Financial Markets and Economy
Singapore Stock Losses Set to Rival Greece in 2015 (Bloomberg)
Singapores stocks are set for a 15 percent tumble this year, putting them in the same league as Greece. Baring Asset Management Ltd. and UBS Group AG say shares need to get even cheaper before theyre prepared to buy.
Toshiba shares crashed 12% after warning of a record loss (Business Insider)
Shares in Toshiba, the Japanese conglomerate, crashed more than 12% after the firm said it expects to make a record 550 billion yen ($4.5 billion) loss.
How Aldi Stole Christmas: Tesco CEO Lewis Can't Halt Stock Slide (Bloomberg)
Tesco Plc Chief Executive Officer Dave Lewis is ending his first full year at the helm with the stock at an 18-year low, and he’s facing a Christmas period that won’t deliver any respite.
Valeant Deal With Walgreens Has Unusual Twist (Wall Street Journal)
Buried in the details of a new 20-year distribution agreement between Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is a $150 million financial hit to Valeant that underscores the unusual nature of the deal.
The amount reflects the one-time revenue impact on Valeant of the drug-distribution pact, according to a Valeant presentation last week to analysts and investors.
Bumpy year drags U.S. share listings back to 2009 levels (Business Insider)
New share listings in the United States has their worst year since 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed on Tuesday, as a number of deals were pulled or priced below their initial range.
Global listings were down 26 percent compared with 2014, at $185.9 billion. The worst hit market was the United States, which has booked $28.7 billion in initial public offerings activity so far this year, down 48 percent on 2014.
Dollar treads water, but traders wary of disruption by oil prices (Market Watch)
The dollar was largely unchanged against the yen and the euro in thin Asian trade Tuesday, with fewer participants in the market ahead of the year-end holiday season.
The greenback USDJPY, -0.24% was at ¥121.25, compared with ¥121.11 late Monday in New York.
A Little More Inflation Would Be Good for Everyone (Bloomberg)
Monty Bennett hasnt seen anything quite like todays stubbornly low inflation in his long career as a hotelier.
U.S. says $1 billion linked to Venezuelan energy corruption scheme (Yahoo! Finance)
The details came a day after the U.S. Justice Department confirmed that authorities had arrested Roberto Rincon, a Venezuelan citizen who is president of Texas-based Tradequip Services & Marine. According to an indictment made public on Monday, Rincon and Venezuelan businessman Abraham Jose Shiera Bastidas conspired to pay bribes to officials to secure contracts from Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), Venezuela's state-owned oil company.
After fueling $1 trillion Asia deal spree, China's M&A set to hit new heights in 2016 (Business Insider)
China Inc's outbound acquisitions spree in 2015 helped push Asia-Pacific's annual deal value past $1 trillion for the first time, with 2016 set for a bigger splurge still as Chinese firms buy even more assets abroad to sidestep slowing domestic growth.
Asia-Pacific M&A totaled $1.2 trillion so far this year, up 46 percent from last year, preliminary data from Thomson Reuters showed, as China rediscovered an appetite for outbound deals after 2014's 20 percent drop. With private companies like Fosun International Ltd <0656.HK> in the vanguard, Chinese firms spent a record $102 billion so far in 2015, the data shows.
Oil prices get a respite, but analysts have zero faith it will last (Market Watch)
Crude oil prices regained some ground early Asia trade Tuesday but traders fear oversupply will continue to undercut prices for months to come.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February CLG6, +0.89% traded at $36.14 a barrel, up $0.33 or 1% in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude LCOG6, +0.66% on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.28, or 0.8%, to $36.54 a barrel after it plunged to 11-year low on Monday.
Year of `Serial Disappointments' Leave Canada Investors Reeling (Bloomberg)
Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz summed up the Canadian economy best by calling it “another year in the serial-disappointment series.”
Fed and Greece Could Defy the 2016 Bears (Bloomberg View)
One of the pitfalls of market-watching, whether for professional strategists or journalistic scribblers, is a tendency to accentuate the negative. (I'm ignoring sell-side equity analysts, whose preordained bullishness is largely indifferent to the economic backdrop.) Gloom, doom and misfortune are more interesting than cheerful optimism. And I'm as guilty as the next financial soothsayer.
Emerging Currencies Rise on China Stimulus Bets as Rupiah Surges (Bloomberg)
Indonesias rupiah led emerging-market currencies higher before a report on the U.S. economy and as China signaled it will take more steps to support growth. Developing-nation stocks traded little changed.
Top Iron Ore Shipper Predicts Prices to Fall 19% in 2016 (Bloomberg)
The world's biggest iron ore exporter cut its price forecast for next year by 19 percent as supplies continue to swell and slowing growth in China hurts demand in the biggest user.
Bonds Set to Beat Stocks Globally in 2015 After China Falters (Bloomberg)
Bonds are poised to outperform stocks globally for a second year, the first time that has happened in more than a decade, as slowing growth in China drives demand for the safest assets.
A Venture Capitalist’s Case for Raising the Minimum Wage (The Atlantic)
The seattle-based tech entrepreneur Nick Hanauer was riding in a black Uber SUV to the private-jet terminal at Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, D.C., when I asked him whether he really thought his was the best face for the movement to raise the minimum wage to $15. He was on his way to New York for dinner with Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize–winning liberal economist known for his critiques of globalization and free-market economics. Hanauer is generally unimpressed by politicians, who have been begging him for money for many years, but the prospect of dining with Stiglitz had him giddy. “He’s, like, God,” Hanauer said.
McDonald's Japan Plunges After Report U.S. Parent May Sell Stake (Bloomberg)
McDonald’s Holdings Co. (Japan) fell the most in almost five years after the Nikkei newspaper reported its U.S. parent plans to cut its stake in the loss-making unit that’s struggling to recover from a series of food scandals.
McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant chain and owner of about half of the Tokyo-based company, is seeking to sell 15 percent to 33 percent of the outstanding shares and an executive has met five or so potential buyers including trading houses and investment funds, Nikkei reported Tuesday without saying where it got the information from.
Dollar Index Heads for Biggest Monthly Decline Since April (Bloomberg)
A gauge of the dollar headed for its biggest monthly decline since April as investors priced in a measured pace of policy tightening by the Federal Reserve.
FTSE 100 on track for comeback as oil majors rise (Market Watch)
U.K. stocks gained ground Tuesday, with rises for energy shares and iron ore heavyweight BHP Billiton PLC helping to put the benchmark FTSE 100 on course for its first win in three sessions.
The U.K’s FTSE 100 UKX, +0.64% climbed 0.8% to 6,085.68, with only the utilities sector lower. The oil and gas group and the basic materials group were the best performing.
Asian Stocks Little Changed After China Signals More Stimulus (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks rose in thin trading as investors weighed the prospect of more stimulus from Chinese leaders. Energy and telecommunications shares led the advance.
Politics
‘Schlonged’: Watch Trump’s Astonishingly Sexist Attack On Hillary (Think Progress)
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump used a campaign stop in Michigan on Monday to make astonishingly sexist attacks against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
At one point, Trump told the Grand Rapids crowd that Clinton got “schlonged” by President Obama during their 2008 Democratic primary race.
Young protesters heckle Trump during Michigan speech (Reuters)
Protesters heckled Donald Trump at a 9,000-person rally here on Monday, interrupting his speech more than 10 times with shouts before security guards ejected them from the event.
Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, alternated between criticizing the hecklers and asking the guards leading more than a dozen people out of the room to "be gentle."
Technology
The Future of Leafblowers: The Guardian Weighs In (The Atlantic)
I’ll begin my emergence from a long bout of print-magazine writing by mentioning an article by Lawrence Richards, in The Guardian, on the changing nature of the leafblower debate around the world. Very much worth reading.
Health and Life Sciences
Toxic Chemicals May Weaken Infants' Response to TB Vaccine (Medicine Net)
Exposure to toxic chemicals while in the womb or in early life may weaken a baby's immune system response to the tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, researchers say.
The study focused on two common toxins: PCBs, an industrial chemical; and DDT, used in pesticides. These so-called "persistent" pollutants are not easily broken down and remain a health threat years after being banned.
Neurotribes: A Better Understanding of Autism (Science-Based Medicine)
What is autism? What causes it? Is it genetic? Is it a consequence of something in our environment or lifestyle? What’s an “idiot savant” or an “autistic savant”? What happens when autistic children become adults? Why are so many of the parents scientists, academics, and engineers? If your grandfather’s Uncle Fred was a socially inept inventor with a lot of strange quirks, do you think he might have been autistic? Is autism really becoming more prevalent, or are we just getting better at diagnosing it?
Life on the Home Planet
Refugee and migrant arrivals in EU pass 1 million in 2015: IOM (Reuters)
The number of refugees and migrants arriving by land an sea in six European Union countries — Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Malta and Cyprus — has passed 1 million this year, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.
Amazon peoples change ancestral ways to save forest (Phys)
The the indigenous peoples of the Amazon are far removed from the Paris conference rooms where politicians and technocrats in dark suits hashed out a historic deal on curbing climate change to close out the year.
