Financial Markets and Economy
The ruble hits a 19-month high after a hawkish statement by Russia's central bank (Business Insider)
The Russian ruble has climbed to its best level in 19 months.
The head of the European Central Bank slammed Trump's efforts to slash Wall Street regulation (Reuters)
The European Central Bank rejected U.S. accusations of currency manipulation on Monday and warned that deregulating the banking industry, now being openly discussed in Washington, could sow the seeds of the next financial crisis.
Goldman Sachs Says Trump Rally Has Been Curbed (Bloomberg)
Hopes for a pro-growth suite of fiscal policies under President Donald Trump buoyed financial markets after Nov. 8, sparking a rise in measures of consumer and business confidence that sent the gap between these "soft" data and measures of real economic activity to its widest level in six years.
Bitcoin is rallying for an 8th straight day (Business Insider)
Bitcoin is on track for an eighth straight day of gains as it trades higher by 1.4% at $1,026 per coin as of 7:28 a.m. ET.
One of the most-watched happenings in the global mining sector came to a head yesterday. As the government of major mining center the Philippines unveiled results of a nation-wide environmental audit.
50% Correction Is Impossible! Really? (Real Investment Advise)
There is little doubt currently that complacency reigns in the financial markets. Nowhere is that complacency more evident than in the Market Greed/Fear Index which combines the 4-measures of investor sentiment (AAII, INVI, MarketVane, & NAAIM) with the inverse Volatility Index.
"Complacency Reigns Supreme" Loews CEO Warns The Market's "Major Disconnect Concerns Me" (Zero Hedge)
Jim Tisch, the CEO of Loews, is worried – worried enough that he slashed his firm's share buybacks in 2016 and explained to an anxious analyst crowd during his earnings call that "complacency reigns supreme. However, my experience has shown me that this state of affairs won’t go on indefinitely."
Bitcoin Price Gets Ready to Factor In Winklevoss Bitcoin ETF Approval (The Cointelegraph)
Speculation is growing about the consequences for Bitcoin if the Winklevoss twins’ Bitcoin ETF gets regulatory approval in March.
Mario Draghi: "Equity Prices Are In Line With Fundamentals"; SocGen Disagrees (Zero Hedge)
Moments ago, during a hearing of Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament, in his prepared remarks Mario Draghi said that “support from our monetary policy measures is still needed if inflation rates are to converge toward our objective with sufficient confidence and in a sustained manner.”
Fed's Harker Says a March Interest Rate Increase Is 'on the Table' (Dow Jones Newswires)
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Patrick Harker said Monday he could support raising short-term interest rates at the central bank's next meeting in March.
Yield Curve Inverts, Swap Spreads Spike Signal Panic As Debt-Ceiling Looms (Zero Hedge)
US swap spreads (indicative of bank counterparty/liquidity risks) is surging once again, to its highest since June 2012 signaling a growing concern at the looming US debt ceiling deadline.
Companies
The CEO of generic drugmaker Teva just stepped down (Reuters)
Israel-based generic drugmaker Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd said on Monday that Chief Executive Erez Vigodman was stepping down effective immediately and would be replaced on an interim basis by Yitzhak Peterburg, who has been chairman of Teva's board of directors.
Priced like an automaker, sputtering Gilead shares lure value bets (Reuters)
Shares of Gilead Sciences Inc are languishing over concerns about the U.S. biotechnology company’s declining hepatitis C drugs and profit outlook, but some value investors sense an opportunity with shares at extremely cheap levels.
Technology
Instagram's User Engagement Just Matched Facebook's (Fool.com)
Checking Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) is a daily habit (if not an hourly habit) for most of its users. In December, 66% of Facebook's 1.86 billion monthly users checked in on an average day. That kind of daily user engagement is unparalleled by similar services like Twitter (NYSE: TWTR) or LinkedIn.
Logitech turns your car into a Amazon Alexa controller (Engadget)
Amazon's Alexa platform is no longer confined to the home — Ford, Hyundai and Volkswagen have all announced integration of the voice assistant into their vehicles. That's great if you're a die-hard Amazon customer and in the market for a new car.
Microsoft AI's next leap forward: Helping you play video games (CNet)
Voice assistants can seem supersmart. Ask my Amazon Alexa why the sky is blue, and you'll get a lesson in light refraction through the atmosphere.
The cheapest Google Daydream VR phone is now the $400 ZTE Axon 7 (Venture Beat)
The Chinese smartphone maker last May launched the Axon 7, the first so-called “Daydream-ready” device on the market — however, without Nougat the Daydream support was redundant.
This candy bar-sized device could transform how the blind community reads (Mashable Asia)
Six young women, all undergrad engineering students at MIT, had established a lofty goal: to create the first-ever affordable device that immediately translates printed text into Braille.
Politics
California and President Trump are going to war with each other (The Washington Post)
President Trump had harsh words for one of his most fervent opponents during the pre-Super Bowl interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly that aired Sunday. Not President Vladimir Putin, mind you, whose alleged unpleasant habit of murdering journalists met with a shrug from the president.
Putin Critic, Who Said He Was Poisoned in 2015, Falls Into Coma (NY Times)
A leader of the Russian opposition who has been a vocal critic of what he calls a Kremlin policy of assassinating political enemies has fallen into a life-threatening coma caused by an unknown poison, his wife said on Monday.
Donald Trump denounces negative polls, coverage as “fake news” (Salon)
A CNN/ORC poll released on Friday found that 53 percent of Americans oppose Trump’s Muslim ban compared to only 47 percent who support it. It also found that 49 percent believe it harms American values while only 43 percent believe it protects them.
White House rattled by McCarthy's spoof of Spicer (Politico)
As the press secretary for a president who's obsessed with how things play on cable TV, Sean Spicer’s real audience during his daily televised press briefings has always been an audience of one.
A List Of The 97 Companies Opposing Trump's Travel Ban (Associated Press)
Nearly 100 companies, mostly in the technology industry, have joined in a court filing to back lawsuits from Washington state and Minnesota to fight President Donald Trump's travel ban.
Elon Musk says activists should be happy that he’s advising President Trump (Recode)
A day after tweeting that his involvement on the council led to a discussion about the immigration ban that otherwise wouldn’t have happened, Musk was back on Twitter on Sunday with a message to “activists.”
Health and Biotech
Injectable male contraceptive tested successfully on monkeys (Engadget)
It's 2017, and male birth control methods haven't really advanced beyond the vasectomy — a procedure that's been performed since the 1800s — or condoms. That's what makes Vasalgel so intriguing.
Life on the Home Planet
Here’s How The Arctic’s Disappearing Sea Ice Will Help Out Russia (Buzzfeed News)
By the end of the century, oil tankers and cargo ships, with only the occasional help of icebreakers, will safely ply Russia’s Arctic coast for more than half the year if global warming continues unabated, a group of Russian scientists say.
Why You Need an Imaginary Scapegoat (Harvard Business Review)
DJ Khaled, the one-man internet meme, is known for warning his tens of millions of social media followers about a group of villains that he calls “they.”
A bright green meteor just streaked above the US (Science Alert)
Flash… boom. It took just seconds for a bright green fireball – and apparent meteor – to streak across the dark sky over Wisconsin at about 1:31am Monday morning.
Frontline town in Ukraine gets breathing space after worst shelling in months (Reuters)
A week-long surge in violence in and around the government-held town of Avdiyivka in eastern Ukraine appeared to be winding down on Monday, as schools reopened and power and water supplies resumed following the worst clashes in months.
