BETWEEN THE HEDGES: Today's Headlines

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Bloomberg:

U.S. Stocks End Two-Week Losing Streak as Industrials Rally. U.S. stocks posted their first weekly advance since the end of March as bond yields rose amid gains in industrial and financial companies. While the “Trump Trade” may not be the force it was in the months after the election, it showed some signs of life as the S&P 500 Index rallied 0.9 percent in its biggest weekly gain in two months. Eight of 11 industry groups climbed, with industrial stocks advancing 2 percent and financials gaining more than 1 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Index increased 0.5 percent, weighed down by earnings-related declines in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and IBM Corp.

French Head to Polls to Select Finalists After Grueling Campaign. French voters cast their ballots Sunday to select two presidential candidates for the runoff round of the 2017 election, whose results have the potential to determine how far the populist wave in Europe will go. In a campaign that has remade the nation’s political landscape, four candidates with radically different visions are in a position to qualify for the next round, according to dozens of public opinion surveys. They are Marine Le Pen, who wants to pull France out of Europe’s single currency, Jean-Luc Melenchon, who wants to remake the rules that govern that monetary union, Francois Fillon, a former prime minister who wants tough economic reforms and Emmanuel Macron, a 39-year-old centrist pro-European who has held a narrow but expanding lead for the past week.

France Votes: An Hour-by-Hour Guide to the Presidential Election. (video) France goes to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the presidential election, with four candidates capable of reaching the May 7 runoff. In what is arguably the most surprising and controversial election campaign in the 59-year-old Fifth Republic, voters’ choices include a centrist who has never run for office, a far-right candidate who wants to leave the euro, a center-right candidate battling a corruption scandal and a Communist-backed leftist who uses holograms of himself in his campaign rallies.

India Tax Reform May Help Accelerate GDP Growth Above 8 Percent. India’s economic expansion is tied to the global economy, but it could grow faster than 8 percent as the nation prepares to implement a national sales tax from July, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said. The goods and services tax will eliminate multiplicity of taxes and make India a single common market, Jaitley said, addressing G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors in Washington Friday night. India’s growth is resilient, he said.

Ryan Tells Colleagues House Will Act in Time to Avoid Shutdown. Speaker Paul Ryan told House Republican colleagues that a spending bill will be ready in time to avert a potential government shutdown at week’s end, and keep agencies running and financed through the end of September. Ryan provided few details of that bill, though, during a Saturday afternoon conference call with rank-and-file members, according to three members who participated.

Health Care Vote Likely in Early May, House Conservative Says. A key House Republican lawmaker expects a vote during the first week in May on a new version of a health bill to be negotiated between Congress and the White House, even though the measure would not amount to a repeal of Obamacare. “I think the odds of that are pretty good,” Representative Dave Brat of Virginia, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, said in a radio interview Friday with a Richmond radio station.

Wall Street Journal:

China Pressure on North Korea Gives Peace a Chance, Says Pence. U.S. vice president also confirms U.S. will honor—reluctantly—refugee deal with Australia.

Demonstrators Take to the Streets in Support of Science. First ‘March for Science’ part of movement among researchers toward greater public activism.