STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Tuesday, 26 January 2016

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 26 January 2016[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 25 January 2016

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 25 January 2016
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Dow Jones 15,885.22 -208.29 (-1.29%)
S&P 500 1,877.08 -29.82 (-1.56%)
Nasdaq 4,518.49 -72.69 (-1.58%)


[font color=green]10 Year 1.98% -0.01 (-0.50%)
30 Year 2.75% -0.01 (-0.36%) [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)
Market Updates
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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
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
08/21/15 Charles Antonucci Sr, former pres. Park Ave. Bank sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for bribery, fraud, embezzlement, and attempt to steal $11MM in TARP bailout funds, as well as $37.5MM fraud on OK insurance company. To pay $54MM in restitution and give up additional $11MM.
09/21/15 Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologizes for VW cheating on air quality standards with emission testing avoidance device. Stock drops 20%, fines may total $18B.
09/22/15 Stewart Parnell, CEO Peanut Corp. of America, sentenced to 28 years in prison for selling salmonella-tainted peanut butter that killed nine.
12/17/15 Martin Shkreli, former CEO Turing Pharmaceuticals and notorious price gouger, arrested on securities fraud charges. Posted $5M bail, resigned as CEO.




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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]

[Proserpina]

1. I saw gas at $1.49 Monday

It was amazing to me, a child of the 80's. Unfortunately, I filled the tank Friday, when it hit $1.52.

Fig. 2: Annual motor gasoline retail price ($/gallon). This figure was constructed the national average gasoline prices for each year from 1919 to 2010 provided by the EIA. These nominal prices were converted to 2010 dollars by adjusting for inflation. In fact, the gasoline price from 1919 was 18% higher than the current gasoline price.

History of Gasoline Prices in the United States by Quan Bui October 23, 2010

Submitted as coursework for Physics 240, Stanford University, Fall 2010

The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered from, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/bui1/

[Fuddnik]

8. I got $1.71 yesterday.

Cheapest I've seen yet.

[Punx]

11. $2.27 for Super here

At a nationally branded station. Much cheaper at Costco or Fred Meyer. Filled the old minivan (25 gallon tank) my younger son uses to get to school for less than $30 with discounts. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Been a long time since I've seen sub $2/gallon gas. ~1988 was the last time I saw regular sub $1. Prudhoe Bay was in full swing back then.

[Proserpina]

2. J.P. Morgan to settle most of Lehman suit for $1.42 billion

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jp-morgan-to-settle-most-of-lehman-suit-for-142-billion-2016-01-25?siteid=YAHOOB

J.P. Morgan & Co. has agreed to pay the remnants of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. $1.42 billion in cash to settle much of the failed investment bank’s lawsuit that accused J.P. Morgan of illegally siphoning billions of dollars from Lehman before its collapse.

The settlement comes after a federal judge last fall ruled for J.P. Morgan, saying the bank didn’t abuse its leverage as Lehman’s primary clearing bank to force the investment bank to hand over more collateral in the weeks before its September 2008 collapse.

The deal, unveiled Monday night in a filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, resolves the bulk of Lehman’s $8.6 billion lawsuit against J.P. Morgan and the bank’s counterclaims against Lehman.

[Proserpina]

3. $70,000 worth of stolen cheese has been found in Milwaukee

http://www.wxyz.com/news/local-news/70000-worth-of-stolen-cheese-has-been-found

This "cheese caper" has a "gouda" ending: The $70,000 worth of cheese products that was reported stolen from a Milwaukee suburb last week has been found, according to police.

In an update on their Facebook page posted Monday, the Germantown Police Department explained the cheese was found in the City of Milwaukee.

No arrests have been made, and police aren't releasing any other information yet as the investigation is ongoing.

The semi-trailer was taken from D&G Transportation on Bunsen Drive at about 12:20 a.m. Friday last week.

[Proserpina]

4. Ford to stop selling autos in Japan and Indonesia

http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2016/01/ford_to_stop_selling_autos_in.html

Ford Motor Co. will stop selling vehicles in Japan and Indonesia by the end of the year, the Associated Press reports.

The Dearborn automaker said the decision was based on the limited opportunity for foreign companies to compete in those markets, which heavily favor domestic products.

All imported brands account for less than 6 percent of the Japanese automotive market, the company told the AP. Ford only sold 6,100 vehicles in Indonesia and 5,000 in Japan last year.

Overall vehicle sales in Japan are also expected to decline in the near future.

The company reportedly said the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, which proponents have said would open up Asian markets to more American products, including cars, would not improve Ford's opportunity in Japan.

[Proserpina]

5. The U.S. Could Switch to Mostly Renewable Energy, No Batteries Needed

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/us-could-switch-mostly-renewable-energy-no-batteries-needed-180957925/?utm_source=feedburner&no-ist

Better electricity sharing across states would dampen the effects of variable weather on wind and solar power..the United States could lower carbon emissions from electricity generation by as much as 78 percent without having to develop any new technologies or use costly batteries, a new study suggests. There’s a catch, though. The country would have to build a new national transmission network so that states could share energy.

“Our idea was if we had a national ‘interstate highway for electrons’ we could move the power around as it was needed, and we could put the wind and solar plants in the very best places,” says study co-author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.

Several years ago, MacDonald was curious about claims that there was no technology available that could mitigate carbon dioxide emissions without doubling or tripling the cost of electricity. When he investigated the issue, he discovered that the studies behind the claims did not incorporate the country’s variable weather very well. One of the big issues with wind and solar power is that their availability is dependent upon the weather. Solar is only available on sunny days, not during storms or at night. Wind turbines don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow enough—or when it blows too much. Because of this, some studies have argued that these technologies are only viable if large-capacity batteries are available to store energy from these sources to use when they aren’t working. That would raise the cost of electricity well beyond today’s prices.

But “there’s always wind and solar power available somewhere,” MacDonald notes. So he and his colleagues set out to design a low-carbon electricity-generation system that better incorporated—and even took advantage of—the nation’s weather. Their study appears today in Nature Climate Change.

Their computer model showed that by switching to mostly wind and solar power sources—with a little help from natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power when the weather doesn’t cooperate—the United States could reduce carbon emissions by 33 to 78 percent from 1990 levels, depending on the exact cost of renewable energy and natural gas. (The lower the cost of renewable energy and the higher the cost of natural gas, the more carbon savings.) Adding coal into the mix did not make electricity any cheaper, but it did result in a 37 percent increase in carbon emissions...

more

[Proserpina]

6. Throwing This Out Here: Plastic Bags Are Amazing and You Should Appreciate Them More

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/plastic-bags/

IT DOESN’T TAKE a close reading of Katy Perry lyrics to know that plastic bags get little love. You’ve heard: The plastic detritus drifts through the wind, gets stuck in trees, kills whales, and lasts pretty much forever in landfills. So since San Francisco banned plastic bags in 2007, over 100 US cities also enacted bans or fees. Later this year, France plans to implement a ban across the whole country.

But I’ve come to praise plastic bags, not to bury them (or recycle them, the more environmentally responsible thing, FYI). If the bans teach people one thing, let it be this: Plastic shopping bags are remarkable feats of engineering, and consumers have taken them for granted this whole time.

Just look at the numbers: Plastic grocery bags cost pennies to make and hold more than a thousand times their weight. They’re light. They’re waterproof. “They kind of seemed miraculous,” says Susan Freinkel, author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, who is clearly no fan of plastic. So miraculous, in fact, that shoppers in the ‘80s didn’t quite believe the feather-light bags could hold up to their heavy cans and boxes.

But in that decade, plastic bags swept through the nation. A new breakthrough design made them so cheap and so easy to produce, grocery stores couldn’t say no. The invention actually came from Sweden, where Gustaf Thulin Sten figured out a way to stamp bags out of tubes of polyethylene, much improved over the way manufacturers had tried to make rectangular plastic bags resembling paper ones. The process is still roughly the same today: Extrude hot polyethylene, blow it up like bubble gum, and pull it out until you’ve got a long tube of polyethylene film. Flatten the tube, and you’ve got two sheets of plastic on top of one another. Then stamp out the individual bags, seal the top and bottom, and cut out a rectangle for the handles. The cut, folded bag resembles a folded shirt, giving it the name “t-shirt bag.”

more

[Proserpina]

7. If Exxon’s Punished for Climate Change, It’ll Be for Lying to Investors

http://www.wired.com/2016/01/states-are-investigating-what-exxon-knew-about-climate-change/

...Last week, California’s attorney general announced it was investigating to see whether Exxon had lied about the risks of climate change. New York’s attorney general launched a similar inquest last November. Both investigations pay lip service to possible harm the company’s lies might have done to the public. There’s an irony here: If the law finally does come down on an oil company, the charges won’t be for damages done to the planet. It will more likely be the for the crime of lying to investors about the risks climate change posed to Exxon’s own bottom line.

If corporations have an Achilles’ heel, it’s that they have an obligation to tell their investors about anything that might affect business. “Climate disruption is a risk to Exxon in two basic ways,” explains David Driesen, professor at Syracuse University College of Law. “One is through directly disrupting their refineries and drilling operations.” Through sea level rise, or intensified storms, for instance. “And the second is through regulatory risks,” says Driesen.

Fear of regulation is possibly what spooked Exxon into forming organizations like the Global Climate Coalition, which cast doubt on the scientific consensus around climate change. According to Inside Climate News, whose 2015 investigative report called “The Road Not Taken” helped expose Exxon’s pivot from research to denial, the company cofounded that group shortly after NASA’s James Hansen briefed Congress on the dangers of climate change in 1988. That pivot is central to both states’ investigations.

Beyond the heaps of evidence dug up by Inside Climate News—and a parallel investigation by the Los Angeles Times—the state attorneys have the power of subpoena, which lets them access internal company documents. And if those documents show that 1990s Exxon believed anything counter to public discourse, the company could be hosed. This doesn’t necessarily need dripping red-handed admissions, like those found in the internal documents that tanked the tobacco industry in the 1990s. That’s because the law is, in many ways, more protective of investors than it is of public health...

[Proserpina]

9. better late than never: Saudi Arabia presents plan to move beyond oil

but first, they will have to fire all the princes...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-economy-conference-idUSKCN0V32DG

Saudi Arabia outlined ambitious plans on Monday to move into industries ranging from information technology to health care and tourism, as it sought to convince international investors it can cope with an era of cheap oil.

A meeting and presentation at a luxury Riyadh hotel was held against a backdrop of low oil prices pressuring the kingdom's currency and saddling it with an annual state budget deficit of almost $100 billion - the biggest economic challenge for Riyadh in well over a decade.

Top Saudi officials said they would reduce the kingdom's dependence on oil and public sector employment. Growth and job creation would shift to the private sector, with state spending helping to jump-start industries in the initial stage.

"It's going to switch from simple quantitative growth based on commodity exports to qualitative growth that is evenly distributed" across the economy, said Khalid al-Falih, chairman of national oil giant Saudi Aramco....

[Proserpina]

10. EU says to monitor, not regulate 'hyped' virtual currencies

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-bitcoin-regulations-idUSKCN0V32A3

The European Union will monitor rather than regulate "hyped" virtual currencies for now, because too little is known to justify new rules beyond reining in specific risks like money-laundering, the body's executive said on Monday.

The world's 600 virtual currencies are tiny, with bitcoin alone accounting for 90 percent of the $7 billion sector, compared with daily turnover of about $5 trillion on global foreign exchange markets.

Virtual currencies are traded online and not backed by a central bank. The collapse of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox two years ago raised concerns about consumer protection in a largely self-regulated, experimental sector.

After the attacks in Paris last November, policymakers also want to ensure that virtual currencies are not used to finance terrorism...

more

[antigop]

12. Bill Black: Wall Street Declares War Against Bernie Sanders

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/bill-black-wall-street-declares-war-against-bernie-sanders.html

Wall Street billionaires are freaking out about the chance that Bernie Sanders could be elected President. Stephen Schwarzman, one of the wealthiest and most odious people in the world, told the Wall Street Journal that one of the three principal causes of the recent global financial trauma was “the market’s” fear that Sanders may be elected President. Schwarzman is infamous for ranting that President Obama’s proposals to end the “carried interest” tax scam that allows private equity billionaires like Schwarzman to pay lower income tax rates than their secretaries was “like when Hitler invaded Poland.”

Schwarzman and Pete Peterson co-founded the private equity firm Blackstone. Peterson leads the effort to destroy the safety net in America. His greatest dream is to privatize Social Security so that Wall Street could increase its revenues by tens of billions of dollars. Blackstone is a major owner of Sea World, and it was in this sphere that Schwarzman went beyond his delusional rants about Hitler and became vile. When an Orca killed its trainer, Schwarzman lied and blamed the death on the trainer, claiming that Sea World “had one safety lapse — interestingly, with a situation where the person involved violated all the safety rules that we had.”

Schwarzman’s claim that the global financial markets are tanking because of Bernie’s increasing support is delusional, but it is revealing that he used the most recent market nightmare as an excuse to attack Bernie. The Wall Street plutocrats, with good reason, fear Bernie – not Hillary. Indeed, it is remarkable how vigorous and open Wall Street has been in signaling through the financial media that it has no problem with Hillary’s Wall Street plan. CNN, CNBC, and the Fiscal Times, under titles such as: “Here’s Why Wall Street Has Little to Fear from Hillary Clinton,” pushed this meme.

Michael Bloomberg was the second Wall Street billionaire to pile on to Bernie this week. Bloomberg leaked to dozens of media outlets that he was again considering a run for the presidency. The same leaks explained that Bloomberg’s fear of Bernie was the key. Bloomberg is infamous for organizing the mass arrests designed to crush the Occupy Wall Street movement. He is Wall Street and he openly represented Wall Street as Mayor of New York City.

[bread_and_roses]

13. "Wall Street Has Little to Fear from Hillary Clinton"

Says it all.

[antigop]

14. +1000. nt