Financial Markets and Economy
It looks like the US economy almost shrank in the first quarter (Business Insider)
More economists are forecasting that the US economy nearly shrank in the first quarter.
Cheap Bond Funds Fueled Oil Bubble (Bloomberg Gadfly)
It's easy to see how cheaper indexed bond funds have been all the rage in recent years.
Worst Week in Two Months Rattles Equity Bulls as Earnings Loom (Bloomberg)
It’s official — the rally in U.S. stocks that erased the worst-ever start to a year has fizzled, with the biggest weekly slide since February depriving the bull market of momentum ahead of what’s forecast to be the steepest earnings slump since the financial crisis.
Markets Flash Warning as Bonds Rise, Yen Strengthens (Wall Street Journal)
Bond yields tumbled and the yen surged to its strongest level against the dollar in a year and a half Thursday, the latest sign that markets are growing cautious following a nearly two-month-long rally in prices of riskier assets.
Hedge Funds Become U.S. Gas Bulls for First Time Since 2014 (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds ended their record bearish streak on U.S. natural gas as an unusual spring cold snap stoked demand amid signs that output is slipping from an all-time high.
How the U.S. became one of the world’s biggest tax havens (Washington Post)
The single-story brick building at 1209 North Orange St. in downtown Wilmington, Del., looks bland and innocuous. But the building, home to the Corporation Trust Company, has an intriguing claim to fame. In the last few years, it has served as the registered address for more than 250,000 businesses, giving companies around the world access to Delaware’s business-friendly laws.
This Stock Has A 14.16% Yield And Sells For Less Than Book (Forbes)
Chimera Investment Corp has been named as a Top 10 Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), according to Dividend Channel, which published its most recent ”DividendRank” report.
Breadth Is Buzzword in 2016 Stock Market as Giants Loosen Grip (Bloomberg)
For better or worse lately, when the U.S. stock market moves, more stocks move with it.
Why Investors Are Too Bearish (Wall Street Journal)
This equity rally has few believers. That might actually bode well ahead of what is expected to be another poor earnings season.
Yale Made 93% a Year on Venture Capital in Past Two Decades (Bloomberg)
Yale University’s original $2.7 million investment in LinkedIn Corp. produced $84.4 million in gains for the school’s endowment after the company went public in 2011.
Three Oil Majors Have Debt Ratings Cut by Moody's on Price Rout (Bloomberg)
Three of the world’s largest energy companies had their credit ratings lowered by Moody’s Investors Service on the expectation that oil prices will stay low for longer and cause leverage concerns.
How Amazon Will Kill Your Local Grocer (Bloomberg Gadfly)
Amazon's done it to books. And electronics. And clothing. Now it wants to rule the grocery aisles.
A crippling fuel shortage will 'strangle' Africa's largest oil producer (Business Insider)
Nigeria is currently dealing with one of its worst fuel shortages in years.
Losing Money (Fred Wilson, AVC)
I remember back in the mid 90s, I used to say with some pride that I had not lost money on any of my VC investments. Then one day, someone told me “then you are not taking enough risk.” I ended that streak of not losing money on VC investments in the late 90s in a series of epic flameouts. I lost somewhere between $25mm and $30mm on one single investment. I am not proud of those mistakes. They were stupid. I am ashamed of them to be honest. But I learned a lot from them. Not only was my “winning streak” a case of not taking enough risk, it was also a case of not enough learning. The go-go Internet era of the late 90s fixed both of those things for me. I took more risk and learned a ton.
It Was a Good Bet (Motley Fool)
Warren Buffett has many disciples. Hedge fund manager Mohnish Pabrai is one of them, and one of the extreme few with excellent long-term returns to show for it.
Politics
Trump's Path Gets a Lot Rockier (Bloomberg View)
Colorado Republicans are busy this weekend making it harder for Donald Trump to get 1,237 bound and committed delegates by June 7, when the final primaries are held.
Colorado’s initial caucuses were held on March 1, but only now has a state party convention gathered to choose its 37 delegates for the national convention in July. Those delegates will be bound to a candidate if they announce their support before the final vote. If not, they’ll be free to choose whom to support.
A White House Concession on Fast and Furious (The Atlantic)
Remember Fast and Furious? No, not the series of vehicle-themed Vin Diesel and Rock vehicles. The bizarre “gunwalking” scandal, in which the ATF let straw buyers purchase guns to traffic to Mexico, but intercept the firearms before they reached Mexico, snagging criminals.
It's been mostly out of the news for the last four years, but on Friday, the White House announced it would drop claims of executive privilege and turn over a cache of documents to Congress related to Fast and Furious, as Politico’s Josh Gerstein first reported.
Technology
Japan's Invisible Train Should Be Running By 2018 (Gizmodo)
Japanese train-travel company Seibu Railway hopes to make a major design leap in time for their 100th anniversary; a new line of fast commuter trains that “blend into the landscape.”
Seibu’s new trains won’t really be “invisible” so much as “reflective,” but a simulated disappearing act is the goal of the project.
(WTF? -Should fast-moving vehicles, which will annihilate you if they hit you, be made invisible?)
Messaging Platforms, Bots and The Future of Mobile (Forbes)
A couple weeks ago, Microsoft released an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot named Tay. Sounding like a teenage girl, Tay was designed to chat with people and respond to human interaction. Within 24 hours of going live, trolls on Twitter “taught” Tay to become an obscenity-spewing racist and misogynist. Tay claimed “Bush did 9/11,” said “Hitler was right” and shrieked “I hate Feminists.” Mortified, Microsoft quickly took Tay offline.
Health and Life Sciences
Chinese medicine plant secrets probed (BBC)
Scientists have unravelled one of the secrets of a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine.
The Chinese skullcap – known as Huang-Qin – is traditionally used for fever, liver and lung problems.
Why we forget the frosting when counting calories (Futurity)
Delicious-looking pictures on cake mix boxes may lead people to consume a lot more calories than they think they’re getting.
Think of the typical box of cake mix: the slice displayed on the package depicts a typical serving size for the cake alone, with the requisite nutritional information printed on the back.
Life on the Home Planet
Earth Is Tipping Because of Climate Change (Scientific American)
The north pole is on the run. Although it can drift as much as 10 meters across a century, sometimes returning to near its origin, it has recently taken a sharp turn to the east. Climate change is the likely culprit, yet scientists are debating how much melting ice or changing rain patterns affect the pole’s wanderlust.
Subpoenaed Into Silence on Global Warming (Bloomberg View)
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is getting subpoenaed by the attorney general of the U.S. Virgin Islands to cough up its communications regarding climate change. The scope of the subpoena is quite broad, covering the period from 1997 to 2007, and includes, according to CEI, “a decade’s worth of communications, emails, statements, drafts, and other documents regarding CEI’s work on climate change and energy policy, including private donor information.”
