news – Page 20227

All Central Banks Need To Raise Rates Significantly (Video)

We discuss the fact that All Central Banks are a lot behind both the inflation and interest rate curve and need to hike rates immediately and by a significant amount in this video. There was no “New Normal” a bunch of low interest rate money creates asset bubbles that always end very badly for markets. When I watch the markets do things they haven`t done since the 2000, and 2007 Financial Market Bubbles I know Interest Rates are Far Too Low, and we risk a 6-Sigma Stock Market Crash on the downside when this Obvious Bubble Pops!

via http://ift.tt/2m9KPHp EconMatters

Conservative Students at Trinity Claim Harassment Over Nothing. Are You Happy Now, Liberals?

Snowflake Two conservative students at Trinity University are claiming victim status: they say they have been harassed because of their political views.

What happened? Some other students politely returned their flyers to them. That’s it.

“These leftist intimidation tactics will not phase us,” Jonah Wendt, director of the conservative Trinity group Tigers for Liberty, told Campus Reform. “Once again liberals show how tolerant they are for ideas that are not their own.”

Please.

Amazingly, Jonah—who leads the group with his twin brother, Manfred—actually filed a harassment complaint with the campus police.

In summary: the Wendts are bringing conservative provocateur Dinesh D’Souza to speak at the San Antonio, Texas, campus. To advertise the event, the Wendts printed out 600 flyers and went dorm room to dorm room, distributing them. Many were returned, and placed in a neat stack outside the door of the Wendts’ suite. The Wendts then opted to re-distribute the flyers.

This time, they were returned to the Wendts with scribbles and notes on them.

“Dear Wendts, keep your propaganda to yourself. We don’t like it in our faces.”

Some of the notes answered the flyer’s implicit question—”What’s So Great About America?”—with a variety of leftist responses: Elizabeth Warren, trans bathroom rights, pot.

They were civil responses, as far as I can tell. And these flyers weren’t torn down from some public bulletin board: they were distributed to individual dwelling units. The students who reside there aren’t obligated to keep a flyer they don’t want.

The Wendts have two flags hanging on their door—someone turned them upside down.

For all of these reasons, the Wendts see themselves as harassment victims, according to The San Antonio Express-News:

Though Jonah Wendt largely chalked the incident up as an immature “hissy fit” and anti-Trump “liberal projection,” he and his brother still filed a report with campus police, alleging harassment. Wendt feels slightly uncomfortable that students who clearly do not like him know where he lives.

“This is a clear attempt at intimidation,” Wendt said.

Trinity takes claims of harassment seriously and is looking into the incident, said university spokeswoman Sharon Jones Schweitzer.

“The university works very hard to create an environment in which a variety of perspectives are allowed to be expressed,” she said. “The Tigers for Liberty event is an example of that.”

Trinity administrators, to their credit, have been incredibly supportive of the Wendts’ free speech rights. Dean of Students David Tuttle has repeatedly defended them on his blog. This is a campus official who actually values ideological diversity:

Life would be simpler without Tigers For Liberty. I mean, it was. Many would say it was better. But what they deliver is an organization for others to push against, and challenge, and practice with. Our students need these educational experiences to prepare for life after Trinity. And conservative students have every right to be here. They work to keep the community honest by offering alternative viewpoints to a left-leaning environment.

Like many of our students, they bring their own charm. They are bright, witty, self-deprecating, and thoughtful. Not to mention brave. They have their own legitimate issues with how they are treated on campus too. It isn’t easy speaking up sometimes. But that’s what college discourse is all about. It isn’t about free-speech zones (should be the whole campus), time-place-and-manner policies, hate-speech codes, and safe spaces. The last thing we need is to keep driving hate into the shadows. When we do, it doesn’t go away. It just hides.

Tuttle is absolutely correct to make the Wendts’ dissident viewpoint feel protected on campus. But that doesn’t mean they should be immune from criticism. And make no mistake, that’s all that happened here: liberal students took issue with the Wendts, as is their right.

When I complain that conservative students are borrowing the tactics of the irritated leftist who constantly whines about his (or zis) marginalization, this is what I’m talking about. Indeed, this has been my plea to leftist students: if you weaponize hurt feelings, you will eventually see this approach used against you.

Some will no doubt feel that leftists deserve to have the language of perpetual grievance turned against them, but promoting the idea that everything one dislikes is harassment will not make campus dialogue any healthier. The snowflakery on the left and the right must end.

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2m9YX39
via IFTTT

Trump and How to Speed Up FDA Regulatory Approvals

FDAlogo President Donald Trump described the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval process as “slow and burdensome” in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. He observed that the FDA process “keeps too many advances… from reaching those in need.” His solution is to “slash the restraints” at the FDA to speed new drugs to the bedsides of patients. To illustrate his criticisms Trump pointed to Megan Crowley in the gallery, a young woman who has survived Pompe disease which is caused by a genetic glitch that prevents her cells from properly processing glycogen. After she and her younger brother was diagnosed with the disease in 1998, her father John Crowley co-founded the biotech company Novazyme to develoop a treatment. Megan and her brother began taking the recombinate enzyme replacement therapy in 2003.

The enzyme treatment was tested on several dozen patients and submitted to the FDA in 2005. The agency took only 9 months to approve the drug in 2006. That may not seem particularly slow and burdensome, but a new Tufts University study reports more typically that getting a new drug from development through the FDA process takes more than a decade and costs about $2.6 billion. As it happens, Crowley is head of Amicus Therapeutics which has developed an enzyme replacement treatment for Fabry Disease. In November, the FDA rejected its initial submission for approval and ordered the company to conduct further clinical trials. Interestingly, the Amicus’ new drug was approved by European Union drug regulators in May, 2016.

Another way to think about the development of the Pompe treatment is that it took three years for the drug to get FDA approval after Crowley had begun dosing his children with it. If they had had to wait an extra three years for FDA approval, Megan and her brother might well have succumbed to their illness.

As I have argued, the FDA should be modernized so that new treatments become available to patients once they have made it through the Phase II safety testing. Patients who choose the new treatments would essentially be enrolled in Phase III efficacy trials. This would drastically cut the time and the expense it takes to get new medicines to people.

I am not alone in urging this reform of the drug approval process. In a February 14, 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach argued that “after proof of concept and safety testing, the [new therapeutic] product could be approved for marketing with every eligible patient entered in a registry so the company and the FDA can establish efficacy through post-market studies.” Elsewhere von Eschenbach pointed out this FDA reform would mean that new drugs could …

…come to market after promising early-stage research in targeted patients, with appropriate post-marketing studies required. Payers and patients would be the ultimate judge about the quality of the product, and companies could learn from the experience to develop superior products if needed.

Companies would still be liable for unforeseen side effects, but patients and doctors would be warned — through the drug’s labeling — that the product had been approved based on promising but provisional research.

Gradually replacing or reducing dependence on Phase 3 trials with smaller, faster adaptive trials and post-market surveillance would have a positive impact on medical innovation and the U.S. economy….

To head the FDA, Trump is reportedly thinking of nominating venture capitalist Jim O’Neill who argued in 2014: “We should reform [the] FDA so there is approving drugs after their sponsors have demonstrated safety—and let people start using them, at their own risk. Let’s prove efficacy after they’ve been legalized.” Sounds good to me.

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

Arora Report: “Three-Quarters Of Today’s Market Surge Is From A Massive Short Squeeze”

For those wondering what unleashed today’s ferocious post-Trump, post-hawkish Fed speech rally, the reason may have nothing to do with optimism in the economy or another inflow of retail funds, and everything to do with incorrect – and bearish – positioning ahead of Trump’s speech last night.

According to an analysis by the Arora Report, flagged first by Market Watch, and substantiated by various Wall Street comments early in the morning, ahead of Trump’s speech various “large players” were positioned bearishly, assuming that the market rally has been based on hope and that, and that unless the president gave details about plans for the economy, there would be a big selloff. The reasoning, broadly echoed by strategists until yesterday, is that by looking at past speeches of presidents before Congress, the details are almost never there. So it appeared a perfect setup to short sell. And, according to algorithms used by The Arora Report, major traders did just that, building up substantial short positions ahead of Trump’s speech, as shown on the chart below.

However, just like after the Brexit vote, and after the Trump election, following Trump’s speech, when the market did not fall, shorts were forced to cover their positions, sending prices soaring. The initial squeeze and its progression are shown on the chart. This forced-buying made futures run up prior to the 9:30 a.m. start of trading in New York. When the stock market “gapped up” at the open, computers and their algorithms took over and bought aggressively. That triggered other algorithms, exaggerating the move. Thus, that was interpreted as a confirmation of how good Trump’s speech was.

As MarketWatch cynically points out, talking heads on TV were quick to say that the stock market was rising because Trump was conciliatory in his speech and muses “what happened to those same talking heads’ pronouncements a day earlier that the market would fall if Trump failed to mention specifics of his economic plans?”

So quantifying the move, according to the Arora algorithms, about three-quarters of the increase in stock prices today is from short squeezes. Traditionally, spikes resulting from short squeezes arising out of positioning from an overbought market tend to reverse themselves, the report notes, however over the past year, every single attempt to short the market into submission has resulted in even greater ramps higher.

“For that reason, as hard as it is, it is prudent to be patient and wait for pullbacks to buy stocks. There are reasons to be bullish. But, alas, the market is not likely to keep rising in a straight line.”

Unless, of course, “it’s different this time.” And while that hardly likely, the answer to when normalcy may finally return, remains elusive. For now, however, money talks, and anyone who was long into today’s rally is richer. Those who were short into it, on the other hand, well…

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

White House Prepares For Trade War, Warns US “Will Not Be Bound By WTO Decisions”

In the latest warning from the White House that it is set to unleash trade policy that will be in sharp conflict with generally accepted trade norms, most likely a reference to some form of Border Adjustment Tax, the Trump administration has warned that the U.S. isn’t and won’t bound by decisions made at the World Trade Organization, in outlining a new trade agenda that “promises to root out unfair practices by foreign countries” and to escalate what are already simmering trade conflicts.

According to a document obtained by Bloomberg News and titled “2017 Trade Policy Agenda”, the US plans to defend its “national sovereignty over trade policy,” the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said in an annual document laying out the president’s trade agenda. The reason for the loophole: under the terms of its entry into the WTO, the U.S. didn’t abandon its trade rights. “Given this history, it is important to recall also that Congress had made clear that Americans are not directly subject to WTO decisions,” according to the trade office, which takes the lead in negotiating trade deals.

As Bloomberg adds the Trump administration’s skepticism toward the WTO, the Geneva-based body that referees trade disputes, signals a new willingness by the world’s biggest economy to pursue its interests – even if it means undermining the global order the U.S. has led since World War II.

“It reflects their belief that the global system isn’t serving U.S. interests and they’re going to do all they can to rewrite in favor of U.S. interests,” said Adam Taylor, a former senior Canadian trade official based in Ottawa. “The biggest worry is that you can’t have the rules that govern the global trading system being ignored by one party and expect the system to keep functioning.”

The Bloomberg report confirms what we reported several weeks ago when according to the FT, the EU and other US trading partners have begun preparing for a legal challenge to a US border tax proposal in a move that “could trigger the biggest case in World Trade Organization history.” The reason is that “the EU and other US trading partners are worried about the impact on their exports and have been deploying lawyers with a view to eventually challenging it before the global trade watchdog.”

However, if according to the Trump administration, such claims are unfounded as the US never agreed to be bound by them, it virtually guarantees significant complications when it comes to global trade relations as soon as more details of Trump’s protectionist trade policies emerge.

The overarching purpose of the administration’s trade policy will be to “expand trade in a way that is freer and fairer for all Americans,” according to the report. “Every action we take with respect to trade will be designed to increase our economic growth, promote job creation in the United States, promote reciprocity with our trading partners, strengthen our manufacturing base and our ability to defend ourselves, and expand our agricultural and services industry exports,” it said.

These goals can be better met by focusing on bilateral negotiations than multilateral deals, the government said. Trump has withdrawn the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement with 11 other nations. He has also said the U.S. plans to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada and level the playing field with China.

Additionally, the U.S. will work to break down unfair trade barriers in markets that block U.S. exports, while strictly enforcing U.S. trade laws to prevent the U.S. market from being “distorted by dumped and/or subsidized imports that harm domestic industries and workers,” the USTR report said. The U.S. will update existing trade deals as necessary to “reflect changing times and market conditions.”

It is such bilateral relations, however, that concern existing US trade partners who have carefully constructed pre-existing trade arrangements, and which the White House implicitly warns will be abrogated without fears of penalty or legal consequence.

The Trump administration will also resist efforts by other countries, or international bodies such as the WTO, to “advance interpretations that would weaken the rights and benefits” of the U.S. under its trade agreements, the government said.

In short: despite Trump’s “paliative” speech last night, at least when it comes to global commerce relations, trade wars are virtually assured.

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

Ferguson Protesters Who Challenged Law Prohibiting ‘Interfering With Police’ Lose in Court

Don't interfere A lawsuit—which could have changed the dynamics of protest in the state of Missouri—failed to convince a circuit court judge that a St. Louis County ordinance banning “any person to interfere in any manner with a police officer or other employee of the County” was unconstitutional.

During one of the protests which followed the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson, Melissa V. Bennett and Rebecca “KB” L. Frazier were arrested and later charged with violating the aforementioned ordinance. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports:

The plaintiffs had argued the ordinance was more like a law that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down three decades ago, in Houston v. Hill, which barred interruption of a police officer in his duties “in any manner.” In that case, the plaintiff had been arrested after shouting at police who had stopped to talk to his friend. The court found that the law as written gave police broad power to arrest virtually anyone who annoyed them.

Also according to the Post-Dispatch, the citations received by Bennett and Frazier accused them of “walking and standing in the roadway after being warned not to do so by the police officer.” Though the charges were dropped, the two women based their lawsuit on the premise that the ordinance was being used by police as “a catchall to ban many activities that are protected under the First Amendment.”

This argument did not convince Judge Gloria Clark Reno, who in her ruling wrote:

In the present case, the Ordinance does not proscribe free speech. A person who interferes or obstructs a police officer is not disseminating information. Prohibition of interference and obstruction of a police officer does not abridge constitutional liberty, because such activity bears no necessary relationship to protest.

Judge Reno thus upheld the ordinance’s constitutionality by rejecting the plaintiff’s claims that the county ordinance was “vague” or “overbroad.”

Watch one of Reason TV’s great dispatches from the unrest in Ferguson circa 2014 below:

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2lA3sB4
via IFTTT

Only A Trade-A-Saurus Bets On Recoupling

Via Kevin Muir of The Macro Tourist blog,

The easiest way to become a trade-a-saurus is to assume correlations will continue forever and mindlessly fade divergences with the assumption they will recouple. Yet these divergences often offer clues that something might have changed and deserve further investigation.

Over the past couple of decades, ten year US inflation breakeven levels have traded inversely with the US dollar. This should be no surprise and makes sense. Lower US dollar equals more inflation.

It is not the tightest of correlations, but have a look at the broad moves – the two series definitely head in similar directions over the majority of periods.

Let’s zoom in and have a look at a shorter time frame.

From 2009 to 2014 ten year breakevens traded on top of the inverse US dollar. Even after the US dollar started its big run in the summer of 2014, the two stayed positively correlated. The US dollar rallied much harder than inflation breakevens fell, but they were still going the same direction.

But have a look at the last year (highlighted by the red rectangle). During this period the US dollar has rallied strongly (lower on the chart), yet inflation breakevens have rocketed higher.

Not only has the relationship broken down, it seems to have completely reversed.

Let’s look at another chart, but instead of inverting the US dollar, I have left it untouched.

For the past year, ten year breakevens appear to be trading almost tick for tick with the US dollar.

I understand the logic behind this relationship – economic upticks (or even the discounting of future growth) are causing inflation expectations to rise along with US rates and the US dollar.

Yet I want to highlight the fact that this relationship is actually contrary to the long term trend.

I don’t know for how long this contra-trend will continue (it feels like forever), but if I had to bet, I would guess that eventually the US dollar will head a lot lower and inflation expectations considerably higher. I wouldn’t count out the first chart recoupling at elevated levels… but then again, I think that makes me a trade-a-saurus.

via http://ift.tt/2mulNU3 Tyler Durden

IT’S HAPPENING: FRANCE’S LE PEN DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY’S MERKEL, TO HER FACE, AT EU ASSEMBLY

This is a savage assault upon Merkel, delivered with fierce Marine Le Pen — who called Germany a ‘servant to America.’ I’ve never seen anything quite like it, frankly. It bordered on sabre rattling before a declaration of war.

Le Pen emphatically rejected the subjugation and ‘vassilisation’ of Europe by Germany — declaring her intentions to break off from it — representative of an ‘intelligent protectionism’, individual liberties and defense of safety and identity.

French Presidential elections start on 4/23/17 and end on 5/7/17.

Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com

via http://ift.tt/2mG4Y5D The_Real_Fly

Fed’s Beige Book Notes Decline In Optimism About The Outlook, Sharp Drop In Broadway Attendance

While largely considered among the less relevant of Fed indicators, once one gets beyond the traditional “modest to moderate expansion pace” summary of the economy, the Fed’s Beige Book release does in fact contain informative, and oftentimes useful anecdotes about the state of the economy as disclosed to the Federal Reserve. And since the latest, February, beige book comes at a time of major economic overhaul, it contained several particularly notable observations.

At the headline level, the Beige Book confirmed what is largely known, i.e., that the economy continues to expand at “a modest to moderate pace from early January through mid-February.” Some other observations:

Consumer spending expanded modestly since the last report.
Retail sales increased at a subdued pace across most of the nation, with a number of Districts noting an ongoing shift from in-store to internet purchasing.
Auto sales varied widely, but were said to be up in most Districts.
Tourism activity was mixed but mostly stronger.
Manufacturing activity accelerated somewhat, with most Districts characterizing the pace of growth as moderate.
The energy sector showed modest growth in early 2017, and transportation activity was steady to somewhat higher across the nation.
Home construction and sales continued to expand modestly in most Districts, while residential rental markets were mixed.
Home prices were steady to up modestly in most Districts, and a number of Districts noted low inventories of existing homes.
Commercial real estate construction grew modestly, and sales and leasing activity grew moderately. Lending activity was steady to somewhat higher.

And yet, at the very end of the economic activity summary was this somewhat surprising note: “Businesses were generally optimistic about the near-term outlook but to a somewhat lesser degree than in the prior report.” So was this the beginning of the end of the hope trade? Perhaps, although following today’s blow off top in the S&P, the trade may have reset itself again.

On the topic of employment and wages, the Beige Book had the following observations:

Labor markets remained tight in early 2017, with some Districts noting widening labor shortages
A number of Districts noted that staffing firms were seeing brisk business for this time of year, and one noted more conversions from temporary to permanent workers
A number of Districts noted that shortages of skilled workers—particularly engineers and IT workers—were driving up their wages, and there were also some reports of labor shortages in the leisure and hospitality, construction and manufacturing industries
Employment grew moderately in most of the nation, though three Districts characterized growth as modest and two reported that it was little changed.

As for pricing pressures, the Fed said that these were little changed from the prior report, and added that “most Districts reported that selling prices were up modestly or moderately, though four indicated that prices had largely leveled off. Input prices were up modestly, on balance.”

It also reported that energy prices and farm prices were mixed but mostly steady, on balance, while prices for construction materials climbed in a number of Districts. Overall, businesses said they expected both input prices and selling prices to increase modestly in the months ahead. Considering the surge in headline inflation on the back of surging energy prices in recent weeks, it is not exactly clear if the Fed was looking at the same data as us.

That said, what was most interesting in the Beige Book was not the comprehensive summary but what the various districts reported. It was here that the Fed revealed anecdotes about the impact of the stronger dollar, concerns about the repeal of Obamacare, Atlantic City casino revenues, retailer fears about online competition, shipping container volumes, the impact of immigration policy on labor supply and even a sharp drop in Broadway theater attendance.

The key observations:

Several Districts indicated concern about the affects of the strong dollar.

Boston: Some hotel and restaurant groups feel that the executive order limiting travel from certain countries may have adverse business effects as the United States may not be perceived as a welcoming country. One healthcare staffing firm, for example, lost a substantial number of listings a few weeks ago when one of its clients issued a hiring freeze in Boston, waiting to see what happens with Obamacare.
New York: An agency in New York City reported brisk hiring from small to medium sized financial firms. Tourism activity has shown signs of continued softening, with Broadway theaters reporting sharp declines in attendance in January and especially February, and hotels generally reporting lower occupancy rates
Philadelphia: Contacts at the Jersey Shore indicated that peak summer bookings are filling up earlier each year. Even casino revenues in Atlantic City have finally begun to register some year-over-year gains on a more consistent basis
Cleveland: A data analytics firm reported that brick-and-mortar retailers generally are experiencing 1.5 percent to 3 percent price declines. One factor driving the declines is competition from their Internet counterparts
Richmond: Port officials reported record strength in container volume since the previous Beige Book. At one port, volume was described as “off the charts,” and another had its best month ever for loaded containers
Atlanta: Many commercial contractors indicated that the pace of nonresidential construction activity had increased from a year ago, with many reporting backlogs greater than one year
Chicago: An auto dealer expressed concerns that standards were loosening further for sub-prime auto financing
St. Louis: Contacts reported moderate wage growth since the previous report. On net, 63 percent of contacts reported wages were slightly higher or higher than a year ago
Minneapolis: Casino-related revenues in Deadwood, S.D., suffered a significant decline — as much as 25 percent at some operators — leaving one industry spokesperson to comment that the drop was “alarming”
Kansas City: The number of active oil and gas drilling rigs continued to increase modestly, primarily in Oklahoma and New Mexico
Dallas: Energy contacts were unanimously negative in their expectations about the impact of the proposed border adjustment tax on their firms. One clothing retailer said sales in border cities and energy-related areas remained sluggish
San Francisco: Contacts in the agriculture sector noted that proposed changes in immigration policy could limit labor supply, particularly during harvest season, and drive up wage costs

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

Leadership (Bio-Tech) breakout; Good sign for broad market

Below looks at the Bio-Tech ETF XBI since 2012. The chart reflects that over the past 5-years the S&P had done very well, as it is up 70%. Over the same time frame XBI is up 160%, gaining more than 100% more than the broad markets

Bio-Tech looks to have influenced the broad markets, as it declined from the summer of 2015 until Feb of 2016, the S&P did too. Once Bio-Tech turned higher 1-year ago, the broad market has followed along, although the broad market has lagged this leading sector since the lows.

Currently XBI is working on a breakout of a year long pennant pattern, to the upside. If history continues to repeat, what this leading sector does going forward, will have a big influence on the broad markets. Risk on stock trade wants to see XBI clear the highs of late 2015 (where the top of the pennant pattern started). This level comes into play as a resistance test.

Full Disclosure- Premium Members are long XBI at this time, with a stop near the top of the pennant pattern.

XBI S&P500 comparison