Day: May 9, 2018

Wall Street surged on Wednesday as surging oil prices boosted energy stocks following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision the previous day to quit a nuclear agreement with Iran.

Gains were broad and volume was high, with all but the utilities and telecom sectors advancing as investors who had moved to the sidelines in recent days ahead of Trump’s decision returned to the market.

“It’s classic ‘buy on the terrible news,’ ” said Ian Winer, director of trading at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, referring to the wider market’s rally. “People had gotten way too nervous about this.”

Trump’s decision for the United States pull out of the international agreement aimed at preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was good news for investors betting on a rise in oil prices. Crude hit its highest level in 3½ years as investors bet the U.S. withdrawal would increase risks of conflict in the Middle East and curtail global oil supplies.

The S&P energy index jumped 2.03 percent, bringing its gain this quarter to 12.6 percent, more than any other sector.

“The rise in oil is helping energy sector, which is expected to be a pretty big growth sector. A lot of analysts are expecting strong earnings as oil rebounds, and that hasn’t really played out so much early this year,” said Shawn Cruz, senior trading specialist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 0.75 percent to end at 24,542.54 points, while the S&P 500 gained 0.97 percent to 2,697.79. The Nasdaq Composite added 1 percent to finish the session at 7,339.91.

Volatility Index down

The Cboe Volatility Index, the most widely followed barometer of expected near-term volatility for the S&P 500, closed down 1.29 points at 13.42, its lowest close since January  26.

Worries lingered that rising oil prices would perk up inflation. The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield rose to a two-week high and above the key 3 percent level on expectations of higher interest rates.

With March quarter reports mostly wrapped up, S&P 500 earnings per share appear to have surged by 25.9 percent, helped by deep corporate tax cuts introduced this year, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

In stock trading, Google-owner Alphabet Inc. rose 2.87 percent, providing more lift than any other stock to the S&P 500. It was followed by Facebook Inc., which rose 2.09 percent.

Walmart Inc. fell 3.13 percent after the retailer took a majority stake in Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart for about $16 billion.

Walt Disney dipped 1.79 percent despite reporting a quarterly profit above Wall Street estimates.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 1.71-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.65-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 40 new 52-week highs and 11 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 168 new highs and 52 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 7.1 billion shares, compared with the 6.6 billion-share average over the last 20 trading days.
…

 A New York hedge fund founder was arrested Wednesday on charges that he exaggerated his company’s performance by over $200 million to impress and preserve investors.

Anilesh Ahuja, 49, of Manhattan, was charged with conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud.

Federal officials said that the founder, chief executive officer and chief investment officer of the investment firm Premium Point Investments LP had carried out a fraud from 2014 through 2016 that was designed to make investors believe that the firm’s hedge funds were doing much better than they were. Between 2008 and 2016, the firm managed billions of dollars in assets, exceeding $5 billion at one time at its peak, authorities said.

Amin Majidi, 52, of Armonk, New York, a former Premium Point portfolio manager, and Jeremy Shor, 46, of Manhattan, a former trader at the firm, also were charged. A lawyer for Ahuja did not immediately comment. A lawyer for Majidi declined comment. An attorney for Shor did not immediately return a message.

“By allegedly cooking the books, Ahuja and his co-defendants made the fund appear more attractive to would-be investors and dissuaded current investors from withdrawing their investments,” said Audrey Strauss, a federal prosecutor.

William F. Sweeney Jr., head of the New York FBI office, said in a release that the defendants’ “alleged practice of intentionally misleading investors and mismarking securities held in the funds they managed allowed them to charge higher fees and hold captive money that would have likely been withdrawn had their clients been aware of the hedge fund’s actual value.”

According to an indictment, Ahuja started his firm in 2008 and launched the company’s flagship mortgage credit fund a year later. After the firm began overstating the net asset value of its funds by more than $200 million at times, it was able to charge investors higher management and performance fees and could forestall redemptions, authorities said.

Prosecutors also announced Wednesday that the firm’s former chief risk officer and a former salesman at a broker-dealer have pleaded guilty to charges and are cooperating.

The Securities and Exchange Commission also filed civil charges against Ahuja, Majidi and Shor.

“Investors rely on their investment advisers to fairly and accurately value securities, and that is especially true when the securities trade in opaque markets,” said Daniel Michael, chief of the SEC’s Complex Financial Instruments Unit.  “As we allege, Premium Point masked its true performance, which denied investors the opportunity to make informed investment decisions.”
…

Saudi Arabia is monitoring the impact of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on oil supplies and is ready to offset any shortage but it will not act alone to fill the gap, an OPEC source familiar with the kingdom’s oil thinking said.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday abandoned a nuclear deal with Iran and announced the “highest level” of sanctions against the OPEC member. The original agreement had lifted sanctions in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear program.

Iran is the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

During the last round of sanctions, Iran’s oil supplies fell by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd), but the country re-emerged as a major oil exporter, especially to refiners in Asia, after sanctions were lifted in January 2016.

“People shouldn’t take it for granted that Saudi Arabia will produce more oil single-handedly. We need to assess first the impact if there is any, in terms of disruption, in terms of a reduction of Iran’s production,” the OPEC source said Wednesday.

“We have managed to put together this new alliance between OPEC and non-OPEC. Saudi Arabia will not in any way act independently of its partners.”

Riyadh is working closely with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which holds OPEC’s presidency in 2018 and non-OPEC producer Russia for “coordination and market consultations,” the OPEC source said.

He said any action would be taken in coordination with all OPEC and non-OPEC partners, if needed.

OPEC’s oil supply-cutting deal with non-OPEC producers such as Russia has helped to clear a global oil supply glut and boost prices. The agreement is due to expire at the end of 2018.

OPEC officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia along with few other producers in the pact are due to meet in Saudi Arabia on May 22-23 as part of a monthly meeting for the Joint Technical Committee which monitors the oil market.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter and top OPEC producer, is concerned about any negative impact from the potential oil supply shortage for oil-consuming countries, the OPEC source said.

But Saudi Arabia has enough oil production capacity — currently at 12 million barrels per day (bpd) — to maintain oil market stability, the OPEC source also said.

Iran produces about 3.8 million bpd. Since the Iran nuclear deal went into effect, its exports have risen to about 2.5 million bpd, from less than 1 million bpd. A majority goes to Asia, with Europe receiving about 600,000 bpd.

Analysts now expect Iran’s supplies to fall by between 200,000 bpd and 1 million bpd, depending on how many other countries fall in line with Washington.

Trump and oil prices

Expectations that new U.S. sanctions could hit Iranian crude exports and feed tensions in the Middle East had pushed oil prices higher in the past few weeks.

Brent crude was trading about $77 at a 3-1/2 year high on Wednesday, raising concerns that prices were going too high too fast.

Trump accused OPEC last month of “artificially” boosting oil prices in a message on Twitter, the first time he has mentioned OPEC on social media.

His tweet was seen by OPEC sources as the U.S. president’s way to appease a domestic audience unhappy about a rise in gasoline prices.

A key U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia welcomed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran and to reimpose economic sanctions.

Riyadh also said it would work with OPEC and non-OPEC to lessen the impact of oil shortages in a clear indication that the country has been coordinating with Washington ahead of time, sources familiar with the matter said.

“You need to work with your partners in dealing with any potential effect on supply,” the OPEC source said.

“But it should be done in a collective coordinated way and that can only happen when you start to be able to assess what would be the impact.”

OPEC and non-OPEC meet next in June and they are widely expected to keep supply curbs in place until the end of 2018.

But a drop in Iranian exports due to U.S. sanctions, plus supply disruptions in other OPEC members, such as Venezuela, could reduce supply more than planned, leading to a potential price spike.

But the OPEC source said a rise in prices due to the market’s worries about supply should not be the parameter for OPEC to adjust output.

The OPEC source said any decision in June to raise output “should be driven by a potential physical shortage or reduction in production from any oil supply source not only Iran.”

“You only handle [output] when you have a semi-clear idea of what would be the potential impact. It is too early now to do that,” the source said.

He also said Saudi Arabia does not expect any physical impact on the oil market from the U.S. Iran sanctions until the third or fourth quarter of this year.

OPEC’s objective is still to reduce global oil inventories to an acceptable level, and any adjustment in production targets should be done in a coordinated way, the OPEC source said.

“This way you do not disrupt a mechanism that we have worked hard to put together and to sustain just to address a short-term issue,” the source said.
…

U.S. producer prices barely rose in April after strong gains in the first quarter, held back by a moderation in the cost of services such as hotel accommodation and healthcare, which could ease fears that inflation pressures were rapidly building up.

The slowdown in wholesale price growth reported by the Labor Department on Wednesday is, however, likely temporary as manufacturers have been reporting paying more for raw materials. Economists also expect oil prices to surge after President Donald Trump on Tuesday pulled the United States out of an international nuclear deal with Iran.

“Inflation isn’t breaking out, although with Trump exiting the Iran nuclear deal, higher energy prices could kick-start a new round of inflation at the producer level,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York.

The Labor Department said on Wednesday its producer price index for final demand edged up 0.1 percent last month after increasing 0.3 percent in March. That lowered the year-on-year increase in the PPI to 2.6 percent from 3.0 percent in March.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI gaining 0.2 percent last month and rising 2.8 percent from a year ago.

A key gauge of underlying producer price pressures that excludes food, energy and trade services also nudged up 0.1 percent last month. The so-called core PPI had increased by 0.4 percent in each of the past three months.

In the 12 months through April, the core PPI rose 2.5 percent after jumping 2.9 percent in March. Core goods prices increased 0.3 percent in April, matching March’s gain.

Stocks on Wall Street were trading higher, with shares of energy companies getting a boost from surging oil prices after the United States exited the Iran nuclear deal and imposed the ‘highest level’ of sanctions against the OPEC member. Crude prices rose to 3-1/2-year highs. U.S. Treasury yields rose while the dollar was little changed against a basket of currencies.

Inflation near target

Inflation is flirting with the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target. The U.S. central bank’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index excluding food and energy, increased 1.9 percent year-on-year in March and is expected to breach its target in the coming months.

This comes as last year’s big declines in prices of cell phone service plans drop out of the calculation.

Fed officials have in recent days signaled they would not be too concerned if inflation overshot the central bank’s target, reiterating a message in a statement issued at the end of a two-day policy meeting last Wednesday.

In that statement, policymakers said they expected annual inflation to run close to the “symmetric” 2 percent target over the medium term. The U.S. central bank left interest rates unchanged last week. The Fed hiked rates in March and has forecast at least two more increases for this year. “This report should help calm Fed hawks,” said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial in New York.

In April, the price of services ticked up 0.1 percent. That followed two straight monthly increases of 0.3 percent.

Services were restrained by a 3.2 percent drop in the cost of hotel accommodation, which was the biggest decline since September 2009. The cost of healthcare services fell 0.2 percent after increasing 0.3 percent in March. Those costs feed into the core PCE price index.

Prices for goods were unchanged last month after rising 0.3 percent in March. Wholesale food prices declined 1.1 percent last month, the largest drop since August 2016, after surging 2.2 percent in March. Gasoline prices fell 0.4 percent in April after dropping 3.7 percent in the prior month.

In a separate report on Wednesday, the Commerce Department said wholesale inventories increased less than initially estimated in March amid declines in the stocks of motor vehicles and a range of other goods.

Stocks at wholesalers rose 0.3 percent instead of the 0.5 percent gain it reported last month. They increased 0.9 percent in February.

The component of wholesale inventories that goes into the calculation of gross domestic product – wholesale stocks excluding autos – rose 0.4 percent in March.

 
…

For generations, farmers planted the lush earth of Awedai and nearby areas in eastern Ethiopia with coffee trees, earning a livelihood from a crop that is now the country’s main export.

But the centuries-long practice is now being abandoned in favor of khat, a leafy plant chewed as a stimulant in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

“Coffee comes only once a year. But you can harvest khat twice a year,” said Jemal Moussa, a 45-year-old farmer and father of six who depends on the narcotic leaf for income. “Khat is much more useful.”

He said it was in the early 2000s that farmers in the Awedai area started planting khat as its popularity rose and coffee prices remained stagnant.

One kg of coffee sells for between 50 and 60 birr. A bunch of khat, while not measured in kilograms, goes for 100 birr. Jemal said by this year, the entire economy of Awedai, a small town 35 km outside the ancient city of Harar, relied on the leaf.

Trucks piled with khat head out of the town every 30 minutes, dispersing their produce to the nearby Ethiopian Somali Region and Hargeisa, in the neighboring semi-autonomous region of Somaliland.

Illegal in several Western nations, the leaf is immensely popular in the region, giving the chewer a mild amphetamine-like high.

In addition to cash incentive of khat, coffee growing is being affected by dwindling forest coverage as well as drought.

Farmers believe the characteristic flavor of Ethiopian coffee is derived from growing it in the shade of larger trees — leaving it vulnerable if trees are stunted or removed.

And in 2015/16, a drought induced by the El Nino phenomenon — the warming of surface sea temperatures in the Pacific — ravaged the country’s east, before below average autumn rains in the southern and southeastern parts of the country led to a new drought in lowland pastoralist areas the following year.

Indeed, some 5.6 million people required emergency food assistance in the country in 2017.

“The harvesting is already delayed by three and a half weeks. By now we would have processed 85-plus percent. But now we have not even picked that much as you can see,” said Aman Adinew, chief executive of Metad Agricultural Development, which processes coffee in Yirgacheffe in southern Ethiopia.

Yirgacheffe is one of the best known coffee brands for Africa’s biggest producer of the bean.

“The coffee is still green on the tree — it needs rain to turn red. We are hoping it comes soon,” said Aman. “But if this trend continues, it is going to adversely impact the farmers and businessmen like us the growers like us and the country.”

While coffee is heavily dependent on rain, Khat needs less, making it a more attractive option for some farmers.
…

A United Nations agency said on Tuesday an “unjust” U.S. financial and trade embargo on Cuba had cost the country’s economy $130 billion over nearly six decades, coming up with the same estimate as the island’s communist government.

Although many U.S. allies join Washington in criticizing Cuba’s one-party system and repression of political opponents, the United States has lost nearly all international support for the embargo since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The U.N. has adopted a non-binding resolution calling for an end to the embargo with overwhelming support every year since 1992. In a report ahead of the vote last year, Cuba estimated total damage from the embargo at $130 billion.

“This country which welcomes us today .. is testing its own ways to face the brutal human costs that it has sustained during an unjust blockade,” the head of the U.N.’s regional economic body for Latin America, ECLAC, Alicia Barcena told its biennial meeting in Havana on Tuesday.

“We evaluate it every year as an economic commission and we know that this blockade costs the Cuban people more than $130 billion at current prices and has left an indelible mark on its economic structure,” she said, without detailing how the organization came to that estimate.

After agreeing to a historic U.S.-Cuban detente in 2014, former U.S. President Barack Obama eased the embargo, which was fully put into place in 1962. But U.S. President Donald Trump last year tightened travel and trade restrictions again. Only the U.S. Congress can lift it in full.

“Despite the difficulties the Cuban economy is faced with, particularly due to the intensification of the blockade imposed on Cuba… we will continue to focus on the development goals set,” Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said in his opening remarks at the meeting, attended also by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Cuba’s Soviet-style, centralized economy has grown just 2.4 percent on average per year over the past decade, official statistics show, much less than the 7 percent annual expansion the government has estimated it needs in order to develop.

Cuba hoped market reforms introduced in the last decade would boost growth, but they have so far borne mixed results.

The ruling Communist Party earlier this year admitted implementation had been harder than expected.

ECLAC will support Cuba’s reform program, Barcena said.
…

President Donald Trump will allow year-round sales of renewable fuel with blends of 15 percent ethanol as part of an emerging deal to make changes to the federal ethanol mandate.

Republican senators and the White House announced the deal Tuesday after a closed-door meeting, the latest in a series of White House sessions on ethanol.

The Environmental Protection Agency currently bans the 15-percent blend, called E15, during the summer because of concerns that it contributes to smog on hot days. Gasoline typically contains 10 percent ethanol. Farm-state lawmakers have pushed for greater sales of the higher ethanol blend to boost demand for the corn-based fuel.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley called the agreement good news for farmers and drivers alike, saying it would increase ethanol production and consumer choice at the pump.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said the deal will save the jobs of thousands of blue-collar workers at refineries in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states.

“Terrific final decision from @POTUS meeting,” Cruz tweeted. “This is a WIN-WIN for everyone.”

The decision allowing E15 to be sold year-round will provide “relief to refiners” and “protect our hardworking farmers and refinery workers,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. “The president is satisfied with the attention and care that all parties devoted to this issue.”

Trump met Tuesday with Grassley, Cruz, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst and Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, as well as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

The EPA oversees the decade-old Renewable Fuel Standard, commonly known as the ethanol mandate, which sets out how much corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels refiners must blend into gasoline. The program’s intent was to address global warming, reduce dependence on foreign oil and bolster the rural economy by requiring a steady increase in renewable fuels over time.

The mandate has not worked as intended, and production levels of renewable fuels, mostly ethanol, routinely fail to reach minimum thresholds set in law.

Environmental groups criticized the deal, saying it would worsen air pollution during summer months.

“Waiving clean-air standards at the behest of one favored industry would not only set a precedent for bad policy, it could cost lives,” a coalition of environmental groups said in a statement.

Ernst said allowing year-round sale of E15 “will drive up domestic ethanol production and consumption” while helping to “maintain already low prices” for fuel credits that oil refiners must buy if they can’t blend ethanol into their fuels.

She and Grassley also said they were encouraged that the Trump administration will take a closer look at “hardship” waivers that have been granted to small refineries, a practice they say has hurt biofuels and undermined the RFS.

The EPA has reportedly granted a waiver to a refinery owned by billionaire Carl Icahn, a former Trump adviser, as well as other small refineries. The agency has not disclosed which refineries received the waivers, saying it did not want to reveal private business information.

Cruz said the president also agreed to consider his proposal to include fuel credits for ethanol that is produced domestically and exported. The proposal is meant to make it easier for the industry to meet annual sales volumes required under the renewable-fuel mandate.

“This is good for farmers, refiners and America,” Cruz said in a statement.

But the Renewable Fuels Association, an industry group, said allowing exports to qualify for RFS compliance could dramatically reduce domestic demand and result in retaliatory trade barriers from countries that import U.S. ethanol.

The group’s president, Bob Dinneen, called the export idea a “disgrace” and said ethanol producers and farmers would bear the brunt of any retaliatory tariffs.
…