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

Assange not heroic, if you ask ‘The Five’

The co-hosts of “The Five” tackled the Julian Assange saga on Thursday's installment of their program, addressing a wide range of topics: the WikiLeaks founder’s appearance, the charges he now faces, and whether he should be regarded as a hero or a villain.

“The U.S. charge is very careful. ... It simply says you were a co-conspirator in terms of helping Chelsea Manning to hack into our Defense Department computers,” Juan Williams said. “That's clearly illegal. That's their strongest stand, and that's why I think he can be then extradited and he's likely to lose that case, in my opinion.”

JULIAN ASSANGE'S ARREST DRAWS FIERCE INTERNATIONAL REACTION

Assange was charged Thursday with conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for allegedly aiding Chelsea Manning in the cracking of a password to a classified U.S. government computer in 2010. The development was announced by the U.S. Justice Department hours after Assange's arrest in London.

Co-host and attorney Emily Compagno noted that Assange was in a self-imposed hell anticipating Thursday’s events.

“The seven years of his self-imposed exile and the wretched creature we saw being brought out of the embassy today, he was in a worse hell and worse prison anticipating all of this and worrying about it and freaking out,” Compagno said.

The co-hosts were talking about whether Assange was a hero or goat when Dana Perino made it clear how she felt.

“I'm ‘Team America.’ He's not even American, how does he get First Amendment protections for journalism?” Perino said .

PAMELA ANDERSON BLASTS BRITAIN, US AFTER JULIAN ASSANGE ARREST: 'HOW COULD YOU, UK?'

Perino also gave credit to the Trump administration for doing what the Obama administration didn’t do in sorting through the 2010 case.

“I think it's pretty amazing in the Trump administration, they should be like: 'Look at us. We figured it out.'  ... They were the ones to say this is not a First Amendment claim. This is a national security threat,” Perino said.

Fox News' Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Kidnap suspect to face Sydney court for extradition to Chile

A woman wanted in Chile on kidnapping charges dating back to Chile's 1973-1990 military dictatorship is expected to appear in a Sydney court on Wednesday for an extradition hearing.

Chile's Supreme Court requested the extradition of Adriana Rivas in 2014. She was wanted for her alleged role in the 1976 killing of a Communist Party leader who was held in a secret prison before he was suffocated and thrown into the ocean.

Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter, who has responsibility for extraditions, said Rivas was arrested in Sydney on Tuesday at the request of Chile.

"This individual is wanted to face prosecution in the Republic of Chile for aggravated kidnapping offences," Chester said in a statement on Tuesday.

"As the matter is ongoing, it would not be appropriate to comment further," Chester added.

Information on an attorney was not immediately available on Wednesday.

Rivas was an assistant to Manuel Contreras, the head of the DINA secret police during Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

She moved to Australia in 1978 but was detained during a visit to Chile in 2006. Rivas was released after some months on probation and fled to Australia.

Rivas has been working as a part-time nanny and a cleaner in Sydney's wealthy eastern suburbs, Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.

Chilean-born lawyer Adriana Navarro said the extradition process had been complex.

"There's been a number of technical obstacles along the way because the Chilean system of law is completely different to the Australian system," Navarro said. "That's why it's taken five years."

Navarro said the Chilean diaspora in Australia was ecstatic about Rivas' arrest.

"There's about 45,000 Chileans here and the majority of us, including myself, came to Australia fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship," Navarro said.

In 2014, Rivas told Australia's Special Broadcasting Service that she was innocent of the charges, but defended the use of torture in Chile at the time as necessary.

"They had to break the people — it has happened all over the world, not only in Chile," she said in Spanish.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Serbian students rally over anti-govt protest detentions

Dozens of Serbian high school students have staged a sit-down protest demanding that authorities release a fellow student who was jailed during weekend anti-government protests in Serbia.

The students marched Monday from their school in downtown Belgrade toward the main police station in the Serbian capital, where they sat on the ground.

Authorities say they detained 18 people following incidents during demonstrations Saturday and Sunday against Serbia's populist President Aleksandar Vucic.

Protesters on Saturday burst into the state-TV building in Belgrade. More skirmishes with police took place Sunday when protesters surrounded the Serbian presidency during Vucic's press conference.

Protests against Vucic have been going on weekly for three months demanding democratic and media freedoms. Vucic has accused the protesters of violence, saying perpetrators will be punished.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

AOC Ponders If It's Ethical to Have Kids Amid Climate Crisis

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., suggested it might not be ethical to have children, given the problems climate change will likely cause in the years to come.

In a live stream on her Instagram posted on Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez suggested to her 2.5 million followers the answer is not clear.

"There's scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult – and it does lead young people, I think, to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?" she asked.

"Even if you don't have kids, there are still children still here, and we have a moral obligation . . . to leave a better world for them . . . a lack of urgency is going to kill us."

Ocasio-Cortez introduced the Green New Deal — a plan that would refocus the economy on renewable energy sources instead of fossil fuel and coal. The plan would also work to strengthen labor laws, healthcare, access to higher education, housing, and public ownership of certain institutions.

The proposal, which a GOP-aligned think tank has reportedly estimated could cost $93 trillion, follows release of UN report predicting we have only 12 years to limit or reverse the effects of climate change before its impact causes unmanageable drought, floods, extreme heat, and life-threatening weather events.  

A number of Democratic presidential candidates have embraced the Green New Deal, including Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. 

Following the proposal's introduction, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced the Senate will vote on a non-binding measure to force Democrats to go on the record with their support of the controversial plan.

Source: NewsMax America

0 0

Maldives president hoping for election majority to probe China deals

FILE PHOTO - Maldivian President Mohamed Solih and his wife Ahmed look on during a welcome ceremony at the airport as he is on a 3-day visit, in Katunayake
FILE PHOTO - Maldivian President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and his wife Fazna Ahmed look on during a welcome ceremony at the airport as he is on a 3-day visit, in Katunayake, Sri Lanka February 3, 2019. REUTERS/Dinuka Liyanawatte

April 4, 2019

By Mohamed Junayd

MALE (Reuters) – The Maldives heads for a parliamentary election on Saturday with President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih seeking a majority for his party to investigate debts to China, which it fears could run as high as $3 billion and risk sinking the economy.

Since he unseated pro-China leader Abdulla Yameen in September, Solih’s Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), which has governed in a coalition with three other parties, has warned that a building boom has left huge debts to Chinese lenders.

The Maldives, a tropical archipelago in the Indian Ocean with some 260,000 voters, has been caught in a battle for influence between India and China, which invested millions of dollars during Yameen’s rule as part of its Belt and Road plan.

The MDP has pledged to investigate the infrastructure projects and determine the islands’ true debt to China, which it says could be as a high as $3 billion. Yameen denies any wrongdoing in relation to the Chinese debt.

The MPD currently only has a majority with the support of its coalition partners, including The Jumhooree Party, which has been absent from votes to begin any graft investigation.

“The president has not been getting the support and cooperation he needs,” MDP spokesman Afshan Latheef said.

“It’s vital that the MDP gets a majority in parliament in order to fully investigate corruption and embezzlement, to seek justice for those disappeared and murdered and to fulfill the pledges of the government,” he added.

The Jumhooree leader, parliament speaker Gasim Ibrahim, could not immediately be reached for comment. In past he has said appointing commissions to conduct inquiries is unconstitutional.

The Jumhooree Party and Yameen’s Progressive Party of Maldives (PPM) are both campaigning on a nationalist, religious platform.

Gasim has said an MDP majority would allow it to push for a secular Maldives and build churches and temples in the Muslim-majority country.

The MDP, which is competing against its current coalition partners in many constituencies, has fielded candidates for 85 seats in the 87-member parliament, while the Jumhooree Party has put up 51 candidates. PPM is contesting 50 seats.

There are no independent election opinion polls.

Last month, Yameen spent more than a month in police custody over a graft scandal aimed at siphoning money from the islands’ tourism board.

He was released on bail on March 28 in time for the last week of campaigning, and denies the charges.

(Additional reporting and writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Alasdair Pal and Alison Williams)

Source: OANN

0 0

Tipster helps Florida cold case detectives crack a woman’s murder 21 years ago

Florida cold case detectives say a tip has led to the arrest of a homeless man in the unsolved murder of a woman 21 years ago.

Luis Nieves, 52, was booked into the Lee County Jail Friday night on a charge of murder in the death of 35-year-old Thelma Storrs in 1998.

A tipster recently told detectives the identity of a possible suspect, according to a news release from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, announcing Nieves' arrest.

An investigation ensued and led to Nieves’ arrest.

NORTH CAROLINA MAN CHARGED IN QUADRUPLE COLD CASE MURDERS FROM 2008

“This arrest also serves as a reminder that it is never too late to come forward with information,” Sheriff Carmine Marceno said. “Cold-blooded killers will not walk free in Lee County.”

Nieves has four prior arrests for domestic violence in 2007, 2014 and 2016, online court records show. The records show him living at a Fort Myers address at the time of the arrests.

Investigators said Storrs’ body was found in a pasture near Fort Myers on March 17, 1998. She had been reported missing two weeks earlier.

SOUTH CAROLINA WOMAN ARRESTED IN DECADES-OLD COLD CASE OF ABANDONED BABY DUBBED ‘JULIE VALENTINE’: POLICE

Her fingerprints taken from a prostitution arrest three months before her murder helped authorities identify the body, the Fort Myers News-Press reported at the time.

Friends at that time told the paper Storrs drifted into prostitution after becoming a crack addict.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

"She really got going down the wrong track a few years ago," one friend was quoted as saying. "It was really hard to watch.”

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Rand Paul: Democrats have to defend Green New Deal, it shows 'lunacy' of the left

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., ripped the Green New Deal Tuesday calling it “lunacy” from the left and defended the Senate test vote saying the country needs to know how much the potential legislation could cost.

“I'm not for socialism. I'm also not for ending an era in which we can drive cars or fly airplanes, I'm not for regulating cows out of existence,” Paul said on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

WATCH FOX NEWS’ LIVE COVERAGE

An early FAQ from supporters of the Green New Deal included the line: “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast.”

Paul went on, “There's a lot of absurdities here that the left and the left has gone further and further to the left with the climate change and alarmism. I think they have to be called out for the crazy things they're asking for.”
 
The Senate on Tuesday failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to begin debate on a non-binding Green New Deal resolution, with 42 Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., voting "present." Many Democrats claimed the vote was nothing more than a stunt set up by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to put them on record.

Paul took Green New Deal supporters to task for introducing something he believes is “dangerous" to the modern economy calling the proposal “extreme” and saying that Democrats “need to come forward and defend it.”

OCASIO-CORTEZ RIPS MCCONNELL OVER GREEN NEW DEAL SENATE VOTE

“They're going to say this is not what we're really fo and yet we put their own words before them,” Paul told Cavuto.

“If they're for this and all the leading Democrat candidates are coming forward and this is the new litmus test, you got to be for the Green New Deal, the American public needs to know it's going to cost between 50 and $90 trillion.  It would bankrupt the country and also shut down whole industries.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Kentucky senator also commented on the Mueller investigation saying the “left-wing media” needed to apologize and be more objective.

“I think this is a good day for America if we're going to get beyond all this. I think it was a partisan witch hunt from the beginning. The president has been exonerated. The Democrats and some in the left-wing media that promoted this, I think they need to apologize and be more objective in the reporting and not create some sort of narrative that the president is a Russian spy, which is insulting and ridiculous."

Fox News' Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

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