Financial Markets and Economy
Chinese banks might need as much as $1.7 trillion in capital (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Rising debt levels will worsen the credit profiles of China's top 200 companies this year, requiring the country's banks to raise as much as $1.7 trillion in capital to cover a likely surge in bad loans, S&P Global said in reports on Tuesday.
Cash Is Piling up Faster Than Warren Buffett Can Invest It (ABC News)
Warren Buffett has the kind of money problem most people would envy: a growing mountain of cash.
Nearly $73 billion piled up at Berkshire Hathaway by mid-summer, more than Buffett's conglomerate has ever held before.
Pound Selloff Accelerates as Flash Crash Lows Loom Ever Nearer (Bloomberg)
Sterling fell 1.8 percent to $1.2140 as of 2:20 p.m. New York time, approaching the lows seen during Friday’s flash crash. That cemented its position as 2016’s worst-performing major currency, a mantle gained in the wake of the U.K.’s June vote to quit the European Union.
Seeing red: China’s sinking economy could pull America and the world into recession (Salon)
During Sunday night’s presidential debate in St. Louis, Republican candidate Donald Trump appeared to exploit a common misunderstanding about economic growth by comparing the gross domestic products of China and United States.
Nobel Prize Winner Wants You to Stop Treating Bonds Like Stocks (Bloomberg)
That's the counterintuitive conclusion from Nobel Prize winner, Bengt Holmstrom, who was yesterday announced one of 2016's two economic laureates. It appears in a paper that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor delivered at the Bank for International Settlements's 2014 conference and published last year.
Bankers' love of London complicates Brexit relocation plans (Reuters)
As Britain heads for the EU exit, financial firms intending to move London-based jobs to continental Europe face a costly choice: offer generous relocation and redundancy packages, or expect a flood of lawsuits from disgruntled staff.
Asian Stocks Fall for Fourth Day as Yen Weighs on Japan Shares (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks headed for a fourth day of declines after U.S. markets slumped on disappointing earnings, volatility spiked, and a stronger yen weighed on Japanese shares.
Japanese Stocks Fall From Four-Month High as Global Shares Slide (Bloomberg)
Japanese shares declined from a four-month high, joining a global selloff, as concerns over higher U.S. interest rates and weak earnings season stalled a drop in the yen.
The Topix index fell 0.5 percent as of 9:52 a.m. in Tokyo Wednesday, with financial stocks and exporters dragging the measure down the most.
Oil Holds Above $50 Amid Uncertainty Over Russia Supply Stance (Bloomberg)
Oil held above $50 a barrel amid uncertainty over Russia’s willingness to join OPEC efforts to stabilize the market.
Companies
Apple: Is The Street Still Too Negative? (Bill Maurer, Seeking Alpha)
Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have been on quite a run lately, as seen in the chart below. The iPhone 7 has gotten a decent reception, and key competitor Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) continues to have major problems with its Note 7 device. With shares at multi-month highs, you would think that analysts have gotten extremely positive when it comes to Apple. Well, that might not be the case just yet.
Alcoa stock slammed by earnings ‘disaster’ as season gets off on the back foot (Market Watch)
The third-quarter earnings season got off to a grim start Tuesday with Alcoa Inc. reporting weaker-than-expected numbers and the pace of sales and profit warnings from others continuing apace.
Ex-Wells Fargo worker: Intimidation included no bathroom breaks (CNN Money)
Harassment, intimidation, even bathroom breaks denied. That's some of the "unconscionable behavior" a former Wells Fargo worker drove five hours to confront a bank executive about.
Major Investor Sues Theranos (The Wall Street Journal)
One of Theranos Inc.’s biggest financial backers has sued the embattled startup and its founder for allegedly lying to attract its nearly $100 million investment, according to a fund document and people familiar with the matter.
Politics
Breitbart News’ bizarro universe weighs in on the debate: Donald Trump was “the better candidate” (Salon)
Following Sunday night’s presidential debate, right-leaning Breitbart News declared it a major victory for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“Several key exchanges in the debate proved Trump to be the better candidate on Sunday night,” wrote Breitbart’s foremost Trump shill Matthew Boyle in his article, “The Art of the Comeback: Donald Trump’s Debate Win Propels Him Toward White House.”
For most Americans, healthcare costs aren’t skyrocketing (Reuters)
The rising cost of healthcare was a brief topic of conversation at Sunday night's presidential debate, with Donald Trump bemoaning the high cost of premiums under Obamacare and Hillary Clinton talking about how to fix what we already have.
Trump assails House speaker Ryan, McCain as 'disloyal' (Reuters)
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump lashed out at U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and other "disloyal" Republicans on Tuesday and vowed to campaign in whatever style he wants now that the party establishment has largely abandoned him.
Federal Court Rules Consumer Watchdog's Structure Is Unconstitutional (NPR)
A federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was unconstitutionally structured by Congress.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided that an independent agency should not be run by a single individual.
Trump declares war on establishment Republicans (USA Today)
WASHINGTON — Ripping the band aid off deep divisions within the Republican Party, Donald Trump declared war Tuesday on GOP members who have turned against him and vowed to continue campaigning as he sees fit.
Amazingly, The Excuses For Donald Trump's Comments About Women Keep Getting Worse (Hive)
As poor an apology as Donald Trump has offered for the lewd comments he was recording making in 2005 about groping women without consent—“This was locker room talk,” Trump insisted over the weekend—the subsequent excuses made by his campaign surrogates and allies have been markedly worse.
‘I’m the Last ThingStanding Between Youand the Apocalypse’ (NY Times Magazine)
There can be days in this presidential campaign, if not weeks or months or maybe the entire thing, where you find yourself completely lost in dueling or blurry realities. It’s easy to get caught up in whatever is dominating a given moment. Everything gets so big and loud, and the candidates — famous to begin with — cease to even exist as human beings in front of you.
A new worry for Clinton: Trump's struggles may depress Democratic voter turnout (Reuters)
Hillary Clinton's campaign is confronting an emerging risk to her presidential ambitions – if Donald Trump continues to trail her in opinion polls many Democrats may simply stay at home on Election Day.
Technology
Robots Will Replace Doctors, Lawyers, and Other Professionals (Harvard Business Review)
Faced with the claim that AI and robots are poised to replace most of today’s workforce, most mainstream professionals — doctors, lawyers, accountants, and so on — believe they will emerge largely unscathed. During our consulting work and at conferences, we regularly hear practitioners concede that routine work can be taken on by machines, but they maintain that human experts will always be needed for the tricky stuff that calls for judgment, creativity, and empathy.
IMAX VR is coming to Manchester this year (Engadget)
IMAX is teaming up with Odeon to launch a pilot "VR centre" in the UK. The new facility, based at the Printworks multiplex in Manchester, will house modular "pods" that can be adapted for different experiences. So whatever you want to do — a solo film viewing, or a group session in a game like Star Trek Bridge Crew — the centre should be able to facilitate it.
Why The Teacher Of The Future Will Be Neither Man Nor Machine (Forbes)
It’s a classic human v. machine scenario: as AI gets better at teaching and providing educational assistance, the question inevitably turns to whether and when human teachers will be replaced by computers.
Here’s the super intense fireproof box Samsung is sending out for Galaxy Note 7 returns (Tech Crunch)
It’s official: Samsung has given up on the Galaxy Note 7. The phones — and the thought-to-be-safe replacements — are exploding. Now Samsung has to get all those phones back before more of ’em pop.
Facebook Rolls Out Workplace Chat Tool (The Wall Street Journal)
LONDON—Facebook Inc. is used by a quarter of the world’s population to keep tabs on friends every month. Now, the 12-year-old social network is seeking similar dominance in the corporate world.
Health and Biotech
Virus steals black widow poison gene to help it attack (New Scientist)
In one of the most unexpected genetic thefts ever, a virus that infects bacteria appears to have stolen the gene coding for the poison of the black widow spiders. The virus, named WO, probably uses the gene to help it attack its targets.
Life on the Home Planet
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Boeing delays the first crewed flights of its Starliner spacecraft — again (The Verge)
For the second time, Boeing has delayed the first crewed flight of its CST-100 Starliner spacecraft — the vehicle the company is building to transport NASA astronauts to and from the ISS, Aviation Week reports. Originally, the aim was for Starliner to carry astronauts for the first time in 2017, but Boeing announced in May that people wouldn’t fly on the vehicle until 2018.
Death toll climbs as floods swamp North Carolina after Hurricane Matthew (Reuters)
Flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew has displaced several thousand people in North Carolina, and authorities were helping more evacuate on Tuesday as swollen rivers threatened a wide swath of the state.
Hurricane Matthew Was Deceptively Powerful (Popular Science)
For all its destructive power, Matthew was curiously underrated. By the time it reached North Carolina, it barely qualified as a Category 1 hurricane, a confusing designation for a storm that produced record floods.
British lawmaker likens Russia's behavior in Syria to that of Nazis (Reuters)
A senior British lawmaker has accused Russia of targeting civilians in Syria in the same way the Nazis behaved at Guernica during the Spanish civil war of the 1930s.
Andrew Mitchell, a lawmaker in Prime Minister Theresa May's ruling Conservatives and a former Secretary of State for International Development, said an attack last month on a United Nations relief convoy near the northern Syrian city of Aleppo was a war crime committed by Russian forces.
Exploding drone sent by Isis allies kills and wounds troops in Iraq – report (The Guardian)
A drone rigged with explosives and sent by Isis allies killed two Peshmerga fighters in Iraq and badly wounded two French soldiers, according to a report.
The craft was intercepted and exploded after coming down on 2 October, Le Monde said.
