Financial Markets and Economy
Stock Bears See Hong Kong's Greatest Short in Great Wall Motor (Bloomberg)
Short-sellers crowding into Great Wall Motor Co. are being vindicated — and they’re lining up for more.
Shares in China’s largest SUV maker have retreated 19 percent from a February peak in Hong Kong as sales of its aging Haval H6 model fell and the company reported a quarterly profit decline.
Australian Mortgage Bond Sales Are Climbing Despite Housing Warnings (Bloomberg)
Investors are lapping up mortgage bonds in Australia even as regulators and credit assessors step up their warnings about risks from the nation’s housing market.
Yen Gains, U.S. Futures Drop Amid Trump Concerns: Markets Wrap (Bloomberg)
The yen rose and U.S. equity-index futures fell while Asian markets were mixed as investors sifted through the latest news on the Trump administration.
Baby boomers are making it harder for millennials to buy homes (Business Insider)
If you've been in the market for your dream home, you may have found that it's particularly difficult to find one right now.
Housing inventory has rached historic lows across the country, and competition is heating up.
As Machines Take Jobs, Companies Need to Get Creative About Making New Ones (Harvard Business Review)
Jobs in retail, transportation, manufacturing, and agriculture are highly vulnerable to technological change. Retailers such as Macy’s and The Limited are closing hundreds of stores and cutting tens of thousands of jobs as people buy more and more products online, and others are testing robotic assistants or planning for autonomous stores.
Nearly $150K Per Post? What You Need To Know About China's Key Opinion Leaders (Forbes)
What are key opinion leaders (KOLs) and why should I care about them? Good question. KOLs in China are essentially social media influencers. Think the Kardashians but with more clothes on.
The 10 most affordable places to own a home on the beach in the US (Smart Asset)
Vacation home prices have skyrocketed in recent years, causing home sales to fall.
According to a report from the National Association of Realtors, vacation home sales declined by 18.5% between 2014 and 2015.
Admit It: You Know The Market Is Overvalued (Investing Doc, Seeking Alpha)
I'll be the first to admit that I don't know everything.
For example, a question: Would American companies (NYSEARCA:SPY) be worth 13% more today than they were 6 months ago, when they were already pretty close to fully valued? Because the market seems to think so.
This Is Not How A Bear Market Starts (ANG Traders, Seeking Alpha)
There has been, and continues to be, an inordinate amount of digital-ink spilled promulgating the imminent demise of the bull-market. Most of the arguments for this, center around the near-historic levels of certain metrics, such as PE ratios and S&P averages, but they ignore the factors that truly coincide with the launch of bear-markets.
BofA’s Hartnett Sees Stocks Approaching Peak Irrationality (Value Walk)
With Goldman Sachs reporting hedge funds are becoming increasingly bullish, bearish market opinion divergence can be seen across the fruited plain.
7 Critical Challenges Shaping the Future (Merrill Lynch)
When it comes to tackling the world’s biggest challenges, neither government policies nor piecemeal philanthropic efforts have, by themselves, proved equal to the task.
Euro Surges After Merkel Says Euro Is "Too Weak", Blames ECB (Zero Hedge)
In the early days of the Trump administration, when the world was still worried – unnecessarily – that Trump would single out Europe, and especially Germany, as an unfair trading partner, slamming the Euro as too weak, Germany's fallback response was to say the currency is where it is due to the ECB's monetary policy, oh and that the Euro wasn't weak, but merely reflecting fundamentals.
How to Make Big Bucks While Selling Your Products for Free (Entrepreneur)
Marketing funnels are very effective at converting your website visitors into paying customers, and savvy marketers are constantly looking for ways to increase one very important metric — conversion rates.
Silver Surges As Shorts Hit 2-Year High (Zero Hedge)
The so-called 'smart-money' has been piling into short silver positions in the last few weeks (creating the biggest hedge fund silver short in two years as of last week)… as silver rebounds from a record losing streak.
Goldman Warns Of "Sharp Oil Price Drop", Inventory Glut "If Backwardation Is Not Achieved" (Zero Hedge)
Increasingly some of the more prominent sellside analysts appear to be picking and choosing ideas from their competitors. Earlier, it was JPM echoing Goldman's reco when it cut its 10Y yield forecast.
Companies
Here’s When Apple Could Reach a $1 Trillion Market Cap (Fortune)
In a note to investors on Monday, RBC Capital Markets analyst Amit Daryanani said that Apple could surpass a $1 trillion valuation within the next 12 to 18 months.
Can Lumber Liquidators Stock Keep Going After Last Week's 16% Pop? (The Motley Fool)
At least one Wall Street pro sees a turnaround gaining traction at Lumber Liquidators (NYSE:LL), an outlook that helped send shares of the hardwood retailer 15.7% higher last week. Brian Nagel at Oppenheimer upgraded Lumber Liquidators last week, taking his rating from "perform" to "outperform." Nagel's price target of $34 suggests 17% more in upside, even after Friday's 11% surge on the upgrade news.
Better Buy: Pepsi Or Coca-Cola? (Robert Riesen, Seeking Alpha)
With the S&P 500 currently trading at 25.19, the overall market is richly valued. It might be time to start taking profits and reallocating to a more downside resistant portfolio. Both Pepsi (NYSE:PEP) and Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) are two of the best low-beta stocks that any investor can add to their portfolio for downside protection.
Netflix Tops Amazon (Bespoke)
We touched on this in an earlier post, but just commenting on it doesn’t do it justice. What we are referring to is the returns of Amazon.com (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX) since their respective IPOs.
Delta Air Lines Has Upside Potential (HF Analyst, Seeking Alpha)
Based on the stock price chart above, it is clear that Delta Air Lines (NYSE:DAL) shares are in a range bound trend.
Gilead's Dividend Stream Is Undervalued (Abba's Aces, Seeking Alpha)
A dividend is just one of many ways a company can reward its shareholders by paying them out in cash. The investor can then choose to take the cash and run, reinvest it in the company, or invest it in a different company.
Bitcoin Blows Through $2100 (Zero Hedge)
Bitcoin is now up over 135% year-to-date, having screamed above $2000 and $2100 overnight as the dollar limped to 6-month lows…
Having shrugged off China crackdowns and worries over 'hard forks', it appears the legalization of the virtual currency in Japan (with Peach Aviation now accepting bitcoin for flight ticket purchases) and broader adoption in Russia have fueled demand in recent weeks.
Technology
Pittsburgh Welcomed Uber’s Driverless Car Experiment. Not Anymore. (NY Times)
When Uber picked this former Rust Belt town as the inaugural city for its driverless car experiment, Pittsburgh played the consummate host.
The ceiling of this new Airbus private jet is one giant screen (Business Insider)
On Monday, Airbus introduced the latest interior for its ACJ319neo private jet at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition.
This giant vending machine dispenses Ferraris in minutes (Mashable Asia)
Car parks that are actually massive vending machines are a thing. In Singapore, a used car seller claims it has the world's "largest luxury car vending machine."
All IT Jobs Are Cybersecurity Jobs Now (The Wall Street Journal)
In the Appalachian mountain town of West Jefferson, N.C., on an otherwise typical Monday afternoon in September 2014, country radio station WKSK was kicked off the air by international hackers.
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Apple’s lack of daycare isn’t an oversight, it’s a feature (Mashable Asia)
After WIRED offered us all a peek into Apple’s new headquarters, one notable fact emerged: there’s no daycare center. Whooooopsie.
Tesla makes Autopilot 'smooth as silk' for current models (Engadget)
Just because your Tesla can periodically drive itself doesn't mean you'll always like it. Elon Musk himself acknowledges that the sometimes rough Autopilot driving can be "unpleasant." You won't be jolted quite so frequently in the near future, though.
Politics
Tillerson holds a press conference without U.S. media (Politico)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a news conference with the Saudi foreign minister in Riyadh on Sunday, but he left the American media behind.
White House Moves to Block Ethics Inquiry Into Ex-Lobbyists on Payroll (NY Times)
The Trump administration, in a significant escalation of its clash with the government’s top ethics watchdog, has moved to block an effort to disclose the names of former lobbyists who have been granted waivers to work in the White House or federal agencies.
Under Trump, coal communities are stuck between a rock and a hard place (Think Progress)
Blair Zimmerman, Pennsylvania's Greene County Commissioner, knows coal. As a mine worker for 40 years and then a politician in southwestern Pennsylvania, he knows how important coal is to both the identity and economic stability of his community.
What Was That Glowing Orb Trump Touched in Saudi Arabia? (NY Times)
A mysterious glowing orb is exerting uncanny power over the world’s social media.
President Trump, King Salman of Saudi Arabia and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt entered a darkened room filled with row after row of computers in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on Sunday evening.
Flynn Takes The 5th, Refuses To Turn Over Documents To Senate Panel (NPR)
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn is invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination on Monday, refusing to hand over documents subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Donald Trump is “exhausted,” his staffers say, and that’s why he’s committing some gaffes (Salon)
The White House wants you to believe that President Donald Trump didn’t mean to offend Muslim audiences when he referred to Islamist extremism as “Islamic extremism.”
Justices Reject 2 Gerrymandered North Carolina Districts, Citing Racial Bias (NY Times)
The Supreme Court struck down two North Carolina congressional districts on Monday, ruling that lawmakers had violated the Constitution by relying too heavily on race in drawing them, in a decision that could affect many voting maps, generally in the South.
The Rock's Presidential 'Campaign' Shows We've Learned Nothing (TIME)
He's a celebrity with no history of serving in elected office, a huge social media following and a project to promote. After musing that he might run for president, he's gotten profiles in both the entertainment and political press and a softball interview from Jimmy Fallon.
Trump appoints hate group figures to voter fraud commission (The Southern Poverty Law Center)
In an executive order signed in private, President Trump named Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who moonlights as an attorney for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), to serve as vice-chair of a commission to review claims of voter fraud, which will be chaired by Vice President Mike Pence.
As the nation’s capital has been consumed by the frothing chaos of President Donald Trump’s administration — botched Muslim bans, sudden personnel changes and the chief executive’s erratic behavior — a steady current of traditional right-wing orthodoxy is sweeping through the federal government.
DHS hopeful Clarke denies plagiarism in master's thesis (Associated Press)
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, who says he's been appointed an assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security, has denied he plagiarized content in his master's thesis on homeland security, while the Naval Postgraduate School confirmed Sunday that it's reviewing the allegations.
Trump plans to kick millions of poor kids off Medicaid (Shareblue)
Despite campaign promises to protect Medicaid, Donald Trump's budget includes an $800 billion cut to the service that provides medical care to millions of vulnerable Americans, while catering to the super-wealthy and allowing them to flourish.
Days after administration promised not to touch food stamps, Trump budget reportedly will cut them (Think Progress)
“As far as I’m concerned we have no proposed changes” to the food stamps program, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue told congressmen last Wednesday. “You don’t try to fix things that aren’t broken.”
“President Cuck”: Twitter universe is quick to jump on the president’s tone change on Islam (Salon)
The big news over the weekend was President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the first stop on his first international trip since taking office, and the speech he delivered while there.
Life on the Home Planet
American trees are migrating west, and no one knows why (Science Alert)
Over the past 30 years, three-quarters of eastern US tree species have been shifting to the west, and at an astonishing rate of around 15.4 kilometres per decade (9.5 miles).
Heavy Rains Are Turning U.S. Corn Fields Into Lakes (Bloomberg)
Some Nebraska corn fields are so flooded that farmers are posting videos of themselves wakeboarding. The image is amusing, but the realities of the heavy spring downpours are pummeling U.S. grain farmers with soggy fields and threats of crop disease.
It's Dimming! Astronomers Jump At Opportunity To Solve The Mystery Of Tabby's Star (Forbes)
While other stars show small, periodic dips in their brightness due to transiting planets, Tabby's star shows something unique.
Sinkhole Opens In Front Of Mar-a-Lago, Jokes Pour In (Zero Hedge)
With Trump traveling half-way around the globe, on Monday an amusing "event of nature" took place at the president's favorite "ground zero", when a sinkhole opened up in front of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort where he has previously hosted world leaders including China's Xi Jinping and Japan's PM Shinzo Abe, prompting an advisory from the Town of Palm Beach.
Get Your Chicken and Green Tea Waffles at Nobu’s New London Hotel (Bloomberg)
When Nobu Matsuhisa opened his first restaurant in London 20 years ago, there were very few places you could get a good meal in town.
A Black Actor in ‘Virginia Woolf’? Not Happening, Albee Estate Says (NY Times)
A decision by the estate of Edward Albee not to allow a production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to cast a black actor as a blond character is reigniting decades-long debates in the theater world over race, casting and authorial control.
