Financial Markets and Economy
There Has Almost Never Been This Many Global Stocks in Decline (Bloomberg)
Fear of a possible Brexit is being manifested in equities around the world.
The data geeks are taking over Wall Street (Business Insider)
Wall Street is changing – fast.
German 10-Year Government Bond Yields Dip Below Zero as Brexit Fears Hit Market (Wall Street Journal)
Yields on the 10-year government debt of Germany sank below zero Tuesday for the first time ever, a potent financial marker of Europe’s acute economic and political instability.
Fed Skips June Increase as Six Officials See One Hike in 2016 (Bloomberg)
Fewer Federal Reserve officials expect the central bank to raise interest rates more than once this year, as policy makers gave a mixed picture of a U.S. economy where growth is picking up and job gains are slowing.
World’s Biggest Science Experiment Seeks More Time and Money (Bloomberg)
The world’s biggest science experiment may get more time and money for completion when nuclear officials convene on Wednesday in France.
Twitter has invested in music streaming service SoundCloud (Recode)
Two years ago Twitter thought about buying SoundCloud, but ended up walking away from the music service.
A rule has been broken on Wall Street, and 'any banker with a brain' is now looking for an exit (Business Insider)
Wall Street banking careers have for decades followed a common pattern.
BOJ holds policy steady; cuts view on CPI (Reuters)
The Bank of Japan kept monetary policy steady and stuck to its optimistic view of the economy on Thursday, even as renewed yen rises and slumping stock prices threaten to hurt business sentiment and derail a fragile economic recovery.
Gold Tops $1,300 as Fed Rate View Gives New Strength to Bulls (Bloomberg)
Gold climbed above $1,300 to the highest level in six weeks after the Federal Reserve scaled back the outlook for interest-rate increases and Chair Janet Yellen signaled that secular and more lasting forces may keep rates lower for longer. Silver jumped to the highest since early May.
Yen, Yuan Surge; Gold Tops $1300; Bitcoin Spikes To 28-Month Highs (Zero Hedge)
The US Dollar continues to slide (after bouncing off Fed statement plunge lows), as it appears a rush to other 'currencies' is under way.
Osborne's 'punishment Budget' is economic vandalism (Telegraph)
George Osborne is disqualified from serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer for a single week longer.
Equities Look Vulnerable (Slope of Hope)
What a mess! A drop and hold below 100 will signal that a big downdraft is in store for equities, as shown on the following Monthly SPX:VIX ratio chart.
Japan might be the 'canary in the coal mine' for the next stock market implosion (Business Insider)
Most investors want asset prices to go up. Russel Clark has made a lot of money betting on things going bad… and on prices going down.
Upstart IEX Poised for Approval as New Stock Exchange (Wall Street Journal)
IEX Group Inc. is poised to win regulatory approval to launch a stock exchange that slows the pace of trading, according to people familiar with the matter, following a decade when government rules and Wall Street’s technology wizards fostered ever-greater speed.
Sherlock Holmes on How to Be a Better Investor (Motley Fool)
The fictional detective understood that no person has a monopoly on wisdom. The come closest to the truth by weaving together as much relevant information from as many fields of study as possible.
That's also true in investing.
Suncor Energy Restarts Oil Sands Production (Fox Business)
Nearly every oil- and gas-producing company has struggled to cope with this year's collapse in oil prices. To add insult to injury, Canadian forest fires caused Suncor Energy to shutter production in its key oil sands operations for over a month. With the recent announcement that its oil sands production will return to normal in June, though, Suncor remains in a good position to maintain long-term profitability. Here's why.
Politics
Trump Offers Republicans the Kiss of Death (Bloomberg View)
Donald Trump's demagogic performance in the days after the Orlando mass shooting has prompted more awkward silence and equivocations from Republicans on Capitol Hill.
McConnell and many, though far from all, of his co-partisans deserve every bit of their discomfort, of course. Having shamefully partnered with birthers, bigots and cranks — Trump included — in an effort to chase Barack Obama from the White House, they now find themselves unable to call off the increasingly wild dogs.
Technology
We have the technology to look for ET right now – why don’t we? (New Scientist)
The search could be on. A new study suggests that Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), has the potential to search three freshly discovered planets to see if anyone lives there.
The planets, which orbit a star just 40 light years from Earth, were discovered last month. Researchers suggest the JWST could probe their atmospheres for signs of life after it launches in 2018.
Watch Augmented Reality Put Furniture Into Empty Space (Popular Science)
The future is here for architects and designers around the world.
ICEreality (a virtual/augmented reality company) together with DIRTT (a virtual design and construction company) have created an incredible AR platform that allows you to walk around inside a virtual space, while also still seeing reality around you. The software can help architects better envision how construction and design elements will change a space.
Health and Life Sciences
Microbubbles open brain’s barrier to make chemo more effective (New Scientist)
For the first time, doctors have temporarily opened the protective barrier of the human brain and shown that it helps to boost the delivery of cancer medication to brain tumours.
Life on the Home Planet
Cool View of a Pilot Pouring Water Upside Down While Doing a Barrel Roll in a Fighter Jet (Gizmodo)
It’s always fun to melt your brain from what looks like the laws of physics breaking. Therefore, it’s always fun to see a pilot pour water up into a cup while upside down in a fighter jet. It’s something we’ve seen plenty before, but this view is especially cool. You get to see the entire process happen so clearly: the pilot pours the water while the plane twists around, the pilot drinks the water while it flips around, and then he holds the cup of water out for good measure as the plane goes upside down and doesn’t miss a single drop.
