Financial Markets and Economy
World's Silence on Weaker Yuan to Be Tested at G-20 Gathering (Bloomberg)
China has managed to weaken its currency in recent months without so much as a peep from trading rivals, despite the competitive advantage garnered amid sluggish global growth.
Here's why America can't get over the financial crisis (Business Insider)
Sometimes it can seem as if the financial crisis never left.
Inside the $1 billion dollar deal for Dollar Shave Club (Business Insider)
Unilever is buying the on-demand razor delivery service Dollar Shave Club in a validation of the startup's novel approach to selling men's grooming products.
The deal price — reportedly around $1 billion — would be about five times Dollar Shave Club's expected sales in 2016. Dollar Shave Club isn't profitable.
It’s Not a Housing Bubble, It’s Just Expensive (Bloomberg)
Home prices have hit record highs in some major U.S. metropolitan areas, and house-flippers are behaving like it’s 2005: It’s no wonder people are chattering about another housing bubble.
4 charts show Dow, S&P 500 overheating—and Wall Street is freaking out (Market Watch)
As the Dow industrials shift into hyperdrive, a sense of agita is rising rapidly on Wall Street.
What’s Fintech? Nasdaq and KBW Offer an Answer With a New Index (Wall Street Journal)
Here is Exhibit A for those who think “fintech” is overhyped and for those who think it is just getting started: A new stock index.
Microsoft earnings rise on its growing cloud business (The Verge)
Microsoft posted its fourth quarter earnings today, reporting revenue of $22.6 billion and net income of $5.48 billion. The most important data point was that revenue from the company's Azure cloud division was up significantly, climbing over 100 percent year over year, as usage more than doubled. That gain helped to offset losses in the Personal Computing division, which was down 4 percent, dragged by a 70 percent decline in revenue from mobile phones.
Venezuela's looming economic catastrophe, in one graphic (Business Insider)
There are a lot of stats you can cite to describe the dysfunction gripping Venezuela at the moment.
5 ETFs With Highest Single Stock Risk (ETF)
Exchange-traded funds are a great tool for building portfolios. With the click of a button, investors can get access to thousands of stocks across multiple geographies in a single ETF.
The FTSE 250 is close to erasing its post-Brexit losses (Business Insider)
Britain's FTSE 250 closed at its highest level since the UK voted to leave the European Union on June 23, gaining around 0.9% on the day to end at 17,055 points.
HSBC Currency Traders Got Greedy on Christmas (Bloomberg View)
Here is the Justice Department's announcement of charges against Johnson and Stuart Scott, the former head of FX cash trading for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Here is the complaint, charging them with front-running the purchase of $3.5 billion worth of pounds sterling by a corporate client, apparently Cairn Energy.
Japan's Olympus Seeks Deals and Redemption After 2011 Scandal (Bloomberg)
Five years ago, Olympus Corp. was caught up in the oddest of corporate scandals. Its then-CEO, Michael Woodford, uncovered an accounting scandal at the company that went undetected for years, besmirching the name of a once-proud Japanese maker of digital cameras and medical equipment.
Crude Inventories Drop More Than Expected (Bespoke)
Crude oil inventories showed a larger than expected decline for the week, falling by 2.3 mln barrels versus consensus expectations for a draw of just 1.3 mln barrels.
Your Apple Earnings Watch List for Q3 (Investor Place)
Apple Inc. reports its fiscal third-quarter earnings on July 26, and CEO Tim Cook had better get it right this time. In April, Apple earnings included the company’s first revenue drop in 13 years. Meanwhile, AAPL stock dropped 14%, and it’s still struggling to find a footing. Even Carl Icahn sold his shares.
Nearly Two Years of Manufacturing Contraction, And No Progress In Inventory (Alhambra Partners)
Manufacturing sales were reported Friday to have declined 2.3% year-over-year in May, following a 4.7% contraction in April. Since sales in May 2015 were almost 6% less than May 2014, the manufacturing sector counts almost 8% less in revenue across two years of contraction. The worst part is, again, the time.
IMF Called "Clowns" After Admitting They Fabricated Brexit Doom And Gloom (Zero Hedge)
"The IMF has serious credibility problems. It has been seriously wrong for years. I hope that one of the things that the new government does is push to have some credible people running this institution… rather than the clowns currently running it," exclaimed UKIP MP Douglas Carswell, pointing out Lagarde's legion of fools flip-flop that the British economy will grow faster than Germany and France in the next two years – only weeks after its doom-laden warnings about Brexit.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Risk On, and Shenanigans For Dessert (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Risk on, and the more the better.
Politics
Two Views From the Right, on Republicans of Tomorrow (Bloomberg View)
Senator Ted Cruz is reportedly not going to endorse Donald Trump in his convention speech and is gearing up to run for president again himself in 2020. John Kasich, another non-endorser, is also considering a run. The shared assumption: There won’t be an incumbent Republican running four years from now.
How Donald Trump Picked His Running Mate (NY Times)
One day this past May, Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., reached out to a senior adviser to Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, who left the presidential race just a few weeks before.
Will Ted Cruz Flip-Flop on Donald Trump? (The Atlantic)
Earlier this year, on the day when Indiana held its Republican primary, Senator Ted Cruz, who spent the early part of the GOP contest refusing to criticize Donald Trump, unloaded on his rival in the strongest possible language. “I’m going to do something that I haven’t done for the entire campaign for those of you who’ve traveled with me across the country,” the candidate declared, visibly angry at his rival.
Technology
Error fix for long-lived qubits brings quantum computers nearer (New Scientist)
Useful quantum computers are one step closer, thanks to the latest demonstration of a technique designed to stop them making mistakes.
Quantum computers store information as quantum bits, or qubits. Unlike binary bits, which store a 0 or a 1, qubits can hold a mixture of both states at the same time, boosting their computing potential for certain types of problems.
Health and Life Sciences
Why pain can go untreated in people with Alzheimer’s (Futurity)
There’s evidence that people with Alzheimer’s disease report pain less frequently compared to healthy adults. They also receive less pain medication.
Self-destructing bacteria are engineered to kill cancer cells (New Scientist)
In the war against cancer, we need new weapons. Bacteria could prove useful new recruits in the battle, armed with poisons and engineered to self-destruct after completing their mission.
Jeff Hasty and his team at the University of California, San Diego, used this method to slow the growth of tumours in mice, raising the promise that bacteria could attack the parts of tumours we find most difficult to target.
Life on the Home Planet
June 2016 'hottest worldwide in modern history' (BBC)
June 2016 was the hottest June worldwide in modern history – marking the 14th month in a row that global temperature records have been broken.
Can Israeli-type security measures work at LAX and other U.S. airports? (LA Times)
In the wake of two grisly attacks on European airports, one name has been on the lips of U.S. lawmakers and airport executives: Ben Gurion International Airport.
