Business

It’s Black Friday, and in keeping with the Holiday weekend tradition, media commentator Mark Dice traveled to Wal-Marts and other stores to document the “zombie apocalypse” of half-awake consumers hell-bent on elbowing past their peers so they can be sure to get the best deals on electronics, books, video games, clothes and any number of other popular holiday gift items. Of course, as Dice points out, many of the same deals can also be found on a little website called Amazon.com without the hassle of pushing through crowds.

Authored by Stephen Moore op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,

The wealthy have tucked billions into private nonprofits... where the IRS can’t touch it.

It has been an odd year for retail: with an estimated 6,000 store closures, and 65,000 fewer retail jobs than at the start of the year, many have said shorting retail, and especially malls, is the next "big short" trade. Indeed, one look at the performance of the mall heavy CMBX 6 BBB- tranche confirms that the bottom has fallen out of the legacy "bricks and mortar" space.

Following its big surge Thursday, Ethereum has broken through the psychologically important threshold of $400, establishing a new all-time high - currently hovering above $450.

image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

As CoinTelegraph reports, despite some market stagnation caused by the news of the $280 mln Parity wallet hack in early November, the second-most-popular cryptocurrency looks stronger than ever, now with a market cap over $43 billion.

Yesterday we laid out the reasons why French bank SocGen unveiled a surprisingly contrarian forecast, according to which the S&P would tumble from its current level over 2,600 to 2,000 in 2018, representing a more than 20% bear market drop...

... the drop catalyzed by rising interest rates pressuring P/E multiples, a late cycle economy nearing recession, equities trading at record valuations, and with everyone short vol begging for a vol short squeeze. Not surprisingly, SocGen's unspoken advice was to get out now.