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

Pelosi Joins Cuomo for Signing of NY 'Red Flag Bill'

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., appeared with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday while he signed a bill allowing authorities to remove guns from dangerous individuals, The Hill reports.

Cuomo signed the "Red Flag Bill," which was not supported by any Republicans in the state legislature, in New York City on Monday. The law will take effect in 180 days, and will allow family members, school officials, and/or law enforcement to obtain a court order confiscating firearms from people that are found to be an "extreme risk" to themselves or others.

"We are empowering teachers — not by giving them guns like the President wants — but by arming and empowering them with the law, so when a teacher or family member sees there is a problem, they can go to a judge and get a court-ordered evaluation," the governor said in a statement. "The Red Flag Bill will save lives and doesn't infringe on anybody's rights, and it is common sense."

Source: NewsMax Politics

0 0

The Latest: 2nd person sought in California boy's 1990 death

The Latest on cold-case arrests in the separate killings of a boy and girl in California (all times local):

5 p.m.

Authorities say a man charged with killing an 11-year-old Inglewood boy in 1990 didn't act alone.

At a Wednesday news conference, the police chief of the Los Angeles suburb and the brother of victim William Tillett asked anyone who might have information on the killing to come forward.

The boy disappeared while walking home from school. He was later found suffocated.

Authorities have charged 50-year-old Edward Thomas with kidnapping and killing the boy but believe he had help.

Chief Mark Fronterotta didn't discuss details of how Thomas was linked to the slaying but said it involved old evidence and "advanced technology."

The announcement came on the same day that authorities announced the arrest of a Colorado man for the 1973 murder of an 11-year-old girl from Newport Beach.

___

10:46 p.m.

Authorities have arrested a man on suspicion of killing a Southern California girl more than 45 years ago.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said at a press conference Wednesday that 72-year-old James Neal was arrested in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in the death of 11-year-old Linda O'Keefe in Newport Beach.

Linda disappeared on July 6, 1973. She was last seen walking home from summer school, and her body was found the next day.

The district attorney says the arrest involved use of DNA found on the victim, genealogical DNA and detective work that led to acquiring DNA from the suspect during surveillance.

Authorities say Neal lived in Southern California in the 1970s.

The victim's parents have died, but her two sisters have been told about the arrest.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Cyclone ravages Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, killing at least 140

A powerful tropical storm has ripped through the coast of southeast Africa, leaving an estimated 140 people dead and hundreds more missing.

Cyclone Idai made contact with land on Thursday in the countries of Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, leaving a devastating path of destruction in its wake. Tens of thousands of people, primarily in impoverished rural areas, have been cut off from roads and telephones. It has impacted more than 1.5 million people, according to the U.N. and government officials.

The hardest hit has been Mozambique's central port city of Beira, where the airport is closed, electricity is out and homes have been destroyed. The cyclone first hit Mozambique with winds up to 106 mph, then moved westward into Zimabwe and Malawi, destroying homes, schools, businesses and police stations.

INVESTIGATORS START STUDYING ETHIOPIAN JET'S VOICE RECORDER

Thousands have been forced to leave behind their belongings and flee to higher ground, as U.N. agencies and the Red Cross attempt to deliver food and medicine

Thousands have been forced to leave behind their belongings and flee to higher ground, as U.N. agencies and the Red Cross attempt to deliver food and medicine (Ministry of Information, Publicity & Broadcasting)

NEW ZEALAND MOSQUE SHOOTING SUSPECT CHARGED WITH MURDER COUNT, MORE ANTICIPATED

Thousands have been forced to leave behind their belongings and flee to higher ground, as U.N. agencies and the Red Cross attempt to deliver food and medicine. However, the high water level and strong winds have made it difficult to land planes and helicopters to carry out rescue operations, according to Mozambique's state radio.

Among the dead are at least two school children who perished when a rock fell from a nearby mountain, trapping dozens of students in a dormitory in Zimbabwe. The deaths there are primarily in the city of Chimanimani, which lies in a mountainous region popular with tourists.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Flooding killed at least 70 people there before the storm even hit. The death toll is expected to rise as authorities continue to carry out rescue missions.

Mozambique has previously experienced deathly cyclones. In 2000, Cyclone Eline killed 350 people and displaced 650,000 in the wider region.

Source: Fox News World

0 0

Trump mocks California over ‘Fast Train,’ firing back at emergency declaration lawsuit

President Trump on Tuesday ridiculed California for its “failed Fast Train project” as he fired back at a multi-state lawsuit opposing his declaration of a national emergency on the southern border.

"As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!" he tweeted.

NEW YORK, CALIFORNIA, 14 OTHER STATES SUE TRUMP IN NINTH CIRCUIT OVER EMERGENCY DECLARATION

Trump was referring both to the lawsuit and to California’s high-speed rail project from Los Angeles to San Francisco, which was canceled last week amid delays and cost overruns. The $77 billion project would dwarf the cost of a wall at the border -- estimated to be $20-25 billion.

“The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!” he tweeted.

The lawsuit, filed Monday by attorneys general of California, New York and 14 other states in the Ninth Circuit, challenges Trump’s announcement on Friday declaring a national emergency over border security -- a move that allows him to potentially access more funds for the proposed wall on the southern border.

The lawsuit seeks an injunction to prevent Trump from shifting billions of dollars from military construction to the border without explicit congressional approval. The suit also asks a court to declare Trump's actions illegal, arguing that Trump showed a "flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution" by violating the Constitution's Presentment and Appropriations Clauses, which govern federal spending.

The litigation also includes allegations that Trump is violating the National Environmental Policy Act, by planning to build a wall that could impact the environment without first completing the necessary environmental impact reports.

HILLARY CLINTON SLAMS TRUMP'S NATIONAL EMERGENCY DECLARATION IN TWEET

"President Trump treats the rule of law with utter contempt," California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Monday. "He knows there is no border crisis, he knows his emergency declaration is unwarranted, and he admits that he will likely lose this case in court."

Trump had previously predicted that opposition to his declaration would come through the Ninth Circuit, a court he has had issues with before. The San Francisco-based circuit has long been a legal stumbling block for conservative policies, and the White House has sought to appoint conservative justices to thin out the liberal ranks on the court. Last year, Trump bypassed traditional protocols and ignored the concerns of the state's Democratic politicians to nominate prominent conservatives to the Ninth Circuit.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Trump announced his decision to declare a national emergency on Friday after a compromise spending bill to keep the government open gave only $1.4 billion for barriers, and that money came with strings attached about where it could be used and on what barriers. It was well short of the $5.7 billion Trump had demanded.

A senior administration official told Fox News the White House is planning to move $8 billion in funds toward the wall, $3 billion of which would be diverted with help from the emergency declaration.

Fox News' Gregg Re, John Roberts and Barnini Chakraborty contributed to this report.

Source: Fox News Politics

0 0

Cboe puts the brakes on bitcoin futures

Chicago Board Options Exchange Global Markets headquarters building in Chicago
FILE PHOTO: Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) Global Markets sign hangs at its headquarters building in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., September 19, 2018. REUTERS/Michael Hirtzer

March 15, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cboe Global Markets said it no longer plans to offer bitcoin futures contracts as the exchange operator reassesses its plans for trading digital asset derivatives amid slumping volumes.

Currently listed Cboe XBT futures contracts, which expire in June, remain available for trading, Cboe said in a statement late on Thursday.

Cboe launched the first U.S. bitcoin contracts in December 2017, around the time the underlying cryptocurrency hit an all-time high near $20,000. CME Group Inc followed shortly after with its own product, which it still lists.

The contracts were aimed at making it easier for investors and speculators to trade the new asset class. Building liquidity in the underlying product was also seen as a crucial step to gaining approval for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund.

However, interest in Cboe’s bitcoin futures contract has waned along with a crash in the price of bitcoin. The cryptocurrency is currently at around $3,855.

Chicago-based Cboe declined further comment.

The exchange currently has an application with the Commodities Futures Trading Commission to list a bitcoin ETF.

(Reporting by John McCrank; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Source: OANN

0 0

Reports on pastor couple’s spending prompt ally’s warning to newspaper: ‘I cut people’

The former pastor of a South Carolina megachurch appeared to threaten a local newspaper Sunday during a lecture to her former congregation where she defended the church’s new controversial leaders.

During her monologue at the Relentless Church in Greenville, Hope Carpenter spoke of the importance of faith before expressing gratitude to pastors John and Aventer Gray. She then turned her attention to the Greenville News.

"I love you. I believe in you. I'm praying for you," Carpenter told the couple. “I cut people. I got a knife right in that pocketbook. Greenville News, come on. We done went through this. I’m still here, and guess who else is still going to be here?”

The paper has published several stories highlighting the church’s purchase of a $1.8 million home for the Grays, John Gray purchasing a $200,000 Lamborghini for his wife and rumors that he had an extramarital affair. Gray said the affair was an “emotional” one.

"My wife has pushed for my dreams and my vision and she has toiled with a man who is still trying to find himself," Gray said in December, amid criticism of the car purchase. "That carries a weight. I wanted to honor her for how she’s covered me."

Gray maintained he did not pay for the luxury car with church funds.

In May, Gray asked churchgoers to foot a $250,000 bill needed to repair the church’s roof, suggesting the money could be raised if each of the 2,500 congregants gives $100, the Washington Post reported.

"I'm grateful that God has given us a church that is so supernaturally generous," Gray said. "We are a new church taken off of the shoulders of a great church. But we have had to press through, and God has done miracles here."

BLACK PASTORS SEE TRUMP BRINGING 'NEW HOPE' -- BUT STILL NEED TO CONVINCE THEIR FLOCKS

In a statement to the Post, Greenville News Executive Editor Katrice Hardy said the paper strives to “cover every organization in our community in a fair and unbiased way.”

The paper has also covered the church’s commitment to fund a homeless shelter and its hopes to take racial healing nationwide, the Greenville News reported. Relentless Church spokeswoman Holly Baird told the Greenville News that the Grays were not aware of what Carpenter would say.

"While we believe Pastor Hope was joking, we completely understand how her comments could be received in today's climate," Baird said in a written statement. "Neither our pastors or anyone in our leadership would agree with any type of communication that would encourage or incite violence against another individual or entity."

Carpenter and her husband, Ron Carpenter, led the South Carolina congregation for three decades before moving to a San Jose, Calif., church last year.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Hope Carpenter did not immediately reply to Fox News for comment early Wednesday. She also made headlines in 2017 when she criticized NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem.

“THE NATIONAL ANTHEM IS OUR NATIONS SONG!” Carpenter wrote in the Facebook post. “Yes there are things in our country that’s wrong but our country is not yo blame [sic]. You don’t like it? Move or be apart of the healing of our nation!

Ron Carpenter later apologized for his wife’s comments, saying she “woefully underestimated how racially insensitive” her remarks were, the Greenville News reported.

John Gray was one of two black Christian pastors to meet with President Trump last year. Despite his attempt to discuss prison reform with the president, Gray and the other black pastor were criticized for attending.

Source: Fox News National

0 0

Roadside bomb kills 6 civilians in eastern Afghanistan

An Afghan official says at least six civilians were killed by a roadside bomb as their vehicle was traveling through the eastern province of Laghman.

Asadullah Dawlatzai, the provincial governor's spokesman, says the victims were travelling in Qarghayi district when the bomb went off Tuesday.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but Taliban insurgents routinely plant explosives targeting Afghan security forces, bombs which end up killing or maiming civilians.

In a separate attack late Monday, police say a doctor was killed as he returned home from his private clinic in Kabul by an explosive device attached to his vehicle.

The Islamic State group claimed the attack in the capital.

Source: Fox News World

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