Financial Markets and Economy
'The ducks have aligned,' but the Fed will probably miss its biggest opportunity of the year (Business Insider)
Stand by for the Federal Reserve to do nothing.
The Fed Is Manipulating Markets… (Value Walk)
“Yellen has distorted true price discov… yada-yada-yada”
Fed Doves Won't Be Able to Rule the Roost Forever (Bloomberg)
How long can doves at the Federal Reserve stand their ground?
Oil Dips on Oversupply Worries; U.S. Crude Hits April Lows (Fox Business)
Oil prices dipped on Tuesday, with U.S. crude hitting three-month lows, as oversupply concerns weighed on the petroleum complex ahead of data likely to show unseasonably high gasoline stocks despite the peak U.S. summer driving period.
Renewed oil weakness sparks demand fears (Reuters)
U.S. oil prices topped $50 a barrel in June, boosting optimism a two-year price rout might end. Six weeks later, the long hoped for recovery has yet to take hold.
Oil slumps on surging supply but global economy picks up speed (Telegraph)
Oil prices have tumbled to a three-month low as surging supply once again exposes the chronic global glut and threatens to perpetuate the energy slump for another year.
Unemployment Is Low in Key Swing States (Wall Street Journal)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has premised his campaign on the idea that the American economy is broken and jobs are hard to find. That could be a tough sell in key swing states where the unemployment rate is noticeably lower now than the national average.
What Japan's Economy Needs (Bloomberg View)
Spare a thought for Haruhiko Kuroda, governor of the Bank of Japan. The bank's heroic efforts to stimulate the flagging economy in recent months have had little effect, and now investors are asking: What else have you got?
Goldman Warns That Secular Growth Stocks Can't Outrun A Stagnant Economy Forever (Forbes)
Back in the 1938, economist Alvin Hansen coined the term secular stagnation to describe the U.S. economy grappling with sluggish growth after the Great Depression. Nearly eight decades later, a recent report from Goldman Sachs is warning that America is stuck in a similar pattern.
Forget Helicopter Money, Helicopter Coupons May Work, OECD Says (Bloomberg)
Free cash from the skies won’t boost growth but free shopping vouchers might, said Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Chief Economist Catherine Mann.
Apple Earnings After the Close (Bespoke)
Apple has been in a nasty downtrend since it peaked in early 2015. Sentiment towards the stock in the investment community is as negative as we can remember, at least in the post-iPod era.
Oil Is Still Heading To $20 (Value Walk)
The oil price is sliding again and just as they did before, analysts are now rushing to issue the most bearish forecasts possible for the black gold.
McDonald’s Sales Growth Misses Estimates (Bloomberg)
McDonald’s Corp., the world’s biggest restaurant chain, reported same-store sales growth that missed analysts’ estimates, stoking concerns that the U.S. fast-food industry is heading into a recession.
BP Spells Out Just How Bad Oil Refining Margins Have Got (Bloomberg)
BP Plc said today that refining margins, already at the lowest for the time of year since 2010, remain under “significant pressure” in the third quarter.
Caterpillar just put the global economy on watch (Business Insider)
The world's largest maker of massive industrial equipment lowered its 2016 earnings forecast on Tuesday, saying it did not expect economic conditions or its key industries to improve.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Quiet Option Expiry, FOMC Tomorrow (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
That first quote is for Bernie Sanders, and that second sums the substance of the Fed.
Politics
The Biggest GOP Names Backing Hillary Clinton—So Far (The Daily Beast)
The actor who voiced a 1964 ad raising alarm bells about Barry Goldwater says Trump “scares me” in an ad produced by the Clinton campaign.
“Trump says we need unpredictability when it comes to using nuclear weapons, what is that supposed to mean? When a man says that he sounds a lot like a threat to humanity.”
How Donald Trump Broke The Conservative Movement (Buzz Feed)
Outside the city limits of Phoenix, past an electric gate, up a bare hill, and inside a sandstone house of triangular rooms, Barry Goldwater announced he was running for president.
He got destroyed. He won just six states in 1964, including his own. His campaign was a disaster.
Technology
Nest thermostats offline in massive outage during U.S. heatwave (Techno Buffalo)
Google’s Nest is experiencing a widespread outage that has knocked its line of thermostats offline, a particularly scary situation given the widespread heatwave across the United States right now. Members of our staff noticed the thermostats weren’t functioning properly this morning, in multiple states around the U.S., and a quick search on Twitter shows a similar story.
This is the first rumor we’ve seen about the 2018 iPhone, and it’s a real doozy (Business Insider)
A fresh leak from DigiTimes, first spotted by 9to5Mac, claims Apple's iPhone coming in 2018 will come with an eye scanner.
It's still not clear what an eye scanner could be for, but DigiTimes suggests that eye scanners on mobile devices could be used for "biometric recognition," like the iPhone's fingerprint sensor. That means it could use your iris to unlock your phone and any functions that need a password.
Computers will require more energy than the world generates by 2040 (Science Alert)
Scientists have predicted that unless radical improvements are made in the way we design computers, by 2040, computer chips will need more electricity than what our global energy production can deliver.
Health and Life Sciences
Accidental Science That Can Heal or Kill (Bloomberg View)
It’s tempting to believe that scientific discoveries can be weighed for their value to society. Then the good ones could be pursued and the bad ones set aside.
Life on the Home Planet
Swathes Of The Great Barrier Reef Suffer ‘Complete Ecosystem Collapse’ (The Huffington Post)
It’s been a wretched year for Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure and one of the most complex natural ecosystems on Earth.
It’s becoming nearly impossible to find a diaper in Venezuela (Quartz)
Parents in Venezuela have a big mess on their hands. Kimberly-Clark, one of the country’s biggest diaper producers, said earlier this month it’s leaving the country. That means the unsavory quest to contain baby waste just got exponentially harder.
Global Warming, God and the “End Times” (Climate Communication)
For a significant number of Americans, the reality, causes and meaning of global warming are seen through the lens of their religious beliefs. Some reject the evidence that humans are causing global warming because they believe God controls the climate. Others believe that global warming is evidence that the world will be ending soon, and that we don’t need to worry about global warming in light of the approaching apocalypse.
