Financial Markets and Economy
A storm of retail bankruptcies is rocking the US economy (Business Insider)
Another retailer is heading for bankruptcy. This time Aeropostale, with 800 teen-clothing stores, after three years in a row of losses. It’s “preparing to reorganize under a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and could file as soon as this month, according to people familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg reported today.
Fed seen holding rates this week with hike still on horizon (Reuters)
U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to hold interest rates steady when they meet this week, but may tweak their description of the economic outlook to reflect more benign conditions, leaving the path open for future rate rises.
Oil Producers Lock In Once-Snubbed Prices (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. oil producers aren’t letting the rally go to waste.
The High Fees You Don’t See Can Hurt You (NY Times)
High fees, often hidden from view, are still enriching many advisers and financial services companies at the expense of ordinary people who are struggling to salt away savings. The problem has persisted year after year. A new analysis of mutual fund data confirms its severity.
The quest to fund stadiums with public money has gone one tax too far (Washington Post)
The hotel tax.
(As if we need more taxes at the bottom of our hotel bill: sales tax, city tax, occupancy tax, resort fee, Wi-Fi fee. New York City even has the $1.50 “Javits tax” — the Javits family thanks you — and, now, it’s routine everywhere for a hidden stadium tax to pay for a billionaire’s new playpen. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller are turning over in their cash-lined graves wondering how they missed out on this business gambit.)
Oil Glut Continues to Tank Prices (Fortune)
Oil companies continue to slash projects and jobs as profits sink to thirteen year lows.
The world’s top oil companies are set to report their worst quarterly results yet in the current downturn but a recent recovery in crude prices is raising hopes the market has bottomed out.
With Stocks Near All-Time Highs, Financial Stress Turns Negative (Financial Sense)
The financial markets are stressed out, though you wouldn't know it with stocks reaching near record all-time highs.
Investors are fleeing hedge funds in droves (Business Insider)
Big public pension funds are slow-moving apparatuses. So dramatic shifts in investment decisions take a long time to be discussed and decided, and even longer before they’re felt by the investment community. But now they’re being felt – painfully.
Is Alibaba Beginning To Unlock Shareholder Value? (Forbes)
There is no doubt that Alibaba Group has been perceived/viewed as an under-performer since it came public back on September 19, 2014 at a price of $68 per share, raising almost $22 billion and valuing the company at around $168 billion back then. At present the shares trade at just under $80 per share, giving us a return of 17.5% or less than 1% a month in the 19 months of its publicly traded life.
IBM makes a big shift into cognitive computing (LA Times)
IBM's California research lab sits atop a green hill in Almaden, 15 miles south of downtown San Jose.
There aren't any signs that suggest if you drive up the narrow road that wraps around the hill you'll find a research facility at the top. No signs that the research center is home to a Fortune 500 company. No signs — even inside — that the company once dominated the personal computer industry.
Gold is the spectre haunting our monetary system (Telegraph)
For a century, elites have worked to eliminate monetary gold, both physically and ideologically.
This began in 1914, with the UK’s entry into the First World War. The Bank of England wanted to suspend convertibility of bank notes into gold. Keynes counselled wisely that the bank should not do so. Gold was finite, but credit elastic.
All of the problems Universal Basic Income can solve that have nothing to do with unemployment (Quartz)
Universal Basic Income isn’t just mankind’s answer to the threat of robots in the workplace. Those who support the transformative economic policy offer widely varying versions of exactly how it would operate, but all involve distributing a standard sum of money to citizens regardless of need. Many argue that this set-up could save the millions who are on track to lose their jobs to machines. But that’s not all.
Europe is under threat of destruction from these 7 risks (Business Insider)
Europe is on the cusp of being torn apart.
Why Diversification Matters (Crossing Wall Street)
On Friday, Microsoft dropped 7.17% thanks to its earnings report. Personally, I didn’t think the earnings report was that bad but I’ve learned that it’s hard to argue with a market that’s out for blood.
Will Cheniere Energy Partners Sink or Swim? (Fox Business)
Cheniere Energy — through its master limited partnership Cheniere Energy Partners — put the United States firmly on the global LNG map when it exported its first LNG cargo to Brazil from its Sabine Pass liquefaction facility. While that's definitely a matter of pride, the real question is: Is Cheniere Energy Partners built to last? Can it flourish in the fiercely competitive global LNG market?
Halliburton Delays Release of First-Quarter Financial Data (Fox Business)
Halliburton Co. is delaying the release of its first-quarter financial results until next month, amid a looming April 30 deadline for its merger with Baker Hughes Inc., which has faced stiff regulatory opposition.
South Korean exports — the world's economic 'canary in the coal mine' — are facing 2 long-term problems (Business Insider)
The world's economic "canary in the coal mine" is stuck.
Who Is Buying Apple's iPhone SE? (Forbes)
After going on sale at the end of March, the iPhone SE is proving to be a curious long-term play by Apple in the smartphone market. While it has not seen the sort of immediate love and adoption of flagship iPhone releases, the real goal is not the geekerati who buy everything as soon as possible, but the upgrade crowd who will be handing in their iPhone 5S’s and 5C’s in the near future.
Carbon Pricing Becomes a Cause for the World Bank and I.M.F.? (NY Times)
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund are pressing governments to impose a price tag on planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions, using economic leverage and technical assistance that institutions like the United Nations cannot muster.
Politics
Democrats' Divisions Will Need Healing, Too (Bloomberg View)
Senator Sherrod Brown is a relatively accessible fellow, but when he was recently about a request for an interview on the subject of the schisms in his Democratic Party, his schedule was full. Instead, he sent along a banal statement that the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders presidential primary battle was strengthening the party in contrast with the "divisive" Republican fight.
The Party of Lincoln in the Time of Trump (The Atlantic)
One hundred and sixty years after the founding of the Republican Party, Donald Trump has evoked Abraham Lincoln as a standard for his branding. “I can be more presidential, if I want to be,” he said. “I can be more presidential than anybody … more presidential than anybody other than the great Abe Lincoln. He was very presidential, right?” But Lincoln became “presidential” by resisting not only slavery but also isolating nativism.
Technology
How drones will change the world in the next 5 years? (Business Insider)
The fast-growing global drone industry has not sat back waiting for government policy to be hammered out before pouring investment and effort into opening up this all-new hardware and computing market.
Experimental Solar-Powered Plane Completes Journey Across The Pacific (NPR)
Experimental solar-powered plane Solar Impulse 2 has landed in Mountain View, Calif., after a three-day flight across the Pacific.
"Good morning, California!" the plane's visibly emotional pilot Bertrand Piccard told a cheering crowd at Moffett Airfield, where he landed at 11:44 p.m. local time.
Health and Life Sciences
Final piece of diabetes puzzle solved (BBC)
A complete picture of the areas that the immune system attacks to cause type 1 diabetes has finally been revealed by scientists.
The study, published in the journal Diabetes, discovered the fifth and final critical target at which the immune system errantly takes aim.
Life on the Home Planet
Pope Francis tells teens 'happiness is not an app you can download' (The Guardian)
Teenagers will not find happiness by downloading a smartphone app or acting like a movie star, Pope Francis has said as part of the Vatican’s weekend celebration of young people.
“Your happiness has no price. It cannot be bought. It is not an app that you can download on your phones, nor will the latest update bring you freedom and grandeur in love,” the pope told Catholic youth gathered under grey skies in St Peter’s Square on Sunday.
