Breaking News
At Least 70 Dead After Truck Crashes into Crowd in French City of Nice (HuffingtonPost)
A truck crashed into a crowd of Bastille Day celebrants in the French city of Nice Thursday night, killing at least 70 people and injuring dozens more, according tolocal officials and media.
Police shot and killed the truck driver, Reuters reported.
The driver’s motive was not immediately clear, but region president Cristian Estrosi said the truck was “loaded with arms and grenades,” according to the Associated Press.
[Source of pictures: Nice-Matin (the local newspaper) at Twitter; more pictures here.]
INFO NICE-MATIN. Un Niçois d'origine tunisienne au volant du camion #AttentatNice https://t.co/hklMbEMcO1 pic.twitter.com/fOIQNS5UN4
— Nice-Matin (@Nice_Matin) July 15, 2016
Financial Markets and Economy
There's going to be an earnings problem throughout 2016 (Business Insider)
Byron Wien, vice chairman and investing guru at Blackstone Group, thinks that the market will look pretty bleak for the rest of the year.
Why Ultralow Interest Rates Are Here to Stay (Wall Street Journal)
Central-bank bond buying is the proximate cause for the plunge this month of the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield to its all-time low of 1.366%. But it would be a mistake to single out central bankers.
Companies just set another terrible milestone (Business Insider)
The ugly year for debt just keeps getting uglier.
Oil Falls in New York Amid Forecasts for $40 on Glut Concerns (Bloomberg)
Oil fell in New York amid forecasts crude may slide toward $40 a barrel on oversupply concerns.
Silver Glut Weighs on India as Buying Frenzy Passes Country By (Bloomberg)
Silver imports by India are set to plunge from last years record as jewelers grapple with slowing demand and excessive inventories after domestic prices climbed to the highest levels since 2013.
Yum Brands jumps after beating on earnings and raising guidance (Business Insider)
Yum Brands reported second-quarter earnings that topped forecasts and raised its expectation for full-year profits after the market close on Wednesday.
Robo-Adviser Betterment Hits the $5 Billion Mark (Bloomberg)
Betterment LLC has surpassed $5 billion in assets under management, the first independent robo-adviser to do so, as financial technology startups broaden the reach of investing services and offer lower fees than many traditional wealth managers.
A hedge fund boss says there's an overlooked reason the industry is so weak (Business Insider)
The hedge fund industry has a well-documented performance problem.
Wholesale Prices in U.S. Climbed More Than Forecast in June (Bloomberg)
Wholesale prices in the U.S. rose more than forecast in June, paced by the biggest jump in fuel costs in a year.
Deutsche Bank Blames Central Bank Stimulus For Economic Woes (Value Walk)
Has the “unprecedented scale and duration of monetary policy easing” by EU, US and Japanese central banks led to what is a historically slow recovery? Is quantitative stimulus really an addictive pain killer that is responsible for “Secular Stagnation?” Deutsche Bank asset management researchers have an answer and it sings from the same song-book as did their chief economist on Monday.
A Malfunction Ruined Singapore Exchange CEO’s First Anniversary (Bloomberg)
This probably wasn’t the anniversary celebration Singapore Exchange Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Loh Boon Chye had in mind.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Coiling For a Move (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Stock option expiration tomorrow.
The Market Is Always Right? (Pension Partners)
“The Market is always right.”
Venezuela Has Made It Impossible to Run a Business (Value Walk)
Actually, almost everyone in Venezuela has a great many problems. Starvation, for example. Shortages of basic goods. Dysfunctional and understaffed hospitals, which lack medications. A corrupt and increasingly militarised government determined to protect the incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, at all costs.
Politics
Is Gary Johnson Taking More Support From Clinton Or Trump? (Five Thirty Eight)
We’ve hit a little bit of a lull in polling for the 2016 presidential election.
The recently released tracking and weekly national polls, conducted by firms such as Ipsos, Morning Consult, SurveyMonkey and YouGov, continue to show Democrat Hillary Clinton ahead of Republican Donald Trump (with the exception of the Republican-leaning Rasmussen Reports).
Global arms race escalates as sabres rattle in South China Sea (Telegraph)
The South China Sea has become the most dangerous fault-line in the world. Beijing and Washington are on a collision course over these contested waters, the shipping lane for 60pc of global trade.
As expected, the International Court of Justice in The Hague has ruled that China has no “historic title” to areas of this sea stretching all the way to the ‘nine dash line’ – deep into the territorial waters of a ring of South East Asian states.
Technology
Robots Might Be The Next Food Delivery Method In London (PSFK)
The London-based robot developing company and Skype co-founder, Starship Technologies, is set to start delivering food orders to London residents with self-driving robots. The initiative was born through partnerships with food delivery startups, Just Eat and Pronto.
This Nuclear Powered Supersonic Airliner Concept Is A Beautiful Dream (Popular Science)
Skies are big and empty. What is stopping us from filling them with massive, supersonic, nuclear-powered jetliners?
Well, other than physics, regulations, a lack of market need, and common sense — almost nothing!
Health and Life Sciences
Supernovae 2 million years ago may have changed human behaviour (New Scientist)
Two stellar explosions could have made life interesting for early humans.
Roughly 2 million years ago, two supernovae exploded so close to Earth that they showered our pale blue dot with debris, leaving behind traces of radioactive iron-60 found buried in the sea floor across the globe and even mixed within the dust layers on the moon.
E-Cigarettes May Help More Than They Hurt (Bloomberg)
The world may be better off with e-cigarettes than without them. Sort of.
Although a slew of studies have found the device serves as a gateway to cigarette use, such concerns may be exaggerated, according to a new study. Researchers in the U.S., Australia, and Canada have devised a model showing that, among people born after 1996, the option of using e-cigarettes may end up triggering a 21 percent reduction in smoking-attributable deaths and a 20 percent decrease in life-years lost.
Life on the Home Planet
Saving the ozone layer is warming the planet but it can be fixed (New Scientist)
It belongs to the law of unintended consequences. Back in the 1980s, when the hole in the ozone layer was the world’s number-one environmental problem, few people worried about global warming.
In Police Violence Cases, Time Works Against Justice (Rolling Stone)
I had the honor of appearing this morning on Democracy Now! with Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, on the depressing subject of the approaching anniversary of her father's killing at the hands of an NYPD officer. Her family's story is a cautionary tale.
