WTF Chart Of The Day: Consumers ‘Love’ Trump’s Economic Policies

While the CBO poured cold water on the RyanCare plan – and implicitly delayed the bill and thus tax reform – Bloomberg's Michael McDonough discovered that deep inside the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey, there is reason for President Trump to be optimistic on passing his fiscal agenda.

In February, 28% of respondents voluntarily mentioned news they heard about the government's economic policy in a favorable light, a record high. The previous, pre-2016 election peak for positive mentions was just 9%. This is especially notable as the survey doesn't specifically ask participants to respond about government or political news.

By comparison, McDonough writes that 26% of respondents made an unfavorable reference to government policy-related news, well below the 37% record high set during the 2013 government shutdown. The net effect is that favorable responses beat unfavorable ones by 2 percentage points, a new post-election trend.

Digging a little further, Bloomberg's Director of Economic Reasearch noted the difference between positive and negative responses in February was highest among respondents with some college (12.0 percentage points) or a high school degree or less (16.0 percentage points). The rate of negative responses for those with college degrees or more outpaced positive ones by 9 percentage points. Positive responses from this cohort rose immediately following the election, but the group’s euphoria has already begun to recede.
 

Sentiment toward government policy, as tracked by this index, has surged since November’s election. However, as McDonough concludes, while this trend may be positive news for the Trump’s administration, it’s important to note that the historic lows of this index all coincided with the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis, credit-rating downgrade and government shutdown.

The debt ceiling is set to be reinstated on March 16, as the administration attempts to lobby Congress to push through an aggressive fiscal agenda.

Another rancorous debate could quickly erode the positive perception of government economic policy news. It could also harm the administration’s chances to get its plan passed, which could cause increased volatility in markets that continue to price in tax reform, spending increases and deregulation.

via http://ift.tt/2mnNLxr Tyler Durden

If Gary Johnson Voters Can Tolerate Clinton and Trump Supporters, The Two Groups Can Live With Each Other: New at Reason

Supporters of good candidates accept election outcomes, so backers of evil candidates should do the same

J.D. Tuccille writes:

A visiting member of my extended family had to brace himself for the next stop on his trip: Calling on his adult children. He intended to try to rebuild his relationships with them after they’d cut ties over his unpardonable sin: He voted for Trump.

That’s right. Supporters of one major political party’s losing presidential candidate cut off their father because he cast his vote for the other major political party’s winning presidential candidate in last year’s election. This familial cold war is bizarre for at least two reasons:

One, that’s just unbelievably stupid in a democratic political system which necessarily features opposing candidates competing for office all the frigging time. Disagreement is the basis for the system. There’s no way to live a normal life if you cut off contact with even close family members who hold opposing political views.

And two, if a Gary Johnson voter such as myself can overcome the vast divide between my preferred non-evil candidate and the stock villains put forward by the Republicans and Democrats, surely Clinton and Trump supporters can find a way to bridge the moral sidewalk crack that separates them.

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2nB1L6O
via IFTTT

Bull market; Weakness cracks could be starting

This past week the bull market in stocks, celebrated its 8-year anniversary, off the March 2009 lows. The bull trends off the lows in 2009 are still solidly in play, as key indices remain inside of long-term rising channels. Make no mistake the series of higher lows and higher highs has NOT been broken.

Speaking of broken, wanted to share a few tools we look at behind the scenes, that reflect a couple of small cracks (cracks of support), could be starting to taking place.

Bull market; Weakness cracks could be starting

The S&P 500 (upper left) and the Russell 2000 (lower middle) reflect that quality rising trends remain in place (higher lows and higher highs). Nothing of late has taken place to change these trends. Each does appear to be testing “challenge points” to the current trend, both are testing breakout levels of short and long-term overhead channels.

The other charts do reflect a little weakness is taking place in Crude Oil (could be breaking bearish rising wedge support). Advance/Decline line could be slipping below support drawn off the lows created a year ago. Equal Weight/Cap Weight S&P ratio (RSP/SPY) is been heading south of late (diverging against broad market). Junk Bonds could be breaking below bearish rising wedge support at a key Fibonacci retracement level.

These potential cracks are very small at this time. If the cracks would grow bigger and more of them start taking place, it could become of concern for the S&P and Russell. The Power of the Pattern continues to believe that what Crude Oil does going forward, could be one of the bigger influences to the future direction of stock prices.

 

Website: kimblechartingsolutions.com

Get our daily research posts delivered to your inbox here

Questions: Email services@kimblechartingsolutions.com or call us toll free 877-721-7217 international 714-941-9381

via http://ift.tt/2mnIFkE kimblecharting

Fillon Formally Charged With Misuse Of Pubic Funds, French Stocks Tumble

Having explored the various '-gates' that are hovering over French presidential candidate Francois Fillon this morning, it appears his vow to keep fighting may just be about to end. France's Canard Enchaine reports that Fillon has been formally charged today with misuse of public funds (over parliamentary jobs for his family).

Since announcing he would not be forced out, Fillon's support has risen but flatlined.

Canard Enchaine says on its official Twitter account that Fillon is charged and says the news will be reported in its Wednesday printed edition.

Translated via Google: the Tweet from Canard Enchaine notes:

Fillon has been indicted on 14 March in the morning for embezzlement utilities, ABS, etc

Fillon’s lawyer and spokeswoman were not immediately available to comment.

The initial reaction to the news was the French stock market legging to the day's lows…

Fillon is not alone though, as Bloomberg reports that French tax authorities are auditing the assets of presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s family on suspicion that they undervalued two mansions near Paris, Le Monde reports, citing unnamed sources.

  • Properties covered by audit are jointly owned by Le Pen, her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, and other family members: Le Monde
  • Audits focus on possible underpayment of wealth and inheritance taxes: Le Monde

Her lawyer Frederic Joachim told Le Monde that they contest the tax authorities’ claims and that one of the houses is in too poor a state to fetch the price claimed by the tax authorities.

via http://ift.tt/2nANNC1 Tyler Durden

Female Drake U. Student Initiates Sex with Incapacitated Male, Lies About Key Details. Guess Who Got Expelled?

DrakeThere are fundamental deprivations of justice, and then there’s what happened to a male student at Drake University. The student, “John Doe,” was expelled for sexual misconduct—ostensibly because he engaged in nonconsensual sex with a female student, “Jane Doe.”

In truth, John was punished for failing to realize quickly enough that he was actually the victim in the encounter. Drake officials still refuse to fix their mistakes.

During the course of Drake’s sexual misconduct investigation, administrators uncovered several pieces of evidence that made John’s claim to victim status arguably stronger than Jane’s: Jane had initiated the encounter, by her own admission, and wasn’t nearly as intoxicated as John. (It’s also possible that she initiated at least one other nonconsensual sexual encounter later that night.)

But Drake refused to act upon this new information, even when John’s father—a trustee at Drake—explicitly requested an investigation into Jane’s misconduct toward John. Such a request would constitute retaliation against Jane for coming forward in the first place, according to university officials, and was thus illegal under Title IX, the federal law interpreted by the Education Department to require the kinds of kangaroo courts now in use at campuses across the country.

That’s all according to John’s lawsuit against Drake. His father, Tom Rossley, is also suing the university. Rossley was dismissed from the Board of Trustees after attempting to draw attention to his son’s plight. His suit alleges that Drake’s board improperly fired him. (Read more about the details of that suit here, courtesy of The College Fix.)

A key aspect of both suits is John’s disability status: he is described as having a learning disability, and was prescribed two drugs to help him concentrate on homework. He was under the influence of both drugs—and tremendous amounts of alcohol—during the encounter with Jane.

The suit alleges that in failing to make accommodations for John during the Title IX process, Drake violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. That’s an interesting claim, but other details of the lawsuit paint Drake officials as so hostile to John’s plain-old due process rights that the ADA aspect seems almost secondary.

On the night in question—October 8, 2015—John and Jane met up well after midnight, at Drake’s Bakery. Both had been at house parties. John had already consumed a huge amount of beer, multiple shots of whiskey, and Red Bull, according to the lawsuit.

Jane allegedly told university officials that she was also intoxicated, although subsequent investigation suggests she exaggerated her level of drunkenness. She claimed that she tripped on the sidewalk, stumbled over, and fell, though a witness refuted this. She also claimed a bartender served her a drink in between the house party and meeting up with John. But the bartender said that never happened.

“Upon information and belief, this testimony by Jane Doe was made in an effort to appear more incapacitated than she was that evening,” according to John’s lawsuit.

John and Jane began flirting—Jane “was all over me and was biting my ear,” according to John—and decided to leave together. In the backseat of the car taking them home, they began making out. Jane—not John, but Jane—instructed the driver to take them both back to John’s fraternity house.

When they arrived at the house, it was so crowded that they ended up heading to John’s car to be alone. It was there that Jane initiated oral sex. Notably, John passed in and out of consciousness as it was happening:

As he testified, John Doe was so intoxicated that he only remembered bits and pieces of the oral sex; he stated he was blacked out for large portions of their time in the parked car, and he did not remember giving consent for the oral sex performed on him by Jane Doe. In fact, John Doe did not remember the oral sex performed on him in the parked car until he returned to the car the next morning looking for his debit card which he discovered had fallen out of his pocket.

In the eventual hearing, Jane Doe admitted to initiating the oral sex on John Doe without his consent. Further, she defined “consent” to be when she initiated the sexual activity. She also stated during the hearing that she felt she was “just giving him what [she thought] he wanted.”

(Emphasis mine.)

This encounter soon came to an end—John was too incapacitated to maintain an erection—and the pair ventured into the house. At this point, their accounts are hazy, confused, and contradictory. John remembered passing out in his bed and Jane telling him she was leaving. Jane remembered collapsing into a bean bag chair and waking up to discover John on top of her, wearing a condom. Her pants were pulled down. She claimed she told him to stop, he did, and she left. (Whether this actually happened is in serious dispute.)

But Jane did not go straight home. She went to another fraternity house, uninvited, and climbed into bed with an unsuspecting person. She “jumped on top of him,” and he told her to leave, according to the lawsuit.

She then headed to a different bedroom, removed her shirt, and initiated oral sex on a third person. She spent the night there, and went home in the morning:

John Doe sent Jane Doe a text at 3:00 a.m. to ask if she got home safely, and she responded in the affirmative and added “all good, babe.” In fact, she did not go home but was instead at the annex of the fraternity house across the street engaged in sexual activity with a fraternity member.

Who Jane sleeps with is her own business, of course. But these two other encounters are relevant, given that they establish a pattern of behavior. It certainly seems like Jane has a penchant for initiating sexual contact under circumstances that a Title IX officer might label nonconsensual.

The very next day, after piecing together the events of the previous night, Jane and a friend went to the public safety office to report John for sexual assault. She also went to the hospital to obtain a sexual assault examination, but left before any of the tests could be performed. Jane later stated that she doubted herself, asking questions like, “What am I doing?” and “What if I did consent?”

The Title IX investigation included all the familiar, horrifyingly unfair elements typical of these cases. Two officials, Mary Howell Sirna and Tricia McKinney, were tasked with handling the investigation. They decided which witnesses to interview, and—according to John—failed to interview people whose testimony would have helped John.

At the actual hearing, an administrator “did not allow testimony from anyone who was with Jane Doe after she left John Doe’s room on the night of the alleged incident,” even though these individuals could have testified to Jane’s lack of alcohol-induced incapacity.

The evidence presented by the investigators to the hearing panel consisted solely of investigators’ recollections of their conversations with witnesses—no transcripts, audio, or video tapes. This proved to be a problem. John, for instance, claims he told the investigator that he woke up in the morning fully clothed and with his shoes on (casting doubt on Jane’s assertions about having sex in the bean bag chair). But this detail did not appear in the report that was presented to the hearing panel. Investigator Sirna reportedly said she couldn’t recall John making such a claim during their interview. Because the interview was not recorded or transcribed, there was no way to tell who was right.

Incredibly, John’s state of incapacitation was held against him. “Given that… respondent claims not to recall the event, we then must turn to the evidence provided by the Complainant,” wrote the investigators.

The university also took Jane’s side in other ways. When officials learned that John was bringing a lawyer to the hearing, they strongly advised Jane to do so as well. Acting Dean of Students Jerry Parker personally arranged for Jane to have a lawyer, forwarded all relevant legal documents to this lawyer, and even offered to talk to the lawyer on background about Jane’s case. He did all of this, despite maintaining that the university was a neutral arbiter in the matter of Jane vs. John.

But the most novel aspect of this case is the retaliation claim. Throughout the process, John became aware of the fact that he could not have consented to sex with Jane, and was therefore a victim of sexual assault. He pressed administrators to investigate this claim. They steadfastly refused to do so, on the grounds that John was retaliating against Jane.

Consider the logic of such a verdict. It suggests that in any sexual misconduct dispute, the first person to make a formal accusation has a tremendous advantage. The first accuser gains the advantage of retaliation, which prohibits university officials from properly vetting the second accuser’s claims, according to Drake officials.

Despite Jane’s numerous factual misstatements, and her testimony that she had initiated nonconsensual oral sex with John, John was expelled. His suit against Drake alleges breach of contract, negligent infliction of emotional stress, and discrimination on the basis of sex. His lawyer is Andrew Miltenberg, who also represents Grant Neal—the Colorado State University-Pueblo student expelled for sexual assault even though his girlfriend said, “I’m fine and I wasn’t raped”—and several other college students who were mistreated by the Title IX process.

One final note: Everything that the feminist-left claims universities do to re-traumatize sexual assault victims—blaming them, disbelieving them, failing to act on their claims—happened at Drake, but it happened to a male fraternity member. Why is that okay?

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2np1Hb9
via IFTTT

Oil Plunge Accelerates: EIA Now Expects 109Kbpd Increase In April Shale Production

It is going from bad to worse for oil bulls (such as Pierre Andurand), who after giving up hopes to see the first rebound in oil prices in 7 days, are now watching oil tumble to the lowest price since the Vienna oil meeting, down to $47.28.

The main catalyst, as discussed earlier, was Saudi Arabia’s surprising admission that it had boosted oil production by 263kbpd to over 10 million just one month into the Oil production cut…

 

… while Kuwait warned that crude can drop to $45/barrel as a result of rising shale production.

Well, if that is the case, then $45 crude is guaranteed, because according to the latest monthly EIA productivity report, US shale is set to expand production by a whopping 109k barrels from March to April, rising from 4.853mmbpd to 4.962mmbpd, and offsetting OPEC’s entire February production cut.

Some more details from the EIA:

The Drilling Productivity Report uses recent data on the total number of drilling rigs in operation along with estimates of drilling productivity and estimated changes in production from existing oil and natural gas wells to provide estimated changes in oil and natural gas production for seven key regions. EIA’s approach does not distinguish between oil-directed rigs and gas-directed rigs because once a well is completed it may produce both oil and gas; more than half of the wells produce both.

 

While shale resources and production are found in many U.S. regions, at this time EIA is focusing on the seven most prolific areas, which are located in the Lower 48 states. These seven regions accounted for 92% of domestic oil production growth and all domestic natural gas production growth during 2011-14.

And so Saudi Arabia has lucked out again: either it keeps the production cut, allowing shale to capture even more market share, or it dissolves the Vienna deal, and prices plunge, collapsing Saudi state revenues and putting the country on collision course with a government funding crisis, not to mention crippling the upcoming Aramco IPO.

via http://ift.tt/2mIJRBF Tyler Durden

While the World Binges on USD, Gold Awaits the Purge

FIAT Drainage Has Begun

Vince Lanci for MarketSlant.com

Gold will meet head winds as the world continues to hedge most of its  uncertainty with flights to the USD. Unless that uncertainty abates, it must in the end spread all the way to the US. This will happen regardless of what you think of Trump’s policies. Trump may accelerate or slow the inevitable. But Government can only slow or speed up market clearing events. They cannot stop them. 

The worst currencies in 2017 are telegraphing this to us. And those currencies are the tip of the political spear that is rotting the global markets on the inside. If the global marketplace were a patient: Turkey, Brexit, and the Mexican Peso are the first symptoms of a major disease. And the political uncertainty is a manifestation of backlash against current global dogmatic policies. Whether they manifest in Multicultural globalism, Monetary Unions, or Trade Pacts; the roots are  the same. Global  centralizers are ideologues who think they know what is best for everyone. And those unelected Supranationals will continue to ignore the grass roots backlash growing in all areas of the world. And it will eat them alive ifthey don’t wake up

The truth is ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL, whether that be in trade, monetary policy, or immigration crises. World leaders will learn that the hard way. Their hedge is to leave the poor countries (emerging markets) and the west’s citizens (via inflation) holding the USD bag in the end.

  • politics are driving all markets for the foreseeable future
  • uncertainty will cause more countries to buy the USD
  • gold’s rise will be slowed by relentless Dollar strength through mid 2017 at least

World’s Worst Currencies are the Tip of the Iceberg: The world’s three worst currencies are showing that politics are driving markets everywhere. This will not change any time soon. The Mexican Peso, Turkish Lira, and British Pound are examples of this in the worst way. But they are only the most obvious examples. The cause of flight out of most currencies and into the USD is a function of political uncertainty. The Euro, Yuan and Yen  also are feeling the fallout of politics,  but not as obviously as in the 3 worst above show.

The USD Benefits More Than Gold Now: The direct beneficiaries of this are the USD and Gold. The USD has, and will continue to attract more money based on its use in trade and greater liquidity. But as we have said many times, all paper money will circle the drain. The USD will just be last to do so. This is because  its past performance as a safe haven will attract shelter seekers once again.

Long USD Will Be the Biggest Spoof Ever: And once the world has loaded up on dollars, there will be nothing left to go to when the Fed aggressively debases our currency to increase inflation and decrease our debt burden. We have been saying this for about a year now. Timing is not easy as central banks can levitate markets for quite a long time. But we are coming to the end of King Dollar’s reign.

Keep your Speculative Powder Dry: The best thing to do is continue carrying a piece of your assets in Gold and Silver to hedge when (not if) the USD falls. But don’t bet you can time the USD fall. Just have an appropriate percentage of your portfolio in non USD denominated assets.  

BTD Comes to Gold: Then, at some point the USD will weaken precipitously. That’s when you can start speculating and buy gold on dips to play the trading game.  Gold will be easily north of $2,000 soon after the world is done converting its currency risk into  USD. Then they will be left holding the bag as our Fed pulls the plug. and then you will be buying dips at $1800 and selling rallies at $2500. That’s when Buy The Dip switches from the stock market’s mantra to Gold’s.- VBL for the Soren K. Group

What to REALLY Watch in 2017

Via Gerardo Del Real and the Outsider.com

Fundamental and technical analysis are valuable tools, whether speculating or trading, but they are tools that are less effective in today’s world than at any other time in history.

The rapid flow of information brought about by the influence of social media now requires a thorough awareness of geopolitical events and the potential consequences of those events when considering a speculation, trade, or investment.

Many have argued that the dollar has topped without a basic understanding of capital flows or a basic understanding of the politics abroad that affect capital flows.

On January 11, 2017, Bloomberg published an article titled “The Three Worst Currencies of 2017 Show That Politics, Not Economics, Are Driving Markets.”

It went on to highlight that politics are trumping (no pun intended) economics in the world’s foreign exchange markets.

The article went on to explain:

“These laggards “all face significant political headwinds: terror attacks and government interference in monetary policy in Turkey, Brexit-dithering in the U.K., and fears of U.S. protectionism in Mexico. The takeaway, two weeks into the year, is that as expected, politics is at least as important as economics in driving markets in 2017.”

So what should we be paying attention to the rest of the year?

Germany

Once again, anti-immigrant and anti-establishment sentiment has put in question whether Chancellor Angela Merkel can retain power in the upcoming German elections, which must take place before October 22, 2017.

Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union (CDU) party was recently beaten in her home state, largely as a rebuke of the party’s open border policy. Chancellor Merkel came in third place behind Germany’s populist right-wing Alternative for Deutschland party (AfD), which secured 21% of the vote in her home state.

germany politics

The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Ms. Merkel’s approval rating stood at 52%, down from more than 70% in the summer of 2015, according to pollster Infratest Dimap. Her party is polling in the low-30% range, after winning 41.5% of the vote in a 2013 federal election.

France

The same anti-establishment sentiment that exists in Italy is very much alive and well in France and Germany.

The spring presidential election in France is shaping up to be an important one as well.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, a 48-year-old lawyer by training, has tapped into the growing anti-immigrant sentiment using recent terror attacks and a faltering economy as ammunition against President Francois Hollande.

Among Le Pen’s agenda items are leaving the European Union, ditching the euro, and securing the borders. This is the world’s sixth-largest economy.

She’s not currently favored to win, but neither were the pro-Brexit crowd or Donald Trump. With 10% unemployment — near a record high — months before the election, it would not surprise me to see Le Pen’s popularity gain traction among “undecided” voters.

Elections in France are multi-round affairs and ultimately decided by the popular vote. She’s expected to make it into the second round, though most polls currently have her losing. These are the same pollsters that forecasted Brexit and the Trump presidency inaccurately.

FYI she’s also a fan of Vladimir Putin, isn’t sold on climate change, and has called globalization “another kind of totalitarianism.” Sound familiar?

Should Le Pen win, the ramifications from this election, like the Italian referendum, could be potentially fatal to the sustainability of the euro, which will have an impact on banks, currencies, bond markets, and the precious metals space.

Elections in Germany and France will add to the political risks that the euro, a currency that is structurally flawed, faces.

The global war on cash will also play an important role in the how the dollar performs.

The ability of the Fed to make good on its promise to raise rates in 2017 will provide headwinds for precious metals prices.

While the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan continue running aggressive quantitative-easing programs, the Federal Reserve has promised three hikes in 2017.

I don’t believe the economy is strong enough to justify three hikes but if the major stock indices continue to establish new highs — and they will — there will be many calling for at least one rate hike to contain asset bubbles.

Even one additional rate hike will lead to a surging dollar — even from today’s levels — that will catch many off guard.

Speaking of asset bubbles, Ivan Martchev recently wrote an article for Marketwatch outlining how:

“Although China’s GDP grew 11-fold since 2000, total credit in the economy grew over 40-fold, resulting in a total debt to GDP ratio rising from 100% to 400% (if one counts the infamous shadow banking system).

“This credit bubble has now burst, as evidenced by the crash in the stock market, the rolling crashes in local real estate markets, as well as the massive capital flight out of China.”

Capital from Japan, Europe, and China simultaneously looking for a home in the U.S. will provide one last kick to the rear for dollar bears.

How high could the dollar go in 2017?

Some context is important. Below is a chart from macrotrends.net of historical data showing the broad price-adjusted U.S. dollar index published by the Federal Reserve. The index is adjusted for the aggregated home inflation rates of all included currencies.

macrotrends usd index

The price adjustment is especially important with our Asian and South American trading partners due to their significant inflation episodes of the 80s and 90s.That surging dollar will limit gold’s rise in 2017, but in a best-case scenario that surge happens in the first half of the year and not the second half.

 

Good Luck

via http://ift.tt/2mFF4iN Vince Lanci

Oil-Trader Andurand Loses $130 Million In First Two Months… And Then Prices Plunged

One week ago we asked – rhetorically  – “Why OPEC Is Colluding With Hedge Funds.” As readers will recall, what we noted is that as part of OPEC’s recent decision-making process, it had suddenly gotten very cose with the same “speculator” traders it had reviled and mocked for so many years:

Mark Couling, head of crude oil at Vitol, the world’s biggest independent oil trading company, was invited to Vienna by the Saudi delegation, according to people with knowledge of the talks. Pierre Andurand, who runs the $1.5bn Andurand Capital fund, one of the world’s biggest oil hedge funds, was also invited, alongside at least one trader from Russian independent oil company, Lukoil.

 

Mr Couling and Mr Andurand attended a meeting with the Saudi delegation on Tuesday morning, before the kingdom’s oil minister Khalid al Falih arrived in Vienna, people familiar with the meeting said. A trader from Litasco, Lukoil’s trading arm, also attended, they said.

And, perhaps not surprisingly, in 2016, the permabullish oil trader generated a 22% return, in no small part courtesy of his “behind the scenes” discussions with OPEC.

Alas, 2017 has not been kind to the former Goldman trader, and as the WSJ reports, Andurand, “one of the world’s best-known oil traders” suffered a major loss in just the first two months of 2017 because of wrong-way bets on crude. To wit: Andurand, who manages about $1.5 billion for the Andurand Commodities Fund, lost 8.5%, or approximately $130 million, in the first two months of this year. The loss makes his fund one of the hedge-fund industry’s worst-performers in 2017.  It also makes him the leading contender for “the next Andy Hall” prize, and close runner up in the “i am just a levered long bet on oil” category.

But perhaps what is most interesting is that in January and February oil did not crash: it mostly traded sideways; it only tumbled in the first days of March, so we dread to inquire just how badly Andurand is doing in the current month.

Some other details from the WSJ’s Laurence Fletcher, who adds that “like many funds, his has been too positive of late, recently forecasting oil would hit $70 a barrel early this year.”

 So far he has been far off the mark, as on Tursday WTI tumbled for the 7th consecutive day, trading at $47.50, after Saudi Arabia reported that it had boosted its February oil production by over 200kbps to over 10 million barrels. 

Of course, Andurand is not alone, in fact it is safe to say that virtually every other commodity trader is on the same side of the boat:

Hedge funds and other big money managers amassed a record number of bullish bets on Brent crude last month, according to the Intercontinental Exchange Inc…. having traded in a narrow range for most of this year, oil posted its biggest two-day selloff since June last week. Oil inventories in the U.S. have recently hit a record high in a sign that the massive glut that has depressed prices for more than two years is still plaguing the market. The U.S. Energy Department expects American oil production to rebound past 9.7 million barrels a day in 2018, breaking the record output level set in 1970.

Should the oil drop continue, we wonder at what point Andurand will get the proverbial tap on the shoulder: as the WSJ concludes his “performance figures don’t take account of the latest price moves, so if he was positioned for rising prices he is likely to have suffered further losses.” Make that “guaranteed.”

via http://ift.tt/2mFBEwF Tyler Durden

Steve King Wants Us to Become More Like Europe So That We Don’t Become More Like Europe

One of the oddest things about Steve King’s lame comments about how “You cannot rebuild your civilization with someone else’s babies” is that it reflects a kind of Europhilic Europhobia. By which I mean, it’s based on a Eurocentric view of Western “civilization,” it is often spoken of in the context of praising European nationalists like Geert Wilders, and it comes advertised as a warning that America must not follow the same dangerous path of immigration/assimilation/insufficient-babymaking as Europe:

Most paradoxical of all, as I explain in today’s L.A. Times, is that the very immigration politics and polices the likes of Steve King (and Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon, and Jeff Sessions) prefers are much more likely to make America more like…Europe! Excerpt:

“We need to get our birth rates up,” Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) warned Monday on CNN, “or Europe will be entirely transformed within a half a century or a little more.” Rarely has the first-person plural revealed so much confusion. […]

The ascendant America First brigade just can’t get enough of their nationalist brethren across the pond, from the U.K.’s Nigel Farage to France’s Marine Le Pen to Hungary’s Viktor Orban. Wilders, King enthused, understands “that culture and demographics are our destiny.” […]

Such pessimistic cultural determinism is the polar opposite of the creed-based optimism made famous by Ronald Reagan. “You can go to live in France, but you can’t become a Frenchman,” the Gipper said in a 1990 speech, paraphrasing a correspondent. “But … anyone, from any corner of the world, can come to live in the United States and become an American.”

King’s not having any of that.

Read the whole thing here. Yesterday, Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward and I discussed the Kingfuffle (and more) on the Reason Podcast.

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2np4QrG
via IFTTT

Why Robert Shiller Is Worried About The Market

The last time Robert Shiller heard stock-market investors talk like this in 2000, it didn’t end well for the bulls.

As Bloomberg reports, Shiller says when markets are as buoyant as they are now, resisting the urge to pile in is hard regardless of what else might be happening in society.

“I was tempted to do it, too,” he says. “Trump keeps talking about a new spirit for America and so you could (A) believe that or (B) you could believe that other investors believe that.”

What Shiller will say now is that he’s refrained from adding to his own U.S. stock positions, emphasizing overseas markets instead. One factor that makes him cautious on American shares is the S&P 500’s cyclically-adjusted price-earnings ratio: While the metric is still about 30 percent below its high in 2000, it shows stocks are almost as expensive now as they were on the eve of the 1929 crash.

 

Shiller is not alone…

“I don’t generally call the entire market wrong — investors are very smart, highly motivated individuals — but I find it hard to say why stock markets are so un-volatile right now," says Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University economist who co-designed the uncertainty gauge with colleagues from the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

 

For Hersh Shefrin, a finance professor at Santa Clara University and author of a 2007 book on the role of psychology in markets, the rally is just another example of investors’ remarkable penchant for tunnel vision. Shefrin has a favorite analogy to illustrate his point: the great tulip-mania of 17th century Holland. Even the most casual students of financial history are familiar with the frenzy, during which a rare tulip bulb was worth enough money to buy a mansion. What often gets overlooked, though, is that the mania happened during an outbreak of bubonic plague.

“People were dying left and right,” Shefrin says. “So here you have financial markets sending signals completely at odds with the social mood of the time, with the degree of fear at the time.”

But while the academics can look back and study and reflect on the nature of bubbles, the Wall Street types will always find excuses:

“It’s been a period of repeated shocks, and I think people get toughened against that,” Ethan Harris, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s global economist in New York, says. “It seems like uncertainty is the new norm, so you just learn to live with it.”

We leave it to Mr. Shiller to sum it all up…

“The market is way over-priced," he says. "It’s not as intellectual as people would think, or as economists would have you believe."

Trade accordingly.

via http://ift.tt/2mVQ4Lh Tyler Durden