Financial Markets and Economy
Oil Rises Most in a Month on Trump, Saudi Export Cut (Reuters)
Oil prices rose on Wednesday by the most in over a month, boosted as the U.S. dollar weakened following a news conference by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, and on news that Saudi Arabia had cut exports to Asia.
Venezuela’s Awful Economy Got Even Worse in 2016 (Bloomberg)
Venezuelans have to navigate a labyrinth of lines to buy staples like sugar or aspirin. They’ve gotten used to finding that the store shelves are empty, a frustration that sometimes boils over into looting. So they don’t really need economic data to tell them that 2016 was a terrible year.
Here's Jeff Gundlach's full presentation on expensive stocks, the economy under Trump, and the Federal Reserve (Business Insider)
Jeff Gundlach, the so-called "bond king" and CEO of DoubleLine Capital, held his latest "Just Markets" webcast on Tuesday night highlighting his recent thoughts about the US economy and global markets.
BlackRock's Robot Stock-Pickers Post Record Losses (Bloomberg)
Like so many fund titans these days, Laurence D. Fink is betting on machines to turn around BlackRock Inc.’s beleaguered stock-picking business.
Trouble is, they just might have made things worse.
Is The Fed Really Tightening? The Monetary Shell Game (Hint: M1 Money Growing At 8-10% YOY) (Confounded Interest)
The Federal Reservc Open Market Committee (FOMC) has “tightened” the Fed Funds Target rate twice since December 2015. One in December 2015 and once in December 2016.
Oil falls as good news fails to halt profit-taking – #SaxoStrats (Saxo Group)
A two day selloff has taken oil down to a near one-month low as traders try to make sense of a whole host of supply news. Key Opec members have cut production as promised but against this we have doubts about Iraq as well as rising production from Libya and an upgrade to US production.
Dollar Rebounds As Trump Talks Trade: "Major Border Tax" Is Coming (Zero Hedge)
Having dumped billions last week to defend the peso, one wonders if the sudden rip higher in the peso (after tumbling on Trump's comments) is yet another intervention by Banxico?
Why OPEC should fear the Trump administration (Governments and Markets)
Oil prices have risen over 20% since the OPEC production cut agreement at the end of November. While concerns abound on quota cheating and increased production from Libya, Nigeria and US shale, the incoming US administration could change the market completely through strategic oil sales and new import taxes.
New York is betting on renewables to replace a major nuclear power plant (Think Progress)
New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans this week to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which supplies electricity to New York City and surrounding areas.
BofA Finds Consumer Spending Tumbled In December, Warns Of Disappointing Retail Sales (Zero Hedge)
With this week's most important economic data point – this Friday's retail sales – fast approaching, economists are keen for clues if this key datapoint giving insight into the health of the US consumer will maintain the recent outsized spike in favorable and better than expected economic data, or if adversely, it may be a downward inflection point which could have significant implications on the dollar trade as RBC explained earlier.
Companies
The Recovery in Chipotle's Stock Price Has Officially Begun (Fool.com)
It was only a matter of time before Chipotle Mexican Grill's (NYSE: CMG) shares would begin to recover after losing 50% of their value over the past 14 months. That time, I believe, has now arrived.
Ecommerce giant Alibaba is coming to a store near you (Mashable Asia)
Not content with its dominance over online shopping, Alibaba has made a big play for traditional retail.
China's ecommerce giant has put forward a bid to privatise Chinese departmental store chain Intime Retail Group for $2.6 billion.4
IBM's Blockchain Consortium With The Seam Deploys 'Hyperledger' For Cotton Trading (Forbes)
US commodities trading and agribusiness software provider The Seam, which has cleared or processed over $7 billion through its cloud-based platforms, is forming a blockchain consortium in conjunction with IBM for the billion dollar global cotton industry deployed on the Hyperledger Fabric, with the project kicking off early this year and poised to yield significant efficiencies.
Technology
Chinese KFC Uses Facial Recognition Technology To Predict Orders (InfoWars)
A KFC in Beijing is using facial recognition software to predict what customers will order.
Software in the Chinese fast food outlet is designed to choose a suggested order by estimating the mood of the customer, along with their age and gender.
Fitbit Off to Slow Start in 2017 as Devices Pile Up, Report Says (Bloomberg)
Fitbit Inc. isn’t starting off 2017 on a high note, according to a report by Cleveland Research.
This 24-second video starring an adorable kid and an Amazon Echo Dot escalates very quickly (Business Insider)
People love the Amazon Echo, but more and more people are buying the smaller $50 Echo Dot, which can do all the same things as the Echo voice-controlled smarthome device but also be plugged into other speaker systems to take advantage of the (presumably) better audio quality.
Apple has already cornered over 40% of the wireless headphone market (Quartz)
The wireless headphone market is starting to look a lot like the early smartphone market.
Between Apple’s AirPods wireless headphones, and its subsidiary Beats Audio, the company has accumulated 41% of the wireless-headphones market, based on revenue, according to a report released today by market analysis firm Slice Intelligence.
Amazon now has 45,000 robots in its warehouses (Business Insider)
Amazon significantly expanded its army of warehouse robots in 2016, according to a report by The Seattle Times.
IBM predicts 5 life-changing innovations in the next 5 years (Venture Beat)
IBM researchers revealed their five big predictions for innovations that will change our lives in the next five years. Dubbed IBM 5 in 5, the predictions were culled from more than 3,000 researchers across 12 labs on six continents.
Apple beat Samsung by 2-to-1 in the war for Christmas sales (BGR)
Apple has won yet again the informal battle for Christmas. Apple products, and the iPhone in particular, are highly coveted Christmas gifts, and there’s new data to prove it.
The EU's tough new privacy proposals could rip a chunk out of tech companies' ad revenues (Business Insider)
Online messaging service like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Gmail are facing tougher rules on how they can track users — a move that could hurt the bottom lines of the companies affected.
The Robotic Grocery Store of the Future Is Here (MIT Technology Review)
Most people don’t buy a jar of relish every week. But when they decide to buy one from Ocado—the world’s largest online-only grocery retailer—they don’t have to scrabble at the back of the store.
Apple Watch Sales Were Way Up Over The Holidays, Slice Data Shows (Fast Company)
Apple CEO Tim Cook promised big Apple Watch Sales during the holiday season, and new data from Slice Intelligence suggests that the company delivered.
These tiny soft robots could deliver drugs from under your skin (The Verge)
Scientists have created a tiny biobot that can be implanted under the skin and deliver doses of drugs. The 3D-printed micromachine has no batteries or wires, but is activated through an external magnet.
How Machine Learning Is Revolutionizing the Diagnosis of Rare Diseases (NBC News)
Well before the family came in to the Batson Children's Specialty Clinic in Jackson, Mississippi, they knew something was wrong. Their child was born with multiple birth defects, and didn't look like any of its kin.
Robots are now really stealing jobs as Japanese firm replaces staff with AI (TNW)
Though we’ve always assumed certain crafts will forever remain immune to automation, it seems nowadays nobody is safe from the looming artificial intelligence invasion.
GeniCan scans your trash to make grocery lists and arrange delivery (TNW)
GeniCan is a stick-on attachment for your trash can that uses a barcode scanner and voice recognition to help you compile grocery lists based on what you’re throwing away.
The World Seems To Be Preparing To Say Goodbye To FM Radio (Uproxx)
The last time we had a major shift in our technology standards, people couldn’t figure out if their television would work without a tiny little box or not. The transfer from OTA broadcasting to digital transmissions was worth it in the end, but the confusion surrounding what to do was hard to ignore.
Keurig and Anheuser-Busch work on an in-home beer maker (Engadget)
Just because Keurig didn't succeed with its Kold soda machine doesn't mean it's giving up on the prospect of making cold beverages at home. It's partnering with Anheuser-Busch InBev on developing an "in-home alcohol drink system" — in other words, a Keurig for booze.
Moro is basically a four-foot Amazon Echo with arms (Engadget)
In-home assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home are handy, but their functions are limited: They can tell you where to find a can of soda, but they can't actually bring one to you. Enter Moro.
You can now have your weed legally delivered in 60 minutes or less with this new app (Business Insider)
It's 2016 and you can now, in some American cities, legally have someone deliver you a bag of weed. With 24 states and the District of Columbia legalizing the use of marijuana in some form, marijuana dispensaries seek alternate ways to get their product to customers.
Politics
The Senate is about to kick off its repeal of Obamacare (Business Insider)
The US Senate is about to undertake a long evening session of votes in the first step towards a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.
Carl's Jr. and Hardee's workers: Don't make our boss Trump's labor secretary (CNN Money)
President-elect Donald Trump's pick for labor secretary — Andy Puzder — is the CEO of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of burger joints Carl's Jr. and Hardee's. On Thursday, cashiers and cooks that work for him are picketing at restaurants, CKE offices, and at U.S. Department of Labor branches across more than 20 cities.
Top government ethics official denounces Trump's business plans (USA Today)
In an unusual rebuke of an incoming president, the federal government's top ethics official Wednesday joined a wave of ethics watchdogs denouncing President-elect Donald Trump 's plan to retain his financial interest in his global real-estate and branding empire.
Congressional Black Caucus says Jeff Sessions’ confirmation will set back the cause of universal civil rightsProminent African-American members of Congress provided historic testimony against Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination for attorney general on Wednesday, citing the Alabama Republican’s record against civil and voting rights.
Trump's trainwreck press conference ushers in a shambolic presidency (The Guardian)
Donald Trump is not what he seems. The supposed master of media manipulation stumbled so often at his first press conference, it is hard to recall why anyone thought the TV star was good at this stuff in the first place.
Republicans delay three Trump nominations over disclosures, but steam ahead on others (Think Progress)
Two hearings scheduled for Wednesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) have been pushed back after Democrats insisted the nominees go through the full ethics review that Trump’s posse has largely eschewed to date.
The de facto first lady: Ivanka Trump looks to plant a “high-powered” ally in daddy’s White House (Salon)
If you haven’t heard much from Ivanka Trump this year, then her plan is working perfectly, according to Mike Allen, co-founder of Bank of America-backed media venture Axios.
Trump’s bogus plan to avoid conflicts of interest, explained (Think Progress)
Today, after months of delay, Donald Trump finally described what his relationship would be with the Trump Organization after he becomes POTUS.
The Dark Magic of Kellyanne Conway (NY Times)
If you happened to watch CNN on Friday morning, you saw a brutal exchange about Russian hacking between a righteous anchor with steam coming out of his ears and a right-wing operative with ice in her veins.
Supreme Court hands Republicans a victory in the gerrymandering wars (Think Progress)
North Carolina has one of the most aggressive gerrymanders in the country. In 2016, President-elect Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the state by less than four points, and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Roy Cooper won a narrow victory over Republican incumbent Pat McCrory.
BuzzFeed was right to publish Trump-Russia files (Columbia Journalism Review)
Early Tuesday evening, spurred by a CNN story, BuzzFeed published a 35-page dossier on Donald Trump’s alleged long-term relationship with Russia. The documents contain references to compromising information the Russians purportedly gathered about the president-elect and accusations that Trump’s campaign was in regular contact with Russian officials.
Life on the Home Planet
Iraqi forces make fresh gains in southeast Mosul: military statement (Reuters)
Iraqi forces drove back Islamic State militants in southeastern Mosul on Thursday, making gains in an area where advances have been particularly tough, the military said in a statement.
Climate Cycles Could Have Carved Canyons on Mars (Scientific American)
Researchers think Mars may have experienced a series of climate cycles, which etched the planet’s surface with river valleys and lake basins. Julia Rosen reports.
Syria's war has affected water in the region so much, you can see the damage from space (Science Alert)
The Syrian civil war has left more than an estimated 400,000 people dead and displaced more than 10 million residents. But the impact hasn't just been devastating on the people of Syria and their archaeological sites – it's also left the environment barren and altered.
These Brazilian vampire bats have started feeding on humans for the first time (Science Alert)
As intimidating as they might sound, vampire bats aren’t usually in the business of bothering humans for their blood. In fact, the hairy-legged vampire bat species was thought to feed almost exclusively on birds.
In Mosul areas retaken from Islamic State, loss and fear linger (Reuters)
Iraqi soldiers kicked in the gate of a home in eastern Mosul and emerged moments later with two young men whose hands they bound with plastic ties and dragged off toward black Humvees.
