“Successful Investing takes time, discipline and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” — Warren Buffett

1. U.S. Issues Eight Waivers From Iran Oil Sanctions — Eight countries including Turkey, Italy, India, Japan and South Korea – will receive temporary six-month waivers allowing them to continue to import Iranian petroleum products as they move to end such imports entirely, but the Islamic Republic can only spend the money on a narrow range of humanitarian items. Iran exported the equivalent of 2.5M barrels a day in April, before the announcement of sanctions turned away buyers.
2. China Ready for U.S. Trade Talks — Vice President Wang Qishan told the Bloomberg New that “The Chinese side is ready to have discussions with the U.S. on issues of mutual concern and work for a solution on trade acceptable to both sides,”. Ahead of his expected meeting with President Xi later this month, President Trump has threatened to impose further tariffs on $267B of Chinese imports if the two countries cannot reach a trade deal.
3. Canabis Pot Stocks Rally on AG Sessions Exit — the marijuana sector exploded to the upside after Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned following months of public criticism from President Trump. A longtime opponent of attempts to legalize weed, Sessions lifted an Obama-era policy (known as the Cole Memo) earlier this year that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where the drug is legal. Cannabis stocks added to their gains as Michigan approved recreational marijuana.
4. Google Plots Significant Expansion in NYC — Google is gearing up for an expansion of its NYC real estate that could add space for more than 12,000 new workers, an amount nearly double the search giant’s current staffing in the city, WSJ reports. Google (GOOG, GOOGL) plans on buying/leasing a 1.3M-square-foot office building at St. John’s Terminal and expanding its existing property at Chelsea Market by about 300K square feet. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is also considering the area for its second headquarters.
5. Midterm Results, Democrats take House and Republican Controls Senate — gridlock in Washington could also stall the White House’s bid to deregulate banking and financial services. Representative Maxine Waters, a fierce Trump critic and Wall Street foe, appears poised to take control of the House’s powerful financial services committee. The halt of deregulation legislation could also affect other sectors like energy, industrials and small business.
6. U.S. Oil Benchmark Drops Below $61/bbl in Bear Market Territory — U.S. crude is now down by around 20% since early October as rising supply and concerns of an economic slowdown pressure prices. Fresh U.S. sanctions are unlikely to cut as much oil out of the market as initially expected with Washington granting temporary exemptions to Iran’s biggest buyers. American production has also reached a new record high of 11.6M bbl/day.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 13th, 2018 at 5:18 pm and is filed under Weekly Summary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.