Financial Markets and Economy
Hedge Funds May Be Falling Back in Love With Commodities (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds are raising their exposure to commodities as prices rally and investors respond to macro shifts including the prospect of accelerating inflation under U.S. President Donald Trump, according to Citigroup Inc.
U.S. pending home sales fall to lowest level in a year (Reuters)
Contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes dropped in January on a shortage of inventory in the Midwest and West regions, the National Association of Realtors said on Monday.
The World’s Most Radical Experiment in Monetary Policy Isn’t Working (The Wall Street Journal)
During Japan’s go-go 1980s, Hiromi Shibata once blew a month’s salary on a cashmere coat, wore it a few times, then retired it. Today, her daughter’s idea of a shopping spree is scrounging through her mom’s closet in Shizuoka, a provincial capital.
Black-Market Attack Is Just a Stopgap in Nigeria Without Float (Bloomberg)
Don’t be fooled by the biggest black-market gain in a year for Nigeria’s naira.
The rally, sparked by increased sales of foreign-exchange forwards and looser capital controls, is contingent on the central bank continuing to sell down its reserves.
Asian shares edge up, await Trump's policy speech (Reuters)
Asian shares edged up on Tuesday, bolstered by gains on Wall Street as investors awaited a speech by U.S. President Donald Trump for signals on tax reform and infrastructure spending.
Asian Stocks Rise, Dollar Firm Before Trump Speech: Markets Wrap (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks rose, with Japanese shares receiving support from a drop in the yen overnight, while the dollar maintained gains ahead of Donald Trump’s address to Congress. Crude remained above $54 a barrel.
Unconventional Suncor Does Not Explore For Oil, It Manufactures Oil (Oil Industry Trends & Insights, Seeking Alpha)
Suncor's (NYSE:SU) resource potential is enormous, it has over 30 billion barrels of recoverable oil sands resources, roughly double the amount of its nearest Canadian competitor.
Asset Markets as Banks (Philosophical Economics)
Let’s suppose that you have money on deposit in a bank, in some kind of checking or savings account. It’s paying you 2.5% per year, which isn’t something you can easily get in 2017, but something that would have been possible several years ago.
China Will Rein in Growth, Credit Targets in 2017 Master Plan: Economists (Bloomberg)
China will set lower economic growth and monetary expansion targets this year as policy makers switch gears to curb excessive credit growth and reduce financial risks, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.
Asia's Shortest Trading Day? Shanghai. Longest? Singapore: Chart (Bloomberg)
Singapore’s stock exchange is open for trading from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no pause for lunch, making it the longest trading day among Asia’s major markets.
My Too Hard Pile (A Wealth Of Common Sense)
I finally got around to watching the Warren Buffett documentary on HBO last week. It was a tad on the slow side but if you’re a Buffett fan it’s worth watching.
The Network Effect of Ideas & Innovation (A Wealth Of Common Sense)
The S&P 500 was originally created in 1957 and it only contained 233 stocks (results going back further than that have been recreated to reflect historical performance numbers).
Swedroe: UIT Managers Exhibit Poor Selection Skill (ETF.com)
Unit investment trusts (UITs) are SEC-regulated investment vehicles in which a portfolio of securities is selected by a sponsor and deposited into the trust.
RWM is Coming to Texas! (A Wealth Of Common Sense)
Barry Ritholtz, Kris Venne, and I will be traveling to Texas at the end of March with planned stops in both Houston and Austin. I’ve never been to either city so I’m looking forward to this trip.
Goldman Downgrades Tesla To "Sell" On Cash And Execution Risk (Zero Hedge)
The recent avalanche of bad news for Tesla has refused to stop this morning, when former Tesla cheerleader, Goldman Sachs analyst David Tamberrino, announced he was cutting the company's stock rating to "Sell", slashing his price target to $185, and predicting 28% downside from current prices.
Companies
Earnings Report: A Retooled Sotheby’s Beats Expectations in Uncertain Climate (Artnet News)
In a call with investors and analysts this morning, Sotheby’s reported healthy results for the most recent fourth quarter—a key period in the company’s business since it includes the major New York November auctions. The key point stressed by the company was that profitability was up despite overall lower revenues.
Warren Buffett Builds An $18 Billion Apple Stake, Creating A 'Big Seven' At Berkshire Hathaway (Forbes)
Five years ago, Warren Buffett touted his 'big four' stock bets when building a $10.7 billion stake in IBM, a massive holding to go with Berkshire Hathaway's long-term investments in American Express, Coca-Cola and Wells Fargo.
Billionaire Warren Buffett more than doubled his holdings in Apple in 2017 (CNBC)
Berkshire Hathaway chief Warren Buffett said Monday he doesn't personally own an iPhone but he more than doubled his holdings in Apple in January.
SoftBank set to invest more than $3 billion in WeWork (CNBC)
The investment being discussed is a $2 billion primary tranche of funding, followed by a secondary round worth more than $1 billion. SoftBank may increase the size of the secondary investment to nearly $2 billion, the source said, for a total investment of nearly $4 billion in the shared space real estate startup.
Softbank’s Son: Why Do I Spend So Much Money? The Singularity Is Real (Barron's)
Monday morning at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, SoftBank (9984JP) chairman Masayoshi Son gave a keynote to answer the question “Why do I spend so much money?”
Technology
Amazon is teaching Alexa to distinguish different voices (Engadget)
For all of Alexa's many skills, one major thing Amazon's voice assistant is currently missing is the ability to distinguish who is actually speaking to it. According to a new report from Time magazine, however, the online retail giant is currently working to make that a reality.
Skype is killing off its WiFi service March 31 to focus on ‘core’ features (Tech Crunch)
Skype, the Microsoft-owned service that helped pioneer and popularize the rise of voice and video calls over the internet, is killing off one of the features that it added in later years to try to make the service more ubiquitous, especially among roaming users: on March 31, the company is killing off its WiFi service, which let users buy Wi-Fi access in paid public hotspots for a fee typically smaller than the one charged by the hotspot owner.
Porsche Design reveals a Windows 2-in-1 convertible (Engadget)
Porsche Design had another Mobile World Congress revelation besides a limited edition version of Huawei's Watch 2. The design group has also announced a laptop-tablet convertible and detachable hybrid of its own called Book One, which looks like it was designed to rival Microsoft's Surface Book.
Augmenting Art: Could IBM's Machine Learning Bring Back Gaudi And DaVinci? (Forbes)
Here’s something to think about – if machine learning is about teaching a computer to think like humans do, can they be taught to think like a specific person? A great artist, maybe? And if they can think like a great artist, could they also create art like one?
Wireless Charging Will Replace Your Fridge With Self-Cooling Tupperware (Digital Trends)
Ikea introduced wireless charging furniture a few years ago — a lamp and pad that could charge your phone without wires, though in some cases you needed a special case to make the Qi technology work.
Politics
Trump budget plan boosts Pentagon, trims State Dept, EPA: officials (Reuters)
The White House will send federal departments a budget proposal on Monday containing the defense spending increase President Donald Trump promised, financed partly by cuts to the U.S. State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and other non-defense programs, two officials familiar with the proposal said.
Big Surge For Military In Trump Budget, Big Cuts Elsewhere (Associated Press)
President Donald Trump is proposing a huge $54 billion surge in U.S. military spending for new aircraft, ships and fighters in his first federal budget while slashing big chunks from domestic programs and foreign aid to make the government "do more with less."
The story of the week is Trump, Russia and the FBI. The rest is a distraction (The Guardian)
Narrative switching. That is what the Trump administration is desperately trying to do around Russia right now. The White House reportedly interfered with the FBI in the middle of an active investigation involving counter-intelligence.
Trump says “nobody knew that health care could be so complicated” (Vox)
In remarks at a press preview of his budget priorities on Monday, President Donald Trump teased the idea that, after working with his team and in consultation with Republican governors, he is nearly ready to unveil his plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
George W. Bush on appointing special prosecutor to investigate Trump: ‘We all need answers’ (Think Progress)
Over the weekend, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) became the first and so far the only Republican to come out in favor of appointing a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia.
Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media (The Guardian)
Just over a week ago, Donald Trump gathered members of the world’s press before him and told them they were liars. “The press, honestly, is out of control,” he said. “The public doesn’t believe you any more.” CNN was described as “very fake news… story after story is bad”. The BBC was “another beauty”.
Tom Perez Apologizes for Telling the Truth, Showing Why Democrats’ Flaws Urgently Need Attention (The Intercept)
The more alarmed one is by the Trump administration, the more one should focus on how to fix the systemic, fundamental sickness of the Democratic Party. That Hillary Clinton won the meaningless popular vote on her way to losing to Donald Trump, and that the singular charisma of Barack Obama kept him popular, have enabled many to ignore just how broken and failed the Democrats are as a national political force.
POLL: Half Of College Students Believe Their Student Loans Will Be Forgiven (InfoWars)
LendEDU, “a private firm that connects students and their families with student loans and loan refinancing,” conducted a survey that found 49.8 percent of students believe the government would forgive their student loans after graduation, the New York Post reported.
Health and Biotech
WHO releases list of world’s most dangerous superbugs (STAT)
For the first time ever, the World Health Organization has drawn up a list of the highest priority needs for new antibiotics — marching orders, it hopes, for the pharmaceutical industry.
Life on the Home Planet
China angrily reacts with threats after South Korean missile defense decision (Reuters)
Chinese state media has reacted with anger and threats of boycotts after the board of an affiliate of South Korea's Lotte Group approved a land swap with the government that will enable authorities to deploy a U.S. missile defense system.
Here's how the worst flub in Oscar history went down (USA Today)
Oscar got it wrong, wrong, soooo wrong. The presenters announced the wrong Best Picture; Moonlight was the winner, not La La Land.
What’s most likely to kill you? Measuring how deadly our daily activities are (The Conversation)
It’s always distressing and tragic when we hear a report of shark attack. But what is the actual likelihood of dying due to a shark encounter in Australia? How concerned about this are you as you go swimming? How concerned should you be?
Discovery of a Huge, Mysterious Jade Pendant Could Rewrite Maya History (Science Alert)
Researchers have just published a paper on one of the most fascinating and mysterious Maya discoveries in recent years – a huge jade pendant that has a detailed story about the king it was made for etched into its back.
