News You Can Use From Phil’s Stock World

Financial Markets and Economy

Oil is tumbling after Russia’s largest oil company said the country can 'significantly' pump up production (Business Insider)

Prices for West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark, are down by 2.3% at $50.65 per barrel, while prices for Brent crude, the international benchmark, are down by 2.5% at $51.38 per barrel as of 10:56 a.m. ET.

Dudley Sees Fed Rate Rise by Year-End If Data on Track (Bloomberg)

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley repeated that he expects an interest-rate increase by the end of 2016, as the central bank draws closer to reaching its twin objectives of maximum employment and 2 percent inflation.

Wall Street’s biggest investment banks say they just can’t help making so much money (Quartz)

Investment banking is back! After a rocky few years, to say the least, major Wall Street banks are once again making huge amounts of money from bond trading, a traditional cash cow.

Pound Sterling Performing Worse Than Malawian kwacha (Value Walk)

Pound Sterling – The United Kingdom is one of the world’s oldest democracies has arguably the most respected legal system in the world and is generally considered by investors to be one of the safest places to invest

UBS set out to answer a key question about the US consumer — and its findings are worrying (Business Insider)

Why are US consumers defaulting?

That's the question in a big note out from Matthew Mish and Stephen Caprio at UBS, who used evidence from the bank's proprietary US Housing Intentions Survey to try to get at an answer.

Investors Charging Into American Express Should Think Again (The Wall Street Journal)

The credit-card company on Wednesday crushed analyst estimates for third-quarter earnings and raised guidance for the full year. The positive surprise was mainly due to lower expenses and fewer losses than feared on outstanding loans. In a year when AmEx shares were down 12%, this was enough to trigger a sharp relief rally.

Inflation Outlook Rises Everywhere But Japan (Bloomberg)

Japanese five-year inflation swaps remain mired below 0.3 percent, resisting pressure from rising oil and commodity prices. Equivalent swaps in the U.S have surged to near 2 percent, while those in Germany are approaching 1.2 percent.

Plummeting Newspaper Ad Revenue Sparks New Wave of Changes (The Wall Street Journal)

Newspapers are suffering an accelerating drop in print advertising, a market that already was under stress, forcing some publishers to consider significant cost cuts and dramatic changes to their print and digital products.

Here's every state's biggest international trading partner (Business Insider)

As we move into the final stages of the US presidential election, in which both Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have questioned the merits of free-trade agreements, it's worth taking a look at whom the US trades with.

Wallonia is adamantly blocking the EU’s trade deal with Canada (The Economist)

“HEY Canada, fuck you.” Within hours this tweet (the result of a hack) from the Belgian foreign minister’s account was replaced with a friendlier message: “keep calm and love Canada”. Yet his country’s actions are closer to the original. On October 14th the regional parliament of Wallonia voted to block the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), a trade deal between the European Union and Canada.

Cannabis Capitalist: Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Bets Big On Pot Growers (Forbes)

Strapped into the pilot’s seat of his private jet, Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn thrusts the throttle forward and hurtles down the runway, a typical start to the day for the former F-16 fighter pilot, who commutes 500 miles from his home on Long Island, N.Y. to his office outside Columbus, Ohio.

Here's everything on Neiman Marcus' must-have gift list for billionaires (Business Insider)

One highlight is its famous "Fantasy Gifts" section, which is packed with one-of-a-kind luxury items, travel packages, and experiences that will set you back thousands — and in one case, millions — of dollars.

German Bund Yields Tumble Back Below Zero For First Time In 2 Weeks (Zero Hedge)

It appears the coordinated efforts of the world's central bankers to steepen curves and convince investors "markets see growth and everything is awesome"… is failing…

10Y Bunds -3bps (2Y Bunds unch) back at -0.001% yield.

A Few Comments on September Existing Home Sales (Calculated Risk)

I expected some increase in inventory last year, but that didn't happened. Inventory is still very low and falling year-over-year (down 6.8% year-over-year in September). More inventory would probably mean smaller price increases and slightly higher sales, and less inventory means lower sales and somewhat larger price increases.

Draghi: "So Far We Have Not Seen An Evidence Of Bubbles" (Zero Hedge)

One month ago, during the Fed's September press release, she was asked if she is "worried about bubbles in the economy because of our prolonged low interest rates?"

Companies

Unilever's 'Marmitegate' shows strain on consumer industry (Reuters)

Unilever's push to raise the prices of its brands in Britain in response to a fall in the pound exposed the vulnerabilities of a company – and wider consumer brands industry – that can no longer count on selling more goods to deliver revenue growth.

‘Lions Hunting Zebras’: Ex-Wells Fargo Bankers Describe Abuses (NY Times)

Mexican immigrants who speak little English. Older adults with memory problems. College students opening their first bank accounts. Small-business owners with several lines of credit.

Starbucks Opening up to 1,000 Reserve Cafes in Bid to Go Upscale (Bloomberg)

Starbucks Corp. plans to open as many as 1,000 locations of a new upscale chain that will tout its premium Reserve coffees, escalating an effort to reach more sophisticated customers.

Whole Foods Declines on Hepatitis Investigation in Detroit (Bloomberg)

Whole Foods Market Inc. shares declined as much as 2.5 percent after the Detroit Health Department said it’s investigating two cases of hepatitis A that may be connected to one of the chain’s stores.

Technology

Apple, Google, and Twitter are making the internet harder and harder to read (Backchannel)

It’s been getting harder for me to read things on my phone and my laptop.

I’ve caught myself squinting and holding the screen closer to my face. I’ve worried that my eyesight is starting to go.

Why Intel Corp.'s PC Profits Surged (The Motley Fool)

After market close on Oct. 18, microprocessor giant Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) reported its financial results for the third quarter of the year. One part of this generally strong report that stood out was the fact that the company's operating profit in its client computing group, or CCG for short, jumped substantially year over year.

Snapchat wants to stop sharing ad revenue with its media partners (Recode)

Snapchat says it’s done sharing with media companies.

The red-hot messaging app wants to make a major change in the way it works with companies that supply it with content for its “Discover” section.

Soon We’ll All Love Robots the Way Japan Loves Robots (Singularity Hub)

Here is my hypothesis: Japan has a long ongoing love affair with humanoid robots. The love seems so strong that they are willing to accept faults and imperfections that to others make the robots seem eerie, if not downright creepy.

Samsung exploding phone issue extends past Note 7, lawsuit says (The Guardian)

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is not the company’s only smartphone prone to dangerous explosions, according to a new lawsuit that says a Galaxy S6 Active shot out five-inch flames and left a user with “melted flesh”.

This Robot-Made Pizza Is Baked in the Van on the Way to Your Door (Fortune)

These aren’t terms that are generally associated with pizza delivery. Unless you live in Mountain View, Calif., that is.The city, where Alphabet (Google’s parent company) is famously headquartered, is also the home of a high-tech pizza company that wants to use artificial intelligence and robotics to disrupt the nearly $10 billion pizza delivery industry.

5 Incredible Ways Scientists Are Merging Our Brains With Machines (Singularity Hub)

I've been reading Ramez Naam's fantastic book "Nexus," which is set in a near-future where a powerful nano-drug allows human minds to connect together. In the story, a group of enterprising neuroscientists and engineers discover they can use the drug in a new way — to run a computer operating system inside their brains.

Politics

Donald Trump: 'I will totally accept' election results 'if I win' (CNN Politics)

Delaware, Ohio (CNN) – Donald Trump said Thursday he will accept the results of next month's election if he wins, a caveat that threatens to cast unprecedented doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral process.

Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims ignore the biggest fraud in the campaign — himself (Alternet, Salon)

Even if he doesn’t win, Donald Trump has still done untold damage to our country. His sexist rhetoric, xenophobic appeals to white nationalists and all-out embrace of the far-right fringe have mainstreamed a kind of hateful politics that will take a long time to get rid of. But one of the most damaging parts of the Trump campaign, at least in the long run, could end up being what he’s doing right now.

Donald Trump's Debate Interruptions (Jimmy Kimmel Live)

The final Presidential debate was more focused on the issues than the others were. There wasn't as much back and forth, which is hard for Donald Trump, but to his credit he did manage to keep his interruptions short.

Clinton Foundation: What You Need to Know Now (Medium)

Last month, at the closing of the final Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting, President Bill Clinton said, “There will never be a time, if you live to be 300 years old, that there will be no problems on earth. The only thing you get to do is to get up every morning and decide what you’re going to do about it.”

Health and Biotech

UK government finally concedes cannabis has a medicinal effect (Independent)

The government’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has found that Cannabidiol (CBD) has a “restoring, correcting or modifying” effect on “physiological functions” when administered to humans, in a potential milestone in the campaign to legalise cannabis and bring about evidence-based laws regarding drugs.

Bernie Sanders wants to know why this cancer drug costs nearly $200,000 a year (The Washington Post)

Today, Sanders and Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) sent a joint letter to the company's chief executive requesting more information about the rapid price hike of Iclusig, a drug used to treat rare chronic myeloid leukemia. What rankles the politicians is that those hikes went into turbo mode after it was shown that the drug had safety problems and should be used only on a much smaller subset of patients.

Life on the Home Planet

It's about to get much cheaper to travel to Europe (Smarter Travel)

The market for Europe travel has softened, undermined by Brexit and terrorism concerns, among other factors. And what market there is is served by a growing contingent of cut-rate carriers like WOW and Norwegian Air.

Miami meteorologist says others need to ‘have the courage’ to report on climate impacts (Nexus Media)

Morales, the chief meteorologist at Miami’s NBC 6, is the longest-tenured broadcast meteorologist in South Florida. He recently took to Twitter to express his disappointment with the media and government for failing to connect the king tides, the highest tides of the year, to sea level rise, which poses a long-term threat to the region.

Sweet-Toothed Egypt Endures a Sugar Crisis: ‘People Are Going to Snap’ (NY Times)

CAIRO — Egyptians pile sugar into mugs of tea by the spoonful — or three or five. A staple long subsidized by the government for most of the population, sugar is the chief ingredient of the national pudding, Om Ali. It can feel like the only ingredient. It is also a prime reason that nearly a fifth of Egyptians have diabetes.