Financial Markets and Economy
The U.S. Is in the Midst of a Historic Bull Market (Bloomberg)
A bull market that has been derided as fake, doomed and history’s most-hated just earned a new title: the second-longest ever.
Dear Prudence – A Warning In Today’s GDP Growth Data (Value Walk)
While there is no doubt that patience is a virtue for investors, exercising prudence is equally important. In our prior article “Limiting Losses”, we examined how taking prudent measures, at certain times, can enhance your ability to create wealth over the long-term for your clients. Despite basic math and historical evidence proving its usefulness, investors typically ignore prudence, especially when it is required most. The siren’s song of a rallying market inevitably proves too compelling for many investors.
U.S. Fed buys $8 billion of mortgage bonds, sells none (Reuters)
The Federal Reserve bought $7.96 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities in the week from Apr. 21 to Apr. 27, compared with $7.407 billion purchased the previous week, the New York Federal Reserve Bank said on Thursday.
How Companies Use Strategically Timed Announcements to Confuse the Market (HBR)
On October 23, 1996, the day AT&T announced that John Walter, an industry outsider, would be named CEO, the company’s market valuation dropped by $4 billion. In his book Searching for a Corporate Savior, Rakesh Khurana at Harvard Business School noted that this negative market reaction became a self-fulfilling prophecy, causing the board of directors and other top executives to lose confidence in Walter, and leading to his dismissal only nine months after assuming office.
U.S. Corporate Profits on Pace for Third Straight Decline (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. corporate profits, weighed down by the energy slump and slowing global growth, are set to decline for the third straight quarter in the longest slide in earnings since the financial crisis.
End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles for Millennials (Bloomberg)
Turning 30 just got a lot scarier.
This Economy Isn't Too Disappointing (Bloomberg View)
Were you disappointed by that U.S. gross domestic product report this morning? Economic forecasters were, a little — the 0.5 percent annualized increase in first quarter real GDP compared with a 0.7 percent median projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
Russian economy seen contracting 1.5 percent this year despite oil boost (Reuters)
Russia's economy will decline by 1.5 percent this year despite a recent rally in oil prices, as inflation concerns and weak government finances limit room for monetary or fiscal stimulus, a Reuters poll predicted on Thursday.
The growth forecast is slightly worse than in last month's poll, when surveyed analysts predicted a 1.3 percent decline in gross domestic product this year.
‘Out of ammunition’: Analysts react to BOJ’s surprise non-move (Market Watch)
A decision to do nothing by the Bank of Japan left a trail of damage across markets world-wide, and left some analysts to question whether central-bankers have simply lost the ability to impress global investors.
Why Investors Should Be Ecstatic About Microsoft Corporation's "Poor" Earnings (Fox Business)
It's difficult to point to one particular "problem" with Microsoft's recent fiscal 2016 Q3 earnings. Both revenue and earnings per share were in line with expectations, but that didn't appease either the Street or Microsoft shareholders. How disappointed were investors? Microsoft stock was trading at $55.78 a share on April 21, the day it announced earnings. By market close on April 22, Microsoft had dropped a whopping 7% to $51.78, and it has since eased even further.
Why Active Management Comes Up Short (Bloomberg View)
We all know that indexing is cheaper than active management, in which a fund manager selects specific assets for investment. But the question is why has passive investing been so successful during the past few years? Asked differently, why has active management — especially since the financial crisis — had such a dismal run?
Follow Apple's Suppliers (Bloomberg Gadfly)
Apple shareholders didn't react well to news of the iPhone maker's first sales decline in 13 years.
3 Things: Earnings Update, GDP, Recession Driver (Real Investment Advice)
In a not so surprising outcome, the number of companies beating earnings estimates currently is above the 12-quarter average.
5 Brief Observations From Starbucks Earnings (Fox Business)
Last week's fiscal second quarter 2016 earnings report issued by Starbucks Corporation presented investors with a familiar narrative of record revenue, record operating margin, and record earnings. Nonetheless, investor qualms over valuation sparked fretful selling of the "SBUX" symbol in the trading days following the report. Irrespective of its near-term stock descent, the global coffee retailer's recent corporate actions and long-term plans invite thoughtful scrutiny. To that worthy task, the following are five quick observations gleaned from the April 21st filing.
Currency Trading's 20% Drop Raises Specter of Flash-Crash Future (Bloomberg)
The world’s biggest financial market has shrunk by 20 percent during the past year and a half.
Too poor to pay for college, too rich for financial aid (CNN)
Gage Marquez's dream is to become the first in his family to go to college, get his degree from the University of California at San Diego, and eventually become a cardiologist.
How I quit the 9-5 and started an online business that earns $50,000 a month (Business Insider)
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, sell you rainbows and unicorns, or tell you that becoming an entrepreneur will make you instantly rich.
Amazon profit crushes estimates as cloud-service revenue soars (Reuters)
Amazon.com Inc on Thursday reported profit and revenue that blew past analysts' expectations, sending its shares soaring in after-hours trading and demonstrating the growing market power of its core retail business and new cloud services division.
Politics
The Bernie effect? A new poll shows young voters see a big role for government (The Washington Post)
What will happen to the Bernie Sanders movement if, as expected, he loses the primary to Hillary Clinton? Will it have any durability or longer term impact at all? Or will it dissipate, proving itself to be yet another example of the longstanding tendency of voters from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to support ill-fated progressive insurgencies, as Jamelle Bouie suggested in a must-read on the topic?
Donald Trump has killed Reaganomics. And that's okay. (The Week)
Donald Trump, who moved nearly a hundred delegates closer to the GOP nomination Tuesday, might yet kill off the Republican Party as we know it. An irreparably fractured GOP and a landslide loss to Hillary Clinton might just do the trick. But already his candidacy has undermined the intellectual credibility of modern Republican economics. And that might be a good thing if the end result is an updated agenda that uses data-driven policymaking to solve today's economic challenges — not those of a generation or more ago.
Cruz Picks His Dream Team But Can't Escape Reality (Bloomberg View)
Trump and Cruz barely slept after Tuesday’s primaries. Hours after Trump’s clean sweep of five Northeastern states, he was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington to finally put flesh on the bones of hisforeign policy. Much was made of his using a teleprompter — how presidential! — but it was still pretty sketchy: “ISIS will be gone,” hepromised without saying how. And he reprised some old favorites: “Instead of taking charge that night, Hillary Clinton decided to go home and sleep,” he said of the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. He’ll build up the military without spending a dime. He’ll punish China with tariffs but rely on it to rein in North Korea.
Technology
This homemade hoverbike is the future of personal aviation (Mashable)
The Internet's favorite crazy inventor has created a rideable hoverbike, and while it doesn't go much higher than a couple feet, it's a pretty innovative creation.
YouTuber Colin Furze, famous for his homemade Wolverine claws, jet-powered bicycle and recent thermite launcher, embarked on his first-ever flying project as requested by fans. He created the hoverbike, a seatless, brake-less contraption powered by two motorized propellers in place of wheels.
Health and Life Sciences
Google Filed Patent For Injecting A Device Directly Into Your Eyeball To Improve Vision (Forbes)
Google has a penchant for far-out tech that never reaches the market. The latest is a method of injecting an device into an eyeball, mostly as a means to correct poor vision. Described in a patent dated April 28, 2016, the device is injected in fluid that then solidifies to couple the device with the eye’s lens capsule, the transparent membrane surrounding the lens.
New research suggest that free will might be nothing more than a trick the brain plays on itself (Business Insider)
It happens hundreds of times a day: We press snooze on the alarm clock, we pick a shirt out of the closet, we reach for a beer in the fridge.
In each case, we conceive of ourselves as free agents, consciously guiding our bodies in purposeful ways.
Life on the Home Planet
To cut heat deaths, Louisville needs 450,000 more trees (Futurity)
Extreme heat is a growing hazard for cities around the world. A case study on Louisville, Kentucky offers recommendations that could significantly reduce the number of people who die annually from heat-related causes.
The plan calls for leaders to strategically plant additional trees and vegetation, cut energy consumption by cars and buildings, decrease impervious surface areas such as parking lots, and increase the reflectivity of roads and rooftops.
All Belgian residents issued with iodine tablets to protect against radiation (The Telegraph)
The entire population of Belgium is to be issued with a ration of iodine tablets, months after warnings about the threat of Isil building a dirty bomb.
Iodine pills, which help reduce radiation build-up in the thyroid gland, had previously only been issued to people living within 20km (14 miles) of the Tihange and Doel nuclear plants.
