18 years in Wall Street, left after finding out it was all horseshit. Founder/ Master and Commander: iBankCoin, finance news and commentary from the future.
When the populist wave swept over America last year, bringing with it Italy, Great Britain, France, and others, markets soured at the specter of it all. Judging by the rhetoric of what the candidates had been saying, major anti globalist change was coming — which posed a significant threat to the status quo.
Well, post Italian referendum, post BREXIT, and post Trump, nothing has changed by the shuffling of chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
If elected, will Le Pen remove France from the EU, causing the ECB and its QE to collapse? Judging by French bonds and stocks, investors don’t think so.
Some argue that the French elections, scheduled to begin on 4/23 thru 5/7, are the most important elections in Europe in decades. They represent more than just candidates, but ideologies.
Will the French people reject globalism, the pro immigration EU, and market rigging ECB, or opt for nationalism?
None of the downside is being priced into stocks. I think investors have become cold and distant from these events, a catharsis beset upon them by the numerous so called ‘market ending’ events that never happened. After BREXIT and Trump win, doom and gloomers have been reduced to boys who cry wolf.
The truth is, the wolf is really at the door now, yet no one seems to care — myself included.
I hereby forgive Trump for nearly starting a World War with Russia, because he’s given me the war I’ve always wanted. Ever since I was a young boy in Brooklyn, I wanted to attack Canada, kinetically. My theory was brilliant: they’d never see it coming. Ergo, we could pillage all of the Northern Wastelands at our leisure, whilst canceling all of their MLB baseball franchises.
Trump was back on his FUCK NAFTA game today — declaring Canada to be an enemy of the state because of the crimes they’ve committed against our beloved dairy farmers in Wisconsin and NYS. Frankly, it’s disgraceful what the Canadians did — taking all of their cows and forcing them to piss milk for a fraction of the cost in the Canadian wastelands.
I’m not even going to research this delicious piece of rhetoric. I am simply going to let my emotions get the best of me here and permit my intuition to be my compass.
The Canadians will be stopped. Trump looked more pissed off today, because of those poor devils in Wisconsin, than he was at N. Korea for messing around with weapons of mass destruction. He means business.
Fuck you Canada. The day of the rake approaches with a feverish alacrity.
What sort of fucked up University and city is Berkeley anyway? The ANTIFAgs aren’t fighting fascism at all. They’re not kidding anyone, not even marxist scum. The lefties in Berkeley don’t have to like right wing ideologies, but they damn sure need to respect the views and rights of others. Today, the target is ‘Nazis’. Tomorrow the target will be you.
The whole point of free speech is to let all ideas be heard — even those that are unsavory — like the Black Israelites in NYC who’ve been talking EXTREME shit for decades. When I was a teenager, I recall wanting to kill many of them — drop pianos off rooftops onto their big heads, but then I remembered George Washington and the god damned constitution and set my murderous ideas aside.
Here you have reprobates making a nice young boy cry amongst cheers of ‘Heil Hitler.’
But we can’t have conservatards rally for free speech at Berkeley, without being assaulted by bike locks?
The fuck out of here. Conservative columnist, and damn fine writer, weighs in.
Mark Steyn Dresses Down Berkeley Administrators and Police for Not Protecting Free Speech. pic.twitter.com/aHgnjPYkri
I’m going out on a limb here and calling this one ‘fake news’ on behalf of CNN, Washpo and the other shills who are trying every trick in the bag to avenge the loss of Hillary Clinton and the hacking of John Podesta’s email box. This is all about vengeance. Nothing would delight Pizza Podesta more than visiting Assange inside of a maximum protected prison.
The article that I am about to reference by CNN Fake News, oddly leaves out the President as part of the American government. It’s as if he wasn’t even a factor in all this Wikileaks business. By the way, Trump is on record saying he ‘loved’ Wikileaks and used them as a news source, continuously throughout the campaign.
But according to unnamed sources, deep inside of the government, CNN says the United States are preparing charges against the Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.
The Justice Department investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least 2010, when the site first gained wide attention for posting thousands of files stolen by the former US Army intelligence analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.
Prosecutors have struggled with whether the First Amendment precluded the prosecution of Assange, but now believe they have found a way to move forward.
During President Barack Obama’s administration, Attorney General Eric Holder and officials at the Justice Department determined it would be difficult to bring charges against Assange because WikiLeaks wasn’t alone in publishing documents stolen by Manning. Several newspapers, including The New York Times, did as well. The investigation continued, but any possible charges were put on hold, according to US officials involved in the process then.
The US view of WikiLeaks and Assange began to change after investigators found what they believe was proof that WikiLeaks played an active role in helping Edward Snowden, a former NSA analyst, disclose a massive cache of classified documents.
Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, seeking to avoid an arrest warrant on rape charges in Sweden. In recent months, US officials had focused on the possibility that a new government in Ecuador would expel Assange and he could be arrested. But the left-leaning presidential candidate who won the recent election in the South American nation has promised to continue to harbor Assange.
Last week in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, CIA Director Mike Pompeo went further than any US government official in describing a role by WikiLeaks that went beyond First Amendment activity.
CNN cited comments made by the new CIA boss, Mike Pompeo, last week, who said “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: A non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
It’s obvious to anyone with a brain, the deep state, DNC and the CIA loathe Assange and would like nothing more than to see him rot in an American cell. Assange is no different from any reporter at any of our fantastic media organizations — relying upon sources to publish information. If we are going to toss Assange into a prison cell for publishing leaked documents, then what should we do with all of the journalists at the NY Times, Washpo and CNN — who do that every single day of their miserable lives?
Here’s CNN peddling the false narrative that Russia was working in concert with Wikileaks, an assertion that has never been proven. In fact, the only attempt the government has made to date to tie Russian hacking to our elections turned out to be a comical farce, widely mocked and jeered as non-credible.
US intelligence agencies have also determined that Russian intelligence used WikiLeaks to publish emails aimed at undermining the campaign of Hillary Clinton, as part of a broader operation to meddle in the US 2016 presidential election. Hackers working for Russian intelligence agencies stole thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee and officials in the Clinton campaign and used intermediaries to pass along the documents to WikiLeaks, according to a public assessment by US intelligence agencies.
CNN then pivoted to today’s presser with Attorney General, Jeff Sessions — providing the smoking gun evidence they needed to confirm that the government was, in fact, going to file charges against Assange.
“We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks,” he said. “This is a matter that’s gone beyond anything I’m aware of. We have professionals that have been in the security business of the United States for many years that are shocked by the number of leaks and some of them are quite serious. So yes, it is a priority. We’ve already begun to step up our efforts and whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.
Notice how he never actually mentioned Assange or Wikileaks? Here’s the clip. You be the judge.
CNN then tried to get confirmation from Assange’s attorney — but got nothing instead.
“We’ve had no communication with the Department of Justice and they have not indicated to me that they have brought any charges against Mr. Assange,” said Assange’s lawyer, Barry Pollack. “They’ve been unwilling to have any discussion at all, despite our repeated requests, that they let us know what Mr. Assange’s status is in any pending investigations. There’s no reason why Wikileaks should be treated differently from any other publisher.”
Pollack said WikiLeaks is just like the Washington Post and the New York Times, which routinely publish stories based on classified information. WikiLeaks, he says, publishes information that is in “the public’s interest to know not just about the United States but other governments around the world.”
This sums up how I feel about the matter.
Imagine if China or Russia announced a criminal investigation of US journalists for publishing their state secrets. https://t.co/UOBEbhAbsA
He’s back, fuckers. Just when you thought Obama was finished with his globalist schemes, he pops up on a video recorded phone call offering France’s Macron political advice, obviously afraid that Le Pen might take le win.
The Obama shills insist the call wasn’t an endorsement. Right.
“President Obama appreciated the opportunity to hear from Mr. Macron about his campaign and the important upcoming presidential election in France, a country that President Obama remains deeply committed to as a close ally of the United States, and as a leader on behalf of liberal values in Europe and around the world,” Lewis added.
“An endorsement was not the purpose of the call, as President Obama is not making any formal endorsement in advance of the run-off election on Sunday.”
Obama has a history of interfering in foreign elections, such as the time when he went to England to chastise the people there about voting for BREXIT, warning them of hard times if they left the EU.
Nigel Farage later thanked Obama for the interference, saying it had led to a several point jump in pro-BREXIT polling.
That being said, did Obama just win the election for Le Pen?
Sometimes conservatards get too wound up with cockeyed theories, especially when it comes to finance. While Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council, might be a Goldman alumni and democrat, his mindset for economic growth and prosperity is America first all the way.
In recent weeks, the right have been soiling themselves with rage over the diminished role of Steve Bannon, former Breitbart chief, coupled with dark sinister theories over a ‘democratic coup’ taking place in the White House by the anti-christ himself, Jared Kushner, his temptress wife and daughter of the President, Ivanka Trump, and of course ‘Globalist Gary’ Cohn — a nickname that was allegedly given to him by Bannon himself.
Before casting all democrats as evil fuckhead villains, listen to the clips below — where Gary Cohn talks about getting a better trade deal with China to lower the deficit, working on lowering the corporate tax rate to be competitive with the median OECD rate of 23%, and creating the environment, via regulatory reform and economic planning, to create high paying jobs in America.
This is Trumpism you stupid shits.
“The right baseline to judge us against is: Do we grow the economy? Do we create a better environment for U.S. citizens?” the White House chief economic advisor said Thursday. “Do we put more people to work? Do we give them better jobs? Does their life get better? Do more people end up getting a job that they want?”
NOTE: He was especially specific about increasing LNG imports to Asian and Europe — trying to get a port approves on the west coast. This is bullish for $LNG.
President Trump signed an order that authorizes Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross to conduct a review on steel imports and how it might adversely affect national security. It is widely believed the findings will result on massive curbing of Chinese imports, which is causing American steel stocks to catch fire.
Trump signs an executive order on steel imports: “We’re going to fight for American workers and American-made steel” https://t.co/2Rdiy8dR85
One of the tools that I use in Exodus to gauge the markets cross references intraday moves with % of shares sold short. Right now, as we speak, stocks with more than 10% of shares short are higher by 0.78%, led by gains in $SCSS, $ANF, $CMCM and $GES. Apparel stocks, as a sector, are higher by 3%. There is no sector that is more shorted than retail. Hence, the sector is ripping tits to the upside.
Sans large short positions, stocks are merely higher by 0.3%, demonstrating without a doubt that today’s rally is being fueled by a short squeeze.
Bearish sentiment had been accumulating, with thr gains in bonds. Should that unwind, and I think it will, equities will benefit most, especially stocks with large short positions.
All of you edgelords should be paying attention to the price action in zinc, for therein lies the crux of the drama. All of the hopes and dreams of the Trump trade is intertwined with galvanized steel.
Base metals are higher this morning, led by zinc. Additionally, crude is higher and bonds are selling off.
The dollar is weaker v the euro and futures are higher.
In short, you’re gonna want to be long during today’s session. Markets are set to go higher, amidst the drama and the turmoil. War is on the horizon, afterall. Each and every one of you lament something about the political process and caricatures playing their roles in it. Lots of pent up annoyance is being reflected in stocks, especially ahead of the Le Pen vote.
After last year’s market rout in China, accompanied by an FX crisis that presented the great dog eating nation with horrible problems, the Shanghai has been under complete government control. Some cynics out there might call it ‘rigged.’
The Shanghai has now gone 84 trading days without going down by 1% — the longest stretch since their experiment in stock market shenanigans began in 1992. Of the 13 trading days that the index dared to trade down by 1% or more, the index always rebounded into the close. I am sure it’s all a great coincidence, that the biggest and shittiest and most overvalued market in the world is suddenly and inexorably docile.
Nothing to see here. You must all be getting tired now after a long day’s work. You should stop reading this now and go tuck yourselves into bed. Soooo sleepy, ZzZzZzZ.
According to an unnamed source talking to Bloomberg, the Chinese government has been ‘limiting the extent of declines’ by injecting funds into stocks. You don’t say?
CSRC Chairman Liu Shiyu said last year that the state will intervene “decisively” if needed to bolster the market, while stability has been a key focus of policy makers in 2017 as the ruling Communist Party prepares for a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle toward year-end.
Authorities favor a steady stock market because it helps companies fund investment and repay debt by issuing new shares, which could help boost economic growth, according to Yin Ming, a vice president at Baptized Capital in Shanghai.
“The national team is behind it,” Yin said. “State funds will likely continue to be a market stabilizer.”
How wonderful. I can’t envision anything that could ever derail such a great plan. What can go wrong?
