Business

One year ago, the CBO forecasted that the  Fiscal 2017 US deficit (for the year ended September 30), would be in the mid-$500 billion range. It was not meant to be, however, and on Friday the Treasury reported that with outlays of $341 billion in the last month of the fiscal year, offset by $349 billion in receipts, the full year deficit grew to a nice, round and very memorable $666 billion in fiscal 2017, up $80 billion or 14% from fiscal 2016. The government ran an $8 billion surplus in September, much smaller than the $33 billion surplus in September 2016.

Having tumbled 10% in the pre-open after massively missing earnings expectations and slashing guidance, panic-dip-buyers have stepped in and (thanks in large part to passive index buyers flooding into The Dow), General Electric is now green...

"Kitchen sink" is the new no-brainer... as CEO call sit "horrible and unacceptable"

Dow-buyers helping out (and it looks like some Dow vs GE pairs hit at the open)...

It seems Dow at 1000x the price of GE remains solid resistance...

According to the latest EPFR fund flow data compiled by BofA's Michael Hartnett, the great "institutional to equity" stockholding rotation is accelerating, with another $8.8bn allocated to equities, more than all of it from retail investors, and another $5.8bn going into bonds, offset by a $0.4bn outflows from gold.

Stocks are so hot that junk bond managers want in to equity markets. Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz explained the conditioning that’s led to this – simply that the performance rankings of corporate debt funds shows that those which are taking the most risk have, not surprisingly, booked the best performance in 2017. While this involved purchasing lower-rated credit instruments, in some cases, it has meant buying more equities.

Cryptocurrencies are broadly higher this morning with Bitcoin leading the way to new record highs at $6000 - nearing $100 Billion market cap, bigger than Goldman Sachs - as demand from Zimbabwe soars (and Spanish concerns see activity rise).

Most of the biggest cryptos are higher...

But Bitcoin is leading - now above $6000 for the first time ever...

And is now 'bigger' than Goldman Sachs...

As CryptoCoinsNews reports, Zimbabweans are attempt to escape yet another currency debacle...