• Nikkei down 0.3% to 20,014.77
• Topix down 0.5% to 1,494.09
• Hang Seng Index up 0.1% to 25,504.20
• Shanghai Composite up 0.4% to 2,493.90
• Sensex up 0.8% to 36,093.34
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 up 1% to 5,654.32
• Kospi up 0.6% to 2,041.04
• German 10Y yield rose 0.3 bps to 0.234%
• Euro up 0.2% to $1.1450
• Italian 10Y yield fell 8.2 bps to 2.389%
• Spanish 10Y yield rose 1.6 bps to 1.402%
• Brent futures up 2.1% to $53.23/bbl
• Gold spot little changed at $1,276.90
• U.S. Dollar Index little changed at 96.44

Top Overnight News

• The S&P 500 erased a 2.8 percent drop in an afternoon rebound, finishing the day with a 0.9 percent gain. It’s the first time since May 2010 that the index has posted such a huge upward reversal, data compiled by Bloomberg show
• The partial U.S. government shutdown will probably continue into 2019 after House Republicans said Thursday they didn’t plan any votes this week and President Donald Trump said most federal employees losing pay because of the closure are Democrats
• The Trump administration granted the first exclusions from tariffs imposed on China for intellectual property violations, according to a Federal Register notice scheduled for Dec. 28 publication
• Unease has strengthened within the Bank of Japan’s policy board over the outlook for prices as cheaper oil and mobile phone charges threaten to drive inflation toward zero and possibly back into negative territory
• Japan’s factory output dropped again in November, marking the sixth contraction in eight months. The data and risks to the outlook suggest limited strength in any rebound in coming months as businesses navigate the U.S.-China trade war, Brexit and slowing global growth
• China’s economy slowed for a seventh straight month in December, as the trade war, subdued domestic demand and decelerating factory inflation combined to undercut growth. That’s the signal from a Bloomberg Economics gauge aggregating the earliest-available indicators on business conditions and market sentiment
• Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte played down the risk of Italy’s huge level of debt as he reaffirmed confidence in his coalition government’s controversial economic policies.
• China will speed up approvals for securities firms and fund-company joint ventures in which foreign investors have majority stakes, a senior official said, another sign that policy makers are pressing ahead with efforts to open up the country’s financial system.
• Japan’s 10-year bond yield fell below zero for the first time since Sept. 2017, as slide in global equities fueled a rally in government debt around the world.

US Event Calendar

• 9:45am: Chicago Purchasing Manager, est. 60.3, prior 66.4
• 10am: Pending Home Sales MoM, est. 1.0%, prior -2.6%
• 10am: Pending Home Sales NSA YoY, prior -4.6%

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Ever since the Steele dossier was released, many of its claims have been under dispute. However none of them have been more scrutinized than whether or not Trump Organization lawyer Michael Cohen was traveling to Prague during August 2016 to meet with representatives of Russian intelligence. On Thursday, McClatchy reported, citing four unnamed sources, that a phone traced to Cohen “briefly sent signals ricocheting off cell towers in the Prague area in late summer 2016”.

While some in the media will likely cling to this report as gospel and some type of “smoking gun”, others have been skeptical, noting how easy it could be to clone Cohen’s phone for nefarious purposes.  

According to the Steele dossier, the alleged meet up was for the purposes of “compris[ing] questions on how deniable cash payments were to be made to hackers who had worked in Europe under Kremlin direction against the [Clinton] campaign and various contingencies for covering up these operations and Moscow’s secret liaison with the [Trump] team more generally.”

Defending themselves vehemently, Cohen, Trump and others associated with the president all insisted that he had never even been to Prague once in his entire life. Here is a clip of Cohen stating “I’ve never been to Prague” earlier this year on Hannity. He further goes on to say that he allowed Trump to inspect his passport in order to corroborate his innocence. 

4/ Of course, you can hear it straight from the horse’s mouth- @MichaelCohen212 went on @seanhannity‘s show during the transition- just after @BuzzFeedBen published the dossier on @BuzzFeedNews– to deny the entire thing and ask for an apology. pic.twitter.com/UJd6wA8FzQ

— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) October 10, 2018

This extremely firm and verbose denial has been the cornerstone of doubt and skepticism that has surrounded the dossier since then.

Also of interest, the Daily Mail raised the question of how easy it could be to clone a phone like Cohens, stating that “a Cohen adversary might have obtained the unique digital ID of his phone and put it on another,” which the paper calls “a simple task for the technically inclined.”

Back in April of this year, it was reported that the Mueller team had obtained evidence that Cohen was in fact in Prague. Also reportedly during that period, an Eastern European intelligence agency supposedly electronically surveilled a conversation in which a Russian had stated that Cohen was in Prague. Follow up on the April report has been spotty so far.

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