Financial Markets and Economy
Consumer Comfort in U.S. Fell Last Week to a Three-Month Low (Bloomberg)
Consumer comfort declined last week to a three-month low as Americans’ attitudes about the economy and their financial prospects deteriorated.
Everyone is getting worried about China (Quartz)
China’s giant debts are starting to worry credit ratings agencies.
Here’s why the Fed doesn’t know if inflation is a problem (Market Watch)
To some investors, the worst thing that could happen to the U.S. economy is deflation. And they see evidence in the data that prices are falling and the Federal Reserve must act now to stimulate the economy and ease monetary policies.
Top Oil Trader Thinks Oil Will Double From Here (Forbes)
If you’ve read our daily notes for the past few months, you’ll know how important oil is for global markets at this stage. Even after a 50% bounce, if you were told what oil did on the day, you would probably have a good idea what stocks, interest rates, currencies and other commodities did as well.
Bank of America just made it easier for you to shop online (Business Insider)
Shopping online can be a pain when you need to constantly re-enter all of your information, but Bank of America just made the process a bit easier for some of its customers.
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S&P cuts China sovereign credit outlook to negative; maintains AA- rating (Reuters)
S&P cut its outlook for China's sovereign credit rating on Thursday to negative from stable, but maintained the rating at AA-, saying the government's reform agenda is on track but likely to proceed more slowly than expected.
The capital of 'the most miserable country in the world' could be about to go dark (Business Insider)
Venezuela's capital, Caracas, could be about to go dark.
Thirst for Gasoline Fuels Oil Rally (Wall Street Journal)
Falling oil prices have been a boon to drivers. Now, the thirst for gasoline is revving up the oil market.
Charting America's Descent Into Peasantry (Liberty Blitzkrieg)
Earlier today, I published a post titled Americans Have Been Turned Into Peasants – It’s Time to Fight Back.
Corn Falls to 17-Month Low in Record Trading on Acreage Outlook (Bloomberg)
Corn futures tumbled to the lowest in 17 months after a U.S. government report showed that farmers plan to sow 93.6 million acres of the grain in 2016, exceeding all estimates by analysts and boosting prospects for higher supplies after the harvest.
Asia shares, dollar on defensive ahead of U.S. job data, factory surveys (Reuters)
Asian shares and the dollar started the new quarter on a downbeat note on Friday as caution ruled ahead of surveys on global manufacturing and the latest reading on U.S. jobs.
Analysts’ S&P 500 Earnings Expectations (Ritholtz)
Fascinating look at the tendency for analysts to overestimate earnings, except at market lows, when they under-estimate them.
U.K. Economy Shows More Momentum; Current-Account Gap Widens (Bloomberg)
The British economy ended 2015 with more momentum than previously estimated.
A Perfect Storm At Yahoo — And An Opportunity For Investors (iStock Analyst)
It's been a long decade for Yahoo. The search and tech company has seen its stock rise just 10% over the past 10 years.
Politics
Donald Trump has a gift for managing news cycles. If his bloated head contains a spark of genius, this is where it shines. Trump understood as far back as 2013 what it would take to execute a political con of this scale: work the media, create controversy, become an impossible-to-ignore circus. This is what Trump meant when he said “it’s about the power of the mass audience.”
Bernie Sanders Has an Interesting Theory About Why the Republican Party Exists (Mother Jones)
Rachel Maddow posed an interesting question to Sen. Bernie Sanders during their interview on Wednesday: Would he like to see the Republican Party just disappear? Sanders' answer was also an interesting one. He didn't take the bait; instead, he offered an alternative theory—the GOP would disappear if corporate media simply told the truth about the party's agenda.
Technology
Meet 'Iceman' and 'Wolverine' — the 2 coolest robots in Tesla's factory (Business Insider)
Before the debut of its Model X in 2015, Tesla invited Business Insider to tour its technologically advanced factory in Fremont, California. While thousands of humans work on the factory floor, more than 100 robots also pitch in to build the cars.
A Futuristic Suit That Allows You to Experience Old Age (NY Times)
An exhibit at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City uses data-collecting gear to simulate the vision, hearing and mobility of an 85-year-old person.
Health and Life Sciences
This Is Your Brain on Risk (Bloomberg View)
How do human beings behave in response to risk? That is one of the most fundamental unanswered questions of our time. A general theory of decision-making amid uncertainty would be the kind of scientific advance that comes only a few times a century. Risk is central to financial and insurance markets. It affects the consumption, saving and business investment that moves the global economy. Understanding human behavior in the face of risk would let us reduce accidents, retire more comfortably, get cheaper health insurance and maybe even avoid recessions.
More obese than underweight, says study (BBC)
The research, led by scientists from Imperial College London and published in The Lancet, compared body mass index (BMI) among almost 20 million adult men and women from 1975 to 2014.
It found obesity in men has tripled and more than doubled in women.
Life on the Home Planet
1 billion Asians will face severe water shortages by 2050 (Business Insider)
Countries in Asia will face severe water shortages by 2050 if current environmental, demographic and economic trends remain unchanged.
This is the conclusion that MIT scientists have reached, after running different simulations of future climatic scenarios in the region.
Ice wall at Fukushima plant switched on, but it will work? (AP)
The operator of Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant switched on a giant refrigeration system on Thursday to create an unprecedented underground ice wall around its damaged reactors. Radioactive water has been flowing from the reactors, and other methods have failed to fully control it. The decontamination and decommissioning of the plant, damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011, hinge of the success of the wall.
