China Dethroned by Japan as World's Second-Biggest Stock Market

China just lost its ranking as the world’s number two stock market.

Just the opening salvo of a trade war he could never win.

After a Thursday slump, Chinese equities were worth $6.09 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compares with $6.17 trillion in Japan. The U.S. has the world’s largest stock market at just over $31 trillion.

China’s stock market overtook Japan’s in late 2014, then soared to an all-time high of more than $10 trillion in June 2015. Chinese equities and the nation’s currency have taken a beating this year amid a trade spat with the U.S., a government-led campaign to cut debt and a slowing economy.

"Losing the ranking to Japan is the damage caused by the trade war," said Banny Lam, head of research at CEB International Investment Corp. in Hong Kong. "The Japan equity gauge is relatively more stable around the current level but China’s market cap has slumped from its peak this year."

The Shanghai Composite Index has lost more than 16 percent in 2018 to be among the world’s worst performers, while the yuan has fallen 5.3 percent against the dollar.

"The market will likely continue to hover at low levels for the next couple of months," said Linus Yip, Hong Kong-based strategist with First Shanghai Securities Ltd. "But there’s still a chance that China’s stock market will recover with total capitalization ascending to the world’s No. 2 place again. After all, the economic fundamentals are still stable and growth momentum will resume after a short-term downturn."

While Japan’s benchmark Topix index has declined 3.9 percent this year, it remains one of the better-performing markets in Asia amid support from the Bank of Japan’s ETF purchases and as most companies continue to report robust earnings growth. Almost 60 percent of firms on the gauge that have already reported in the current earnings season have beat analyst expectations.

The market value calculations include primary listings only, to avoid double-counting. Hong Kong’s equities are valued at $5.1 trillion.

China Dethroned by Japan as World's Second-Biggest Stock Market

...And this is coming from the scum of the Earth The Daily Mail

Trump hits 50 percent approval in national poll as he surges past Obama's 2010 numbers and earns MORE support than he won in 2016 election

Donald Trump has achieved a 50 percent approval rating in a poll that proved better than most at predicting his stunning 2016 election victory.

Rasmussen Reports published the number Thursday from its daily tracking poll, marking the first time the president has reached that mark since May 22. 

On August 2 of Barack Obama's second year as president, he was polling at 45 percent in the same survey.

President Donald Trump now has the support of half of likely voters, a larger percentage than supported him in his 2016 election

Trump's approval numbers have been hovering in the 40s for months but so were Barack Obama's at this point in his first term

Obama was polling at 45 percent in the Rasmussen survey on this day in 2010, a full five points lower than his successor

Forty-nine percent of likely voters still oppose Trump, and there are far more who 'strongly disapprove' of him than 'strongly approve.'

The president's average approval rating in the month of July was 46 percent.

That roughly matches the 46.1 percent of votes he won in his epic 2016 clash with Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The Rasmussen poll was among the few that came close to accurately predicting that contest's result.

Unlike other polls that ask questions in live telephone interviews, it relies on push-button phone call responses – meaning voters who like Trump's performance in office aren't required to say so out loud to another person.

Some political scientists have called the result 'The Trump Effect,' a phenomenon that explained how social distaste for the president might depress his numbers in polls that use live operators.

Trump has cited Rasmussen's numbers in the past – as long as they are favorable to him.

His Rasmussen numbers have only been in the 50-plus territory on 13 percent of his days in office.

The Real Clear Politics polling average has Trump at 43.5 percent approval, largely because of a Quinnipiac poll that gave him just 38 percent

Obama polled better than 50-50 more than one-quarter of the time he was commander-in-chief.

Thursday's outlying numbers will be seen against a less rosy backdrop for the president. A polling average maintained by Real Clear Politics has Trump at 43.5 percent.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is a Quinnipiac University poll conducted July 18-23, which had him underwater with 38 percent of registered voters approving and 58 percent disapproving.

...And this is coming from the scum of the Earth The Daily Mail

Thoughts for today

Thoughts for today

Bush had a love affair with the MSM compared to Trump

This would have made a great cover... if only it was newsworthy.

Bush had a love affair with the MSM compared to Trump

Long After Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein Make News Going After Trump

Isn’t it peculiar…no book during 8 years of Clinton scandals and another 8 of Barry’s reign of lies and deception. They saw nothing that intrigued them? Both Chock-full of scandal after scandal and they covered what? Nixon's crimes were a fucking joke compared to Bubba and Barry! What about the Clinton email, FBI, DOJ, scandals and its entire cast of characters in this never-ending saga...

nothing here either right???

----------------------------------

Bob Woodward, left, and Carl Bernstein.

New York (AP) -- More than 40 years after they became the world's most famous journalism duo, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein are still making news.

Bernstein was among three CNN reporters who last week broke the story of former Donald Trump lawyer Michael Cohen's allegation that Trump knew in advance of the June 2016 meeting between representatives of his presidential campaign and Russian officials. On Tuesday, Woodward's upcoming "Fear: Inside the Trump White House" was No. 1 on Amazon.com, within a day of its announcement.

The former Washington Post colleagues known for their Watergate coverage speak regularly, they say, comparing notes on the Trump era.

"He's a news junkie, and I'm a news junkie," Woodward, 75, explained Tuesday during a telephone interview, adding that he includes a tribute to Bernstein in his new book's acknowledgments.

They're news junkies. But that all depends on WHO or What the news is about...

"We keep each other posted pretty well," Bernstein, 74, said during a separate phone interview. "Obviously, we do different things. But we also have a lifetime of understanding each other and looking at news together."

Woodward, an associate editor at the Post, is among the most successful nonfiction authors of his time, with a long series of best-selling accounts of sitting presidents from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama. A new Woodward book even became a political tradition — coming out in the fall of an election year.

But after the 2012 release "The Price of Politics," Woodward stepped away from the present, publishing no works on Obama's second term, and instead focused on Watergate-era news. "The Last of the President's Men," his work on White House aide Alexander Butterfield, the man who revealed Nixon's taping system, came out in 2015.

A Trump book was an easy choice for Woodward, who calls his rise a "pivot point" in American history. According to his publisher, Simon & Schuster, Woodward will show the "harrowing life" of the Trump White House and the president's decision-making process as he draws upon "hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand sources, contemporaneous meeting notes, files, documents and personal diaries."

The book's title draws upon an interview Woodward and Washington Post reporter Robert Costa had with Trump that was published in April 2016. Costa had noted that Obama defined power as "you can get what you want without having to exert violence." Trump had a different interpretation.

His answer was, Woodward, says, checking his notes, "Real power is, I don't even want to use the word: 'Fear.'"

Bernstein is a political commentator for CNN whose books include "A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton" (He could have called it- The Liar- and we would all know who he was writing about) and the two Nixon-era classics he wrote with Woodward, "All the President's Men" and "The Final Days." He is currently working on a memoir about his early years of journalism when he was starting out at the now-defunct Washington Star.

"My time at the Star was a great learning experience, and then there was the Post and Watergate. Those two experiences inform pretty much everything I do," Bernstein said.

"Imagine," he added, referring to himself and Woodward, "here we are, 74 and 75 years old, and we still get to do this."

...That's if they're Republicans.

Long After Watergate, Woodward and Bernstein Make News Going After Trump