Financial Markets and Economy
One chart shows what it really means to be the only game in town (Business Insider)
The bond market has a yield problem, with over $11 trillion in high-quality debt currently trading with a negative effective yield.
Most Asia Futures Tip Losses After Oil Slump; Yen Gains in Week (Bloomberg)
Most Asian index futures fell following a selloff in crude oil, while the yen and gold headed for weekly advances as investors shifted to the sidelines ahead of a key update on the U.S. job market.
The June jobs report is the 'most important' of the year — and it's all about May (Business Insider)
It's almost jobs day in America, and it's going to be a big one.
Why Some Economists See Faster Wage Growth Around the Corner (Wall Street Journal)
Elusive wage growth has frustrated many Americans throughout the seven-year economic expansion. But some economic gauges suggest wages are set to accelerate in the months ahead.
Wall Street’s safest bets are now in bubble territory (Market Watch)
Buying the stocks that Wall Street calls boring has paid off over the past six months—but now this “defensive” strategy is starting to look pretty risky.
Size Isnt Everything Anymore for Worlds Oil-Service Providers (Bloomberg)
The era of monster takeouts in the oil-services world took a further step back Thursday when National Oilwell Varco Inc. and GE Oil & Gas partnered up, reinforcing an industry-wide push for cost savings over size.
Why bitcoin’s price could shoot higher this weekend (Market Watch)
Currency traders are seemingly obsessed with trying to predict the Federal Reserve’s next move, meticulously analyzing every word of every official communique for clues about the future path of monetary policy.
The oil crash has people worried about a new banking crisis (Business Insider)
Nigeria just put its banking system on alert.
The world's biggest buyers of gold are getting ready to load up (Business Insider)
Central banks are set to pile into gold like they haven't throughout this year as they look for yield, according to Capital Economics.
China just stunned the markets (Business Insider)
The People's Bank of China announced on Thursday that its foreign-exchange reserves surged by $13 billion to $3.21 trillion in June — much to everyone's surprise.
The world's largest hedge fund is struggling (Business Insider)
Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund firm, is seeing multi-billion dollar swings in performance.
Goldman, Deutsche Bank Say Pound Plunge Is Just Getting Started (Bloomberg)
The pound’s plunge isn’t over yet, according to three of the world’s top currency traders.
Five Bricks In The Wall Of Worry (Macro Man)
While Macro Man has run a small short in the SPX over the last several months (though he took half off near the post-Brexit lows), he has not necessarily characterized himself as particularly bearish on the world. For sure, there have been causes for concern- notably the through the looking glass impact of negative interest rates- but on the whole he has subscribed to a "muddle through" scenario for most macro outcomes.
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts – Holding Their Breath (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Stocks were in a bit of a chop in edgy trading with eyes on the US non-farm payrolls report tomorrow.
Politics
House Republicans Are Truly, Madly, Deeply Obsessed With Queer People (The Huffington Post)
If anything is clear about House Republicans, it’s that they spend a lot of time thinking about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
For the past two months, GOP lawmakers in the House haven’t missed an opportunity to slip anti-LGBT provisions into bills. They passed a National Defense Authorization Act with language to let government contractors fire people for being gay or trans.
NATO Can Reduce the Threat of Escalation With Russia (Bloomberg View)
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit starting in Warsaw on Friday will probably lead to increased — and unnecessary — tension between NATO and Russia. Yet it may also yield good results: Acknowledging the increased hostility might make it possible for the two sides to ensure there are fewer dangerous incidents.
Fundamentally flawed (The Hill)
Over the last dozen years, I have often confessed to being a fundamentalist.
This is not a statement of religious conviction, but rather an expression of my belief about what’s most important in presidential elections.
Technology
In Future Wars, We'll Have To Fool Robots (Popular Science)
“All warfare is based on deception,” wrote Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist, in “The Art of War.” As far as we know, Sun Tzu never grappled with the specific problems of electronic image processing by machines, but the principle still holds in modern times. If war is based on deception, future wars are going to involve tricks to fool robots.
Watch a cyborg stingray made of rat heart cells swim using light (New Scientist)
They’ve created a monster! Or at least a coin-sized cyborg stingray made from rat heart cells that can be controlled underwater using light.
Designed by Kevin Kit Parker from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute and his team, the 16-millimetre-long soft robot has a gold skeleton overlaid with a flexible polymer.
Health and Life Sciences
Early life on Earth likely mutated much faster (Futurity)
Early life forms on Earth are likely to have mutated and evolved at much higher rates than they do today, new analysis suggests.
This week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Richard Wolfenden, and his colleagues found that the rate of a certain chemical change in DNA—a key driver of organisms’ spontaneous mutation rates and thus of evolution’s pace—increases extremely rapidly with temperature.
Life on the Home Planet
HORROR IN DALLAS: 11 COPS SHOT, 4 KILLED BY 'SNIPERS' (Business Insider)
Dallas Police officials said at least 11 officers were shot. At least three of the deceased officers were from the Dallas Police Department. One deceased officer was from the Dallas Area Rapid Transit agency.
At least seven other officers were injured.
Biggest ever die-off of ocean forests triggered by warming seas (New Scientist)
Help the kelp. Rising sea temperatures have already wiped out 100 kilometres of kelp forest along the south coast of Western Australia – and this unprecedented loss looks set to worsen.
Syrian army fire cuts only road into rebel-held Aleppo (Reuters)
Syrian government forces took a step toward completely encircling rebel-held parts of Aleppo on Thursday, capturing ground overlooking the only road into the opposition half of the city and effectively putting those areas under siege.
