Financial Markets and Economy
U.K. Stocks Set for Worst 3-Day Drop in a Month as Miners Slide (Bloomberg)
British shares got further away from a record after data on Chinese exports revived concerns over the global economy.
BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Group lost more than 4.3 percent after China’s exports unexpectedly dropped, with imports also falling.
Nets Shares Drop as Nordea Teams Up With Danske on Payment App (Bloomberg)
Nordea Bank AB has dropped the electronic payment system it was developing with Danish banks and will instead team up with its main rival in Scandinavia, Danske Bank A/S, to use its more popular MobilePay product.
Wall St. set to open lower ahead of Fed minutes (Reuters)
Wall Street looked set to open lower on Wednesday as investors eyed the finer details of the Federal Reserve's September policy meeting.
While the Fed stood pat on interest rates during the meeting, three members voted for a hike. The minutes will reveal policymakers' views on the progress of the U.S. economy and its ability to absorb an increase this year.
SEC Said to Demand That Cooperman Agree to Hedge Fund Suspension (Bloomberg)
Wall Street’s top cop demanded that a resolution of its insider-trading case against Leon Cooperman include the billionaire investor accepting a temporary suspension from the hedge fund industry, according to people familiar with the matter.
European stocks whacked, with miners hurt after China data miss targets (Market Watch)
European stocks veered sharply lower Thursday, the selloff sparked after Chinese economic data highlighted worries about slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
Dollar drops against yen as China trade data spooks investors (Market Watch)
The yen regained strength against the dollar, as disappointing Chinese trade data helped bring an uptick in the dollar against the Japanese currency to an abrupt end.
But the buck resumed its rally versus the Brexit-hit pound.
Why It's Time To Buy Currency Hedged German And Japanese Stocks (Forbes)
The last few days we’ve talked about the building strength in the oil and natural gas recovery.
The other quiet but very meaningful movers in global markets have been yields and the dollar.
U.S. Stock-Index Futures Drop in Global Selloff After China Data (Bloomberg)
U.S. index futures fell after an unexpected drop in Chinese exports revived concerns about the global economy as the Federal Reserve considers raising borrowing costs.
Deutsche Bank Said to Implement Hiring Freeze as CEO Cuts Costs (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG is implementing a companywide hiring freeze as Chief Executive Officer John Cryan seeks to lower costs and shore up investor confidence, according to people with knowledge with of the matter.
The Dash For Cash: Leaked Files Reveal RBS Systematically Crushed British Businesses For Profit (BuzzFeed News)
The RBS Files expose the bank’s secret scheme to boost revenues during the financial crisis by draining businesses of cash and stripping their assets, blowing apart its previous statements to the public and parliament.
Meet The People Who Say Their Firms Were Destroyed By RBS (BuzzFeed News)
Thousands of leaked documents revealed by BuzzFeed News and BBC Newsnight show how RBS’s troubled business division, Global Restructuring Group (GRG), systematically crushed thousands of businesses after the financial crash by draining them of cash and stripping their assets.
World's billionaires lose £215m each as global economy struggles (The Guardian)
The world’s billionaires saw their wealth shrink by an average of £215m each last year, as economic headwinds made themselves felt.
Deutsche Bank Implements Hiring Freeze, Stock Slides (Zero Hedge)
While much attention in recent weeks has fallen on Deutsche Bank's balance sheet, with concerns over both the bank's capitalization as well as its liquidity forcing its stock price to all time lows as recently as two weeks ago, today we got a timely reminder that the bank also has substantial income statement problems when Bloomberg reported that the biggest German lender is implementing a companywide hiring freeze as CEO John Cryan "seeks to lower costs and shore up investor confidence."
Companies
CIT debt swap struggles, bankruptcy looms (Reuters)
CIT Group Inc (CIT.N) is seeing little interest from bondholders in a debt exchange offer aimed at repairing its fragile balance sheet, making bankruptcy increasingly likely, sources familiar with the matter said.
Amazon to Add 120,000 Workers for Holidays (The Wall Street Journal)
Amazon.com Inc. plans to hire 20% more seasonal workers for its U.S. warehouses this holiday season as some competitors have kept hiring steady.
Hanjin Shipping Is Selling Off These Businesses in Its Collapse (Reuters)
Assets include the entire operations of the shipping giant’s U.S. to Asia routes.
South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping is selling major businesses, including its Asia to U.S. route network, and will receive letters of intent by Oct. 28, the company said on Thursday.
Unilever defends U.K. price hikes prompted by sliding pound (The Wall Street Journal)
Unilever PLC on Thursday defended its stance in a pricing dispute with Tesco PLC as it reported a slowdown in third-quarter revenue growth amid fierce competition and currency devaluation.
TomTom Shares Plunge on 2016 Sales Warning (Reuters)
TomTom’s sales of personal navigation devices (PNDs) were weaker than expected in the third quarter, the company said on Thursday as it lowered its full-year sales target, sending its shares tumbling in early trading.
Politics
WikiLeaks Emails: Hillary Clinton Team Courted Elizabeth Warren as Early as Spring of 2014 — With Inside Help (Wall Street On Parade)
There have been many questions and much disappointment among progressives that Senator Elizabeth Warren withheld her endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders for President when it could have potentially led to his victory in the primaries.
Donald Trump Turns Up the Heat on Hillary Clinton: 'She Has to Go to Jail' (Associated Press)
His campaign struggling a month from Election Day, Donald Trump sharpened his rhetoric Wednesday from calling for Hillary Clinton’s defeat to declaring “she has to go to jail” for using a homebrew email server and other charges of corruption while she was secretary of state.
Voters Are Unhappy With the Country’s Direction and Disappointed About the Election (TIME)
Most voters are unhappy with the current state of the country and disappointed with their choices this November, but on key issues they narrowly favor Hillary Clinton, according to a TIME/SurveyMonkey poll.
Memo Shows What Major Donors Like Goldman Sachs Want From Democratic Party (The Intercept)
WALL STREET DONORS have used their financial relationship with the Democratic Party to complain bitterly about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s, D-Mass., influence over the direction of the party, a new fundraising document reveals.
Rodrigo Duterte may hand China the strategic piece it needs to take control of the South China Sea (Quartz)
Next week Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, who took power in late June, will make his first state visit to China. Of course he’s hoping for a bonanza of loans and trade deals. What he’s not expecting or demanding: the return of Scarborough Shoal, which China seized from the Philippines in 2012, sparking demonstrations by Filipinos around the world.
Hillary Confirms Saudi Arabia, Qatar Fund ISIS In Leaked Email (Zero Hedge)
Over three years after we first reported that one of the two chief sources of funding and support for the "Islamic State" is the small but wealthy nation of Qatar, and long after we also announced that Saudi Arabia had revealed that it was behind ISIS, in a report that was widely disputed, overnight we finally got definitive evidence that it was indeed Qatar and Saudi Arabia that are the main "logistical and financial" supporters of the Islamic State terrorist organization.
Behind Closed Doors, Hillary Clinton Sympathized With Goldman Sachs Over Financial Reform (The Intercept)
EXCERPTS OF HILLARY CLINTON’S previously secret speeches to big banks and trade groups in 2013 and 2014 show her exalting the work of her hosts, hardly a surprise when these groups paid her up to $225,000 an hour to chat them up.
Inside Clinton’s fragile relationship with fellow Democrats (Politico)
It was the Wednesday after Labor Day when Robby Mook and John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager and chairman, sat down at the headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in Washington for some blunt talk.
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.
Technology
Samsung offers Galaxy Note7 users $100 rebate if they exchange for another Samsung smartphone (Venture Beat)
Samsung announced today that it is expanding its Galaxy Note7 recall and will give users an up to $100 rebate.
The evolving recall is the latest move from the company as it responds to the crisis surrounding its high-profile gadget. Samsung had begun an official recall process after several of the original units exploded.
Flipboard looks to boost native ad sales with swipe-friendly Storyboards (Tech Crunch)
Flipboard, the mobile and web app that lets you aggregate, discover and read content from around the web in a magazine-style format, is unveiling its latest “native” product to court more advertising (and hence, revenue) on its platform. Today the startup is launching Storyboard, an ad unit that lets brands bring in video, photo and other multimedia assets into bigger ad experiences, presented as a montage, browsed using the now-ubiquitous left-and-right swipe gesture, and targeted to readers based on their browsing of other Flipboard content.
Terahertz radiation could speed up computer memory by 1000 times (Engadget)
One area limiting speed in personal computing speed is memory — specifically, how quickly individual memory cells can be switched, which is currently done using an external magnetic field. European and Russian scientists have proposed a new method using much more rapid terahertz radiation, aka "T-rays," the same things used in airport body scanners.
Health and Biotech
Why the Go-To Stroke Drug Can Fail (Scientific American)
Twenty years ago stroke doctors celebrated the arrival of a powerful new weapon: the clot-clearing drug tPA. It was hailed as a lifesaver and has proved to be one for hundreds of thousands of patients since. TPA was the first and is still the only medicine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating strokes caused by clots that block blood flow to the brain.
One of the physicists behind the Higgs boson has made an algorithm to replace the pill (Science Alert)
One of the physicists who helped find the Higgs boson, Elina Berglund, has spent the past three years working on something completely different – a fertility app that tells women when they're fertile or not.
Life on the Home Planet
U.S. and U.K. Continue to Actively Participate in Saudi War Crimes, Targeting of Yemeni Civilians (The Intercept)
FROM THE START of the hideous Saudi bombing campaign against Yemen 18 months ago, two countries have played active, vital roles in enabling the carnage: the U.S. and U.K. The atrocities committed by the Saudis would have been impossible without their steadfast, aggressive support.
Reported Rapes Double In England And Wales—But Conviction Rate Falls (Newsweek)
The number of rapes reported in England and Wales has more than doubled in less than four years, official figures show.
Forces across 42 local area districts logged 35,798 alleged rape offenses in the year to the end of March 2016—a 124 percent increase, compared to the 16,012 recorded in the 12 months ending in December 2012.
Renewed bombing kills over 150 in rebel-held Aleppo this week: rescue workers (Reuters)
Renewed bombing of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has killed more than 150 people this week, rescue workers said on Thursday, as the Syrian government steps up its Russian-backed offensive to take the whole city.
’Extremely dangerous’ Hurricane Nicole to pummel Bermuda (Associated Press)
Doors and windows began to rattle across Bermuda early Thursday as Hurricane Nicole approached the British territory as an extremely dangerous Category 3 hurricane.
Israel Charges Jerusalem Man Who Plotted Hamas Suicide Bus Bomb (Newsweek)
Israeli authorities charged a Jerusalem man on Tuesday with plotting to commit a suicide attack on a bus in the city in the name of Palestinian militant group Hamas.
