Financial Markets and Economy
Goldman Favors China Stocks With Assets Abroad as Yuan Drops (Bloomberg)
Chinese companies with overseas businesses and foreign-currency assets will benefit as the yuan’s depreciation accelerates after Donald Trump’s victory, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
FED'S FISCHER: I'm not worried about market liquidity (Reuters)
U.S. banking rules may be limiting liquidity for some securities but their impact is not unduly hurting markets, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Stanley Fischer said on Tuesday.
This simple chart can show you how close you are to early retirement (Business Insider)
To some, early retirement is a holy grail. More and more people are going to great lengths to achieve financial freedom in their 30s, sharing their tips, spreadsheets, and saving strategies along the way.
$3.7 BILLION HEDGE FUND: 'Perhaps we need to put our phones down and get back to work' (Business Insider)
Cellphone addiction, particularly among millennials, may be hurting the labor force and the economy at large.
Tax havens should be 'quarantined' from global economy – Stiglitz, Pieth report (Reuters)
Countries that fail to clamp down on tax havens should be cut off from the global financial system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said on Tuesday, four months after quitting the panel set up to probe the Panama Papers scandal.
The Trump Bump: Why Biotech Stocks Are Up After the Election (Fool.com)
Since the election, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF (NASDAQ: IBB) has posted a 10% gain. That's well ahead of the 1.5% rise notched by the broad market benchmark S&P 500 over the same period.
Energy Companies Lead Indexes Higher As Oil Price Soars (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks climbed Tuesday as the price of oil made its biggest jump in seven months and energy companies rose with it. Technology stocks like Microsoft and Google's parent Alphabet traded higher and bond yields slipped, a break with the pattern since last week's election.
5 reasons the stock market may be too enthusiastic about a Trump presidency (PIMCO)
After a short initial post-election shock, many financial market participants seem to have adopted a Dr. Strangelove attitude (“How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”) toward the election of Donald Trump.
As The Yen Crashes, Here's Why "The Move Is Just Getting Started" (Zero Hedge)
One of the biggest moves across asset classes in the aftermath of the Trump presidency, has been the Yen, which since last Wednesday's panic lows has now seen a nearly 8% drop in less than a week: by comparison, it took the USDJPY substantially longer to rise by a similar magnitude following the BOJ's announcement of the QQE expansion in November 2014, suggesting that when it comes to monetary policy, Trump has had a greater impact on Japan's economy than QE and the BOJ's printing of trillions in yen (we doubt Trump has gotten a thank you note from either Abe or Kuroda).
"Is The Market Wrong?": Financial Conditions Are Tightening At An Alarming Pace (Zero Hedge)
As a result of the recent spike in yields, and surge in the dollar following the Trump victory, the market's reaction has been to assume that this is a harbinger of rising inflation due to a tidal wave of "imminent" fiscal easing, and has accordingly pushed up the December rate hike odds to above 90%.
Here's the credit rating for every country in the world, courtesy of Moody's (Business Insider Australia)
Here’s the current long-term credit rating of every nation covered by Moody’s Investor Services.
It even includes which ratings are on positive watch, laying the foundation for a potential upgrade, and those on negative watch, signaling a potential downgrade in the period ahead.
Cable Jumps As Judge Warns Brexit Could Be Delayed 2 Years, Confirms "Referendum Not Binding On Parliament" (Zero Hedge)
Having dipped below 1.24 this morning, Cable has spiked back above 1.25 after Sky News reports UK Supreme Court judge says Brexit could be delayed by up to 2 years.
"Going Down In Flames?" Market Breadth Thrust Gives All-Or-Nothing Signal (Dana Lyons' Tumblr, Zero Hedge)
We’ve talked about the notion of “breadth thrusts” on several occasions. Basically, the term describes the development in which the stock market displays an inordinate level of positive breadth over the course of several days to several weeks.
Companies
Here’s Why Dick’s Sporting Goods’ Shares Are Falling (Fortune)
Dick’s Sporting Goods did pretty much everything right in the latest quarter: Sales increased more than expected, as did per-share earnings. Demand was also impressively strong for the sports-focused retailer, a benefit from the recent bankruptcies of rivals.
Canadian Brewery Cuts a Retiree Perk: Free Beer for Life (NY Times)
OTTAWA — For decades, a job at Labatt, one of Canada’s two major breweries, came with an unusual perk: free beer for life. But now, the company’s retirees have been cut off.
Why Valeant’s Enormous Debt Might Become an Even Bigger Problem (Barron's)
Wells Fargo’s David Maris and team are worried that Valeant Pharmaceuticals International (VRX) could have trouble refinancing its enormous debt burden.
Technology
Trump Tech Meltdown Hits Fourth Day With Amazon Cut by $35 Billion (Bloomberg)
The stock market’s post-election bifurcation sharpened Monday as technology shares extended their worst performance since the start of the bull market on speculation Donald Trump’s trade and immigration policies will translate into lower earnings.
Facebook Says This New Feature Will Help Small Businesses (Fortune)
The social network said Tuesday that businesses can now link up their Facebook FB 1.84% , Messenger, and Instagram accounts together so that they can more easily follow how customers are interacting on the different apps.
Ford Is Moving Small Car Production to Mexico Despite Donald Trump's Tariff Threats (Reuters)
Ford Motor F -0.17% is moving ahead with plans to shift production of small cars to Mexico from Michigan, while “two very important products” will be built in its U.S. factories, Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields told Reuters on Tuesday.
Twitter Adds New Ways to Curb Abuse and Hate Speech (NY Times)
SAN FRANCISCO — Social media companies are under increasing scrutiny for the amount of hate speech that thrives on their platforms, especially since the presidential election.
Budget US Android smartphones found secretly sending personal data to China (Tech Crunch)
Commercial firmware pre-installed on some Android smartphone models sold in the US has been found to be secretly sending highly sensitive data to a third party company based in China, according to analysis by security firm Kryptowire.
Bringing Back The Supersonic Era: Boom's Planes Are Faster, Cheaper Than The Concorde (Fast Company)
If you thought supersonic passenger travel died with the retirement of the Concorde fleet in 2003, get ready for what one company—and Richard Branson—thinks could be the launch of a new age in which people fly from New York to London in three and a quarter hours for business class prices.
Another Samsung phone just exploded (Mashable Asia)
After an exhaustive reign atop the news cycle and evolution into a full-on meme, the Galaxy Note 7 saga looked to be over after Samsung halted production of the fiery phone model and crippled some devices still in circulation. An incident in Canada, however, has thrust the issue of exploding batteries back into the public eye — only this Samsung device wasn't a Note 7.
Apple is working on smart glasses (Quartz)
A new report from Bloomberg Nov. 14 suggests that the company is looking into developing a pair of smart glasses. The device, which is still under development, would connect wirelessly to an iPhone—much like an Apple Watch does—and tell you similar sorts of information.
Google Translate starts using neural machine translation in 9 languages, coming to all 103 (Venture Beat)
Google today said that it’s improving translations that are available through its Google Translate service for nine languages by using neural machine translation, a method that was recently implemented for translations from Chinese to English.
Lucid Motors' super-secret car makes an appearance (Engadget)
Automotive startup, Lucid Motors dropped by the LA Auto Show with its super-secret sedan today. Because it's electric and doesn't have a traditional engine taking up space, the company has designed the car to have a smaller footprint that a luxury sedan like the BMW 7-Series.
Politics
Sen. Barbara Boxer to introduce bill to end Electoral College (CNN News)
Washington (CNN) – Retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, who was an outspoken supporter of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, is set to introduce a Senate bill that aims to end the Electoral College.
Here's Why It's Fair—and Necessary—to Call Trump's Chief Strategist a White Nationalist Champion (Mother Jones)
After Donald Trump announced he was appointing Stephen Bannon to a top job in the White House as chief strategist, I sent out a tweet referring to a Mother Jones story that reported on how Bannon, when he was head of Breitbart News, the far-right conservative site, provided a haven for white nationalists.
Donald Trump, Ronald Reagan, tax cuts and growth: What history says will happen next (.Mic)
President-elect Donald Trump has frequently been compared to former President Ronald Reagan: Both men were celebrities before their election, proponents of deregulation and enjoyed popularity among the white working class — as well as come-from-behind victories.
This Congressman Could Turn the Dodd-Frank Financial Reforms Upside Down (Fortune)
Veteran Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling has said that he doesn’t expect to become Treasury secretary in a Donald Trump presidency. But as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, he may wind up having almost as much influence.
3 NYC luxury buildings to drop Trump name (CNN Money)
Three other buildings in the complex which are condominiums rather than rental apartments will keep the Trump Place name. They are still managed by the Trump Organization.
Why the corrupt rich will welcome Modi’s ‘surgical strike on corruption’ (The Guardian)
Narendra Modi came to power in India on a promise to end corruption. Halfway into his tenure, little seems to have happened to achieve this goal. The most obvious steps – such as taking a strong line on the known illegal accounts held in Swiss banks and tax havens, or ending the ability to hold shares without revealing your identity, or making funding of political parties transparent – have simply not been taken.
Trump-Connected Billionaire Peter Thiel: Bitcoin Threatens Fiat, Tax Authorities Can’t Break Codes (The Coin Telegraph)
Over the past few years, Peter Thiel, a prominent venture capitalist with a net worth of $2.7 bln, spoke of the threat Bitcoin poses to fiat money and the financial freedom it grants to its users.
Health and Biotech
Tackling Brain Disease in China (Scientific American)
Neuroscientist Mu-Ming Poo discusses the China Brain Project and its goal of understanding brain diseases in the most populous country’s aging public.
CRISPR gene-editing has been tested in a human for the first time (Science Alert)
Chinese scientists have become the first in the world to inject an adult human with cells that have been genetically edited using the revolutionary CRISPR/Cas9 technique.
Health Care Needs Real Competition (Harvard Business Review)
Here’s the good news: Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, more Americans have access to health care than ever before. The bad news? The care itself hasn’t improved much. Despite the hard work of dedicated providers, our health care system remains chaotic, unreliable, inefficient, and crushingly expensive.
Opioids are powerful painkillers, usually prescribed to patients with severe or chronic pain, like those who have had a major injury, surgery, or cancer. They’re also highly addictive. Frequently, patients taking legitimate prescription opioids wind up either abusing or overdosing on them, or turning to street versions of the drugs like heroin.
Life on the Home Planet
Twisted light beams a greeting over a record distance of 143 km (New Scientist)
Twisted light has transmitted information across 143 kilometres of open space — almost 50 times further than the previous record. The breakthrough could revolutionise how we communicate with satellites.
Iraqi Forces Lliberate Half Of Eastern Mosul As ISIS Civilian Executions Continue (Newsweek)
Iraqi forces have liberated more than half of eastern Mosul from the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) four weeks into the battle to recapture the northern Iraqi city, the Iraqi interior ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
U.S. says war crimes probe of U.S. forces in Afghanistan unwarranted (Reuters)
An International Criminal Court investigation of possible war crimes by U.S. forces in Afghanistan is not "warranted or appropriate," the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday after prosecutors in The Hague found initial grounds for such a probe.
Global warming record crumbles due in part to freak Arctic warmth (Mashable Asia)
The planet's streak of heat milestones continued into October, which came in as the second-warmest such month on record, according to NASA.
Oklahoma City airport shooting suspect found dead (Reuters)
The man suspected in the fatal shooting of a Southwest Airlines employee at Oklahoma City's main airport on Tuesday was found dead in his red pickup truck of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot to the head, police said.
