Financial Markets and Economy
J.M. Smucker Sinks 7% As Coffee Prices Slam Top Line (Forbes)
With Folgers and Dunkin Donuts packaged coffee in its brand portfolio, the J.M. Smucker Company is both the biggest coffee roaster in the U.S. and one of the companies that is best-positioned to reap the profits from America’s caffeine addiction.
"It's Gone" – Why Foreign Demand For US Treasuries Has Disappeared (Zero Hedge)
Last week's TIC data confirmed something the Fed's Treasury custody account has indicated for the past several months: foreign demand for US government bonds has not only tumbled, but there has been aggressive selling.
VW Facing Uphill Battle Outside the U.S. in Emissions Claims (The Wall Street Journal)
Governments, investors and car owners around the world are gaining ground in efforts to pressure Volkswagen AG for settlements over its emissions-cheating scandal, aiming for terms similar to a $15 billion U.S. agreement.
Citi: Here Are Six Ways Central Banks Have Distorted Markets (Bloomberg)
Once upon a time, credit and economic fundamentals drove returns, investors preached the virtues of asset diversification, and market volatility spiked when macro risk rose.
The Illusion of Lagging Productivity (Bloomberg)
I miss 2011. Looking back, that was the heyday of economic blogging. The financial crisis had abated, but the recovery from the recession was disappointing, and everyone was talking about how to jump-start growth. Macroeconomics was important again.
Why Insider Trading May Be Tougher Than Ever to Prosecute (Fortune)
The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in December 2014, that overturned the conviction of hedge fund trader Todd Newman has roiled the legal landscape and demonstrated just how nonintuitive the definition of insider trading is.
El-Erian Says Fed Risks Instability, Excess by Keeping Rates Low (Bloomberg)
Allianz SE’s Mohamed El-Erian said that Federal Reserve officials need to consider the costs of keeping interest rates low, even as the U.S. economy is pressured by diminished worker productivity.
What United Parcel Service Inc Q2 Earnings Mean to FedEx Corporation Investors (Fool.com)
United Parcel Service Inc.'s (NYSE: UPS) set of second-quarter earnings gave FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) investors a lot of color on industry trends and what to expect when the latter reports. The rivals give earnings in the middle of each other's reporting periods so anything they say is highly informative regarding the other's quarter.
Kobe Bryant says he wants to be remembered as an investor — not an athlete — 20 years from now (Business Insider)
In 20 years, basketball legend Kobe Bryant wants to be remembered for his investments, not his hoops career.
Jeff Gundlach Explains Why He Is Now "100% Net Short" (Zero Hedge)
In his latest interview on RealVision conducted last Friday, Doubleline's Jeff Gundlach recapped the major points of his relatively bearish worldview, which are increasingly prioritizing political risk, with the ‘T-word’ now a factor for stocks, as the election gets closer and the potential for a President Trump.
Uber and Lyft Slapped with Taxi Tax in Massachusetts (Foundation for Economic Education)
There have been several attempts to regulate the sharing economy over the last few years, but Republican Governor of Massachusetts Charles Baker recently signed a new regulation into law that is by far the most egregious display of corporate welfare.
Flood-Ravaged Louisiana Facing Biggest Cash Crunch Since 1980s (Bloomberg)
Add a short-term cash squeeze to the list of woes besetting Louisiana, suffering already from historic flooding and the collapse of oil prices.
The maker of the EpiPen is tanking after it was called out for hiking the drug's price by over 500% (Business Insider)
Mylan Pharmaceuticals, the company that makes the emergency allergy medication EpiPen, is under pressure.
The average American family had the same amount of wealth in 2013 as it did in 1989 (World Economic Forum)
The Great Recession and the subsequent recovery from it have deepened the wedge between the very wealthy and everyone else in America, plunging the poor deeper into debt and wiping out two-fifths of the wealth held by families in the heart of the middle class.
US Profit Margins to Fall Further (Variant Perception)
Equity prices are rising and being driven by momentum, but profit margins are set to fall further in line with late-cycle wage pressures and tightness in the labour market.
Toll results, new home sales ignite US homebuilder rally (Financial Times)
A double dose of good news for homebuilders. Shares in US homebuilders climbed the most in more than month on Tuesday.
Revealed: ECB Secretly Hands Cash to Select Corporations (Wolf Street)
In June, the ECB began buying the bonds of some of the most powerful companies in Europe as well as the European subsidiaries of foreign multinationals. This pushed the average yield on euro investment-grade corporate debt to 0.65%. Large quantities of highly rated corporate debt with shorter maturities are trading at negative yields, where brainwashed investors engage in the absurdity of paying for the privilege of lending money to corporations.
Richmond Fed Manufacturing Disaster: Activity, New Orders, Shipments Plunge (MishTalk)
The regional manufacturing reports are not having a good go of it this month. The Richmond Fed Region took a huge dive from +10 to -11. New orders lead the collapse, down a whopping 35 points to -20. The Empire State and Philly Fed reports were also weak.
Seven changes needed to save the euro and the EU (The Guardian)
To say that the eurozone has not been performing well since the 2008 crisis is an understatement. Its member countries have done more poorly than the European Union countries outside the eurozone, and much more poorly than the United States, which was the epicentre of the crisis.
Copper’s ‘Alarming’ Inventories Menace 2016 Price Gain: Chart (Bloomberg)
Copper’s 0.9 percent gain for 2016 is the smallest among the six major metals traded in London, and things could get bleaker.
Cramer: We've got retail all wrong — time to bury the 'death of the mall' story (CNBC)
Jim Cramer says the theory that brick-and-mortar retail are losers that cannot overthrow Amazon is completely wrong.
Here Are The "21 Charts That Keep The Bulls Up At Night" According To BofA (Zero Hedge)
In the latest sellside attempt to promote skepticism about the "market" (which in the case of the US has supposedly not been nationalized just yet, unlike in Japan), BofA's Savita Subramanian – who still has a 2,000 S&P year end target – has issued a report titled "Exploring the Dark Side" and subtitled "Charts that keep the bulls up at night" in which the equity strategist says that as the market grinds higher (and earlier today hit fresh record highs) "we continue to see elevated risk of correction."
Ten Reasons Why Bank of America Thinks U.S. Stocks Have an 'Elevated Risk of Correction' (Bloomberg)
With U.S. stocks sitting near all times, Wall Street strategists are getting more cautious about what's in store for the benchmark indexes over the near term.
Politics
Donald Trump Jacked Up His Campaign’s Trump Tower Rent Once Somebody Else Was Paying It (The Huffington Post)
After bragging for a year about how cheaply he was running his campaign, Donald Trump is spending more freely now that other people are contributing ? particularly when the beneficiary is himself.
Clinton Leads Trump by 16 Points in Virginia: Roanoke Poll (Bloomberg)
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump 48% to 32% among Virginia voters, according to the Roanoke College Poll, with Gary Johnson at 8%, Jill Stein 3%.
Inside the Conservative Push for States to Amend the Constitution (NY Times)
Taking advantage of almost a decade of political victories in state legislatures across the country, conservative advocacy groups are quietly marshaling support for an event unprecedented in the nation’s history: a convention of the 50 states,
Technology
HoloLens' 24-core chip makes vivid AR possible (Engadget)
Microsoft has revealed more details about its HoloLens headset at the Hot Chips conference in Cupertino. The augmented reality (AR) device marries video games with the real world, so it needs to calculate your location, head position and gestures extremely rapidly.
Solar Delivers Cheapest Electricity ‘Ever, Anywhere, By Any Technology’ (Think Progress)
Chile has just contracted for the cheapest unsubsidized power plant in the world, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports.
In last week’s energy auction, Chile accepted a bid from Spanish developer Solarpack Corp. Tecnologica for 120 megawatts of solar at the stunning price of $29.10 per megawatt-hour (2.91 cents per kilowatt-hour or
America’s First Offshore Wind Farm May Power Up a New Industry (NY Times)
The towering machines stand a few miles from shore, in a precise line across the seafloor, as rigid in the ocean breeze as sailors reporting for duty. The blades are locked in place for now, but sometime in October, they will be turned loose to capture the power of the wind.
What’s Next for the New York Subway? Toronto Already Knows (NY Times)
Step on board, and the subway car immediately feels different. With a clear view down the length of the train, commuters walk from car to car searching for a less crowded spot to stand. Others gather in the accordion-style passageway between cars, an area once separated by doors.
Can't wait until Model 3? Tesla's got a two-year lease just for you (Road Show)
The waiting, Tom Petty tells us, is the hardest part. But if you've got cash to spare, waiting for Tesla to build the Model 3 may not be such a trial.
Google and Facebook have a long way to go to get the rest of the world online (Business Insider)
For most of the US, the internet is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere from your phone to your TV. People rely on it to work, socialize, and make money.
That being the case, it’s easy to forget that simply being an internet user puts you in the minority.
Health and Life Sciences
A Tiny Power Plant You Could Swallow to Fight Cancer (Bloomberg)
Human beings benefit from more than four billion years of evolution in bio-energy.
But come on. We can do better than that.
A massive crack is threatening to cause an entire Antarctic ice shelf to collapse (Science Alert)
Scientists have been monitoring a fracture in one of the world’s biggest ice shelves, and report that in the last five months alone, it’s grown an extra 22 kilometers (13.67 miles) in length, and now stretches for a total of 130 km (80 miles).
Why the price of prescription drugs in the US is out of control (Business Insider)
Tensions over this issue flared up on Monday, when senators started to ask questions about the EpiPen, a device used in emergencies to treat anaphylaxis, a severe allergic reaction that can make people go into shock, struggle to breathe, or get a skin rash.
Life on the Home Planet
Tropical trouble brewing for Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Southeastern U.S. (Mashable Asia)
Computer models are giving forecasters little clarity on Tuesday, as a hurricane hunter recon flight turned up no closed low at the center of the storm.
Please leave your guns at home, Canada tells US visitors (The Telegraph)
The Canadian government has politely asked Americans not to bring their guns into the country, kickstarting a hashtag on Twitter of #Leaveyourhandgunsathome.
Florida Officials Report New Zika Case in Tampa Area (The Wall Street Journal)
Florida officials are investigating a possible case of locally-transmitted Zika in the Tampa Bay area, raising the possibility that the virus is spreading in areas far from Miami, where such cases have been clustered.
Ex-Fox News Host Sues Alleging ‘Sex-Fueled’ Cult at Network (Bloomberg)
Ex-Fox News host and political analyst Andrea Tantaros sued the cable channel and former chairman Roger Ailes for sexual harassment, alleging the network pretends to act as a defender of family values while operating like a "sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult."
