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How Trump is using furor over Ilhan Omar to bash Pelosi

Nancy Pelosi is speaker again for one reason: her party picked up 40 seats in mostly moderate districts.

And yet the Democrats are being yanked to the left by their most visible uber-liberals, creating a huge image problem for the 79-year-old congresswoman.

With the left-wingers grabbing the lion's share of media attention, President Trump is already trying to run against her party as a bunch of wild-eyed socialists.

That leaves Pelosi with the unenviable task of preventing the Democrats from being defined by their most ideological members — and yes, the irony that this challenge falls to a classic San Francisco liberal is unmistakable.

Democrats aren't the world's most organized party. Holding together a fractious caucus has never been an easy task. And there are lingering levels of distrust from the way the establishment favored Hillary Clinton in 2016 over Bernie Sanders, who now finds himself the nominal front-runner for 2020.

FOX NEWS' BERNIE SANDERS TOWN HALL VIEWING NUMBERS BEAT CNN, MSNBC COMBINED

With the party obsessed with knocking off Trump, keeping a façade of unity may well be impossible.

"The far left's frustration with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on the rise," The Washington Post declares.

The latest contretemps revolves around Ilhan Omar, one of the first two Muslim congresswomen, who has repeatedly stirred controversy with comments viewed as anti-Semitic. It was Pelosi who had to steer passage of a House resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry that was watered down by not mentioning Omar.

Now the Minnesota lawmaker is in a war of words with Trump, triggered by her remarks about 9/11. Omar complained that Muslims were being treated as second-class citizens because "some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties." The New York Post put a photo of the burning twin towers on the front page with the headline, "Here's Your Something."

The president pounced by retweeting a post that called Omar a "sick monster." He posted a video with footage of the World Trade Center — titled "WE WILL NEVER FORGET!" — with Omar's remarks spliced in.

PELOSI APPEARS TO TAKE NEW JAB AT AOC, SAYS 'A GLASS OF WATER' WITH A 'D' COULD WIN SOME DISTRICTS

When Omar started receiving death threats, some in the media blamed Trump, as if criticism of a politician is the equivalent of inciting crackpots against her. But the situation was certainly inflamed.

The Post reports that "Omar's allies over the weekend were upset by what they viewed as Pelosi's delayed response" in supporting her colleague. Her first statement criticizing Trump made no mention of Omar. Pelosi ratcheted up her rhetoric on Monday, saying the president's sharing of the video was "beneath the dignity of the Oval Office."

Liberals are also upset, according to the paper, at Pelosi's jibe at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a "60 Minutes" interview. Pelosi said AOC's "wing" of the party included "like five people."

DOZENS OF DEMS VOTE 95 PERCENT OF TIME WITH AOC DESPITE PELOSI CLAIM BLOCK IS 'LIKE FIVE PEOPLE'

Trump has ramped up his attacks on Omar, saying Monday that she's "very disrespectful" toward both America and Israel and has "got a way about her that's very, very bad for our country."

The president is also using Omar as a way of dinging Pelosi. Keep in mind that Trump has not directly assailed Pelosi — not even bestowing a nickname on the woman who seemed to have outmaneuvered him during the 35-day government shutdown.

Look at this presidential tweet: "Before Nancy, who has lost all control of Congress and is getting nothing done, decides to defend her leader, Rep. Omar, she should look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and ungrateful U.S. HATE statements Omar has made. She is out of control, except for her control of Nancy!"

Trump is essentially saying that Pelosi has lost control to her left-wing zealots, and has been reduced to an Omar puppet. Pelosi actually runs the House with a strong hand, but Trump's slam nicely dovetails with his desire to run against the Omar/AOC/Bernie "socialists."

Liberal critics are accusing the president of using bigoted rhetoric.

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"If Omar is a target, it has little to do with what she said and everything to do with who she is: A black Muslim woman — and an immigrant — whose very person disrupts the exclusionary ideal of a white Christian America," says Jamelle Bouie, an African-American columnist for The New York Times.

It's all gotten pretty ugly, no question about it. Ilhan Omar, although she apologized once for anti-Semitic comments, does not appear to be a conciliatory politician. And neither, of course, is Donald Trump.

But there is a payoff to waging such high-profile fights: Omar raised $832,000 in the first quarter of the year, more than all but a few House Democrats.

Source: Fox News Politics

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Canadian family loses three generations in Ethiopian plane crash

Members of the Ethiopian red cross search for remains at the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash before a commemoration ceremony at the scene of the crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa
Members of the Ethiopian red cross search for remains at the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash before a commemoration ceremony at the scene of the crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia March 13, 2019. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

March 13, 2019

TORONTO (Reuters) – Three generations of a Canadian family were among the 157 people who perished when Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 crashed on Sunday, a relative confirmed on Wednesday.

They were on their way to a Kenya vacation when the plane crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing passengers and crew from more than 30 countries.

Prerit Dixit, 43, and Kosha Vaidya, 37, their daughters and Ashka Dixit, 14, and Anushka Dixit, 13, and Vaidya’s parents Pannagesh Vaidya, 73, and Hansini Vaidya, 67, were among the 18 Canadians killed. They lived in Brampton, a Toronto suburb.

“This is terrible and tragic,” Manant Vaidya, brother of Kosha Vaidya, told Reuters. “It feels as if my whole support system has disappeared. I have no idea how we will cope up with this tragedy.”

The Dixit-Vaidya family was flying to Kenya so that Kosha Vaidya could show her Canadian-born daughters the country of her birth, Manant Vaidya said, adding his parents were returning there for the first time in more than 50 years.

Manant Vaidya works for the Reuters parent company Thomson Reuters. He plans to fly to Ethiopia on Saturday and from there to Mumbai for the final rituals of the deceased.

Dixit worked at medical-testing company LifeLabs as a lab technician and as a lab professional for Public Health Ontario. In email statements, both remembered his helpful and pleasant demeanor, his sense of humor and his dedication to family.

Kosha Vaidya had been a human resources adviser for the Canadian Hearing Society since 2017, the organization said in a website statement, adding she would be “remembered for her intelligence, professionalism and dynamic personality.”

(Reporting by Nichola Saminather; Editing by Denny Thomas and Howard Goller)

Source: OANN

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‘I’m going to die’: Survivor recounts Mali ethnic massacre

The sun had yet to rise and Ada Diallo was preparing for morning prayers when gunfire rang out in her village in central Mali. The 55-year-old ran through the darkness to the home of the local spiritual leader.

Inside, some 50 women cowered in a single room, praying for their lives.

They had been caught in the deadliest attack yet of a new conflict in the West African nation, one driven by fear and suspicion over alleged ties to extremist groups that have moved in from the vast, arid north. The insecurity crisis has become so serious that Mali's prime minister on Thursday resigned.

The attack late last month killed 154 people in Diallo's village, which is dominated by the Muslim Peuhl ethnic group. The ethnic Dogon militia suspected in the massacre accuses Peuhls of collaborating with extremists, a charge they deny. The militia leader in turn denies that his fighters, suspected by some Peuhls of collaborating with Mali's military, carried out the attack.

As both sides urge Mali's government to restore peace to the increasingly troubled region after hundreds of deaths last year alone, Diallo's description of the attack, told to The Associated Press, brought the horror to life.

Five minutes after she took shelter with other women that morning, the attackers arrived on their doorstep.

"They opened the windows and started firing indiscriminately while others tried to make holes in the walls of the house so that they could shoot us too," Diallo recalled. "Then the men who had been firing on us from the window threw a bottle filled with petrol and it landed 3 meters (yards) from me."

Amid the terror, she found the strength to make her way to the door. Moments later there was an explosion and the house caught fire.

Running past bodies strewn on the dirt path, she reached another hiding spot.

"I told myself: 'If I stay here, I'm going to die.' So I gathered my courage and I decided to run again. I started to hear more gunshots and so I hid again, this time among two dead men. One had been decapitated by a knife and one had been killed by gunfire."

She eventually found another spot where about 20 wounded women had gathered. They made their way into the countryside, many still barefoot.

From their hiding place in the forest, they watched their village burn for more than three hours.

Around 9 a.m., the women saw several Malian military vehicles arriving and they headed back to the village. As Diallo got closer to her home she started to run, fearing for her husband, Moussa, whom she had not seen in hours.

"When I got there, I found the body of my husband and that of our neighbor," she said. "I cried with all my might: 'This is an innocent man, an elderly man who has never harmed others.'"

Other survivors had found her husband's national identity card, now covered in blood. They handed it to her along with a 5,000 CFA bill ($9) found in his pocket as she wailed in grief.

"We had done nothing wrong and look what happened to us," said Diallo, who is among more than 200 village residents who now live elsewhere with the support of aid groups.

"My husband, 65 years old, an old man, was just slaughtered with all these other people like a chicken. I am disappointed that our government did nothing to protect us."

During the day-long long wait to be evacuated to the regional city of Mopti, there was no way to prepare meals because all the homes had been destroyed.

The survivors could not even gather water to drink.

The wells were contaminated by blood from the victims whose bodies had been dumped there.

___

Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa

Source: Fox News World

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Walmart Adding Thousands of Robots to US Stores

Walmart is planning on increasing automation this year, as Yahoo Finance reports the company will add thousands of robots to perform low-level work in its U.S. stores.

The company plans to add 1,500 autonomous floor cleaners, the "Auto-C," and 300 shelf scanners called the "Auto-S." Walmart will also add 1,200 FAST Unloaders, which scan and sort items that come in on trucks automatically, and 900 pickup towers, which are able to retrieve orders made by online customers. Some of these machines could soon be seen moving through stores, checking inventory and cleaning the floor.

John Crecelius, Walmart senior vice president of U.S. central operations, told Yahoo Finance these robots are intended to help human workers perform their duties, akin to smartphones.

"They are assistants to help you be more effective in taking care of what the customer needs to give you time to serve and sell,” he said.

Crecelius notes the robots can help employees save time washing the floor and performing "tedious" inventory work.

"Just getting, 'Here are the things that need to be addressed' and seeing progress when you're addressing those things, feeling progress as you're addressing those things, and your customers getting the things that they need as part of their basket just feels better," he said.

Source: NewsMax America

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Catalonia: the crisis at the heart of Spain’s election

FILE PHOTO: Santiago Abascal, leader and presidential candidate of Spain's far-right party VOX, speaks at a rally in Toledo
FILE PHOTO: Santiago Abascal, leader and presidential candidate of Spain's far-right party VOX, speaks at a rally in Toledo, Spain, April 11, 2019. REUTERS/Sergio Perez/File Photo

April 25, 2019

By Ingrid Melander and Joan Faus

TOLEDO/BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) – Proudly displaying two Spanish flags he brought to wave at a Vox rally, retired police officer Jose Antonio Corrales Sierra says he will vote for the far-right party in Sunday’s election and is ditching the mainstream PP conservatives because of Catalonia.

The northeastern region’s independence drive has been an agent of radical change. It was instrumental in triggering the election, has been a pivotal issue throughout campaigning and is expected to be crucial in determining the composition of the next government.

“I used to vote PP, but I will never do it again because they are traitors,” said 61-year-old Corrales Sierra, blaming the party, in office in 2017 when Catalonia defied national authorities to hold an independence referendum, for not doing enough to prevent that banned vote.

The pensioner’s words struck as irrevocable a tone as his actions, but reflected the unbridled emotions in play in the wider debate over national identity that has polarized the country like no other and whose consequences the right wing parties may have misjudged.

“Traitor” is, after all, what PP leader Pablo Casado labeled Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, simply for his willingness to enter discussions with Catalonia’s separatists. Sanchez has consistently opposed any move towards independence.

Vox chief Santiago Abascal called him “insane” and told the rally in Toledo attended by Corrales Sierra that Spain’s survival as a nation was at stake.

Center-right Ciudadanos’ leader Albert Rivera, meanwhile, said Sanchez wanted to “liquidate” the country.

Things are much calmer on the ground in Catalonia than in October 2017 when the crisis upended Spanish politics, helping Vox rise from near-anonymity to the certainty of becoming the first far-right party to sit in parliament in almost 40 years.

CATALONIA OR BUST?

But for it and the other right-wing parties, pushing the Catalonia issue so hard throughout campaigning for an election that remains too close to call may prove counterproductive.

Banking early on the attention it could win them, Vox became co-accuser in the ongoing Supreme Court trial of twelve Catalan separatist leaders for rebellion and sedition.

PP and Ciudadanos joined the anti-secession bandwagon too.

But by all choosing Catalonia and attacks on Sanchez as a major campaign theme, when polls show it is not the top concern for voters, the three right-wing parties risk losing time and energy battling each other and damaging their chances of entering government.

What they are targeting is forming a coalition together, but that outcome, which opinion polls showed to be the most likely one a few weeks ago, has become much more of an outside bet.

Sanchez’s Socialists are now in pole position and, for Lluis Orriols, a political science lecturer at the University Carlos III of Madrid, much of that is down to the right’s stance on Catalonia.

“The three parties saw opportunities on their right flank … but they have neglected the center, which the Socialists are now occupying by default,” Orriols said.

WHAT COALITION?

The election is however far from in the bag for Sanchez, and there again Catalonia is likely to be a determining factor.

Sanchez hopes to be able to govern with just anti-austerity Podemos, the only national party that supports the principle of a referendum on Catalonia’s future.

But surveys suggest other allies will be needed and Catalonia’s separatists are an option.

They precipitated the end of his minority government in February, refusing to back his 2019 budget bill because they felt he was not supportive enough of their demand to hold another referendum.

But in the past week the two main Catalan secessionist parties, ERC and JxCat, have softened their stance, showing some willingness to help support a second term for Sanchez and stave off a right-wing government that would include hardline nationalists Vox.

“We will not facilitate, either by action or by omission, an extreme right government in Spain,” ERC leader Oriol Junqueras said from the Madrid jail where he is being held during his sedition trial.

“If we want the (Catalan) republic, the referendum, it is obvious that we have to be understood in the world.”

Catalonia elects 48 of Spain’s 350 deputies, and ERC and JxCat could together have up to 23 seats, a CIS opinion poll showed.

With the margins so fine, that suggests Junqueras’ support could be decisive, though any talks between Sanchez and the secessionists are bound to be long and complex.

Based on opinion polls, the Socialists and Ciudadanos could together form a two-party coalition.

But chances of that appear to have receded as the election has drawn closer. Not only do they differ strongly on Catalonia but after Rivera repeatedly rejected any such alliance, Sanchez said on Tuesday it was not part of his plans either.

Meanwhile, in Ciutat Meridiana, the poorest neighborhood of Barcelona, the debate about independence seems far from people’s minds.

“What I care about is having a job. I am apolitical,” said 41 year-old construction worker Francisco Javier. He said the campaign should focus on bigger concerns such as global warming and plans to leave his ballot paper blank.

(Additional reporting by Sabela Ojea, Elena Rodriguez; Writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by John Stonestreet)

Source: OANN

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Meadows helps Rays knock off White Sox

MLB: Tampa Bay Rays at San Francisco Giants
Apr 5, 2019; San Francisco, CA, USA; Tampa Bay Rays right fielder Austin Meadows (17) catches a fly ball during the third inning against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

April 9, 2019

Austin Meadows had a career-high four hits, including a two-run home run, and drove in four runs, and the visiting Tampa Bay Rays continued to match their best start in team history with a 10-5 win against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday afternoon.

Avisail Garcia had three hits and Brandon Lowe had two, each hitting solo home runs for the Rays, who improved to 9-3 while clinching their fourth consecutive series to start the season.

Rays starter Charlie Morton (2-0) went five innings, allowing two runs, three hits, striking out seven and walking three.

The Rays built a 4-0 lead after two innings, the same as they did in a 5-1 win against the White Sox in the series opener on Monday.

Meadows scored on a sacrifice fly by Lowe in the first for a 1-0 lead. The Rays have outscored their opponents 14-1 in the first inning this season.

Garcia, who played the past 5 1/2 seasons with the White Sox before signing a free-agent contract with the Rays in January, homered with one out in the second inning to make it 2-0. Willy Adames then walked and Meadows lifted a low breaking ball over the fence in right for his third home run of the season and a 4-0 lead.

Lowe hit a solo homer in the third to make it 5-0 before Chicago third baseman Yoan Moncada connected on a two-run blast in the bottom half of the inning to cut the deficit to 5-2.

White Sox starter Ervin Santana made his team debut, and the 36-year-old right-hander was aiming for the 150th win of his 15-year major league career. He lasted just 3 2/3 innings, however, allowing seven runs and seven hits with three walks and one strikeout.

The Rays chased Santana with two more runs in the fourth.

Michael Perez and Adames hit back-to-back doubles to make it 6-2, and Meadows then singled in Adames for a 7-2 lead.

The Rays scored another run on a wild pitch in the eighth before the White Sox added three runs in their half of the eighth.

–Field Level Media

Source: OANN

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Hubert Joly to step down as Best Buy CEO

Hubert Joly, the CEO of Best Buy, poses for a photograph before an interview with Reuters in New York
FILE PHOTO: Hubert Joly, the CEO of Best Buy, poses for a photograph before an interview with Reuters in New York, U.S. March 9, 2018. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

April 15, 2019

(Reuters) – Best Buy Co Inc said on Monday Chief Executive Officer Hubert Joly would step down from his role in June and take over as the executive chairman.

The consumer electronics retailer named Chief Financial Officer Corie Barry as its new CEO.

(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle
FILE PHOTO: An aerial photo looking north shows shipping containers at the Port of Seattle and the Elliott Bay waterfront in Seattle, Washington, U.S. March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson/File Photo

April 26, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. economic growth is running at a 1.1% pace in the second quarter as the gains in exports and inventories recorded in the first quarter are expected to reverse, Morgan Stanley economists said on Friday.

“Our preliminary expectations for growth in the second quarter sees large drags from net exports and inventories after their contributions in 1Q,” they wrote in a research note.

Gross domestic product increased at a 3.2% annualized rate in the first three months of the year, driven by a smaller trade deficit and the largest accumulation of unsold merchandise since 2015, the Commerce Department said earlier Friday.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt
FILE PHOTO: The Deutsche Bank headquarters are pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, April 25, 2019. REUTERS/Ralph Orlowski/File Photo

April 26, 2019

By Tom Sims

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Within hours of the collapse of merger talks with Commerzbank, Christian Sewing scrambled to convince investors and employees that Deutsche Bank can stand on its own two feet.

The Deutsche Bank chief executive told staff, many of whom opposed a merger because of significant job losses, that while he had not been “skeptical” about the Commerzbank talks, he was cautious about the chances of success from the start.

And another top Deutsche Bank executive said on Friday that it had been Commerzbank that initiated the talks, suggesting there was no desperation on their part for a deal.

Commerzbank denied that version of events, ending the apparent truce between the normally highly competitive cross-town Frankfurt rivals over the past six weeks.

German hopes of creating a national banking champion able to challenge global competitors were finally dashed on Thursday when Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank ended their talks due to the risks of doing a deal, restructuring costs and capital demands.

For Sewing, the failure to clinch a deal has left the 49-year-old chief executive of Germany’s largest bank, who took over just over a year ago, with his back to the wall.

Credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s, which downgraded Deutsche Bank last year, said on Friday that Deutsche Bank “will remain under strain”, adding that it “seems to have acknowledged the need to adjust its strategy”.

Under Sewing, a new leadership has tried to revive Deutsche Bank’s fortunes, but it has faced money laundering allegations and failed stress tests, as well as ratings downgrades.

At the heart of the debate over its future is whether it should focus its business on Germany and draw a line under its costly global ambitions to take on Wall Street’s big guns.

“MARKET PLAY”

Without a deal, Deutsche Bank now finds itself back at the mercy of equity and debt markets, with UBS analysts warning that in a “stress scenario” it could again “be forced into a ‘debt-driven capital increase’ even with solid capital ratios”.

“Deutsche remains a levered market play vulnerable to external events,” the UBS analysts said in a note.

Sewing, along with many analysts, believes Deutsche Bank can go it alone in the short-term, but will be counting on a turnaround in market conditions to do so in the long-run given its dependence on volatile investment bank earnings.

“To reach our return objective, we also need to see a revenue recovery in our more market-sensitive business,” Sewing said on Friday after reporting results.

“These revenues are available to us in better market conditions given our leading positions in many of these businesses, but we need to capture them,” he added.

Revenue at Deutsche Bank’s bond trading division fell 19 percent in the first quarter, it said on Friday, underscoring weakness at its investment bank.

If those earnings do not improve, Berlin’s desire to keep its biggest bank out of foreign hands may start to wane.

“Germany’s globally active companies need competitive financial institutions that can support them around the world,” German finance minister Olaf Scholz said on Thursday.

(Writing by Alexander Smith; Editing by Keith Weir)

Source: OANN

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Panama's former president Ricardo Martinelli yells to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City
Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli reacts to the media while arriving to the Electoral Court in Panama City, Panama April 26, 2019. REUTERS/Erick Marciscano

April 26, 2019

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) – Panama’s electoral tribunal has ruled that former President Ricardo Martinelli, who is awaiting trial on wiretapping charges, cannot take part in elections on May 5 in which he was running for mayor of Panama City and a seat in Congress, a spokesman for Martinelli said on Friday.

“The ruling of the electoral tribunal has disqualified him as candidate,” said the spokesman, Eduardo Camacho, calling the court’s ruling a “political decision.”

Officials at the tribunal did not immediately confirm the ruling, which also was reported in local media in Panama.

Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon who ran the Central American country from 2009 to 2014, was extradited to Panama last June from the United States and charged with spying on 150 people, including politicians, union leaders and journalists.

A judge had previously cleared Martinelli to run for mayor of the capital. His critics vowed to appeal that decision.

(Reporting by Elida Moreno and Stefanie Eschenbacher; Editing by Bill Trott)

Source: OANN

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FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City
FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

April 26, 2019

(Reuters) – Shares of Walmart, Target and other U.S. retailers fell on Friday as Amazon.com Inc unveiled a one-day delivery plan for its Prime members in a move to further disrupt the fiercely competitive retail landscape.

The e-commerce giant’s announcement on Thursday could cause other brands, manufacturers, retailers, and logistics companies to have to invest more aggressively to compete with Amazon and its delivery, analysts said.

Retailers in recent years have poured billions into ecommerce and faster shipping options and are trying to close the gap with Amazon.

“This is about making it more expensive to catch up and affirms our world view that only the largest and smartest will survive,” Bernstein analyst Brandon Fletcher said.

The move is expected to heighten consumer expectations on e-commerce delivery just like Amazon did with its two-day shipping option for members of its loyalty club Prime, noted analysts.

“The faster you ship, the more people buy,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney said.

The challenge for non-Amazon players was that very few of the existing logistics and parcel delivery players now have the ability to do nationwide one-day delivery, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak said.

“And even fewer can do it at the vast scale and reasonable cost that AMZN would need for Prime delivery,” Nowak said in a note.

Walmart Inc’s shares fell about 3 percent, while Target Corp dropped about 5 percent in morning trade.

Shares of Kohl’s Corp, Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc fell about 1 percent. Grocer Kroger Co was nearly 3 percent lower, while consumer electronics retailer Best Buy Inc dropped 2.1 percent.

(Reporting by Soundarya J and Akanksha Rana in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Source: OANN

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A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) in Beijing
A Chinese woman adjusts a Chinese national flag next to U.S. national flags before a Strategic Dialogue expanded meeting, part of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, July 10, 2014. REUTERS/Ng Han Guan/Pool (CHINA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS)

April 26, 2019

By April Joyner

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Even as the lift from optimism over prospects for U.S.-China trade detente shows signs of wearing off for the wider U.S. stock market, upbeat sentiment around China’s economy could bolster shares of materials companies.

Shares of S&P 500 industrial and technology companies, which were buffeted by last year’s tit-for-tat tariffs as well as slowing global demand, have been very responsive to progress in U.S.-China trade relations and a strengthening Chinese economy. This year, those sectors have outpaced the ascent in the S&P 500, which reached a record closing high on Tuesday.

Materials stocks have not been as sensitive, however, even though they also stand to benefit as a stronger Chinese economy lifts global consumption and industrial output. As China has taken measures to stimulate its economy, its economic data have turned more upbeat. That in turn could aid global growth, which has flagged as a result of China’s cooldown.

“What we’re seeing is China spending more on stimulus: fiscal stimulus and monetary stimulus,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco in New York. “That’s likely to be a positive for materials.”

The People’s Bank of China has cut banks’ reserve requirement ratio five times over the past year and is widely expected to ease policy further to spur lending and reduce borrowing costs. The stimulus appears to have boosted Chinese economic data, with factory activity growing in March for the first time in four months.

Yet so far in 2019, the S&P 500 materials index has underperformed the S&P 500 at large, rising just 11.9% compared with 16.7% for the benchmark index. Moreover, it is among the biggest decliners in the period since the S&P’s previous record closing level on Sept. 20. The materials index has fallen 7% over those seven months, versus a 5.2% gain for technology and a 3% loss for industrials. Only the energy index has dropped more over that period.

A trade agreement could serve as a catalyst for a bump in materials shares as a drag on China’s economy is lifted, some market strategists say. Some commodity prices, including those for copper and oil, have ascended this year as the prospects for the global economy have somewhat brightened.

“It all goes back to the global growth outlook,” said Andrea DiCenso, portfolio manager for alpha strategies at Loomis Sayles in Boston. “With the front run in hard data, we’re beginning to see a pretty significant rally.”

Additionally, a trade agreement is expected to include commitments from China to purchase higher quantities of U.S. products such as soybeans, which could benefit companies that make agricultural chemicals, including DowDuPont Inc and CF Industries Holdings Inc.

CF Industries is scheduled to report quarterly results after the bell on Wednesday, and DowDuPont is scheduled to report before the market open on Thursday.

To be sure, even with a trade agreement, some materials companies could face price pressures. Shares of Freeport-McMoRan Inc fell 10.1% on Thursday after the copper mining company posted a lower-than-expected profit as its production slipped and its costs rose.

A rollback of tariffs on Chinese imports, particularly aluminum and steel, would likely prompt a fall in some commodity prices, which could hurt prospects for certain materials companies, said Gene Goldman, chief investment officer at Cetera Investment Management in El Segundo, California.

Even so, those drawbacks may be outweighed by the support for global demand fostered by a U.S.-China trade agreement.

“You could see a number of companies with lowered expectations bring them back up as they talk favorably about the impact that a trade deal would have on them,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment strategist at Inverness Counsel in New York.

(Reporting by April Joyner; additional reporting by Sinéad Carew; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Source: OANN

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