Mike Mussallem Drops $10 Million on Dreamy Laguna Beach Estate

October 12, 2019

Most homes in Laguna Beach — arguably Orange County, Calif.’s most expensive and desirable seaside town — sit hard up on the street, on relatively tight lots with minuscule yard space. Not so this estate, recently sold for about $10.4 million. The commendably private property sits at the very end of a dead-end lane, tucked […]

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Hillary Clinton Spews Conspiracy Theory That Tulsi Gabbard Being 'Groomed' To Hand Trump 2020 Election

18 October 2019

Hillary Clinton Spews Conspiracy Theory That Tulsi Gabbard Being 'Groomed' To Hand Trump 2020 Election

Hillary Clinton is still peddling election-related conspiracy theories, this time hinting that 2020 Democratic contender Tulsi Gabbard is being 'groomed' to split the Democratic vote as a third party candidate, thus handing the election to President Trump.

Speaking with former Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe on his podcast, "Campaign HQ with David Plouffe," Clinton said - without mentioning Gabbard by name: "I'm not making any predictions but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate. She's the favorite of the Russians."

Of course, that's "assuming Jill Stein will give it up - because she's also a Russian asset," Clinton continued.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNLJ3i2oRyg]

Hillary Clinton doesn't just predict the Russians will support Tulsi Gabbard as a third-party candidate; she also calls Jill Stein "a Russian asset -- I mean totally." Full context: pic.twitter.com/a5wZeCKWsd

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 18, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Earlier in the interview, Clinton hinted that the Trump 2020 campaign is still in "contact with the Russians," and that "we have to assume that since it worked for them, why would they quit?"

"Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin's dream," Clinton added. "I don't know what Putin has on him - whether its both personal and financial, I assume it is. But more than that, there's this bizarre adulation Trump has for dictators."

Clinton also insisted that Russia "did affect the outcome of the election" in 2016, despite the DOJ concluding otherwise.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZt8C-Tqj6Y]

Incredible!

Hillary Clinton is a conspiracy theorist https://t.co/mjgzwfV6k3

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) October 18, 2019

Husband Bill Clinton takes $500,000 from Russians for a speech in Moscow? *NOT* a “Russian asset” Political opponents Jill Stein and Mike Flynn just sit next to Putin at a dinner and Carter Page gives a free speech in Moscow? 100% “Russian assets” Okay @HillaryClinton 🤔

— Undercover Huber (@JohnWHuber) October 18, 2019 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Tyler Durden Fri, 10/18/2019 - 12:29 Tags Politics

Boeing Shares Battered After 2016 Text Messages Reveal Company Misled FAA About 737 MAX

18 October 2019

Boeing Shares Battered After 2016 Text Messages Reveal Company Misled FAA About 737 MAX

Boeing shares are under pressure following a Reuters report that internal instant messages from 2016 - that have only recently been shared with the FAA - suggested employees misled the FAA about a key safety system on the 737 Max.

The FAA Administrator is demanding an explanation from Boeing regarding the delay in the recently disclosed 737 MAX 'smoking gun' documents.

The stock is down 3% and falling...

And Boeing's demise is weighing on The Dow...

The FAA says it will release further details later today.

Developing...

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/18/2019 - 12:23 Tags Disaster Accident Business Finance

For The First Time Since The Crisis, Companies Spent More On Buybacks And Dividends Than They Earned...

18 October 2019

For The First Time Since The Crisis, Companies Spent More On Buybacks And Dividends Than They Earned...

It will hardly come as a surprise to many, but according to the latest cash flow analysis from Goldman Sachs, 2018 was a record year for S&P 500 cash spending: not only did aggregate spending on capex, R&D, cash acquisitions, dividends, and share repurchases rose by 25% to $2.8 trillion, "the fastest year/year growth in 30 years"...

... but more notably, for the first time since the financial crisis, companies spent more on dividends and buybacks than they generated in free cash flow to wit: "share repurchases surged by 54% to $833 billion and for the first time in the post-crisis period net buybacks and dividends during 2018 totaled more than 100% of free cash flow."

One thing to note: the last time companies returned so much cash to shareholders, the market crashed right after.

Of course, history never repeats, so instead let's focus on the glimmer of good news uncovered by Goldman, namely that all those who predicted that most of the cash repatriated by US companies would be used entirely on buybacks were only partially right, because as Goldman also found, "investment growth was also strong" as capex and R&D also grew by 14% to a combined $1.1 trillion and totaled 9.7% of sales during 2018, the highest share since at least 1990.

Alas that's as good as it gets, because as the bank predicts looking at the end of 2019 and into 2020 and onward, the growth in cash spending is expected to hit a brick wall. According to Goldman's Cole Hunter, "we estimate cash spending will fall by 6% during 2019 before rising by a modest 2% during 2020."

Specifically, S&P 500 cash spending rose by 5% during 1Q, but plunged by 13% yoy during 2Q.

And here comes the bad news for Wall Street's investment bankers - as well as for shareholders who have directly benefited from the recent record surge in buybacks which sent the S&P to all time highs. According to Goldman, in 2019, the decline in spending will be driven by a 20% drop in cash M&A and a 15% fall in buybacks. It gets worse in 2020, when Goldman expects that the modest growth in capex (+3%), R&D (+6%), dividends (+5%), and cash M&A (+6%) will be partially offset by a 5% decline in share repurchases.

And here is the chart showing why for corporate America, 2018 may have been as good as it gets.

The chart above shows that share repurchases fell by 18% year/year during 2Q and have declined by 7% YTD. Health Care contributed more than 50% of the aggregate decline in buyback spending during 1H 2019 vs. 1H 2018. "Reduced cash balances, increased leverage, elevated payout ratios, and high policy uncertainty will lead to a further 5% decline in S&P 500 buybacks during 2020", Goldman predicts.

What does Goldman attribute the coming crunch in corporate cash spending by corporate America, and outright decline in buybacks, on? In a word: collapsing CEO confidence, which has plunged to the lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis amid outright expectations for a recession.

As shown above, in 3Q, the Conference Board's survey of CEO confidence plummeted to the lowest level since the Global Financial Crisis. Separately, according to the Duke University CFO Global Business Outlook, 53% of US CFO respondents believe the US will be in recession by the 3rd quarter of 2020 and 67% believe the US will enter recession by the end of 2020.

This is taking place as global economic policy uncertainty hit the highest reading in at least 20 years.

Meanwhile, as we reported back in July, corporate cash balances recently plunged by the most on record while leverage recently registered a new all-time high.

As shown above, non-financial S&P 500 cash balances have declined by 15% during the past 12 months, the largest fall since at least 1980. At the same time, aggregate net leverage (net debt / EBITDA) has climbed to the highest level since March 2005 and leverage for the median S&P 500 stock stands at an all-time high. The silver lining: low interest rates have dampened the effect of rising leverage on interest coverage ratios... for now.

Putting it all together, Goldman notes that "heightened uncertainty, low CEO confidence, and tepid earnings growth have contributed to a collapse in buybacks and cash acquisition spending and a slowdown in capex growth YTD."

As a result, for 2019, the bank now expects total S&P 500 cash spending will decline by 6% led by a 20% fall in cash M&A and a 15% drop in buybacks.

Finally, looking into the critical for markets, and domestic politics, 2020 Goldman now expects total cash spending will grow by a modest 2% to $2.7 trillion.

Firms will invest 55% of this sum for growth (capex, R&D, and cash M&A) and return 45% to shareholders (buybacks and dividends). We estimate cash return to shareholders will fall by 1% to $1.2 trillion as a 5% decline in share repurchases more than offsets 5% growth in aggregate dividends. Investment for growth will rise by 4% to $1.5 trillion, with the key cash changes as follows:

Buybacks ($675 billion, -5%): Aggregate buyback spending will slide by 5% during 2020 as companies pull back on cash return in an environment of heightened uncertainty. Cash balances have declined sharply, net leverage has inflected higher, and earnings growth is likely to remain weak. The trade conflict with China remains fluid no deal is expected before the 2020 presidential election. Finally, the conversation around the economics of share repurchases is likely to intensify during 2020 ahead of the US presidential election. Capex ($745 billion, +3% growth): S&P 500 capex will grow by 3% during 2020, but most of the growth will be for "maintenance capex" rather than "growth capex." Ex-Energy capex will grow by 3% during 2020, supported by the highest non-Financial corporate profitability (ROE) in more than 40 years, steady continued sales growth, and easy lending conditions. However, a narrow output gap and elevated policy uncertainty suggest firms are likely to be more judicious about spending next year. Energy capex will also grow by a modest 3% in 2020. Our commodity strategists forecast modestly lower oil prices, high price volatility, and the forward curve staying in backwardation through 2020. R&D ($380 billion, +6%): R&D spending will grow by 6% in 2020. Spending on R&D is highly correlated with capex spending, but is less volatile. R&D has only declined on a year/year basis during three years since 1990 (2002, 2003, and 2009). This experience suggests R&D spending is likely to continue to grow if the US economy avoids recession, as our economists expect. Cash M&A ($365 billion, +6%): S&P 500 cash M&A spending will increase by 6% to $365 billion in 2020, supported by a 6% climb in operating EPS, ample cash balances, and credit markets that remain accessible to finance transactions. Low CEO confidence has historically been associated with greater appetite for acquisitions vs. investment for organic growth. Dividends ($535 billion, +5%): S&P 500 dividends will grow by 5% to $535 billion in 2020, broadly in line with the 6% growth we expect in adjusted earnings. The payout ratio will remain mostly unchanged at 35% during 2020, in line with the 20-year average.

Needless to say, of the above, the most important prediction is Goldman's forecast for a "collapse" in buybacks.

This is important because as even central banks and the IMF admit, the primary culprit behind the invincible strength of the stock market has been the tremendous growth in stock buybacks by corporations over the past two years, which had a habit of lobbing a barrage of repurchase orders just as stocks were about to crack. All of that is now ending.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/18/2019 - 12:15 Tags Business Finance

Oracle Co-CEO Mark Hurd Dies At 62

18 October 2019

Oracle Co-CEO Mark Hurd Dies At 62

Mark Hurd, the co-CEO of Oracle, has died at the age of 62.

Hurd had taken a leave of absence from Oracle one month ago, in September 2019, due to unspecified health reasons. “Though we all worked hard together to close the first quarter, I’ve decided that I need to spend time focused on my health, he said in the announcement of his leave. “I love Oracle and wish you all success during my absence.”

Mark Hurd was born in New York on Jan. 1, 1957. His father was a financier, according to the Financial Times, and his mother was a physician’s daughter, according to Fortune. Hurd spent his childhood in New York and Miami. He began playing tennis in high school. He was accepted into Baylor University in Waco, Texas, on a tennis scholarship and played on the Christian school’s tennis team. Hurd graduated in 1979 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.

He joined ATM and cash register company NCR as a junior salesman in San Antonio in 1980, and in 1990 he married his wife, Paula, who was an NCR executive. He was appointed CEO in 2003. Two years later he moved to Silicon Valley to be HP’s new CEO, a position he held from 2005 to 2010, when its share price more than doubled, although Hurd's tenure wasn’t free of controversy.

As CNBC reminds us, in 2006, the “pretexting” scandal broke out over attempts to determine who at HP leaked information to the media. Outside investigators, pretending to be the people they were researching, presented the last four digits of the Social Security numbers of board members and news reporters to telephone operators to obtain details on their phone calls.

“While many of the right processes were in place, they unfortunately broke down and no one in the management chain, including me, caught it,” Hurd said on a conference call with reporters at the time. Board members left, federal agencies began investigations, and Hurd testified before a congressional committee. HP agreed to pay $14.5 million in a settlement with the California attorney general.

Then in 2010, HP share prices tumbled 8% after the tech company announced his resignation amid a sexual-harassment claim against him. HP concluded that although Hurd had not violated the company’s policy on sexual harassment, he did fail to comply with its standards.

In a letter to Hurd, lawyer Gloria Allred described his meetings with Oracle contractor Jodie Fisher in various cities and said he had made undesired advances to her client. Hurd’s expense reports included meals with his security guard, Denis Lynch, but the meals were with Fisher, and over time most of HP’s board members came to feel they had lost trust in him, The Wall Street Journal reported. Hurd settled with Fisher, who had once modeled for Playboy magazine, for undisclosed terms.

Larry Ellison, then CEO of Oracle, came to Hurd’s defense. The two were good friends, and Hurd had frequently played tennis at Ellison’s home in Silicon Valley, The New York Times reported. Following Hurd’s resignation, Ellison criticized HP’s board in a letter to the newspaper, saying it had “just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” Within a month, Hurd had a new job, as president of Ellison’s company alongside Catz.

“Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,” Ellison said in a statement at the time. “There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark. Oracle’s future is engineering complete and integrated hardware and software systems for the enterprise. Mark pioneered the integration of hardware with software when Teradata was a part of NCR.”

Four years later Hurd and Catz, were named as Oracle’s CEOs and Ellison became chief technology officer. The company did not consider them co-CEOs.

* * *

In announcing Hurd’s leave of absence, the company said Catz and Ellison would assume Hurd’s responsibilities. While he was president of Oracle he was considered as a candidate to be CEO of Microsoft, the Wall Street Journal reported.

At the time of his leave of absence from Oracle, he sat on Baylor’s board of regents. The Hurds have given money to Baylor, and the university plans a welcome center bearing their names.

Survivors include his wife and daughters Kathryn and Kelly.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/18/2019 - 12:14

3 Polls Show Majority Of Americans Now Support Impeachment As Constitutional Crisis Looms

18 October 2019

3 Polls Show Majority Of Americans Now Support Impeachment As Constitutional Crisis Looms

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

The mainstream media is relentlessly trying to convince the American people that President Trump did something wrong, and to a certain degree it appears to be working.

As you will see below, 3 major polls have found that a majority of Americans now support impeachment. But according to the U.S. Constitution, President Trump cannot be impeached unless he is convicted of a crime.

Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution sets a very high standard for impeachment:

“The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Top Democrats love to give interviews about impeachment, but you will notice that none of them ever point to a specific federal law that President Trump violated, and none of them ever bother to explain how President Trump’s specific behavior fits the elements of any particular federal statute. As a former lawyer, this disturbs me greatly, because the law is supposed to be applied impartially. Either President Trump is guilty of breaking a specific law or he isn’t. You can’t just impeach someone because you don’t like that particular individual, but that appears to be what the Democrats are doing, and in the process they are absolutely trampling on the Constitution.

Unfortunately, a slim majority of the U.S. population now appears to be on the side of the pro-impeachment forces. A little over a week ago, a Fox News survey was the first poll to show this…

A new high of 51 percent wants Trump impeached and removed from office, another 4 percent want him impeached but not removed, and 40 percent oppose impeachment altogether. In July, 42 percent favored impeachment and removal, while 5 percent said impeach but don’t remove him, and 45 percent opposed impeachment.

President Trump blasted that poll on Twitter, but then earlier this week Gallup released a survey with even worse results…

Currently, 52% say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 46% say he should not be. This is roughly the opposite of what Gallup found in June when asked in the context of special counselor Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Subsequently, the highly respected Pew Research Center released their own startling poll…

The new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Oct. 1-13 among 3,487 adults, finds that 54% currently approve of the House’s decision to conduct an impeachment inquiry, while 44% disapprove.

Neither party engenders a great deal of confidence that they will be “fair and reasonable” during the impeachment inquiry, the survey finds. About four-in-ten (43%) expect that the Republicans in Congress will be fair in handling the inquiry, while slightly more (47%) say the same about the Democrats in Congress.

Once can be a coincidence, twice is a trend, and three times means that we have a major problem on our hands.

In fact, an average of all the latest national polls about impeachment shows that “a majority of Americans” now support this process…

For the first time, a majority of Americans said this week that they supported the impeachment of President Trump. Not just in one, outlying poll — in an average of all current national polls compiled by the data journalists at FiveThirtyEight.

From a historical perspective, this is really stunning, because during Richard Nixon’s impeachment process a majority of Americans never supported his impeachment until the very end.

And in Bill Clinton’s case, public support for his impeachment never even reached the 40 percent mark.

So to see that more than 50 percent of Americans are in favor of impeaching Trump is rather stunning, and it shows that the mainstream media still possesses an immense amount of influence in our society.

But even if everything that the Democrats are alleging that President Trump did is 100 percent true, there is still no impeachable offense here.

Whether you are a fan of Trump or not, you should want to see justice done in this case. Ultimately, our representatives in Washington are supposed to be our “public servants”, and they should be treated just like everyone else.

If it can be shown that President Trump’s behavior specifically fits the elements of a specific federal crime, and if that specific federal crime rises to the level of a “high crime or misdemeanor”, then President Trump should accept his fate.

I have gone over all of the “crimes” that the Democrats are accusing Trump of committing, and they must not be reading the federal statutes regarding these crimes very carefully, because Trump’s actions don’t fit any of those statutes.

Look, if Trump was really guilty of a “high crime or misdemeanor”, there would be plenty of Republicans in Congress turning on him by now. And I am not talking about turncoats like Mitt Romney that have their own political agendas.

If President Trump was really guilty, a large number of Republicans would turn on him just like we witnessed during the Nixon saga. When it become clear that Nixon was guilty, members of his own party rapidly abandoned him, and Nixon was forced to resign.

But that hasn’t happened in this case, and it is not going to happen because Trump is not guilty.

Unfortunately, the Democrats are going to draft articles of impeachment anyway, and at this point it looks like the vote in the House is going to go against Trump.

So then the drama will move to the Senate, and Mitch McConnell is telling everyone to be ready for a trial “as soon as Thanksgiving”…

Majority leader Mitch McConnell told Republican senators Wednesday to be ready for an impeachment trial of President Trump as soon as Thanksgiving, as the Senate began to brace for a political maelstrom that would engulf the nation.

An air of inevitability has taken hold in Congress, with the expectation that Trump will become the third president in history to be impeached — and that Republicans need to prepare to defend the president. While McConnell briefed senators on what would happen during a Senate trial, House GOP leaders convened what they expect will be regular impeachment strategy sessions.

The good news is that McConnell has pledged to protect Trump, and that almost certainly means that the effort to remove Trump from office will fail.

But the uproar that the Democrats and the mainstream media are creating over all of this is going to divide this nation even more deeply, and it is setting the stage for the kind of civil unrest that I have long warned about.

When this process is finally over, about half the country is going to end up believing that Trump committed some sort of major crime but that justice was kept from being done by Trump’s Republican friends in the Senate.

There is going to be so much anger on the left, and what makes this situation even more volatile is the fact that we are heading into an election year.

We have never seen anything like this before in American history, and things are about to get very, very ugly.

Tyler Durden Fri, 10/18/2019 - 11:57 Tags Politics

Early start for England rugby fans as bars open at 7am

18 October 2019

Hundreds of bars across the country will be opening early for England's crunch Rugby World Cup quarter final against Australia which kicks off at 8.15am.

Canning Town Extinction Rebellion protester is remanded in custody

18 October 2019

British Transport Police moved quickly to bring charges against XR activists. Three men and two women have already been charged over Tube protests.

FIVE asteroids will make 'close' passes to Earth today

18 October 2019

NASA data show the biggest of the asteroids will be up to 328 feet across - about the height of Big Ben in London or the Statue of Liberty - while the smallest will be just 45 feet across.

Boris Johnson facing crunch 24 hours as he tries to woo Labour MPs into backing his Brexit deal

18 October 2019

With less than 24 hours until a massive showdown in the House, the PM is desperately wooing politicians from across parties with his appeal to 'get Brexit done'.

Extinction Rebellion protester dressed as Boris in blond wig scales the Elizabeth Tower scaffolding

18 October 2019

An Extinction Rebellion activist is climbing the clock tower which houses Big Ben on the banks of the Thames. Tree surgeon Ben Atkinson, 43, has begun a free solo climb of the Elizabeth Tower.