U.S., European Markets Rage Higher; The Pound Surges

In spite of the first minister of Scotland meeting with EU heads in Brussels to pledge allegiance to them, a move that can be construed as a signal that Scotland will try to breakaway from Great Britain again, the pound is surging–higher by 1.1%.

Weakness in the dollar has carried over into the gold miners, helping safe haven assets and inflating equity markets to no end.

European markets are racing higher by 2% and U.S. markets are higher by about 1%. Gains are fairly broad based, but most energetic in the basic resource sectors, as well as tech.

For the most part, gains in the banking sector are somewhat muted, considering the recent drop they’ve endured.

Alas, the prevailing wisdom is that BREXIT is behind us. The Fed is in front of us. Ergo, they’ll jerk this market higher, by hook or crook, through any means necessary.

I don’t get this. I really don’t. GE needed a regulatory body to strip it of the supposed ‘too big to fail designation’? I had no idea some cubicle living miscreant was encumbered with the duty to decide whether or not a company was too big to fail or not. Apparently, our bureaucracy runs deep.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council granted the idiots from GE a formal release from the ‘too big to fail club’, effectively saying it was no longer important and tantamount to being a floating piece of offal in some body of water…inside a sewer.

“GE Capital has made fundamental strategic changes that have resulted in a company that is significantly smaller and safer, with more stable funding,” Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, who also heads the oversight council, said in the release. “After a rigorous review and engagement with the company over the last year, the council determined that based on these changes, the designation is no longer warranted.”

‘Congrats’ to GE.

The problem with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots.

Their first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, met with the EU head to swear fealty to him and inform him that Scotland intends to stay in the EU, which implies they are going to vie for independence from Britain…again.

This is a dick move by Schultz and Juncker, a very punitive action by the EU with the explicit intend to injure the people of Great Britain.

It’s very clear by this meddling, and their childish tantrums since the BREXIT vote, that the EU does not respect the will of the English people and will do everything within their power to punish them for choosing independence.

“This is very much an initial meeting, a series of meetings in Brussels today, so that people understand that Scotland, unlike other parts, of the United Kingdom does not want to leave the European Union,” Sturgeon told reporters after meeting European Parliament President Martin Schulz.

“I don’t want to underestimate the challenges that lie ahead.”
Schulz said he had “listened and learned”.

Later in the day, the pro-independence Scottish leader will meet the head of the EU executive, European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, and may try to probe the — hitherto flimsy — options a breakaway Scotland might have to somehow remain in the European Union once the United Kingdom completes its Brexit.

Juncker’s decision to roll out the red carpet for her on the day the 27 other EU leaders held their first meeting without Britain was seen by some diplomats as an attempt to pressure London to hand in its formal notice to quit.

But EU officials have stressed, as they did before Scots voted against independence in a referendum in 2014, that Scotland could not apply to, let alone join, the Union until it had become a sovereign state. Senior officials have dismissed the notion that Scotland could take over the empty British chair at the European Council table.

With the EU facing years of uncertainty in negotiating the withdrawal of its second-biggest economy, the Scottish factor is a complication most governments would rather avoid. Spain wary of encouraging its own Catalan separatists, and some other states could block any Scottish accession.

One senior EU official played down Juncker’s invitation to Sturgeon, noting drily that “the president likes the regions of Europe”, comparing Scotland to federal states in Germany. But some diplomats saw Juncker’s move as deliberate ploy to add pressure on Cameron and his successors to speed divorce talks.
“This is a way of putting pressure on London to trigger the exit clause,” a senior official in one EU government said of EU efforts to bounce London to the negotiating table while Cameron has insisted only his successor will set the clock ticking on a two-year deadline to withdrawal.

“This is a provocation by Juncker,” an EU diplomat said. “He can’t force the Brits to submit their notification so he plays these tricks.”

The Scots are probably too drunk to realize their towing themselves to the SS Titanic.

This is my final Faber post of the night. He’s so deranged, I could watch him all day, while eating popped corn. Faber let’s his Trump colors show, talking greasy about H. Clinton. Then he delves into a sundry of issues and offers ideas, in the final segment of iBankCoin’s Faber bonus round.

Seriously, look at the guy’s body language. CNN hires psychotics.

Dr. Doom, Marc Faber, paints a vivid picture of a world heading for a dystopian society, one ruled by greedy globins at central banks–propping up shares of worthless companies in a post-apocalypse era. In other words, BREXIT was a side note in the economic slowdown that has been occurring since 2014. It has been widely believed, hitherto, that central banks could be the end all answer to all of the world’s problems. However, and it goes without saying, the bull market in US treasuries have been the markets canary in a coal mine for the better part of the last 6 months, outperforming all asset classes with little to no media focus.

At the end of the day, we’re all passengers on the SS Titanic, but we should enjoy the drinks as they’re being served–because the fatal blow is somewhat in the distance. Meanwhile, entertain yourselves aboard the ark. Buy some gold shares and pray to the Gods that the Federal Reserve enacts QE4 to get the juices flowing again.

The stooges at Reuters made an error with this article. Instead of coming off slightly biased, with a tinge of honor imbued in their commentary to fool people into believing they’re really a news agency and not a propaganda arm for the Clinton campaign, they slipped with this one a little bit.

In my experience growing up in a very multi cultural area of Brooklyn, the people who made race an issue were often the most racist ones, pretending to be the opposite, sort of what Reuters is doing here.

XENOPHOBES.

Nice picture with the that exclusive, Reuters.

Cramer’s hairdresser, Sebastion, is an expert in analyzing the completely unpredictable and useless patterns in the VIX index, says the markets have bottomed because his VIX charts said so. In spite of the fact that volatility has been an infantile way to gauge the direction of stocks, bearing no mathematical correlation between it and the overall market, Cramer felt, in light of what he described as ‘Britain’s bonehead move to leave the EU’, promoting the advice of his hairdresser’s VIX opinions is, inexorably, the best course of action for him and the people who watch him every night–in search for clues as to what the market might do next.

After Cramer got done explaining what Sebastion thought of VIX, he pulled a triple lindy dive into the pool of stupidity and unveiled analysis on the VVIX–which is a derivative of the VIX. This is tantamount to playing with your own feces in the middle of the highway and then deciding to light yourself on fire in order to clean up after yourself.

Out of all the boneheaded decisions Cramer has made over the years, to borrow a phrase, this has to be the worst one of them all–maybe second only to his recommendation that Bear Stearns was fishing takeover bids–just prior to its demise.

Markets are set to fucking V shape the hell out of here.

The fucking Federales are out of control, indicative of a savage society in dire need of a northern wall.

Amnesty International is out with a scathing and riveting report on the many forms of abuse being committed by police and soldiers–mainly targeting indigent peoples living out their lives in squalor. Sixty four percent of people polled said they didn’t feel safe from torture. No wonder they want to come clean dishes in America. Their country is a cesspool.

Yecenia Armenta is describing her ordeal. “The [policemen] said they would bring my children, rape them and cut them up into pieces. After many hours of torture, and after they’d raped me, I said I would sign whatever they wanted. They took me down from where they had me hanging naked. I signed the confession – still blindfolded. I never read what I signed.”

Last year Ángel Colón walked free after 20,000 Amnesty activists sent messages to the Mexican authorities demanding his release. Ángel, a Honduran migrant seeking work to support his gravely ill son, had been picked up by the Mexican police and soldiers, and brutally tortured until he ‘confessed’ to crimes he did not commit. As a result, he spent five years in prison and while independent medics confirmed he was tortured, the authorities never investigated his claims. He is still seeking justice today.

Most of the women in prison who spoke to Amnesty International said they were sexually abused, beaten, electro-shocked, touched and groped during detention and interrogations. The vast majority have been accused of organized crime or drug related offences. Many were presented to the media as “criminals” straight after they were forced to “confess” to the crimes. Most come from low income backgrounds, which makes them less likely to be able to afford an effective defense.

Mónica, a 26-year-old mother of four, was gang-raped by six police officers, received electroshocks to her genitals, was suffocated with a plastic bag and had her head plunged into a bucket of water in the city of Torreón, Coahuila state in northern Mexico on 12 February 2013. Security officials tried to force her to confess to being part of a criminal gang. She was also forced to watch as her brother and husband were tortured in front of her.

After the torture, police took Mónica, her brother and her husband to the Federal Attorney General´s Office. On the way, her husband died in her arms as a result of the torture he had suffered. Afterwards, Mónica was forced to sign a “confession” saying she was part of a drug cartel.

Build the wall.

Gross margins at the largest make of rubber footware, produced by slaves, reported gross margins were down 30bps. Revenues were light at $8.24 bill v $8.28 bill. As a result, the stock is staggering lower–off by more than 6%, as investors get out of dodge.

But don’t worry lads, NKE bought back $540 million worth of stock in the 4th quarter alone, as part of their insane, four year, $12 billion excursion into wasteful corporate governance.

Others in their peer group, namely UA, DKS, FL and FINL should fall in kind.

I’ve discussed this issue before and have broached the matter of FL being a generational short, based upon NBA UN-popularity and woeful demographics that cater to an industry wrought with inexplicable inflation. At some point, pricing power becomes an issue. Nike’s core customer is the stock boy at Walmart, who is unable to buy their overpriced idiot shoes, without selling heroin on the side to subsidize his zealotry.

In my opinion, both FL and NKE are shorts.