Nose Down—–Boeing’s Order Book Dropped By 53% In Last 2 Years, Signals Big Production And Job Cuts Ahead
Hammered by slowing aircraft sales and a declining order book, Boeing warned on Tuesday in an internal memo that it would conduct involuntary and voluntary layoffs of engineers in Washington state, southern California, and South Carolina, according to The Seattle Times…..These staff cuts come on top of the cuts in 2016, when Boeing slashed its workforce in Washington state down by 9.3%. That’s 7,357 jobs. Business has been tough. In 2016, deliveries fell by 14 jets from a year ago, to 748. Net orders dropped 13% from an already rotten level in 2015, to just 668, down 53% from 2014. And the lowest level since 2010!
Washington Is Already In Eight Wars—–How About Holding Off On Iran?
Corker also administered a cold shower to those who darkly warn of a secret Iranian program to produce a bomb: “In spite of all the flaws in the agreement, nothing bad is going to happen relative to nuclear development in Iran in the next few years. It’s just not.” Under the deal, Iran has put two-thirds of the 19,000 centrifuges at Natanz in storage, ceased enriching uranium to 20 percent at Fordow, poured concrete into the core of its heavy water reactor at Arak, and shipped 97 percent of its enriched uranium out of the country. Cameras and United Nations inspectors are all over the place. Even should Iran decide on a crash program to create enough fissile material for a single A-bomb test, this would take a year, and we would know about it.
Giddy Junk Bond Market Heading For A Plunge
It won’t take much of a negative surprise to inflict pain on these bond buyers. That’s because investors are accepting a shrinking amount of yield to lend money to companies that are closest to default. They’re now receiving the smallest amount of extra yield over benchmark rates to own speculative-grade bonds since September 2014.
Behold The Corporate Bond Market—–Binge Borrowing!
Sadly, the same cannot be said of borrowers of almost every stripe these days. For those tapping the fixed income markets, the borrowing bingefest is conspicuous in its constancy. Not only did global bond issuance top $6.6 trillion last year, a fresh record, sales are off to a galloping start thus far in January. In the lead are corporate bond sales, which accounted for $3.6 trillion of last year’s super sales…..(but) investors ran a full out sprint in the new year’s first trading week, “shattering,” not breaking records…… In the first three trading days of the year alone, investors bought $56 billion of new corporate bonds. Some context in the context of what’s been one record-breaking year after another in issuance: “An average month in recent years would see investors buy about $130 billion of corporate bonds,” noted Reynolds. “Investors just bought more than 40 percent of that monthly average in just three trading days!”
Radical Activists Are Hoping To Turn Donald Trump’s Inauguration On January 20th Into One Of The Biggest Riots In U.S. History
Radical leftists are planning to make January 20th the most chaotic Inauguration Day in American history. Their stated goal is to “disrupt” the Inauguration festivities as much as possible, and they are planning a wide range of “actions” to achieve that stated goal. Some of the more moderate groups are using terms such as “civil resistance” and “civil disobedience”, but others are openly talking about “blockades”, jumping barricades, throwing projectiles and “citywide paralysis”. My hope is that all of their efforts will turn out to be a big flop, but it is important to understand that these groups are well funded, highly organized and extremely motivated. The election of Donald Trump has been perhaps the single most galvanizing moment for the radical left in modern American history, and they are working very hard to turn January 20th into a major political statement.
Eerie Echoes of Subprime Crisis—–PACE Loans (Property Assessed Clean Energy Loans) Expanding At Blistering Pace
Her loan is part of a booming corner of the lending industry called Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE. Such loans, set up by local governments across the U.S., are designed to encourage homeowners to buy energy-efficient solar panels, window insulation and air-conditioning units. About $3.4 billion has been lent so far for residential projects, and industry executives predict the total will double within the next year. That would likely rank PACE loans as the fastest-growing type of financing in the U.S. As the loans spread, so do problems that echo the subprime mortgage crisis. Plumbers and repairmen essentially function as loan brokers but have scant training and oversight. They often pitch PACE loans to help land contracting jobs and earn referral fees from lenders, according to loan documents and more than two dozen borrowers, industry executives and employees.
For Bill Gross The Only Thing That Matters For The Market Right Now is 2.6% on The 10-Year
If 2.60% is broken on the upside – if yields move higher than 2.60% – a secular bear bond market has begun. Watch the 2.6% level. Much more important than Dow 20,000. Much more important than $60-a-barrel oil. Much more important that the Dollar/Euro parity at 1.00. It is the key to interest rate levels and perhaps stock price levels in 2017.
Source Of CIA’s Intelligence On Russian Hacking Revealed—–Watching RT Television Shows and Reading Tweets
The Intelligence Community Assessment does not offer any evidence of Russian hacking of the DNC and thus provides nothing new to back its claims……Perhaps most surprising about the report – and perhaps as a result of the paucity of evidence for the claims of “hacking – is that a full third of its length is dedicated to quite unsophisticated criticism of the Russian television station RT……And how did the $80 billion dollar US spy industry come up with all this brilliant insight into the evils of Russia in general and RT in particular? As WikiLeaks Tweets, the “US government’s declassified ‘Russian hacking’ report has the curious disclaimer that it is based on watching TV and reading Tweets.”
Hungary Tells Its Un-Favorite Son George Soros To Take A Hike
Hungary plans to crack down on non-governmental organizations linked to billionaire George Soros now that Donald Trump will occupy the White House, according to the deputy head of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s party. The European Union member will use “all the tools at its disposal” to “sweep out” NGOs funded by the Hungarian-born financier, which “serve global capitalists and back political correctness over national governments,” Szilard Nemeth, a vice president of the ruling Fidesz party, told reporters on Tuesday.
Wholesale Sales Disappoint Sending Inventories-Ratio Back Into Recession Territory
November saw inventories rise more than expected (+1.0% MoM vs +0.9% exp) and sales disappoint (+0.4% vs +0.5% exp) and were notably revised lower. This sent the inventories-to-sales ratio back up again – stubbornly stuck in recessionary territory.
