The US has Jeff Sessions, but China is about to have "two sessions".
Starting Sunday is a two-week period of heightened political discourse, if not exactly debate, among the top echelons of China's Politburo, also known as China's "two sessions."
In 2015, President Obama and Republican congressional leaders agreed to suspend the federal debt ceiling until March 15, 2017. After that date – less then two weeks from now – the Treasury will surpass its cumulative $20 trillion borrowing authority.
And while the stock market (and VIX) signal utter calm, signs of stress are very clear in America's money markets. Swap spreads are suggesting traders are getting nervous that any hiccup in efforts to remove the burden could trigger a shortage on short-term government securities.
The relentless, steady, monotonous levitation to all time highs keeps chugging along: while last week saw the S&P experience its first 1% intraday move in nearly two months, there has yet to be a comparable move on the downside. As Deutsche Bank notes, pull backs of 3-5% in the S&P 500 are typical every 2 to 3 months historically. The last such pull back occurred just prior to the US presidential election.
Following Peter Lynch's "invest in what you know" mantra, it appears Millennials jumped at the chance to own a piece of Snapchat - the social media platform that's all the rage among Millennials (and my teenage daughters).
Yesterday's rampage higher for the company that lost more money last year than its total revenues saw its market cap top $40 billion, bigger than Ebay, HP, and Sony...
Via Dana Lyons' Tumblr,
Stocks’ record streak without a weak close came to an end yesterday; what does it mean going forward?