Financial Markets and Economy
OPEC Warns of Deeper Cuts to Oil Demand Forecast on Slowdown (Bloomberg)
OPEC said it may deepen cuts to its forecast for global oil demand growth due to slowing economic expansion in emerging markets, warmer weather and the removal of fuel subsidies.
The hottest trend in global finance is super depressing (Business Insider)
The hottest word in finance right now is "stabilizing," and the hottest trend is complacency.
The Consequences of Debt in America (Gallup)
What happens to people when they go into debt? Specifically, what happens to them psychologically — and how does debt affect their behavior?
Wholesale Prices in U.S. Unexpectedly Fall as Margins Shrink (Bloomberg)
Wholesale prices in the U.S. unexpectedly fell in March for a second month, showing inflation is still well-contained as Federal Reserve officials weigh whether further increases in the benchmark interest rate are warranted.
The dire state of the global economy in six charts (The Telegraph)
It's hard to find a country that the IMF didn't downgrade in its latest forecast. The message from its chief economist was simple: Growth is slowing. Everywhere.
This Means War – Sui Generis (Value Walk)
March 2016 carried with it one of the strongest upward moves in equity markets in recent memory and for many the tumult of the first seven weeks of the year is now water under the bridge. We’re now quite worried about the negative long term implications of the excessively loose monetary policy that seems to have fueled the equity rally.
You Call This a Bull Market? (Bloomberg Gadfly)
Are U.S. stocks really still in a bull market?
U.S. Consumer Spending – Can They Continue To Hold Up The World? (Value Walk)
Consumer spending is critical to the economy, yet remains sluggish. Russ Koesterich discusses why that may be the case for some time to come.
Gold Options Traders Extend Longest Bullish Streak Since 2009 (Zero Hedge)
Amid gold's best start to a year since 1974, options traders continue to bet on more gains.
U.S. regulators fail 'living wills' at five of eight big banks (Reuters)
U.S. regulators gave a failing grade to five big banks on Wednesday, including JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), on their plans for a bankruptcy that would not rely on taxpayer money, giving them until Oct. 1 to make amends or risk sanctions.
How secretive shell companies shape the U.S. real estate market (Washington Post)
The 11.5 million leaked documents of the Panama Papers have shone a spotlight on numerous anonymous companies that the world’s wealthy use to secretly manage their funds. These companies acted as fronts for high-profile politicians, celebrities and businessmen, allowing them to buy property, open bank accounts and trade assets without the public knowing their true identities – in some cases those of tax evaders, corrupt politicians and money launderers.
Here's What U.S. Business Owners Worry About the Most (Inc.)
U.S. businesses are beginning to feel ripple effects from the sagging world economy.
While most small and mid-market companies are optimistic about their prospects for 2016, many say they expect challenges increasing their revenue, finding enough talented employees, and managing costs, according to a survey of business executives by JPMorgan Chase released on Tuesday.
The Small-Cap Premium Is Still MIA As A Buy & Hold Strategy (Capital Spectator)
Yesterday’s post focused on the discouraging record for value investing over the last decade, but history looks even worse for the so-called small-cap premium in the US stock market.
Yahoo! Worth $44 if a Team of Microsoft and Others Bought Patents, Opines SunTrust (Barron's)
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey’s Robert Peck this morning weighs in on what he thinks is hidden value in the “core” business of Yahoo! (YHOO), the part that’s based on advertising, apart from its minority interests, arguing it may be worth more than the $6 billion to $8 billion he’s been estimating.
New York Fed Has Rosier GDP Than Atlanta in Battle of Forecasts (Bloomberg)
New York to Atlanta: Buck up, growth ain’t so bad.
Apple STILL so cheap, it’s actually ridiculous (Sizemore Insight)
I wrote earlier this year that Apple is so cheap, it’s actually ridiculous. I still feel that way, and after a lousy start to the year, the market seems to be coming around to my view. Apple (AAPL) shares have enjoyed a nice rally of late, and I expect a lot more to come. Excluding the oil sector, Apple is one of the cheapest large companies in the world, trading for half the market’s earnings multiple, and sits on a mountain of cash large enough to pay its dividends at current levels for the next ten years… even if Apple were to never earn another cent of profit.
10 Things I Learned from Steve Jobs about Trading and Life (Ivan Hoff)
That’s been one of my mantras—focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex; you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.
Politics
The Edge: Sanders Scores a Senator (The Atlantic)
Bernie Sanders received his first endorsement from a U.S. senator. Ethan Couch, known as the “affluenza teen,” was sentenced to nearly two years in jail in his first appearance in adult court. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signed an executive order to protect LGBT state employees from discrimination in the workplace. And Hillary Clinton committed to working for African Americans at the annual conference of the National Action Network.
For the uninitiated CPT is an acronym for colored people time, an old stereotype African-Americans have employed in jest amongst each other to excuse tardiness. Unfortunately, I found out on Monday that the shorthand CPT is no longer just an inside joke, but such a commonplace referral that even Hillary Clinton and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio are publicly joking about the term.
Inside the bizarre Vladimir Putin cafe – complete with Barack Obama toilet paper (The Telegraph)
Vladimir Putin fans now have the perfect place to toast to the Russian leader thanks to a newly opened cafe dedicated solely to the action man president.
Welcome to the incredibly patriotic President Cafe in eastern Siberia, located around 4,000 km (2,500 miles) from Moscow, where Putin’s face covers the walls and Barack Obama’s smiling face is on the toilet paper.
Technology
BIG-i robot looks like a trash can but is a lot more helpful (Mashable)
There’s a new robot butler making its way to the world and it understands voice commands, recognizes faces and interacts with your smart devices. It doesn’t exactly look like the Jetson’s Rosey the Robot though — it looks more like an adorable rolling trash can.
Robots are coming for our jobs — but the best solution is already being tested in Europe (Business Insider)
In 1930, the influential economist John Maynard Keynes coined the term 'technological unemployment” to describe what happens when mechanical labor makes human labor obsolete.
He predicted that by 2030 we could all be working just 15 hours a week.
Health and Life Sciences
How Does a Mathematician's Brain Differ from That of a Mere Mortal? (Scientific American)
Alan Turing, Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, John Nash—these “beautiful” minds never fail to enchant the public, but they also remain somewhat elusive. How do some people progress from being able to perform basic arithmetic to grasping advanced mathematical concepts and thinking at levels of abstraction that baffle the rest of the population? Neuroscience has now begun to pin down whether the brain of a math wiz somehow takes conceptual thinking to another level.
A Common Painkiller May Inhibit Your Ability To Detect Mistakes (Forbes)
A drug commonly used to treat pain could also be impeding error-detection in the brain, new research suggests.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia conducted a neurological study on how the drug acetaminophen inhibits the brain response associated with making errors.
Life on the Home Planet
Our galaxy’s impossible collision could break gravity (New Scientist)
THE end of the Milky Way is already scheduled, and will be marked with fireworks. Some 4 billion years from now, the night skies will be lit by the glow of hundreds of billions of stars as the nearby Andromeda galaxy bears down on us. The two celestial giants will become one and stars, planets and gas clouds will be hurled into intergalactic space by titanic gravitational forces. Surviving stars and planets will be pitched into a jumbled cloud flaring up with new stars – floating into a long future not in the Milky Way, nor Andromeda, but a monstrous “Milkomeda” galaxy.
We’re running out of water, and the world’s powers are very worried (Reveal News)
Secret conversations between American diplomats show how a growing water crisis in the Middle East destabilized the region, helping spark civil wars in Syria and Yemen, and how those water shortages are spreading to the United States.
California’s Water Wars Flare Up as SoCal Makes a Land Grab (Wired)
The one big thing to understand about water in California is this: The north has it, the south wants it. Yes, sure, pedants will say it’s more complicated. That you need to consider pre-1914 water rights, and which federal or state agencies have jurisdiction over which reservoirs, and whether it was an El Niño year, and if it is an El Niño year, is it a stereotypical El Niño or is it a weird outlier El Niño … and so on.
