DOJ Ordered To Preserve Gmail Records Of Clinton-Colluding Assistant AG Peter Kadzik
By Tyler Durden
A Judicial Watch lawsuit seeking records related to potential collusion between the Justice Department and Hillary Clinton operatives during her email investigation has resulted in a federal judge issuing a rare order instructing the DOJ to preserve the Gmail records of the now infamous Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik. The order came from U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee, and gave the DOJ until this morning to report back on steps taken to preserve the personal email accounts of Kadzik. Per Politico:
“Defendant shall take all necessary and reasonable steps to ensure the preservation of all agency records and potential agency records between the dates of December 1, 2014 and November 7, 2016 in any personal email account of Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik. Any question about whether a record is an agency record shall be resolved in favor of it being an agency record.”
Of course, as we pointed out back in the fall, various emails provided by WikiLeaks exposed Kadzik repeatedly colluding with the Clinton campaign by providing campaign manager, and long-time friend, John Podesta with inside information on the DOJ’s investigation of Hillary’s email scandal. Moreover, proving just how close they were, in a Sept. 2008 email, Podesta emailed an Obama campaign official to recommend Kadzik for a supportive role in the campaign saying that Kadzik was a “fantastic lawyer” who “kept me out of jail”…now that’s a bond that lasts.
Of course, in response to Judge Sullivan’s order, the DOJ promptly noted that Mr. Kadzik was unable to locate any work-related emails on his Gmail account…well how convenient.
“It is the government’s understanding that Mr. Kadzik has located no agency records or potential agency records in his Gmail account and that, therefore, there are no such documents to preserve. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution and consistent with the preservation order that Judicial Watch seeks, the government has instructed Mr. Kadzik to preserve any potential agency records in his Gmail account, should any exist, and Mr. Kadzik has agreed to do so,” the Justice Department filing said.
And since we have no doubt that Kadzik performed a thorough, impartial scan of his Gmail account while resisting the urge to delete “inconvenient” records, we assume that he simply overlooked this email which provided a very timely “Heads up” to John Podesta regarding confidential information about DOJ hearings and FOIA requests. Simple, honest mistake, no doubt.
How long can this farce continue on before government officials are finally forced to do what private corporations have been forced to do for years, namely requiring that their employees use secured, archived email systems for official communications and impose stiff penalties for non-compliance. Seems simple enough.
Source: DOJ Ordered To Preserve Gmail Records Of Clinton-Colluding Assistant AG Peter Kadzik
Kawasaki backpedals on ‘Apprentice’ comments
Kawasaki is terminating any future sponsorship of NBC’s ‘New Celebrity Apprentice’ — unless the reality show cuts ties with executive producer Donald Trump. …read more
Source: Kawasaki backpedals on ‘Apprentice’ comments
China Orders Local Weather Bureaus To Stop Issuing Smog Alerts
By Tyler Durden
Nearly three years into a “war on pollution”, in which large swathes of northern China are periodically engulfed in thick, toxic smog, with dangerous air quality readings in major cities like Beijing, Tianjin and Xian forcing many people to stay in doors and shutting down industries, causing ship traffic jams in local ports, and even adversely impacting the local economy, China has realizing that it needs to take more “innovative” measure to make sure it does not lose this particular war. Which explains why local media reported on Tuesday that China is suspending local meteorological bureaus from issuing smog alerts, raising suspicions the government is attempting to suppress information about the country’s air pollution as public anger over the issue grows.
China’s Meteorological Administration notified local bureaus Tuesday to “immediately stop issuing smog alerts”, according to a photo of a notice posted on China’s Twitter-like social media platform Weibo, AFP reports. Instead, of smog, local departments can issue alerts for “fog” when visibility is less than 10 km, according to the notice.
The notice was issued because local “meterological bureaus and the environmental protection administration often disagree when they issue smog-related information,” a representative from the China Meteorological Administration told the Chinese website The Paper. “A joint alerting mechanism will be formulated to consult how to and who should issue alerts for smog,” the representative said.
Centralizing the government’s supervision over a topic that has lead to rising popular anger over the government’s inability to takle the toxic problem, one single department will now be responsible for issuing smog alerts, The Paper reported.
Upon learing the news, online commentators who have long doubted the credibility of official data on air pollution, and any other official Chinese data for that matter, slammed the reports with stinging criticism.
“Before, they cheated us separately, and now, they are going to cheat us together,” one person said on Weibo.
“Even though they are working on a unified alert standard, they should not stop the existing alert system,” another replied.
The feud even spread to various semi-public institutions: “The meteorological administration fought the environmental protection ministry and lost,” the Nanjing Meteorological Institute said on its official Weibo account. “Thus, early warnings about smog, a kind of meteorological calamity, cannot be issued by the meteorological administration,” it said.
The Chinese government has a color-coded system of smog alerts, topping out at red when severe pollution is likely to last more than 72 hours. The notice sets off a series of emergency measures, ranging from taking cars off the road to closing heavily polluting factories.
And like with everything else in China, there is a conflict of interest that sets off the people versus some economic goal. In this case, local authorities have long hesitated to issue the notices over fears that they will harm economic performance, even when pollution levels are literally off the charts. In late 2015, China issued its first ever red alert in response to public anger over the government’s reluctance to take action …read more
Source: China Orders Local Weather Bureaus To Stop Issuing Smog Alerts
Price: It’s ‘imperative’ people can keep health coverage
Trump Health Secretary nominee Tom Price says the goal is to have more people be able to afford health care coverage. …read more
Source: Price: It’s ‘imperative’ people can keep health coverage
Over $100 Billion Redeemed From Hedge Funds In 2016 As Only 32% Outperform Their Benchmark
By Tyler Durden
Two months ago, when looking at the monthly Evestment hedge fund fund flow report, we reported that investors had redeemed a net $14.2 billion from the industry in October, the fourth consecutive month of redemptions, bringing Year-to-date HF outflows to a net $77 billion removed from the industry. The breadth of redemption pressure in October was the industry’s largest in 2016 with 61% of reporting funds estimated to have net outflow during the month. Two months later it has only gotten worse, but before we get into the details, here is a quick summary of just why, courtesy of JPMorgan.
As JPM’s equity strategist explains in a note summarizing active manager performance, 2016 was one of the most challenging years for active equity managers with only 32% of fundamental and quantitative funds outperforming their benchmarks. JPM estimates that large cap U.S. fundamental managers underperformed by a median 33 bp before fees, with Value managers outperforming (+0.77 bp vs. benchmark) and Growth managers underperforming (-79 bp vs. benchmark).
In more bad news for the buyside, JPM notes that even though (or perhaps because) the market finished up more than 9%, US equity funds saw net ~$50 billion outflows in 2016 and a record rotation from Active to Passive. Investors pulled ~$200 billion from active US equity funds. This is the single largest annual rotation out of active management. Meanwhile, passive equity funds (including ETFs) captured ~$150 billion of inflows.
- Bond funds saw $118 billion inflows in 2016 as equity funds saw $43 billion in outflows (driven by redemptions from active equity funds).
- Active equity funds lost a cumulative $198 billion in 2016 outflows as passive equity funds received $153 billion of inflows.
Meanwhile, as the chart on the left shows, gund flows highlight significant post-election rotation. The global search for yield in 2016 drove large bond fund inflows funded by equity outflows, though this trend reversed after the U.S. election. Since the election, equity funds have seen $52 billion in inflows, and bond funds $10 billion in outflows. Reflation-linked sectors saw the largest inflows while Healthcare and Discretionary experienced the largest outflows.
Still, this “rotaton” has failed to help active managers, as ETFs continue to gain market share. ETFs as a percent of US market cap grew 14% in 2016, with domestic equity ETFs currently at $1.5 trillion AUM. Within the ETF space, Smart Beta products continue to gain strong market share. Smart Beta ETFs currently represent ~$440 billion in AUM, up from ~$300 billion a year ago
* * *
So what about just hedge funds? For the answer we go back to the latest reported by Evestment, in which we find that if the above mentioned October was bad, December was, in their own words, “a fitting end to a difficult year for the industry. While the level of outflows during the month was on par with prior years (an average of $18 billion removed over the last five Decembers) it marked the sixth month of outflows …read more
Source: Over $100 Billion Redeemed From Hedge Funds In 2016 As Only 32% Outperform Their Benchmark
Netflix adds 7 million subscribers, stock hits new high
Netflix is quickly closing in on the 100 million mark for total subscribers. …read more
Source: Netflix adds 7 million subscribers, stock hits new high
Trump’s (Not So) Invisible Hand
By Tyler Durden
Via ConvergEx's Nicholas Colas,
Want to know why US stocks feel so fragile? Perhaps we can blame Wall Street analysts. Even after two months of market buzz about lower taxes, infrastructure spending and less regulation juicing investor expectations for better earnings growth, they refuse to bump their revenue or earnings estimates for 2017.
Our monthly look at revenue expectations for the companies of the Dow shows Street analysts still cutting their numbers for Q1 – Q3 of 2017. About the only bright spot: they do expect revenue growth of 4.0% this year. As far as earnings expectations go, there is still no change to “Bottom up” earnings expectations for the S&P 500 of $133/share. That’s right where it’s been since before the election. Nearer term, analysts are still cutting their earnings expectations for Q1 2017. Now, markets are often happy to discount changes in Street expectations before they occur. Current valuations of 17x – high by historical standards – may be a ceiling on equity prices until both buyside and sellside have more confidence in incremental earnings growth. Next week – Trump’s first days in office – will be important in building that case. First impressions matter, after all…
With just three days to go before the inauguration, we still don’t know very much about what will come after January 20th. That uncertainty is creating the churn we’re seeing in capital markets. After the year end 2016 run-up for risk assets, everything seems to have hit a wall. On the other side of the barrier: a new administration that has made a lot of promises and will, naturally, want to start delivering just as soon as the clock strikes noon on Friday.
The largest unknown is just how President Elect Trump will prioritize and then negotiate the various pieces of his agenda. And since Mr. Trump has no track record in government and a very unconventional approach to communicating his thoughts, investors have less information and more questions about the incoming administration than any prior transition. It’s only a mild stretch to say that “Nobody knows nothing”, at least for a few more days.
Over the years we have written about two off beat personality indicators – digit ratios and birth order – and at this point we might as well toss those into the analytical bucket and see what they might tell us about Donald Trump and how he will adapt to his new job as the 45th President of the United States.
Here is some color on each:
Digit ratio is the relative length of a person’s second (pointer) to fourth (ring) finger. Feel free to look at your own hand right now. Is your ring finger longer than your pointer, or vice versa? (Men tend to have longer ring fingers than pointers, and women the opposite, but many other factors play a role.)
Researchers have spent years looking at this ratio in the context of …read more
Source: Trump’s (Not So) Invisible Hand
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Netflix Soars Despite Slashing Domestic Subscriber Outlook & Record Cash-Burn
By Tyler Durden
Forget the negative cash-flow, forget the ongoing and rising cost of content, and forget the fact that Netflix slashed its domestic subscriber growth expectations; buy-the-f##king-record-high because earnings and revenues met expectations but international subscriber growth soared.
Summary:
- *NETFLIX 4Q INTL NET STREAMING ADDS 5.12M, EST. 3.78M
- *NETFLIX SEES 1Q INTL NET STREAMING ADDS 3.7M, EST. 3.5M
- Q4 EPS (GAAP): $0.15, to Wall Street forecasts of $0.13, which were inline with Netflix guidance of $0.13.
- Q4 Revenue: $2.48 billion, to Wall Street estimates of $2.47 billion, up 36% year-over-year.
And then there's this…
Slashing domestic subscriber growth expectations…
- *NETFLIX SEES 1Q DOMESTIC NET STREAMING ADDS 1.5M, EST. 1.72M
And the only chart that really matters…
Record Cash burn…
Q4 free cash flow totaled -$639 million vs. -$276 million last Q4 and -$506 million in Q3’16. The sequential increase was largely due to the timing of content payments, including our growing slate of self-produced originals. Producing more owned content creates some lumpiness in our working capital needs. We expect our FCF to be around -$2 billion in 2017 vs. -$1.7 billion in 2016, with FCF loss improving sequentially in Q1’17.
And it's set to get worse…
- *NETFLIX SEES FCF AROUND -$2B IN 2017
Source: Netflix Soars Despite Slashing Domestic Subscriber Outlook & Record Cash-Burn
China Housing Bubble Finally Pops: First Slowdown After 19 Months Of Acceleration
By Tyler Durden
After several months of slowing price growth across China’s housing market, if mostly in the lower-tiered cities, China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that average mothly property prices growth in December continued to slow from November across the 70 cities tracked by the NBS, and this time impacted even the formerly untouchable, “Tier 1” cities.
Housing prices in the primary market increased 0.4% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment (weighted by population) in December, lower than the growth rate in November. Out of 70 cities monitored, 61 saw housing prices increase in December from the previous month, the same number as November.
However it is on an annual, population-weighted basis, where we got the first confirmation that the latest Chinese housing bubble has finally popped, as housing prices across the 70 cities were up 12.7% Y/Y, below the 12.9% annual growth rate in November. This was the first moderation in year-over-year housing price growth after 19 months of continued acceleration.
Looking at city-level data, house price inflation decelerated across all city tiers. In tier-1 cities, December price growth was 0.5% month-over-month after seasonal adjustment, slightly lower than 0.6% in November. Tier 2/3/4 cities saw housing price growth of 0.5%, 0.4% and 0.4% respectively in December, all lower than the growth rates in November.
Goldman notes that it expects the housing market to continue cooling down this year, thus adding a headwind to activity growth, and also becoming a headwind to the recent surge in Chinese PPI, which in turn has led a brief impules of exported inflation around the globe. If and when Chinese housing overshoots to the downside, look forward to the next deflationary wave emanating from China to once again spoil the central bankers’ reflationary party.
Finally, a more practical question: now that the Chinese housing bubble has finally hit its inflection point and is headed downward, prompting the momentum chasers to flee, the question is whether the Chinese stock market is about to become the bubble choice du jour, as happened in mid to late 2014 and early 2015, when the bursting of the home bubble once again pushed all the housing speculators into the stock market with scary, if entertaining, consequences. It may not be a bade idea to buy some deep out of the money calls on the Shenzhen composite, as that is the place where the most degenerate of Chinese gamblers eventually congregate to every time the housing bubble bursts, only to be reincarnated two years down the line.
Source: China Housing Bubble Finally Pops: First Slowdown After 19 Months Of Acceleration
Beige Book Notes Minimum Wage Increases, Warns Of Building Margin Pressures
By Tyler Durden
The Fed’s latest beige book, perhaps the most boring report released by the Federal Reserve, found 10 of the 12 Fed districts growing at the now ubiquitous “modest or moderate pace” with Cleveland growing only slightly and New York reporting little change for the fourth period in a row. However, despite stagnant growth, margin pressures are building as input prices are rising faster than final goods prices.
The good news for US workers is that according to the Fed, labor market conditions remained tight in the majority of the districts. Employment growth ranged from slight to moderate and most Districts indicated that wages increased modestly. A couple of Districts mentioned layoffs, but even in those Districts, as in other regions, most responding firms were said to have added employment, on net. District reports cited widespread difficulties in finding workers for skilled positions; several also noted problems recruiting for less-killed jobs. Wages in some Districts were pushed up a bit by increases in the states’ minimum wages and most Districts said wage pressures had increased. The Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Atlanta Fed districts reported further tightening in their labor markets over the period, with wage pressures likely to rise and the pace of hiring to hold steady or increase.
Manufacturing activity appeared to be robust at the end of 2016 into the new year.
“Manufacturers in most Districts reported increased sales with several citing turnaround versus earlier in 2016,” the Beige Book said. However, manufacturing activity in Cleveland remained steady due to a seasonal decline in new orders. On the other hand, manufacturers in Cleveland reported a break in layoffs.”
Software and IT services firms in Boston reported watching the resurging dollar to see if it affects their clients’ interests in the manufacturing sector. Dallas, St. Louis and San Francisco manufacturing sectors echoed these concerns, though the Boston Fed reported foreign investment in commercial real estate in the district unaffected by an appreciating dollar.
The bad news is that any increase in wages is being offset by rising prices as pricing pressures intensified somewhat since the last report. Eight out of twelve Districts saw modest price increases and the remainder experienced slight increases, or flat prices in the case of the Atlanta District. Increases in input costs were more widespread than increases in final goods prices. Cost increases were reported for coal, natural gas, and selected building and manufacturing materials. Retailers’ selling prices were mixed, but on balance were flat or down amidst competitive discounting. Prices of most agricultural commodities stayed flat at very low levels. Home prices were stable or up modestly. Businesses in several districts reportedly expect further modest increases in input costs and selling prices in 2017.
And while the number of mentions of “uncertain” declined from 15 in November, to only 6 in Januar, concerns remains over policy changes in the incoming administration.
The Fed also said most districts said non-auto retail sales expanded, but that several districts noted holiday sales were disappointing. New York, Cleveland, Minneapolis, and Dallas …read more
Source: Beige Book Notes Minimum Wage Increases, Warns Of Building Margin Pressures
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