1. Weekend Bullets.

• *National Institute of Retirement Security-Poll of 40m working age households, some 45% of the total have accumulated exactly zero savings in retirement accounts.
• *Moody’s Investor Services-State Pension Plans short $1.25 Trillion at the end of their fiscal 2015.  That’s It!
• *Strip energy out of the last 6 quarters S&P profit margins leaves them basically unchanged.
• *The Market has been positive during earnings season only 4x out of 10 when Alcoa drops 10% or more.
• *Short Interest in AMZN up 89% this year.  E-commerce accounts for 8% of all retail sales in the U.S.—AMZN controls 60% of those sales.
• *Thailand had 7 prime ministers in 10 years.
• *Natural Gas Producers have fewer active drilling rigs heading into winter than in any other in the 29 year history of the Baker Hughes Rig Count.
• *More money manager mergers to come…Janus/Henderson expects to cut costs by $110m annually in first 3 years.
• *Salesforce sells for 218x pretax earnings and 7x sales.
• *Buybacks in the second quarter were down 21% from first quarter and 3% y over y
• *Volatility in August—S&P standard deviation during that month fell below 98% of all observances since 1950

http://www.barrons.com/home-page

Continue reading →

1. Biotech Takes a Beat Down.

Biotech -6% vs. S&P Flat in Last Month.

www.yahoofinance.com

Continue reading →

1. Small Cap did not Make it Above 2015 Highs on this Rally.

Russell 2000 index see below 2015 highs.

Continue reading →

1. We have discussed at length about the Dividend/Buyback Boom…Dividends plus buybacks have exceeded Barclays Research’s estimate of free cash flow by $100bn/yr.

Source: Barclays, @joshdigga, @NickatFP

Continue reading →

1. Volatile Action in DB Last Night…Opened Down 4%…Now up over 1%.

Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer John Cryan failed to reach an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve a years-long investigation into its mortgage-bond dealings during a meeting in Washington Friday, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported. “The risks in our derivatives book are massively overestimated,” DB Chief Risk Officer Stuart Lewis said. He said 46 trillion euros in derivatives exposure at Deutsche appeared large but reflected only the notional value of the contracts, while the bank’s net exposure to derivatives was far lower, at around 41 billion euros –  DB opened DOWN 4% in Frankfurt, and is now UP 1.6% on the day…

Continue reading →