iftttwall

Well they "built it", but in May, "no one came." Wholesale Inventories rose a better-than-expected 0.4% MoM but sales tumbled worse-than-expected 0.5% (the 3rd monthly decline in a row).

Inventories reversed April's decline…

But sales keep falling… and accelerating…

Automotive inventories rose 0.7% MoM (against April's 1.4% drop) but Automotive sales dropped 0.5% in April.

Wholesale Inventories are still marginally lower for Q2 so far (-0.13%) providing a modest drag on GDP, but sales are down 0.77% in Q2 wit hthe biggest 3-month decline since March 2016 (amid fears of global recession)

 

This divergence between inventories building and sales slumping pushed the inventories-to-sales ratio up for the first time since November…

via http://ift.tt/2uenKb8 Tyler Durden

When Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and the seizure of Russian diplomatic compounds in Maryland last December in response to alleged Russian interference in the election, Putin just smiled and said Russia would not retaliate, expecting that relations between Russia and the US would normalize under president Trump. Six months later, relations have not only not normalized but have deteriorated further following the latest round of sanctions against Russia despite daily allegations that Trump colluded with the Kremlin to convince several million Americans to vote against Hillary.

And, as a result, Putin’s patience appears to have run out, and according to Russian newspaper Izvestiya, the Kremlin is set to expel around 30 US diplomats and freeze some US assets in a retaliatory move against Washington.

Moscow may expel about 30 US diplomats, freeze some US assets in Russia https://t.co/nWxx0bbtfr #USRussia http://pic.twitter.com/uLGKiE4YO4

— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) July 11, 2017

Quoting a Foreign Ministry source, the Izvestiya newspaper says the move is due to the failure to reach an agreement on two Russian diplomatic compounds in the US seized by the outgoing Obama administration in December last year.

“There is a preliminary agreement on holding a meeting between Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ryabkov and US Under Secretary of State Thomas Shannon in St. Petersburg. If the compromise is not found there, we will have to take such measures,” a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry told the Izvestiya newspaper.

Izvestiya also cited Andrey Klimov, a senator in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, who said that “Russia had already waited more than six months for the Trump administration to improve the relationship between the two countries” and was now forced to strike back.

“We are forced to draw a line and answer in a similar way,” Klimov told Izvestiya. “These moves are not meant as our attempts to show our negative attitudes toward the Trump administration but rather as evidence of the fact that Russia is a strong nation that deserves respectable treatment.”

The Russian newspaper adds that the decision came after Trump and Putin’s first meeting at the G20 Summit in Germany failed to produce an agreement on the lightening of US sanctions against Russia. The issue of the Russian diplomatic compounds was also raised at the Putin-Trump meeting in Hamburg, according to the Russian press reports.

And, as Trump and his family face fresh claims of collusion with the Kremlin, Putin’s patience over the non-return of the Russian compounds has run out.

According to the newspaper, while the administration plans to seize the American summer house in a forest region outside of Moscow and a warehouse in the center of the city, it will not touch the residence of the American ambassador and the American international school in St. Petersburg.

via http://ift.tt/2ueeLH8 Tyler Durden

Via The Daily Bell

Note: Jilletta Jarvis is not related to Joe Jarvis, and the two did not know each other before this interview.

Do you see New Hampshire as the perfect place to experiment with government?

Jilletta Jarvis: I think it is the perfect place to prove that freedom is something that was ours to begin with and we can take it back and it’s not going to end the world if we do.

And that by saying we are going to not decide which companies in our state are successful and which are not, we are going to let the people make that decision instead, government is no longer going to fund private companies, we will stop that practice, and we will see that, you know what, if the company fails the company deserved to fail, and if a company succeeds it means the company was doing something right and other companies should emulate that.

But by the government saying, you know, we really want that particular car company to be successful because they provide all the police cars to the state so we are going to fund them we are going to give them extra money, or they are the sole business in this particular town so we are going to funnel money their way to make sure those jobs stay there. Well again, if they want those jobs to stay then they should do business in a way that makes people want to go there.

At the same time, we need to make New Hampshire a more viable option for businesses by looking at the regulations we have for energy. For example, say you have a wonderful array of solar panels on your house and you live in a place where you get great sunlight on your house and you make more electricity than you can use, all year round.

You are allowed to sell that electricity in New Hampshire back to the electric company, but only to the top three. You are only allowed to sell to the top three biggest electric providers in this state by New Hampshire regulations and you are only allowed to sell up to a certain amount per month.

What is your relationship to New Hampshire Independence?

Jilletta Jarvis: I think that every state should have the right to secede, but according to the federal government they do not. It’s gone to court several times and they have said there is no provision in the Constitution to secede.

However, there is a provision in the New Hampshire constitution. We have the right to secede and I think that if the people of New Hampshire stood up and said Jilletta, you’re our governor we are done and we have whatever percentage of people saying we want you to send this up and we want you to vote for this.

And you would be President Jarvis?

Jilletta Jarvis: Which is what we had, in the beginning, there were Presidents of New Hampshire.

Why are you running for Governor?

Jilletta Jarvis: Being a mother, and being employed in New Hampshire, and being a homeowner, are things that force you to have to deal with government decisions on a normal basis, owning a home, having kids in the school system, and having kids in college all got me interested in it.

I’ve worked in the financial industry, and I’ve worked in insurance. I taught in the college system of New Hampshire, I did retail from the customer service point of view, and I’ve worked in the medical field.

Before you should go into any job where you are in charge of different aspects of people’s lives you should understand what those aspects are.

Would you say healthcare and insurance are your number one issues?

Jilletta Jarvis: Actually, my number one issue for the state would be lowering the budget. It just raised again, they just passed an $11.7 billion bill, and I know the Democrats weren’t happy with it because it didn’t put in as many social programs as they would have liked to see. Some Republicans weren’t happy with it because it didn’t cut as many programs as they would have liked to see.

With the surplus that we had from last year’s budget, that was the first thing that the Sununu administration had to decide what to do with when they took office in 2017, and they decided that they were going to invest it.

I’ve always thought that this is the money that came from the people of the state, and I understand why they’re investing they are so they can make more money off what they have so they can figure out later what to do with it.

Honestly, that’s your money, that’s his money, her money, that’s our money, and I understand that it breaks down to $5 per taxpayer, it’s not worth it, hold it in a trust fund until you have enough money to send a check back to the taxpayers of the state, and say, you know what, we had a surplus.

Send a literal check back to the taxpayers of the state, we taxed you too much, we didn’t need it, you can have it back.

You are a third party candidate, and everybody basically thinks there is no chance for third party candidates. Are you in this to win, or to raise awareness, what is the ideal outcome?

Jilletta Jarvis: The ideal outcome would be to win and change awareness of the entire country. Because only by winning and then proving that smaller government is not a death sentence for New Hampshire, that it is a success for the people of the state, will everyone else see, hey you know, we don’t have to be taxed out of creation.

New Hampshire already says no income tax, no sales tax, we’re not gonna do this to you, we’re not going to force adults to wear seatbelts, we aren’t going to force adults to buy car insurance. We are going to let you make these choices on your own and with those non-laws, we are in the lower half of the country for states that don’t wear seatbelts, we are in the lower half of states that have uninsured motorists.

I think that having the choice and knowing what the consequences are, allows you the opportunity to say, you know what, it’s my choice and I am making the choice to be safe for my kids, my family, and myself.

Can you expand a bit about the passion behind this; is this a thing where you wake up every morning and look at your children and say I need to do this?

Jilletta Jarvis: I have a 20-year-old daughter 21-year-old son and 7-year-old son and there are times that they say things to me and I just want to do something to fix it now. And then I have gone out and I have gone to bars and restaurants and flea markets, those types of places where everyday people go so that I can campaign there. Because I want to meet the people that are actually voting, not companies and CEOs. I know they have all the money but I don’t care, I want to meet the actual people.

I have met people that I would go home at night and now that no one is looking anymore I’ll just cry, and I’ll just sit there to my husband and say I met this person today who hasn’t been able to leave his home because his PTSD is so bad he still hears gunshots in his sleep and he just can’t leave, and that’s what our military did to him going to Afghanistan.

I have met people who used to have had a wonderful small business, a store that they ran, a great store and they did this wonderful business making computer parts and selling them. Because of changes in small business loans they’ve had to let all their employees go because they can’t afford to have employees.

Now that not just affected the business owners but all their employees as well and the community and now he works out of his home instead of out of a storefront.

When I drive down the road and I saw when I was growing up all these little mom and pop shops and all these small businesses and they all have for sale signs. That tears my heart apart because I grew up here,  seeing little stores here, I grew up selling maple syrup and I have seen it all go, I have seen these buildings go from a thriving mom and pop shop that had people there all the time to sometimes, to a chain Kentucky Fried Chicken, to a vacant lot, to grass coming up through the vacant lot.

How has this community changed? Well that business is gone, there’s no one paying rent on that lot now, it’s an eye sore no ones taking care of it, and it is not the only one. That is how our communities have changed and that’s how my state has changed.

As a Libertarian, there aren’t a lot of Libertarians in the legislature, you’ve said you are willing to work with all parties, what does compromise mean to you to actually work with these people and get something done?

Jilletta Jarvis: I feel that appropriate compromise is working for the people. If your constituents are asking you to do something,  that is one thing. But if your party is asking you to do something regardless of what your constituents think, that is another.

But if you can say to me I had a town hall meeting and my constituents came and said this is what we need, and that’s what I have to fight for, I would say, I’m willing to work with you on that, let’s see how we can compromise on this bill to include what they need. Let’s talk to everyone else, are their constituents saying the same thing?

At some point, you have to say I understand that you have all gotten used to a certain way of government. It took a long time to get to that point. I mean it took a long time before people were willing to deal with men going topless in public. But now it’s fine and nobody blinks an eye when it happens.

Sometimes you have to take steps toward freedom and show people that it is not a bad thing. And then you have to reevaluate. We don’t ever seem to reevatuate the bills we put into place now. If we write a law, we enact it, and that’s it, we are done, let’s get the police to enforce it. We don’t ever look at that unless someone forces it with a platform of I’m going to fix this.

We need to insert an amendment that says all laws must be reviewed for applicability for this time period. It should be a sunset provision, if you don’t look at it, guess what, it goes away.

Can you give me your pitch for governor?

Jilletta Jarvis: If you want to see someone who actually knows what you are going through, who isn’t looking to make this a stepping stone to the next role, who wants to put in fewer regulations and budget restrictions that go against you, to make a smaller government, to make a smaller budget, I’m the one for you.

Connect with Jilletta on Facebook. 

via http://ift.tt/2uepzFh TDB

As Jim Reid writes, “it’s been a very dull 24 hours” in the markets, so to pass the time the Deutsche strategist recapped his bigger picture thoughts “on government bond yields given the sell-off of the last two weeks.” Hardly surprising, he goes along with the consesus, and expects yields to rise as more central banks turn hawkish (for reasons we have discussed on countless occasions, most recently yesterday) although what is interesting is Reid’s take on what happens after the initial reaction, and it’s here that the gloom descends because in a world with 327% debt/GDP…

… higher interest rates are simply unsustainable, the endgame is one: “at some point a government spends big and yields start to rise faster. This could still be many quarters ahead but if and when it does happen central banks might have to intervene and cap nominal yields to avoid carnage in a heavily indebted world. Then we move towards helicopter money…”

For now goldilocks remains, at least until one or more risk-parity fund gets whacked, and the momentum-chasing, vol-selling deleveraging begins.

His full note below:

After a very dull 24 hours I thought it might be an opportune moment to recap our bigger picture thoughts on government bond yields given the sell-off of the last two weeks. As we discussed in our Long-Term Study last September we think 2016 will likely be seen as the inflection point and the end of the 35 year bull market for bonds. It won’t be a straight line reversal and perhaps the issue will eventually be more for future real returns over nominal returns. The reason for picking out 2016 was that this was the year that 1) voters in the bottom half of the income scale effectively won two landmark national votes and 2) endless extreme monetary policy for the first time started to impact the plumbing of the financial system. The impact of the first point is that it likely means politicians now have to steer policy specifically to this poorer income group to ensure that their electoral chances are enhanced. This likely means more fiscal policy and less austerity. The recent UK election reinforces this theme here and we think the theme will slowly spread.

 

With regards to the second point, 2016 was the year that negative rates cascaded like wildfire along the government bond curve in Europe. The problem being that the correlation between falling yields and poor EU bank equity performance is very strong and the correlation between bank equity and bank lending suggests that had the trends of 2016 continued much further then the real economy could have actually suffered by the negative yields actually aimed to support growth. However the fact that the BoJ and ECB pulled back from full-on QE in the last 4 months of last year suggested they appreciated that monetary policy had perhaps gone too far for now and was having some negative consequences. As such a slow reversal of the ultra low yield environment should have and should continue to follow. The risk being that at  some point a government spends big and yields start to rise faster. This could still be many quarters ahead but if and when it does happen central banks might have to intervene and cap nominal yields to avoid carnage in a heavily indebted world. Then we move towards helicopter money – a story for another day.

 

The problem with this view is that it’s as much to do with gut feel, a change in the political wind, and second guessing policy makers as it is to do with spreadsheet based analysis of the current available facts. As such it makes it much more difficult to prove! Anyway this is likely to be a slow moving story for now  but generally since last year we’ve thought the general bias on yields is higher.

via http://ift.tt/2sLIz9v Tyler Durden

Blue Apron is trading down 7% in the pre-market, down over 30% from its IPO-day highs and down 25% from the IPO/Open price… in 10 days. Today's decline, following SNAP's crash yesterday, seems catalyzed by the first analyst rating since the IPO.. at $2!

As Bloomberg reports, the stock got its first analyst rating since the June 28 IPO; the company’s business model has severe cost challenges and intensifying competition,:

Northcoast Research analyst Chuck Cerankosky writes in note…

• Rates APRN new sell, PT $2 is just above pro forma net assets per share
• Sales growth seems to be dependent upon promotional discounts; very high labor and shipping costs

And that just piled on APRN's problems…

 

And while we are at it, SNAP is trading down another 4% pre-open in the low $16s…

via http://ift.tt/2u4l1Rh Tyler Durden

Last night, the New York Times dropped their latest Donald Trump Jr. “bombshell” in which they reported that 3 anonymous sources had informed them that Trump Jr. was notified in advance that the damaging information promised about Hillary Clinton was part of a Russian government effort to help his father’s presidential campaign (we covered it here:  Trump Jr. Was Allegedly Told Russian Government Behind Damaging Clinton Info: NYT)

Unfortunately, another small problem has arisen for the New York Times’ new narrative this morning and it comes in the form of a exclusive interview that NBC managed to land with the now infamous Russian lawyer at the middle of this whole new scandal: Natalia Veselnitskaya.  Asked directly whether she had any ties to the Russian government, Veselnitskaya had a rather simple answer for NBC: “No.”

NBC:  “Have you ever worked for the Russian government?  Do you have connections to the Russian government?”

 

Veselnitskaya:  “No.”

Veselnitskaya went on to say that while the Trump campaign may have been looking for damaging information on the Clinton campaign, she never possessed such information.

“I never had any damaging or sensitive information about Hillary Clinton.  It was never my intention to have that.”

Of course, the part of the interview that will undoubtedly draw the most coverage from CNN throughout the day is Veselnitskaya’s speculation over Trump Jr.’s intentions for taking the meeting which she said were tied to his desire for “financial records” that would prove that the DNC was  getting funding from “inappropriate sources.”

“It is quite possible that maybe they were longing for such an information.”

 

“They wanted it so badly that they could only hear the thought that they wanted.”

 

“The question that I was asked was as follows: whether I had any financial records which might prove that the funds used to sponsor the DNC were coming from inappropriate sources.”

Natalia Veselnitskaya says it’s possible Trump Jr. was “longing” for info on the DNC. “They wanted it so badly.” https://t.co/VApY0cLIo4

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 11, 2017

 

Of course, the question allegedly asked by Trump Jr. seems to corroborate his original statement in which he implied he only took the meeting on the premise that the source put forward by Goldstone had information “that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton.”  Here is Trump Jr.’s statement released yesterday:

I was asked to have a meeting by an acquaintance I knew from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant with an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign. I was not told her name prior to the meeting. I asked Jared and Paul to attend, but told them nothing of the substance. We had a meeting in June 2016. After pleasantries were exchanged, the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information. She then changed subjects and began discussing the adoption of Russian children and mentioned the Magnitsky Act. It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting. I interrupted and advised her that my father was not an elected official, but rather a private citizen, and that her comments and concerns were better addressed if and when he held public office. The meeting lasted approximately 20 to 30 minutes. As it ended, my acquaintance apologized for taking up our time. That was the end of it and there was no further contact or follow-up of any kind. My father knew nothing of the meeting or these events.

Veselnitskaya also confirmed that Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort also sat in on the meeting but said she had no idea who they were until later.  Per NBC News:

She described how Trump Jr. ran the meeting. Two other men who she never met by name were also in the room. She said she only realized three days who they were after seeing their photos in the news. Those men were Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

 

“I could recognize the young gentleman who was only present in the meeting for probably the first seven to 10 minutes, and then he stood up and left the room,” she said. “It was Mr. Jared Kushner. And he never came back, by the way.

 

“And the other individual who was always in the same meeting, but all the time he was looking at his phone. He was reading something. He never took any active part in the conversation. That was Mr. Manafort.”

To summarize where are, Rob Goldstone, the intermediary who allegedly setup the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, said there was no Kremlin connection and now Veselnitskaya herself has confirmed the same.  That said, 3 anonymous sources from the New York Times beg to differ.  We’ll let you decide what to believe.

via http://ift.tt/2v86r8m Tyler Durden

One month after Russia reported that it had killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in an airstrike, moments ago ISIS declared that its supreme leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has died, the media reported on Tuesday with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights telling Reuters it has “confirmed information”. 

BREAKING Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has been killed – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says it has “confirmed information” http://pic.twitter.com/zFtGqXlNqE

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) July 11, 2017

The terrorist group, which recently lost its Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, said it will soon announce a successor to Baghdadi.

“Daesh organisation (IS) circulated a brief statement through its media in the (IS-held) town of Tal Afar in the west of Mosul, confirming the killing of its leader al-Baghdadi without giving further details,” Xinhua news agency cited Iraqi news agency al-Sumaria News as saying.

“Daesh called on the (IS) militants to continue their steadfastness in the redoubts of the caliphate and not being dragged behind the sedition,” the report said.

Earlier this month, an ISIS preacher and leader was executed by the militants after he accidentally suggested that al-Baghdadi had died. Senior ISIS leader and preacher, Abu Qutaiba was burned to death in the group’s stronghold town of Tal Afar, Alsumaria News reported. It appears he was right.

The confirmation of Baghdadi’s death came a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally declared Mosul liberated from the IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Al-Baghdadi’s last appearance was in a video clip showing him making the sermon proclaiming the establishment of an Islamist ‘caliphate’ in Mosul’s Grand Nuri Mosque in June 2014.  Al-Baghdadi, a preacher who has a $25million bounty on his head, was believed to have been hiding out in the desert outside the besieged city of Mosul in northern Iraq. In January it was reported the leader had been ‘critically injured in airstrikes in northern Iraq.’

The Pentagon said in December it believed that the ISIS chief was alive, despite repeated efforts by the US-led coalition to take out the jihadist group leader. According to an official Iraqi government document, al-Baghdadi was born in Samarra in Iraq in 1971. He apparently joined the insurgency that erupted after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and spent time in an American military prison.  

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

The U.S. successfully test fired a THAAD anti-ballistic missile system on Tuesday from Alaska that intercepted a target missile launched from an Air Force Cargo plane north of Hawaii, Fox news reported. The drill, which was scheduled in June, comes a week after North Korea successfully test-launched an intermediate, not intercontinental as it previously claimed, range ballistic missile capable of hitting Alaska. This was the 14th consecutive successful test of the THAAD, which has had a perfect record on each of the previous 13 intercepts.

The THAAD system, recently deployed in South Korea, is used to intercept short and intermediate-range ballistic missiles. It does not target intercontinental ballistic missiles;

“I couldn’t be more proud of the government and contractor team who executed this flight test today,” said Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves. “This test further demonstrates the capabilities of the THAAD weapon system and its ability to intercept and destroy ballistic missile threats. THAAD continues to protect our citizens, deployed forces and allies from a real and growing threat.”

Fox News was told it will be a few hours before imagery and video are released.

Soldiers from the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade on Kodiak conducted launcher using the same procedures they would use in an actual combat scenario, the statement read. Soldiers operating the equipment were not aware of the actual target launch time.

The latest US show of force comes days after two US B-1 bombers flew to the Korean Peninsula from Guam to conduct a mock bombing run using dummy bombs on Saturday escorted by South Korean and later Japanese fighter jets. North Korea threatened a global nuclear holocaust in retaliation. The US also launched short range surface-to-surface missiles from South Korea hours after the North Korean missile test on July 4.

Last week, both China and Russia urged the US to dismantle the existing THAAD installations in South Korea, over concerns these may shift the regional balance of power.

via http://ift.tt/2uMpZj0 Tyler Durden