STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Wednesday, 18 March 2015

[Tansy_Gold]

[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Wednesday, 18 March 2015[font color=black][/font]

SMW for 17 March 2015

AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 17 March 2015
[center][font color=red]
Dow Jones 17,849.08 -128.34 (-0.71%)
S&P 500 2,074.28 -6.91 (-0.33%)
[font color=green]Nasdaq 4,937.44 +7.93 (0.16%)


[font color=green]10 Year 2.05% -0.01 (-0.49%)
30 Year 2.60% -0.03 (-1.14%) [font color=black]


[center][/font]

[HR width=85%]

[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
[center]
(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
[/center]

[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]

[/center]

[center]

[/center]

[HR width=95%]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
[center]
Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
[center]
The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
[center]
Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout


[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
[center]
LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center]

[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
[center]
Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
[/center]

[div]
[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts







[HR width=95%]


[center]

[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]

[antigop]

1. New H-1B bill will 'help destroy' U.S. tech workforce

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2868428/new-h-1b-bill-will-help-destroy-us-tech-workforce.html

New legislation being pushed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to hike the H-1B visa cap is drawing criticism and warnings that it will lead to an increase in offshoring of tech jobs.

IEEE-USA said the legislation, introduced by a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday, will "help destroy" the U.S. tech workforce with guest workers.

Other critics, including Ron Hira, a professor of public policy at Howard University and a leading researcher on the issue, said the bill gives the tech industry "a huge increase in the supply of lower-cost foreign guest workers so they can undercut and replace American workers."

Hira said this bill "will result in an exponential rise of American jobs being shipped overseas."

Technically, the bill is a reintroduction of the earlier "I-Square" bill, but it includes enough revisions to be considered new. It increases the H-1B visa cap to 195,000 (instead of an earlier 300,000 cap), and eliminates the cap on people who earn an advanced degree in a STEM (science, technology, education and math) field.

[Demeter]

2. Just mopping up...it's already destroyed

If peace breaks out at last, it will be because the outsourced weapons never get shipped from China, India, or wherever....

[antigop]

3. I don't know why anyone would go into engineering or IT anymore. nt

[Demeter]

5. Some people are born to it

They really excel, and have only one talent. And they suffer for it in times like these.

I was trained to technical stuff, and have a certain aptitude, but I'm not without other talents. So I can suffer (or be underemployed or unemployed) in a lot of different, ill-rewarded jobs!

[Demeter]

4. Another horrible board meeting

and 2 months until elections. Sigh.

[Demeter]

6. Here Is What Americans Spent Their "Gas Savings" On

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-27/here-what-americans-spent-their-gas-savings



Last quarter, in "This Is What Americans Spent The Most Money On In Q4" we showed that according to the first estimate of Q4 GDP data, the American consumer spent a whopping $20.4 billion in nominal dollars on healthcare, which also resulted in the biggest consumption contribution to GDP in years.

Today, following the first revision of consumer spending, we learn that in the fourth quarter Americans spent even more on healthcare, pushing the total up by $1 billion more, to a whopping $21.4 Bn, or 18% of all spending on goods and services in Q4.

This upward revision on healthcare, of which Obamacare was the primary source of mandatory spending, takes places even as the bulk of the key spending line items were revised lower following the revision.

In any event, the math is clear - the next time anyone asks you what Americans spent their so-called "gas savings" on in Q4, and why retail sales in the end of 2014 (and the start of 2015) were so weak, show them this chart.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-27/here-what-americans-spent-their-gas-savings

[Demeter]

7. What They’re Not Telling You About Monsanto’s Role in Ukraine Will This be a Takeover of Ukraine's

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) is helping biotech run the latest war in Ukraine. Make no mistake that what is happening in the Ukraine now is deeply tied to the interests of Monsanto, Dow, Bayer, and other big players in the poison food game.

Monsanto has an office in Ukraine. While this does not shout ‘culpability’ from every corner, it is no different than the US military’s habit to place bases in places that they want to gain political control. The opening of this office coincided with land grabs with loans from the IMF and World Bank to one of the world’s most hated corporations – all in support of their biotech takeover.

Previously, there was a ban on private sector land ownership in the country – but it was lifted ‘just in time’ for Monsanto to have its way with the Ukraine.

In fact, a bit of political maneuvering by the IMF gave the Ukraine a $17 billion loan – but only if they would open up to biotech farming and the selling of Monsanto’s poison crops and chemicals – destroying a farmland that is one of the most pristine in all of Europe. Farm equipment dealer, Deere, along with seed producers Dupont and Monsanto, will have a heyday.

In the guise of ‘aid,’ a claim has been made on Ukraine’s vast agricultural riches. It is the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat. Ukraine has deep, rich, black soil that can grow almost anything, and its ability to produce high volumes of GM grain is what made biotech come rushing to take it over.

As reported by The Ecologist, according to the Oakland Institute:

“Whereas Ukraine does not allow the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, Article 404 of the EU agreement, which relates to agriculture, includes a clause that has generally gone unnoticed: it indicates, among other things, that both parties will cooperate to extend the use of biotechnologies.

There is no doubt that this provision meets the expectations of the agribusiness industry. As observed by Michael Cox, research director at the investment bank Piper Jaffray, ‘Ukraine and, to a wider extent, Eastern Europe, are among the most promising growth markets for farm-equipment giant Deere, as well as seed producers Monsanto and DuPont’.”

Read: Former Pro-GMO Biotech Scientist Admits GMOs are NOT Safe

The nation WAS Europe’s breadbasket – and now in an act of bio-warfare, it will become the wasteland that many US farmlands have become due to copious amounts of herbicide spraying, the depletion of soil, and the overall disruption of a perfect ecosystem.

The aim of US government entities is to support the takeover of Ukraine for biotech interests (among other strategies involving the prop-up of a failing cabalistic banking system that Russia has also refused with its new alignment with BRICS and its own payment system called SWIFT). This is similar to biotech’s desired takeover of Hawaiian islands and land in Africa.

The Ukraine war has many angles that haven’t been exposed to the general public – and you can bet that biotech has their hands in the proverbial corn pie.

Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/theyre-not-telling-monsantos-role-ukraine/#ixzz3UjGdaZ79


I HAVE TO THINK THAT PERPETUAL WAR DOESN'T HELP MONSANTO...EXCEPT BY EMPTYING THE AREA OF LIVING PEOPLE. AS A CORPORATION, WHICH LIVES FOR EVER, MONSANTO CAN OUT-WAIT THE POPULATION. OF COURSE, IT DOES CUT DOWN ON THEIR MARKET, BY ELIMINATING THE CUSTOMER BASE....

THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY....NEVER WAS A TRUER MOVIE MADE IN FUN.

[xchrom]

8. The 10 Most Important Things In The World Right Now

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-important-things-in-the-world-right-now-march-18-2015-3

Hello! Here's what you need to know for Wednesday.

1. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the clear winner of Israel's election after his Likud party won the most votes.

2. The Federal Reserve will release a statement today, expected to contain clues as to whether it will raise interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.

3. Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, remains critically ill in the ICU and his condition has "deteriorated further," the government said in a statement.

4. The first direct flight from Havana to New York took off on Tuesday, months after the US announced it would restore ties with Cuba.

5. Indonesia has ended the hunt for victims from the AirAsia plane crash, which plunged into the Java Sea last year, with 56 people still missing.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-most-important-things-in-the-world-right-now-march-18-2015-3#ixzz3UjKi1o00

[Demeter]

11. Too Bad, Better Luck Next Time, Israel

Not a good predictor of US election, either. Well, we will see if the 65% probable crash in September makes a difference.

[Demeter]

9. The audit of the Greek public debt is about to start

http://failedevolution.blogspot.gr/2015/03/the-audit-of-greek-public-debt-is-about.html


Important announcements for the audit of the Greek public debt are expected at the press conference that will be given on Tuesday at 12 noon by the Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, Zoi Konstantopoulou, with the specialist on audit issues, Éric Toussaint, and SYRIZA MP, Sofia Sakorafa.

Éric Toussaint had worked with the government of Ecuador, among others, which through auditing, managed to remove 70% of the bond debt.

The audit is a "nightmare" not only for hedge funds and international organizations, who are using debt to impose colonial conditions on indebted countries, but also for the political establishment in these countries, as brings to light giant scandals.

Perhaps this is the reason for which the politicians and experts who have dealt with the issue often face a "mud war" not only from abroad but also within their own countries.

As the pioneers of the audit in Ecuador explained in the documentary Debtocracy, some of the biggest obstacles to a debt relief effort were raised by the ministry of finance executives, trying to cover up the previous governments responsibilities...

[Demeter]

10. Robert Reich: In Our Horrifying Future, Very Few People Will Have Work or Make Money

http://www.alternet.org/robert-reich-our-horrifying-future-very-few-people-will-have-work-or-make-money?akid=12899.227380.Ldi7Bd&rd=1&src=newsletter1033412&t=4



...Imagine a small box – let’s call it an “iEverything” – capable of producing everything you could possibly desire, a modern day Aladdin’s lamp. You simply tell it what you want, and – presto – the object of your desire arrives at your feet. The iEverything also does whatever you want. It gives you a massage, fetches you your slippers, does your laundry and folds and irons it. The iEverything will be the best machine ever invented. The only problem is no one will be able to buy it. That’s because no one will have any means of earning money, since the iEverything will do it all. This is obviously fanciful, but when more and more can be done by fewer and fewer people, the profits go to an ever-smaller circle of executives and owner-investors.

One of the young founders of WhatsApp, CEO Jan Koum, had a 45 percent equity stake in the company when Facebook purchased it, which yielded him $6.8 billion. Cofounder Brian Acton got $3 billion for his 20 percent stake. Each of the early employees reportedly had a 1 percent stake, which presumably netted them $160 million each. Meanwhile, the rest of us will be left providing the only things technology can’t provide – person-to-person attention, human touch, and care. But these sorts of person-to-person jobs pay very little. That means most of us will have less and less money to buy the dazzling array of products and services spawned by blockbuster technologies – because those same technologies will be supplanting our jobs and driving down our pay.

We need a new economic model.

The economic model that dominated most of the twentieth century was mass production by the many, for mass consumption by the many. Workers were consumers; consumers were workers. As paychecks rose, people had more money to buy all the things they and others produced — like Kodak cameras. That resulted in more jobs and even higher pay. That virtuous cycle is now falling apart. A future of almost unlimited production by a handful, for consumption by whoever can afford it, is a recipe for economic and social collapse. Our underlying problem won’t be the number of jobs. It will be – it already is — the allocation of income and wealth.

What to do?

“Redistribution” has become a bad word. But the economy toward which we’re hurtling — in which more and more is generated by fewer and fewer people who reap almost all the rewards, leaving the rest of us without enough purchasing power – can’t function. It may be that a redistribution of income and wealth from the rich owners of breakthrough technologies to the rest of us becomes the only means of making the future economy work.

NOT ONLY IS THIS ECONOMIC MODEL UNSUSTAINABLE (MONEY DOESN'T CYCLE THROUGH, IT JUST PILES UP IN HOARDS)

THE TECHNOLOGY THAT PRODUCES IT IS UNSUSTAINABLE, AS WELL.

IF THE MAGIC MACHINE BREAKS, WHO FIXES IT? OR DOES IT GO TO A LANDFILL, FURTHER REDUCING THE RAW MATERIAL STOCKS TO BUILD REPLACEMENTS, WHILE POLLUTING THE ENVIRONMENT WITH MORE INDESTRUCTIBLE, NON-RECYCLABLE TRASH?

[DemReadingDU]

12. We're toast

[Fuddnik]

13. I wish Reich would run for President.

Somebody who actually gets it.

Maybe Stiglitz for VP.

[DemReadingDU]

15. Works for me!

[mother earth]

17. Which is why a new system must come about. Our capitalism is predatory & everything we have

been told is the way is simply unsustainable. So now it is time to think outside of the box, stop doling out corporate welfare and consider universal basic income. Maybe actually live and end struggling to survive?

Yeah, I don't know what's getting into my head these days.

[MattSh]

14. ClubOrlov: The Rage of the Cultural Elites

Having witnessed and lived this up close for the last 16 months, this description resonates with me greatly. This is the conclusion of the piece; there's a lot more at the link.

ClubOrlov: The Rage of the Cultural Elites

For the Chinese and the Russian/Ukrainian “creative classes,” America represents the Ultimate Cool Place, the Olympus of Coolness, to be strived towards intellectually, culturally and emotionally, if not always physically. Because America represents to them not only a theory or a line of argument, but a profound source of emotional self-identification, there arise within them ferocious flames of fury and rage whenever someone is perceived as preventing them from basking within the aura of this self-identification. They become like adolescents who put on the cool clothes and want to go and dance to the cool music, but are told that they can't wear these clothes and can't dance to this music. Why? Because they are not as cool as they think, and because those cool kids don’t care about you, and don’t really want you as their friends.

Actual political, economic and social problems are of secondary importance. What is of upmost importance is that they—the cultural elite, “the creative class,” the cool kids who consider themselves so much cooler than the rest—feel insulted and denied their self-respect. They are angry that real life in Russia/Ukraine or China does not back up a certain concept of their own aspired coolness. Russia gets a special designation in such a line of discourse, or cultural narrative: it gets to be the ultimate spoiler of coolness. Even before the February 2014 putsch, Eastern Ukraine was always referred to as ground zero of “Sovok,” the land of Soviet-era retrogrades—backward, dim-witted slaves who held cool, cute Ukraine back from its well-deserved western coolness.

I will never forget the sight of the torn limbs of a five-year-old Donbass girl, or the bits of blood-soaked shawl and the mangled grandmother's aged body scattered about on the ground. What have they done—and tens of thousands like them—to deserve this end? On the Kiev metro, most people appear modest, polite, humble, gentle, and, occasionally, very kind. Over the last year many of them have also looked weary, worried, numb and exhausted. But I could not detect one iota of disparity in features, skin tone, bone structure, and the modest yet lively style of clothing between these riders on the metro in Kiev and the dead girl or the dead grandmother in the Donbass. Is it all because of someone wanting to be cool, and throwing a tantrum, because they didn't get to feel cool like they wanted?

Returning to America, the supposed Olympus of Cool, trudging through trash-strewn sidewalks of Queens, tramping along the endless alleys of Brooklyn, stepping into a dimly lit Manhattan office elevator and there encountering yet another Victoria Nuland lookalike, I began to understand. The year 2014 was the fatal year when it was suddenly revealed who is who and what is what, like a sharp knife slashing through an old, moldy, dusty curtain. Think not of conspiracies and dark, complex, sinister geopolitical plots. These went with a different generation, when people might have been greedy and cruel, but they also had the ability to distinguish reality from fiction. That was the era of western imperialism, which is long dead. Churchill and Roosevelt and Nixon are all dead; Kissinger is a nonagenarian. Their replacements do not think in terms of Realpolitik; they think in terms of optics, and dwell in a mirrored hall devised to generate an optical illusion of their hallucinated greatness.

Don't think of reality; instead, think of neurosis, obsession, delusion, perpetual psychic adolescence (real adolescence long gone and even menopause unacknowledged). From the midst of these there arises a white-hot fire of rage so fierce and so random that Nietzsche or Sartre, in their most diabolical existential revelations, could never have foreseen them. Thus is the new Zeitgeist, in this advanced stage of decay of the collective consciousness of America's cultural/political elite and their overseas groupies. It explains their reckless and maniacal love affair with the Ukrainian Maidan, their rekindled but now impotent rage against Russia, and their despicable, narcissistic indifference to the tragedy suffered by the population of the Ukraine.

[Reported by ClubOrlov's special Kiev correspondent, Yu Shan.]

Complete story at - http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/the-rage-of-cultural-elites.html

[Demeter]

16. It's not just the "cool kids", either

Most of Ann Arbor is petulantly narcissistic, when they aren't raging, that is...