Financial Markets and Economy
Fed Sets Up Move in December While Leaving Rates on Hold (Bloomberg)
Federal Reserve policy makers left interest rates unchanged while saying the argument for higher borrowing costs strengthened further amid accelerating inflation, reinforcing expectations for a hike next month.
Stocks Fall, Bonds Rise After Fed as Election Looms; Oil Tumbles (Bloomberg)
Stocks fell, while Treasuries rallied after the Federal Reserve’s decision to stay put on policy did little to reduce market anxiety six days before the U.S. presidential election. Oil tumbled.
Fed Doesn’t Aim to Push Inflation Beyond 2% (The Wall Street Journal)
Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen set markets abuzz last month when she said running a “high-pressure economy” might help undo some of the economic damage wrought by the Great Recession.
Banks No Longer Make the Bulk of U.S. Mortgages (The Wall Street Journal)
They accounted for less than half of the mortgage dollars extended to borrowers during the third quarter—the first quarter that banks, credit unions and other depository institutions have fallen below that threshold in more than 30 years, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. Taking their place are nonbank lenders more willing to make riskier loans banks now shun.
Kuroda dismisses idea of BOJ buying municipal bonds (Reuters)
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on Wednesday signalled that the central bank's massive asset purchases will continue to focus on government bonds, saying it was difficult to buy municipal bonds given the fairly small market for them.
Buy Gold No Matter Who Wins the Election, HSBC Says (Bloomberg)
There's one certain winner of next week's presidential election, according to HSBC Holdings Plc: investors in gold.
A Pair of Record Withdrawals Just Hit Corporate Bond ETFs (The Wall Street Journal)
Record withdrawals last week from the market’s best-known corporate bond exchange-traded funds highlight fresh nervousness about soaring valuations for high-yielding assets at a sensitive time for the bond markets.
How a Smooth Talker Convinced Bankers to Invest $32 Million, Then Vanished (Bloomberg)
Inside Hong Kong’s posh American Club, few worked a room quite like Avery Stone.
Over steak dinners and cigars, Stone charmed a Who’s Who of financiers into investing millions in his fledgling business. Then, earlier this year, everything unraveled–and he vanished.
Hedge Fund Clients Dump Humans for Computers and Still Lose (Bloomberg)
Losses at Leda Braga’s computer-driven hedge fund this year are running at about twice the level suffered by a macro fund run by billionaire Alan Howard. Yet, while Braga has raised money, investors have pulled billions of dollars from Howard’s fund.
U.S. Stocks Decline for Seventh Day Amid Fed as Election Looms (Bloomberg)
U.S. stocks fell, with the S&P 500 Index mired in its longest slump in five years, after investors shrugged at the Federal Reserve’s decision to stand pat on interest rates and remained on edge before the U.S. presidential election.
Bonds are Down, But not Out Yet (Dragonfly Capital)
The death of US Treasury bonds has been anticipated for at least 2 years. Ever since the Federal Reverse stated that they would stop pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to the floor, someone has come out to talk about how the 20 year bull market in Bonds has come to an end. And every time they have been wrong.
How a Pillar of German Banking Lost Its Way (Spiegel Online)
Greed, provincialism, cowardice, unfocused aggression, mania, egoism, immaturity, mendacity, incompetence, weakness, pride, blundering, decadence, arrogance, a need for admiration, naiveté: If you are looking for words that explain the fall of Deutsche Bank, you can choose freely and justifiably from among the above list.
Investing Generalist (Value Walk)
“We consider our lack of formal industry specialisation a strength. Without a dedicated retail specialist, for example, we’re less obliged to invest in retail businesses if opportunities seem scarce.” Vinson Walden
Changing the Culture of Wall Street Requires Ending Continuity Government in Washington (Wall Street On Parade)
It’s more than a coincidence that at a time when the two leading candidates for the highest office in the United States are considered untrustworthy by tens of millions of their fellow citizens, the industry that has perpetually attempted to stack the political deck in Washington has also lost the trust of a majority of Americans.
Vancouver Home Sales Fall 39% as New Rules Chill Market (Bloomberg)
Vancouver home sales plunged 39 percent in October from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 2010, as new regulations chill Canada’s most expensive property market.
Companies
Whole Foods’ Mackey Takes Sole Ownership of Fixing His Creation (Bloomberg)
Whole Foods Market Inc. co-founder John Mackey, who opened his first store in 1980 with a staff of just 19 people and built the chain into an organic powerhouse, is now taking full responsibility for restoring the company to glory.
Maersk’s Profit Tumbles on Weak Freight Rates, Low Oil Prices (The Wall Street Journal)
A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S’s third-quarter profit plunged 43% as weak freight rates and low oil prices continued to batter the Danish shipping-and-oil company’s results.
Technology
Facebook's profits soar as it continues to swallow online advertising market (The Guardian)
Facebook almost tripled its profits in the third quarter of 2016 as the social media giant took an ever larger slice of the online advertising market.
AT&T-Time Warner Deal Stokes Debate Over ‘Zero Rating’ (The Wall Street Journal)
AT&T Inc.’s practice of exempting its streaming video services from data-usage caps is rankling competitors and shaping up as a major issue for regulators set to weigh the telecom giant’s proposed $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc.
Alibaba beats revenue expectations with strong e-commerce, media growth (Reuters)
Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd reported a 55 percent rise in second-quarter revenue on Wednesday, beating analyst estimates on the back of core e-commerce sales and strong media and entertainment growth.
Microsoft Teams feels like déjà vu all over again (Tech Crunch)
Microsoft introduced Microsoft Teams today to much fanfare and hoopla — as only Microsoft can seem to do these days. But when you take a close look at today’s announcement, what have you really got here — a 10-year-old idea on how to communicate and collaborate in the enterprise with a distinctly Microsoft twist.
Justice files antitrust suit against DirecTV over Dodgers broadcasts (CNN Money)
The Dodgers games are carried on Spectrum SportsNet LA, a regional sports network owned jointly by the team and cable operator Time Warner Cable. The network, originally called the Dodgers Channel, bought the rights to show most of the team's games for $8 billion over 25 years, starting in 2014.
Nintendo is going to win the holidays with NES Classic Edition (Mashable Asia)
Hundreds of hours of nostalgia packed into a tiny box that is smaller and lighter than your mobile phone.
LastPass is now free across all your devices (Engadget)
Password manager and two-factor authenticator app LastPass has always had a quirky pricing scheme. While it was free on mobile, syncing all your passwords and logins across devices — one of the key features of a password manager — required a subscription to use. Starting today, however, multiple-device access to LastPass is completely free.
The Party Winds Down for London’s Tech Bros (Bloomberg)
Not long ago, when London was still a virtual pipsqueak in global tech, a group of startup founders, feeling starved of any type of community, decided they needed to bond through wild parties in exotic locations. The goal: share lessons and frustrations, and revel in the heady rush of entrepreneurship.
Politics
Trump's Health Plan: Pay Your Own Medical Bills Using Money You Saved (The Atlantic)
Five disgruntled Republican physicians and one nurse warmed up the conference room at a Hilton DoubleTree hotel in Pennsylvania yesterday. All were members of the U.S. Congress, gathered for a rally that Donald Trump would call “a meeting talking about health care.”
Tighter Presidential Race Brings a Shift in Tactics (The Wall Street Journal)
DADE CITY, Fla.—With polls showing a tightening in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are moving advertising dollars and fine-tuning their closing arguments during the final week of one of the most unpredictable elections in modern history.
After another release of documents, FBI finds itself caught in a partisan fray (The Washington Post)
The surprise tweet from a little-used FBI account came about 1 p.m. Tuesday, announcing that the agency had published on its website 129 pages of internal documents related to a years-old investigation into former president Bill Clinton’s pardon of a fugitive Democratic donor.
Trump Tells Early Voters to Change Their Ballots if They Have 'Buyer's Remorse' (ABC News)
Donald Trump continued his push to secure support from Hillary Clinton supporters on Tuesday — telling early voters that they may change their votes if they have "buyer's remorse."
More Pot, Fewer Guns, Higher Pay: The Other Big Issues on the Ballot This Year (Bloomberg)
There's no shortage of attention on what Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton would do as president. But voters in many states are taking matters into their own hands to settle contentious debates over marijuana, the minimum wage, and gun control, among other issues.
Gun control groups spend millions on state ballot initiatives (Reuters)
Gun safety advocates are pouring tens of millions of dollars into Maine and Nevada to support ballot initiatives that would mandate background checks for gun sales in an effort to clinch state-level victories after years of failed drives in Congress.
Donald Trump Used Legally Dubious Method to Avoid Paying Taxes (NY Times)
Donald J. Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire — loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate. “Why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” Mr. Trump asked during a campaign rally last month.
Clinton vs. Trump: Who's better for stocks and jobs? (CNN Money)
With election day less than a week away, here is how Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump stack up on key money matters: jobs, taxes, stocks and the economy.
Over 380,000 kids just voted to elect Hillary Clinton in a national student election (Business Insider)
More than 380,000 students in grades 2 through 12 have voted to elect Hillary Clinton as the next president of the United States.
Health and Biotech
New Alzheimer’s Drug Clears Milestone in Human Clinical Trial (Scientific American)
On Monday Pres. Barack Obama proclaimed November “National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month.” The administration’s ambitious goal is to prevent and treat Alzheimer's by 2025. Although there are currently no approved therapies that slow or stop progression of the disease, several approaches are showing promise.
Drug that stops brain plaques may show if they cause Alzheimer’s (New Scientist)
IT’S more than a century since Alois Alzheimer first noticed and reported sticky plaques in the post-mortem brain of a patient with what we now know to be Alzheimer’s disease, yet the jury is still out on whether the plaques actually cause the disease.
Give Your Brain An Upgrade (Forbes)
Did you know that scientists are learning how to manufacture and implant memories? Artificial intelligence is writing music? We are a moment away from arriving at the intersection of human and machine brain. Soon, we’ll be able to boost our intelligence, peak our creativity, and do anything short of set the curtains on fire with our eyes.
Life on the Home Planet
MH370 May Have Fallen at 25,000 Feet Per Minute, Searchers Say (Bloomberg)
Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, missing for more than two years, may have plummeted at 25,000 feet a minute in its final moments and wasn’t configured to land when it hit the water, according to the latest analysis by Australian investigators.
Philippines' Duterte rails at U.S. 'monkeys' for halting gun sale (Reuters)
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte chided the United States on Wednesday for halting the planned sale of 26,000 rifles to his country, calling those behind the decision "fools" and "monkeys" and indicating he might turn to Russia and China instead.
We’re about to see a record-breaking supermoon – the biggest in nearly 70 years (Science Alert)
If you only see one astronomical event this year, make it the November supermoon, when the Moon will be the closest to Earth it’s been since January 1948.
NATO builds up offensive capability on borders of Russia & Belarus, Moscow to respond – MoD (RT)
The US and NATO are building up their offensive capabilities on the Western borders of Russia and its ally Belarus, prompting Moscow to take reciprocal measures, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told the two countries’ top military brass.
