Financial Markets and Economy
Dems cave on TPP after "holding out for more sugar in the coffee" (Aaron Task, Yahoo)
President Obama's effort to pass the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) hit a temporary roadblock earlier this week as Senate Democrats blocked debate on Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which the President says he needs to finalize the massive trade deal between the U.S. and 11 other nations. But what many in the press called a "stinging rebuke" for the President indeed turned out to be a mere "procedural snafu", as the White House dubbed it.
Stan Druckenmiller sees ‘massive' problem caused by aging (Bloomberg)
Billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller said an aging population will present a “massive, massive problem” for the U.S. in 15 years.
“The young people are not going to be talking about cutting back,” Druckenmiller said Wednesday night in New York at an event hosted by Addepar, a technology company that provides software to financial advisers, fund managers and family offices. “There will be nothing to cut back.”
Druckenmiller, 61, has argued for several years that the mushrooming costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will bankrupt the nation’s youth and eventually result in a crisis worse than the financial meltdown of 2008. The government will have to reduce payments to the elderly, he said at the event.
Wholesale Deflation Strikes US Economy: April PPI Has Biggest Annual Drop In 5 Years (Zero Hedge)
Something funny happened on the way to the global reflation (telegraphed so loudly by the recent surge in 10Y yields to the highest level of 2015): PPI just crumbled by a sequential 0.4% in the month of April, despite expectations it would rise by 0.1% and continue the 0.2% monthly increase seen in March. This was a -1.3% drop in PPI – the fastest fall in 5 years.
International Dividend Momentum Is All About Emerging Markets (Seeking Alpha)
Income investors have known this day would come eventually – just as you shift all of your focus to U.S.-based markets where the momentum was strongest, the tide turns to overseas strength. Emerging markets in particular have been a well-documented story of "great fundamental theme, awful price action".
Never Pay A Sales Charge For An S&P 500 Index Fund (Value Walk)
The S&P 500 captures about 80 percent of U.S. market capitalization; as such, it’s a fairly good (though not perfect) gauge of domestic market performance.
But investors should use some caution when buying an S&P fund.
When buying a fund for your Individual Retirement Account (IRA), or a taxable brokerage account, you might opt for an inexpensive exchange-traded fund, such as the SPDR S&P 500 Trust SPY, which has an expense ratio of just 0.09 percent. Many investors gravitate toward index ETFs because of their low costs.
Former Wall Street CEO: Here's why the government couldn't stop the financial crisis (Business Insider)
"You had people on Wall Street who were smarter and much more numerous than anybody regulating them," he said of the years leading up to the financial crisis. "That’s a bad system, so that system has to be dealt with."
As for whether Wall Street and Americans are becoming greedier, he said, "there has certainly been a rise in the social permission to indulge in self-interest, particularly in the United States."
But when it comes to doling out blame for the financial crisis, Welling thinks the government deserves "at least a significant amount" of responsibility because of the poor quality of regulation that existed.
Exclusive: Dish plans ‘big’ foray into wireless business, document says (Yahoo)
Dish Network (DISH) is planning to become the only provider to offer wireless voice, video and data services, Yahoo Finance has learned.
The No. 2 U.S. satellite television provider shockedthe wireless industry earlier this year when it scored almost half of the spectrum licenses offered in a U.S. government auction. Other players were more traditional telecommunications providers, such as AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ) and T-Mobile (TMUS). Dish is estimated to own about $50 billion in wireless spectrum, according to Bloomberg.
Producer prices drop 0.4% in April on lower energy, food costs (Market Watch)
U.S. producer prices fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in April to mark the seventh decline in the last nine months, mainly because of lower gasoline and food costs. Economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted no change in the producer price index after a 0.2% increase in March. The price of goods sank 0.7% in April while services slipped 0.1%. Meanwhile, core producer prices that exclude the volatile categories of food, energy and trade rose 0.1% last month, spurred by a sharp increase in the cost of drugs. Over the past year overall producer prices have fallen a record 1.3% on an unadjusted basis. Yet the core rate has risen 0.7% in the same span, a sign that inflation is not entirely muted.
HSBC WARNS: The world economy faces a 'titanic problem' (Business Insider)
HSBC chief economist Stephen King is already thinking about the next recession.
In a note to clients Wednesday, he warns: "The world economy is like an ocean liner without lifeboats. If another recession hits, it could be a truly titanic struggle for policymakers."
Stocks and Trading
The Chinese Stock That Always Goes Up Just Had Its First Down Day Ever (Bloomberg)
The phenomenal rally in Chinese stocks has run out of steam in the past couple of weeks.
General Motors Has Good Yield But No Momentum – Cramer's Mad Money (5/13/15) (Seeking Alpha)
Cramer wants companies and CEOs to take action. Every major stock move on Wednesday was due to bold decisions made by CEOs. They did not let Fed rates, weak retail sales, Germany bund yields or Greek politics get in their way. "Almost every single company with a stock that jumped today played a major role in that jump, and very few of those rallies were earnings based," said Cramer.
Shake Shack earnings crush expectations, stock rallies (Business Insider)
Shake Shack just reported first-quarter earnings, and it's a big beat.
Shake Shack reported an adjusted profit of $0.04 per share on revenue of $37.8 million.
Revenue was up 56.3% from the same quarter last year while adjusted EPS doubled from a year ago.
Politics
Political polarization on Facebook (Brookings' TechTank)
Data scientists at Facebook recently published their research on how people consume political news on the social network. The study is noteworthy because the researchers had direct access to Facebook’s own data. It examines the factors that influence the likelihood that liberals or conservatives will click on news articles that are cross-cutting or those that run counter to their beliefs. Many Americans get a significant portion of their news from Facebook and in effect the social network is the largest news platform in the U.S. The study shows how the makeup of our social networks, the Facebook News feed algorithm, and individual user choice all influence the content people consume.
Jeb Bush Taunts Hillary Clinton Over Taking Questions (NY Times)
Jeb Bush has a pointed message for Hillary Rodham Clinton: I’m willing to face tough questions. You’re not.
“You can’t script your way to the presidency,” Mr. Bush said of Mrs. Clinton at a stop in Reno on Wednesday.
Fielding questions from residents, Mr. Bush repeatedly mocked Mrs. Clinton for avoiding formats in which she might encounter unexpected questions from potential voters and reporters. Those are the kind of formats, Mr. Bush suggested, that he relishes and seeks out.
Alan Grayson Just Called a Reporter a "Shitting Robot" (Mother Jones)
Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.)—known as something of an active volcano ever since he said in a 2010 floor speech that the Republican health care plan was to "die quickly"—is considering running for Senate next year. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has already settled on a candidate, Rep. Patrick Murphy, but Grayson believes that "our voters will crawl over hot coals to vote for me."
Some Doubt That North Korea Executed a Top General (NY Times)
Even to longtime analysts familiar with the unpredictability of the North Korean government, the news was shocking: a top general, the country’s equivalent of a defense minister, who had delivered a speech at an international symposium in Moscow last month, was executed by an antiaircraft gun while hundreds of fellow generals and senior party officials watched.
Technology
Batteries: The Power Of The Future? (Wall Street Daily)
Elon Musk is at it again.
Most casual observers thought the giant lithium-ion battery Gigafactory being built by Tesla Motors (TSLA) was all about the electric car market.
That’s… mostly true. But it’s also about so much more.
Musk also plans to use the Gigafactory to produce batteries that can power private homes, and even larger structures.
Facebook’s Quest To Absorb The Internet (Tech Crunch)
Facebook never wants you to leave, so it’s swallowing up where you might try to go. A few years back, its News Feed brimmed with links to content hosted elsewhere. News articles, YouTube clips, business websites, ads for ecommerce stores.
But Facebook has decided the world outside its walled garden is full of friction. And friction isn’t The Hacker Way.
How a 'Ghost' boat cruises on a tunnel of bubbles (CNN)
In Australia, fishermen call them "thumb splitters" because of the painful blow they can inflict.
In Hong Kong, they're so dangerous, that seafood restaurants store them live inside empty plastic water bottles so they can be handled.
Health and Life Sciences
Analysis of bones found in Romania offer evidence of human and Neanderthal interbreeding in Europe (Phys.org)
DNA testing of a human mandible fossil found in Romania has revealed a genome with 4.8 to 11.3 percent Neanderthal DNA—its original owner died approximately 40,000 years ago, Palaeogenomicist Qiaomei Fu reported to audience members at a Biology of Genomes meeting in New York last week. She noted also that she and her research team found long Neanderthal sequences. The high percentage suggests, she added, that the human had a Neanderthal in its family tree going back just four to six generations. The finding by the team provides strong evidence that humans and Neanderthals continued breeding in Europe, long after their initial co-mingling in the Middle East (after humans began migrating out of Africa.)
(Picture to the right: A Neanderthal skeleton, left, compared with a modern human skeleton. Credit: American Museum of Natural History)
Berkeley Votes to Warn Cellphone Buyers of Health Risks (Mother Jones)
The City Council of Berkeley, California last night unanimously voted to require electronics retailers to warn customers about the potential health risks associated with radio-frequency (RF) radiation emitted by cellphones, setting itself up to become the first city in the country to implement a cellphone "right to know" law.
Foundations of heart regeneration uncovered: Outer layer of heart must be healed first (Science Daily)
While the human heart can't heal itself, the zebrafish heart can easily replace cells lost by damage or disease. Now, researchers have discovered properties of a mysterious outer layer of the heart known as the epicardium that could help explain the fish's remarkable ability to regrow cardiac tissue.
Life on the Home Planet
Monsanto Bets $45 Billion on a Pesticide-Soaked Future (Mother Jones)
Once an industrial-chemical titan, GMO seed giant Monsanto has rebranded itself as a "sustainable agriculture company." Forget such classic post-war corporate atrocities as PCB and dioxin—the modern Monsanto "uses plant breeding and biotechnology to create seeds that grow into stronger, more resilient crops that require fewer resources," as the company's website has it.
Investigators Examine Train Cars in Philadelphia Amtrak Crash (NY Times)
Investigators on Thursday morning pored over the remaining passenger cars of an Amtrak train that crashed Tuesday night, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 200.
Most of the cars had been removed by Thursday, lifted away by heavy cranes. Robert Sumwalt, the National Transportation Safety Board official who is leading the investigation, said the agency would “look at everything that could have led to this occurrence.”
