Financial Markets and Economy
Two Major Roadblocks Are Keeping the S&P 500 From a New Record (Bloomberg)
The S&P 500 still has two major hurdles to overcome before it can set fresh all-time highs, according to Societe Generale SA.
The biggest bond market in the world is ‘distorted' (Business Insider)
With the US nearing full employment and wage pressure growing, expectations are rising that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates as soon as this month.
Bankers admit to being responsible for global inequality (Daily Kos)
The world’s largest evangelist of neoliberalism, the International Monetary Fund, has admitted that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Neoliberalism refers to capitalism in its purest form….
Oil Set for 1st Weekly Loss in Month as OPEC Skips Output Limits (Bloomberg)
Oil headed for the first weekly loss in a month as OPEC stuck to its policy of unfettered supply after members rejected a proposal to adopt a new production ceiling.
Here's the Best News We've Gotten All Year (Mother Jones)
Federal Reserve officials strongly signaled they will toughen big-bank capital requirements even more than they have since the 2008 crisis, a move that will add to the pressure on the largest U.S. banks to consider shrinking. Fed governors Daniel Tarullo and Jerome Powell, in separate public comments on Thursday, said the Fed would require eight of the largest U.S. banks to maintain more equity to pass the central bank’s annual “stress tests.”
Currency Trader, Police Thyself (Bloomberg View)
Last week, a working group at the Bank of International Settlements issued a new code of conduct governing global currency trading, a response to the most recent price-fixing scandal in the foreign-exchange markets.
Global manufacturing has stalled (Business Insider)
Activity levels across factories the world over stalled last month, according to the latest JP Morgan-Markit global manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) released on Wednesday.
U.S. house price rises to continue outstripping inflation, wages: Reuters poll (Reuters)
U.S. house prices are forecast to rise at more than double the current rate of underlying consumer prices and wages over the next few years, underpinned by steady and solid turnover in the housing market, a Reuters poll showed.
Why States Should Feel Comfy Taxing the Heck Out of Millionaires (Slate)
Last month, the list of of insane anecdotes about American inequality got the tiniest bit longer, when New Jersey officials revealed that their budget projections had been thrown into question because just one very wealthy resident had decided to pick up and move. The man capable of singlehandedly rocking their revenue forecasts turned out to be billionaire hedge funder David Tepper, who after 20 years of calling the Turnpike State home had changed his address to income-tax-free Florida and relocated his business headquarters to Miami. It seemed like a particularly nightmarish illustration of the idea that high state taxes simply drive away the rich and their precious dollars.
Trends And Changes In The Global Energy Market (Value Walk)
For 30 years, the conventional wisdom in the energy industry has been that the price of oil will go up because it is a scarce resource with exponential demand growth. Therefore, energy companies will be profitable – at least in proportion to their oil reserves. But according to Amy Myers Jaffe, this blind belief is completely wrong because of structural changes in the energy sector.
Goldman Sachs just cut its Apple price target (Business Insider)
Goldman Sachs cut its price target for Apple stock to $124 from $136 in a note issued Thursday.
S&P 500, Nasdaq new highs signal bullish Dow Theory uptrends (Market Watch)
The S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite closed above their April highs Thursday, completing bullish technical patterns that suggest new uptrends have begun.
Be on Guard Against Bubble Sightings (Bloomberg View)
Is there is a “worrisome pileup of $100 million homes,” as a hyperventilating headline in a New York Times article declared last week? The story was accompanied by the usual warnings about bubbles, parallels to the credit crisis and an ominous observation that “the last time a sudden pop in $100 million-plus listings occurred was in 2007 and 2008, just before the housing crash.”
The Japanese yen keeps surging — here's what's happening in FX (Business Insider)
The Japanese yen is still going strong, and is now up by 0.7% at 108.75 per dollar.
Saudi oil output capacity 12.5 million b/d, but investment needed (Platts)
Saudi Arabia's total oil production capacity stands at 12.5 million b/d, energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on Thursday, but he warned that the country would need to continue investing to maintain it.
China’s Latest Export: Broken Deals (Wall Street Journal)
China’s global deal-making boom is coming undone.
Europe Banks’ Trillion-Euro Bad-Loan Burden Spurs Cash Calls (Bloomberg)
Eight years after the financial crisis, a flurry of stock sales is reminding investors just how far some European banks still have to go to repair their balance sheets.
Michael Dell Bought His Company Too Cheaply (Bloomberg View)
If you own a stock that you think is worth $10 a share, and I also own that stock and I think it's worth $20 a share, I can try to convince you that I'm right.
IBM has been awarded an average of 24 patents per day so far in 2016 (Quartz)
The media tends to focus on the crazy things Google, Facebook, and Apple patent, but they’re still dwarfed by more traditional companies like IBM and Samsung when it comes to the number of patents they’re awarded each year. Through the first half of 2016, IBM has, yet again, been the leader in technology patents, averaging roughly 23.6 patents awarded each day.
What Would Happen If We Gave Everyone Free Money? (Vice)
Somewhere in Sarasota, Florida, there is a man named Edwin. It doesn't really matter how old Edwin is, or what he does for a living. It doesn't matter if he has kids or a chronic back problem or if he's racked up $100,000 in credit card debt. Edwin could be rich or poor, young or old, black or white. Edwin is everyman, with one small exception: He is now $15,000 richer.
A 'hidden debt scandal' might crush one of the world's poorest countries (Business Insider)
After about a decade of strong growth, Mozambique has hit a snag.
Politics
Text of Hillary Clinton’s speech on national security (Market Watch)
Here is a text of Hillary Clinton’s speech on national security delivered Thursday in San Diego, as released by her campaign:
“Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you San Diego for that warm, warm welcome and thanks to Ellen for those moving words, her introduction, and for reminding us it’s not only our men and women in uniform that serve our country, it’s their families, their spouses, their children, and we are grateful to each and every one of them. I want to recognize and thank Congressman Scott Peters for being here, thank you very much.
More ‘warmth’ for Trump among GOP voters concerned by immigrants, diversity (Pew Research)
Among the vast majority of GOP voters who think that the growing number of newcomers to the U.S. “threatens traditional American customs and values,” 59% have warm feelings toward Donald Trump – with 42% saying they feel very warmly toward him.
Paul Ryan Finally Falls in Line (The Atlantic)
The Great Republican Standoff of 2016 is over: Paul Ryan has endorsed Donald Trump for president.
The House speaker bestowed his formal blessing on Thursday afternoon, ending an awkward holdout period lasting nearly a month after the Republican Party declared Trump its presumptive nominee. And yet after Ryan publicly agonized over his decision in press conferences and television interviews, he delivered his by-now inevitable endorsement in the equivalent of a political whisper: via an op-ed on the website of his hometown newspaper in Wisconsin, The Gazette, published during a congressional recess and while the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, was giving a major national-security address.
Technology
Intel's new consumer head dreams of building J.A.R.V.I.S. (Engadget)
Intel is in the midst of its biggest business transition to date. Just a few months ago, the chip giant announced it would be laying off 11,000 workers and taking a step away from the PC market to focus on wearables and IoT devices. Coinciding with those announcements was an executive shuffle that put Navin Shenoy, its mobile-client VP, in charge of the broader client computing group (which covers all consumer devices). At Computex this week, we had a chance to pick Shenoy's brain about Intel's path forward.
Electric Cars Spark Growth in Home Charging Stations (Wall Street Journal)
Self-described “car guy” Eric Brassard recently paid $846,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. One big draw: It was wired to allow a charging station for vehicles.
The 29-year-old TV-development executive didn’t even own an electric car. But after his move in April, he leased a BMW i3—then bought a charging station for it on Amazon for less than $500.
Health and Life Sciences
Taking Gene-Editing to the Next Level (Scientific American)
Researchers who discovered a molecular “scissors” for snipping genes have now developed a similar approach for targeting and cutting RNA. The new cutting tool should help researchers better understand RNA’s role in cells and diseases, and some believe it could one day be useful in treatments for illnesses from Huntington’s to heart disease.
Stem cell brain injections let people walk again after stroke (New Scientist)
People once dependent on wheelchairs after having a stroke are walking again since receiving injections of stem cells into their brains. Participants in the small trial also saw improvements in their speech and arm movements.
Life on the Home Planet
Plastic in sea 'like fast food for fish' (BBC)
Young fish become hooked on eating plastic in the seas in the same way that teenagers prefer unhealthy fast food, Swedish researchers have said.
Their study, reported in Science, found exposure to high concentrations of polystyrene makes perch larvae favour the particles over more natural foods.
