Financial Markets and Economy
Deutsche Bank Tumbles as DoJ Claim of $14 Billion Rebuffed (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG’s shares and its riskiest bonds dropped the most since the Brexit vote after the lender said the U.S. Justice Department is seeking $14 billion to settle a probe tied to mortgage-backed securities, more money than the bank is willing to pay.
The Fed Is About to Make a Mistake (Bloomberg)
Next week, officials at the U.S. Federal Reserve will hold a crucial meeting on whether to raise interest rates. Whatever they do, it will probably be a mistake.
S&P 500 Gets Its First New Sector Since the Dot.com Era (The Wall Street Journal)
For the first time since the tech boom, the S&P 500 is gaining a new sector.
German 10-Year Bund Yield Heads Back to Sub-Zero Territory (MoneyBeat, The Wall Street Journal)
After several days back above zero, the 10-year German bund yield returned to negative territory in early trading on Friday.
Hedge funds across globe cut fees in battle for investors (Reuters)
Hedge funds across the globe are cutting their management fees as they struggle to attract investors in the face of weak returns, industry data shows.
Investors Stick With Assets That Mimic Hedge Funds (NY Times)
Mutual funds that mimic hedge fund strategies — the so-called liquid alternatives sector — were among the hottest investments just a few years ago. Despite lagging returns and setbacks at several noteworthy funds, retail investors until recently have stuck with them even as they have pulled billions of dollars out of other funds.
The chart above shows annual recorded music sales revenues by format in the US from 1973 to 2015 courtesy of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Here are a few interesting observations:
Wall Street’s 0.01%: The Guru Who Only Talks to Hedge-Fund Elite (Bloomberg)
Jens Nordvig, one of the hottest prognosticators in finance, will sell anyone his secret sauce for winning trades for $30,000 a year.
Why the Stimulus from Low Oil Prices Never Really Boosted the Economy (The Wall Street Journal)
When oil prices first plunged in 2014, there was hope that cheap gasoline would be a giant stimulus for the U.S. economy. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen cited a statistic that the average household would save $700 in fuel costs.
Adviser With Ties to Hedge Fund Platinum Put Client Funds in It (The Wall Street Journal)
Two years ago, Senior Health Insurance Co. of Pennsylvania hired an investment adviser that swiftly invested tens of millions of dollars of the insurer’s money with hedge-fund firm Platinum Partners and bought a series of hard-to-sell assets from Platinum’s funds.
Markets and Pundits Have a Data-Point Fixation (Bloomberg)
Data is the raw material we use as the basis for analysis.
Investors demand it. Baseball fans love it. Quants live for it. Pollsters depend on it. Data is the difference between anecdote and evidence, between opinion and facts, between life and death (ask a surgeon or airline pilot).
Income Liftoff Shows the Recovery Is Real (Bloomberg)
During the past two years, we have seen signs that wage pressure is building as the economic recovery grinds on.
Europe’s Bond Selloff Is Taking the Urgency Out of Boosting QE (Bloomberg)
By disappointing bond investors this month, Mario Draghi has bought himself some time on quantitative easing.
Pound Traders Look to the Fed and BoJ for Once (Bloomberg)
The fallout from Brexit takes a back seat next week as pound investors’ focus turns to policy decisions from two of the world’s biggest central banks.
Companies
Apple’s 21% Rally Is Tough Pill for 295 Funds That Bailed (Bloomberg)
Apple Inc.’s third-quarter rally is unwelcome news to the unusually large swath of investors who have been giving up on the stock.
JP Morgan launches first active ETF and promotes global quant head (City Wire)
The JP Morgan Diversified Alternatives fund is the first actively managed ETF that the firm has launched and it comes from Yazann Romahi, a quant whiz who was recently promoted.
At BlackRock, a Wall Street Rock Star’s $5 Trillion Comeback (Dealbook, NY Times)
Laurence D. Fink, the leader and founder of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, had come home.
A Bruin to the bone — class of 1974 — he had a story to tell the 5,000 giddy graduates packed into the cavernous basketball arena at the University of California, Los Angeles.
UPS and Toys R Us are hiring thousands of people to prepare for the holidays (BI Intelligence)
E-commerce companies are beginning to plan for the holiday season with tens of thousands of temporary employees being onboarded.
Politics
The Arithmetic in Donald Trump’s Jobs Plan Doesn’t Really Work (The Upshot, NY Times)
Here’s one thing to like about Donald J. Trump’s speech at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Thursday: He cast attention on what really is one of the defining economic challenges of our era, slow growth.
'Let's see what happens to her': Donald Trump suggests Hillary Clinton's bodyguards should drop their weapons (Business Insider)
Donald Trump accused Hillary Clinton of pushing an anti-gun agenda during a campaign rally in Miami on Friday night, and suggested his Democratic presidential rival was a hypocrite for being under Secret Service protection.
Nigeria’s president will punish staff for plagiarizing an Obama speech from 2008 (Quartz)
Since coming into office last year, very little has gone according to script for Nigeria’s president Buhari.
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How panicked should Democrats be about Donald Trump’s poll surge? We asked 8 experts. (Vox)
It is now no longer the case that we need a major new catalytic event to think Donald Trump can win. Hillary Clinton hasn’t just lost the massive 8-point cushion she had in late August — she’s now clinging to a narrow 1.5-point lead in the polling averages that are widely viewed as the best gauges of the race.
Technology
Robots pave the way for our sci-fi future now (Tech Crunch)
Walmart is experimenting with autonomous shopping carts. Domino’s, Uber and Auro are heavily invested in autonomous driving research.
Los Angeles police use a robot to take away a murder suspect's gun (Mashable Asia)
Robots have been used for everything from greeting bank customers to grabbing a slice of pizza — and now they seem to be venturing further into law enforcement.
Why Silicon Valley is all wrong about Apple’s AirPods (Medium)
So you think Apple is a tech company? No, you’re wrong.
In July of 1997, right before his return to Apple, Steve Jobs told BusinessWeek:
“The products suck! There’s no sex in them anymore! Start over”
7 things the iPhone 7 can do that the Samsung's Galaxy phones can't (Business Insider)
They're the two best phones in the world: The new iPhone 7 and Samsung's Galaxy S7.
Since the iPhone 7 just arrived, you're probably wondering what new tricks it can do.
Audi RS6 car review: ‘You could buy this car or you could buy a house in Lancashire’ (The Guardian)
It is a car that people crossed the road to call nice. One guy undertook me in a chimp display and ran into the car in front of him; I tore past the wreckage (marred bumper), leaving him speechless with rage. The Audi RS6 was the best of cars, it was the worst of cars.
The Twitter Verdict: NFL Livestream Reaches 2 Million Viewers, Hailed A Resounding Success (Digital Trends)
The verdict is in: Twitter’s first NFL livestream was a hit. According to the NFL numbers, Twitter grabbed the overwhelming majority of the game’s digital audience of 2.4 million viewers.
This Company Will Build You a Real-Life Transformer (Gizmodo)
Admit it, ever since you learned that Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons crashed on Earth, you’ve secretly always wondered what a real-life, full-sized Transformer would look like. Good news, a company in Turkey wants to sell you one.
Health and Biotech
Novartis Drug for Multiple Sclerosis Shows Reduction in Risks (Bloomberg)
Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG said its experimental medicine for people with a severe form of multiple sclerosis could be a blockbuster after a study showed that the treatment reduced the risk of the disease progressing by 21 percent.
Florida expands Zika zone in Miami Beach after five new cases (Reuters)
State officials in Florida on Friday tripled the active Zika transmission zone in the trendy seaside community of Miami Beach after five new cases of the mosquito-borne virus believed to cause a severe birth defect were identified in the area.
Researchers have observed individual atoms interacting for the first time (Science Alert)
For the first time, researchers have managed to capture images of individual potassium atoms distributed on an optical lattice, providing them with a unique opportunity to see how they interact with one another.
Scientists 'pickle' and map a fly's brain for the first time (Engadget)
Sure, fully mapping the human brain is impressive, but think about it: our thinking muscle is pretty big. Not to be outdone by this week's advances from the Allen Institute, scientists from Japan's Tokai University have made a 3D model of the neurons in a fruit fly's brain.
Life on the Home Planet
Israeli forces kill Palestinian who stabbed soldier: army (Reuters)
Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian who stabbed and wounded a soldier in the West Bank on Saturday, the military said, as a flare-up of a nearly year-old wave of Palestinian street attacks entered a second day.
Nigerian Army Frees 566 People Held by Islamist Group Boko Haram (Bloomberg)
The Nigerian army released 566 persons, including 355 babies, held by islamist militant group Boko Haram in several camps across northeastern Borno state.
NASA tested a rocket engine — and did something unusual in the process (Business Insider)
NASA recently released slow-motion footage of an SLS booster rocket engine being tested. Part of the Space Launch System scheduled to launch in 2018, NASA left the nozzle plug inside the booster — creating an incredible on-camera effect.
Syria truce 'will not hold out' says senior rebel source (Reuters)
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he remained "more positive than negative" over a shaky ceasefire in Syria, but a senior rebel in Aleppo warned the truce "will not hold out" as some fighting persisted and aid failed to come through.
