Financial Markets and Economy
Proof That Mr. Market Is Losing His Mind (Forbes)
Before getting to the market in general, I want to question how much longer investors are going to pay attention to the self-serving financial engineering proposals of activist investors such as the one David Einhorn recently threw up against the wall at General Motors (GM).
Houses in New York and San Francisco aren't nearly as expensive as some other parts of the world (Business Insider)
The chart below from Torsten Slok, the chief international economist at Deutsche Bank, compares median house prices to the median income in various cities last year. That ratio is a gauge of affordability.
Emerging-Market Bond Values Too Frothy for Fidelity's Khan (Bloomberg)
Emerging-market bonds have already rallied enough for Peter Khan.
With their yield premium over U.S. Treasuries near the lowest since 2014, the fixed-income manager at Fidelity International Ltd. is playing a waiting game.
Thousands of mall-based stores are shutting down in what's fast becoming one of the biggest waves of retail closures in decades.
More than 3,500 stores are expected to close in the next couple of months.
CBO’s 2017 Long-Term Budget Outlook (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget)
The United States is on an unsustainable fiscal path, according to the Long-Term Budget Outlook released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today. According to CBO, today’s post-war record-high debt will rise indefinitely as a share of the economy, which will lead to serious negative consequences.
Friday: Personal Income and Outlays, Chicago PMI (Calculated Risk)
At 8:30 Personal Income and Outlays for February. The consensus is for a 0.4% increase in personal income, and for a 0.2% increase in personal spending. And for the Core PCE price index to increase 0.2%.
Q4 Revised GDP Remains At Dismal 1.6% Annual GDP YOY (Hungarian Level) (Confounded Interest)
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Q4 US GDP grew at a 2.1% GDP rate. This closes out Obama’s/Fed’s economic legacy.
Why The Fate Of The World Economy Is In The Hands Of China's Housing Bubble (Zero Hedge)
A couple of research reports released overnight by Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, respectively, come to a sobering conclusion: the fate of the global economy may be in the hands of the Chinese housing bubble.
Reality Virus Infects Kansas Legislators, Brownback Immune (New Economic Perspectives)
The good news is that the Kansas legislature, the land of the lunatics, experienced an outbreak of the reality virus (first diagnosed and named by Steve Keen among neoclassical economists). The bad news is that the Kansas’ Crazy-in-Chief, Governor Sam Brownback, has proven immune to the virus.
Companies
Waymo-Uber judge says may grant injunction if key witness doesn't testify (Reuters)
The U.S. judge overseeing a blockbuster case over self-driving car technology suggested Uber could face an injunction if a key Uber executive does not testify for fear of exposing himself to criminal prosecution, according to a transcript seen by Reuters.
Uber Executive Invokes Fifth Amendment, Seeking to Avoid Potential Charges (NY Times)
An Uber executive accused of stealing driverless car technology from his former employers at Google is exercising his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, according to his lawyers.
Giants May Be Toppled As Amazon, Walmart War For Your Wallet (Forbes)
For consumers, a new golden age of online commerce is underway. The two largest retailers are engaged in a price war to capture a larger share of what Americans spend on everyday items. Both Amazon, with its aggressive algorithms, and Walmart, with low prices central to its DNA, are trying to be the cheapest, best place to sell to you online.
Sears and Its Hedge Fund Owner, in Slow Decline Together (NY Times)
Hedge funds have been failing over the last year at the fastest rate since the financial crisis in 2008. Some crashed and burned after sudden reversals. Others quietly liquidated.
Amazon and the Race to Be the First $1 Trillion Company (Fortune)
That value is an eye-popping 13 figures long, and would be enough to buy about 1.3 billion of the iPhone 7 Plus, made by Apple (AAPL, -0.19%), the company that's usually considered top-seeded to reach $1 trillion in market value the soonest.
Westinghouse Bankruptcy Shakes The Nuclear World (Forbes)
Westinghouse has obtained $800 million in debtor-in-possession financing from a third-party lender to help fund and protect its core businesses during this reorganization.
Technology
How P&G and American Express Are Approaching AI (Harvard Business Review)
There is a tendency with any new technology to believe that it requires new management approaches, new organizational structures, and entirely new personnel. That impression is widespread with cognitive technologies — which comprises a range of approaches in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning.
ESPN Has Seen the Future of TV and They’re Not Really Into It (Bloomberg)
The main SportsCenter studio at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., is a blue-lit box. The ceiling is as high as a cathedral’s, and there’s enough floor space to land a helicopter. Screens are everywhere. “We have about 150 different monitors in here and, of course, miles of LED lighting,” says Aaron LaBerge, the sports network’s chief technology officer, during a recent tour.
Robots are coming to the accounting industry — here's how to prepare (Business Insider)
There’s been quite a lot of speculation recently that the growing sophistication and pervasiveness of artificial intelligence will decimate the ranks of the professional services industry, with accounting particularly endangered.
Second consumer-test organization finds MacBook Pro battery life exceeds Apple’s claims (9To5Mac)
Following extremely puzzling Consumer Reports tests that showed the 2016 MacBook Pro offering substantially better battery-life than Apple claimed, a UK consumer-testing organization has reported the same thing.
iPad 2017 Is Actually the iPad Air Refurbished, iFixit Teardown Reveals (International Business Times)
Apple launched a new $329 tablet — iPad on March 21. The new tablet, which is a look-alike of the 2013 model iPad Air 1, has triggered speculations if Apple launched a refreshed version of the same tablet.
Is It Time to Upgrade Your iPad? Probably Not (The Wall Street Journal)
Apple just delivered a brand new iPad that it says features “a brighter 9.7-inch Retina® display and best-in-class performance at its most affordable price ever.”
Hello, Big Brother: How China controls its citizens through social media (DW Made For Minds)
Imagine this: You pay your morning coffee with your phone, and then check into work with a tap of your fingers. You make lunch reservations and transfer your co-worker money for said lunch. You schedule a doctor's appointment and see your check-up results afterwards.
Why All Entrepreneurs Need a 30-Month Mindset (Inc.)
Every year, Social Media Marketing World gathers the best and brightest from all parts of the social and marketing worlds: social measurement and optimization platforms, social and digital branding leads from large and local brands, entrepreneurs and consultants, and individual influencers and experts from platforms like Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and more.
Politics
Trump Calls Congressional Inquiry a ‘Witch Hunt’ (NY Times)
President Trump said on Friday that Michael T. Flynn, the national security adviser who resigned last month over his contacts with Russian officials, should ask for immunity from prosecution in the congressional investigation into the presidential campaign’s ties to Moscow.
Trump suffers month of rough polling (Politico)
The Obamacare repeal debacle has eroded Donald Trump’s already weak approval ratings, leaving him historically unpopular just 10 weeks into his presidency.
The U.S. Cannot Be Run Like a Business (Harvard Business Review)
Donald Trump ran his campaign with the promise to manage the U.S. government like a business. In fact, he just announced that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will head up a “SWAT team” dedicated to making this happen.
‘We are in a trade war,’ Trump’s commerce secretary says after stern German warning (The Washington Post)
Germany's foreign minister on Friday morning said the Trump administration is taking a “dangerous step” after the Commerce Department announced a tariff on imports of foreign steel, indicating the tax could become a new source of conflict with the powerful U.S. ally and trading partner.
Republicans’ views of blacks’ intelligence, work ethic lag behind Democrats at a record clip (The Washington Post)
Over the last two decades, there has never been a bigger divide between white Republicans and Democrats when it comes to views of the intelligence and work ethic of African Americans, according to the new General Social Survey.
Military sharply warns Congress against punting on spending (CNN)
The Navy will cancel ship deployments and shut down carrier air wings. The Air Force will ground all non-deploying squadrons in the US. Blue Angel shows will be scrapped, and Fleet Weeks cut. Thousands of bonuses for troops will go unpaid.
Judge approves $25 million Trump University settlement (Politico)
A federal judge has approved a $25 million settlement President Donald Trump agreed to late last year in a bid to head off a civil fraud trial over his Trump University real estate seminar
Health and Biotech
For years scientists have tinkered with mosquito genes to try to eradicate the crippling spread of diseases like malaria. But today new gene-editing technology has heightened the potential for helping hundreds of millions of impoverished people worldwide who are ravaged by the pathogen these tiny killers spread.
Life on the Home Planet
California snowpack is one of the biggest ever recorded, and now poses a flooding risk (LA Times)
The skies were gray, snow was falling and it was bitterly cold when state snow survey chief Frank Gehrke made his monthly march out to a deep pillow of snow in the Sierra Nevada town of Phillips on Thursday morning.
Warming drives Alaskan glacier to its lowest point in 900 years (New Scientist)
Glaciers around the world are in retreat. But the Columbia glacier is one of the most dramatic and well-documented cases, as well as the largest contributor to sea level rise out of the 50 or so glaciers that descend to the sea in Alaska.
