Financial Markets and Economy
All Those Bubble Sightings Turned Out to Be Mirages (Bloomberg)
Calling bubbles is hard. For example, take tech startups. In 2011, billionaire Mark Cuban — who won much of his own fortune in an earlier tech bubble — declared that the modern venture-funded startup scene was like a Ponzi scheme.
Whatever You Do, Don’t Read This Column (The Wall Street Journal)
Investors believe the darndest things. In one recent survey, wealthy individuals said they expect their portfolios to earn a long-run average of 8.5% annually after inflation.
The Garbage Deal That Was Anything But (Bloomberg)
CEOs and the bankers who advise them like to talk up the benefits of the deals they do, touting the synergies and earnings accretion they expect to achieve to justify spending on transactions.
Here's how the 'biggest tax cut in history' could impact stocks (Bloomberg)
There's no denying that President Donald Trump's proposed "biggest tax cut" in US history, which would lower the corporate tax rate to 15% from 35%, will boost cash flow to US corporations and ultimately help their bottom line. That's simple economics.
Bond Traders' Inflation Bets Have New Life, Just in Time for Fed (Bloomberg)
Bond traders demonstrated this week that for all the doubts about the Trump trade, wagers on quicker inflation still have life.
Libya's Oil Output Rebounds as Sharara, El Feel Fields Restarted (Bloomberg)
Libya’s crude production rebounded to more than 700,000 barrels a day as the OPEC member’s biggest oil field and another deposit in its western region resumed pumping after a halt.
On Friday, new data from the Office for National Statistics showed UK GDP growth slowing to just 0.3% in the first quarter of 2017.
Goldman: U.S. Economy "now at full employment" (Calculated Risk)
On a broad range of measures, the US economy is now at full employment. Headline unemployment has fallen below most estimates of the structural rate, the discouraged worker share is back to pre-recession lows, and the still somewhat elevated share of involuntary part-timers is arguably structural.
Most VIX Analysis Is Outright Nonsense (Barron's)
Last Monday the CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, declined 25% in reaction to the French presidential election. The move was dramatic—and it generated a nauseating amount of meaningless commentary.
This scoreboard tracks the economy under Trump. Here’s what it says now (Market Watch)
Even President Donald Trump’s harshest critic has to admit: the U.S. economy hasn’t cratered in his first 100 days in the Oval Office.
Tactical Asset Allocation in April (Allocate Smartly)
This is a summary of the recent performance of a wide range of excellent tactical asset allocation strategies. These strategies are sourced from books, academic papers, and other publications. While we don’t (yet) include every published TAA model, these strategies are broadly representative of the TAA space.
Investing in Europe: Where’s the Return? (CFA Institute)
US investors aren’t too fond of European stocks these days and for good reason.
If you diversified across the Atlantic — the equivalent of eating your peas and carrots — you would have received zero over the past decade.
Economy off to a slow start for 2017 (Econbrowser)
The Bureau of Economic Analysis announced today that U.S. real GDP grew at a 0.7% annual rate in the first quarter, weak even by the post-recession average annual growth rate of 2.1% and far below the U.S. historical average of 3.1%.
China Manufacturing Gauge Declines From a Nearly Five-Year High (Bloomberg)
China’s official factory and services gauges pulled back from multi-year highs, dimming the outlook for the sustainability of the past two quarters’ acceleration in economic growth.
Three Ways to Move Forward as a Trader (TraderFeed)
I found an excellent way to assess experienced traders. Simply ask them to show you what, specifically, they are now working on in their trading. The best traders–including the ones experiencing current success–can show you concrete improvements that they are making to their research, their trading, their risk management, and/or their trading business.
Hedge Fund CIO: What Central Banks Have Done Is "Stunning, Unprecedented" (Zero Hedge)
We start a quiet Sunday with a big picture anecdote from Eric Peters' latest weekend note explaining why what central banks are trying to do is impossible, why the trend of inflation over the past 70 years is "stunning and unprecedented" and why "volatility suppression" always eventually fails.
Companies
How Ford is trying to become more like Apple (Quartz)
In 1913, Henry Ford’s moving assembly line slashed the production time of a Model T—and with it, the price.
Ford Motor Company eventually sold around 15 million units of the world’s first mass-market car before it discontinued production in 1927.
More tech earnings; Jobs report; Berkshire's annual meeting (CNN)
Apple (AAPL, Tech30) is reporting second quarterly earnings on Tuesday, and Facebook (FB, Tech30) and Tesla (TSLA) are both reporting first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
Technology
Apple won't explain why some of its new MacBook Pros are making a weird popping noise (Business Insider)
Many MacBook Pro owners are complaining that their high-end laptops are making a weird "popping" noise — and Apple isn't saying why.
Facial recognition is increasingly common, but how does it work? (The Conversation)
The Trump administration’s efforts to impose new immigration rules drew attention – and legal fire – for its restrictions on the ability of people born in certain majority Muslim countries to enter the U.S. In the frenzy of concern, an obscure piece of the executive orders did not get scrutinized, or even noticed, very much: an expansion of facial recognition systems in major U.S. airports to monitor people leaving the U.S., in hopes of catching people who have overstayed their visas or are wanted in criminal investigations.
Blackberry Keyone Vs. iPhone 7: Which Is Best For You? (Digital Trends)
The keyboard-toting BlackBerry KeyOne runs Android and could hardly be more different from the iPhone 7. It can be tricky comparing apples and oranges, or in this case, blackberries, but we’re here to delve into the major differences in specs and try to explain what they might mean for you.
Robots are going to take a lot of jobs — here's what we could do about it (Business Insider)
For all the talk of robots replacing humans on the job, in schools and even in bed, students at Everett Community College in Washington State are preparing for a robot future.
Only A Superweapon Can Kill Superbacteria, And Humanity Finally Found It (Digital Trends)
In 1945, in New Mexico, the researchers of the Manhattan Project performed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon; it bathed the desert with light, and cast a pall over the world for decades after. In 2016, the Southwest saw another harbinger of destruction.
Wikipedia has been blocked in Turkey (Tech Crunch)
Wikipedia, the online user-generated encyclopedia, has been blocked by the Turkish government.
News of the blockage was first reported by the website Turkey Blocks, at around 1AM Eastern this morning.
Snapchat is stifled by its un-algorithmic feed (Tech Crunch)
Snapchat invented its best products by being the anti-Facebook. Its disappearing chats made visual communication quick and casual compared to Facebook’s email-esque text messages.
HTC Vive will get a $220 plug-and-play eye-tracking aGlass device in May (Venture Beat)
Eye tracking is one feature that could could benefit the performance and affordability of high-end virtual reality headsets. The HTC Vive should become the first mainstream headset to put that theory to the test.
Politics
Here are the national monuments being reviewed under Trump's order (Los Angeles Times)
President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday calling for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review national monuments created by Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama.
Noam Chomsky: The Republican Party Is the 'Most Dangerous Organization in World History' (Alternet)
One of the leading political scientists, Martin Gilens, has done important studies of the relationship between public attitudes and public policy, based on polling data. It’s a pretty straightforward thing to study—policy you can see, and public opinion you know from extensive polling.
Trump breaks with 30-year tradition in skipping White House correspondents dinner (The Wall Street Journal)
The annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner went forward on Saturday without President Donald Trump, the first president in more than 30 years to skip the gala.
SNP denies split over general election's impact on independence vote (The Guardian)
The SNP has denied being split on whether a vote for the party in the 2017 general election is a vote to support a second independence referendum for Scotland.
General election 2017: Theresa May refuses to rule out tax hikes ahead of Conservative manifesto publication (Business Insider)
Prime Minister Theresa May will not make "specific proposals" ruling out tax rises in the run-up to the general election on June 8.
Many call Trump a fascist. 100 days in, is he just a reactionary Republican? (The Guardian)
On May 10, 1933, Adolf Hitler’s 100th day as German chancellor, as students and Nazi storm troopers lit bonfires of un-German books in central Berlin, the new Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda Goebbels endorsed their “right to clean up the debris of the past.”
French voters skeptical Macron, Le Pen have answers on unemployment, security: poll (Reuters)
A week before a decisive second round in France’s presidential election, many voters are skeptical that either of the two candidates can solve chronic unemployment or tackle security concerns, a poll published on Sunday found.
Trump commends Philippines leader Duterte’s war on drugs and extends invitation to visit U.S. (The New York Post)
President Trump spoke by phone Saturday with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte — praising the strongman for “fighting very hard to rid his country of drugs” and inviting him to Washington.
Trump savages media as Washington roasts him from afar (Politico)
Jerry Dobihal came into the Pennsylvania Farm Show auditorium here with two Donald Trump buttons tacked on his cowboy hat, 15 colored markers and a large sign: "My President Skipped Dinner to Give Us DESSERT."
Life on the Home Planet
China deports U.S. businesswoman it convicted of spying (CNN)
Sandy Phan-Gillis spent more than two years in Chinese custody after being detained in March 2015 during a business trip with officials from Houston.
The terrifying way our universe will die (Business Insider)
Robbert Dijkgraaf is a theoretical physicist and Leon Levy Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is also the co-author of "The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge." In this video, he explains how our universe will meet its death. Following is a transcript of the video.
Cuban Military Plane Crashes, Killing 8 Troops on Board (NY Times)
A Cuban military plane crashed into a hillside Saturday in the western province of Artemisa, killing eight troops on board, the government said.
The Inside Scoop on the Chilean Earthquake Swarm (Scientific American)
Chile experienced a series of rather substantial earthquakes over the past several days, culminating in a fairly significant M 6.9 jolt. Well – significant to those of us not living in Chile, that is.
Multiple tornadoes kill five in Texas (Reuters)
Multiple tornadoes ripped through a town in eastern Texas overnight, killing at least five people and injuring dozens of others, according to authorities, who warned the number of casualties could rise.
