Financial Markets and Economy
Gross Calls Sovereign Bonds Too Risky With U.S. Yields Near Lows (Bloomberg)
Bill Gross said sovereign bond yields at record lows aren’t worth the risk.
The Big-Bank Bloodbath: Losses Near Half a Trillion Dollars (Wall Street Journal)
Big banks are nearly half a trillion dollars in the hole.
Global stocks and sterling bounce after Brexit bashing (Reuters)
Share markets climbed on Thursday as upbeat U.S. economic data took some of the sting out of the Brexit scare, while the Australian dollar dipped as the country's triple A credit rating came under threat.
The oil industry is losing the burn of Asian demand (Reuters)
After half a year of strong oil price rises, Asian crude demand is slowing and by some measures falling, and many market participants suspect it is not just a cyclical phenomenon, but also a product of more permanent structural changes.
Gold’s Most Accurate Forecaster Says Prices May Go to $1,425 (Bloomberg)
Gold will probably extend its rally to as much as $1,425 an ounce by the end of this quarter on resilient investor demand and prospects for easier monetary policy, according to ABN Amro Group NV, the bank that’s rated by Bloomberg as the most accurate forecaster.
The EU Has No Brexit Plan Either (Wall Street Journal)
All of Europe is awaiting the British plan.
German Output in May Unexpectedly Drops in Sign of Slowdown (Bloomberg)
German industrial production dropped the most in 21 months in May in a sign that the headwinds from a global economic slowdown and political uncertainty in Europe damped activity.
China Inc.’s Overseas Failures Rise Amid Dealmaking Boom (Bloomberg)
Deal-hungry Chinese companies face skeptical boards that have seen a number of large acquisitions collapse — sometimes with scant warning.
Revving Up Oil Fields Won’t Be So Easily Done (Wall Street Journal)
Oil-field-services companies are depleted after slashing prices and laying off workers, and their slow recovery could crimp the energy industry’s overall ability to bounce back from the oil bust.
The Apple-Samsung Rivalry, in Three Simple Charts (Bloomberg)
Samsung Electronics Co. reported its biggest operating profit in more than two years as its signature Galaxy S7 smartphone line sustains its critical and commercial success. That quarterly blow-out highlights how the South Korean company has begun to outshine Apple Inc. in everything from market performance to top-line growth.
San Francisco's housing bust is becoming 'legendary' (Business Insider)
The San Francisco housing bubble – locally called “Housing Crisis” – needs a few things to be sustained forever, and that has been the plan, according to industry soothsayers: an endless influx of money from around the world via the startup boom that recycles that money into the local economy; endless and rapid growth of highly-paid jobs; and an endless influx of people to fill those jobs. That’s how the booms in the past have worked. And the subsequent busts have become legendary.
This Hedge Fund Wants to Use Atomic Clocks to Beat High-Speed Traders (Bloomberg)
Patent application no. 14/451,356 has one goal: to outrun the speed demons of Wall Street.
S&P Warns Australia on Fiscal Health (Wall Street Journal)
The outlook on Australia’s prized triple-A rating was downgraded to negative Thursday, in a warning to the next government to improve its finances as Malcolm Turnbull’s conservatives appeared to be on the brink of retaining power.
“Italian Gov’t Collapse More Than Just a Possibility” (Mish Talk)
Four new polls show comedian Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement (M5S) ahead of prime minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic Party (PD) were an election held today.
Here We Go Again——August 2007 Redux (David Stockman's Contra Corner)
Nearly everywhere on the planet the giant financial bubbles created by the central banks during the last two decades are fracturing. The latest examples are the crashing bank stocks in Italy and elsewhere in Europe and the sudden trading suspensions by three UK commercial property funds.
Politics
Darrell Issa Calls For Government Shutdown If Hillary Clinton Is Not Charged (Think Progress)
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) once claimed that he “never voted for a [government] shutdown and never will.” But Issa is so angry the FBI recommended Hillary Clinton not be indicted for using a private server for her email that he suggested on Wednesday that he is rethinking his promise.
Anti-Donald Trump Forces See Convention Coup as Within Reach (Wall Street Journal)
Months after Donald Trump appeared to seal the Republican nomination for president, anti-Trump forces are making one last push to force a vote on the party’s convention floor that would throw open the GOP contest again.
How to Force Donald Trump to Release His Tax Returns (The Atlantic)
Next week, in advance of the Republican National Convention, a 112-member committee will meet to finalize the rules that will govern the proceedings in Cleveland. The most significant question before them concerns the obligations of GOP delegates. Will they be bound by election results in their respective states on the first ballot?
Technology
Augmented Reality Earbuds Let You Shape The Sounds Around You (PSFK)
Doppler Labs, the team behind the acclaimed Here Active Listening System, announced the launch of its latest product: Here One, the world’s first all-in-one truly wireless listening system.
Health and Life Sciences
Could Brain Research For The Past 15 Years Be Wrong? (Forbes)
A major discovery (and not the good kind) can mean that up to 40,000 research studies about how the brain functions published over the past 15 years could go out the window. There has been a bug (and not the insect kind) in the software used to create functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) images of the brain. fMRI is an imaging technology widely used to generate pictures of the brain and its activity.
Why cancer has not been cured (Economist)
Medicine has done a great job of reducing deaths from heart disease and stroke but less so with cancer. Despite a four-decade war against the disease, one that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, in America alone 1.7m people are diagnosed with it, and about 600,000 die annually. Why has cancer not been cured?
Life on the Home Planet
NASA Data Shows Toxic Air Threat Choking Indian Subcontinent (Bloomberg)
The mega-city of New Delhi has tried everything from banning diesel guzzling SUVs to taking about half the city’s cars off the streets in a fight against air pollution. Officials may yet have to do much, much more, based on National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellite research.
Police Fatally Shoot Black Man in Minnesota Traffic Stop (Wall Street Journal)
A Minnesota officer fatally shot a man in a car with a woman and a child, an official said, with authorities looking into whether the aftermath was live-streamed in a Facebook video that shows a woman in a vehicle with a man whose shirt appears to be soaked in blood telling the camera that “police just shot my boyfriend for no apparent reason.”
