Business

Berkley City Council in California has voted unanimously to hold Monsanto legally liable for polluting the land and water with highly toxic PCBs. The council’s 6-0 vote means that Berkeley will join Oakland, San Jose, San Diego and Spokane and Washington, in filing suits against the agricultural biotech giant. The news follows Monsanto’s announcement of cutting a total of 3,600 jobs due to declining sales. NBC reports: The suit will seek to recover the cost of cleaning up PCBs, synthetic organic chemicals whose full name is polychlorinated biphenyl.

It just seemed appropriate...

A 65% tumble for the S&P? https://t.co/QAnEECpuGX pic.twitter.com/rlr67A4qk1

— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) January 12, 2016

8 down days as of yesterday was longest losing streak since Jan 2008 but a red close today would have made it 9 down days in a row - The longest losing streak for Nasdaq Composite since May 1984

Deja Vu All Over Again...

To finance professionals, EBITDA is a proxy for corporate cash flow, while Adjusted EBITDA is a proxy for telling investors whatever they want to hear. Most of the time it involves a unjustifiably high cash flow number, one which has no basis in reality.

In yet another hit for the energy complex, EIA just cut their global oil demand forecast to 95.19 million barrels a day this year (down from 95.22 million in December’s outlook). The energy agency also increased its forecast for global production to 95.93 million barrels a day (up from 95.79 million last month). This pressured WTI Crude back off a brief bounce and pushed it to a 20-handle at $29.97 for the first time since December 2003.

Submitted by Adam Taggart via PeakProsperity.com,

Geologist Arthur Berman explains why today's low oil prices are not here to stay, something investors and consumers alike should be very aware of. The crazy-low prices we're currently experiencing are due to an oversupply created by geopolitics and (historic) easy credit, not by sustainable economics.