Financial Markets and Economy
Investors Aren’t Rushing Into U.S. Stocks Anymore (The Wall Street Journal)
The tumultuous opening weeks of the Trump administration saw investors scrambling into bonds and overseas stocks while the record-breaking hot streak for U.S. equity funds slowed.
China's Currency Policy Approaches Breaking Point (Bloomberg)
In his first few weeks in office, President Donald Trump has ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and confirmed his intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. The consensus is that it won’t be long before he turns his focus to China, which he calls a currency manipulator.
A Mismatch of Home Buyers and Sellers Points to Pain This Year (The Wall Street Journal)
The divide between the prices of homes Americans want to buy and the inventory of such homes is growing, suggesting first-time home buyers and high-end sellers might have a difficult year ahead of them.
Debt restructuring and bankruptcy could be the biggest growth industry of 2017 (Wolf Street)
The US “restructuring industry” – the advisories, law firms, investment banks, lenders, private equity firms, hedge funds, and others that deal with troubled companies when they’re restructuring their debts either in bankruptcy our outside of bankruptcy – had been through some very lean years as the Fed’s easy money and yield-desperate investors were floating even the leakiest boats.
Raise Your Glass To Kentucky Bourbon's Rising Economic Kick (Associated Press)
Bourbon's economic potency is getting stronger with age, increasing its impact on Kentucky by $1 billion in the past two years as global demand for American whiskeys continues to grow.
Asian markets trade mixed as oil prices slump amid supply concerns in the US (International Business Times)
Asian stock market indices were trading mixed on Wednesday (8 February), with the Shanghai Composite down 0.11% at 3,149.47 as of 5.28am GMT after an overnight decline in oil prices.
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Advice From 5 Great Stock Market Investors (The Balance)
Some investors just stand out above the rest. They outperform the overall broader markets, and they consistently beat out their peers.
OPEC Ministers Say the Market Might Need More Oil Cuts (Bloomberg)
OPEC and other major crude-producing nations may need to extend output cuts into the second half of the year to re-balance the market, oil ministers for Iran and fellow group member Qatar said.
Here's what could drive gold higher in 2017 (Truewealth Publishing)
“May you live in interesting times” is an old Chinese proverb. While it may sound like a blessing, the saying is actually a subtle curse, something you might wish upon an adversary. The implication is that “interesting times” are chaotic and painful.
Finally, Proof That Managing for the Long Term Pays Off (Harvard Business Review)
Companies deliver superior results when executives manage for long-term value creation and resist pressure from analysts and investors to focus excessively on meeting Wall Street’s quarterly earnings expectations.
Here Are The 50 Largest Lobbying Spenders; Good Place To Start "Draining The Swamp?" (Zero Hedge)
In part, President Trump won the White House courtesy of the silent majority of people across the country who are completely fed up with the corruption and culture of influence peddling in Washington D.C..
Goldman Stunned By Collapse In Gasoline Demand: "This Would Require A US Recession" (Zero Hedge)
While energy traders remain focused on weekly changes in crude supply and demand, manifesting in shifts in inventory of which today's API data, which showed the second biggest inventory build in history, was a breathtaking example of how OPEC's "production cut" is clearly not working, a much more troubling datapoint was revealed by the Energy Information Administration last week when it reported implied gasoline demand.
Companies
Panera Beats Earnings Expectations As Investment In 'Panera 2.0' Begins To Pay Off (Forbes)
Nearly three years after announcing a "Panera 2.0" initiative to modernize order, pay and production processes, Panera Bread is finally seeing some early returns on the program — and they're not half bad.
How FireEye Inc. Burned to the Ground (Fool.com)
Shares of FireEye (NASDAQ: FEYE) plunged 16% on Feb. 3 after the cybersecurity firm posted a bigfourth quarter sales miss and a weak first quarter forecast and revealed the departures of key executives.
Technology
Apple hires a new boss to revamp Apple TV's image (Engadget)
For further evidence that Apple is looking to revamp its TV strategy, I present exhibit A: the hiring of Timothy D. Twerdahl, previously head of Amazon's Fire TV division.
Silicon Valley's immigrant tech workers are scared of buying homes after Trump's travel ban (Business Insider)
A pair of married software engineers hooked up with real estate agent Tim Gullicksen about six months ago in pursuit of their dream home.
UberHire brings you a personal driver for up to 12 hours (CNet)
The company, which is estimated to be worth between $28 and $60 billion, has embarked on its latest venture. UberHire lets you hire an Uber for a block of time instead of a single ride, letting you pay one flat fee for unlimited destinations.
Tesla gets ludicrous to set the 0-60 mph record (RoadShow)
Strap in, because the Tesla is the fastest production car in the world, and it's holding on to that title with both hands. The Model S P100D has set an all-time record for 0-60 mph, clocking in at just 2.28 seconds.
Here's Blackberry's Latest Plan To Make Some Money (Digital Trends)
It's been a tough few years for BlackBerry but it's clearly determined to make a success of its switch to software and services.
As it witnessed its share of the smartphone market slide unceremoniously into a deep, dark hole, BlackBerry switched its focus several years ago in a bid to keep the company alive.
A court order requires Google Maps images to be used to assess environmental damage (Mashable Asia)
The Bombay High Court is planning to put Google Maps to unique use. It has announced that old and new map images will be compared to assess the environmental damage caused by real estate development in Mumbai city.
Politics
Trump's List Of Underreported Terror Doesn't Back Up Claim (Associated Press)
A White House list of what it calls underreported terrorist attacks did not support President Donald Trump's claim that the media are downplaying a "genocide" carried out by the Islamic State group. But it did shine new light on the difficulty in defining the scope, source and motives behind the violence carried out in the name of radical Islam.
Republican Senators Vote to Formally Silence Elizabeth Warren (NY Times)
Republican senators voted on Tuesday to formally silence a Democratic colleague for impugning a peer, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, by condemning his nomination for attorney general while reading a letter from Coretta Scott King.
We can’t let Trump go down Putin’s path (The Washington Post)
For reasons still mysterious to me, U.S. President Donald Trump continues to praise and defend Russian President Vladimir Putin. Just yesterday, in an interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox, President Trump affirmed his respect for Putin.
AP Fact Check: Teump Botches Murder Rate (Associated Press)
President Donald Trump's dark view of violent crime in America rests largely on a bogus claim: that the murder rate is higher than it's been in nearly half a century. Actually, the murder rate is down sharply in that time, despite a recent spike.
GOP-Backed Measures Seek To Rein In Science Used At EPA (Assocaited Press)
Pondering new restrictions on how the Environmental Protection Agency can use scientific data, congressional Republicans are seeking advice from the chemical and fossil fuel industries.
‘A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax (NY Times)
The group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz and Henry M. Paulson Jr., a former secretary of the Treasury, says that taxing carbon pollution produced by burning fossil fuels is “a conservative climate solution” based on free-market principles.
Pentagon Considers Leasing Space at Trump Tower (NY Times)
The Defense Department may rent space in Trump Tower, where President Trump lives part time, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest because taxpayer dollars could be going directly to his business interests.
One-Third Don’t Know Obamacare and Affordable Care Act Are the Same (NY Times)
A sizable minority of Americans don’t understand that Obamacare is just another name for the Affordable Care Act.
This finding, from a poll by Morning Consult, illustrates the extent of public confusion over a health law that President Trump and Republicans in Congress hope to repeal.
Why Every Ad Today Feels Political (Even If It Isn’t) (Harvard Business Review)
Before they even aired, several of the Super Bowl LI ads created a vortex of turbulence and backlash. Five of the ads have been seen as either coincidentally or conspiratorially addressing social issues that divide the U.S. populace, especially in the wake of our last election.
Life on the Home Planet
Show of Shipwrecked Treasures Raises Scientists' Ire (Scientific American)
A museum show of sumptuous treasures from a ninth-century shipwreck is being denounced by researchers, who say that commercial salvage of the artefacts irreversibly damaged the wreck’s scientific value.
Tree rings suggest an unexpected solar event occurred 7,000 years ago (Science Alert)
New research suggests that, around 7,000 years ago, Earth was blasted with a period of solar activity so extreme, that traces of the event can still be seen in the carbon signature of tree rings today.
Scientists have found the largest undersea landslide on the Great Barrier Reef (Science Alert)
Scientists have discovered evidence of the largest known undersea landslide along the Great Barrier Reef, finding the remnants of an ancient, massive slip measuring about 30 times the volume of Australia's famous rock formation, Uluru.
