In terms of news flow on Tuesday, everything took a backseat to Facebook and the worsening Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is spiraling rapidly out of control.
The headlines were coming in all day, non fucking stop, and it all culminated in the company suspending CEO Alexander Nix, a decision which is effective immediately “pending a full, independent investigation.” That’s according to a statement from the board.
Nix’s problems stem primarily from secretly recorded comments documented in a multi-part series by Channel 4. We posted those videos last night along with some accompanying humor from our friends at Wonkette. You really should check it out for yourself – there’s some “honey trapping” and some Ukrainian whores. You know, that kind of thing.
Speaking of whores, Trump called Putin today to congratulate him on winning 146% of the vote in Russia’s “election”.
Stocks were marginally higher with the Nasdaq trailing the Dow for obvious reasons.
Facebook is apparently a country now – with “oil”. Which I guess means we need to invade that fucker.
Senators slam "creepy" Facebook.@SenJohnKennedy:
"It's no longer a company. It's a country… data is the new oil. We need to ask some hard questions bc some of Facebook's behavior has kind of gotten creepy." @business @tictoc pic.twitter.com/QUquAIm61i
— Kevin Cirilli (@kevcirilli) March 20, 2018
The stock’s 2-day slide is pretty egregious, and it’s cost Zuckerberg something like $8.5 billion.
Twitter careened lower on the way to its worst day since July. This is in sympathy with Facebook and also as Israel is said to be considering legal action against the company over “online incitement;” (something to do with Hezbollah apparently).
It is obvious what people are concerned about here and if you have any questions about that, just look at the juxtaposition:
It’ll be interesting to see what the flows data looks like for QQQ on Tuesday. As a reminder, some $2 billion was pulled on Monday following last week’s massive inflow:
VIX came off more than VXN in a sign that jitters are still there in tech:
Treasurys sold off ahead of the Fed, with 10Y yields rising to ~2.89 – all eyes will be on that damn dot plot tomorrow and all ears tuned into Jerome Powell’s trial by fire at the press conference.
The dollar recouped Monday’s losses:
Oil was up pretty handily on the session:
As you’re probably aware, MbS is in town and there’s no telling what he and Trump are talking about behind closed doors, although you can bet that Iran is going to come up a lot. Here are two headlines:
- SAUDI CROWN PRINCE SAYS WILL DISCUSS IRAN DEAL WITH TRUMP
- TRUMP SAYS `WE WILL SEE WHAT HAPPENS’ ON IRAN DEAL
And here’s a fun video:
Trump: Saudis appreciate US military equipment quality from CNBC.
Finally, for your moment of zen, let’s all laugh as Sarah Huckabee Sanders tries to answer a question about whether Russia’s “election” was actually an election…
On whether Russian elections were free and fair, @PressSec says, "We're focused on our elections. We don't get to dictate how other countries operate." https://t.co/m5s1DRo68q pic.twitter.com/2GynqFTBxa
— ABC News (@ABC) March 20, 2018
No one bats an eye on the NSA PRISM program, but we go ape shit over some private company getting ahold of some data…
Sudan, the last white rhino has died in Kenya today. Heads will go back into the sand and the latest diva will come out and tell us she slept with a pig.
The Dems on House Intel are going to interview the CA whistle blower. The Republicans on the same committee are already beginning to realize they look like idiots.
Maybe Trump is getting pointers from MbS on how to lock a bunch of billionaires in one of his hotels and extract money from them — only using stress positions, which is certainly not physical abuse.
Yep, and he’ll charge the government for the rooms. As it is, he now seems to be enjoying his new role as an international arms dealer.