A roundup of what The Globe and Mail's market strategist Scott Barlow is reading this morning on the Web
The U.S. dollar is weaker this morning, but, by and large, asset markets have been immune from the rampant buffoonery emanating from Washington. FT Alphaville asked hedge fund manager Timothy Ash from BlueBay Asset Management why this is the case,
"I guess the plus is that there is a positive backdrop of a recovering US and global economy, set in motion well before Trump's victory back in November… there is an assumption that even in a scenario where Trump is removed, in VP Pence there is a more measured, cautious and conservative replacement, who can surely pick up the reins and return the US back to default settings … the Xi regime is stepping into the global leadership role vacated by Trump, with a defence of the globalisation/free trade mantra, in cahoots with Europe and Asian economies herein, plus also the One Belt, One Road initiative helps Beijing to push forward a constructive, global, market agenda."
"Snap AV: Why are markets shrugging?" – FT Alphaville
"Trump's firing of FBI Director Comey has huge implications for stocks" – Business Insider
"@SBarlow_ROB CS: Banks trading with Trump approval rating ' - (chart) Twitter
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Economist Noah Smith details a report of large hidden investment fees that severely hamper long-term returns. The report is U.S. focused, but I have little doubt a similar situation exists in Canada,
"Wealth-management fees can be hidden for several reasons. First, as Fuller's experience shows, it may simply be difficult to get a company to tell you how much you're paying. But even if they do tell you, you may not realize how steep the price really is. The tiny annual percentage number can mask the fact that the fees add up over the decades -- you may think "Oh, 1.4 percent is pretty low," when it actually means a third of your life's savings over 40 years … I suspect that these quasi-hidden fees are a huge reservoir of financial dark matter -- a giant slush fund that feeds many of the excesses in other areas of finance."
"Americans' Savings Make Wealth Managers Rich" – Smith, Bloomberg View
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My first thought after reading "Why Amazon is eating the world" was to wonder how soon anti-trust legislation becomes a hot topic,
"I believe that Amazon is the most defensible company on earth, and we haven't even begun to grasp the scale of its dominance over competitors. Amazon's lead will only grow over the coming decade, and I don't think there is much that any other retailer can do to stop it… each piece of Amazon is being built with a service-oriented architecture, and Amazon is using that architecture to successively turn every single piece of the company into a separate platform — and thus opening each piece to outside competition."
"Why Amazon is eating the world" – Tech Crunch
"Amazon's epic 20-year run as a public company, explained in five charts" – Recode
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The U.S.– based Energy Information Agency will release weekly data on oil and gasoline inventory levels at 10:30 am Wednesday so if the commodity price start swinging around just before lunch, that's why,
"Both benchmark prices started the day in negative territory after industry data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) estimated that U.S. crude stocks had risen by 882,000 barrels in the week ending May 12 to 523 million barrels. That defied expectations of analysts who estimated a draw in the stockpiles of 2.4 million barrels .. "The oil rally has paused and whether it can resume depends on today's EIA inventory report," said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank."
"Oil turns positive as market awaits EIA data" – Reuters
"@chris1reuters Demand for #OPEC crude #oil over-estimated: @IEA has cut its figure for Q117 #OPEC "Call" by 1 mln bpd in just 3 months: @petromatrix " – (chart) Twitter
"In America's largest oilfield, whir of activity confounds OPEC" – Reuters
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Tweet of the Day: "@Dembik_Chris Warning: Citi US Economic Surprise Index has just crashed to the lowest level since May 2016 #Macro ' – Twitter
Diversion: Documents on display from the Catholic Church dissolution in 16th century England, "Digging for the past at Norton Priory" - Medieval manuscripts blog, British Library