News You Can Use From Phil’s Stock World

Financial Markets and Economy

'Bad news' for millions of American borrowers (Business Insider)

The Federal Reserve's Open Markets Committee seemed to signal when it hiked rates in December that interest rates were heading northward for the first time since the financial crisis.

Time to Pay Attention to What Oil Dudes Call ‘Other’ (Bloomberg)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported another overall expansion in oil stockpiles in the week to Aug. 5. The culprit: Crude oil? Gasoline? Diesel? Not this time: all the big growth was in the category called ‘other’.

Hedge Funds All In on VIX Plunge as S&P 500 Hovers Near Record (Bloomberg)

Professional speculators are making record bets in volatility markets that U.S. stocks will keep rallying.

Oil prices fall on U.S. crude inventory build, record Saudi output (Reuters)

Oil prices fell early on Thursday as a build in U.S. crude inventories and record Saudi Arabian production weighed on markets.

The Bank of England Just Learned a Lot About Bond Market Liquidity (Bloomberg)

You can't always get what you want. 

What's Really Wrong With the Unemployment Rate (Bloomberg View)

The U.S. unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s the same as in July 1997. Does this mean the labor market is as healthy now as it was then, in the early days of the late-1990s boom? No, it doesn’t.

Wall Street dip halts Asian shares' rising streak, oil slips (Reuters)

Asian shares fell on Thursday, reversing recent gains as investors took profits after Wall Street declined overnight, and oil prices tumbled on news of a surprising jump in U.S. government stockpiles.

China's trade is slowing down and its central bank needs to be careful (Business Insider)

It looks like the tide is turning in China.

Grocery stores are becoming the fast-food industry's biggest threat (Business Insider)

The fast-food industry has a growing threat: grocery stores.

Confucius Has Some Advice for Trading With China (Bloomberg View)

Confucius was once asked if there was a single word that could act as a guide throughout one's life. "Reciprocity," the sage responded. He then preached a form of the Golden Rule: "What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."

Wendy's comparable sales miss as fewer diners eat out (Reuters)

Burger chain Wendy's Co reported lower-than-expected quarterly comparable sales on Wednesday as a fall in grocery prices encouraged more diners to eat at home, sending the company's shares down as much as 8 percent.

Americans' Assessment of U.S. Job Market Slightly Worse (Gallup)

About four in 10 Americans (39%) in August say it is a good time to find a quality job. Though this is down slightly from the 43% who said the same last month, the latest figure remains within the 38% to 45% range Gallup has recorded for this question in 2015 and 2016.

Few Bargains? Depends Upon Where You Look (Ritholtz)

Bonds are expensive, stocks less so.

Can Individual Traders Succeed in Today's Markets? (Trader Feed)

Lately I've encountered considerable hand-wringing as to whether individual traders can succeed in markets increasingly dominated by meddlesome central banks, high speed algorithms, and large amounts of capital in concentrated hands.  To be sure, the proportion of individual traders that makes consistent money is not high, particularly in the daytrading world.  

Back to Square One: Why the Financial System Needs to Reset (The Epoch Times)

If you don’t know about finance and you want to learn, where do you start? Start with the money, says Paul Brodsky of Macro Allocation Inc.

Crude Oil Inventories Continue to Rise; Gasoline Stocks Decline (Bespoke)

After declining for a record nine straight weeks, crude oil inventories have now risen for three straight weeks.  According to the DoE, crude oil stockpiles increased by 1.055 million barrels compared to expectations for a decline of 1.5 million barrels.

Delta's computer nightmare reveals the biggest problem in corporate America (Business Insider)

It's been a bad week for Delta.

Disney Analysts, Beware of the Delta Force (The Street)

Will this Disney quarter be the one that will be remembered for hitting the dreaded "delta?"

“Productivity” Isn’t Bad…We Are Just Measuring It Wrong In The Digital Age (Value Walk)

There is so much pessimism that it feels like one could spiral down a hole and never recover. Reality is opposite!. What we are experiencing is an incredible negative ‘group-think’ based on broad economic misperception.

Did US Consumers Finally Tap Out? BofA Internal Card Data Shows Significant July Spending Slowdown (Zero Hedge)

Ahead of this Friday's retail sales report, which bulls are hoping will show a continuation of the strong spending trends revealed in last month's data, Bank of America is once again the bearer of bad news.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – Up On Falling Dollar Early, Hit in the NY Trade (Jesse's Cafe Americain)

Gold and silver were rallying early, breaching 1350 and moving higher, on a weaker dollar and a 'risk off' reaction to the latest round of buying of financial paper.

SunPower Corporation Stock Tanks On Lower Guide, Analysts Cut PTs (Value Walk)

SunPower shares plummeted 30% last night after the company slashed guidance by a massive amount, blaming current market conditions for the nasty surprise. Analysts from multiple firms slashed their price targets and, in some cases, downgraded the solar company’s stock as well. Others, however, aren’t ready to advise investors to exit the stock yet, although they did slash their price targets.

BLS Just "Revised" Away Obama's "Fastest" Wage Growth Since The Crisis (Zero Hedge)

Back February 2016, Obama took to the stage at a press conference to boast about job growth and "most importantly" how the stronger job market was "finally starting to translate into bigger paychecks."

Politics

A Republican Workers' Party? (Rolling Stone)

A horrifying article appeared in The New York Times last week, entitled "They Want Trump to Make the G.O.P. a Workers' Party."

Trump Campaign Proves the System Isn't Rigged (Bloomberg View)

The cornerstone of Donald Trump's shaky rhetorical constructs is this: The fix is in. Indeed, in this most inconsistent and unpredictable of political campaigns, Trump consistently promises that everything that matters has been rigged beforehand.

Technology

The 9.7 inch iPad Pro might be your lightest laptop, thanks to Logitech (Recode)

When the iPad came out in 2010, I wrote that it might upend the laptop if it could perform enough of the scenarios a user performed on his or her laptop, using its modern, full-screen, touch-centric software. For me, personally, it performed quite a few, and I used my laptop less and less.

Biohybrid Robots Built From Living Tissue Start to Take Shape (The Conversation)

Think of a traditional robot and you probably imagine something made from metal and plastic. Such “nuts-and-bolts” robots are made of hard materials. As robots take on more roles beyond the lab, such rigid systems can present safety risks to the people they interact with. For example, if an industrial robot swings into a person, there is the risk of bruises or bone damage.

App Lets You Buy Leftover Food From Restaurants And It’s Really Cheap (The Huffington Post)

Here’s a situation where takeout is more cost efficient than cooking at home. 

Too Good To Go, an app operating in the UK, allows users to order leftover food at a discount from restaurants, according to the website. 

Health and Life Sciences

Simple lab life makes an evolutionary leap in a few generations (New Scientist)

Just a few generations after evolving multicellularity, lab yeasts have already settled into at least two distinct lifestyles.

The discovery suggests that organisms can swiftly fill new niches opened up by evolutionary innovations, just as the first multicellular animals appear to have done on Earth, hundreds of millions of years ago.

This body map traces how we create antibodies (Futurity)

When viruses and bacteria invade the body, the immune system fights back by creating an army of antibodies. Different types of antibodies do different things to keep us healthy.

Life on the Home Planet

The Perseid meteor shower could be twice as awesome this year. Here’s how to watch. (The Washington Post)

The pleasantly prolific Perseid meteor shower — a shooting-star show that reigns each August — may become an “outburst” this year, if astronomical predictions hold firm.

Half of Americans Say Threats From Infectious Diseases Are Growing (Pew Research Center)

The Zika virus has become a concern to many Americans, and its emergence fits into a broader pattern of public concern that the number of infectious disease threats to people’s health has grown in the past generation. Some 51% of adults say there are more infectious disease threats today than there were 20 years ago.