Financial Markets and Economy
Price vs. Value (BeSpoke)
We have been using consumer surveys (which we call Bespoke Consumer Pulse) for years to get a “from the source” view of what consumers are really feeling and doing. Our monthly survey of more than 2,000 consumers balanced to U.S. census has become an integral part of our process.
Mester Cautions Against Delaying Fed Rate Increases for Too Long (Bloomberg)
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said she supported a decision to hold off from raising interest rates last month, while cautioning against waiting too long to resume tightening if the economic outlook stays on track.
Here's why the restaurant industry is about to face an apocalypse (Business Insider)
Razor-thin does not even begin to describe just how slender the margins are in the restaurant business, and that's if you're one of the fortunate few that don't go under in the first year. If you're lucky, small single digits. Like, the smallest single digits. It's legitimately one of the dumbest businesses you could possibly get into. Restaurants are at the mercy of weather, acts of God, a sluggish economy — and if you have just one bad week, it can sink your ship. Lately, rising rents and changes in labor laws have made it even harder.
Central bankers were so scared about the state of the world in 2015 they bought 500 tonnes of gold (Business Insider)
Last year was a hugely turbulent time for the world. ISIS continued to cause devastation in the Middle East, tensions between Russia and Ukraine in the Crimea remained,terrorist attacks shook Europe, and Greece's debt crisis — which threatened to break up the eurozone — reached boiling point.
Russian Economy Shrank Less Than Forecast, Enduring Crash in Oil (Bloomberg)
Russia’s economy shrank less than forecast in the fourth quarter, using a flexible exchange rate to ride out the collapse in oil prices.
This Is the Job Market We’ve Been Hoping for All These Years (NY Times)
The United States would keep adding jobs at a steady clip. Wages would rise gradually — enough to put more money in workers’ pockets, but not so fast as to lead the Federal Reserve to move abruptly to keep the economy from overheating. Steady job growth wouldn’t show up in continued drops in the unemployment rate, but rather in a rising labor force. That is, people who had stopped even looking for a job in recent years would come back into the job market, allowing for strong job growth mixed with a steady jobless rate.
Trading in eight stocks suspended for rest of day: NYSE ARCA (Reuters)
NYSE Arca has suspended trading in eight symbols for the balance of the trading day because of a technical issue, including Amazon.com and both classes of Alphabet Inc shares, according to an alert from the exchange.
The Striking Details Of How China's Central Bank Is Directly Buying Stocks (Zero Hedge)
In the latest revelation of just how far China, and its central bank, are willing to go to prop up its ailing local stock market, on Thursday the official Shanghai Securities News reported that China's foreign exchange regulator has bought mainland stocks worth over 27 billion yuan ($4.18 billion) via three low-profile investment firms it controls.
US Rig Count Tumbles To Fresh Record 41-Year Lows (Zero Hedge)
With US crude production starting to drop, the lagged plunge in oil rig counts appears to be having some effect. Baker Hughes reports that the number of US oil rigs dropped 10 to 362 (14th weekly drop of last 15), the lowest since Nov 2009. The total rig count tumbled 14 to 450, fresh record 41-year lows. Crude was leaking lower into the data and rose modestly after.
A Basic Income Is Smarter Than a Minimum Wage (Bloomberg View)
Just as the U.K. raises its minimum wage and as Bernie Sanders's demands for a 50 percent increase in minimum pay keep winning him votes in the U.S., some politicians in one of the world's most socialist countries, Sweden, are in favor of going in the opposite direction. They could be right, especially if nations can find a way to unhitch basic subsistence from work.
Crude Oil Crushed As Production Freeze Hopes Thaw (Value Walk)
One hundred and ninety years to the day after Samuel Morey patented the internal combustion engine, and the combination of Saudi rhetoric and a solid jobs report has switched off the ignition for any crude oil rally today, sending prices free-wheeling downhill fast.
‘Workers are coming off the bench,’ economists say after jobs report (Market Watch)
Here’s a sampling of reactions after the Labor Department reported the U.S. added 215,000 jobs in March as the unemployment rate rose to 5%.
India, China consumers top emerging market sentiment table – survey (Reuters)
Consumer sentiment in India and China remains resilient despite a challenging economic backdrop, but households in Russia, South Africa and Brazil have become more pessimistic, an annual survey showed.
The Credit Suisse Emerging Consumer survey, which is conducted by market research firm Nielsen and is in its sixth year, is based on nearly 16,000 face-to-face interviews across nine economies.
5 Charts From Today’s Employment Report (Value Walk)
By most measures, March’s employment report was a good one. Nonfarm payrolls came in slightly ahead of consensus while February’s strong number was revised slightly higher still. Private payrolls also came in above consensus but unfortunately manufacturing payrolls came in well below expectations (most manufacturing jobs lost since December 2009).
IBM Stock Just Had Its Best Month in Forever (Fortune)
March 2016 was very good for IBM’s stock price. In fact it was the best month for Big Blue shares in more than a decade, since October 2002, according to a note from Bespoke Investment Group.
Nikkei sinks 3.6% as business confidence tumbles (Market Watch)
Stocks in Japan suffered their biggest drop in more than a month Friday amid worries about deteriorating sentiment among Japanese companies.
But stocks in China recovered from earlier losses in the afternoon, a bright spot in Asia’s mixed performance on Friday as investors weighed gauges of Chinese factory output that showed activity picked up in March.
Auto Sales Disappoint Despite Surging Incentives, "Worrisome Trends Are Taking Hold" (Zero Hedge)
Just as we predicted, it seems – despite the "everything is awesome" jobs data – that auto sales exuberance has hit the wall of credit saturation. Despite a surge in incentives in Q1, GM US auto sales rose just 0.6% (drastically lower than 6.0% rise expectations) and Ford rose 7.8% (missing expectations of a 9.4% surge).
Politics
After stumbles, Trump seeks to avert damaging loss in Wisconsin (Chicago Tribune)
As he tries to recover from a series of stumbles ahead of an important primary contest next week in Wisconsin, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump made a surprise appearance in Washington on Thursday and presented himself as the presumptive leader of his party.
'I can never tell what he's talking about': Hillary Clinton dismisses Bernie Sanders' Wall Street attacks (Business Insider)
In a Thursday interview with Business Insider, Hillary Clinton pushed back on Bernie Sanders' accusations about her relationship with the financial industry.
Business Insider's CEO and editor-in-chief, Henry Blodget, asked Clinton about Sanders' frequent criticism of her ties to Wall Street and why the financial industry is so demonized in the first place.
G.O.P. Fears Donald Trump as Zombie Candidate: Damaged but Unstoppable (NY Times)
Donald J. Trump, who in recent days has mocked a political opponent’s wife, defended a campaign aide arrested on a charge of battery and suggested punishing women who terminate pregnancies, may have surrendered any remaining chance to rally Republicans strongly around him before the party’s July convention in Cleveland.
Bernie in the Bronx (The Atlantic)
Mercer Jabul sat quietly at the very top of a hill at St. Mary’s Park, huddled underneath a hooded white coat as she waited, with an estimated 18,500 others, for Bernie Sanders to arrive in the South Bronx. A black woman in her 60s, Jabul is devoted to Sanders and said she has plans to vote for him in New York’s April 19 primary. But she wasn’t positive she was going to vote at all. It had been quite a while.
“I haven’t voted since Mayor Lindsay!” she told me.
Technology
It looks like Samsung's crazy folding smartphone is actually happening (Business Insider)
The foldable smartphone that Samsung's been working on for the last few years could become a reality soon.
According to Korean news site ETNews, Samsung will apparently start mass-producing the "smartlet" — as we call it — this year for a 2017 release.
Tesla's Model 3 Displays Will Be Provided By LG (Gizmodo)
The Model 3’s ultra-streamlined dashboard design was the breakout star of last night’s big reveal: No gauges, no monitors behind the steering wheel, just a single horizontal screen to the driver’s right. And according to a Reuters story, LG is supplying that screen.
Health and Life Sciences
Why a psychiatrist thinks the key to happiness might be swallowing the right bacteria (Business Insider)
Bacteria don’t outnumber our own cells 10 to one, as the old myth went, but we do contain trillions of microroganisms.
That these organisms influences us as much — if not more — as we influence them is a powerful idea, explored in fecal transplant therapies and microbiome sequencing.
How Allergies And Aging May Be Fueling The Hot Sauce Boom (Forbes)
Hot sauce is a $1 billion market worldwide. While this may sound like a lot of money, consider that bottles of even the most famous chili sauces sell for about $2 each. Many for far, far less. It’s not just a billion dollars; it’s about a billion bottles of hot sauce. That’s one bottle for every seven people on Earth.
Life on the Home Planet
‘We Have A Global Emergency,’ Must Slash CO2 ASAP (Think Progress)
James Hansen and 18 leading climate experts have published a peer-reviewed version of their 2015 discussion paper on the dangers posed by unrestricted carbon pollution. The study adds to the growing body of evidence that the current global target or defense line embraced by the world — 2°C (3.6°F) total global warming — “could be dangerous” to humanity.
