Vox: The Smug Style of American Liberalism

I can talk about this topic all day. Vox sums up the current cabal of lunatic liberals, who’ve abandoned their principles and the people who supported them in favor of a smug, globalist, elitist agenda that reeks with fascist dictorial condescension.

This.

Finding comfort in the notion that their former allies were disdainful, hapless rubes, smug liberals created a culture animated by that contempt. The rubes noticed and replied in kind. The result is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The blue collar white middle class factory worker is voting GOP in overwhelming large numbers now–because the liberal establishment made a concerted effort to undermine him, in order to curry the favor of a more appealing, faster growing, demographic.

This will, inexorably, blow up in their faces.

The article is linked above. It is a must read.

The FDA, essentially, told SRPT to fuck off. It’s looking rather ominous for the prospects for their muscular dystrophy drug.

This Advisory Committee meeting was initially scheduled to take place on January 22, 2016, but had to be rescheduled because of a weather emergency. Since the initial FDA briefing materials were released, the applicant submitted additional information about clinical outcomes of patients in Study 201/202, and also made public an addendum to their briefing materials in which the applicant describes what it calls “key inaccuracies” in the briefing document FDA released in advance of the original date for this Advisory Committee meeting. As will be discussed below, and in more detail in the Cross-Disciplinary Team Leader summary document, we do not agree with the applicant’s characterization of inaccuracies in the initial FDA briefing document.”

“… patients in Study 201/202, and also made public an addendum to their briefing materials in which the applicant describes what it calls “key inaccuracies” in the briefing document FDA released in advance of the original date for this Advisory Committee meeting. As will be discussed below, and in more detail in the Cross-Disciplinary Team Leader summary document, we do not agree with the applicant’s characterization of inaccuracies in the initial FDA briefing document…”
“Based on the data submitted by the applicant, considerable doubt remains about how much, or perhaps even whether, dystrophin levels were increased by eteplirsen. The degree of uncertainty about the dystrophin data hinders discussion of its use as surrogate endpoint for eteplirsen. However, to the degree that the dystrophin data may be interpretable, the amount and distribution of dystrophin in treated patients appears to be within the range typically associated with DMD, not BMD. Data suggesting that higher levels of dystrophin were produced by eteplirsen appear unreliable.”

Piper Jaffray believes this equates to a likely denial by the FDA.

SRPT is absolutely plunging today.

The man is obsessed with Guy Fieri. How dangerous can he be?

Yes, indeed, it’s good to be King. If it were anyone else, say for example a billionaire Indian hedge fund manager, Stevie Cohen might be in some country club prison, discussing backgammon strategy. But Stevie isn’t Indian and has connections in high places, enabling him to break laws and avoid jail time, as long as the money keeps flowing in the right direction–if you know what I mean.

Oh, by the way, Stevie will be accepting new money for his new hedge fund real soon. Senator ‘batshit’ Warren went apeshit and wrote a scathing letter to the SEC over this grave injustice.

In a letter sent on Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Massachusetts Democrat said the regulator’s decision to approve the firm, Stamford Harbor Capital L.P., makes “a mockery of the SEC’s core mission to ‘protect investors.'”

“The Commission has permitted a recidivist hedge fund manager, well-known for his former company’s willingness to evade and ignore federal law, to once again profit from – and potentially exploit – investors,” she wrote, adding it is “the latest example of an SEC action that fails to appropriately punish guilty parties, deter future wrongdoing, and protect investors.”

I’m sure the penny stock busters at the SEC had a good chuckle over this Warren tirade. She, apparently, doesn’t know how the game works.

This is the most interesting dynamic out of China for me. I haven’t covered it because I’ve been perplexed by the sustained rally in the price of steel. For months now, people have said the rally could not last, yet here we are at $70 a metric ton, up from $38 back in December.

A sustained rally in the price of steel is probably the single best barometer of growth in China. It’s bullish for X, VALE, BHP, amongst others. Also, it means coking coal plays like CLF might be due for a significant upturn in business.

Ore with 62 percent content delivered to Qingdao climbed 8.8 percent to $70.46 a dry metric ton on Thursday, the highest since January 2015, according to data on Metal Bulletin Ltd.’s website. It was the biggest daily increase since a record 19 percent jump in early March. The steel-making material has rebounded 84 percent since bottoming at $38.30 in December.

Iron ore’s gains in 2016 stand in sharp contrast to the previous three years, when a slowing Chinese economy hammered demand and prices, spurring a global glut. This year, Chinese policy makers have talked up growth and added stimulus, presiding over a revival in the property market that’s boosted the outlook for steel consumption. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, said it expects iron ore to drop again as global production increases.

“The steel mills in China are now profiting from high steel prices,” said Michael Zhu, president of trader Millennia Resources Ltd. and former global sales director of top supplier Vale SA. “Fundamentally, the reality of Chinese steel production overcapacity and the oversupply of iron ore will not be changed in the short term.”

Chinese Demand

Mills in China, which make about half the world’s supply, have increased output to a record as property prices in bigger cities jumped and higher steel prices improved margins, reversing a squeeze from last year. Crude-steel production soared to 70.65 million tons in March, according to data last week.

“As we’ve seen activity seasonally take off, they needed to purchase more, fairly quickly, and that’s brought prices back up,” Mike Henry, BHP’s president of operations and minerals in Australia, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “Once the mills are through the restocking cycle, we do expect that we’ll see prices come back down again.”

I’m skeptical. China bulls should be pounding the table on steel and watching the price action daily.

Apparently, Macau isn’t stabilizing like the stock prices of WYNN, MPEL and LVS have been suggesting as of late.

Both Stifel and JP Morgan have downgraded LVS, after reporting abysmal earnings, citing Macau as a major source for concern.

Stifel lowers tgt to $56 from $58. They expect some pressure on Las Vegas Sands and all the Macau related names. As they’ve highlighted recently they believed these names had gotten ahead of themselves and any hiccup with the Macau story would cause a swift correction. Given the miss (not hold adjusted) coupled with the fact management noted March was a poor month for them and alluded to the fact April isn’t shaping up to be great, this could be the trigger that sends shares lower near-term.

LVS missed by 18 cents– and also on the top line.

How’d this happen? The oil heavy Russian index is at new highs. The last time it reached this level was back in 2007. The Russian economy has been through a lot since then, surviving a run on its currency post Ukraine war, the collapse of crude and other indelible circumstances that has menaced the Russian people.

All that being said, NEW HIGHS FOR THE MICEX.

The Micex Index of 50 stocks advanced as much as 0.8 percent to 1,976.69, eclipsing the previous all-time high reached on Dec. 12, 2007, before trading up 0.4 percent at 1,967.20 as of 10:18 a.m. in Moscow. Gains on the benchmark index were led by natural-gas export monopoly Gazprom PJSC and Sberbank PJSC, the nation’s biggest lender. Oil was little changed at $45.72 a barrel after jumping 4 percent yesterday.

It’s worth noting, however, the Russian ETF traded here isn’t even close to its all time high.

Before George dies, he wants to break the bank of Beijing. Not only does he want to break it, he wants them to go back to the rice paddy and to stop meddling with the Illuminati and the Grande Recursive Order of the Knight’s of the Lambda Calculus, from which he hails. From his vantage point, he’s had his way with a number of prominent central banks during his illustrious career. What better feather in his cap than to annihilate a nation of 1.5 billion?

Indeed.

Soros is out with fresh bearish remarks today, regarding China. The last time he talked this negatively about the great dog eating nation was back in January, just prior to the scare that nearly broke their stupid little manipulated currency into a thousand pieces.

This is a dubious omen for anyone living in China or investing alongside the psychopaths at China life.

My opinion is utterly meaningless here. Look at the numbers and judge for yourself is a fucking hockey stick chart of debt/gdp seems like a good idea to you.

M. Tinker, head of Axa IM Framlington Equities Asia (pretentious name alert) is sanguine on the Chinese debt bubble, pointing to ‘hard assets’ with cash flow as the underpinnings to it–as opposed to western sovereign debt which is backed by nuclear missiles.

Moreover, Tinker just like everything about China. Don’t bother to convince him otherwise.

Just shut up already. There isn’t going to be any stinking deals. It doesn’t matter what James Cramer or the fat fuck’d CEO from CLR (hedgeless bastard) says about oil. Barclay’s says it’s going to $36, almost immediately. Moreover, and inexorably so, you’re all morons for chasing it up here.