Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
In the wake of the United Airlines debacle - in which the airline had airport police assault one of its own customers - customers have begun to ask why there doesn't seem to be more competition for United to contend with. They ask: would United treat its customers so poorly if they had more competition?
Maybe not.
Is the Airline Industry Competitive?
Even as cracks have emerged in Trump's fiscal policy, as well as the overall market, on rising geopolitical concerns, the S&P remains surprisingly resilient, and as JPM's Adam Crisafulli writes in his mid-day recap, "the SPX is stuck in purgatory and hasn’t moved in the last ~1.5 months."
What could change that? According to the JPM strategist, two things could lead to a breakout either higher or lower: a clearing of the "nominal growth clouds" and "the SPX vs. TSY gap is resolved."
Back in late March, equity markets sold off on the first signs that Republicans were not going to be able to repeal and replace Obamacare as they had promised. Alas, the pessimism didn't last long as the BTFD crowd was able to quickly convince everyone that the failure of Obamacare was actually good for markets as it would allow the Trump administration to focus it's efforts on tax cuts instead...and, as usual, equities soared.
Authored by Christof Gisiger via Finanz Und Wirtschaft,
Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago and former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, warns of more turmoil ahead if the developed world fails to adapt to the fundamental forces of global change.
WTI/RBOB prices slipped ahead of DOE data as Canada's growth outlook cut trumped Saudi Arabia's wishy-washy chatter on production cuts. DOE data confirmed the biggest crude draw of 2017 (-2.16mm) and gasopline and distilates saw the 8th week in a row of drawdowns but Cushing's 276k build pushed it to a new record high as US crude production rose once again to its highest sine August 2015.
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