Financial Markets and Economy
Global Inflation Mystery Risks Making Central Bankers Bystanders (Bloomberg)
Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve is “reasonably confident” it can drive up consumer prices. Mario Draghi says his European Central Bank’s stimulus has already “proven so far to be potent.” The Bank of England reckons inflation is “likely to return” to its target within two years.
While not quite declarations of victory, such statements show policy makers’ optimism that record-low interest rates and bond-buying will be enough to return inflation to the 2 percent range most of them eye.
The unemployed are dropping out like flies (CNBC)
At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking.
The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows.
Tourist Spending in Japan Is At a Two-Decade High (Bloomberg)
Record spending by foreign tourists is providing a timely boost to the world’s third-largest economy.
Spending by visitors jumped to the highest level in at least 20 years, adding about 0.1 percentage points to Japan's gross domestic product, data showed. That’s no small change for a country that’s trying to claw itself out of decades of economic stagnation.
Why it might pay to listen to a Fed old timer’s tantrum warning (Market Watch)
Unless the name is Ben Bernanke or Alan Greenspan, ex-Fed guys don’t always grab your attention.
But Lawrence Lindsey, who was at the Fed in the 1990s, made a few people sit up and take notice after firing off some spicy comments at a panel discussion yesterday. He blasted away at the current Fed, saying it’s pushing its luck when it comes to normalizing interest rates. And rates at zero, with unemployment at 5.4%? Madness!
China’s Bocom acquires Brazil’s Banco BBM (FT)
Bank of Communications, China’s fifth-largest commercial bank by assets, has agreed to buy a controlling stake in Brazil’s Banco BBM, the latest in a string of overseas acquisitions by Chinese banks and brokerages.
Opinion: Investors need to face the possibility of a ‘Great Reset’ (Market Watch)
Watch out if corporate-profit margins narrow to their long-term average share of gross domestic product. If so, the S&P 500 Index would trade at less than 1,700 in five years, a decline of more than 20%.
I’m not necessarily forecasting such a dismal eventuality, though it’s in the realm of possibility. I merely point it out to illustrate how dependent the stock market is on wide profit margins.
Europe Stocks Little Changed After Two-Day Gain as Altice Jumps (Bloomberg)
European stocks traded near a three-week high, as earnings disappointments offset advances in telecommunication shares.
Deutsche Wohnen AG fell 4.4 percent after the residential landlord posted a quarterly loss. Burberry Group Plc slid 4.5 percent as it reported a decline in annual earnings. Altice SA jumped 7.7 percent on deals activity, while Vodafone Group Plc rose 3.7 percent after Liberty Global Plc Chairman John Malone said a tie-up with the U.K. phone company would be a “great fit” for his cable empire.
Stocks and Trading
Etsy is crashing (Business Insider)
Etsy is getting smoked in after-hours trading after the company reported its first results as a publicly traded firm.
The Brooklyn-based online craft marketplace reported a net loss per share of 84 cents.
Chinese Solar Maker Plunges, Losing Nearly $19 Billion in 24 Minutes (Bloomberg)
Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd., the Chinese solar equipment maker controlled by Li Hejun, suspended trading in Hong Kong after the stock plummeted 47 percent in morning trading.
Hanergy’s Rise and Fall as World’s Biggest Solar Stock: Timeline (Bloomberg)
The following is a timeline of milestones in the rise and fall of Hanergy Thin Film Power Group Ltd.
The Hong Kong-listed company plunged 47 percent Wednesday to HK$3.91 before its shares were suspended. Prior to the drop, Hanergy Thin Film’s market value had at one point risen to more then HK$300 billion ($39 billion). That’s larger than Japan’s Sony Corp. and about seven times the size of First Solar Inc., the biggest U.S. solar company.
YAHOO: Don't worry about that thing that caused our stock to crash — it's fine (Business Insider)
Yahoo says it's fine.
In a statement on Wednesday, the company said the IRS issue that sparked a 7.6% sell off in its stock late in the day on Tuesday won't actually be an issue for the company.
Politics
North Korea has canceled UN chief Ban Ki-moon's visit (Business Insider)
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday his plan to go to North Korea for a visit to an industrial complex had been scrapped after Pyongyang retracted its earlier approval, calling the move "deeply regrettable".
"Early this morning, the authorities of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea informed us, through their diplomatic channels, that they were reversing their decision for me to visit the Kaesong industrial complex," Ban said in a speech at a forum in Seoul.
Technology
Your Phone Isn’t The Only Camera You Need (Wall Street Journal)
Smartphone-makers, touting photos of models frolicking in the sun, have been on a campaign to convince us they’ve got the only camera we need. They’re wrong.
Phone cameras have made photography everyone’s hobby. But even owners of the fanciest smartphones would recognize the many genres of disappointing phone-ography: The blurry runaway toddler. The lifeless landscape. The grainy candlelit dinner. The ghoulish flash portrait.
This is the Ultimate MacBook Accessory (Time)
A new Kickstarter project is focused on selling a portable battery for Apple's newest MacBook.
Hate lugging your MacBook electrical cord around with you? A portable MacBook charger might be the answer.
Life on the Home Planet
The World Is About to Lose This 10,000-Year-Old Ice Shelf (Mother Jones)
In the winter of 2002, a massive Antarctic ice shelf known as Larsen B suffered a catastrophic collapse. Over the course of weeks about 1,250 square miles of frozen material broke off and slid into the ocean. NASA reported it had "never witnessed such a large area…disintegrate so rapidly."
Watch 100 Years of Filipina Beauty and History in Less Than Two Minutes (Time)
The folks over at Cut Video have released the sixth episode of 100 Years of Beauty, taking us not just through a century of beauty in the Philippines, but of Filipino history too.
The video begins with the Spanish-American War at the turn of the century, when indigenous women were adorned with tribal tattoos and shell headpieces.
Disney Opens First Mainland China Retail Store in Shanghai (Bloomberg)
The Walt Disney Co. opened its first Disney Store in China, getting started on a major expansion into the world’s second-largest economy.
The store, at 9,257 square feet, is Disney’s largest in the world, the company said Wednesday in a statement. It is located in Shanghai’s Pudong district, where Disney plans to open a 34 billion yuan ($5.5 billion) theme park next year.
Bird Flu Is Slamming Factory Farms But Sparing Backyard Flocks. Why? (Mother Jones)
The Midwest's ongoing avian flu crisis is wreaking havoc on the region's large-scale egg and turkey farms. Last week alone, the US Department of Agriculture confirmed that the virus had turned up in more than 20 additional facilities in the region, condemning 4 million birds to euthanasia. Altogether, the H5N2 virus—"highly pathogenic" to birds, so far non-threatening to humans—has affected 168 sites and a jaw-dropping 36 million birds, the great bulk of them in Iowa and surrounding states. It's the largest avian flu outbreak in US history—and it has already wiped out 40 percent of the egg-laying flock h Iowa, the number-one egg-producing state in the US, according to The New York Times.
Queen Elizabeth II owns every dolphin in Britain and doesn't need a driving license — here are the incredible powers you didn't know the monarchy has (Business Insider)
Queen Elizabeth II is not like you and me.
Did you know she is immune from prosecution? That she has her own personal poet, paid in Sherry wine? Or that she holds dominion over British swans and can fire the entire Australian government?
