STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 20 November 2014

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Thursday, 20 November 2014[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 19 November 2014

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 19 November 2014
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Dow Jones 17,685.73 -2.09 (-0.01%)
S&P 500 2,048.72 -3.08 (-0.15%)
Nasdaq 4,675.71 -26.73 (-0.57%)


[font color=black]10 Year 2.36% 0.00 (0.00%)
[font color=red]30 Year 3.08% +0.01 (0.33%) [font color=black]


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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
http://tools.investing.com/market_quotes.php?
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
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The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
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Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts







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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[DemReadingDU]

1. Citigroup banker found dead

11/19/14 Citigroup banker found dead with throat slit in swanky apartment

A Citigroup banker was found dead with his throat slashed in the bathtub of his swanky downtown apartment, authorities said Wednesday.

Shawn D. Miller, Citigroup’s managing director of environmental and social risk management, was discovered around 3 p.m. Tuesday by a doorman in the Greenwich Street building, law enforcement sources said.

“We are deeply saddened by this news and our thoughts are with Shawn’s family at this time,” said a statement sent out by Citigroup.

There was no knife recovered at the scene, leading officials to suspect the death was not a suicide, and they were trying to determine who had access to his apartment.

One-bedroom apartments at the building are listed at more than $1?million.

An online profile under the man’s name calls him a “pioneer in sustainable finance” and a specialist in emerging markets at the International Finance Corp., part of the World Bank. Several former colleagues told The Post that Miller was well-liked.

It was unclear why the doorman checked his apartment.

http://nypost.com/2014/11/19/man-found-dead-with-his-throat-slashed-in-apartment/

[Demeter]

2. wow. The Eurozone Disease has jumped to here

Can the end be far behind?

Not only that, but it's not even plausible to call it suicide.

[Demeter]

6. 48 suspicious banking deaths FROM AUGUST

http://www.hangthebankers.com/48-suspicious-banking-deaths/

NEEDS TO BE UPDATED...

[Hotler]

36. Wow! What interesting site. n/t

[DemReadingDU]

39. Another headline - Banker, 42, slashed his own throat

Via Pam Martens...

11/20/14
Depending on where and when you got your news yesterday on the tragic death of Shawn D. Miller, a Managing Director of Wall Street mega bank, Citigroup, you were either emphatically told he died of a suicide or you were led to believe he was murdered. By late evening yesterday, the story had disintegrated into wild speculation. The New York Daily News ran this stunning headline, based on anonymous sources, at 9:22 p.m.: “Banker, 42, slashed his own throat in Manhattan bathtub during drug- and booze-filled bender: sources.”

It is becoming abundantly clear that if you work for a major Wall Street firm and die a sudden death, it will be shaped, molded, twisted and contorted until it fits with the suicide narrative – no matter how strongly the facts argue otherwise.
This is what we can reliably report this morning: Police were called to the scene at 120 Greenwich Street at 3:11 p.m. on Tuesday, November 18, a trendy, upscale area of Tribeca in Lower Manhattan. A friend of Miller’s had become concerned when he could not reach him by phone and called the doorman of the building to ask him to check on him. The doorman found Miller in the tub of his bathroom with knife lacerations to the throat and arms and called the police. EMS responders declared Miller dead at the scene.

All of this occurred on Tuesday afternoon, giving the New York Post plenty of time to check and double check their facts with the New York Police Department. In an on line post at the New York Post web site at 6:30 a.m. yesterday – Wednesday, the day after the death – the New York Post ran the following bold headline: “Banker found dead with throat slit in apparent suicide: cops.” That article reported that the police believed it was a suicide because “a knife was found under his body, sources said.”

But at 3:14 p.m. yesterday, the international wire service, Reuters, reported that “no weapon was found.”
At 4:05 p.m. yesterday, the New York Post ran a new headline: “Hunt on for man last seen with dead Citigroup exec.” This article states that “Police have not yet found the weapon used to cut Miller’s throat,” confirming what was reported by Reuters less than an hour earlier.

and more...
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2014/11/a-citigroup-banker-dies-along-with-responsible-press-reporting/

[Demeter]

3. Treasury Liquidity Freakout: Searching for a Market-Maker

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/treasury-liquidity-freakout-searching-market-maker.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

...investor expectations that market liquidity should ever and always be there seem bizarre, as well as ahistorical. Yet over the past month or two, there has been an unseemly amount of hand-wringing about liquidity in the bond market, both corporate bonds, and today, in a Financial Times story we’ll use as a point of departure, Treasuries. These concerns appear to be prompted by worries about what happens if (as in when) bond investors get freaked out by the Fed finally signaling it is really, no really, now serious about tightening and many rush for the exits at once. The taper tantrum of summer 2013 was a not-pretty early warning and the central bank quickly lost nerve. The worry is that there might be other complicating events, like geopolitical concerns, that will impede the Fed’s efforts at soothing rattled nerves, or worse, that the bond market will gap down before the Fed can intercede (as if investors have a right to orderly price moves!).

Let’s provide some context to make sense of these pleas for ever-on liquidity.

Believe it or not, capital markets did a perfectly fine job of providing funding for companies without having perma-liquidity. For instance, it was generally understood in the stone ages of my youth that equity markets were receptive to dodgy wares like technology IPOs only two or three years out of every five, and even then, the issuer better have six quarters of earnings. Yet that period of not very good IPO access was one of the most stellar periods for the establishment of computer hardware and software giants: Lotus, Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Sun, Oracle. In other words, entrepreneurs may have been BETTER motivated to build lasting enterprises by focusing on the business of the business and not fixating on The Great IPO Exit, which would eventually be there for them as long as they kept their venture growing and profitable.

Similarly, back in the days of stone knives and bearskins of the 1980s, individual corporate bond issues were understood not to be all that liquid, but buyers didn’t seem terribly bothered. If you really did need liquidity, you’d stick with the issues that were well-traded, such as AT&T or big utility bonds. But corporate bond buyers could get adequate pricing even if their particular bond wasn’t heavily traded because corporate bond prices were easy to grid: dealers and investors could extrapolate pretty well from the liquid issues, adjusting for the feature of each deal (ratings, maturity, coupon, sinking fund, call protection. For lower rated issues, you might have to look into the covenants). And remember, an investor expected to get a little yield premium for taking an issue that was less liquid. After all, everything in finance can be solved by price.

In the intervening years, we’ve had persistent efforts both by regulators and from industry participants themselves for more liquidity. And it’s not hard to make a case that the push for extra liquidity has gone well beyond the point of optimal value, at least as far as having capital markets provide benefits for society is concerned. Various studies have concluded that high frequency trading in stocks is detrimental, in that it adds liquidity when no one needs it, as in when liquidity is already ample, and drains it when it is most needed, when markets are roiled. And this means equity market structures, despite the appearance of greater ease of transactions. As former derivatives trader Craig Heimark and we wrote in April:

Perversely, much of the regulation of the last twenty years has been nominally in the interest of “market efficiency” but has come at the expense of market integrity. Far too many of the arguments and studies saying the promotion of competition among exchanges (and dark pools) has led to greater efficiency look at the efficiency as measured by the bid ask spread (plus fees) only of trading in the top stocks (because if they are trade weighted so that is where all the volume is). But this greater efficiency comes at the expense of no reciprocal liquidity obligation (witness the flash crash) as well as reduced liquidity in less frequently traded stocks.

The societal benefit of trading is to reduce cost to raise capital for actual companies. Does anyone really think that narrowing the spread on Google by a penny or two makes any difference to its weighted average cost of capital? In contrast, incidents like the flash crash and the feeling the market is rigged keep many small investors away from the market. The penalty for reduced liquidity in small stocks may actually be material to small company capital formation.

And these small investors are right to be concerned. The old exchange system was a hub and spoke model, which was a stable system architecture. The internet was an outgrowth of a DARPA project to make a communication system so decentralized that it could not be taken out by a nuclear strike. Hub and spoke models are stable, but subject to an outage, say by a nuclear bomb or electrical failure. What chaos theorists have found is that highly decentralized networks are stable, as are single node networks (like exchanges), but that slightly decentralized networks are fragile. And that is what we have now thanks to the SEC’s misguided efforts to “modernize” the stock market via Regulation NMS.

So regulators have left investors with the worse possible market structure. We no longer have liquidity obligations to make orderly markets as we had with the old model. Our current system is more complex due to some decentralization, but it is not so decentralized that it is robust (in technology-speak, a synchronized mesh network). The complexity of keeping the slightly decentralized model synchronized is what makes the system unpredictable and more fragile. This is not just an academic network construct. It is why we saw some exchange crashes recently (like Nasdaq) that were due to code changes in the linkages and feeds between exchanges.

MORE MARKET WONKERY IN STOCKS AND BONDS AND DISCUSSION OF BUBBLE-BUSTING, INTEREST RATE RISING, AND THE FUTURE.

[Crewleader]

4. Today's Comic

[xchrom]

5. Stocks Are Sliding After Weak Eurozone Data

http://www.businessinsider.com/market-update-nov-20-2014-2014-11

Here's the scorecard:

France's CAC 40 is down 0.91%

Germany's DAX is down 0.55%

The UK's FTSE 100 is down 0.58%

Italy's FTSE MIB down 1.47%

Spain's IBEX is down 1.73%

Asian markets were basically flat: Japan's Nikkei closed up 0.07% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended down 0.10%

US futures have followed European markets lower: the Dow is 53 points down, and the S&P 500 is 6.75 points lower

Later today, there's US consumer price inflation for October at 1.30 p.m. GMT. Economists are expecting the inflation figure to come in at 1.6%, a slight dip from September's 1.7%. At 3 p.m. GMT, we'll also get US existing home sales.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/market-update-nov-20-2014-2014-11#ixzz3JbgRWdaO

[xchrom]

7. Germany Just Dragged Europe's Growth To A 16-Month Low

http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-eurozone-pmi-nov-2014-2014-11

The Eurozone's composite PMI just came in at 51.4, the lowest in 16 months. That's after some unexpectedly poor numbers for Germany. The major business survey is pointing to a significant slowdown in Europe.

Analysts had expected the PMI (purchasing managers index) figure to come in at 52.3 overall, an improvement from October's 52.1.

Output in the eurozone is falling back toward the neutral 50 mark. Anything below that level signals a contraction, and recession.

As the largest economy in Europe, Germany has an over-sized effect on the whole continent: when they sneeze, everyone else catches a cold. So a slowdown in PMI numbers there can drag the whole index down. Germany's also weighing on efforts to revive Europe's economy, dragging its feet on stimulus plans at both the domestic and European levels.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/europe-eurozone-pmi-nov-2014-2014-11#ixzz3Jbh62L6b

[xchrom]

8. Industry Flatlines In Another Shocker For Germany

http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-pmi-november-2014-2014-11

Germany's PMI figures are just out for November, with the overall figure at 52.1. That's above the neutral 50 mark, but it's also the weakest in 16 months.

Manufacturing figures from the business surveys were particularly grim: the level hit 50, indicating no growth at all, after bouncing back in October.

Services are still in growth at 52.1, but that's the worst figure in nearly a year and a half. It's a pretty big drop from 54.4 in October.

It's not the first signal of an industrial slowdown in Europe's biggest economy: Germany's industrial output plunged in August, and September's figure failed to make up for the slump.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/germany-pmi-november-2014-2014-11#ixzz3JbkIcRHA

[xchrom]

9. RBS Just Got Slapped With A £56 Million Fine For Massive IT Failures

http://www.businessinsider.com/rbs-just-got-slapped-with-a-56-million-fine-for-massive-it-failures-2014-11

Royal Bank of Scotland was fined 56 million pounds ($88 million) by Britain's financial regulators for a system crash in 2012 that left millions of customers unable to make or receive payments.

The penalties comprised a 42 million pound fine from the Financial Conduct Authority and a 14 million pound fine from the Prudential Regulation Authority. The two regulators conducted a joint investigation into the matter and the fine from the PRA is the first it has imposed since its creation in April 2013.

The regulator said it had handed out the fine for "inadequate systems and controls" at the bank.

"The problems arose due to failures at many levels within RBS to identify and manage the risks which can flow from disruptive IT incidents and the result was that RBS customers were left exposed to these risks," said Tracey McDermott, director of enforcement and financial crime at the FCA.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/rbs-just-got-slapped-with-a-56-million-fine-for-massive-it-failures-2014-11#ixzz3JblX2JM7

[xchrom]

10. France PMI Still Signalling Shrinkage

http://www.businessinsider.com/france-pmi-nov-2014-2014-11

France's PMI for November just came in at 48.4: slightly higher than last month's 48.2.

It's an improvement, but any figure below 50 suggests that the economy is contracting.

Analysts were expecting a small increase for both services and manufacturing, up to 48.5 and 48.8 respectively.

Broken down, the manufacturing PMI came in at 47.6, and the services PMI at 48.8. Both suggesting contraction, but with manufacturing a little more squeezed than expected.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/france-pmi-nov-2014-2014-11#ixzz3Jblu83y4

[xchrom]

11. White House To Back Sanctions Against Venezuela

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-obama-administration-would-back-sanctions-against-venezuela-official-2014-11

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration would like to work with the U.S. Congress to impose sanctions on Venezuela in response to a crackdown on anti-government protests, President Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser told lawmakers on Wednesday.

Tony Blinken, who is Obama's choice to be deputy secretary of state, said Washington had refrained from pushing for sanctions in the past few months to allow diplomatic efforts by some Latin American countries to secure the release of opposition leaders from jail and nudge Caracas toward electoral reform.

But those efforts have failed, Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his nomination hearing. "We would not oppose moving forward with additional sanctions," he said.

In July, Washington barred a group of Venezuelan officials, including government ministers and presidential advisers, from the United States after accusing them of abuses in the crackdown on protests against President Nicolas Maduro this spring.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-obama-administration-would-back-sanctions-against-venezuela-official-2014-11#ixzz3JbmPgfY2

[xchrom]

12. The Farm Budget Blowout That Could Cost Taxpayers Billions

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-farmers-set-to-get-huge-government-payouts-despite-bumper-harvest-2014-11

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. farmers are about to reap a bumper harvest not just in corn and soybeans but also in new subsidies that could soar to $10 billion, blowing a hole in the government's promise that its new five-year farm bill would save taxpayers money.

If payments for 2014, the first year the farm bill takes effect, do come in at that level - as some private economists have calculated - they would be more than 10 times the U.S. Department of Agriculture's working estimate and more than double the forecast by the Congressional Budget Office.

Farmers will be in line for payouts if revenues fail to meet benchmarks tied to long-term price and production averages. Both the USDA's and the CBO's estimates were made before crop prices tumbled this year on oversupply from a huge harvest.

The farm budget blowout for 2014 is unlikely to cause a furor in Washington, despite the clamor for cost-cutting among Republicans who now control Congress. The trillion-dollar farm bill took so long to enact because of controversy over some of its other major planks, including food stamps for low-income families, that lawmakers are loathe to re-open it.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-farmers-set-to-get-huge-government-payouts-despite-bumper-harvest-2014-11#ixzz3Jbn4BSfP

[xchrom]

13. A Chemical Firm Is Planning A Huge Fracking Project In Scotland

http://www.businessinsider.com/ineos-invests-1-billion-in-scottish-shale-2014-11

INEOS, a Swiss-based chemical group, is planning a massive investment in shale gas in Scotland, the BBC reports.

The company, chaired by British businessman Jim Radcliffe, owns a production plant in Grangemouth, and wants to boost domestic shale gas production to fuel the plant, which is currently running at a loss and fuelled by natural gas imported from overseas.

Media reports suggest that INEOS is ready to invest up to £640 million ($1 billion) in Scotland, although the company did not comment on the news when contacted by Business Insider UK. The Guardian writes that INEOS has acquired licenses for shale exploration in Stirlingshire, and "is expected to attempt to win further licenses in other parts of the country".

Fracking, the drilling technique mostly used to extract gas from shale, is very controversial: it requires a huge amount of clean water to operate and chemicals are injected into the ground.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ineos-invests-1-billion-in-scottish-shale-2014-11#ixzz3JbnaOtsZ

[xchrom]

14. Goldman Faces Off Against A Powerful Senate Committee Today

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-goldman-prepares-to-rebut-senate-probe-in-levins-committee-showdown-2014-11

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group In will rebut on Thursday allegations made by a powerful Senate committee report that condemned Wall Street banks for exploiting physical commodity markets to manipulate prices and gain unfair trading advantages.

The public airing of concerns about banks' ownership of physical commodities and assets from pipelines to warehouses will renew scrutiny on Wall Street.

But experts said it may have little impact on an industry that's already retrenching and after the Federal Reserve has already signaled its intent to move forward in some way with changes in regulation.

Still, Goldman and its metals storage unit Metro will come under particular pressure when executives appear at the two-day hearing by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee On Investigations, because it has maintained commodity trading is core to its business.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-goldman-prepares-to-rebut-senate-probe-in-levins-committee-showdown-2014-11#ixzz3Jbo6PYIA

[xchrom]

15. YEN 118!

http://www.businessinsider.com/yen-hits-118-against-the-dollar-2014-11

The Japanese yen just blasted through 118 against the US dollar.

Earlier on Wednesday, the yen briefly traded north of 118, but in evening trade, it definitively made its move lower against the dollar.

This is a seven-year low for the currency, which continues to tumble and has lost more than 30% of its value against the dollar since the start of 2012.

Here's the chart of Wednesday's move.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/546d1e27ecad04ae3bf5f11f-964-450/fx_image%20(16)-1.png

And the longer-term chart showing the yen's multi-year tumble.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/546d1e3f6bb3f77b1c7f91b2-964-450/fx_image%20(17).png

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/yen-hits-118-against-the-dollar-2014-11#ixzz3Jbp4zJnU

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/yen-hits-118-against-the-dollar-2014-11#ixzz3JbostJlZ

[Demeter]

31. And as the Rising Sun sinks slowly in the West

I feel like Spike Jones!

[xchrom]

35. !

[Demeter]

40. I'm glad you got it--I'm glad anybody got it!

I'm getting to be an antique.

[xchrom]

16. The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-important-things-in-the-world-nov-20-2014-11

1. At least two people were shot early Thursday at Florida State University's Tallahassee campus.

2. Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has been fined £56 million after a software issue in 2012 prevented millions of customers from accessing their accounts.

3. New satellite imagery suggests North Korea is gearing up for fresh nuclear tests.

4. Mozilla is switching from Google to Yahoo as the default search engine in the US, with a 5-year contract that starts in December.

5. Ebola response efforts in Liberia are being stymied by disagreements between government officials and charities and health agencies fighting against the virus, The New York Times reports.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-important-things-in-the-world-nov-20-2014-11#ixzz3JbpvFTjx

[xchrom]

17. WORLD STOCKS DRAGGED DOWN BY WEAK MANUFACTURING

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FINANCIAL_MARKETS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-20-05-01-22

KEEPING SCORE: In early European trading, France's CAC 40 dropped 0.7 percent to 4,235.35 and Germany's DAX shed 0.5 percent to 9,424.14. Britain's FTSE 100 was off 0.4 percent at 6,667.14. Futures pointed to losses on Wall Street. Dow futures were down 0.3 percent at 17,604 and S&P 500 futures fell 0.3 percent to 2,040.40.

CHINA FACTORIES: Manufacturing activity in China fell to a six-month low in November, reflecting sluggishness in the world No. 2 economy and weakness abroad, according to the preliminary version of HSBC's factory survey. The survey comes days after an official report showed that property prices softened in October in all but one of 70 cities tracked across China, falling 2.6 percent overall. Real estate had been a prime driver of China's blistering economic growth in previous years but recent weakness in prices suggests economic growth will continue to slip.

THE QUOTE: The manufacturing data shows how "choppy" China's economy is at present, said Stan Shamu, market strategist at IG in Melbourne, Australia. "Investors will have to exercise extreme caution and patience" before diving back into mining stocks which have weakened as China's economic growth wanes. "Waiting for a sustained recovery before buying stocks is always a better strategy than buying before knowing just how low they will trade."

FED MINUTES: The minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve's last policy meeting released Wednesday showed that the Fed decided not to alter its wording on the timing of any interest rate increases. Fed officials worried that a change could be misinterpreted by financial markets. Most economists predict that the Fed won't raise rates before June. "Investors feel the Fed is continuing to pave the path toward tightening" of monetary policy, said IG's Shamu.

[Demeter]

18. U.S. House, Senate Democrats seek details from financial firms on data breaches

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/usa-congress-cybersecurity-idUKL2N0T72R220141118

Leading Democrats in both houses of Congress sent letters on Tuesday to 16 major banks and other financial firms requesting detailed information about recent data breaches and briefings from corporate data security officials. Among the companies targeted in letters sent by Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, and Representative Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, were banks, investment firms and other financial service providers.

"The increasing number of cyber attacks and data breaches is unprecedented and poses a clear and present danger to our nation's economic security," Cummings and Warren wrote.

"Each successive cyber attack and data breach not only results in hefty costs and liabilities for businesses, but exposes consumers to identity theft and other fraud, as well as a host of other cyber crimes," they added.

The lawmakers requested details of all data breaches experienced over the past year, the number of customers affected, any findings by forensic investigators, information about who is suspected to have carried out the attacks, and descriptions of new cyber-security measures the companies instituted after discovering data breaches.

In letters to two of the 16 companies, Citigroup and U.S. Bank, Cummings and Warren also requested information about how possible data breaches might have affected their handling of government purchase and charge cards under contracts with the General Services Administration, the government's housekeeping agency. Other institutions to whom the Democratic legislators are sending letters include ADP, Bank of America, Bank of NY Mellon, Bank of the West, Deutsche Bank, E-Trade, Fidelity, GE, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, PNC, Regions and Wells Fargo.

[Demeter]

19. U.S. SEC reports rise in whistleblower tips in fiscal 2014

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/us-sec-whistleblower-idUSKCN0J220620141118

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission received more than 3,500 tips from whistleblowers in fiscal year 2014, the largest number received since the program went into effect three years ago.

The SEC announced the increase in its Nov. 17 annual report, which tracks the success of the whistleblower program and how much it pays out each year in awards.

Fiscal 2014, which ended Sept. 30, marked a record year for the SEC's program, both in terms of the number of tips received and the amounts it awarded tipsters.

It authorized awards for nine whistleblowers, including a record payout of more than $30 million to a whistleblower overseas who had helped alert the SEC to what it described as an ongoing fraud....MORE

[Demeter]

20. Lobbying Used to Be a Crime: A Review of Zephyr Teachout’s New Book on the Secret History of Corrupt

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/matt-stoller-lobbying-used-crime-review-zephyr-teachouts-new-book-secret-history-corruption-america.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

By Matt Stoller, who writes for Salon and has contributed to Politico, Alternet, The Nation and Reuters. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller. Originally published at Medium and Firedoglake

If there’s one way to summarize Zephyr Teachout’s extraordinary book Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United, it is that today we are living in Benjamin Franklin’s dystopia. Her basic contention, which is not unfamiliar to most of us in sentiment if not in detail, is that the modern Supreme Court has engaged in a revolutionary reinterpretation of corruption and therefore in American political life. This outlook, written by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the famous Citizens United case, understands and celebrates America as a brutal and Hobbesian competitive struggle among self-interested actors attempting to use money to gain personal benefits in the public sphere.

What makes the book so remarkable is its scope and ability to link current debates to our rich and forgotten history. Perhaps this has been done before, but if it has, I have never seen it. Liberals tend to think that questions about electoral and political corruption started in the 1970s, in the Watergate era. What Teachout shows is that these questions were foundational in the American Revolution itself, and every epoch since. They are in fact questions fundamental to the design of democracy.

Teachout starts her book by telling the story of a set of debates that took place even before the Constitution was ratified — whether American officials could take gifts from foreign kings. The French King, as a matter of diplomatic process, routinely gave diamond-encrusted snuff boxes to foreign ambassadors. Americans, adopting a radical Dutch provision banning such gifts, wrestled with the question of temptation to individual public servants versus international diplomatic norms. The gifts ban, she argues, was evidence of a particular demanding notion of corruption at the heart of American legal history. These rules, ‘bright-line’ rules versus ‘corrupt-intent’ rules, govern temptation and structure. They cover innocent and illicit activity, as opposed to bribery rules which are organized solely around quid pro quo corruption.

The Constitution is full of such bright-line rules. For instance, the residency requirement was intended to protect against ‘adventurers’ and the takings clause protects private property and has an anti-monopoly interpretive framework. The census, rules on representation of House members, the regular electoral cycle of two year terms, age requirements (to prevent dynasties), requirements for legislative journals, salary payments for legislators, and prohibitions on holding legislative and other offices are all anti-corruption provisions. The founders, Teachout argues, were obsessed with corruption. They had seen their beloved British system fall into the trap of corruption, with ‘place men’ (members of parliament dependent on the king) and rotten boroughs, and sought to prevent a recurrence in America.

Teachout points out something fairly obvious, but not recognized today — the theoretical underpinning of the American revolution was that a corrupt government had no legitimacy to govern....MORE

[xchrom]

21. Mike Nichols, 1931 - 2014

http://www.ctpost.com/entertainment/slideshow/Mike-Nichols-1931-2014-98004.php

[DemReadingDU]

37. Nichols was also the husband of ABC News' Diane Sawyer, n/t

[xchrom]

22. COUNTRY OF ORIGIN LABEL FOR MEAT CUTS ENDANGERED

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MEAT_LABELING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-20-03-16-00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is running out of options in its effort to tell consumers where fresh cuts of meat originated after a successful challenge to package labeling by Canada and Mexico.

A 2008 farm law requires that packages of steaks, ribs and other cuts of meat identify where the animals were born, raised and slaughtered. A label might say the meat was "born in Canada, raised and slaughtered in the United States" or "born, raised and slaughtered in the United States."

The World Trade Organization agreed more than once with Canada and Mexico that the labels give the U.S. livestock industry an advantage. In a ruling Oct. 20, the WTO said the labeling requirement forced meatpackers to segregate and keep detailed records on imported livestock, giving them an incentive to favor U.S. livestock.

The trade organization ruled in 2011 that an earlier version of the labels was discriminatory. That ruling was upheld in 2012 after a U.S. appeal.

[xchrom]

23. REPORT: ROLE OF 3 BIG BANKS IN COMMODITIES RISKY

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIG_BANKS_COMMODITIES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-19-19-27-30

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three big Wall Street banks that have owned commodities such as aluminum exposed themselves to risk and in some cases manipulated prices in a way that raised costs for consumers, a Senate investigation has found.

The heavy involvement of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley in the business of storing and moving commodities like oil, aluminum, uranium and copper also gives them unfair trading advantages in financial markets, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Aluminum cans that hold beverages like soda or beer are held up as an example. Goldman has used its stockpile of aluminum - in a cluster of warehouses near Detroit - to cause delivery delays to create shortages and inflate the metal's price, according to the report. The price for beverage makers and ultimately consumers is forced higher, it said.

Goldman maintains there has been no shortage of aluminum and prices have fallen substantially since 2008. In addition, the bank says, more than 75 percent of the aluminum it holds in storage doesn't go into "queues" that can back up and delay deliveries.

[xchrom]

24. FORD: LOWER OIL PRICES UNLIKELY TO SLOW GREEN CARS

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_UAE_AUTOS_FORD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-11-20-06-34-42

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- The executive chairman of Ford Motor Company said he doesn't think that a drop in oil prices will dissuade people from buying fuel-efficient vehicles.

Bill Ford, the great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, said the Dearborn, Michigan automaker will continue to promote green technology.

"Fuel is a cost and anytime we can save our customers money, I think that's a good thing," he said. "I believe our point of view of greater fuel economy coupled with better performance is absolutely the right way to go."

Ford was speaking to a select group of media in the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday, where the company recently established a business unit to serve the Middle East and Africa.

[Demeter]

25. that's a lot of corruption!

[Demeter]

28. Well, I have to go out and get really insulted now

and it's not even 100M pennies...and drive on freshly fallen snow, to boot!

It's incredible out there. and cold.

[xchrom]

26. China manufacturing activity hits six month low

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30125097

Activity in some of China's factories and workshops hit a six month low in November, a fresh survey has shown.

The preliminary data from lending giant HSBC, called the purchasing manager's index (PMI), measures a number of variables including new export orders.

It showed that factory output contracted in November for the first time in six months.

China's manufacturing sector is a key driver of its economy, which is key to global growth.

[xchrom]

27. Banks Had Unfair Advantage From Commodity Units: Senator

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-19/banks-gained-unfair-advantage-from-commodity-units-senator-says.html

Wall Street’s biggest banks have used their ownership of metals warehouses, oil tankers and other commodities businesses to gain unfair trading advantages and dominate markets, according to a U.S. Senate investigation.

In a report on Goldman Sachs (GS) Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co., a Senate panel said the firms have eroded the line separating banking from commercial activities to the detriment of consumers and the financial system. The holdings give banks access to non-public information that could move markets and increase the likelihood that industrial accidents will spur taxpayer bailouts, the report said.

“We simply cannot allow a large, powerful Wall Street bank the power to influence the price of a commodity essential to our economy,” Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, told reporters in Washington yesterday. He added that his staff “found substantial evidence that these activities expose major banks to catastrophic risks that are poorly understood.”

The scrutiny over banks’ involvement with commodities has spurred the Federal Reserve to consider tightening regulations and prompted some Wall Street firms to try to shed assets.

[Demeter]

29. Please note: the RETIRING Carl Levin

who has FINALLY taken his courage in his hands....

[xchrom]

30. Cheap-Oil Era Tilts Geopolitical Power to U.S.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-20/cheap-oil-era-tilts-geopolitical-power-to-u-s-.html

A new age of abundant and cheap energy supplies is redrawing the world’s geopolitical landscape, weakening and potentially threatening the legitimacy of some governments while enhancing the power of others.

Some changes already are evident. Surging U.S. oil production enabled America and its allies to impose tough sanctions on Iran without having to worry much about the loss of imports from the Middle Eastern nation. Russia, meanwhile, faces what President Vladimir Putin called a possibly “catastrophic” slump in prices for its oil as its economy is battered by U.S. and European sanctions over its role in Ukraine.

“A new era of lower prices is being ushered in” by the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution, Ed Morse, global head of commodities research for Citigroup Inc. in New York, said in an e-mail. “Undoubtedly some of the geopolitical changes will be momentous.”

[xchrom]

32. Goldman Says It Fired Banker Who Obtained N.Y. Fed Information

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-20/goldman-says-it-fired-banker-who-obtained-n-y-fed-information.html

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) said it fired a junior banker who brought confidential information from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York into the firm.

The banker, who had joined the company in July from the New York Fed, was dismissed a week after the discovery in late September along with another employee who failed to escalate the issue, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News that didn’t identify the pair. Jake Siewert, a bank spokesman, confirmed the contents of the memo, which was prompted by a report in the New York Times yesterday.

“We have zero tolerance for improper handling of confidential information,” New York-based Goldman Sachs said in the memo. “We are reviewing our policies regarding any hiring from governmental institutions to ensure that they are appropriately effective and robust.”

Goldman Sachs and the New York Fed have faced questions about their relationship since a former examiner, Carmen Segarra, said her ex-colleagues at the regulator handled the bank with kid gloves. She gave what she said were secretly recorded conversations with those co-workers to the radio program “This American Life” in September.

[xchrom]

33. Hedge Funds Face Exit Tax as Iceland Central Bank Mulls Plan

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-19/hedge-funds-face-exit-tax-as-iceland-central-bank-reveals-plan.html


Hedge funds and other creditors with claims against Iceland’s failed banks face an exit tax as the island looks for ways to unwind capital controls without hurting the economy.

The government targets having a plan it can present by year-end that would map out how Iceland will scale back currency controls currently blocking about $6.6 billion from exiting the island. The framework will build on analysis conducted by the central bank and external advisers, including JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

“Some sort of exit tax in some form will be some part of the removal of capital controls,” central bank Governor Mar Gudmundsson said yesterday in an interview in Reykjavik. “How large, and what role or what percentage, is not timely to discuss.”

Newspaper Morgunbladid, whose editor-in-chief is Gudmundsson’s predecessor, David Oddsson, reported this week that a tax for investors trying to leave Iceland may be set at 35 percent. It didn’t say how it got the information and Gudmundsson declined to confirm the figure.

[xchrom]

34. California Set to Take in $2 Billion More Revenue Than Forecast

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-20/california-set-to-take-in-2-billion-more-revenue-than-forecast.html

Higher taxes and an improving economy will boost California’s revenue $2 billion above the income Governor Jerry Brown projected in the budget he signed in June, the state’s fiscal analyst said.

The state’s general fund, which pays for most core operations, will reach $107.4 billion in the year ending June 30, compared with $105.5 billion in Brown’s budget, the independent Legislative Analyst’s Office said yesterday in a report. Under the state constitution, almost all of the additional money will go to education, analyst Mac Taylor said.

The higher figure underscores California’s fiscal turnaround. The state has gone from a $25 billion deficit three years ago to a $3.9 billion surplus going into this fiscal year. Propelled by capital-gains taxes, which vary with the performance of the stock market, along with higher income- and sales taxes, California will have surpluses through at least fiscal 2016, Taylor said.

Brown boosted total spending in the world’s eighth-largest economy by almost 6 percent to a record $156 billion, while depositing $1.6 billion into a rainy-day fund, the first installment since 2007.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

38. ETA News Release: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report (11/20/2014)

Source: Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration

Read More: http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/eta20142123.pdf

U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 14-2123-NAT

Program Contacts:
Tom Stengle [phone]
Tony Sznoluch [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending November 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 291,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 3,000 from 290,000 to 293,000. The 4-week moving average was 287,500, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 750 from 285,000 to 285,750.

There were no special factors impacting this week's initial claims.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.8 percent for the week ending November 8, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending November 8 was 2,330,000, a decrease of 73,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for insured unemployment since December 16, 2000 when it was 2,322,000. The previous week's level was revised up 11,000 from 2,392,000 to 2,403,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,369,000, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since January 13,

UNADJUSTED DATA

....
The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending November 1 was 2,183,590, an increase of 81,659 from the previous week. There were 3,882,383 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2013.