Financial Markets and Economy
How The Hedge Fund Picks From Last Year's Sohn Conference Are Performing (Bloomberg)
A number of traders and hedge fund titans have marked May 4 on their calendar to attend one of the premier hedge fund conference of the year: the Sohn Investment Conference.
In China, the New Casino Is Iron Ore (Wall Street Journal)
The price of iron ore for decades was hammered out in secret talks between the world’s biggest miners and steelmakers.
Warren Buffett’s Epic Rant Against Wall Street (Wall Street Journal)
The “Oracle of Omaha” went on an epic rant against Wall Street this weekend.
Just before lunch at the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting on Saturday, Warren Buffettunloaded what he called a “sermon” about hedge funds and investment consultants, arguing that they are usually a “huge minus” for anyone who follows their advice.
Commodities Overtake Stocks, Bonds With Best Rally Since 2010 (Bloomberg)
The global gluts that have plagued markets from crude oil to zinc are finally starting to subside, sending commodities to their biggest monthly gain since December 2010.
Sell Stocks in May? Tempting but Not Very Smart (Wall Street Journal)
With U.S. stocks near record highs and memories of last summer’s volatility still in mind, investors could be forgiven for wondering whether this is the year to “sell in May and go away.”
Here’s why investors should ‘mind the gap’ between bonds and stocks (Market Watch)
An unusual divergence between two market indicators — equity-market volatility and credit spreads — is flashing “mind the gap” signals, according to Bank of America.
Fed Tightening: Reasons to Go Slow from the GDP Release (Econ Browser)
The 2016Q1 advance release, discussed at length by Jim, provides additional evidence in favor extreme caution in tightening monetary policy — maybe even a reconsideration of the June rate hike that seems, according to conventional wisdom, a done deal.
Central Banks: Buying Into Risk-On (Yardeni)
The major central banks are no longer just the Banks of Last Resort. They are turning into Investors of First Resort. In the long run, it’s hard to imagine that having the central monetary planners buy corporate bonds and stocks with the money they print can end well.
What everyone has been getting wrong about Goldman Sachs (Business Insider)
When most investors look at Goldman Sachs, they see it as a fixed income, currencies, and commodities (FICC) trading business — but they may be missing the bigger picture.
Why China Is Really Dictating the Oil Supply Glut (Oil Price)
Ship tracking data from Bloomberg shows that 83 supertankers carrying around 166 million barrels of oil are headed to China, which has stockpiled an impressive 787,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016—the highest stockpiling rate since 2014.
Apple just did something for the first time in nearly 18 years (Bloomberg View)
Last year, a few influential voices urged the Federal Reserve not to raise interest rates out of concern that it would slow global growth and fuel financial disruptions. Fed officials listened politely, then hiked rates in December and subsequently paused. Given recent developments in the foreign-exchange markets, some of these voices may now be wondering if the Fed should resume its rate increases.
Major Asset Classes April 2016 Performance Review (Capital Spectator)
Global markets continued to rebound in April. Other than US REITs, which fell modestly in the kick-off to the second quarter, all the major asset classes posted gains last month, building on March’s strong rally.
Everything You Need to Know About Sentiment Right Now (The Reformed Broker)
Every once in awhile, a piece of data cuts through all the noise and tells you exactly what’s going on.
Politics
Bernie Sanders is not a sore loser: Our democracy is screwed unless we fix the unfair rules (Salon)
Mainstream coverage of the Bernie Sanders campaign tends to suggest that they were falsely blaming voting fraud for their loss. In the establishment narrative that describes Sanders as an unrealistic candidate that has no chance of actually winning, there seems almost no possibility that any objection from the Sanders camp can be taken seriously. The story becomes the campaign’s inability to deal with reality and it ignores the real complaints voters have about the election process.
Will Evangelical Voters Seal Ted Cruz's Doom? (The Atlantic)
Assuming Indiana voters don’t shock the pollsters tomorrow, Donald Trump will win the Hoosier State, and with that win all-but-clinch the Republican nomination for president.
How did things get here? Cruz was always a long shot for the nomination, but as the field cleared and it became clear that the Texan was the only viable alternative to Trump, states like Indiana were expected to be a firewall, preventing Trump from reaching the majority of delegates required to capture the nomination on the Republican National Convention’s first ballot.
Technology
The Feed Is Dying (NY Mag)
The feed is dying. The reverse-chronological social media feed — the way you’ve read Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs (which is to say, the internet) at various points over the last decade, updates organized according to the time they were posted, refreshed at the top of the screen — no longer really makes sense. The unfiltered informational cascade that defined the internet of the 2010s is going the way of the front-page-style web portal: It’s an outdated way of processing online information.
As Digital Fatigue Sets In, Readers are Waking Up to Newspapers (Editor and Publisher)
For years now, media analysts have said technology will save print—and maybe it will, just not in the way they predicted. The news industry is going through an overload of information particularly in the digital sphere. We can point our fingers at the 24-hour news cycle. We can blame social media. But according to marketing expert Andrew Davis, 17 new Web pages are published every second. If you think about it, said Davis, in a span of five seconds that’s 85 new Web pages getting uploaded to the Internet.
Health and Life Sciences
The Bulletproof Diet is everything wrong with eating in America (Vox)
When I first heard about the Bulletproof Diet — the "revolutionary" plan for weight loss — I tried to turn a blind eye. I really did.
But then, there were rumblings around the newsroom. "My Silicon Valley Facebook friends are posting about it a lot," said one colleague.
Global Health: Fight to Prevent a Newborn Infection Receives a Lift (NY Times)
A gel used to prevent infections in the umbilical cord stumps of newborns was endorsed by the European Medicines Agency last week, an important step toward distribution of the disinfectant in poor countries.
Breast cancer genetic discovery hailed (BBC)
Scientists say they now have a near-perfect picture of the genetic events that cause breast cancer.
The study, published in Nature, has been described as a "milestone" moment that could help unlock new ways of treating and preventing the disease.
Life on the Home Planet
Rain spawns more rain when it falls on ploughed land (New Scientist)
Rain cleans the air, right? Wrong. On ploughed fields at least, rainfall flings up millions of microscopic organic particles – the remains of dead plants and animals. As well as affecting air quality, this rainfall-induced haze may help to seed clouds and generate more rain.
Currently it is assumed that most airborne particles are lofted up by the wind, sea spray, or human activities such as tilling or transport and power plant emissions.
More Women Will Make a Stronger Military (Bloomberg View)
An attempt to undermine the Pentagon's decision to allow women to serve in combat roles backfired spectacularly last week — and the U.S. will be safer for it.
