Florida Officials Say Federal Government Has "Stonewalled" State Investigation Into Would-Be Trump Assassin

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Florida’s governor and attorney general on Dec. 18 accused the federal government of blocking a state investigation into Ryan Wesley Routh, the man accused of attempting to assassinate then-former President Donald Trump at his Florida golf course.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody alleged that the Department of Justice informed the state that it had to suspend its investigation into Routh, citing a federal law about prosecuting crimes against significant public figures.

“It was made known that they intended to shut down our investigation and invoke federal jurisdiction in doing so,” Moody said Dec. 18 at a press conference.

“We didn’t believe it should be interpreted in the way that they suggested.”

At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wrote that the federal government has “stonewalled Florida’s investigation of the Trump assassination attempt at every turn” and that he supports Moody’s attempts to move forward in their case against Routh.

“The tide will turn on January 20th and we fully expect that the federal roadblocks will be removed,” he wrote on social media, referring to the date that Trump will take office.

“The would-be assassin needs to face the full force of justice and the people deserve the truth about the defendant’s history, motivations and plan.”

The Department of Justice did not respond to an Epoch Times request for comment on Dec. 19.

At the same time, Moody’s office obtained a warrant for Routh’s arrest in mid-September, hours after he was allegedly discovered lying in wait for Trump armed with a rifle in Palm Beach County, Florida. After reportedly being shot at by a Secret Service agent, he fled and was arrested on Interstate 95 in Martin County.

After his arrest, a car crash occurred that injured a 6-year-old girl traveling with her family, Moody said during a press conference. The crash occurred in connection with the pursuit of Routh along the interstate, according to officials.

“As a result of that [accident], we felt compelled to seek justice on her behalf and her family that will never be the same as they cope with her injuries,” she said at a press briefing on Dec. 18.

Moody said the crash occurred after officials shut down traffic on I-95 as they tried to apprehend the suspect. A spokesperson for Moody said prosecutors will file the new charge when Routh is in state custody.

The multi-vehicle crash happened about 30 minutes after Routh’s arrest on I-95, according to the state’s investigation, but Moody alleged it was a result of his actions as he was attempting to evade capture. The girl suffered serious injuries, Moody’s office stated.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit for Routh, the accident occurred while authorities were apprehending him, about three or four miles south of where they stopped his vehicle.

Northbound traffic along the major interstate was halted because of the risk of the traffic stop and because it was not clear whether any weapons or explosives were inside Routh’s car, according to the affidavit. Southbound traffic was also halted as officials attempted to investigate his vehicle.

On Sept. 15, the Secret Service stated that one of its agents allegedly discovered Routh with his gun barrel sticking through Trump’s course perimeter fence as the then-former president was playing a round of golf. The agent opened fire on Routh, prompting him to flee in his vehicle before sheriff’s officials and other law enforcement arrested him along I-95 later that day.

Federal prosecutors said that Routh, whose residence is listed in Hawaii, allegedly waited for the president for about 12 hours and that cellphone data revealed he was in the area around Trump’s golf course and Mar-a-Lago for a month before the alleged assassination attempt.

Later, prosecutors said they discovered Routh had written a note that was left with an acquaintance. The note admitted he wanted to assassinate Trump because of the decision by the first Trump administration to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal that was signed by the Obama administration. Social media accounts associated with Routh also showed he was an avid supporter of Ukraine during the Russia–Ukraine conflict and had attempted to recruit people to fight.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 17:40

US Reveals It Has More Than Twice As Many Troops In Syria Than Previously Disclosed

Only now after the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad does Washington come clean about the actual number of American troops it has in Syria.

On Thursday, the Pentagon revealed it has roughly 2,000 troops occupying northeast Syria, home to the country's vital supply of oil and gas, which is over twice the number it has been officially disclosing for years.

The US has occupied Syria's oil and gas regions for years.

US military spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said this has been the figure for a "while"—apparently long before the dramatic events of this month. Ryder claimed the he had just "learned" the true troop number.

"As you know, we have been briefing you regularly that there are approximately 900 US troops deployed to Syria. In light of the situation in Syria and the significant interest, we recently learned that those numbers were higher, and so asked to look into it. I learned today that in fact there are approximately 2,000 US troops in Syria," he said.

He then tried to pass off the discrepancy as merely a distinction between the 900 long term deployments and those forces rotating in on a more temporary basis.

Map source: @MeesEnergy

"As I understand it and as it was explained to me, these additional forces are considered temporary rotational forces that deploy to meet shifting mission requirements, whereas the core 900 deployers are on longer-term deployments," Ryder said.

The Pentagon and CENTCOM have also recently been reviving talk of the 'counter-ISIS' mission as justification for keeping the US occupation ongoing. This even as NATO member Turkey has been seeking to drive out the Kurdish-led SDF from northern Syria, which the US backs.

The Biden administration has also this week said it is in direct contact with designated terror organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which holds Damascus and major cities. 

Obviously this is some absurd gaslighting of the American public by the Pentagon. The question remains: why reveal it now?

How does the Pentagon “recently learn” that it has more than double the number of US troops in Syria than it claimed to have a day earlier? pic.twitter.com/fydxpWcNqT

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) December 20, 2024

The US is likely to use its possession of the oil and gas fields in Deir Ezzor, which was previously vital to meeting the Syrian population's domestic consumption needs, as leverage to get HTS leadership to fall in line with Washington's agenda for the region.

The US had long occupied the energy fields in the first place in order to tighten the economic blockade noose around Assad's neck, but ultimately it is the common people who suffer most.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 17:20

Judge Rejects Federal Government Request, Allows Derek Chauvin To Examine George Floyd's Heart

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge has turned down the federal government’s bid to stop Derek Chauvin from examining George Floyd’s heart tissue.

“The Court is not persuaded by the Government’s arguments, which provide no compelling reason that the Court should change its previous determination,” U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson said in a two-page order filed on Dec. 19.

The order granting Chauvin’s motion to examine Floyd’s heart tissue will stand, he said.

Magnuson on Dec. 16 ruled that Chauvin can test substances preserved from Floyd’s autopsy, including his blood and heart tissue. Chauvin is attempting to prove the theory that Floyd’s death was not related to the restraint that Chauvin applied to Floyd in Minnesota in May 2020.

Chauvin, a police officer in Minneapolis at the time, was later charged and convicted of murdering Floyd.

The present development involves Chauvin’s argument that his former attorney did not adequately represent him.

An expert named Dr. William Schaetzel had contacted the attorney and offered his opinion that Floyd’s death stemmed from factors other than the restraint, but the attorney did not pass along the opinion, according to Chauvin.

Schaetzel said the death was caused by a heart attack. Chauvin said the testing could support the opinion.

“Given the significant nature of the criminal case that Mr. Chauvin was convicted of, and given that the discovery that Mr. Chauvin seeks could support Dr. Schaetzel’s opinion of how Mr. Floyd died, the Court finds that there is good cause to allow Mr. Chauvin to take the discovery that he seeks,” Magnuson said in his Dec. 16 order.

The U.S. Department of Justice then filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider. Government lawyers said that Chauvin could not show ineffective counsel, in part because another expert had already offered a similar opinion during Chauvin’s trial.

The lawyers also said that if the judge turned down the Justice Department’s motion, he should enter an amended order granting discovery to the government as well as to Chauvin.

“The government specifically requests access to expert disclosures for any expert Defendant intends to call at a hearing (including each expert’s qualifications and a full explanation of any opinions and the bases therefore), as well as all lab reports and test results generated by any lab to which Defendant submits requests,” they wrote.

Magnuson denied that request, although he said he expects the government will be able to access the test results.

“The Court expects the parties to cooperate in the discovery process, allowing the Government reasonable access to any lab reports, test results, and expert disclosures,” he said. “The Court will not issue a separate order to that end.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 17:00

Et Tu Jagmeet? Trudeau Game Over Looms As Key Ally Vows To Topple Him

In what could be the final act of a political drama swirling around Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh has thundered in with a no-confidence motion that could topple the government, Reuters reports.

"We will put forward a clear motion of non-confidence in the next sitting of the House of Commons," said Singh.

The motion, set to unfold as the House of Commons returns from winter recess on January 27, has sent shockwaves through Ottawa's political corridors already rattled by internal Liberal strife and a high-profile cabinet resignation.

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre wants to 'urgently' reconvene parliament so that lawmakers can hold a no-confidence vote ahead of schedule.

The undercurrents of discontent have been bubbling for months, but the situation came to a head when Chrystia Freeland, Trudeau’s stalwart Finance Minister, abruptly vacated her post amid a cloud of controversy. Sources close to the matter cite irreconcilable differences over policy directions and leadership style, with Freeland's departure exposing cracks in the Liberal foundation.

[W]hen Trudeau informed Freeland five days later that she would soon be out as finance minister, she was deeply upset. Mark Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor and a darling of global markets, was taking over, Trudeau told her. But he had another important job in mind for her: a cabinet role managing Canada’s suddenly fraught relations with the US and President-elect Donald Trump. It did not, however, come with running a government department.

...

Freeland was having none of it. To her, this was a major demotion — one delivered over a Zoom call, no less. She spent the weekend agonizing over how to respond, according to people familiar with the course of events — stewing with the same frustration she had experienced in the summer, when reports emerged that Trudeau was courting Carney as her possible replacement. -Bloomberg

Meanwhile, Trudeau reshuffled his cabinet on Friday, days after Freeland's departure. Ontario MP David McGuinty was named Canada's minister of public safety, while Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has been named the new housing minister.

Amid this backdrop, Singh's declaration couldn’t be more dramatically timed to twist the knife. In a scathing open letter, he lambasted Trudeau’s leadership, painting the Liberal government as too entangled in internal conflicts and corporate interests to effectively govern. Sing's letter sets the stage for a potential early election if the no-confidence vote gathers steam across opposition benches​.

As Singh points out, the cost of living and housing crises are hitting Canadians hard, and with Trump-era tariffs looming, economic pressures could intensify, making the political stakes even higher.

Political pundits suggest voter fatigue with the Liberals is palpable. A slew of recent polls underscores a grim forecast for Trudeau’s party, which could face a drubbing at the polls if an election were called today. The political landscape in Canada is crackling with anticipation of a shake-up as the NDP appears to pivot away from its previous support of the minority government, a move that could redraw the lines of allegiance within the House of Commons​.

As January 27 looms, all eyes will be on Ottawa.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 16:40

Will Trump Tariffs Kill Commercial Real Estate?

Via SchiffGold.com,

Will the Trump administration’s proposed tariffs on Chinese, Mexican, and Canadian imports could send shockwaves through the already vulnerable U.S. commercial real estate market? With a 10% tariff on goods from China and 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, the additional cost will be passed along to the US builder and consumer — and is a stiff repudiation to the notion of free markets.

The Fed has predictably failed to get inflation under control before starting its rate-cutting bonanza, and tariffs will cause prices to skyrocket for materials like aluminum, steel and wood, all without addressing deficits. The price increases could a wave ripping through everything from food packaging, cars, trucks, ships, aircraft, and electronics to logistics, housing, and commercial construction. Or, in other words, just about everything. As Peter Schiff recently said:

Why doesn’t every country just impose tariffs if it doesn’t cost anything for their own citizens? …A tariff is a tax. It’s a tax on the consumer for buying stuff. 100% of it is paid by consumers. There’s nobody else to pay it!”

Higher packaging and logistics prices means more expensive products for Amercians across the board. Tariff-fueled price rises could also be the straw that breaks the back of the fragile commercial real estate market, which continues to teeter on the brink with high costs, bad loans, empty office buildings, and overexposed banks creating an explosive cocktail just waiting for a match.    

The cost of essential building materials—like steel, aluminum, and wood—is set to rise significantly. Given that these materials form the backbone of construction, Trump tariffs and the price increases they’re guaranteed to cause could have dire implications for developers, lenders, and the broader economy. 

In 2023, Canada was the US’s single steel supplier. As of 2022, it was also at the top of the list for wood, with China in spot number two and Mexico close behind. The US is a top global importer of iron and steel and is Mexico’s primary customer; Mexico accounted for approximately 15% of the total steel imported while China provided 5%. And while China is a minimal steel importer  to the US compared to other countries, it’s a nation that has become a powerful symbol for the broader implosion of US manufacturing. 

It means that with no manufacturing base to make anything domestically, we have nothing to fall back on. Market forces dictate that two things will happen. One, the goods and supplies that do get sent to the US will start to cost much more money. Two, countries that are heavy exporters to the US will reduce the amounts of goods that they sell us to begin with, creating less supply and driving up prices even more. Either way, the tariff plan is a heavy-handed state intervention that has no ability to empower Trump to lower taxes, as promised. Instead, it’s bound to increase the cost of everything as consumers struggle to figure out where all their clothes, toys, and other goods have gone, with whatever’s left on shelves now priced even more hopelessly out of their budget.

U.S. City Average Dollar Purchasing Power Since 1913, St. Louis Fed

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers: Purchasing Power of the Consumer Dollar in U.S. City Average [CUUR0000SA0R], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SA0R, December 14, 2024.

Meanwhile, iconic American steel producer US Steel is now pushing for a deal to be sold to Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steelmaker [ZH: which has now been blocked]. The outlook for US manufacturing has gotten so bad that many working-class US Steel workers are celebrating, seeing the deal as the only thing that can save their good old American jobs. The Biden administration appears to be preparing to block the deal on the grounds of preserving “national security.” But they’re damned if they do, and the’re damned if they don’t.

As tariffs on Chinese and Mexican goods and materials significantly increase the cost of building, it will become even harder for CRE loans to be repaid as struggling developers have nowhere to go but back to the bank to borrow more money. Developers relying on Canadian, Chinese, and Mexican building materials, equipment, and supplies will face higher project costs as they juggle already razor-thin margins and risks like zoning complications, permitting issues, unexpected legal costs, and other extremely expensive snags common to their industry. 

The economy can only handle so many powder kegs. As Peter Schiff said about tariffs on his November 27th episode of The Peter Schiff Show:

The best thing to do if a country wants to be dumb enough to try to limit the ability of its own citizens to trade freely is not to do the same thing to your citizens. Let your own citizens trade freely, and you’re going to win.”

According to Trepp, a leading provider of real estate analytics, nearly $1.5 trillion in commercial real estate loans are set to mature by 2025. Distressed loans are reaching a fever pitch for commercial properties like retail, buildings, apartments and other residential developments, and offices across the US. 

Mortgage-backed security delinquencies associated with office properties are nearing a rate not seen since the 2008 financial meltdown. And many office buildings associated with these troubled loans haven’t even come close to finding enough renters to fill them, becoming post-COVID phantom buildings in a zombie market. Now that remote work and Zoom meetings have cemented themselves as the permanent New Normal, developers are pivoting to desperate measures like expensive office-to-apartment conversions as a Hail Mary to save their projects.

Banks, particularly regional lenders, are trapped in a prison of overexposure to CRE. The FDIC’s Q2 2024 report shows that real estate loans account for 40% of the total loan portfolios for many small and mid-sized banks across America. The government and Fed like to pretend that it’s not a big deal since these are “smaller” banks, willfully ignoring the fact that a series of small bank failures often portends the unfolding of a broader crisis. A construction slump triggered by rising material costs and inflation from central bank meddling and the higher costs from import tariffs, could conspire with other factors to trigger a full-blown CRE collapse and banking crisis. 

Having no manufacturing base in the US only makes a bad thing even worse. The catch-22 is that Trump wants to use tariffs to cut taxes and hopes it will somehow bring American companies and manufacturing back. But without manufacturing, you have no choice but to sacrifice consumers and developers and builders at the altar of foreign imports. It’s an economic ouroboros where the problem eats the solution. 

The Fed wants to cut rates more to save CRE and banks, and in desperation, may fire up the money printer in big way. But it’s just adding fuel to a different fire. 

In previous crises, such as the 2008 financial crash and COVID, QE “stabilized” markets with an epic run of money printing. With inflation still too hot as the Fed rushed to cut interest rates, it’s backed into a corner as usual: keep cutting to save the banks and CRE, throwing savers to the wolves as their purchasing power tanks, or stifle inflation with higher rates and let a banking and CRE crisis rip. We know what it will do. The Fed never sacrifices the banks to preserve the dollar’s purchasing power. They’d rather sacrifice savers and taxpayers with low rates and QE than play a game of bank failure dominos. Either way, the outlook is horrifying.

The CRE bomb has been building for quite some time now. The next round of upward price shocks, exacerbated by the shock of heavy tariffs when the US has close to zero manufacturing base left, could be what lights the fuse.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 15:40

Syrian Leader With $10M Bounty On His Head Meets With Delegation From Country That Put The $10M Bounty On His Head

On Friday for the first time top Biden administration envoys met with Abu Mohammed al-Jolani in Damascus. Ironically the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) leader, who has reverted to going by his birth name of Ahmad al-Sharaa, is wanted by the FBI for terrorism and still has a $10 million bounty on his head.

That didn't stop Barbara A. Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, and a Biden admin delegation from meeting with the HTS leader in Damascus, where they discussed sanctions, the thorny issue of the $10 million reward, and locating missing US citizens in Syria (specifically journalist Austin Tice).

HTS leader who has a $10 million bounty on his head meets with delegation from country that put the $10 million bounty on his head pic.twitter.com/u0TYh9PWqP

— Hassan Ridha (@sayed_ridha) December 20, 2024

Jolani is trying to present himself as a "moderate". Perhaps this is why for one of the first times he allowed himself to be photographed alongside a woman without a head-covering.

He and HTS are trying to attract Western legitimacy and support, and so have pledged to uphold the rights of women and non-Muslim religious communities (such as Christians, Alawites, Druze, etc.) 

In the aftermath of the Friday meeting a member of the US delegation called it "good and productive." This marked the first trip to Damascus by State Department officials in over a decade. 

American diplomats had long refused to meet with the now ousted President Bashar al-Assad, yet now they quickly flock to the Syrian capital to embrace someone who literally fought with ISIS a mere few years ago.

The US had shuttered its embassy in Damascus and relocated its diplomatic staff by 2012, in protest of the Assad 'regime'. All the while US intelligence had ramped up its covert operations for regime change known as 'Timber Sycamore'.

The NY Times had previously described of these efforts, "The shuttering of the C.I.A. program, one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the agency’s program arming the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s, has forced a reckoning over its successes and failures."

Reporter: Is $10,000,000 for Jolani still valid?

Miller: It is

Reporter: So if someone arrested him and gave him to US, he/she is gonna take 10 million dollars

Miller: I’m not gonna deal with hypotheticals

Matt Lee: The reward can’t be claimed by a government official… pic.twitter.com/Z1H5ka10pv

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) December 17, 2024

Now, with apparently mission accomplished, and Assad in Moscow, the US is returning its diplomatic presence to Damascus, perhaps permanently. 

For the Friday meeting between the US officials and Jolani, Leaf was "accompanied by former U.S. envoy to Syria Daniel Rubinstein who will stay in Syria as the top U.S. diplomat on the ground." Clearly, Washington is now OK with Syria being run by an al-Qaeda faction, and as Israeli and Turkey divide up the territorial spoils in the south and north.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 15:20

Trump Effect? China's 1Y Yield Crashes Below 1% For First Time Since GFC

For the first time since the Great Financial Crisis (2008/9), short-dated Chinese bond yields have plunged back below 1%. In fact they are now at record lows...

Source: Bloomberg

As we head into the end of the year, impatient investors are left waiting for a real plan to underwrite consumption (as yields melt inexorably lower), and capital flight accelerates (spurred by concerns about yuan weakness). China suffered a record fund exit last month under the category of securities investment, according to official data released this week.

The drop in one-year yields reflects “prevailing expectations for PBOC’s strong easing next year amid the moderately loose policy and the shortage of high quality fixed-income assets,” said Ken Cheung, chief Asian foreign-exchange strategist at Mizuho Bank in Hong Kong.

“Such developments could intensify concerns over US-China monetary policy divergence, and reinforce yuan depreciation pressure.”

Demand for shorter-maturity debt is also rising after the central bank pushed back against the bond-buying frenzy, prompting traders to shift away from longer-dated securities that are more exposed to the risk of intervention.

Shorter-dated bonds may be benefiting from several factors, including ample liquidity and the central bank’s operation of “buying short-term government bonds and selling some longer-dated notes,” said Zhaopeng Xing, a senior strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

While the PBOC’s operations may have contributed to the front-end rally, the slide in yields “looks quite extreme,” said Zhaopeng Xing, a senior strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.

That’s because yields have fallen below the level of about 1.1% paid by banks for deposits that are often used to buy bonds, he said.

However, as Bloomberg reports, some analysts at least are warning the bond rally may be nearing its end.

A pickup in economic growth, along with a shift in consumer savings behavior and a more cautious-than-expected PBOC policy, may turn the bond bull run into a rout next year, said Adam Wolfe, an emerging markets economist at Absolute Strategy Research in London.

“China’s bond market likely overstates the easing that’s expected.”

The decline in yields is spurring debate about whether China’s economy is heading toward a recession... especially if Trump's tariff threats become real and not just a negotiating tactic.

There’s some speculation interest rates may fall to zero if government efforts to bolster consumption and property demand continue to fall short.

The nation’s longer-maturity yields dropped below their Japanese counterparts last month in a sign investors are positioning for so-called Japanification of the world’s second-biggest economy.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 15:00

Big Lots Announces It Will Start Going-Out-Of-Business Sale At All Stores

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Discount retail store chain Big Lots announced Thursday that it will initiate “going out of business” sales at all its remaining locations after it was unable to reach an agreement with an investment firm.

“In parallel with these efforts, the company is preparing to commence going out of business sales at all remaining Big Lots store locations in the coming days to protect the value of its estate,” the company said in a statement, which added that Big Lots will continue “to serve customers in-store and online, and will provide updates as available.”

Big Lots CEO Bruce Thorn said in a statement that Big Lots attempted to complete a sale of the company to Nexus Capital Management but it fell through. He said the company will, in the meantime, attempt to close the deal with Nexus or another party by early next month.

“We all have worked extremely hard and have taken every step to complete a going concern sale,” he said.

“While we remain hopeful that we can close an alternative going concern transaction, in order to protect the value of the Big Lots estate, we have made the difficult decision to begin the [going-out-of-business] process.”

Big Lots, headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, operates more than 1,400 stores across 48 states. The firm has closed a number of locations in recent months after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after having grappled with declining sales over the past few quarters, putting pressure on its balance sheet.

Big Lots had listed its assets and liabilities in the range of $1 billion to $10 billion, according to a filing with the bankruptcy court in Delaware, which showed creditors in the range of 5,001 to 10,000.

Under the previous agreement that fell through, Big Lots said in court that Nexus would serve as a “stalking horse bidder” in a court-supervised auction process, adding that the deal would close in the fourth quarter of 2024 if Nexus was deemed the winning bidder. A stalking horse bid is used as a starting or minimally accepted offer that other interested bidders must surpass if they want to buy the asset or the company.

Earlier this year, when confirming the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Thorn blamed economic factors such as higher-than-normal inflation and other pressure points. Customers have been forced to change their spending behavior due to inflation, which has been sticky since the COVID-19 pandemic, his company said.

“The prevailing economic trends have been particularly challenging to Big Lots, as its core customers curbed their discretionary spending on the home and seasonal product categories that represent a significant portion of the company’s revenue,” the company said in a statement in September.

The company’s stock has declined by more than 98 percent in the past year. As of Thursday, Big Lots’ stock dropped another 7 percent, to about $0.09 per share. A year before, the stock had stood at around $7 per share.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department released a report showing that U.S. consumer prices increased in November by the most in seven months. The consumer price index rose by 0.3 percent last month, the largest gain since April after advancing 0.2 percent for four straight months, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 14:40

At Least 6 Dead After New Ukrainian HIMARS Attack On Russian Town

Cross-border tit-for-tat missile exchanges between Russian and Ukraine are really accelerating fast, and growing in size with each wave. On Friday, Ukraine's military pummeled southern Russia with US-made weapons for the second consecutive day.

"Ukrainian forces launched a missile attack on Rylsk in Russia’s Kursk Region on Friday, killing six people, including a child, and injuring ten others," the acting governor of the region Aleksandr Khinshtein announced. He said further according to state media sources that Ukrainian forces had used US-made HIMARS missiles.

The US has been supplying these shorter range missiles to Ukraine since the opening six months of the war, in 2022. But it was only on Thursday that Ukraine used the longer-range ATACMS on southern Rostov region. These attacks really do nothing strategically in terms of advancing battlefield gains or objectives, but are ultra risky.

The new Friday HIMARS attack also destroyed civilian infrastructure, including schools, the regional governor's statement further indicated. Rylsk is merely some 30km from the Ukrainian border, with a population around 15,000.

Khinshtein in a social media video accused Kiev’s forces of "deliberately choosing civilian facilities [and] social facilities as their targets."

Further details were reviewed by one independent regional media source as follows:

Media reports indicate that dozens of buildings were damaged in the strike. Khinshtein detailed that the attack caused damage to the buildings of two local colleges, a cultural center, a gym complex, a school, and other facilities. Windows were shattered in three apartment buildings, while several private homes and 15 vehicles were also damaged. The blast wave reportedly damaged the Church of the Ascension, according to a church employee who spoke to state media.

At the time of publication, neither the Russian Defense Ministry nor the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ General Staff have commented on the incident. However, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova announced that Russia plans to address the missile strikes on Rylsk at a UN Security Council meeting on December 21. The Russian Investigative Committee reported that it had opened a criminal terrorism case over the strike.

Six dead after Ukrainian strikes using US-made HIMARS
on the town of Rylsk by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, 26 injured. A teacher training college, a bus station, a school, and a cultural center were damaged in the strike, according to local reports. pic.twitter.com/H6C8Yukjo4

— sonja van den ende (@SonjaEnde) December 20, 2024

Russia's retaliation has also been ongoing and has been deadly... On Friday major Russian missile barrages have targeted the capital of Kiev. At least one person was killed in the attack, which also damaged a number of foreign embassies. A dozen other people were injured in these strikes.

The Kyiv City Military Administration said that the Albanian, Argentinian, North Macedonian, Palestinian, Portuguese and Montenegrin embassies were damaged in the attack. It appears they were all housed in one large building.

Russia could step of these attacks on the Ukrainian capital, which until recently have remained somewhat rare. It seems like assaults on Russia with US/UK-made long-range weapons are definitely growing in pace with just weeks to go before Trump enters the White House.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 14:05

Denmark Passes The World's First 'Burp Tax'... But This Is No Laughing Matter

Authored by Paul Schwennesen via the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER),

Denmark, according to The New York Times (NYT), is going ahead with its livestock “Burp Tax.” Though hotly contested, the Danish government has nevertheless finally settled on levying farmers 300 kroners (~$43) per ton for carbon dioxide emissions, ramping to $106 per ton by 2035. As is the case with many of these farm-targeted green interventions, the action is ludicrously ineffectual at addressing the trumped-up problem, while remarkably effective at further cementing state controls over economic production.

Part of the reason farms (and especially cows) are such fat targets for this kind of statist intervention is that, politically speaking, they are the perfect scapegoat.

It all seems so harmless, after all—so silly even—that serious-minded folk risk looking ridiculous if they object. Is it really so very draconian, goes the argument, to ask farmers to reduce their cow flatulence? The ever-so-reasonable request (enforceable by law, to be sure) glides under the radar in a scree of giggle-inducing copy that distracts readers to what is really afoot.

The NYT plays its part in this façade, relishing the chance to print “poop, farts, and burps” in the business section so that the regulation seems plucked from an impish children’s story rather than what it is: a deadly serious infringement on economic liberty.

Defenders of the scheme insist it is necessary to address the pressing issue of climate change. But even if we were to accept the lobby’s poorly understood climate science at face value, the claims would be dubious. Cows stand accused of emitting 5.6 metric tons in annual “CO2 equivalent” emissions. All this politically motivated tabulating and assessing completely ignores the other side of the ledger, the growing recognition that grazing livestock have a complex, largely offsetting (and quite probably net-positive) impact on overall carbon emissions. Nature, after all, doesn’t work in simple equations and we are woefully under-informed about the rich and inherently unmodelable world of stochastic ecology.

The NYT, by way of perspective, accounts for 16,979 metric tons of its own, meaning that it, as a single company, has the footprint of ten Danish dairies. What would readers of “All the News That’s Fit to Print” have to say about an annual tax of $730,000 a year, ramping to $1.8 million, being added to the newspaper stand price? Advocates of a free press might well ask why the government was using state power to make the newspaper of record less competitive.

But in any case, climate science and cow farts aren’t really the issue here. The issue is essentially about control, and who gets to occupy the commanding heights of a centrally managed economy.

“A tax on pollution has the aim to change behavior,” says Jeppe Bruss, the Danish “green transition” minister in an unguardedly candid moment. Government programs to change behavior are much easier to introduce slowly, and against somewhat laughable minority sectors like farming than against, say, the population at large. They do not seem eager, for instance, to levy additional burdens on average people’s heating and transport emissions, which combined dwarf the agricultural sector’s. The NYT says that livestock emissions are “becoming” the largest share of Denmark’s share of climate pollution which is another way of saying that it isn’t the largest share.

If beef and milk production indeed posed such an existential climate risk, then why not simply tax the consumers of beef and milk who, after all, are the real source of the production signal? The answer, of course, is obvious: no politician wants to be pegged as the one who raised the price of butter for average Danish grandmothers. Politically, it is far easier to go after the farmers, knowing full well that any cost burdens on farm production will be passed along to consumers anyway—only then it will be the farmers’ fault, not the government’s. It’s an old trick, a kind of regulatory-impact laundering scheme.

The success of the Danish strategy remains to be seen.

If examples from the Netherlands and New Zealand are any indication, the plan may well backfire, with frustrated farmers taking to the street and even grabbing back the reins of power.

It is a useful warning: allowing government the power to surgically tax and thereby “change behavior” of producers is the same as granting them economic planning privileges.

The Danish “Burp Tax” is a significant step toward the state ownership of the means of production, and as the history of centrally managed economies shows, it’s not likely to end well.

 

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 13:45

Trump's Economic Plans

Authored by James Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

Trump will begin his first 100 days with an emphasis on his economic plans.

His core economic team is already announced including Russell Vought as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Jamieson Greer as U.S. Trade Representative, Kevin Hassett as Director of the National Economic Council, Scott Bessent as U.S. Treasury Secretary, and Howard Lutnick as Secretary of Commerce.

Hassett and Bessent will form the core of this team with Greer taking the lead on tariffs and Vought taking the lead on budget deficits and fiscal policy.

Trump’s economic policy will be built around what are called the Three Arrows. That’s a name adopted by the new Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. He took the name from the Three Arrows policy of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced them in 2012.

Abe’s arrows were monetary easing, fiscal stimulus and structural reforms to make Japan more competitive. Bessent’s arrows are different, but the basic idea of using government to help grow the economy in productive ways is the same.

Bessent’s plan is also called the “3–3–3” plan for reasons that are made clear below.

Growth at 3%+

Bessent’s first arrow is to achieve 3% annual real growth in the U.S. economy.

This may not sound like much, but it is. From 2009 to 2019 (basically the period from the end of the last financial crisis to the beginning of COVID), the U.S. grew at a rate of only 2.2% per year. Economists estimate that the potential growth of a mature developed economy such as the U.S. is about 3.2%.

That gap between 3.2% potential growth and 2.2% actual growth means trillions of dollars of lost wealth over time. From 1983 to 1986 during the Reagan years, the economy actually did grow at just over 5% per year.

Real growth during that three-year stretch was 16%. (Although this followed the severe recession of 1981-1982. Growth higher than potential is possible when labor and industrial slack from a prior recession is available). So, Bessent’s goal of 3% real growth is realistic given potential performance, past performance, and recent lagging growth.

The emphasis here is on “real” growth. This means growth without taking into account any inflation. If real growth is 3% and inflation is 2%, then nominal growth will be 5% (3% real + 2% inflation = 5% nominal).

Everyday Americans are properly focused on real growth because they don’t want to see their wage gains eaten up by inflation. Still, nominal growth is important when considering debt service since debt is nominal — you owe what you owe whether the real value is preserved or not.

Deficits Below 3% of GDP

Bessent’s second arrow is to keep annual deficits below 3% of GDP. When discussing debt, we are dealing with nominal amounts rather than real amounts. For example, if U.S. GDP is projected at $28 trillion for a given fiscal year, then the deficit for that year cannot exceed $840 billion under Bessent’s plan.

Note that this does not involve “paying off the national debt” or even running a small surplus. A deficit of $840 billion is huge. But the limitation of 3% of GDP is highly significant in terms of making the debt sustainable and maintaining confidence in the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury securities.

Before deciding that this is an easy target, it’s helpful to know that the U.S. deficit for fiscal year 2024 is $1.83 trillion. The deficit in fiscal year 2023 was $1.69 trillion. In short, Bessent’s goal of an $840 billion deficit represents a 54% reduction in the deficit from 2024 levels and a 50% reduction from 2023 levels. That’s a huge reduction in the deficit in one fiscal year.

Not all of this deficit reduction would have to come from spending cuts, although some of it could, especially if Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy identify enough government waste through their new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It’s likely that Musk and Ramaswamy will easily identify wasteful spending. The hard part is getting it to stop.

The other way to cut the deficit is to grow the economy in such a way that government revenues grow with it. This does not mean tax rate increases. It does mean tax revenue increases from current or even reduced tax rates.

One ace-in-the-hole for Trump and Bessent will be tariffs. Those are not part of the Internal Revenue Code, but they do generate government revenues. The U.S. began tariffs in 1790, but the Internal Revenue Code did not come into being until 1913.

For 123 years, the U.S. government-funded itself mostly with tariffs, excise taxes, and borrowing without the benefit of income taxes. The U.S. currently imports over $3.5 trillion of goods per year. If only half were subject to tariffs of 10%, that would generate $175 billion of new revenue, which goes a long way to reaching Bessent’s deficit reduction goals.

Now the genius of the Three Arrows plan becomes clear. If nominal GDP growth is 5% (3% real + 2% inflation), and nominal deficits are kept to 3% of GDP, that means nominal growth is higher than the nominal deficit and the debt-to-GDP ratio is declining. That’s the key to sustainability.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 13:00

Nick Fuentes Survives Apparent Assassination Attempt After Doxxing, Suspect Shot Dead By Police

America First's Nick Fuentes says that an armed assassin attempted to take him out on Wednesday evening after he was doxxed.

"Last night an armed killer made an attempt on my life at my home, which was recently doxed on this platform," Fuentes posted on X, adding that the assassin was armed with a pistol, a crossbow, and incendiary devices.

"He is now dead. I am okay!" Fuentes added.

According to police, the would-be assassin committed a triple homicide in southern Illinois early yesterday before he arrived at my doorstep with his pistol drawn, calling my name.

I am grateful to God that I am still alive today.

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) December 19, 2024

Fuentes then wrote: "Tragically, the gunman broke into a neighbors home to evade police & killed two of their dogs," adding "Doxing is not a game. This nihilistic lynch mob behavior must end before anyone else is killed."

He also posted video of the suspect approaching his house.

The killer parked his car in front of my house and approached my door with his pistol drawn and what appears to be a crossbow. I was livestreaming at the time.

He rings the door bell, tries the doorknob and yells “yo Nick!” pic.twitter.com/5y1LF3Dv56

— Nicholas J. Fuentes (@NickJFuentes) December 19, 2024

Journalist Laura Loomer posted: "MTG’s intern is the person who doxxed Nick and is now being accused by many online of trying to get him murdered in screenshots leaked that suggest he sent out Nick’s full dox and also suggest he allegedly asked people to pay a visit to him at his home."

MTG’s intern is the person who doxxed Nick and is now being accused by many online of trying to get him murdered in screenshots leaked that suggest he sent out Nick’s full dox and also suggest he allegedly asked people to pay a visit to him at his home.

There should be a…

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) December 20, 2024

Looks like one of MTG’s @mtgreenee interns (who lived with her at her own house in Rome, Georgia) is being accused of plotting and or participating in an assassination attempt.

Very disturbing behavior that warrants a criminal investigation. https://t.co/4gDGPs4mdj

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) December 20, 2024

Berwyn, Illinois PD put out a statement on Thursday shedding more light on the incident (via slightlyoffensive.com), which confirms that the suspect was linked to a triple homicide earlier in the day in Mahomet, Illinois, and that after running into a neighbor's yard, he "disobeyed the officers' verbal commands to stop and proceeded to shoot at police officers. Berwyn Police Officers returned fire and fatally struck the subject."

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 12:40

Tax Preparer 'The Magician' Pleads Guilty To Defrauding IRS Of $145 Million

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A New York tax preparer, nicknamed The Magician, pleaded guilty to duping the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with fake returns filed on behalf of his clients for several years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The Department of Justice seal is seen on a lectern ahead of a press conference in Washington on Nov. 28, 2018. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Rafael Alvarez, 61, was charged with one count of conspiring to defraud the United States and stealing government funds and one count of assisting in the preparation of false tax returns, according to a Dec. 17 statement from the agency.

“The charges arise from Alvarez’s orchestration of a decade-long, $145 million tax fraud scheme to file tens of thousands of federal individual income tax returns that included false information designed to fraudulently reduce the individuals’ tax burden.”

Alvarez pleaded guilty on Tuesday and, as part of the plea, agreed to pay the IRS $145 million in restitution. The tax preparer also forfeited more than $11.84 million he collected from his criminal actions.

The charges stem from Alvarez’s actions roughly between 2010 and 2020, when he was the CEO and owner of Bronx-based ATAX New York, LLC, a “high-volume tax preparation company.”

Alvarez and his employees submitted false information about customers on their tax returns, like fake business expenses, non-existent capital losses, and false itemized tax deductions. This enabled them to reduce the tax liability of ATAX customers and increase IRS refunds for the clients.

In total, roughly 90,000 federal income tax returns were prepared by ATAX.

“Alvarez was so consistent at falsifying ATAX customer tax returns that he became known to ATAX’s customers as ‘the Magician,’” the DOJ stated.

The count of conspiring to defraud the United States carries a potential maximum prison sentence of five years, and the false returns count carries a jail term of up to three years. Sentencing in the case is set for April 11.

“Today’s guilty plea, in one of the largest ever tax frauds by a return preparer, should serve as an important reminder to tax professionals that this Office will vigorously investigate and prosecute tax offenses,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim.

According to the IRS, anyone who assists or prepares federal tax returns for an individual in exchange for a payment must have a preparer tax identification number (PTIN). The PTIN must be renewed every year. As of Dec. 2, close to 850,000 people had current PTINs in the United States.

Fraud Cases

Multiple legal actions have been taken against fraudulent tax preparers over the past months.

In November, a tax preparer from Somerville, Massachusetts, was convicted of preparing false tax returns. Between 2012 and 2020, Yves Isidor, the defendant, prepared and filed over 1,200 tax returns for clients. He added false tax claims like non-existent medical and dental expenses and charity gifts.

The clients received refunds to which they were not entitled. During the trial, six taxpayers testified they had no idea that Isidor had added false items to their tax returns.

“When someone hires an individual to complete your tax returns, they have a right to expect honesty, professionalism, and integrity. Most importantly, you expect them to provide accurate information to the IRS,” said Acting United States Attorney Joshua S. Levy.

“Yves Isidor lied to his clients, who had no idea that he had improperly filed tax returns on their behalf until they were contacted by investigators and alerted to the false information in their returns. Tax fraud is not a victimless crime. We all suffer when people like Yves Isidor lie and cheat the tax system.”

Earlier in October, another tax preparer was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison, also for filing false income returns.

The defendant filed 83 federal returns over a roughly three-year period that contained fake items like business expenses, tips, and salaries. Most of the clients neither owned a business nor discussed any business expenses with the preparer.

In April last year, the IRS warned against unscrupulous tax preparers who seek to “tempt taxpayers into fraud” through various schemes while charging high fees.

Even if a taxpayer is duped into filing a return with false information by the preparer, “taxpayers are legally responsible for what’s on their return,” the agency said. The IRS recommends that people use reputable professionals to file returns.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 11:00

Trump Warns EU: Buy American Oil & Gas Or Face Tariff War 

"I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large-scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!" President-elect Donald Trump warned early Friday morning on Truth Social. 

According to the Office of the US Trade Representative, the US trade deficit in goods and services with the EU totaled $131.3 billion in 2022. Following Trump's presidential victory last month, the EU has been gearing up for a potential trade war with Trump. 

The good news is that the US has become the world's largest crude oil producer and the top LNG exporter. As Brussels and Washington work aggressively to curtail Russia's energy flows into Europe—whether crude oil, refined products, or NatGas—the US is well-positioned to fill the gap. 

Bloomberg noted that the euro traded slightly higher, up about .3% to $1.0398, amid signs that EU officials may increase energy imports from the US in 2025 to avoid a full-blown trade war and remain in Trump's good graces.

In late November, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Group of Seven conference in Italy that the EU is "well-prepared for the possibility that things will become different with a new US administration," adding, "If the new US administration pursues an 'America first' policy in the sectors of climate or trade, then our response will be 'Europe united.'"

The EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said last month that US LNG has the potential to replace the bloc's remaining imports of Russian LNG. 

"We still get a whole lot of LNG via Russia, from Russia," von der Leyen said, adding, "And why not replace it with American LNG, which is cheaper, and brings down our energy prices."

NEW: President of the European Union commission says they want to start buying oil from the United States and not Russia.

Trump wins the election and the world falls in line. Remarkable.

“We still get a lot of [liquified natural gas] from Russia, and why not replace it by… pic.twitter.com/E6OwSN6UrR

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 8, 2024

The US is already Europe's largest provider of LNG, but imports from Russia remain number two. Brussels continues to search for new ways to curb Moscow's energy flows into the continent, which will only suggest US energy supplies will be the eventual replacement. We commented earlier this week on the latest fiasco with Russian NatGas pumped into Ukraine, then Slovakia, which is set to be halted at the first of the year. 

Final Countdown: Slovakia Warns Of "Economic Damage" As Ukraine NatGas Transit Nears End https://t.co/YIMOHCx7uZ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 18, 2024

However, Bloomberg pointed out, "The US doesn't have much more capacity to increase shipments. And since LNG is sold through long-term contracts, adding shipments to Europe would require original buyers of the gas to agree to divert its shipments to Europe — but that wouldn't boost the amount being exported by the US," adding, "Over the longer term, more capacity will come on line with dozens of projects in the US currently in the works." 

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:40

50% Of Canadian Manufacturers Considering Layoffs If Trump Tariffs Enacted

Authored by Andrew Chen via The Epoch Times,

Nearly half of Canadian manufacturers may freeze hiring or lay off workers if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump imposes 25 percent tariffs on all Canadian goods.

A survey of 300 manufacturers found that 48 percent are considering these moves in response to the proposed tariffs, according to data released Dec. 19 by Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME).

Additionally, 46 percent are considering postponing or cancelling planned capital investments, while 49 percent say they may shift some production to the U.S. if the tariffs are implemented.

“Tariffs will endanger nearly $600 billion in exports to our largest trading partner, two-thirds of which are manufactured goods,” CME president and CEO Dennis Darby said in a press release.

“These findings show why we need an urgent and coordinated response from governments to protect manufacturing businesses, workers, and families.”

Failure to do so “will be devastating for our economy,” Darby said.

Trump threatened the 25 percent tariff against Canada, as well as Mexico, in a series of Truth Social posts on Nov. 25, saying the tariffs will come into effect unless the two countries address the issue of illegal immigration and illicit drugs entering the United States through their borders.

On Dec. 17, the federal government announced it would spend $1.3 billion over six years to bolster border security. The funding will support law enforcement agencies with the use of artificial intelligence and imaging tools to detect and intercept fentanyl and its precursor chemicals entering Canada.

The Canada Border Services Agency will train and deploy new canine teams to assist in drug interception, and Health Canada will establish a Canadian Drug Profiling Centre to support 2,000 investigations annually and expand capacity at regional labs.

The investment will also provide new tools for the RCMP, including a new Aerial Intelligence Task Force comprised of helicopters, drones, and mobile surveillance towers. Counter-drone technology will support RCMP officers and provide 24/7 surveillance between ports of entry, according to the government’s announcement.

Ottawa will improve information sharing with the United States and between different levels of government and law enforcement. This will help officials respond more effectively to illegal border crossings by enhancing real-time intelligence, tracking migration trends, and improving coordination.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:20

UMich Inflation Expectations Rise, Driven By Downbeat Democrats

The headline UMich Sentiment survey rose to its highest since April to end the year, thanks to a post-election surge in Current Conditions that more than dominated a dip in Expectations...

Source: Bloomberg

Inflation expectations were mixed with the short-term rising and longer-term falling post-election...

Source: Bloomberg

But breaking down inflation expectation by political party... it's pretty easy to see which way The FOMC leans...

Source: Bloomberg

Overall, Republicans are significantly more confident than Democrats since the election...

Source: Bloomberg

UMich's Director of Surveys, Joanne Hsu, notes that "Broadly speaking, consumers believe that the economy has improved considerably as inflation has slowed, but they do not feel that they are thriving; sentiment is currently about midway between the all-time low reached in June 2022 and pre-pandemic readings."

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 10:10

Crypto ETFs See Huge Outflows As 'Buy The Dip' Sentiment Soars

Bitcoin is extending its tumble from record highs this morning, touching a $92,000 handle before bouncing back a little.

The downward momentum saw massive net outflows from ETFs (second largest daily net outflow on record)...

Source: Bloomberg

But while the net outflows were huge, we point out that IBIT (BlackRock's market dominating ETF) saw ZERO outflows in BTC or ETH)...

BTC ETF flows were dominated by ARK and Fidelity...

ETH ETF flows...

But, amid the collapse, CoinTelegraph reports that the proportion of social posts about buying the crypto dip has surged to its highest level since April, as Bitcoin fell below the psychological $100,000 price level, according to recent data.

“With Bitcoin falling as low as $95.5K today, the ratio of crypto discussions that are about buying crypto’s dip has reached its highest level in over 8 months,” crypto analysis firm Santiment said in a Dec. 19 X post.

Highest social dominance score in 8 months

The social dominance score - mentions of “buying the dip” across social media platforms - hit 0.061 on Dec. 19, as Bitcoin had remained below $100,000 for about 12 hours at the time of publication.

It was the highest social dominance score since April 12, when Bitcoin’s price dropped below the $70,000 mark to just above $67,000, before falling to about $63,000 the following day.

It almost retested this score on Aug. 4, when Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 and slid toward $53,000 within the following 24 hours.

It may not be the perfect time to BTFD quite yet though as global liquidity is signaling a retracement in BTC prices in the short-term...

Meanwhile, data shows that search interest for the term “crypto” remains high but has dropped since the start of December.

According to Google Trends data from the past 12 months, global searches for “crypto” are at a score of 75 over the past seven days, down 25 points from a score of 100 at the beginning of December.

Finally, there are some buyers still as CoinTelegraph reports that El Salvador bought $1 million worth of Bitcoin a day after striking a $1.4 billion deal with the International Monetary Fund that stipulated limits on dealing with the cryptocurrency.

The country’s National Bitcoin Office wrote in a Dec. 19 X post that it had “transferred over a million dollars worth of Bitcoin to our Strategic Bitcoin Reserve,” with its website showing it had added 11 Bitcoin to its holdings.

The move broke its streak of adding “one Bitcoin per day” that President Nayib Bukele announced in November 2022 and brought the country’s holdings to 5,980.77 BTC, worth about $580 million with BTC trading at around $97,000.

National Bitcoin Office Director Stacy Herbert said in a Dec. 19 X post that El Salvador “will continue buying Bitcoin (at possibly an accelerated pace).”

On Dec. 18, Bukele’s government struck a financing agreement with the IMF, which asked the country to wind down some of its Bitcoin dealings to receive $1.4 billion from the global lender over the next 40 months. 

The IMF said that as part of the deal, El Salvador’s government-led Bitcoin activity, transactions and purchases would “be confined.”

The country also agreed to make private sector acceptance of Bitcoin voluntary, allow taxes to be paid only in US dollars and unwind government involvement in its Chivo crypto wallet.

A Bitcoin Office spokesperson told Cointelegraph at the time that it “will keep buying one Bitcoin a day (likely even more in the future), and we will not sell any of our current holdings,” adding that “Bitcoin continues to be our main strategy.”

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 09:50

The View Quickly Walks Back Suggestion Elon Musk & JD Vance Are Plotting To Kill Trump

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The level of batshittery on The View just got ratcheted up several more notches as the cackling witches suggested that Elon Musk is conspiring with JD Vance to get rid of Trump.

Host Whoopi Goldberg ranted “Who is in charge? Because I’ve been saying it for a while. I’ve been saying that I think Elon Musk believes he’s President. I do.”

“Well, you can call him Vice President,” Joy Behar interjected, prompting Goldberg to continue ranting “I’ve called him Vice President. I called him President because I don’t know what JD is doing. I hardly ever said. I don’t remember the last time we even talked about JD.”

They’re not even in office yet. What is he supposed to be doing?

“He’s planning the presidency when he got to get rid of Trump,” Behar claimed out of nowhere.

“So you think it’s Musk, Vance?” Goldberg asked her, to which she responded “Possible.”

Goldberg then offered some advice to Trump, “Stay away from the stairways. People put their leg out to trip people down the stairs. Watch out.”

ABC News moderators Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar claim Elon Musk and JD Vance are planning to kill Trump and usurp control of the government together as Musk/Vance.
"[Trump] stay away from the stairways." - Whoopi pic.twitter.com/bMRmOSwdrk

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) December 19, 2024

When they returned for their next 4 minute segment after the 50th commercial break, Goldberg had obviously been told to tone it down and backtrack as she stated “I need to clean something up because my cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time. And that’s what I was thinking of. I wasn’t trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip.”

“No, nobody wants anything done to the President,” Sunny Hostin chimed in.

Goldberg continued, “No, it was light-hearted, and it’s the holidays. Come on. My goodness. You did not mean that anybody should hurt the President. No.”

She then added, “Okay. You think about this show, there’s no way not to step in poop. There’s no way to do it. There’s no way not to do it. For all of you who are waiting and saying, ‘Oh, my God, listen to what she said,’ I got a cat who does it to me every day. That’s what sparked.”

After a commercial break, Whoopi tries to downplay her assassination comments about Trump by claiming she was thinking about her cat: "My cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time and that's what I was referring [to]."
"No one wants anything done to the President." Hostin pic.twitter.com/4qUc0thEYT

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) December 19, 2024

There’s no way for you not to step in poop Whoopi, because you’re putting out the most batshit crazy nonsense every day and getting called out for it.

It can only be a matter of time before this show is yanked off the air for good.

* * *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 08:50

Fed's Favorite Inflation Indicator Holds At 7-Month High

The Fed's favorite (until it starts rising) inflation indicator - Core PCE - printed cooler than expected for November (+0.1% MoM vs +0.2% MoM exp) which held it steady at +2.8% YoY (below the expected 2.9%) - tied for the highest since April...

Source: Bloomberg

However, Headline PCE rose to +2.4% from +2.3% - its highest since July...

Durable (and non-durable) Goods Deflation has all but evaporated now...

The so-called SuperCore - Core Services Ex-Shelter PCE - rose 0.16% MoM leaving the index up 3.51% YoY (steady at its highest since April)...

Finally, both the cyclical and acyclical components of inflation are on the rise once again (the latter being out of the control of The Fed implicitly)...

Source: Bloomberg

Not a good sign and perhaps The SF Fed's report is what prompted Powell's pivot to the hawkish dark-side. Or is this what he realy fears?

Source: Bloomberg

Of course, we all know who will get the blame if that replay occurs!

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 08:36

S&P Tumbles, Set For Biggest Weekly Drop Since September Ahead Of Massive $6.5 Trillion OpEx

US equity futures and global markets are broadly risk-off to end a turbulent week after the US House rejected a temporary funding plan backed by Donald Trump (38 republicans voted against the bill) which would have avoided a gov’t shutdown that otherwise will start a midnight, with trade war concerns mounting (Trump said “I told the European Union that they must make up their tremendous deficit with the US by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise it is tariffs all the way!!!”). Expect elevated volumes today due to the last option expirty/quarterly rebalance of the year. As of 8:00am ET, S&P futures are down 0.8%, Nasdaq futs tumble 1.4%, with technology stalwarts such as Tesla and Nvidia sliding in early trading as momentum reversed with a bang. Europe’s Stoxx 600 weakened 1.7% as Novo Nordisk A/S fell by the most on record on the back of disappointing data from a treatment trial; the rest of the world not much better: FTSE -95bps, DAX -1.3%, CAC -1.05%, Nikkei-29bps, Hang Seng -16bps, Shanghai -6bps. 10Y treasury yields dipped a little after surging in the past three days, down 2bps to 4.54%, with the Bloomberg US dollar index also easing back a bit as both the yen and euro gain. Bitcoin tumbled amid the riskoff mood, sliding as much as 8% to a low of $92K and dragging down MicroStrategy Inc. and other crypto-related companies in premarket trading. Oil reversed earlier losses with gold also rising on expectations of aggressive Chinese stimulus. Today's economic calendar will see the November core PCE, personal income and spending as well as the latest UMich data.

In premarket trading, FedEx rose 6% after the company said it plans to spin off its freight division into a separate publicly traded company in a deal that will streamline the parcel giant.  Eli Lilly jumped 5% after competitor Novo Nordisk A/S gave data from a highly anticipated trial of its experimental weight loss drug, CagriSema, that fell short of expectations. Nike meanwhile tumbled 7% as management expected revenue in the current quarter to decline in the low double digits, a steeper drop than the 7.7% decline posted last quarter. Here are the other notable premarket movers:

• Clearwater Paper Corp. (CLW) rises 14% as Brazil’s Suzano SA is exploring an offer for the company, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
• Coinbase (COIN) drops 6%, down along with other stocks that have exposure to cryptocurrencies, as interest-rate caution from the Fed this week dampens sentiment on speculative investments. Robinhood (HOOD) -6%, MicroStrategy (MSTR)  -6%
• Humacyte (HUMA) jumps 56% after the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval of its bio-engineered human tissue product for adults with arterial injury.
• Occidental Petroleum (OXY) rises 2% after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway increased its stake in the energy company.
• US Steel (X) drops 6% after the steel producer warned its fourth-quarter earnings will be lower than anticipated as steel prices remain depressed in the US and as the demand environment in Europe is weak.

The S&P 500 was heading for its biggest weekly drop since at least September, with the index down 3% on the week after the Fed's political hawkish pivot sparked a global selloff.

Stock market volatility spiked in recent days as a hawkish pivot by the Federal Reserve made traders question whether this year’s tech-fueled rally could extend further in a higher rates environment, despite a resilient US economy.  Friday’s personal consumption expenditures data for November, the Fed’s preferred measure of underlying inflation, will offer further clues on 2025’s rate path. For now, the swaps market is implying between one and two quarter-point reductions for next year, a decrease from a month ago when two cuts were fully priced.

Adding to the nerves is Friday’s US options expiration, which has historically stoked turbulence, and offers a final hurdle to end-of-year calm. The quarterly “triple-witching” will see a whopping $6.5 trillion worth of options tied to individual stocks, indexes and exchange-traded funds fall off the board, this year’s largest. The opex will also collapse the dealer gamma, unclenching the market, and allowing for much wider volatility in the coming (very illiquid) days.

The fact that CTAs are also sellers in all scenarios (according to Goldman) isn't helping the already downbeat mood.

1 Week:

• Flat Tape = $10.2bn for SALE
• Up 2Stdv = $7bn for SALE
• Down 2.5Stdv = $14.5bn for SALE

1 Month:

• Flat Tape = $24bn for SALE
• Up 2Stdv = $2.5bn for SALE
• Down 2.5Stdv = $60bn for SALE

Concerns are also growing about the implications of the Republican-led House rejecting a temporary funding plan backed by President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, with a US government shutdown looming in less than 24 hours.

The development can “inevitably increase the market volatility in the short term, especially after Fed’s hawkish pivot two days ago,” Jasmine Duan, a senior investment strategist at RBC Wealth Management Asia, told Bloomberg TV. Investors face risks from “potentially more sticky inflation and also the debt issue in the US,” she said.

“There’s plenty of room for volatility to kick in and a selloff to take place,” said Neil Birrell, chief investment officer at Premier Miton Investors. “There’s going to be less liquidity as well. You’ll see a rapid pace of moves taking place as people adjust their portfolios for the year-end and that could affect all asset classes.”

European stocks also slumped with all sectors dropping; banks, miners and construction are the worst-performing sectors. Euro Stoxx 50 slumps 1.2% as Novo Nordisk A/S fell by the most on record on the back of disappointing data from a treatment trial. FTSE 100 outperforms peers, dropping 0.5%. Here are some of the biggest movers on Friday:

• Fraport gains as much as 8% as JPMorgan upgraded the Frankfurt airport operator to overweight, following its announcement that it has closed a four-year deal with airlines on fees.
• Sobi gains as much as 3.1%, the most in almost a month, after the Swedish biotechnology firm saw its rating upgraded to buy from hold at DNB, with the broker saying the company is “on course for a strong 4Q.”
• Belships rises 27%. Blue Northern, an SPV, will start a recommended voluntary cash tender offer of NOK20.50 per share to acquire all issued and outstanding shares in Belships, according to a statement after market close Thursday.
• RAI Way shares rise as much as 4.1% in Milan trading after the owners of the state-backed TV operator and its local rival Ei Towers SpA signed a memorandum to explore a possible merger.
• Tomra gains as much as 7.3% after Pareto Securities double-upgraded the Norwegian recycling-systems manufacturer, citing improving long-term prospects in Europe.
• Zealand Pharma shares drop as much as 11% after the FDA wrote a letter recommending an additional clinical trial for the Danish drugmaker’s experimental medicine glepaglutide for short bowel syndrome.
• Hornbach shares fall as much as 13% after the German home store operator’s third-quarter results showed the impact of lower sales, especially in Germany, and salary increases.
• Idorsia shares plunge as much as 47%, the most on record, after the Swiss pharmaceuticals producer said it’s considering options to extend its operational cash runway after the signing of a planned global rights deal for aprocitentan won’t be achieved in 2024.
• TeamViewer shares fall as much as 4.6% on Friday to the lowest in over two years, as Goldman Sachs downgraded its recommendation on the stock to neutral from buy, saying the software firm’s recent acquisition of 1E makes its outlook for shareholder returns less attractive.

Asian stocks fell for a sixth day, heading for their longest losing streak in eight months, as traders continued to mull the prospect of a more hawkish Federal Reserve. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index dropped as much as 0.7%, with TSMC and Alibaba Group among the biggest contributors to its decline. Tech-heavy benchmarks in South Korea and Taiwan were among the region’s worst performers, declining more than 1% each. The after-effects of this week’s relatively hawkish Fed meeting continued to weigh on Asian stocks, with the regional benchmark less than 1% away from falling into a technical correction. Traders awaited US inflation data due later Friday for further clues on the central bank’s policy outlook.

In FX, a Bloomberg gauge for the dollar was on course for its best week in a month despite ticking down on Friday.  AUD and SEK are the weakest performers in G-10 FX; JPY and CHF outperform. The yen erased losses after Japan’s key inflation gauge strengthened for the first time in three months and Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato warned Japan would take appropriate action if there are excessive moves in the yen. BRL leads gains in EMFX, rising 2.5% with Brazil’s congress inching closer to delivering a diluted spending plan. A key gauge of Asian shares dropped for a sixth day.

In rates, treasuries are richer across the curve with gains on the day led by the front- and belly, keeping 2s10s and 5s30s spread near Thursday’s session highs.  Treasury yields richer by 4bp to 1bp across the curve with front-end led gains steepening 2s10s spread by 1.5bp on the day and 5s30s by 3.5bp; 10-year yields trade around 4.54%, richer by 2bp on the day with bunds lagging by 1.5bp in the sector and gilts slightly outperforming. Similar bull-steepening trends seen across core European rates over the early London session while S&P futures, European stocks trade lower in a risk-off backdrop. Treasury auctions resume Dec. 23 with $69b 2-year note sale, followed by $70b 5-year and $44b 7-year note sales Dec. 24 and Dec. 26

In commodities, WTI drifts 1% lower to trade near $68.68. Most base metals are in the green. Spot gold rises roughly $10 to trade near $2,604/oz. Bitcoin falls below $95,000.

Today's US economic calendar includes November personal income/spending, PCE price index (8:30am), December University of Michigan sentiment (10am) and Kansas City Fed services index (11am). The Fed speaker schedule includes Daly due to appear on Bloomberg TV (7:30am) and Williams on CNBC (8:30am)

Market Snapshot

• S&P 500 futures down 0.7% to 5,826.50
• STOXX Europe 600 down 1.0% to 501.63
• MXAP down 0.8% to 179.14
• MXAPJ down 1.2% to 565.83
• Nikkei down 0.3% to 38,701.90
• Topix down 0.4% to 2,701.99
• Hang Seng Index down 0.2% to 19,720.70
• Shanghai Composite little changed at 3,368.07
• Sensex down 1.5% to 78,039.19
• Australia S&P/ASX 200 down 1.2% to 8,066.96
• Kospi down 1.3% to 2,404.15
• German 10Y yield little changed at 2.31%
• Euro up 0.2% to $1.0383
• Brent Futures down 1.0% to $72.17/bbl
• Gold spot up 0.4% to $2,603.73
• US Dollar Index down 0.17% to 108.22

Top Overnight News

• China’s one-year bond yields plunged 17 bps to the lowest since 2003, just a few hours after sliding below the psychological barrier of 1%. The stars seem to be aligned for this year’s rally to extend well into 2025. BBG
• Japan’s national CPI for Nov accelerates vs. Oct, with the headline jumping to +2.9% (up from +2.3% in Oct and inline w/the Street) and ex-food/energy climbing to +2.4% (up from +2.3% in Oct and inline w/the Street). WSJ
• Russia’s central bank unexpectedly held rates at 21%, saying monetary conditions tightened and inflation expectations continue to rise. BBG
• UK retail sales for Nov rebounded from Oct, but still fell short of the consensus forecast at +0.3% M/M ex-fuel (vs. -0.9% in Oct and vs. the Street consensus of +0.5%). WSJ
• US president-elect Donald Trump has warned the EU that it must commit to buying “large scale” amounts of US oil and gas or face tariffs. The EU has spent the past month increasing purchases of US goods such as liquified natural gas and agricultural products as means to potentially avoid tariffs from the US. FT
• Brazil’s senators are set to vote on a bill today that further dilutes a package of spending cuts meant to buoy markets. The central bank will step in again to support the real with a FX credit line auction of as much as $4 billion and a spot auction of up to $3 billion. BBG
• The Republican-led House rejected a temporary funding plan backed by Donald Trump to avoid a government shutdown that’ll otherwise happen at midnight. Trump wants a deal that sets March 14 as the new funding deadline and either raises or eliminates the debt ceiling. Thirty-eight GOP lawmakers and almost all Democrats voted against the package. BBG
• NKE (Nike) -4% in the pre as forward guidance/commentary given on call last night came in well below consensus and overshadowed the strong quarter that originally drove stock +10% to $85 post press release.
• AVGO (Broadcom) CEO Hock Tan says the AI spending boom will continue until the end of the decade (“they are investing full-tilt”) as customers seek out the company’s chips as a cheaper alternative to Nvidia. FT

A more detailed look at global markets courtesy of Newsquawk

APAC stocks eventually traded mixed following a mostly lower open after the lead from Wall Street as markets digest a slew of central bank decisions whilst still feeling the hangover from the Fed. ASX 200 was pressured by heavyweight financial, materials, and healthcare sectors, whilst Utilities and IT bucked the trend and posted mild gains. Nikkei 225 was briefly supported by the recent JPY weakness, although later faltered as JPY eventually strengthened following hotter-than-expected CPI and currency jawboning by Japanese officials. Hang Seng and Shanghai Comp both opened lower and trimmed losses to later trade, with Chinese markets unfazed as the PBoC maintained its LPRs.

Top Asian News

• Japan cuts view on corporate profits for the first time since March 2023; says economy is recovering moderately.
• China intends to cut tax evasion at online platforms, according to Xinhua.
• PBoC maintained 1yr LPR at 3.10% and 5yr LPR at 3.60% as expected.
• Japan Finance Minister Kato said no comment on FX levels; recently seeing one-sided, sharp moves; will take appropriate action against excessive moves; concerned about recent FX moves, including those driven by speculators, according to Reuters Kato added that it is important for currencies to move in a stable manner reflecting fundamentals.
• Japan's top currency diplomat Mimura said gravely concerned about forex moves, and will take appropriate action against excessive forex moves, alarmed including over speculative moves, according to Reuters.
• South Korea to relax FX regulations to improve liquidity conditions, according to the finance ministry.

European bourses began the morning entirely in the red, and continued to proceed lower as the session progressed; as it stands, indices generally reside at worst levels. As it stands, all European sectors find themselves in the red; in-fitting with sentiment. Whilst still in the red, Real Estate fares the best vs peers. Banks are by far the clear underperformer, weighed on by Deutsche Bank, which expects a Q4 EUR 300mln hit due to its Polish subsidiary litigation. US equity futures are in negative territory and drifting lower as the session progresses, following the glum mood seen in European trade. Foxconn (2354 TT) to pause pursuit of Nissan (7201 JT) as Honda (7267 JT) deal talks unfold, via Bloomberg citing sources

Top European News

• UK Chancellor Reeves is posed to visit China in January to revive high-level economic and financial talks, according to Reuters sources.
• NIER sees Swedish GDP for 2025 +1.2%. See the Riksbank rate averaging 1.5% in 2025 and 1.5% in 2026

FX

• USD is giving back some of its gains which saw DXY top the 11th November 2022 peak overnight (108.44) to make a 108.48 high. Today will see a slew of Fed speakers on the wires who can help further explain the announcement. Williams, Daly, Hammack are all due on deck with particular interest on the latter given her hawkish dissent at the meeting.
• EUR is edging out slight gains vs. the USD but remains on a 1.03 handle after printing a fresh low for the month earlier @ 1.0344 in the wake of comments from US President-elect Trump cautioning that the EU "must make up their tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!". It is worth noting that there is some huge option activity in EUR/USD for today's NY cut, detailed below.
• JPY is attempting to undo some of the damage seen over the past few sessions as a hawkish Fed cut and lack of a hike from the BoJ has driven the pair from a 153.32 base on Wednesday to a multi-month high overnight at 157.92. Some respite has been granted following hotter-than-expected Japanese CPI overnight and currency jawboning by Japanese officials, who expressed concerns over recent JPY moves.
• GBP flat vs. the USD and lagging peers following soft UK retail sales data for November in what has been a generally busy week for UK data as well as yesterday's dovish hold by the BoE. Cable has slipped onto a 1.24 handle for the first time since 22nd November with a current session trough at 1.2476.
• AUD unable to make much headway vs. the broadly softer USD in what has been a bruising week for AUD/USD after the pair made a fresh YTD low yesterday at 0.6200 to hit its lowest level since October 2022. Similar price action for NZD/USD which hit a fresh YTD low yesterday at 0.5609 to trade at its lowest level since October 2022.
• PBoC set USD/CNY mid-point at 7.1901 vs exp. 7.3086 (prev. 7.1911)
• Brazil called an FX credit line auction of up to USD 4bln on December 20th, according to Bloomberg.

USTs

• USTs are modestly firmer but yet to significantly deviate from the unchanged mark in 108-19+ to 108-26+ parameters. Docket ahead features monthly PCE data before the docket turns to Central Bank speak with Fed’s Williams, Daly & Hammack scheduled; the latter is set to explain her dissent. The yield curve continues to steepen though action is modest and a function of the short-end continuing to pull back from post-Fed highs.
• Bunds are incrementally firmer, but similarly to USTs are yet to deviate lastingly from the unchanged mark but have printed a slightly more expansive 133.81 to 134.10 range. Bunds did come under modest pressure on a much hotter than expected German PPI release; but did since pare alongside peers.
• Gilts opened higher by a single tick before slipping to a 92.18 trough and then paring back to unchanged. Since, action has been very limited and choppy in 92.18-48 parameters. Before the open, Retail Sales came in softer than expected but still posted a recovery from the prior.

Commodities

• WTI and Brent are softer, continuing to falter after Thursday’s reports that the G7 could adjust the Russian energy price cap with pressure also stemming from the downbeat risk tone. Brent'Feb 25 currently reside near lows at USD 72.20/bbl.
• Gold is firmer and holding around the USD 2.6k/oz mark in a thin range with catalysts for the metal light and after trading flat overnight. XAU is holding in proximity to the 100-DMA at USD 2606/oz.
• 3M LME Copper is defying the risk tone and holding modestly in the green, though still yet to test USD 9k/handle yet.
• India's finished steel imports from China reach all-time high during April-November, according to Govt data.
• German Parliament has passed its energy law: will accommodate the waiver of internal gas storage levy at intra-EU border points and virtual trading hubs. This entails the gas levy payable to the operator Trading Hub Europe to apply to domestic customers only from Jan 1st 2025.
• Russia's Kremlin says will act to counter the possible new G7 oil sanctions; will act to minimise any consequences and protect Russian companies, measures will backfire on those who take them.

Geopolitics

• "Israel's Channel 14 on security officials: Israel is preparing for a new attack against the Houthis in Yemen", according to Sky News Arabia.
• "Israel's Channel 13 on officials: optimism remains high that a deal with Hamas is imminent.", according to Sky News Arabia
• "7 strong explosions are heard in the Ukrainian capital Kiev", according to Sky News Arabia; Ukraine air defence repelling an attack on Kyiv, according to official cited by Reuters.
• Russia fired a series of Kinjal hypersonic missiles on the capital Kiev, according to Sky News Arabia.

US event calendar

• 08:30: Nov. Personal Income, est. 0.4%, prior 0.6%
• 08:30: Nov. PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.2%
• 08:30: Nov. Core PCE Price Index YoY, est. 2.9%, prior 2.8%
• 08:30: Nov. Core PCE Price Index MoM, est. 0.2%, prior 0.3%
• 08:30: Nov. PCE Price Index YoY, est. 2.5%, prior 2.3%
• 08:30: Nov. Real Personal Spending, est. 0.3%, prior 0.1%
• 08:30: Nov. Personal Spending, est. 0.5%, prior 0.4%
• 10:00: Dec. U. of Mich. 5-10 Yr Inflation, est. 3.1%, prior 3.1%
• 10:00: Dec. U. of Mich. 1 Yr Inflation, est. 2.9%, prior 2.9%
• 10:00: Dec. U. of Mich. Expectations, est. 71.9, prior 71.6
• 10:00: Dec. U. of Mich. Current Conditions, est. 77.1, prior 77.7
• 10:00: Dec. U. of Mich. Sentiment, est. 74.2, prior 74.0
• 11:00: Dec. Kansas City Fed Services Activ, prior 9

DB's Jim Reid concludes the overnight wrap

Welcome to the last EMR of 2024. Happy holidays from Henry, Peter, Asim and myself. I say this every year but a huge thanks for reading and interacting with us this year. Thanks for voting in the II survey again where we found out last week we had another couple of 1st places in the global analyst awards. It really means a lot that you took the time to vote, so many thanks. I'll be off skiing as of Monday but before I go it’s become a tradition to list my favourite TV shows of the year which I'll do at the end. Regular readers know that if I'm not travelling I try to escape to an hour of TV a night with my wife in between edits of the EMR. I hope you've enjoyed some of these too.

Before unveiling the rather salacious number one entry on the list, we have the small matter of a nervy last full week of the year to comment on with a possible US government shutdown dominating proceedings. For those wanting a quiet run up to Xmas, the good news is that there hasn't been any real follow-through to the Fed-induced slump on Wednesday. The bad news is that an initial recovery in markets struggled to gain traction yesterday, with the S&P 500 (-0.09%) posting a joint record 14th consecutive day of decliners outnumbering advancers. The data stretches back 100 years so this is some stat. Futures on the S&P 500 are down another -0.36% this morning, so will we break the record today?

There was also scar tissue in bond markets, with 10yr (+4.8bps) and 30yr (+6.0bps) Treasury yields reaching their highest levels since May. The one area where there was a sense that the moves may have been overdone was at the front end, where the rate priced in by the December 2025 meeting was down -4.5bps on the day to 3.96%. For all the speculation about the Fed returning to hikes, it’s worth remembering they still cut rates this week and signalled more ahead, so the easing bias remains, even if it’s not as aggressive as it was. Indeed, investors are still pricing in 37bps of cuts next year, which isn’t too far off the Fed’s median dot at 50bps. So for DB to be correct that there are no cuts next year, we will need the Fed and the market to continue to change their minds.

But when it comes to the next 24 hours, the big question now is whether a US government shutdown is about to happen. The situation has moved quickly since Wednesday, when Elon Musk fiercely criticised the stopgap spending bill negotiated in Congress, with Trump and JD Vance then coming out against it later that day. Yesterday saw House Republicans put forward an alternative proposal that would fund the government through March and raise the debt limit for two years. The debt limit issue had been pushed by Trump who even said he’d be open to abolishing the debt limit altogether, saying he “would support that entirely”. However, the latest bill was voted down by 235 votes to 174 in the House last night, with 38 Republicans joining virtually all Democrats in voting against it. This leaves the Republican House leadership searching for a Plan C with less than 24 hours to go before the shutdown deadline. And as it stands, Polymarket are currently pricing in a 64% chance of a shutdown before year-end.

Whilst all that was happening, we did get some very positive US data yesterday, which helped to reassure investors about the near-term outlook and encouraged a huge curve steepening. That included the weekly initial jobless claims, which fell back to 220k in the week ending December 14 (vs. 230k expected). In addition, the Q3 GDP data was revised higher, coming in at an annualised pace of +3.1% (vs. +2.8% before) and with the PCE inflation for Q3 revised up from +2.1% to 2.2%. The stronger data encouraged a steepening in rates with the 2s10s curve moving up +8.8bps to 24.1bps, which is its steepest closing level since June 2022, back when the Fed began to hike by 75bps per meeting. That came amidst a continued move higher for long-end Treasury yields, as both 10yr yields (+4.8bps to 4.56%) and 30yr yields (+6.0bps to 4.74%) rose to their highest levels since May. This was again driven by real yields, with the 10yr real yield on course to post its largest weekly increase since October 2023 (+21.6bps so far this week). Higher real yields also helped the dollar index (+0.35%) advance for the 9th time in 10 sessions, and up to its highest level since November 2022.

A more bullish narrative initially helped to boost US equities, with the S&P trading more than 1% higher early in the session. But this optimism faded as the day went on and the index was -0.09% lower by the close, building on its -2.95% slump the previous day. The moves were fairly muted across the major indices. The Magnificent 7 (+0.25%) edged higher but the NASDAQ (-0.10%) declined and the small-cap Russell 2000 (-0.45%) fell back to its lowest level since the US election.

Since I asked on Wednesday for a new moniker for the Mag-7 which may include fast rising Broadcom, I've had a wave of suggestions emailed through. Some of them great, some of them funny. However its hard to beat the "BAATMAAN" moniker that's been quietly doing the rounds for several weeks now. I've no idea who first came up with it but well played to them. I'm not sure if our "The Innov-eightors" or "The Domin-eightors" will catch on.

Over in Europe, the main news yesterday came from the Bank of England, who struck a more dovish note than expected. The main decision wasn’t a surprise, keeping the policy rate at 4.75%. But the decision was only made by a 6-3 vote, with the minority preferring a 25bp cut. Moreover, the statement made clear that the path was still towards further easing, and that a “gradual approach to removing monetary policy restraint remained appropriate.” In turn, that meant yields on 10yr gilts were only up +2.0bps yesterday to 4.58%, which was a much smaller rise than for 10yr bunds (+5.8bps) and OATs (+6.9bps). And perhaps most fascinatingly, 30yr gilt yields (+5.1bps) reached their highest since 2002 at 5.11% and above where they were a couple of years back during the LDI crisis.

Elsewhere in Europe, markets were catching up to the Fed’s hawkish moves the previous day, which happened after the European close. That pushed the STOXX 600 to a sharp -1.51% loss, with similar moves for the DAX (-1.35%), the CAC 40 (-1.22%) and the FTSE MIB (-1.78%). There was a particular underperformance for Swedish assets after the Riksbank’s latest policy decision as well. They cut their policy rate by 25bps, in line with expectations. But they also signalled that easing was nearing its end, saying that if the outlook were unchanged, “the policy rate may be cut once again during the first half of 2025”, with the policy rate forecast showing no further cuts beyond that out to 2027. That backdrop saw the OMX Stockholm 30 Index fall -2.23%, which was the biggest decline for the major European indices, whilst Sweden’s 10yr government bond yield was up +10.6bps.

Overnight, there’s been a fairly mixed performance for the major equity indices. In South Korea, the KOSPI (-1.58%) has experienced sharp losses, along with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 (-1.24%). However, Japanese equities have been broadly unchanged after the latest inflation data was mostly as expected. It showed headline CPI moving back up to +2.9% in November as expected, whilst core-core inflation was up to a 7-month high of +2.4%. So the Nikkei is holding steady this morning with a +0.03% gain. The main outperformer have been Chinese equities, with the CSI 300 up +0.27%, whilst the Shanghai Comp is up +0.54%. That also comes as China’s 1yr bond yield fell to 1% for the first time since 2009.

To the day ahead now, and data releases from the US include PCE inflation for November, along with the University of Michigan’s final consumer sentiment index for December. Over in Europe, we’ll get UK retail sales for November, and the European Commission’s preliminary consumer confidence reading for the Euro Area in December. Otherwise, central bank speakers include the Fed’s Daly.

See you on the other side. Happy holidays......

Tyler Durden Fri, 12/20/2024 - 08:30