Financial Markets and Economy
Unlike in 1986, the U.S. Might Not Dodge a Recession: Deutsche Bank (Bloomberg)
Falling corporate margins, weakness in the U.S. labor market and rising corporate default rates — all features of the U.S. economy in 1986, a year it avoided a recession.
No Stopping China's Shadow Banking Beast (Forbes)
China’s shadow banking beast won’t be tamed anytime soon.
Although it never really disappeared, there was a brief period of time from late 2014 to early 2015 when it seemed like some of the worst practices were to be regulated. This didn’t work.
In Duterte’s Philippines, Foreigners Flee Stocks (The Wall Street Journal)
What does it mean for the stock market when a brash and controversial figure who upends decades of diplomatic relations becomes president? In the Philippines anyway, foreign investors have been hightailing it out of town, selling shares 24 out of the last 25 trading days, according to stock exchange data.
Atlanta Fed downgrades U.S. third-quarter GDP view to 2.9 percent (Reuters)
The U.S. economy is on track to grow at a 2.9 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, the Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDP Now forecast model showed on Tuesday following the latest data on consumer prices and housing starts.
Italy is a 'systemic risk' and could become investors' new obsession (Business Insider)
For the past several years, investors have been held hostage by the possibility that Greece might default on its debt and eventually leave the eurozone.
BAML Warns On “Shock” As Did Bridgewater and Goldman; NIRP Trades At Risk (Value Walk)
When surveying the hedge fund positioning landscape, Michael Hartnett, global chief investment strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, might see sheep lining up on their knees worshiping at the altar of zero or negative interest rate policy.
SEC probes Exxon's climate, reserves accounting: report (Reuters)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating how Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) has valued its oil reserves in the wake of low prices and potential curbs on carbon emissions, the company said, confirming an earlier report.
Hedge funds love Amazon and hate Apple (Value Walk)
If you’ve been keeping an eye on the performance of hedge funds and mutual funds over the past 12 months or so you will have noticed that one of the themes in performance that has become clear is the underperformance of funds with the highest allocation to crowded positions.
Companies borrowed a record $207 billion during August: Moody’s (Value Walk)
Companies borrowed a record $207 billion during August, the highest value of debt issuance ever recorded according to a September 15 Moody’s Analytics Capital Markets Report.
How to Raise Trillions for Green Investments (NY Times)
SAVING our planet from the worst effects of climate change won’t be cheap. A new report from the United Nations says that the world will need to mobilize $90 trillion in public and private capital over the next 15 years.
Checking In On The 11.4% Yield From Dynex Capital (Colorado Wealth Management Fund, Seeking Alpha)
Dynex Capital (NYSE:DX) is a small mortgage REIT that doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. The common shares carry an 11.4% dividend yield after the company sustained its quarterly dividend at $.21. To help readers understand the strategy that supports the dividend yield, I want to discuss the portfolio.
Journalism's business model was screwed before Facebook earned a single dime (Ben Thompson)
Companies
Here's why it seems like the CEO of Wells Fargo can't remember anything (Business Insider)
John Stumpf — the CEO of what was once Wall Street's most squeaky-clean bank, Wells Fargo — was in front of Congress on Tuesday answering for the fraudulent actions of thousands of employees.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren rips into Wells Fargo CEO's 'gutless leadership' (Los Angeles Times)
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are sharply criticizing Wells Fargo’s chief executive, but Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) stands out for her outrage.
Time to dump Wells Fargo and other bank stocks? (CNN Money)
Wells Fargo (CBEAX) stock has fallen more than 15% this year. Wells Fargo was supposed to be one of the "better" banks, one that didn't have as many ties to shady Wall Street practices like the rigging of interest rates and foreign exchange markets.
Cheapest Solar on Record Offered as Abu Dhabi Expands Renewables (Bloomberg)
Two companies offered to build the cheapest solar power plant on record in Abu Dhabi, reflecting declining costs for photovoltaic cells and cheaper financing for clean-energy projects.
Uber’s Pricing Formula Has Allowed Economists to Map Out a Real Demand Curve (The Wall Street Journal)
Uber has created more than a booming ride-sharing market. It’s given economists a treasure trove of data to understand one of the fundamental concepts of economics: the demand curve.
Politics
Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems (The Washington Post)
Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.
Trump Faces Allegations Over Charity That Forced Other Politicians To Resign (The Huffington Post)
WASHINGTON – Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold on Tuesday published yet another blockbuster piece on Donald Trump’s charitable foundation, detailing how the Republican presidential nominee used $258,000 from his charity to settle lawsuits concerning his other businesses.
Lindsey Graham: Trump should apologize for pushing birtherism (Politico)
Donald Trump should apologize for pushing the “unseemly” birther conspiracy regarding where President Barack Obama was born, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham indicated Tuesday.
Technology
This is the one area where Apple iOS simply destroys Android (Business Insider)
The iOS 10 launch has had some bumps. Shortly after the update went live last week, some users reported that it made their iPhones unusable, forcing Apple to push out a fix almost immediately.
What It’s Like to Shoot With the iPhone 7 Plus (Bloomberg)
How can you tell the photographer’s eye (and brain) from the power of the camera? Don’t even try.
But do take a minute to cast your eye on these photos, which professional photographer Benjamin Lowy shot on the streets of New York with the iPhone 7 Plus before its release.
Ghost Minitaur Is A 4-Legged, Affordable Robot That Can Traverse Almost Any Terrain (Digital Trends)
Unless you’ve got the spending power of a Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg, it’s probably fair to say that the kind of quadruped robots we’ve seen up until now haven’t exactly been affordable.
Watch Chinese Hackers Control Tesla's Brakes From 12 Miles Away (Forbes)
Hackers love exposing Tesla’s electronic weaknesses. Just this August, researchers showed how they could use jamming and spoofed signals to convince the Tesla Model S autopilot that real objects had disappeared or fake obstacles had appeared.
California Today: Clearing the Air, Without Fossil Fuels (California Today)
Los Angeles, cloaked in some of the nation’s dirtiest air, thinks it’s time to make a clean break.
Backed by the mayor, the City Council last week ordered the municipal power utility to enlist a group of experts to chart a course toward eliminating fossil fuels from its slate of energy sources.
After Mastering Electric Cars, Renault Circles Back To Explore Hybrids (Digital Trends)
Broadly speaking, automakers consider hybrid drivetrains a mere stepping stone on the path to battery-electric vehicles. Paris-based Renault took a completely different approach: In 2012 it introduced the Zoe, an affordable electric car with about 150 miles of range, and it’s barely getting around to bringing its first-ever hybrid model to the market.
China's Tesla killer just raised $1 billion for its electric car project — here's everything we know about it (Business Insider)
Chinese company LeEco is making serious moves to compete with Tesla.
LeEco just raised $1.08 billion to develop its electric car, Bloomberg reported. The news comes about a month after LeEco invested $1.8 billion to build an electric-car plant in eastern China with eventual annual production capacity of 400,000 cars.
Pollockocopter drone delivers a paint-bomb splatterfest (CNet)
Can drones also be artists? That's a question that arises when you see the Pollockocopter in action. The flying machine comes from German aerial photography and drone company Cooper Copter. It looks pretty much like a regular quadcopter, but it carries a payload of a balloon filled with paint. You can see where this is going.
The Robots We’ve Long Imagined Are Finally Here (Singularity Hub)
They are wise-cracking companions, able to communicate in more than six million languages. Others are bent on enslaving or destroying humanity, deeming themselves better, more rational caretakers of the Earth in light of our irrational behaviors.
Health and Biotech
It’s time for a serious debate about head transplants (New Scientist)
What goes ha ha bonk? The sound of scientists laughing their heads off. That was one response to the quality of some of the science in a series of papers published this week claiming to have achieved a milestone in spinal cord surgery, something neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero believes paves the way for a human head transplant as early as next year.
Microsoft wants to crack the cancer code using artificial intelligence (Tech Crunch)
Cancer is like a computer virus and can be ‘solved’ by cracking the code, according to Microsoft. The computer software company says its researchers are using artificial intelligence in a new healthcare initiative to target cancerous cells and eliminate the disease.
Life on the Home Planet
What College-Aged Students Know About the World: A Survey on Global Literacy (Council Foreign Relations)
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and National Geographic have commissioned a survey to gauge what young people educated in American colleges and universities know about geography, the environment, demographics, U.S. foreign policy, recent international events, and economics.
Billionaire George Soros Earmarks $500 Million For Migrants And Refugees (Forbes)
Hedge fund billionaire George Soros said on Tuesday that he is giving $500 million of his nonprofit organization’s funds to be invested on work opportunities for migrants and refugees, especially those arriving into Europe.
Experts are wrong about the moon causing ocean tides, Ukip MP Douglas Carswell insists (Independent)
Ukip MP Douglas Carswell has become embroiled in a bizarre argument with scientists over whether the moon or sun causes ocean tides.
Cops Steal Man's Phone, Accidentally Record Themselves Conspiring To Falsely Charge Him (Blacklisted News)
Hartford, CT — On September 11, 2015, journalist and police accountability activist, Michael Picard was illegally detained for lawfully open carrying and filming police on public property. During the illegal detainment, Connecticut state troopers confiscated his gun and his camera.
The Science of Why We Buy Clothes We Never Wear (Money)
As a consumer psychologist and researcher I spend a lot of time peeking under people’s beds and in the dark recesses of their closets. In addition to dust bunnies, in more homes than not I find new, unworn clothing and accessories, usually with the price tags still attached.
