Blankfein Takes to Twitter to Support Trump’s Trade War; Trade Review with Europe Looms

Two important things for you to know this morning.

Former CEO of Goldman Ball Sacks took to Twitter to voice support for Trump’s trade war.

Tariffs might be an effective negotiating tool. Saying it hurts us misses the point. China relies more on trade and loses more. As in a labor strike where mngmnt & workers both get hurt, the process may demonstrate relative strength & resolve & where compromise needs to happen.

— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) May 14, 2019

As to who ultimately bears the tariffs cost: US buyers may eventually switch their purchases to domestic or non-Chinese companies (and pay a bit more than now). Chinese companies lose the revenues. Not great but part of the process to assert pressure to level the playing field.

— Lloyd Blankfein (@lloydblankfein) May 14, 2019

And, secondly, the EU is next. Any fucking questions? The Europeans are weak, unlike the Chinese. Trump can truly hurt them with auto-tariffs and most analyst think the auto debate is merely a Trojan horse to get agriculture on the table. If I was in Europe now, I’d be fearful of this trade war swinging back around and decimating my shitty little continent.

The European Union is finalizing a list of American goods to target with retaliatory tariffs in the event that U.S. President Donald Trump, who is expected to make a decision by May 18, imposes levies on car imports.

“We are already preparing a list of possible items that would be on that list,” EU trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Monday. “The moment this is official — if this happens, I still hope it won’t — then we would publish that list,” she said, adding that it would “happen quite rapidly.’

The U.S. and the EU reached a political accord in July to work toward a limited trade agreement, which would put on hold the threat of tariffs on EU cars. Those duties would be based on the same national-security grounds invoked for controversial American levies on foreign steel and aluminum. The EU will hit 20 billion euros ($22.5 billion) of U.S. goods if Trump follows through on the auto threat.

U.S. tariffs on European cars and auto parts would mark a significant escalation of transatlantic tensions because the value of EU automotive exports to the American market is about 10 times greater than that of the bloc’s steel and aluminum exports combined. As a result, European retaliatory duties would target a bigger amount of U.S. exports to Europe.

A 25 percent U.S. levy on foreign cars would add 10,000 euros to the sticker price of European vehicles imported into the country, according to the European Commission.

“It’s a little bit unpredictable for the moment,” Malmstrom said, adding that as part of the July agreement the two regions wouldn’t impose new tariffs on each other. “We hope the president will still stick to those words.”

‘Law of the Jungle’

Speaking later at a trade conference organized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s parliamentary caucus, Malmstrom said she sees the U.S. resorting to a “law of the jungle” approach to trade, following the country’s retreat from the global stage. But there’s still potential that the two sides can quickly come to terms on a limited accord focusing on industrial goods.

“If we decide to negotiate such an agreement, we can do it very quickly and it would bring mutual benefits for all of us,” said Malmstrom. “It would expand growth and save a lot of money on tariffs. That could then create trust for something bigger in the future.”

Nasdaq futures are -25.

You fucking losers. Why the hell did you click in? Are you so fucking desperate for financial advice, due to your gross negligence, that you’re keen to take advice from a complete total stranger, who is both anonymous and shows a proclivity for violence?

Here were the top rated ETFs in Exodus. You can now call your clients and offer them some hot ideas in exchange for a recurring fee that will outlive their fucking lives.

WTI is soft tonight. You should expect to see a showdown tomorrow and it’s going to get real ugly, real fast — like midwestern corn-fed human ugly — red hair and all.

How’m I doin’?

Thank you for asking. I’m doing badly, if you have to know. It’s not as if any of you fucking morons even leave relevant messages anymore. Most of you are talking to yourselves — like the fucking idiots you are — jib-jabbing, crabbing all around — trying to convince yourselves that your lives are purposeful. How about a fucking dialogue — fucked faces?

Back in the golden age of iBC, we had discussions and there was a lot of tomfoolery. But all of those people are dead now and this new generation of reader are silent like mice. Traffic, more or less, is the same — so it’s not a matter of reach or people no longer reading Le Fly. It’s simply a matter of you — the internet fool — no longer mustering the courage and the gravitas to say something important, or to challenge me. For the love of dead cats, I don’t even ban people anymore. I used to ban 2-3 people per day — due to the disruptive nature of the comments. Now the comments are docile and feminine and weak, and no longer worthy of my attention.

Weak sauce close. What is the President to tweet next? What sort of gambit can he pull out from his utility belt?

Dare I say…

RELEASE THE KUDLOW!!!

Do it Mr. President. It’s the only thing that will ensure much much high stock prices and a great big beautiful breasted economy.

Listen to me — the market isn’t really your friend. It wants to destroy you and remove your money from your accounts and into the accounts of important people. Men who pay taxes and employ others and spend money on grande parties and host Presidents and Kings. You’re all a bunch of faggots, wasting time and oxygen — attempting to craft out a little neat life for yourselves.

Markets surged today — but what about tomorrow? What will you do if stocks slump over and slip into a watery grave in the morning? Will you buy le dip, based off the premise that destroying the Chinese economy is GOOD for America? Will you buy stocks based off the idea that America doesn’t need Chinese goods?

Will you do it?

My inverse ETFs are getting lit the fuck up and, admittedly, I’m a bit salty about that. I remember looking at them yesterday, all with big ass gains, thinking ‘maybe I should sell them and take profits.’ And then I decided against it — because the allure of largess was too great for even me to withstand.

I do not want small gains. I speak of long term investing often here and I warn YOU that you’ll never get rich trading. But that shit doesn’t apply to ME. I will continue to increase my account values trading and I’m always on the lookout for a very large directional move. Bear in mind, these moves are NOT for YOU — but for ME.

Markets are up 330 and I promised to become a eunuch should we rise by 600 today. I was going to sell short if we had a weak rebound — but this is strong and hairy chested. This is a Hemingway bounce back and I expect it to continue — since we’ve learned today that the tariffs are good and helping America grow and achieve greatness.

Cramer is butt-hurt over Trump’s trade war masterplan.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer voices concern about the staying power of the stock market’s bounce.
President Trump’s latest tweetstorm “has made it so we got to wait to be able to buy,” warns Cramer.
Trump should “knock the tweets off if he wants the Dow to start going up, at least today,” adds Cramer.

“If the trade war is over, then what are you gonna do with your inverse ETFs moron?”

I’ll probably hold them for another day, treat them like collectibles.

“Hey kids, want to see what a depreciating asset looks like?”

“Whoa Dad, where’d you get that? That’s awesome.”

“I found it lying around on the exchange, so I picked it up and put in my portfolio.”

WTI is up after the House of Saud whined over a drone attack on one of their pipelines. How rich.

But HYG and everything is up too. Yesterday was, apparently, a fiction — a one off event. We can never begin to think rationally and hope for normal market conditions. The trade war is the trade war and it really never affects anything in real life. It’s just a press release inside of this nice simulation.

“What now fucked face?”

Maybe I’ll look to add a long or two. Not sure — but I’ll figure it out.

Ciao.

This is bordering on inane, already.

Trump just tweeted this.

China will be pumping money into their system and probably reducing interest rates, as always, in order to make up for the business they are, and will be, losing. If the Federal Reserve ever did a “match,” it would be game over, we win! In any event, China wants a deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2019

You know, I put up with a lot of nonsense from POTUS and he makes me laugh a great deal — but enough it enough with asking the Fed to cut rates while markets are at record highs. Do I think the Fed should’ve hiked rates? No. But they’re already there now and you can’t just cut them for the sake of winning trade wars or to get stock prices to go even higher.

I suppose I hate the Fed anyway, so maybe all of this Fed trolling is a good thing to undermine them and cause the public to lose faith in them. Nevertheless, it seems like a great big waste of fucking time and makes us look like jackasses on a grande giant stage — sucking Fed dick for a few points in the Spoos.

Remember when Morgan Stanley said Uber was worth $120 billion last year? Two days trading on the public markets and Uber is now worth just $61 billion, which is down $15 billion from the IPO valuation that Morgan Stanley thrusted upon the market.

Lucky for the Martha Vineyard faggots at MS — the market had been crashing the past few days and the UBER IPO debacle was back burner news. Now with markets set to bounce, I’m hoping we can properly execute them.

Where was the stabilization for the UBER IPO? What the fuck was Morgan Stanley doing — those greenshoe motherfuckers? They said the order book was 3x oversubscribed and yet here we are -18% from the IPO price.

Morons

It’s worth noting, Morgan Stanley was also lead underwriter for Facebook, which previous to this shit was the single worst IPO I could remember in modern times. The share price has since recovered nicely and time has allowed all previous transgressions go forgiven. But let’s never forget this one and make sure the cuckholds at Morgan Stanley never get to lead an important IPO ever again. Let’s all pray for the immediate demise of Morgan Stanley and hope good minded executives choose Goldman Sachs for all of their banking needs going forward.

This post was paid for by the wonderful gents at Goldman Sachs (kidding, don’t sue me bro).

I have a Capstone session after the bell — so I’ll make this brief.

I bought RIOT and more NUGT into the bell. And I held onto DRIP, SOXS, LABD, and GROW — like a fucking man today. My NUGT position is now a 10% holding. My sense, panic is just around the bend. I can smell it.

The TIPs have been heading higher all year, in spite of tepid CPI data.

President Donald Trump’s latest tariff increase on Chinese goods will drive up the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation, and a further escalation of the trade war will have an even greater impact on prices as well as economic growth, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Goldman revised up its estimate of the tariff impact on core personal consumption expenditures inflation to 0.2 percentage point, according to a note Saturday. The firm estimates if the U.S. imposes tariffs on the roughly $300 billion remaining in Chinese goods, the effect would increase to 0.5 point. Should core inflation rise “noticeably” above 2% next year, that would “slightly increase the likelihood” of an interest-rate increase by the central bank.

The investment bank cited new evidence of the effects of the 2018 tariffs from two studies published in March by the National Bureau of Economic Research. It also broke out consumer prices on categories affected by tariffs, showing costs had increased sharply in the last year for such sectors while declining in non-tariff categories of items.

“The costs of the tariffs have fallen entirely on U.S. businesses and households,” the Goldman economists said, contrasting with Trump’s contention that China pays the levies. “Further escalation of the trade war could result in a hit to GDP as large as 0.4%, and if trade tensions sparked a major sell-off in the equity market the growth impact could worsen considerably.”

China’s Ministry of Finance said Monday the country will raise tariffs on American goods starting June 1 after the U.S. increased tariffs on 5,700 different product categories from China to 25 percent from 10 percent.

While consumer goods account for about 25% of the items targeted in Friday’s escalation of U.S. tariffs, consumer products make up about 60% of the remaining tranche of about $300 billion in Chinese goods, according to the note by analysts David Choi, David Mericle, Blake Taylor and Ronnie Walker.

There’s about a 30% chance that Trump slaps tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of imports that aren’t yet targeted, Goldman said.

On the China trade war news, gold caught a bid too. Does it mean inflation will finally rear its ugly head? No fucking idea. However, what I do know is the perception is there now and the trade is long NUGT — taking advantage of the fear and the greed.

Economic cycles aren’t permitted to exist in this dojo. The market is now pricing in a sharp December rate cut — because that’s what the Fed does — bail out those in need of bailing out.

72% chance of it happening now. And the odds of a rate cut earlier than December are rising sharply today — thanks to traders sperging out.