FInancial Markets and Economy
Fed reaction to data barrage is focus for stocks (Business Insider)
Data on inflation and employment, two of the economic indicators most important to a "data-dependent" U.S. Federal Reserve are expected next week.
Here’s one really obvious way to boost the US economy (Quartz)
If you’re confused about why American economic growth has been so disappointing, consider this: US government investment in capital, research and development, and education and training is at its lowest point in 45 years. In 2014, federal investment turned negative for the first time since 2001, meaning that government capital is depreciating or becoming obsolete faster than it is being replaced.
Stocks Warm to Economy as Fed Recedes in Best Week Since March (Bloomberg)
Here’s a twist: U.S. stock investors aren’t melting down at the thought of a Federal Reserve interest rate increase.
The New Oil Traders: Moms and Millennials (Wall Street Journal)
When Erika Cajic woke before dawn one morning in early May and read that wildfires were breaking out in an oil-producing region of Alberta, she sat down on the family room couch with a cup of hot chocolate and her laptop and bought shares of an investment linked to crude.
Three US companies are hoarding the most cash (Business Insider)
Apple was reportedly considering buying media giant Time-Warner late last year, which would've given it a huge content business including media brands like CNN and HBO. It also would've cost at least $60 billion, which is Time-Warner's current market capitalization.
What You Should Know About Factor ETFs (ETF)
Factor investing is all the rage today.
Oil rig count resumes its slide (Business Insider)
The oil rig count resumed its decline this week, falling 2 to 316, according to driller Baker Hughes.
‘$1 Billion Club’ Managers Hold 88% Of All Hedge Fund Capital (Value Walk)
The 668 firms with at least $1bn in assets under management now control $2.75tn out of the total $3.13tn held by the hedge fund industry*
Why Snapchat's Influencer Economy Runs on Hot Tubs, Selfies, and Whey Protein (Bloomberg)
On a Wednesday morning in April, Caitlin O’Connor, a 26-year-old actress, gathering herself to a palace in a Coldwater Canyon area of Los Angeles and took off many of her clothes. She spent a subsequent few hours wearing a black bikini and sitting in a prohibited tub, vocalization into a dungeon phone camera to an assembly of several hundred thousand followers, mostly immature organisation and teen boys.
Workday downgraded before results are released (Market Watch)
Shares of Workday Inc. slumped in active trade Friday, after Wedbush Securities turned bearish on the human-resource software company one work day before the company is scheduled to report fiscal first-quarter results.
The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Guide to Trading on Inside Information (Bloomberg)
On Friday, July 27, 2012, Phil Mickelson received a phone call. It wasn’t just any call; it was, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a transmission of business intelligence potentially worth millions of dollars. Mickelson’s friend, a gambler named William Walters, was calling to urge him to buy shares of Dean Foods. The Dallas-based dairy conglomerate was going to announce a spinoff of its organic foods unit the following week, and the company’s board thought it would cause Dean stock to pop.
If You're Such a Great Investor, Where's Your Alpha? (Bloomberg View)
Is alpha, the Wall Street term for market-beating returns, sustainable? Or is it a unique, statistical outlier, indistinguishable from random chance?
I have been thinking about this a lot, lately. The relentless drumbeat of negativity about hedge funds, of which I am admittedly a contributor, is the underlying motivation for this line of thought. It has sent me on a hunt for those managers who consistently create alpha.
The World’s Biggest Industry Just Got Served (Medium)
It could save the US economy tens of billions of dollars a year, and its proponents claim it will save or extend millions of lives. The Wall Street Journal called it “radical.” Major industry giants lobbied against its implementation and warned of mass consumer confusion and uncertain scientific validity. It took years to crawl through one of the largest bureaucracies in the US government, and represents the largest update to that department’s public policy in more than two decades.
Drone sales in the U.S. more than doubled in the past year (Market Watch)
The number of drones sold grew 224% from April of 2015 to April of 2016, according to a report from The NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service.
In Stunning Reversal, IMF Blames Globalization For Spreading Inequality, Causing Market Crashes (Zero Hedge)
In a stunning reversal for an organization that rests at the bedrock of the modern "neoliberal" (a term the IMF itself uses generously), aka capitalist system, overnight IMF authors Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Davide Furceri issued a research paper titled "Neoliberalism: Oversold?".
By this metric, bonds have never been more valuable (Vanguard)
Global bond yields hover near all-time lows. In the United States, a 10-year Treasury note yields less than 2%. In Europe and Japan, the bond markets have tumbled through the looking glass into a world of negative interest rates. About 40% of European government bonds yield less than 0%. In Japan, the figure is 70%.
How The Finance Industry Tricks You (A Wealth of Common Sense)
One of the problems with the typical “trust me, we got this” attitude that you often see with financial professionals is the fact that most of the time their unwitting clients don’t really even understand what’s going on in their own portfolios.
Politics
This Is What the Future of American Politics Looks Like (Politico)
For political observers, 2016 feels like an earthquake — a once-in-a-generation event that will remake American politics. The Republican party is fracturing around support for Donald Trump. An avowed socialist has made an insurgent challenge for the Democratic Party’s nomination. On left and right, it feels as though a new era is beginning.
Trump tells Cali: There is drought (AP)
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told California voters Friday that he can solve their water crisis, declaring that: "There is no drought."
Speaking at a rally in Fresno, Calif., Trump accused state officials of denying water to Central Valley farmers so they can send it out to sea "to protect a certain kind of three-inch fish."
In Defense of Republican Opportunists (Bloomberg View)
Marco Rubio’s decision to attend the Republican convention and speak for Donald Trump has exposed something important. Not about Rubio — but about a lot of Republicans.
Yes, Rubio is clearly showing himself to be, as the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein says in a takedown, “an opportunistic politician with his finger to the wind.” Ross Douthat agrees.
Technology
Google is selling its robot company to Toyota (Business Insider)
A source says the "ink is nearly dry" on the deal, but didn't disclose the price.
The robotics division has been a source of tension within the company since Andy Rubin, the exec who led it, left in 2014.
Rubin, who also founded Android and led Google's smartphone business for many years, drove the purchase of Boston Dynamics and brought in a bunch of other robotics companies as well.
Microsoft Is Banning Easy-to-Remember Passwords (Fortune)
They’re also really terrible passwords.
You know those really simple, easy-to-remember passwords you use that help you log into apps? Well, Microsoft is banning them from some of its services.
How the Constant Threat of War Shaped Israel’s Tech Industry (Bloomberg)
Unit 8200 is Israel’s most mysterious agency. No one outside knows exactly how it operates, who works there, or how they learn. All the public knows for certain is that Unit 8200 has been the beating heart of Israel’s spectacular—and in many ways unmatched—technology boom.
Health and Life Sciences
A Scary New Study Links Cell Phones And Cancer. Don't Stress. At All. (Forbes)
A new study of rats and mice, funded by the government, links cell phones and cancer. “It’s the moment we’ve been dreading,” exclaims Mother Jones.
Stop with the dread, MoJo. (You too, Wall Street Journal.) Experts say the result may not be true, and even if it is, that the types of cancer involved are so rare that a person’s overall increase in risk would be negligible.
New Test Could Tell Whether Comatose Patients Will Wake Up (Popular Science)
To determine whether a patient that's in a coma will awaken again, scientists have devised a new test using positron emission tomography (PET).
In the study, the researchers used fluorodeoxyglucose PET to show how concentrated glucose is in the brain tissue. This is one way to determine metabolic activity. Using this metric, the scientists were able to differentiate between brains in different states of consciousness.
Life on the Home Planet
Dead leaves under lake hint at Greenland’s past (Futurity)
The remains of long-dead aquatic plants, collecting at the bottom of lakes in horizontal layers that document the passing years, chronicle the history of Greenland’s snowfall.
