For weeks I’ve been noting that stocks are being driven by a market rig.
By way of review, that rig is as follows:
1) Someone slams the VIX lower.
2) This forces risk-parity funds to buy stocks, usually the FANGs or large-cap Tech names (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google).
3) FANGs rally, which due to the weighting in the S&P 500, forces the overall market higher.
The last point is key.
Via Disobedient Media
The control of private information on the internet has been a contentious for as long as the people have been online. It has long been the consensus that maintaining internet freedoms is essential for free expression, the exchange of ideas and the ability for proponents of democracy and human rights activists to mobilize and advocate for political, social, and economic reform. Currently, the debate about internet freedom is centered around the concept of net neutrality.
Hitting record high after record high, tech companies have displaced traditional blue chip companies like Exxon Mobil and Walmart as the most valuable companies in the world.
Here are the latest market valuations for those same five companies:
Together, they are worth $2.9 trillion in market capitalization – and they combined in FY2016 for revenues of $555 billion with a $94 billion bottom line.
BRINGING HOME THE BACON?
Broken Hearts...
Source: Townhall.com
And Broken Minds...
Source: MichaelPRamirez.com
General Motors' stock price is tumbling after reports that the carmaker is accused of putting defeat devices in its trucks to beat emissions tests, becoming the sixth carmaker accused of diesel cheating since 2015, when Volkswagen AG admitted to installing software to bypass pollution rules.
Bloomberg reports that People who own or lease more than 705,000 GM Duramax diesel trucks filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday, claiming GM installed multiple such devices in two models of heavy-duty trucks from 2011 to 2016.