Jumat, 03 Januari 2020

U.S. Stock Futures Fall After Airstrike Kills Iranian Commander - Yahoo Finance

(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock-index futures fell after an American airstrike in Iraq killed a top Iranian commander.

S&P 500 Index futures contracts expiring in March were down 1.1% as of 10:19 a.m. in London after the attack that killed Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian general who led the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force. Dow Jones Industrial Average contracts and those on the Nasdaq 100 also fell.

Oil spiked, with futures in New York and London surging 4% or more, as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed “severe retaliation” after the death of one of his country’s top commanders. Gold also surged. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index dropped 0.7%.

“The ‘severe retaliation’ aspect is possibly what is scaring the markets as it could mean that there will be a counter-attack versus American diplomats,” said Alberto Tocchio, chief investment officer at Colombo Wealth in Lugano, Switzerland. “Markets could use this excuse to take some profits as sentiment and positioning are possibly too high.”

The S&P 500 Index climbed 0.8% to a fresh record in New York on Thursday, boosted by tech shares including Apple and Alphabet. The gain extended the benchmark gauge’s 29% advance for 2019.

In addition to the Middle East situation, investors are keeping an eye on geopolitical tension surrounding North Korea, where Kim Jong Un said he was no longer bound by his pledge to halt major missile tests and would soon debut a “new strategic weapon.”

“We are only into the third day of the new year, and a big fat dollop of geopolitical uncertainty has landed on investors’ desks already,” Jeffrey Halley, a senior market analyst at Oanda in Singapore, wrote in a note. “Readers now know why I am reluctant to look past 1Q of the new year at this stage,” Halley said, adding that the holiday-shortened week shifts the focus to “the real start of the trading year” on Monday.

MARKETS:

E-Mini futures on S&P down 1.1%E-Mini futures on Dow Jones down 0.9%E-Mini futures on Nasdaq 1.3% lowerVIX Index trading 23% higherWTI crude futures up 3.7% to $63.43/bblBloomberg spot dollar index up 0.2%

ECONOMIC DATA:

10:00 - Nov. Construction Spending MoM est. 0.4% (prior -0.8%)10:00 - Dec. ISM Manufacturing est. 48.9 (prior 48.1)10:00 - Dec. ISM New Orders (prior 47.2)10:00 - Dec. ISM Prices Paid est. 48.1 (prior 46.7)10:00 - Dec. ISM Employment (prior 46.6)14:00 - Dec 11 FOMC Meeting Minutes15:00 - Dec. Wards Total Vehicle Sales est. 17.00m (prior 17.09m)

EARNINGS:

Companies reporting earnings include Lamb Weston

--With assistance from Ksenia Galouchko.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jackie Edwards in Sydney at jedwards160@bloomberg.net;Namitha Jagadeesh in London at njagadeesh@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lianting Tu at ltu4@bloomberg.net, Kurt Schussler, Paul Jarvis

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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2020-01-03 10:36:00Z
CBMiTGh0dHBzOi8vZmluYW5jZS55YWhvby5jb20vbmV3cy91LXN0b2NrLWZ1dHVyZXMtZmFsbC1haXJzdHJpa2UtMDMxMDA3ODA3Lmh0bWzSAVRodHRwczovL2ZpbmFuY2UueWFob28uY29tL2FtcGh0bWwvbmV3cy91LXN0b2NrLWZ1dHVyZXMtZmFsbC1haXJzdHJpa2UtMDMxMDA3ODA3Lmh0bWw

New Clues Emerge in Carlos Ghosn’s Escape From Japan - The New York Times

TOKYO — New clues emerged on Friday on how Carlos Ghosn pulled off his audacious escape from Japan, as a Turkish charter jet company said its planes were used illegally to pull off the plan, while the Japanese news media reported that surveillance camera footage showed the disgraced auto industry mogul leaving his Tokyo home on Sunday by himself.

Taken together, the disclosures paint a picture of a dash across Japan to a waiting plane that swept Mr. Ghosn across Asia to Lebanon. Still, most of the details of Mr. Ghosn’s getaway remain murky and unconfirmed. The authorities in Japan and Turkey still appear to be investigating how he did it.

Mr. Ghosn — who has maintained his innocence — was facing four charges of financial wrongdoing in Japan and was set to go on trial sometime next year. But he escaped instead, saying that he did not trust what he called the “rigged” Japanese justice system to give him a fair trial. He built and once ran the Nissan-Renault auto alliance, one of the world’s biggest car-making empires, but was arrested after arriving in Tokyo in November 2018.

In Turkey on Friday, MNG Jet, an aircraft charter company, said one of its employees had falsified records to remove Mr. Ghosn’s name from the official documentation for two flights. The company said the employee confessed to acting alone, without management’s knowledge. MNG Jet did not disclose the employee’s name.

News outlets in Turkey reported this week that Mr. Ghosn left on a plane from Osaka, Japan, late Sunday aboard a business jet and landed at Istanbul Ataturk Airport. He then switched planes and flew to Beirut, the reports said.

The news accounts match the flight records of a Bombardier business aircraft operated by MNG Jet that took off from Osaka just after 11 p.m. local time and landed in Istanbul about 12 hours later, according to data from FlightAware, a flight tracking service.

MNG Jet said it had no indication the two flights were connected. It said it filed its criminal complaint in Turkey on Wednesday and that it “hopes that the people who illegally used and/or facilitated the use of the services of the company will be duly prosecuted.”

It is not clear how Mr. Ghosn, who was under heavy surveillance in Tokyo, could have eluded the authorities and make his way to Osaka, which is roughly 300 miles west of Tokyo.

In Japan on Friday, news outlets reported that Mr. Ghosn walked out of his Tokyo home alone on Sunday but never came back. The news reports cited anonymous sources with knowledge of footage of the cameras surrounding his rented house in a central district of the city.

Prosecutors are investigating whether Mr. Ghosn, after leaving his home, met up with a group that helped his escape to Lebanon, according to the national broadcaster NHK and the economic daily Nikkei Shimbun.

The footage described in the news reports was from security cameras installed in front of the two-story house in an upscale neighborhood in the city center, the outlets reported, citing sources close to the investigation. Three surveillance cameras had been installed above the doorway of Mr. Ghosn’s house as part of a bail agreement that placed tight restrictions on his movements and ability to communicate with the outside world.

The mystery has fed into some colorful theories. At least one Lebanese news media outlet had reported that Mr. Ghosn was smuggled out of his home in a musical instrument box. Lebanese officials have said Mr. Ghosn — who is a citizen of France, Lebanon and Brazil — arrived legally with a French passport, even though he had agreed to surrender three of his passports to his lawyers as a condition of his bail.

The Japanese authorities have stayed conspicuously silent about the escape of the country’s most high-profile criminal defendant. Prosecutors raided Mr. Ghosn’s Tokyo home on Thursday afternoon. Mr. Ghosn’s departure appeared to be timed for the eve of Japan’s weeklong New Year’s holiday, the country’s most important.

Still, signs are mounting that Japanese officials are responding. On Thursday, Albert Serhan, the Lebanese justice minister, said that the country’s public prosecutor had received a red notice from Interpol related to Mr. Ghosn’s case, according to the state-run National News Agency. Such a notice is issued for individuals wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence.

Interpol’s online list of public red notices did not show an entry for Mr. Ghosn as of early Friday.

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2020-01-03 08:59:00Z
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Kamis, 02 Januari 2020

Stocks open first trading day of year close to record highs as investors cheer China stimulus - MarketWatch

Major U.S. stock benchmarks opened higher Thursday, a day after markets were closed for New Year's Day, following news that China's central bank will loosen requirements for banks to set aside a portion of assets as reserves, a move expected to increase lending and boost growth in the world's second-largest economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.43% rose 130 points, or 0.5% to 28,664, the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.25% advanced 15 points, or 0.4% to about 3,245 and the Nasdaq Composite index COMP, +0.52% gained 60 points, or 0.7% to hit 9,031. Data on new applications for jobless benefits fell to a four-week low, reinforcing perceptions of a tight labor market and a healthy U.S. consumer.

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2020-01-02 14:34:00Z
CBMiigFodHRwczovL3d3dy5tYXJrZXR3YXRjaC5jb20vc3Rvcnkvc3RvY2tzLW9wZW4tZmlyc3QtdHJhZGluZy1kYXktb2YteWVhci1jbG9zZS10by1yZWNvcmQtaGlnaHMtYXMtaW52ZXN0b3JzLWNoZWVyLWNoaW5hLXN0aW11bHVzLTIwMjAtMDEtMDLSAU9odHRwczovL3d3dy5tYXJrZXR3YXRjaC5jb20vYW1wL3N0b3J5L2d1aWQvQzM1QjUxQUEtQkJGNC00RkFCLTlFNDEtRTY1NUVDMjE3N0M0

Turkey detains pilots over ex-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn's escape through Istanbul - New York Post

Turkish authorities on Thursday detained seven people – including four pilots – as part of the widening probe into former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn’s wild escape from Japan as he transited through Istanbul en route to Lebanon.

The other people held were two airport ground workers and one cargo worker, a police spokeswoman told Reuters, which reported that the accused embezzler had arrived in Beirut on a private jet from Istanbul on Monday.

Meanwhile, Japanese prosecutors raided the accused embezzler’s Tokyo home after he skipped bail while on house arrest and was smuggled out of the country in a musical instrument case.

The Turkish Hurriyet news outlet, citing an interior ministry official, said border police were not notified about Ghosn’s arrival — and that neither his entry nor exit were registered, according to Reuters.

A plane carrying Ghosn arrived at 5:30 a.m. Monday in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, Hurriyet reported, adding that prosecutors ordered the arrests after widening their investigation.

Flight tracking data indicates that Ghosn used two different planes to fly into Istanbul and then continue to Lebanon.

Japanese authorities allowed Ghosn — who holds French, Lebanese and Brazilian citizenship — to carry a spare French passport in a locked case while out on bail, public broadcaster NHK reported Thursday.

Ghosn, who was first arrested in Tokyo in November 2018, faces four charges, including hiding income and enriching himself through payments to car dealerships in the Middle East.

He has repeatedly denied the charges, saying authorities trumped up the charges to prevent a possible fuller merger between Nissan and alliance partner Renault SA. He is expected to address the media next week.

On Tuesday, Ghosn said in a statement that he left for Lebanon because he thought the Japanese judicial system was unjust, and he wanted to avoid “political persecution.”

Lebanese officials have said that Ghosn entered the country legally, and that there was no reason to take action against him.

Selim Jreissati, the Lebanese minister for presidential affairs, told the An-Nahar newspaper that Ghosn entered with a French passport and Lebanese ID.

A court in Tokyo had allowed Ghosn to keep a second French passport as he needed one to travel inside Japan, a source told Agence France-Presse on Thursday.

“He had to keep this passport” to prove his short-stay status, the source said. “There was permission from the court.”

The Japanese government is likely to ask Lebanon to extradite Ghosn through diplomatic channels, though Beirut has no extradition accord with Tokyo.

The French government on Thursday said it would not extradite Ghosn if he arrived in the country because it does not extradite its nationals.

With Post wires

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2020-01-02 13:03:00Z
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5 things to know before the stock market opens on the first trading day of 2020 - CNBC

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

1. Wall Street's 2019 rally set to continue in 2020

U.S. stock futures pointed to a strong start to the first trading session of 2020 as Wall Street carried its momentum from 2019. As of 7:50 a.m. ET, Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up more than 150 points, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures also indicated solid gains. Stocks had a banner year in 2019, with the S&P 500 rallying more than 28%. The Dow and Nasdaq jumped 22% and 35%, respectively, in 2019. To be sure, the New Year presents new challenges for investors as the 2020 U.S. presidential election looms.

2. China cuts key rate

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), attends a news conference at the Great Hall of the People during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, China, on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017.

Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images

The People's Bank of China announced on Wednesday it lowered the reserve requirement ratio for the country's banks by 50 basis points. This move is expected to inject 800 billion yuan in liquidity to the Chinese economy. The announcement lifted sentiment across global equities as Asian stock markets ended mostly higher overnight. In Europe, the French CAC 40 jumped 1.4% while the German Dax gained 0.9%.

3. Tesla shares jump on big price-target bump

Elon Musk attends the groundbreaking ceremony of the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, east China, on January 7, 2019.

Ding Ting | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Shares of the electric car maker jumped more than 1.6% in the premarket after an analyst at Canaccord Genuity hiked his price target to $515 per share from $418 per share. The new price target implies a 12-month upside of 23% and is the highest among major Wall Street brokerages. "While bears have feared demand issues as a function of tax credit expiration for Tesla, we suspect a solid Q4 combined with the robust Q3 should put these fears to rest and put to rest this issue as the credit expires," the analyst said in a note. Tesla shares are coming off a strong 2019, rising 25.7% in that time.

4. Carlos Ghosn reportedly had a spare French passport while on bail

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co., gestures as he speaks during a news conference in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, on Thursday, May 12, 2016.

Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Japanese public broadcaster NHK said ousted Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn was allowed to carry a spare French passport while out on bail in Japan. The news shed some light on how Ghosn managed to escape Japan. Earlier this week, Ghosn said he left Japan to escape a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed." Ghosn was arrested in Tokyo in late 2018 on charges of hiding income and enriching himself.

5. Bernie Sanders raises more than $34 million in the fourth quarter

Sen. Bernie Sanders holds a campaign rally in Detroit, October 27, 2019.

Rebecca Cook | Reuters

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2020-01-02 13:27:00Z
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Irrational exuberance? Why last year’s stellar returns may have been a reversal of ‘excessive pessimism’ - MarketWatch

On the first working day of 2020, let’s take a moment to appreciate the virtues of a vice: laziness.

Say what you will about new year’s resolutions, but last year, letting a boring old S&P 500-tracking index fund do its work was one of the best investment decisions around.

Including dividend reinvestment, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.29%  returned 33% in 2019, outperforming virtually every national index and very nearly every investment strategy.

For the decade, according to Deutsche Bank, the S&P 500 returned a cool 256%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, +0.30%  returned 347%.

So the obvious question is, can the gains continue?

Tim Duy, a University of Oregon professor who closely tracks the Federal Reserve, plotted the return of the S&P 500 on a logarithmic scale to show that the current gains are nothing like the acceleration from the late 1990s.

“This doesn’t surprise me as I think fears of financial excess are overplayed, effectively a case of fighting the last war,” he writes. Duy also notes the level shift down since the 2007-09 recession, which he says is suggestive that a less optimistic view of the world, has already been priced into the market.

Duy also examined S&P 500 performance after the first Fed rate increase of the cycle, and finds the current performance in line with the pre-2015 average. Duy says the current performance is not “an unexplainable deviation from fundamentals” but rather an expected recovery from excessive pessimism.

The buzz

There was little new information for traders to chew on, besides the People’s Bank of China deciding to cut bank reserve requirements to help shore up the world’s second-largest economy.

Weekly U.S. jobless claims data is set for release.

While not market moving, the saga of Carlos Ghosn is still getting attention, as details of how the former Nissan and Renault executive left Japan for Lebanon still remain murky, and possibly could involve being smuggled in a musical instrument case. Turkey has detained seven individuals in connection with Ghosn’s brief travel through Istanbul.

The markets

U.S. stock futures were pointing to a strong start on Thursday, with futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average YM00, +0.59%  gaining 160 points. See Market Snapshot.

European SXXP, +1.01% and Asian stocks ADOW, +0.23%  also rose.

In currency markets, the British pound GBPUSD, -0.4528% sagged while most of the other major pairs saw little movement.

Random reads

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says Domino’s Pizza DPZ, +0.18%  exploited those who celebrated the new year in Times Square by charging $30 for pizza.

A New York state assemblyman who tweeted there was no excuse for driving impaired was arrested days later for, yes, driving impaired.

In the U.K., cassette sales reached a 15-year high last year. Get a pencil ready to rethread your tapes.

Need to Know starts early and is updated until the opening bell, but sign up here to get it delivered once to your email box. Be sure to check the Need to Know item. The emailed version will be sent out at about 7:30 a.m. Eastern.

Follow MarketWatch on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

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2020-01-02 12:53:00Z
CAIiEG1XnMScUbHIeEKwIZpZ_wkqGAgEKg8IACoHCAowjujJATDXzBUwmJS0AQ

France Won’t Extradite Carlos Ghosn if He Goes There, Official Says - The New York Times

If the fugitive former automotive executive Carlos Ghosn were to go to France, the authorities there would not extradite him to Japan, a government minister said on Thursday, four days after Mr. Ghosn fled Japan to avoid trial on financial misconduct charges.

Mr. Ghosn, the former chief executive of Nissan and Renault, made a stunning getaway on Sunday, though his movements were supposed to be strictly limited while he was free on bail in Japan. He turned up in Lebanon, saying he had escaped the “rigged Japanese justice system.”

In Turkey, the authorities detained seven people suspected of helping Mr. Ghosn escape, according to news outlets there. He reportedly left Japan late Sunday aboard a business jet from Osaka to Istanbul Ataturk Airport, where he quickly switched to another plane and flew to Beirut.

Much about his cinematic flight remains shrouded in mystery, including how he was able to escape surveillance in Japan, how he arranged his flights to Lebanon, and whether he was helped by any other countries.

Mr. Ghosn, who has been charged in Japan with an array of financial crimes, was born in Brazil to a Lebanese family, grew up mostly in Lebanon and has lived most of his adult life in France. He has passports from all three countries, though his lawyers in Japan have said that they held the documents.

“If Mr. Ghosn arrived in France, we would not extradite Mr. Ghosn because France never extradites its nationals,” Agnès Pannier-Runacher, a junior economy minister, told the news channel BFM. “That’s a rule of the game.”

Turkish news organizations, including the state-run Anadolu news agency, reported that the planes that delivered Mr. Ghosn to Istanbul and Beirut were operated by MNG Jet, a Turkish company that offers chartered flights on business aircraft. Flight tracking websites confirm MNG flights matching Mr. Ghosn’s reported path.

Four of the seven people arrested in Turkey were pilots employed by a private aviation company, two were employees of a company that provides ground services to aircraft, and one was a manager of a private cargo company, according to the Turkish reports.

An official at Havas, a ground services company that operates at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, confirmed that two of its employees were in custody for questioning in the case but said that they were expected to be released later in the day. A person who answered the phone at MNG said no one was available to comment.

It was not clear whether anyone in Turkey knowingly aided Mr. Ghosn, or if he used some kind of subterfuge to avoid detection, like traveling under an alias.

Japanese prosecutors on Thursday raided Mr. Ghosn’s sprawling, two-story house in an exclusive neighborhood of central Tokyo. After about four hours, around a dozen men — most of them wearing black suits and surgical masks — carried out heavy black briefcases, ignoring questions journalists who followed them.

While officials in Japan have expressed their outrage over his escape, Mr. Ghosn has said he would speak to the news media “starting next week.”

In Lebanon, which doesn’t have an extradition treaty with Japan, Mr. Ghosn is seen as a folk hero, a favorite son who studied in France’s most prestigious schools before embracing a successful career in the automobile industry.

Mr. Ghosn remains widely respected in France despite the accusations that he underreported his compensation and shifted personal financial losses to Nissan. French officials would not comment on how Mr. Ghosn was able to flee Japan or whether he had a second French passport.

On extradition, Ms. Pannier-Runacher said, the same rules apply to Mr. Ghosn as to any French person. Nobody is above the law, she added, but “French citizenship protects, and is protective of its citizens.”

A flight to France would be risky: Mr. Ghosn would have to pass through the airspace of several countries that could arrest him.

Asked if Mr. Ghosn had fled to save his life, Ms. Pannier-Runacher said that although his living conditions in Japan were unpleasant, his life had not been threatened. Even so, she seemed amazed by the unfolding drama.

“I’m hesitating between novel-like and … I don’t have the words to describe this escape,” she said.

Ben Dooley contributed reporting.

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2020-01-02 10:56:00Z
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