Financial Markets and Economy
Struggling U.S. Economy Propped Up by Gain in Consumer Spending (Bloomberg)
The U.S. economy stumbled in the first half of 2016 as companies retrenched, leaving consumers to shoulder the burden of sustaining growth heading into the presidential election.
The stock market's ridiculously boring streak won't last (Business Insider)
The stock market has been boring recently.
Weak GDP closes the door on Fed interest-rate hike in September (Market Watch)
The Federal Reserve earlier this week opened the door a crack for an interest-rate hike as soon as September.
Two days later, the disappointing second-quarter gross domestic product report effectively shut it.
S&P 500 Caps Fifth Monthly Gain as Rally Shows Signs of Fatigue (Bloomberg)
Bulls keep squeezing gains out of the U.S. equity market, sending the S&P 500 Index to its longest streak of monthly gains since 2014 just two weeks after reaching a record.
Oil rig count rises for 5th straight week (Business Insider)
The US oil rig count rose by three to 374 this week, according to driller Baker Hughes.
Emerging-market debt funds just had a record 4-week buying boom (Market Watch)
Investor appetite for emerging-market bonds has pushed buying in debt-oriented funds tied to those regions to records.
Don't Count on That U.S. Economy Data Quite Yet (Bloomberg View)
This morning's U.S. gross domestic product report was a disappointment, with inflation-adjusted growth for the second quarter coming in at 1.2 percent, well below the 2.5 percent median forecast of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg.
Tech deals have hit a speed bump this year, but that's set to change (Business Insider)
Tech dealmaking has hit a speed bump.
Here's what $5 billion in buybacks got Google (Business Insider)
Google parent company Alphabet said on Thursday that it has completed its first stock repurchase plan, spending $5 billion to buy more than 5 million shares on the open market.
Defying low crude prices, Exxon, Chevron stay the course (Market Watch)
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. failed to offer short-term predictions for crude prices on earnings calls Friday, with the two major oil companies vowing to proceed as planned as far as oil and natural-gas production.
Stiglitz Calls Apple’s Profit Reporting in Ireland ‘a Fraud’ (Bloomberg)
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz said U.S. tax law that allows Apple Inc. to hold a large amount of cash abroad is “obviously deficient” and called the company’s attribution of significant earnings to a comparatively small overseas unit a “fraud.”
Unprecedented Volatility Collapse (Price Action Lab)
Unprecedented volatility collapse in S&P 500. The 11-day range is < 0.93%.
The Death of the Central Bank (Bloomberg View)
For the past 70 years, Japan has been a crucible of experimentation in economic policy. During its go-go years, Tokyo’s unusual practices to spur rapid growth became a model for much of the rest of Asia, while its unconventional attempts to revive its post-bubble economy have helped economists understand what should and could be done to recover from financial crises.
Why Can’t Chipotle Recover? (The Atlantic)
In August of last year, a contributor to Investopedia, an online clearinghouse for financial news and investment advice, made this pronouncement about Chipotle’s miraculously-performing stock: “If you had invested just $1,000 during Chipotle's initial public offering (IPO), that investment would be worth $33,229 today.”
Amazon Rising as Q2 Crushes Consensus, Q3 View Beats (Barron's)
Shares of Amazon.com are up $18.39, or 2.4%, at $771, in late trading, after the company this afternoon reported Q2 revenue and profit that comfortably topped analysts’ expectations, and forecast this quarter’s revenue higher, but missed with its operating profit outlook.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Monster First Delivery Day For August Gold (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Nova Scotia offered up 406,700 ounces of gold from their house account for the first delivery day in August. That is the biggest number I have seen in some time.
Politics
In U.S. Politics, the Tribe Comes First (Bloomberg View)
If nothing else, the past two weeks bear witness to the amazing resilience of America's political parties — not as political or intellectual movements, but as tribes. Ideas come and go — but what do ideas matter, really? The parties, God help us, endure.
Trump Sick And Tired Of Mainstream Media Always Trying To Put His Words Into Some Sort Of Context (The Onion)
Emphasizing that the practice was just more evidence of journalists’ bias against him, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated Thursday that he was sick and tired of the mainstream media always attempting to place his words into some kind of context.
Technology
Solar Capture Technique Turns CO2 Into Burnable Fuel (Gizmodo)
Engineers at the University of Chicago have created a new kind of solar cell that efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable hydrocarbon fuel—and it does so using only sunlight for energy.
California Engineer Is Building A Gyrocopter-Inspired Flying Car (Gizmodo)
What will it take to get flying cars off the ground? Not a lack of interest: as long as there have been cars and flying machines, people have been interested in combining the two. Last month, the FAA even approved a flying car prototype as a light airplane, reviving hopes of someday turning boring ground commutes into amazing airborne commutes.
Health and Life Sciences
Is Secondhand Pot Smoke Worse For The Heart Than Tobacco? (Forbes)
The research has flip-flopped, almost comically, in recent years on the relative safety vs. danger of smoking pot. Every few weeks there seems to be a new study suggesting additional medicinal uses or, on the flip side, additional cognitive, psychological or heart risks of using the drug. Now, a study finds that just being around pot smoke, and breathing it in secondhand, may do more damage to blood vessel function than even secondhand cigarette smoke.
Breast cancer tumors aren’t the same throughout (Futurity)
Not only is breast cancer more than one disease, but a single breast cancer tumor can also differ depending on where you look.
This means that tumor-sampling techniques used with “personalized medicine” gene expression profile tests may need refining to be sure that the most appropriate tumor sections are selected for testing.
Life on the Home Planet
The Horrifying Reason Siberia Is Dealing With an Anthrax Outbreak (Gizmodo)
In a news report that could easily be the plot of a cult horror movie, an anthrax outbreak has swept the remote Yamalo-Nenets district of western Siberia, killing 1,500 reindeer since Sunday. According to NBC News, authorities think the outbreak began when some zombie anthrax thawed out of an infected reindeer corpse and woke up.
Mexico launches drones to protect endangered porpoise (Phys)
Mexico's government has launched three drones to back efforts to prevent illegal fishing activities that have led to the near extinction of the vaquita marina, the world's smallest porpoise.
