Financial Markets and Economy
Consumer Comfort in U.S. Rises for Fifth Time in Last Six Weeks (Bloomberg)
Americans’ confidence climbed for the fifth time in the last six weeks, resulting in the strongest quarterly sentiment since 2007, Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index figures showed Thursday.
How markets reacted to U.S. strike in Syria, in 4 charts (Market Watch)
News that the U.S. launched missiles against Syria has sent a ripple of activity across financial markets, triggering sharp reactions for such gold and an closely watched index of volatility.
Draghi Struggles to Shut Down ECB Debate Weidmann Wants to Have (Bloomberg)
Mario Draghi may have hoped to put an end to the bubbling debate on the European Central Bank’s exit strategy on Thursday. It didn’t take long for a reminder of how complicated this will be.
Defense stocks jump after US missile strike on Syria (RTN, LMT, BA) (Business Insider)
The US Navy fired at least 59 Tomahawk Missiles from two battleships, the USS Ross and the USS Porter, at dawn local time on Friday in retaliation for a chemical weapon strike earlier this week attributed to the Assad regime.
In the midst of an oil-price slump, one area in Texas is enjoying a bit of a boom (Market Watch)
Oil markets may remain in the grip of a prolonged slump, yet one oil-and-gas producing area in the U.S. is at the center of a modern-day land grab that’s made it a bright spot for energy deals.
Toronto Home Prices Just Jumped Another 33% (Bloomberg)
Toronto’s housing market showed no signs of cooling last month, with the average sale price soaring the most in almost three decades as the cost of a detached downtown home climbed to nearly C$1.6 million ($1.2 million).
Czechs Trigger Long-Awaited Koruna Float Without Swiss Shock (Bloomberg)
By signaling that its currency cap would end, the Czech central bank’s announcement that it would no longer keep the koruna artificially weak against the euro avoided the Swiss-like market shock and quick gains some investors anticipated.
Norway may open door for giant sovereign-wealth fund to invest in private equity (Market Watch)
In its annual report on Norway’s oil fund, which has assets valued at about $914 billion dollars, the country’s finance ministry said it would consider allowing the fund to invest in unlisted equities “on a general basis.”
Traders Asked for This Futures Contract, But They Aren’t Using It (Bloomberg)
There was so much demand for Intercontinental Exchange Inc. to introduce a new global futures contract for cotton that the bourse successfully lobbied to change a century-old U.S. law. But almost 18 months later, it’s contending with a flop.
European Stocks Decline as U.S. Missile Strike Spooks Markets (Bloomberg)
European stocks fell, mirroring risk-off sentiment in global financial assets, after the U.S. launched a missile attack on Syria and payrolls data showed a mixed picture of the U.S. labor market.
These Eight Retailers Will File For Bankruptcy Next, According To Fitch (Zero Hedge)
The situation is rapidly deteriorating for America's "bricks and mortar" retailers. As discussed earlier this week, some 9 retail outlets have already filed for bankruptcy protection in 1Q 2017 alone according to Alix Partners.
SocGen: "The Upcoming Central Bank Reversal Can't Be Helpful For Stocks" (Zero Hedge)
Today's post-European open ramp in the USDJPY may have boosted risk sentiment after yesterday's sharp selloff, and lifted global equities off session lows, but for many this is "too little, too late", with Bloomberg's commentator Marc Breslow noting earlier that at this point "it's a matter of when not if markets break down", a sentiment which was shared overnight by SocGen's FX strategist Kit Juckes, who in a note writes that "The wider Fed debate is about the impact on risk assets of shrinking the balance sheet.
Ron Paul: "Zero Chance" Assad Behind Chemical Weapons Attack In Syria; Likely A False Flag (Zero Hedge)
As Paul Joseph Watson details, pointing out that the prospect of peace in Syria was moving closer before the attack, with ISIS and Al-Qaeda on the run, Paul said the attack made no sense.
Companies
Despite 'challenging' environment, GM CFO expects strong 2017 (Reuters)
General Motors Co's (GM.N) chief financial officer said on Thursday the automaker expects another "very strong year" in 2017 and reiterated the company's earnings forecast for the year.
Under Trump tax plans, AAPL would repatriate $230B overseas cash, see profits jump 16% – Citi (9To5Mac)
If Trump enacted his promised corporate tax reforms, Apple would likely repatriate the bulk of its $230B cash reserves held overseas, and see its profits jump by 16%. The prediction was made by Citi in analysis seen by Business Insider.
Amazon Is Now Worth Twice As Much As Wal-Mart (Nicholas Ward, Seeking Alpha)
It seems like just about every day now I wake up and there are new Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) related headlines scrolling across the investing news wire.
Tesla's Flying High, But A Crash Remains A Possibility (Forbes)
Tesla Motors had a great first quarter, delivering 69% more cars than the year-earlier quarter, which sent its stock price soaring and burising skeptics. “Stormy weather in Shortville …", Musk tweeted. Of course, earlier he had been dismissive of the company’s high-flying stock.
Why AMD Shares Just Lost as Much as 9% (Forbes)
Shares of high-flying semiconductor maker Advanced Micro Devices dropped as much as 9% on Thursday, after a leading Wall Street analyst raised questions about the company's ability to beat competitors.
Fortune 500 – Fastest Growing and Shrinking Companies (Craft)
Since 1955, Fortune Magazine has released an annual list of the highest revenue generating companies in the US – the Fortune 500. In 2016, the US Fortune 500 companies generated $12 trillion in combined revenue, accounting for over two-thirds of US GDP, and employed 27 million people worldwide.
Lyft Gets $500 Million in New Funding as Its Rival Uber Wobbles (NY Times)
For years, Lyft has trailed its larger rival Uber in the battle to conquer the ride-hailing market. More recently, Lyft has gotten a boost.
Technology
IBM says it will become the first major cloud provider to offer NVIDIA’s Tesla P100 graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerator worldwide on its cloud.
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Apple’s Clips app is iMovie for the next generation (The Verge)
When I opened up Apple’s new Clips app yesterday, as I’ve been doing for the past few days, I was greeted with the same photo-capture screen that’s prioritized in all the social “story” apps.
AT&T just completed a first-of-its-kind test — and Cisco should be terrified (Yahoo Finance)
AT&T ran a test using data from its customers that proved it could build a superfast, reliable network with inexpensive no-name computer switches, some open-source software, and software from a startup.
Tesla Has Something Hotter Than Cars to Sell: Its Story (NY Times)
As Tesla shares surged past $300 this week and the company’s market value surpassed Ford’s, even its founder, Elon Musk, acknowledged on Twitter that the company was “absurdly overvalued if based on the past.”
Apple is making a curved screen for 'iPhone 8,' multiple supply chain sources say (Business Insider)
Apple has placed a large order with Samsung for OLED curved screen panels, according to multiple reports emanating from Apple's Asian supply chain. The order is fuelling rumours that at least one model in the "iPhone 8" launch expected later this year will have a curved screen.
Facebook is trying to teach its users how to spot fake news (Business Insider)
Do you know how to identify fake news?
The media and tech industry has been freaking out of late over the spread of misinformation and false news reports online — and Facebook has admitted some of its users might need a helping hand to identify it.
Maybe you don’t really need a Wi-Fi-connected sex toy (Salon)
The internet of things is gaining a lot of attention these days as this growing network of internet- and Wi-Fi-enabled products are increasingly showing up in homes and bedrooms. This technology lets you do things like print messages on toast, remotely control a pet door with a mobile phone and read today’s weather forecast from a bathroom mirror.
Politics
House Republicans are finally making a big admission: They like Obamacare! (Business Insider)
The first explanation for why House Republicans weren't eventrying to repeal most of the insurance-regulation provisions in Obamacare — provisions that Republicans have been complaining for years are needlessly driving up insurance premiums — was that Senate rules would make it impossible to do so without Democratic votes.
World Leaders Watch in Silence as Trump Cuts Climate Efforts (Bloomberg)
Presidents and prime ministers around the globe have raised few, if any, public objections to Trump’s sweeping orders to gut environmental regulations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said nothing about climate last month during her appearance with the U.S. president.
These Are the Dealmakers Behind Donald Trump and Xi Jinping (Bloomberg)
One president pledging to “make America great again” and another pushing his “Chinese dream” will meet for the first time Thursday in Palm Beach, Florida. Together, Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping oversee about one-third of the world’s economy, a quarter of its trade and two of its most powerful militaries.
Republican now leading Russia probe has a history of making wild claims in defense of Trump (Think Progress)
On Thursday, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced he was stepping down from the investigation into Russian meddling in the election.
Twitter sues to stop Trump's team from unmasking whoever runs this anti-Trump account (LA Times)
Twitter is the social media outlet President Trump favors to spread his message, but it's also home to a host of critical accounts claiming to be written by dissenting federal employees.
Trump and the Pathology of Narcissism (Rolling Stone)
At 6:35 a.m. on the morning of March 4th, President Donald Trump did what no U.S. president has ever done: He accused his predecessor of spying on him. He did so over Twitter, providing no evidence and – lest anyone miss the point – doubling down on his accusation in tweets at 6:49, 6:52 and 7:02, the last of which referred to Obama as a "Bad (or sick) guy!"
Trump lacks key players for meeting with Chinese leader (Politico)
President Donald Trump may be brimming with confidence going into his Mar-a-Lago summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but some China watchers say he could easily be outmatched by a superbly well-prepped Beijing diplomatic team aiming to exploit gaping holes in the White House’s fledgling China policy group.
Fifty years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King broke his silence on war and capitalism (Alternet)
Fifty years ago, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered a talk entitled “Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break the Silence” at New York’s Riverside Church. He had come to talk in searing terms about the American war on Vietnam.
Dalai Lama trip to India’s border with Tibet stokes anger in Beijing (The Washington Post)
China likes to refer to the Dalai Lama as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Beijing sees the leader of Tibetan Buddhism as a political leader as well — and one who inspires unrest on the high plateau he fled almost 60 years ago.
Unless The Government Acts Soon, Fake News Will Produce Deep Information Inequality (The Huffington Post)
Computational propaganda flourished during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, but what is most concerning is not so much the amount of fake news on social media but where it might have been directed.
Health and Biotech
How Pharma Companies Game the System to Keep Drugs Expensive (Harvard Business Review)
I help the University of Utah hospital system manage its drug budgets and medication use policies, and in 2015 I got sticker shock. Our annual inpatient pharmacy cost for a single drug skyrocketed from $300,000 to $1.9 million. That’s because the drug maker Valeant suddenly increased the price of isoproterenol from $440 to roughly $2,700 a dose.
No doctor required: 23andMe cleared by FDA for at-home DNA tests (The Verge)
The genetic testing company 23andMe can now tell its customers if they have genes linked to 10 diseases or medical conditions, including late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and celiac disease — without a doctor’s involvement.
Life on the Home Planet
How climate change could make air travel even more unpleasant (The Washington Post)
Flight turbulence could increase significantly under climate change, a study warns, potentially upping the risk of injury — or at least flight anxiety — for future airline passengers. Furthermore, fuel and maintenance costs for carriers could rise.
Japan’s cherry blossoms are emerging increasingly early (The Economist)
HANAMI, the Japanese custom of contemplating the impermanence of life by gazing at the fleeting beauty of blossoming flowers, goes back a long way. “The Tale of Genji”, a tenth-century masterpiece that is perhaps the world’s first novel, devotes a chapter to the cherry-blossom festival staged in the emperor’s great hall.
You can’t escape your parents: More aging adults are moving closer to mom and dad (Kaiser Health News)
Like many peers in their 70s, Lois and Richard Jones of Media, Pa., sold their home and downsized, opting for an apartment in a nearby senior living community they had come to know well. For 13 years, they have visited Lois’ mother, Madge Wertzberger, there.
Early on Friday morning, the US launched a cruise missile attack on an airfield and military infrastructure controlled by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in response to a chemical attack that killed at least 80 people in the Idlib province earlier this week.
