Trump May Have Just Played The Entire Media Universe For Fools, Again
By Tyler Durden
By now everyone is aware of the fact that there is little love lost between Donald Trump and Jeff Bezos.
A day after Trump blasted Bezos in an interview with Sean Hannity, Washington Post released a tape, allegedly from a 1991 interview, where it alleges Trump was pretending to be a spokesman for himself. All of this is within the scope of today’s political games that get played of course, but the question is did the reality tv star just take things to a new level by leaking the tape and creating a brand new news cycle?
Recall, Donald Trump’s campaign convention manager Paul Manafort said that the race to the presidency is the ultimate reality show for Trump:
Fast forward to the debacle that took place yesterday, where the Washington Post absolutely hammered Trump for allegedly pretending to be a spokesman named “John Miller” in an interview with a People magazine reporter just so Trump could brag about himself and set some things straight with the media.
Donald Trump masqueraded as a spokesman to brag about himself https://t.co/qSEPe69NCL
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 13, 2016
Your Donald Trump fake spokesman name generator is herehttps://t.co/enSIOHo8m8
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 13, 2016
Trump claims he didn’t regularly use a fake name. That’s not what he said under oath https://t.co/B2xzRiHDVy
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 13, 2016
However, here is the twist: Sue Carswell, the People magazine reporter who can be heard on the tape with the “spokesman”, swears she didn’t leak the tape to anyone. As a matter of fact, she said she doesn’t even know where the tape is, and assumes it got trashed when moving apartments years ago. Carswell claims the only other person who could have possibly had that recording was… drum roll… Donald Trump.
While nobody knows for certain whether or not it was actually Trump on the other end of that recording, it probably wouldn’t surprise anyone to find out that it was The Donald himself – that master of media redirection – who leaked the tape to the Washington Post. After all, he had just created a buzz by saying Bezos was out to get him by any means necessary, and what better way to solidify that than with a “leaked” tape that the Washington Post would clearly run with. Also, with the news out that Trump would be the first presidential candidate not to disclose tax returns in 40 years, why not create a fresh news cycle to take the public’s mind off of that little nuisance.
The Donald may have just masterfully played the entire media universe for fools.
Again.
Six Reasons Why Goldman Is Suddenly Warning About A "Large Drop" In The Market
By Tyler Durden
After recent (and in some cases very dramatic) bearish conversions by the likes of JPM, BofA, Citi and UBS, the only bank that steadfastly held a bullish view on stocks during the recent market squeeze higher was Goldman Sachs.
Not any more.
On Thursday, Goldman strategist David Kostin appeared on CNBC, where he too join the bearish crowd and said that based on the threat of margin collapse (“35 out of 53 tech companies had margin declines”) and record-high stock valuations this year, it’s time to play defense in “a tough market.”
He also hinted that with 80% of fund managers underperforming their benchmark, the probability of irrational capital allocations increases, and as a result there is a “reasonably high probability” of a large drop (or “drawdown” as a sudden plunge is called in polite circles) in the S&P500 ahead of his year-end 2100 price target.
Then overnight, Kostin dedicated his entire weekly kickstart piece to just the topic of a drawdowns, saying that “Unbalanced distribution of upside/downside risks suggests “sell in May” or buy protection.” He adds that “we continue to expect S&P 500 will end 2016 at 2100, roughly 3% above the current level. However, a shift in investor perception of various risks could easily trigger a drawdown.”
Goldman’s stark and unexpected warning is driven by risks which include “elevated valuation, investor positioning, money flow trends, uncertain interest rate policy, weak economic growth, and election year politics. A 5%-10% drawdown in S&P 500 during the next few months implies an index level of 1850 to 1950 and a forward P/E of 15x-16x based on bottom-up consensus EPS.”
Of course, a 10% market drop never ends on a dime, especially in a market as illiquid as this one, and if the recent warning by JPM’s Marko Kolanovic is correct, should stocks stumble by 10% in the absence of another round of central bank intervention, we may be looking at the first official market crash in the post-cri
And just like that Goldman has joined the bearish camp.
To be sure, for Goldman faders and contrarians, this may be the most bullish catalyst yet because after the anti-Dennis Gartman ETF, doing the opposite of what Goldman recommends has historically been the most profitable trade.
Still, perhaps this time Goldman is not seeking to unload its book on muppets. Here is the full reason behind Goldman’s bearishness.
Following a tumultuous first quarter, S&P 500 has stabilized in 2Q 2016. Realized volatility averaged just 10 in April, the lowest level since May 2015. Implied volatility as measured by the VIX averaged 23 during the first two months of the year before retreating below 15 in May. Equity investors seem complacent rather than bullish about the near-term prospects for US stocks.
Looking over the horizon for the next few months, we see a variety of risks that lead us to revisit the adage and ask whether investors should “sell in May and go away” and not return until after Labor Day.
Source: Six Reasons Why Goldman Is Suddenly Warning About A "Large Drop" In The Market
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Venezuela This is Your Arab Spring (Video)
By EconMatters
By EconMatters
It is time for Venezuelans to organize and reject their failed government`s inept policies, kick out their incompetent leaders, and unqualified military generals from running business enterprises.
© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle
Source: Venezuela This is Your Arab Spring (Video)
Facebook and Exxon Mobil are both Overvalued Stocks for Different Reasons (Video)
By EconMatters
By EconMatters
XOM is trading as a Bond in this yield chasing QE inspired Central Bank World, and FB is your classic momentum stock. The first lesson of modern investing is that everything is a trade in financial markets. Avoid being the bag holder in either of these two stocks. The day of their demise is merely a calendar event on the investing time clock horizon.
© EconMatters All Rights Reserved | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Email Digest | Kindle
Source: Facebook and Exxon Mobil are both Overvalued Stocks for Different Reasons (Video)
Why Were Texas Game Wardens Just Issued Nuclear Radiation Detectors?
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Mac Slavo via SHTFPlan.com,
After countless reports about the potential for nuclear or radioactive weapons of mass destruction being smuggled into the United States, the State of Texas is has begun to take the threat seriously.
Via Houston Public Media:
Up and down the Texas Gulf Coast, the state’s game wardens are on the water, looking for people fishing or hunting illegally. But as we’ve reported, they sometimes come across things like illegal chemical dumpsites and more says Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Tom Harvey.
“Game wardens encounter all kinds of things on their patrols, including a lot of illegal fishing, and this is a new threat we’re gearing up to be able to address,“ Harvey told News 88.7.
That new threat is terrorism. One fear is that terrorists could try to smuggle radioactive material into the country by boat. The Port of Houston has for years had radiation detectors to scan cargo.
So now, besides guns and handcuffs, game wardens will have one more tool.
“We’ve acquired about a hundred devices that allow game wardens to detect radiological or nuclear emissions. These are little devices that can be worn on someone’s belt,” Harvey said.
They’re about the size of a cellphone and can help a warden determine if something suspicious is radioactive. It wouldn’t necessarily have to be connected to terrorism: radioactive materials used in the energy and medical industries can be illegally dumped.
Game wardens began training with the radiation detectors in January and completed a mock exercise to find radioactive packages along the coast.
In March the Obama administration warned that there were four ways a large-scale nuclear attack on U.S. soil could happen,
The havoc such an attack could wreak in an urban area such as New York or London is concerning enough that leaders scheduled a special session on the threat during the two-day summit. U.S. officials said the leaders would discuss a hypothetical scenario about a chain of events that could lead to nuclear terrorism.
And just last month we learned that ISIS-linked terrorists have targeted at least two nuclear power plants in Europe – one in Belgium in the lead up to the terror attacks in Brussels, as well as a cyber attack on a German plant that made it possible for hackers to take control of highly radioactive cooling rods at the facility. Moreover, as far as Europe is concerned, officials report that CBRN weapons (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear) have already been smuggled into Europe, suggesting that mass-casualty attacks are in the planning stages.
The threats to America is equally serious, as officials have reported that terrorists have already been captured attempting to cross into the United States through our southern border. Moreover, in recent years there have been numerous cases of nuclear material capable of being used in dirty bombs being stolen from facilities in Mexico.
The issue was so serious that the Texas …read more
Source: Why Were Texas Game Wardens Just Issued Nuclear Radiation Detectors?
Incompetence Personified: Illinois Has Devolved To One-Off Funding Bills As It Still Can’t Pass A Budget
By Tyler Durden
As Illinois struggles to get its fiscal house in order (good luck with that), it has devolved into funding key programs with one-off stopgap measures rather than approving an overall comprehensive budget. The state remains the only remaining state without a 2016 plan.
Most recently, lawmakers overwhelmingly approved $700 million to fund social service programs, however, as the Chicago Sun Times reports, the bill is likely to sit on Governor Bruce Rauner’s desk as he tries to push lawmakers to come to an agreement on a balanced budget instead of one-off solutions.
“The administration remains focused on enacting a truly balanced budget alongside meaningful reforms, and the Governor will continue negotiating in good faith toward a bipartisan agreement” said Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly.
The bill included enough money to provide about 46% of what social service providers and programs such as Catholic Charities received from the state last year, and lawmakers such as Democrat Greg Harris are pushing to have the money released immediately.
“This is a $700 million piece of legislation that would help the neediest at the time when they need help the most. This is money that is available to be dispersed immediately.”
Legislators are haggling over a budget that under its current proposal would increase tax revenues by $5.4 billion by raising personal income tax rates from 3.75% to as much as 4.85%, cut spending by $2.5 billion, and borrow $5 billion in order to pay an expected $10 billion deficit by the time the fiscal year ends July 1.
All of this is just another example of the state of complete disarray that municipalities, cities, and states are in all across the U.S. Between pension funds going insolvent, states missing budget projections by a billion dollars, and in Illinois’ case, flat out inability to even know where to begin to solve the massive amount of accumulated debt, the pressure is building on Congress to start talking up bailout programs – because right now, helicopter money is literally the only thing that can save everyone from defaulting all at once.
Canaccord Founder Sells $31 Million Vancouver Mansion To Chinese Student
By Tyler Durden
Everybody loves a good Vancouver real estate horror story. Here is a great one.
In the endless series of reports about wealthy Chinese oligarchs, billionaires, money launderers, or mere criminals, never have we encountered anything quite like this yet, because according to The Province, the majority owner of this Point Grey mansion located at 4833 Belmont Avenue and which was recently ranked 16th among the most expensive homes in Vancouver, was sold earlier this year by Canaccord founder Peter Brown for a record $31.1 million is a “student,” property records show. A Chinese “student”… of course.
Land title documents list Tian Yu Zhou as having a 99-per-cent interest in the five-bedroom, eight-bathroom, 14,600 square-foot mansion on a 1.7-acre lot at 4833 Belmont Ave. Zhou’s occupation is listed as a “student.”
The other owner of the property, which boasts sweeping views of the North Shore mountains and Vancouver, is listed as Cuie Feng, a “businesswoman.” Feng has a one-per-cent interest in the property, which was assessed this year as having a total value of about $25.6 million, records show.
Efforts to reach Zhou and Feng through the lawyer listed on the land title documents were not successful, and realtor Cherry Xu, who reportedly served as the buyer’s agent, did not want to comment on the sale, citing privacy considerations.
As the Province amusingly puts it, NDP housing critic David Eby said the fact that a student was able to buy one of the most expensive homes in the city contradicts the government’s messaging that “everything is under control in the Vancouver real estate market.”
Eby said it also links to a theme uncovered in a 2015 study by Andy Yan, an adjunct professor at the University of B.C., which found homemakers and, to a lesser extent, students, are often the listed occupations of the owners of many newly purchased multi-million dollar Vancouver properties.
“It’s incredibly strange that a student would be able to afford such a luxurious and multi-million-dollar property,” said Eby. “This is part of a trend of homemakers and students mass-buying property. I don’t know how that can be possible with the income of homemakers and students typically have, which is close to zero.”
We can only hope he was being serious: that would make his statement all the more fun.
Mortgage documents attached to the land title papers show that a mortgage of $9.9 million was taken out by Zhou and Feng from the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce on April 28. The bi-weekly payments are listed as $17,079.41.
Now this may be a first: traditionally Chinese kleptocrats pay all cash – what is the point of taking out a mortgage when the whole purpose of buying ridiculously overpriced real estate is to park hot or stolen cash. We will have to mull this one over.
Where The Province article gets interesting is where …read more
Source: Canaccord Founder Sells $31 Million Vancouver Mansion To Chinese Student
China Warns US: "Don’t Disturb" Hong Kong Social Order; Threatens "Bad Reaction"
By Tyler Durden
Over the past few months, tensions have been high between the U.S. and China. Events such as China denying USS John C. Stennis and its escort ships access to a Hong Kong port showed just how strained relations have become between the two countries, and with China's recent comments saying that U.S. activity near the Fiery Cross Reef “threatened China's sovereignty and security interests”, one would assume that things couldn't get much worse.
Alas, that assumption would be wrong. As Reuters reports, China is now accusing the U.S. of trying to “disturb” social order in Hong Kong, something that Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said will “cause Chinese people to go on alert and have a bad reaction.”
Channel NewsAsia has more…
BEIJING: China's Foreign Ministry on Friday accused unidentified people in the United States of trying to “disturb” social order in Hong Kong, after the U.S. State Department expressed further concern the territory's autonomy was being eroded.
The State Department made the comments in its latest report on the former British colony, released on Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said that as Hong Kong was a part of China, no other country had a right to interfere in its internal affairs.
“We also remind the United States that certain people on the U.S. side have always wanted to disturb Hong Kong, disturb its socio-economic development, disturb the normal order of its residents' lives, and even use the Hong Kong issue to interfere in China's internal affairs,” he told a daily news briefing.
“This can only be futile. The only effect it will have is to cause Chinese people to go on alert and have a bad reaction.”
Britain handed Hong Kong back to China in 1997 under agreements that its broad freedoms, way of life and legal system would remain unchanged for 50 years.
Beijing's refusal to grant the former British colony full democracy has embittered a younger generation of activists who launched big protests in 2014.
Political tension has simmered amid occasional incidents of unrest. A riot erupted in the city in February after a dispute between authorities and street vendors.
The United States has repeatedly expressed concern about developments in Hong Kong, including freedom of the press and human rights issues.
* * *
So to summarize, the United States is antagonizing Russia, antagonizing China, and doing its very best to generate even further conflict in the Middle East. Perhaps the best indicator of how the economy is doing is not reading FOMC minutes, rather, just pay attention to how much war mongering the U.S. is doing around the world. After all, nothing solves a bad economy like a massive war – right?
Ralph Nader: Clinton Is Winning By "Dictatorship"
By Tyler Durden
With Trump now practically assured of the republican candidacy and the only remaining race being that between Hillary and Bernie, Ralph Nader, a former presidential candidate himself, had some disturbing if accurate words about the democratic primary process. In a story published in US News, Nader said that Hillary Clinton is “going to win by dictatorship” in the Democratic race against Bernie Sanders.
“Twenty-five percent of superdelegates are cronies, mostly. They weren’t elected,” Nader, an activist and former Green Party presidential candidate, said on Friday.
“They were there in order to stop somebody like Bernie Sanders, who would win by the vote.”
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner in the race for the White House, has secured 2,240 of the 2,383 delegates needed to clinch her party’s nomination, according to the Associated Press delegate tracker. Her nearly insurmountable lead is mostly due to the backing of 524 superdelegates, the unbound powerbrokers who make their vote at the July convention.
Sanders has tried to woo these votes to his sidel the Vermont senator has 1,473 delegates total, including just 40 superdelegates.
Sanders is vowing to fight until the Democratic National Convention in late July, citing his “momentum” from winning recent states. Still, Clinton has won some 3 million more votes than Sanders during the primaries.
Nader actually had some good words to say about Trump, saying the Donald has brought some important issues to the fore. “He’s questioned the trade agreements. He’s done some challenging of Wall Street – I don’t know how authentic that is. He said he’s against the carried interest racket, for hedge funds. He’s funded himself and therefore attacked special interest money, which is very important,” Nader says. “But he’s lowered the level of political debate to unheard-of depths of salacious, slanderous and vacuousness, garnished with massive self-boosterism and repetition.“
Well, if that’s what America wants…
On the other hand, Nader unleashed on Hillary, whom he accused of being a “corporatist, militarist Democrat” who would have been defeated by Sanders if every state held an open primary. Nader also said that he thinks Sanders “made very few mistakes” during his White House bid and would present a bigger challenge to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump in November.
“[H]e couldn’t do anything about the superdelegates. But he almost won and he would’ve won,” Nader said cited by The Hill. “He would’ve defeated Trump easily, much more easily than [Clinton] would’ve defeated him.”
“He doesn’t produce gaffes. He’s very consistent and he’s scandal-free. What politician 35 years in office is scandal-free?”
Nader is right, but the reason for Bernie’s lack of gaffes perhaps has to do with his ideology that has kept him out of contentuous congressional fights where every politician is required to bend if hoping to get their way. Which is not to say that unlike Hillary, Bernie doesn’t believe his ideology – he most certainly does, and fervently at that, something which is apparent during all of his speeches. The only problem is that the thing he believes in is socialism. …read more
Source: Ralph Nader: Clinton Is Winning By "Dictatorship"
Famous shortseller thinks Alibaba is shady
Jim Chanos knows something about accounting shenanigans. The billionaire who predicted Enron’s collapse said at the SALT hedge fund conference he thinks Alibaba’s accounting is very questionable. …read more
Source: Famous shortseller thinks Alibaba is shady
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