DOW – 4 = 16,246
SPX – 3 = 1849
NAS – 22 = 4151
10 YR YLD – .03 = 2.67%
OIL + 1.02 = 101.28
GOLD – 14.10 = 1292.70
SILV – .05 = 19.79
Stocks fell for the fourth time in 5 sessions. This year’s first quarter, which ends Monday, isn’t nearly as bullish as last year, when the benchmark Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index soared 10% in the first three months of the year on its way to a 29% gain. The broad market is unchanged in 2014. Â The losing sectors today included banks and biotech. The Nasdaq Biotechnology Index, up 304% in the last five years, has fallen 11% since the end of February, while the Russell 2000 gauge of smaller companies has slipped 2.7% after rallying more than 230%.
If you really want a great investment, it’s hard to beat collecting $7,250 for every $1 you spend. That’s the benefit Boeing will reap from a ramped-up lobbying push in Washington state that ended with a massive $8.7 billion tax subsidy. A new analysis of lobbying data shows the tax break came as part of a deal to keep production of a new jet, the 777X, in the Seattle area.
Lobbying data is notoriously difficult to parse because matching individual dollars to specific legislative priorities is often impossible. It’s plausible that the company could have achieved the same result with a single phone call, given how terrified state officials were that the company might ship high-paying jobs elsewhere. The governor’s office had estimated that Washington would lose an estimated 20,000 jobs and more than $20 billion in economic activity if Boeing took production of the new jets elsewhere.
But the new analysis of the lobbying data shows that Boeing didn’t leave anything to chance in pursuit of its goal: that it went about getting what it wanted the old fashioned way, by spending gobs of money on lobbyists to follow lawmakers around, to call them incessantly and otherwise convince them that tax revenue isn’t really all that important anyway. Boeing spent about $1.3 million to lobby state lawmakers from 2011 through 2013, according to thefindings from the nonprofit National Institute on Money in State Politics. In the previous three-year period, the company spent $450,000. (The $7,250 – to – $1 calculation assumes every lobbying dollar was spent to win the tax subsidy).
About a week ago we reported on the Federal Reserve’s Stress Tests for the 30 biggest US banks. Zions Bank failed. Last week’s test was to determine if banks have sufficient capital to absorb losses and support operations during adverse economic conditions while using a standardized set of capital action assumptions.
