Financial Markets and Economy
Industrial production, the Federal Reserve's measure of US goods output, was right in line with expectations for the month of March.
Industrial Metals Are Diving (Bloomberg)
Industrial metals plunged as traders capitulated amid stock market declines and skepticism surrounding the outlook for commodity demand from China and the U.S.
China's $8.5 Trillion Shadow Bank Industry Is Back in Full Swing (Bloomberg)
China’s shadow banking is back in full swing, an unintended side effect of the government’s campaign against financial leverage, which has curbed traditional lending and squeezed bond financing.
Why America’s Richest Cities Keep Getting Richer (The Atlantic)
In the fall of 2013, in a hotel suite overlooking New York City’s Times Square, the gaming giant Electronic Arts unveiled Cities of Tomorrow, the latest addition to its hugely successful SimCity franchise of computer games.
Hertz and Avis Bonds Slide as Used-Car Prices Come Down (Bloomberg)
Debt issued by Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and Avis Budget Group Inc., which had traded at or above par in recent years, tumbled to new lows earlier this month amid signs that used-vehicle prices are dropping twice as much as expected.
U.S. Housing Starts Fell 6.8% in March (The Wall Street Journal)
U.S. housing starts declined in March, but not enough to signal a reversal from the long-term trend of improvement in new home construction.
Canada Puts Housing Speculators on Notice as Toronto Prices Soar (Bloomberg)
Canadian officials across all three levels of government vowed to be vigilant in monitoring the Toronto region’s rapidly accelerating housing market, including possibly taking formal steps aimed at curbing speculative activity.
IMF warns trade war could derail improving global economy (The Washington Post)
Growth in the global economy is gradually picking up, but it remains under threat from rising protectionism and the risk of trade wars, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday.
I.M.F. Raises Forecast for Global Economic Growth (NY Times)
The International Monetary Fund has raised its outlook for global growth, citing a postelection confidence boost in the United States, better prospects in large emerging markets and an uptick in global trade.
The Public Does Not Seem To Be Clamoring For A Tax Cut (Forbes)
Just as politicians and pundits are talking more about tax cuts and less about tax reform, the public seems happier with the revenue code than at any time in the past decade.
10 great investment minds’ strategy comes down to this one thing (Market Watch)
Throughout history, investors have repeatedly made the same investment mistakes. Whether it was selling at the bottom of major market corrections, or buying near the peaks of the next cyclical bull market, the results have, for the most part, been generally the same.
Dead Reckoning: Dow Drops 110 Points as Trump Talk Fails to Inspire (Barron's)
Stocks declined today as investors sought the safety of bonds as Brexit grew more complicated, U.S. economic data came in mixed, and President Donald J. Trump’s promise of imminent tax reform failed to inspire the market.
Be careful if you're betting tax changes will boost stocks (USA Today)
Investors have pinned high hopes on President Donald Trump's tax reform proposals, and that's one of the reasons stocks have soared since Trump's election in November.
The Error at the Heart of Corporate Leadership (Harvard Business Review)
In the fall of 2014, the hedge fund activist and Allergan shareholder Bill Ackman became increasingly frustrated with Allergan’s board of directors. In a letter to the board, he took the directors to task for their failure to do (in his words) “what you are paid $400,000 per year to do on behalf of the Company’s owners.”
How An ETF Gets Too Big For Its Index (ETF.com)
Can an exchange-traded fund get too big for its index? That's the question investors in one popular gold miner ETF are grappling with after rapid asset growth pushed it to significantly deviate from its underlying index.
The Problem with Product Proliferation (Harvard Business Review)
Royal Philips, the Netherlands’ most valuable brand, has long been a leader in product innovation. But in the first 10 years of the new millennium, the company’s revenue plunged 40%, profits for the decade were wiped out, and its market capitalization fell significantly.
US Gulf Coast distillate exports to Europe for April to exceed 1 million mt (S&P Global Platts)
Around 1.150 million mt of distillates have departed the US Gulf Coast for arrival in Europe in April, according to data from cFlow, S&P Global Platts trade flow software.
Visual Proof That Central Banks Are Behind Your Returns (The Heisenberg, Seeking Alpha)
I'd say "this settles it," but that wouldn't be accurate.
MS: The S&P 500 Is Still Cheap And Heading To 3,000 (Value Walk)
As the rest of the world worries about deteriorating the US–China and US–Russia relations equity analysts at Morgan Stanley have been busy cooking up a highly optimistic forecast for US equity markets.
Extreme Pessimism Indicates Markets Are Near Inflection Point!! (Modest Money)
Thursday’s, April 13th, 2017, trading displayed some evidence of “exhaustive selling”. It is still trading well above its 200- simple moving day average. The BULLISH RALLY has not stopped.
Is OPEC Gaming Exports To Move U.S. Inventories? (The Fuse)
The OPEC cuts may be finally starting to bite. While one week does not a trend make, the recent draw down in U.S. crude inventories is at least partially a result of Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members slashing volumes to American customers as part of their strategy to boost prices.
The World’s Next Great Manufacturing Center (Harvard Business Review)
In a low-slung office building at his giant ceramics factory in southwestern Nigeria, Sun Jian insisted that we have tea. He had just returned from a trip to China, and he had a batch of top-quality tea he wanted to share with visitors, in an age-old gesture of Chinese hospitality.
Deutsche Bank: "Early UK Elections Are A Gamechanger; We Are Closing Our Bearish GBP Trades" (Zero Hedge)
This morning's shocking announcement caught virtually everybody by surprise, and is prompting one bank after another to thoroughly revise their cable forecasts, case in point Deutsche Bank, whose strategist George Saravelos just announced he is changing his view on sterling because the "early elections are a game-changer", something which the market clearly anticipated judging by the surge in cable.
Goldman Asks: Are Markets Rationally, Or Irrationally, Exuberant? (Zero Hedge)
Goldman Sachs' Charlie Himmelberg and Marty Young find evidence that "animal spirits" are driving sentiment along party lines… and that may be a concern.
WTI/RBOB Tumble After Unexpected Build In Gasoline Inventories (Zero Hedge)
Despite last week's unexpected crude draw (and product draws) WTI/RBOB has faded since (even with a lower dollar) as OPEC production cut questions trump inventories for now.
Companies
IBM's revenue has now fallen for 20 quarters in a row (Business Insider)
IBM reported a bigger-than-expected drop in revenue for the first time in five quarters, hurt by weak demand in its technology services business.
13 Reasons Why Netflix Will Have to Bounce Back in 2Q (Fool.com)
Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX)reported mixed quarterly results after Monday's market close. We already broke down the pertinent numbers, so now let's take a look at the challenges that await the leading premium streaming platform.
Priceline Stock: Next Stop, $2000? (The Motley Fool)
Priceline Group (NASDAQ:PCLN) may soon have a Y2K situation — not that any bullish investor would mind that. A pair of analysts have recently boosted their price targets on Priceline stock to $2,000, a beefy milestone, but representing a mere 13% in upside based on Monday's close.
2 Huge Trucking Companies Are Merging: What It Means for Investors (The Motley Fool)
Knight Transportation (NYSE:KNX) is merging with Swift Transportation (NYSE:SWFT) to build a $5 billion trucking behemoth — and Wall Street thinks that's a good thing.
Adidas Sorry for Email Saying 'You Survived' Boston Marathon (Bloomberg)
Adidas has apologized for sending out a marketing email praising customers it said "survived" this year's Boston Marathon.
The subject line of the email sent Tuesday by Adidas Running read: "Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!"
SCOTT GALLOWAY: Investing in Snap is something 'no one responsible should ever do' (Business Insider)
Scott Galloway is a marketing professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and the founder of business intelligence firm L2. Galloway stopped by Business Insider to talk about the biggest names in tech. In this clip he talks about why he thinks Snap is a terrible investment. Following is a transcript of the video.
Over the past decade, revenue has plunged by more than 35% at JC Penney, largely due to strategic missteps made during Ron Johnson's brief tenure as CEO. By contrast, Macy's has been relatively successful at retaining sales, despite the severe impact of the Great Recession and the recent slowdown in mall traffic.
Yahoo's first-quarter revenue jumps 22 percent (Reuters)
Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O) reported a 22.1 percent increase in quarterly revenue on Tuesday, ahead of the sale of its core internet business to Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N).
Technology
VW Plots Tesla Attack With Four Affordable Electric Vehicles (Bloomberg)
Volkswagen AG is gearing up to take on Tesla Inc. with its namesake brand planning to roll out four affordable electric vehicles in the coming years and the Audi unit debuting an upscale battery-powered crossover it aims to introduce in 2019.
Apple makes iWork, iMovie & GarageBand apps free to all Mac & iOS users (Tech Crunch)
Apple quietly rolled out updated versions of its iWork, iMovie and GarageBand apps on Mac and iOS today, making them free for all customers on both platforms. Many customers already had free copies of these apps, as they came free with new Mac or iOS devices.
MIT's app only needs a second to teach you a new language (Engadget)
You know the seconds and minutes you waste waiting for the elevator to arrive, for a friend to reply to an IM or for a website to load? A team of MIT CSAIL researchers believe you can put them to good use, so they created a series of apps called the WaitSuite that makes the most of those idle moments by helping you learn a new language.
What T-Mobile, DISH Network, and Comcast Plan to Do With All the Wireless Spectrum They Just Bought (The Motley Fool)
The FCC just announced the results of its incentive spectrum auction. The auction reallocated wireless spectrum from television broadcasters to wireless companies to use in their wireless data networks.
Hardworking Chinese Robots Sorting 200,000 Packages a Day (Asia Pop Culture)
While the Chinese economy may not be as robust as it used to be, China still delivered over 30 billion packages in 2016. That's roughly 2.5 billion packages a month or 82 million a day. It also equates to about 22 packages for every single Chinese citizen, according to data from the State Post Bureau via Caixin.
Within the Next Decade, You Could Be Living in a Post-Smartphone World (Futurism)
One day, not too soon — but still sooner than you think — the smartphone will all but vanish, the way beepers and fax machines did before it.
Top Teen Roboticists Face Off This Week At World FIRST Championships (Forbes)
Starting Tuesday, tens of thousands of young roboticists will be unleashing their metal hordes on two major cities in days of tight competition for global titles; according to one top-ranked team, however, winning or losing is only a small part of this high-tech 'coopertition.'
Politics
Supreme court blocks flurry of executions in Arkansas (The Guardian)
The US supreme court has ended a dramatic day of legal tussles over Arkansas’ unprecedented plan to execute eight prisoners in 11 days, declining to allow the state to go ahead with Monday night’s scheduled killings in what amounted to a major victory for the condemned inmates’ lawyers and anti-death penalty campaigners.
Republicans Look To Avoid A Political Headache In Georgia (NPR)
Republicans are trying to prevent a political tremor from happening Tuesday night just north of Atlanta that would be a blow to President Trump and a boon to the rising Democratic opposition to him.
Trump pushes 'Buy American, Hire American' policy in Wisconsin (CNN)
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to implement the "Buy American, Hire American" rhetoric of his campaign.
Mixed messages: Trump’s congratulatory call to Turkish president contradicts statements from his own State Department, Sean SpicerTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an received a warm congratulation from his counterpart, U.S. President Donald Trump, shortly after his referendum win. But not all Republicans were celebrating — including many in Trump’s own administration.
'I will protect you!' Marine Le Pen vows to end all immigration to France if elected president (The Telegraph)
The far-Right leader Marine Le Pen on Sunday sought to mobilise her supporters six days ahead of France's most unpredictable presidential election in decades by pledging to suspend all immigration and shield voters from "savage globalisation".
AP FACT CHECK: Trump Ignores 100-Day High Achievers (Associated Press)
A look at a few of his statements at a Wisconsin tool company and an earlier interview with Fox:
TRUMP: "No administration has accomplished more in the first 90 days." — At Snap-on headquarters, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
As Trump Drifts Away From Populism, His Supporters Grow Watchful (NY Times)
President Trump visited the Tennessee estate of Andrew Jackson last month to symbolically claim the mantle of the first genuinely populist president since the 1830s.
Profits are surging for a major healthcare provider after ditching Obamacare (Daily Caller News Foundation)
The company’s profit rose by 35 percent in the first-quarter of 2017, and expanded nearly every aspect of its operation, including its participation in Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans, The Associated Press reports.
Majority Say Wealthy Americans, Corporations Taxed Too Little (Gallup)
As President Donald Trump and Republican leaders strategize about tax reform, the majority of U.S. adults believe that upper-income people and corporations are paying too little in taxes.
6 times Trump’s EPA head did exactly what industry told him to (Think Progress)
Former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt came to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promising to eliminate the Clean Power Plan, a priority for the coal industry and utilities, and to get rid of methane standards, a priority for the oil and gas industries.
The real cost of Trump’s ‘fake news’ accusations (The Washington Post)
New York Times media columnist Jim Rutenberg's recent dispatch from Moscow contains a litany of alarming observations about the Russian media.
Trump Promises U.S. Farmers Relief in Canada Dairy Dispute (Bloomberg)
President Donald Trump dove straight into a trade fight with Canada, promising U.S. dairy farmers his administration would intervene to restore exports of American milk.
The rise of Alex Jones, from Austin crank to the belle of the Trump ball (Salon)
Alex Jones, with his conspiracy theory media empire Infowars, used to be a fringe character, until Donald Trump’s paranoia-driven campaign launched him into the national spotlight.
All the things Donald Trump has said about releasing his tax returns (CNN)
He has claimed that ongoing IRS audits prevent him from doing so, even though such audits wouldn't restrict anyone from publishing their returns. And Trump is mandated to be audited during the rest of his time in office.
Life on the Home Planet
Cognitive science shows that humans are smarter as a group than they are on their own (Quartz)
As individuals, the amount we know about the world is miniscule. One psychologist estimated that an individual’s knowledge store is about one gigabyte, much less than fits on a typical USB thumb drive.
Here’s why humans are wired to produce false memories (The Conversation)
How much do you trust your memories? Do you consider the events and perspectives you remember as gospel truth, or as more malleable, fickle things that bend and warp with time and shifting context?
Eleven Celebrities on How They Spend Their Money (Bloomberg)
The first moment was in 1986. We had put out our third record, Master of Puppets, and we had spent about six months rolling around the U.S., touring with Ozzy Osbourne’s first arena outing.
That 'Armada' Heading To North Korea? Actually, It Sailed South (NPR The Two Way)
The "armada" that President Trump said he was sending to deter North Korea still hasn't arrived — and it has thousands more miles to cover if it actually does sail to the Korean Peninsula.
The Path to Universal Education (Project Syndicate)
It may be true that every journey begins with a single step. But when it comes to education, especially in low- and middle-income countries, we have a long way to go.
As It Embraces Las Vegas, N.F.L. Is Awash in Gambling Contradictions (NY Times)
When N.F.L. owners voted overwhelmingly last month to move the Raiders to Las Vegas, some of them went out of their way to say the city was no longer the corrupting influence they believed it once was and now very capable of supporting a franchise.
Parents Are More Worried About Their Kids Smoking Cigarettes Than Pot (Forbes)
More parents are worried about their children smoking cigarettes than marijuana, according to a new poll conducted by Marist and Yahoo News called "Weed and The American Family." When asked about their top concerns for their children, 24% of parents said that smoking cigarettes is their biggest worry.
