Financial Markets and Economy
America’s About to Double the Shale Gas It Sends Overseas (Bloomberg)
The United States is set to double the volume of shale natural gas it’s sending abroad.
Cheniere Energy Inc., which became the nation’s first and only exporter of shale gas in February, was cleared by U.S. regulators on Wednesday to double shipments from its landmark terminal in Louisiana.
Fed Officials Less Worried About Inflation, Like Markets: Chart (Bloomberg)
The minutes of the September Federal Open Market Committee meeting, published Wednesday, revealed that only five of its 17 participants thought the risks to their inflation forecasts were tilted to the downside, down from seven when the previous round of forecasts were submitted in June.
Are Saudi Arabia and OPEC Trying To Fool The Oil Market, Again? (Forbes)
Saudi Arabia and OPEC appear to be on a new mission lately:to fool oil markets.
On the one side they are talking the market up by promising output cuts that would boost oil prices. An optimistic Saudi oil minister sees oil reaching $60 by the year’s end.
OPEC Faces Half-Million-Barrel Dispute With Members on Cuts (Bloomberg)
The scale of the internal differences OPEC must resolve before securing a deal to cut supply was revealed Wednesday as the group’s latest output estimates showed a half-million-barrel difference of opinion over how much two key members are pumping.
The Big Takeaways From the Fed Minutes (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg Intelligence's Carl Riccadonna and Bloomberg's Matt Boesler react to the minutes from the September meeting of the Fed's policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee.
Fed Minutes Show Officials Expect to Raise Rates ‘Relatively Soon’ (The Wall Street Journal)
WASHINGTON—Federal Reserve officials meeting in September laid the groundwork to raise short-term interest rates “relatively soon,” according to minutes, although they struggled to reconcile internal divisions over the timing of the next rate move.
Fed Minutes Suggest Yellen Made the Difference in ‘Close Call’ (Bloomberg)
Divided in their views over the labor market, most Federal Reserve officials last month ultimately listened to Chair Janet Yellen’s argument for holding off on a rate hike, for now.
Don't Be So Sure the Big Tech Breakthroughs Are Behind Us (Bloomberg)
Vox tech writer Timothy B. Lee used to be one of the most ardent techno-optimists. But he’s had a bit of a conversion, of late, and is now on the side of those who think tech progress is slowing. Maybe it was the economist Robert Gordon who convinced him, or maybe years of observing the tech world changed his mind. In any case, Lee now broadly suggests that the inventions of tomorrow won’t be as world-changing as those of yesteryear.
Fed policymakers closer to rate hike, but inflation doubts remain: minutes (Reuters)
Several voting Federal Reserve policymakers judged a rate hike would be warranted "relatively soon" if the U.S. economy continued to strengthen but doubts on inflation remained, according to the minutes of the Fed's September policy meeting released on Wednesday.
Iran Is Stuck With China to Finance Its Oil Dreams (Bloomberg)
Amid the snake-infested marshlands on Iran’s border with Iraq, the control room monitoring North Azadegan oil field is manned entirely by Chinese technicians. In central Tehran, hundreds of Chinese pour out at noon from the telecommunications company Huawei to its canteen.
China's Cooling Property Market May Risk Economic Growth (Bloomberg)
Actions by China’s policy makers to rein in property prices in the bubble-prone nation may prove so effective that the economy’s growth rate could be affected next year.
Singapore's Central Bank Is Being Put to the Test (Bloomberg)
Singapore’s central bank is being put to the test as it navigates a sluggish economy and falling consumer prices with a policy tool focused on the currency.
Future of Banking Looks Dark—Why That’s a Problem (The Wall Street Journal)
Seven years since the global financial crisis, banks don’t look like a source of trouble. They’re making money and have thickened their buffers against bad loans, while extensive new rules have excised much of the risk from their operations.
The Beer Goggles Stock Market (Danielle DiMartino Booth, Zero Hedge)
If you’re ever headed down Topperwein Road in Live Oak, Texas with a need to unwind and bend an elbow, pull on in at the town’s local watering hole, the Beer Goggles Bar, and order up a cold one. The bartenders are reported to always be on their ‘A’ game and the music next to none.
Companies
What Walmart Must Do to Fight Back at Amazon (Fortune)
The discount retailer, which recently reported its eighth straight quarter of comparable sales growth in United States, handily beating rivals like Target TGT -0.78% and Macy’s M 0.81% . And Walmart even managed to show a re-acceleration in its e-commerce growth, the pace of which had slipped for nine straight quarters until last quarter, when they jumped 12%.
Wells Fargo CEO Steps Down After Fake Account Scandal (Bloomberg)
John Stumpf, who led Wells Fargo through the financial crisis and built it into the world’s most valuable bank, stepped down as chief executive officer and chairman, bowing to public outcry over legions of accounts opened by his employees for customers who didn’t request them.
Tesla May Have Its Troubles, But it Dominates U.S. Luxury Sedan Sales (Bloomberg)
Tesla Motors Co. is facing some serious challenges keeping up with its ever-expanding ambitions, but one thing is certain: It’s selling a lot of luxury cars.
Tesla’s U.S. sales of its Model S sedan jumped 59 percent over the same quarter last year, increasing its already sizable lead among large luxury cars, according to third-quarter data released Wednesday by forecaster IHS Markit.
The T-Mobile CEO who calls his competition ‘dumb and dumber’ explains how he doubled customers in 4 years, and how a group of employees made him cry (Business Insider)
John Legere is a CEO who embodies his company, down to his T-Mobile-branded magenta Converse All-Stars.
He celebrated his four-year anniversary as CEO of T-Mobile US in September, the same month the wireless operator launched the T-Mobile One unlimited-data plan.
Amazon has doubled its stock price in just 17 months but Wall Street sees another 20% upside (Business Insider)
Amazon has been trading at an all-time high lately, shattering the $800 mark for the first time late last month. Now it's hovering around $840 per share.
JPMorgan Chase Partners With LifFund To Fill Small Business Lending Gap (Forbes)
JPMorgan Chase & Co. has launched a new web-based small business lending platform, called LiftUP, with LiftFund, a financial and business support organization and microlender.
Politics
In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots (The Intercept)
DONALD TRUMP, FOR reasons I’ve repeatedly pointed out, is an extremist, despicable, and dangerous candidate, and his almost-certain humiliating defeat is less than a month away. So I realize there is little appetite in certain circles for critiques of any of the tawdry and sometimes fraudulent journalistic claims and tactics being deployed to further that goal.
Do Donald Trump's Golf Courses Actually Make Any Money? (Mother Jones)
How much does Donald Trump earn in a year? During Sunday's debate he said he made $694 million last year, but that's a lie. That figure represents revenue: that is, how much his various enterprises took in. You have to subtract expenses, interest on loans, and so forth to get to net profit, which is what gets passed through to Trump as personal income. Any child running a lemonade stand knows this.
Obama warns of the danger of AI wiping out jobs (CNN Money)
In an interview with Wired Magazine, Obama spoke of redesigning the social compact and starting a conversation around fair wages. He cited teachers as being underpaid, and called for a reexamination of what we value, and what we'll pay for.
The Tax Deduction That Donald Trump Loves And Warren Buffett Probably Likes (Forbes)
The current Presidential campaign is turning into tax blogger heaven as fairly arcane tax matters seem to be almost as salacious as locker room talk.
Hillary's Clinton's Leaked Speech Excerpts Show She's Embraced Wall Street's Dark Side (Newsweek)
In August 2004, then–New York Senator Hillary Clinton rang the opening bell at the New York Mercantile Exchange, the world’s reigning energy market. When she arrived at the trading floor, the traders unabashedly booed her. “It wasn’t because they hate Democrats,” a young man who worked in the trading pits, Ben Kaufman, told me at the time. “A lot of the traders are Democrats. They just hated her.
Trump Supporters Tweet #RepealThe19th After Poll Shows He’d Win If Only Men Voted (The Huffington Post)
On Tuesday evening, FiveThirtyEight published two polls showing what the outcome of the presidential election would look like if only women voted and what it would look like if only men voted. As you may have guessed, the outcome of the election would be very different if only one gender could vote.
Clinton-backing super PAC signals confidence in Colorado (Politico)
PUEBLO, Colo. — Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC supporting Hillary Clinton, has axed its final two weeks of television ad reservations leading up to Election Day in Colorado, reflecting Democratic confidence that the party's nominee will win the traditional battleground, a Democrat familiar with the move confirmed to POLITICO.
Technology
The combination of human and artificial intelligence will define humanity’s future (Tech Crunch)
Through the past few decades of summer blockbuster movies and Silicon Valley products, artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly familiar and sexy, and imbued with a perversely dystopian allure.
Valve's next VR hardware could be a wrist-mounted controller (Engadget)
If last week's Oculus Connect left you hungry for more news about virtual reality, maybe news of a new hardware out of Valve's Steam Dev Days will do the trick. Perhaps the biggest tidbit is that the PC gaming juggernaut is working on a new controller for the Vive headset.
Artificial Intelligence Systems Manage More Complex Tasks (The Wall Street Journal)
Artificial-intelligence systems can do increasingly complex tasks but they can’t yet figure much out on their own without help from humans.
Samsung Note 7s are getting difficult to return (CNN Money)
There are 2.5 million Samsung Note 7 phones out there and retrieving the phones — which have been known to burst into flames — is getting complicated.
Power And Tech: Infiniti's Updated QX60 Pleases Drivers And Passengers Alike (Digital Trends)
Infiniti’s QX60 crossover is benefiting from a series of updates for the 2017 model year. The Nissan-owned brand is doing its best to keep the seven-seater QX60 competitive and relevant as it designs a brand new second-generation model.
Should you fear your phone battery? (CNet)
You've no doubt heard the news: Samsung has permanently stopped producing its Galaxy Note 7, after as many as five of the supposedly "safe" replacement phones were said to explode. Samsung and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission are advising that every single Note 7 owner power their phones down. (Owners can trade them in for different phones.)
Health and Biotech
DEA opts against ban on herbal supplement kratom (Stat News)
WASHINGTON — The Drug Enforcement Administration has reversed a plan to temporarily ban a plant that some users suggest could be an alternative to powerful and addictive opioid painkillers.
In a notice set to be published Thursday in the Federal Register, the agency said it was withdrawing its plan to add two psychoactive components of the plant, known as kratom, to the list of the most dangerous drugs.
Wilderness Medicine…in New York City? (Scientific American)
After the closing ceremonies of this summer's annual meeting of the Wilderness Medical Society, nearly 400 participants from around the world returned home from Telluride, Colorado to places like Boulder and Anchorage, Chamonix and Kathmandu. I returned to New York City, where I practice emergency medicine and wilderness medicine right in Manhattan.
Life on the Home Planet
Elon Musk’s Wild Ride (Bloomberg)
Elon Musk recently took the stage in Guadalajara, Mexico, for the performance he’s waited a lifetime to give. Sporting a new, oddly manicured mustache, Musk did his best shy Tony Stark impersonation, informing a crowd of space enthusiasts that, yes, he does plan to colonize Mars.
Bolt cutters expose vulnerability of North America's oil pipeline grid (Reuters)
All it took was a pair of bolt cutters and the elbow grease of a few climate activists to carry out an audacious act of sabotage on North America's massive oil and gas pipeline system.
ISIS Drone Kills Two Kurdish Fighters And Wounds Two French Soldiers (Newsweek)
A booby-trapped drone launched by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) killed two Kurdish peshmerga fighters and wounded two French soldiers earlier this month north of the IS-controlled city of Mosul, Kurdish and French officials said on Wednesday.
DHS To Temporarily Halt Deportation Flights To Haiti (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department is temporarily halting deportation flights to Haiti as the nation recovers from Hurricane Matthew.
Missile again fired at U.S. Navy from Houthi territory in Yemen (Reuters)
A U.S. Navy destroyer was targeted on Wednesday in a failed missile attack from territory in Yemen controlled by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, the second such incident in four days, the U.S. military said.
U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions Hit New 25-Year Low (The Wall Street Journal)
U.S. carbon dioxide emissions fell to a new 25-year low during the first six months of 2016, helped in large part by power plants switching from coal to natural gas and renewable sources of electricity, according to a Wednesday report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
