Oil futures suffer largest weekly loss in more than a month

Oil futures fell Friday to tally loss of about 3% for the week–the largest such loss since early November, according to FactSet data. Doubts surrounding oil-producer compliance with a production cut agreement lingered despite some signs of cutbacks. February West Texas Intermediate crude fell 64 cents, or 1.2%, to settle at $52.37 a barrel.

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From:: Stock Market News

Gold futures gain roughly 1.9% for the week

Gold futures settled with a loss on Friday, but still scored a gain of about 1.9% for the week. “Gold appears to be trading in lock step with U.S. dollar trends over the past few weeks, with this week’s strength reflecting softness in the dollar,” said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. “Our view on President-elect [Donald] Trump’s policies is that we should see a stronger U.S. dollar, which should continue to pressure gold prices this year.” February gold fell $3.60, or 0.3%, for the session to settle at $1,196.20 an ounce.

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From:: Stock Market News

Baker Hughes data show U.S. oil-rig count down for first time in 11 weeks

Data from Baker Hughes Friday revealed that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil fell by 7 to 522 rigs this week. The decline follows ten consecutive weeks of increases. The total active U.S. rig count, which includes oil and natural-gas rigs, also fell 6 to 659, according to Baker Hughes. February West Texas Intermediate crude was trading down 46 cents, or 0.9%, for the session at $52.55 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, unchanged from the levels it traded at before the data.

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From:: Stock Market News

[Video] Here’s Julián Castro’s final farewell speech to HUD

Appearing for the last time before folks as the secretary of the Depart of Housing and Urban Development, Julián Castro began his farewell speech to HUD employees in typical Texas fashion, with a y’all. The White House tapped Castro back in June 2014 to replace outgoing HUD secretary Shaun Donovan, and now with only a week left in office, Castro left HUD with these three pieces of advice. …read more

From:: Real Estate Wire

Federal Trade Commission chair Edith Ramirez resigns

Recently, Mary Jo White announced that she planned to step down as the chair of the SEC at the end of the Obama administration. President-elect Donald Trump selected Jay Clayton, a top Wall Street lawyer who represented Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Ally Financial, Barclays Capital and others, to serve as the new chair of the SEC. Now, another one of the Obama administration’s top financial regulators announced that she plans to step down, giving Trump another opportunity to pick the new head of a financial regulator. …read more

From:: Real Estate Wire

After spike in rates, Treasury asks dealers about MBS, TIPS

The Treasury Department said Friday it is asking primary dealers about market conditions for mortgage-backed securities and TIPS, or inflation-protected securities. In its latest primary dealer agenda, the Treasury said it was asking dealers about the near and medium term outlook for the MBS market in light of recent changes in long-term Treasury and mortgage rates. It also asked dealers about current supply and demand in the TIPS market in light of the recent rise in real rates.

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From:: Stock Market News

3-Year High for Wells Fargo Mortgage Originations

The country’s biggest U.S. residential lender and servicer, Wells Fargo & Co., pushed up annual home-loan production to a three-year high.

During the final-three months of 2016, income before income tax expense was $7.6 billion, falling from $8.3 billion in the third-quarter 2016.

Those were among some of the performance measures revealed in the San Francisco-based financial institution’s fourth-quarter earnings report.


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From:: Financing

J.P. Morgan’s Dimon not fearful of Trump protectionism

J.P. Morgan & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said he isn’t concerned that President-elect Donald Trump’s trade policies will hurt the economy by pushing for tariffs and adopting a protectionist stance. During a call with reporters on Friday following the bank’s quarterly results, Dimon said despite Trump’s rhetoric and frequent use of Twitter, which indicate the real-estate mogul would retool trade agreements with Mexico and hold a hard line with countries like China, he expects the coming president’s administration to “do the right thing.” “Putting aside the one-liners and election rhetoric, I am comforted by the fact that he’s putting real players on the playing field,” Dimon said. Trump, for example, has repeatedly accused China of manipulating its currency and has threatened to place tariffs on its goods. Critics fear that such a tacked would backfire as China would likely retaliate with tariffs of its own. The U.S. is the biggest market for China, accepting about a fifth of its exports. Shares of J.P. Morgan were up nearly 2% on Friday, following its better-than-expected results, which were giving a lift to financials and the Dow Jones Industrial Average . “Give him some time,” Dimon said of Trump. The J.P. Morgan boss is a part of Trump’s economic brain trust, the Strategic and Policy Forum, which consists of 16 business leaders, headed by Stephen Schwarzman, the billionaire co-founder of private-equity firm Blackstone Group .

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From:: Stock Market News

SEC fines Citadel Securities $22 million for misleading clients about trade pricing

The Securities and Exchange Commission said on Friday that Citadel Securities LLC will pay $22.6 million to settle charges that its team that processes retail customer orders from other brokerage firms misled those customers about the way it priced trades. According to the SEC, Citadel Execution Services used two algorithms that did not take the other side of the retail orders, called internalization, at the best price observed nor did it seek the best price in the marketplace. That’s despite telling broker-dealer clients that it either took the other side of the trade and provided the best price that it observed on various market data feeds or sought to obtain that price in the marketplace. Citadel Securities executes approximately 35% of the average daily volume of retail equity shares traded in the U.S. markets, according to the SEC’s order. Citadel Securities has since discontinued use of the two algorithms which violated the law from late 2007 through January 2010. Citadel did not admit or deny the findings, but agreed to be censured and pay a penalty of $16 million, return $5.2 million in gains and pay interest of more than $1.4 million.

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From:: Stock Market News