Upcoming shows
Real News

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



Maga First News

Upcoming Shows

Join The MAGA Network on Discord

0 0

AP FACT CHECK: Trump misrepresents a migrant child’s death

President Donald Trump is misrepresenting the circumstances of a 7-year-old migrant girl's death as he seeks to steer any potential blame for it away from his administration.

Trump, after mockingly painting asylum seekers as a "con job" in a rally the previous night, asserted on Friday that Jakelin Caal Maquin was given no water by her father during their trek to a remote border area and that the dad acknowledged blame for his daughter's death on Dec. 8. Those assertions are not supported by the record.

TRUMP: "I think that it's been very well stated that we've done a fantastic job. The father gave the child no water for a long period of time - he actually admitted blame." — to reporters Friday.

THE FACTS: An autopsy report released Friday found that Guatemalan girl died of a bacterial infection just more than a day after being apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. The El Paso County Medical Examiner's office said traces of streptococcus bacteria were found in Jakelin's lungs, adrenal gland, liver, and spleen, and she experienced a "rapidly progressive infection" that led to the failure of multiple organs.

Neither the autopsy report, nor accounts at the time by Customs and Border Protection , spoke of dehydration. And through family lawyers, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz said after his girl's death that he made sure she had food and water as they traveled through Mexico.

Moreover, the Border Protection timeline on her case said she was checked for medical problems upon her apprehension and: "The initial screening revealed no evidence of health issues."

The girl and her father were caught at 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6 in a group of more than 100 people trying to cross the border, less than a mile or kilometer from the Antelope Wells entry port in New Mexico. The father claimed upon their apprehension that she was in good health. In any event, no health problems were observed.

Her first distress was reported at 5 a.m. the next day, when her father said she was vomiting on a bus waiting to take them to a Border Patrol station at Lordsburg, New Mexico. When the bus arrived close to 6:30 a.m., the father said Jakelin was not breathing. A Border Patrol emergency technician revived her twice. She had a temperature of 105.7 degrees. At 7:45 a.m., a helicopter flew her to the nearest trauma center, in El Paso, Texas, where she went into cardiac arrest late that morning and was revived once more.

By then breathing by machine, with brain swelling and liver failure, she died on Dec. 8 at 12:35 a.m., her father with her.

Afterward, Trump insisted in tweets that the girl and another Guatemalan child who died in custody, Felipe Gomez Alonzo , were "were very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol."

But the boy also did not arouse any concern in initial screenings. He was in U.S. custody for five days before suddenly falling ill.

In his Michigan rally Thursday night, Trump entertained his supporters with an apocryphal story of a "heavyweight champion of the world" pleading a hardship case while seeking asylum. "It's a big fat con job, folks. It's a big fat con job."

He said "you have people coming up here" who are coached by lawyers to "say the following phrase: 'I am very afraid for my life. I am afraid for my life.' OK."

On Friday, he said of the children's deaths when asked about them: "It's a horrible situation. But Mexico could stop it."

___

Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant in Houston contributed to this report.

___

Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd

Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Merkel: If no global deal on digital tax by second half of 2020, Europe should go ahead

German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a speech at the annual Global Solutions Summit in Berlin
FILE PHOTO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a speech at the annual Global Solutions Summit in Berlin, Germany, March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

March 19, 2019

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that if there was no international agreement on taxing digital companies by the second half of next year, Europe should go ahead anyway.

Merkel also, however, expressed optimism that a global solution would be reached given that U.S. President Donald Trump is also interested in achieving that.

(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Madeline Chambers)

Source: OANN

0 0

3 children among 4 found dead after west Michigan shooting

Authorities say three children and a woman were found dead of apparent gunshot wounds at a home in western Michigan.

Kent County Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young says authorities responded Monday to a property near Cedar Springs, a community about 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of Grand Rapids. She says someone discovered the bodies and called 911.

LaJoye-Young said the three children were elementary school-aged and younger but declined to provide further information about the victims' relationships to one another. She said authorities were still confirming the victims' identities.

LaJoye-Young called the scene "a horrific thing to be called to" and said "my heart goes out to the families involved here and the community."

Authorities don't believe there is a shooter at large. An investigation is ongoing.

___

Information from: WOOD-TV, http://www.woodtv.com

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Financial Times reaches a million paying readers

FILE PHOTO: The cover of the Financial Times newspaper is seen with other papers at a news stand in New York
FILE PHOTO: The cover of the Financial Times newspaper is seen with other papers at a news stand in New York U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

April 1, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – The Financial Times has reached a milestone of a million paying readers, it said on Monday, with revenues and profits continuing to rise since the London-based business publication was acquired by Japan’s Nikkei from Pearson in 2015.

The FT was one of the first newspapers to introduce a paywall, in 2002, charging online readers for news they had come to expect for free on the internet in a trend that challenged the business model of printed news media.

The New York Times followed in 2011 following years of debate and in November said it had more than 3 million paying digital-only subscribers and more than 4 million subscribers in total, including the print edition.

The FT’s digital subscribers account for more than three-quarters of its circulation. The pink-paged print edition continues to be profitable, the FT said.

It established a metered access model in 2007, requiring users to register and charging them if they read more than a certain number per month, before switching to paid trials as its primary pay model in 2015, in which readers would get access to most FT content for a month for a small sum.

The FT’s operating profit was 25 million pounds ($33 million) in 2018 and operating revenue was 383 million.

“We have proved that quality journalism can be a quality, growth business. We have also shown the enduring value of independent, authoritative and reliable reporting and analysis,” the FT’s Chief Executive John Ridding said in a statement.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

0 0

Rescue deal is no panacea for India’s struggling Jet Airways

Jet Airways aircrafts are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai
Jet Airways aircrafts are seen parked at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, India, March 26, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

March 29, 2019

By Aditi Shah and Aftab Ahmed

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Jet Airways’ investors are cheering this week’s government-led rescue deal, but the cash-strapped Indian airline’s future looks mired in uncertainty as convincing a new investor to come on board may not be easy.

The airline, which was on the brink of bankruptcy, was bailed out on Monday by state-run banks, which have temporarily taken a majority stake in the company, given it a new loan of $218 million and forced its chairman, Naresh Goyal, to step down from the board of the airline he founded 25 years ago.

Jet shares have rallied 20 percent since news of the rescue on hopes that the airline would now be able to clear salaries, redeploy grounded planes and claw back market share.

Its future is far from certain though, as a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India now rushes to find a new investor and sell its stake in the airline.

This may not be easy especially with Goyal still holding a 25.5 percent share in Jet, which gives him the legal right to block key decisions including raising capital, issuing new shares and diluting equity.

If a deep-pocketed investor is not found soon, Jet may struggle for funds again as the interim loan given by the banks will not last for very long, say lessors and analysts.

“Right now Jet is in survival mode, there is no strategy,” said an executive at one of Jet’s lessors. Jet has been in talks with the lessor since securing the deal but it has given few details on settling pending lease payments and on its turnaround plans, he said.

“The important thing for us to know is if the airline has somebody who is patient, capable and has the financial muscle to revive it,” he said, adding his company is yet to decide whether to keep the aircraft they grounded tied to Jet.

Once India’s leading full service carrier, Jet has struggled to compete with low-cost carriers in recent years. The airline’s market share has nearly halved to 11.4 percent from 21.2 percent in 2016 and it has been forced to ground about two-thirds of its fleet leading to hundreds of flight cancellations.

(For an interactive link on Jet’s market share, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2WvDQYi)

(For an interactive link on Jet’s average daily flights, click https://tmsnrt.rs/2FeFDel)

Indian conglomerate Tata Sons had been in talks to invest in Jet on the condition that Goyal would step down, or take a less prominent role, sources told Reuters in November. While the rescue deal could put Tata back in the race, Goyal’s trimmed stake may still be a problem.

“Are you not creating a huge hurdle for the potential investors?” said a senior government official, reacting to the bank-led bailout in which Goyal still has a stake.

India also wants a domestic investor to replace the banks, which rules out potential deep-pocketed suitors like Qatar Airways but the government-backed National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, whose shareholders also include Abu Dhabi Investment Fund, is still in the fray, sources have said.

State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar has said Goyal would not pose a problem for any incoming investor but also said that the former chairman would be allowed to bid for the banks’ shares when they are auctioned, leaving a window open for the founder to come back.

The bank was not immediately available for comment.

LOST CONFIDENCE

In a fresh sign of its weak financial situation, just days after the bailout, Jet told the Indian stock exchange on Thursday that it had defaulted on an overseas loan due to “temporary liquidity constraints”. Local media reported that it was a loan of $140 million.

Saving the airline is crucial for Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he looks to avoid thousands of job losses ahead of a general election.

“This is just a band-aid until the elections,” said a source close to Jet. “We don’t know if this bailout will work,” he said, adding that Jet is like a hot piece of coal for the banks which they want to drop as soon as possible.

Several Jet pilots, who have not been paid for months, have switched airlines, and rival carriers like SpiceJet have been in talks with Jet’s lessors to take some of its grounded planes on lease, a source has told Reuters.

Jet has assured Indian authorities that no more planes will be grounded and that it is in talks with lessors to have a total of 75 planes back in the air by end-April from about 35 today.

“The current funding measures are short term and will not bring much confidence till a new investor is on board,” said Kapil Kaul, India CEO at aviation consulting firm CAPA.

“Process of returning (Jet’s) fleet back to the system might not be easy especially since the aircraft can be deployed easily to other airlines or markets,” said Kaul.

(Additional reporting by Anshuman Daga in Singapore, Suvashree Choudhury and Tanvi Mehta in Mumbai; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Source: OANN

0 0

Media Matters President Under Fire for Racist Blog Posts

The president of Media Matters is under fire after old blog posts he wrote containing racial slurs and other forms of hate resurfaced this week.

The Daily Caller published portions of the posts written by Angelo Carusone. In them, he made several anti-Semitic comments, referred to Japanese people with a racial slur, and made fun of Bangladeshis.

Carusone also appeared to make fun of cross-dressers and said the late Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, was one of his favorite public figures.

Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized Carusone and Media Matters on his show Tuesday and Wednesday night. The organization took aim at Carlson over the weekend by publishing derogatory comments he made on a radio show between 2006 and 2011.

According to Fortune, Carlson has already lost a handful of sponsors because of his past remarks that were made public on Sunday. Media Matters claims Carlson has lost a total of 34 sponsors in recent months because of comments he has made.

In one of Carusone's posts, he commented on a news story about a women's basketball coach in Japan who was accused of sexually and physically abusing his players.

"Lighten up j*ps," Carusone wrote.

Carusone also referred to his boyfriend as "jewry," adding in another post that his boyfriend had "several bags of Jewish gold."

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

Mexico backs Disney-Fox deal, orders sale of Fox Sports channels

A screen shows the trading info for The Walt Disney Company company on the floor of the NYSE in New York
A screen shows the logo and a ticker symbol for The Walt Disney Company on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., December 14, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

March 12, 2019

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT) said on Tuesday it had approved the Walt Disney Co’s purchase of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc’s film and television assets, subject to certain conditions, including the sale of Fox Sports channels.

“As the accumulation (of market power) is considerable, the finding was that measures of conduct would not be enough, so structural measures were chosen, as occurred in other parts of the world,” the IFT said in a statement.

(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Source: OANN

NOW ON AIR
Now On Air

Real News with David Knight

9:00 am 12:00 pm



FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain's far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville
FILE PHOTO: Supporters of the Spain’s far-right party VOX wave Spanish flags as they attend an electoral rally ahead of general elections in the Andalusian capital of Seville, Spain April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Marcelo del Pozo/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By John Stonestreet and Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) – Spain’s Vox party, aligned to a broader far-right movement emerging across Europe, has become the focus of speculation about last minute shifts in voting intentions since official polling for Sunday’s national election ended four days ago.

No single party is anywhere near securing a majority, and chances of a deadlocked parliament and a second election are high.

Leaders of the five parties vying for a role in government get final chances to pitch for power at rallies on Friday evening, before a campaign characterized by appeals to voters’ hearts rather than wallets ends at midnight.

By tradition, the final day before a Spanish election is politics-free.

Two main prizes are still up for grabs in the home straight. One concerns which of the two rival left and right multi-party blocs gets more votes.

The other is whether Vox could challenge the mainstream conservative PP for leadership of the latter bloc, which media outlets with access to unofficial soundings taken since Monday suggest could be starting to happen.

The right’s loose three-party alliance is led by the PP, the traditional conservative party that has alternated in office with outgoing Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s.

The PP stands at around 20 percent, with center-right Ciudadanos near 14 percent and Vox around 11 percent, according to a final poll of polls in daily El Pais published on Monday.

Since then, however, interest in Vox – which will become the first far-right party to sit in parliament since 1982 – has snowballed.

It was founded in 2013, part of a broader anti-establishment, far-right movement that has also spread across – among others – Italy, France and Germany.

While it is careful to distance itself from the ideology of late dictator Francisco Franco, Vox’s signature policies include repealing laws banning Franco-era symbols and on gender-based violence, and shifting power away from Spain’s regional governments.

TRENDING

According to a Google trends graphic, Vox has generated more than three times more search inquiries than any other Spanish political party in the past week.

Reasons could include a groundswell of vocal activist support at Vox rallies in Madrid and Valencia, and its exclusion from two televised debates between the main party leaders, on the grounds of it having no deputies yet in parliament.

Conservative daily La Vanguardia called its enforced absence from Monday’s and Tuesday’s debates “a gift from heaven”, while left-wing Eldiario.es suggested the PP was haemorrhaging votes to Vox in rural areas.

Ignacio Jurado, politics lecturer at the University of York, agreed the main source of additional Vox votes would be disaffected PP supporters, and called the debate ban – whose impact he said was unclear – wrong.

“This is a party polling over 10 percent and there are people interested in what it says. So we lose more than we win in not having them (in the debates),” he said

For Jose Fernandez-Albertos, political scientist at Spanish National Research Council CSIC, Vox is enjoying the novelty effect that propelled then new, left-wing arrival Podemos to 20 percent of the vote in 2015.

“While it’s unclear how to interpret the (Google) data, what we do know is that it’s better to be popular and to be a newcomer, and that Vox will benefit in some form,” he said.

For now, the chances of Vox taking a major role in government remain slim, however.

The El Pais survey put the Socialists on around 30 percent, making them the frontrunners and likely to form a leftist bloc with Podemos, back down at around 14 percent.

The unofficial soundings suggest little change in the two parties’ combined vote, or the total vote of the rightist bloc.

That makes it unlikely that either bloc will win a majority on Sunday, triggering horse-trading with smaller parties favoring Catalan independence – the single most polarizing issues during campaigning – that could easily collapse into fresh elections.

(Election graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2ENugtw)

(Reporting by John Stonestreet and Belen Carreno, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the OPEC is seen at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna
FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at OPEC’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria December 5, 2018. REUTERS/Leonhard Foeger/File Photo

April 26, 2019

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday he called the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and told the cartel to lower oil prices.

“Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you’ve got to bring them down. You’ve got to bring them down,” Trump told reporters.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy near Lyon
Sonia Bompastor, director of the Olympique Lyonnais womenÕs Youth Academy, leads a training at the OL Academy in Meyzieu near Lyon, France, April 16, 2019. REUTERS/Emmanuel Foudrot

April 26, 2019

By Julien Pretot

MEYZIEU, France (Reuters) – Olympique Lyonnais president Jean-Michel Aulas was wringing out his women’s team shirts in the locker room on a rainy London day eight years ago when he decided it was time to take gender equality more seriously.

It was halftime in their Champions League semi-final second leg against Arsenal at Meadow Park with 507 fans watching and Aulas realized that his players did not have a another kit for the second half.

“Next time, there will be a second set just like for the men, that’s how it’s going to work from now on,” he said.

Lyon have since won five Champions League titles to become the most successful women’s team in Europe and recently claimed a 13th consecutive domestic crown.

They visit Chelsea on Sunday in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, with a fourth straight title in their sights.

At the heart of their achievements is a pervasive ethos that promotes gender equality throughout the club, starting in the youth academy.

In 2013, Aulas appointed former Lyon and France player Sonia Bompastor as head of the Women’s Academy — the female equivalent of one of France’s top youth set-ups that has produced players such as Karim Benzema, Alexandre Lacazette and Hatem Ben Arfa.

At the Youth Academy, girls and boys share the same facilities.

“Pitches, physiotherapy rooms are the same for all,” the 38-year-old Bompastor told Reuters.

As the girls train under the watch of former Lyon and France international Camille Abily, the screams of the boys practicing can be heard nearby.

The boys and girls also benefit from the same psychological support that includes hypnosis sessions and yoga.

“We have a ‘mental ability’ cell and the hypnotist acts on the girls’ subconscious, on their deeply held beliefs after observing them on and off the pitch,” Bompastor added.

SAME TREATMENT

One message the Academy staff are trying to convey is that girls are as good as boys.

“Women’s nature is such that we have low self-esteem. So self-esteem is a big topic for our girls,” said Bompastor.

This is not the case with the boys, she added.

“Some 14, 15-year-old boys still think they would beat our professional players, we tell them this would not be happening. We still need to work on those beliefs,” she said.

Female players also have to face questions that their male counterparts do not, Bompastor explained.

“In France there is a problem with the way women are considered, there are high aesthetic expectations. So we get heavy questions on femininity, intimate questions that men don’t get,” she said.

OL’s Academy has been held up as a shining example for others to follow, even in the U.S., where women’s soccer has a wider audience than in Europe.

“About one third of the (senior women’s) squad comes from the Academy, we have a good balance,” said Bompastor.

“I’m getting tons of requests from American universities and foreign clubs, who want to come and visit our facilities.”

‘ONE CLUB’

The salaries of the senior players is one area where there remains a large discrepancy between Lyon’s men’s and women’s teams.

While the three best-paid women players in the world are at Lyon with Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg earning 400,000 euros ($445,520) a year, this figure is dwarfed by the around 4 million euros earned annually by men’s player Memphis Depay.

There is, however, a level of interaction between the men’s and women’s players that is not present at many other clubs.

“When you talk about OL you talk about women and men, you talk about one club and you feel it when you are here or outside in the city,” Germany defender Carolin Simon told Reuters.

“We see it when we play in the big stadium. It’s not ‘normal’ for women’s football,” the 26-year-old, who joined the club last year, added.

Lyon’s female players also enjoy respect from their male counterparts, Simon said.

“It’s very cool, it’s a big honor to feel that it doesn’t matter if you are a professional man or woman. We talk with the men, there are handshakes, it’s a good atmosphere and it’s also why we are successful,” said Simon.

“The men respect us and it’s not just for the cameras.”

Her team mate, England’s Lucy Bronze, sees the men’s respect as key to improving women’s football.

“We might not be paid the same but they are just normal with us, they see us as footballers the same as they are,” Bronze told Reuters.

“Being at Lyon has really opened my eyes. To improve women’s football, it starts with having the respect of your male counterparts. It’s the biggest thing because they can influence so many people.”

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Toby Davis)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen
FILE PHOTO: Ethiopian migrants, stranded in war-torn Yemen, sit on the ground of a detention site pending repatriation to their home country, in Aden, Yemen April 24, 2019. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo

April 26, 2019

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemeni authorities have rounded up about 3,000 irregular migrants, predominantly Ethiopians, in the south of the country, “creating an acute humanitarian situation,” the U.N. migration agency said on Friday.

“IOM is deeply concerned about the conditions in which the migrants are being held and is engaging with the authorities to ensure access to the detained migrants,” the International Organization for Migration said.

The migrants are held in open-air football stadiums and in a military camp, it said in a statement.

The detentions began on Sunday in the city of Aden and the neighboring province of Lahj, which are under the control of the internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran-aligned Houthi rebels control Sanaa, the capital, and other major urban centers.

Both sides are under international diplomatic pressure to implement a United Nations-sponsored ceasefire deal agreed last year in Sweden and to prepare for a wider political dialogue that would end the four-year-old war.

Thousands of migrants arrive in Yemen every year, mostly from the Horn of Africa, driven by drought and unemployment at home and lured by the wages available in the Gulf.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli, Editing by William Maclean)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this picture illustration
U.S. dollar notes are seen in this November 7, 2016 picture illustration. Picture taken November 7. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Following are five big themes likely to dominate thinking of investors and traders in the coming week and the Reuters stories related to them.

1/DOLLAR JUGGERNAUT

The dollar has zipped to near two-year highs, leaving many scratching their heads. To many, it’s down to signs the U.S. economy is chugging ahead while the rest of the world loses steam. After all, Wall Street is busily scaling new peaks day after day.

Never mind the cause, the effect is stark. The euro has tumbled to 22-month lows against the dollar and investors are preparing for more, buying options to shield against further downside. Emerging-market currencies are also in pain, with Turkish lira and Argentine peso both sharply weaker.

Now U.S. data need to keep surprising on the upside or even just meet expectations. The International Monetary Fund sees U.S. growth at 2.3 percent this year. For Germany, the forecast is 0.8 percent. The U.S. economy’s rude health has given rise to speculation the Fed might resume raising interest rates. Unlikely. But as other countries — Canada, Sweden and Australia are the latest — hint at more policy easing, there seems to be one way the dollar can go. Up.

(GRAPHIC: Dollar outperforms G10 FX – https://tmsnrt.rs/2Dz17S5)

2/FED: UP OR DOWN?

Wall Street is near record highs and recession worries are receding, so as we mentioned above, investors might wonder if the Federal Reserve will start raising rates again.

Such a pivot is unlikely after the Fed killed off rate-rise expectations at its March meeting. And the latest Reuters poll all but puts to bed any risk of rates will go up this economic cycle, given inflation remains below the Fed’s alarm threshold and unemployment is the lowest in generations.

Before the March rate-pause announcement, a preponderance of economists penciled in one or more increases this year. But that has flipped. A majority of those surveyed April 22-24 see no further tightening through December and more are leaning toward a cut by the end of next year.

Indeed, interest rate futures imply Fed Funds will be below the current 2.25-2.50 percent target range by this December.

Recent positive consumer spending and exports data have eased market concerns of a sharp economic slowdown. But inflation probably needs to run hot for a long period to panic policymakers off their wait-and-see course.     

(GRAPHIC: Federal funds and the economy – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DzjTZz)

3/HEISEI TO REIWA

Next week ends three decades of Japan’s Heisei era. Heisei, or Achieving Peace, began in 1989 near the peak of a massive stock market bubble and closes with the country trapped in low growth, no inflation, and negative interest rates.

The new era that dawns on May 1 is called Reiwa, meaning Beautiful Harmony. It begins when Crown Prince Naruhito ascends the Chrysanthemum Throne. But do investors really want harmony? What they want to see is a bit of economic growth and inflation to shake up the status quo.

The Bank of Japan’s stimulus toolkit to revive a long-suffering economy is anything but harmonious and yet it’s set to stay. The central bank confirmed recently rates will stay near zero for a long time. But the coming days may not be harmonious or peaceful for currency markets. A 10-day Golden Week holiday kicks off on April 29 and investors are fretting over the risk of a “flash crash” – a violent currency spasm that can occur in times of thin trading turnover.

The year has already seen two yen spikes and many, including Japan’s housewife-trader brigade – so-called Mrs Watanabes – appear to have bought yen as the holiday approaches. Their short dollar/long yen positions recently reached record highs, stock exchange data showed.

(GRAPHIC: Japan stocks: from Hensei to Reiwa – https://tmsnrt.rs/2W6a7Fe)

4/EARNING TURNING

Quarterly earnings were supposed to be the worst in Europe in almost three years, but with a third of results in, things are looking a little rosier.

Two-thirds of companies’ results have beat expectations, and they point to earnings growth of 4.5 percent year-on-year. Financials have delivered the biggest surprises, according to analysis by Barclays.

That might just show how low expectations were. In fact, analysts are still taking a red pen to their estimates.

The latest I/B/E/S data from Refinitiv shows analysts on average expect first-quarter earnings-per-share for STOXX 600-listed companies to fall 4.2 percent. That would be their worst quarter since 2016 and down sharply from an estimated 3.4 percent just a week earlier.

Those estimates may end up being a little too bearish as earnings season goes on, quelling worries that Europe is heading toward a corporate recession.

GSK and Reckitt Benckiser will give the market a glimpse of the health of the consumer products market and spending on everything from toothpaste, washing powder and paracetamol.

(GRAPHIC: Earnings forecasts – https://tmsnrt.rs/2DuO2ZF)

5/WAITING FOR THE OLD LADY

Sterling has gone into the doldrums amid the Brexit delay and unproductive talks between the UK government and the opposition Labour party on a EU withdrawal deal. The resurgent dollar, meanwhile, has taken 2 percent off the pound in April. It is unlikely the Bank of England will be able to rouse it at its May 2 meeting.

Despite robust retail and jobs data of late, the economic picture is gloomy – 2019 growth is likely to be around 1.2 percent, the weakest since 2009, investment is down and Governor Mark Carney says business uncertainty is “through the roof”.

Indeed, expectations for an interest rate increase have been whittled down; Reuters polls forecast rates will not move until early 2020, a calendar quarter later than was forecast a month ago. The hunt for a new governor to replace Carney in October adds more uncertainty to the mix.

The recent run of UK data has fueled hopes of economic rebound. That’s put net hedge fund positions in the pound into positive territory for the first time in nearly a year. The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street might temper some of that optimism.

(GRAPHIC: Sterling positions – https://tmsnrt.rs/2XJwUXX)

(Reporting by Alden Bentley in New York, Vidya Ranganathan in Singapore; Karin Strohecker, Josephine Mason and Saikat Chatterjee in London; compiled by Sujata Rao; edited by Larry King)

Source: OANN

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!

Listen to https://magaoneradio.net and Listen Daily! Don't Forget to Share Click a Link Below!
Current track

Title

Artist