Financial Markets and Economy
Iraq About to Flood Oil Market in New Front of OPEC Price War (Bloomberg)
Iraq is taking OPEC's strategy to defend its share of the global oil market to a new level.
The nation plans to boost crude exports by about 26 percent to a record 3.75 million barrels a day next month, according to shipping programs, signaling an escalation of OPEC strategy to undercut U.S. shale drillers in the current market rout. The additional Iraqi oil is equal to about 800,000 barrels a day, or more than comes from OPEC member Qatar. The rest of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is expected to rubber stamp its policy to maintain output levels at a meeting on June 5.
FDIC: Fewer Problem banks, Residential REO Declines in Q1 (Calculated Risk)
Commercial banks and savings institutions insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reported aggregate net income of $39.8 billion in the first quarter of 2015, up $2.6 billion (6.9 percent) from a year earlier. The increase in earnings was mainly attributable to a $4.3 billion rise in net operating revenue (net interest income plus total noninterest income). Financial results for the first quarter of 2015 are included in the FDIC's latest Quarterly Banking Profile released today.
German consumer confidence hits 13.5-year high (Business Insider)
Consumer confidence in Germany is at its highest in 13.5 years, as the positive economic outlook and low inflation persuade consumers to open their purses, a poll found on Wednesday.
"Very strong domestic demand in Germany and the low rate of inflation are fuelling economic expectations and consumers' willingness to spend," market research company GfK said in a statement.
By contrast, income expectations have slipped slightly from their previous record high, the statement said.
G7 finance chiefs ponder flagging growth, Greek risk (The Globe and Mail)
Little more than a gentlemen’s club in recent years, G7 finance ministers and central bankers have their work cut out this week to revive stuttering global growth and defuse tensions over China’s growing economic clout.
Topping the agenda for the finance chiefs from the Group of Seven industrial nations is how to keep a faltering global recovery on track as the threat of a Greek default, rising oil prices and bond market turmoil fuel investor nervousness.
Rush to dollar assets costing Japanese investors dear (Reuters)
Cash-rich Japanese banks are paying almost as much extra to borrow dollars on the currency swaps market as they did when they were fighting for survival two decades ago, due to their insatiable appetite for higher-yielding dollar assets.
Instead of buying dollars in the currency markets, Japanese banks and investors can get dollars by swapping yen loans into dollars using these over-the-counter derivatives instruments, thus avoiding currency risks.
BLS: Twenty-Three States had Unemployment Rate Decreases in April (Calculated Risk)
Regional and state unemployment rates were little changed in April. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia had unemployment rate decreases from March, 11 states had increases, and 16 states had no change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
U.S. seeks details on top China official amid bank-hiring probe (Market Watch)
U.S. government investigators are seeking information about Wang Qishan, the powerful official leading China’s anticorruption campaign, in connection with their probe of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.’s JPM, +1.13% hiring of relatives and associates of Chinese government officials.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a subpoena in late April to the bank requesting all of its communications related to 35 mostly high-ranking Chinese government officials. Mr. Wang’s name was first on the list in the subpoena, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors at the U.S. Justice Department have also requested information about Mr. Wang, according to people familiar with the matter.
In Support of Ubers of the World (Capitalist Exploits)
Recently I read how Uber is blitzing London’s black cabbies. God, it couldn’t have come sooner!
I spent my 20s living in London and whenever I landed up taking a black cab in London it was usually after I’d had too many drinks and my cognitive powers had gone kaput. I blame the fog of alcohol for that as there is simply no other explanation for being ripped off.
Do Not Show This Chart To Bank Of Japan Governor Kuroda (Zero Hedge)
As another example of "has the world gone mad?" – we present the following words of wisdom from BoJ Governor Kuroda-san.
Stocks and Trading
Investors to Michael Kors: You’re out (Market Watch)
As “Project Runway” host Heidi Klum often says: “In fashion, one day you are in. And the next day, you are out.”
And Wednesday, fashion house Michael Kors Holdings Ltd., whose chief creative officer was once a judge on the show, was clearly out with investors. Its stock (KORS, -24.20%) plunged 23% in afternoon trade in the wake of disappointing earnings, putting it on track for its biggest-ever one-day drop. The shares have lost more than half of their value since hitting an intraday peak of $101.04 in February 2014 following a string of weaker-than-expected results.
What to Expect From Abercrombie & Fitch Earnings (24/7 Wall St)
Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE: ANF) is scheduled to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings Thursday before the markets open. The Thomson Reuters consensus estimates are a net loss of $0.34 per share on $730.91 million in revenue. In the same period last year, the company posted a net loss of $0.17 per share and revenue of $822.43 million.
Politics
Bernie Sanders has big ideas, and they deserve our attention (Vox)
Bernie Sanders's announcement speech was pretty much what longtime observers of the Vermont populist have come to expect from him: a staccato list of policy ideas that most in Washington think too radical to seriously discuss.
In the space of a few paragraphs, Sanders endorsed breaking up the biggest banks and moving to a single-payer health-care system. He called for public funding of campaigns and vastly higher taxes on the rich. He proposed expanding Social Security, building a universal pre-K system, and taxing carbon.
Spanish Leader Compares Political Shifts to Hitler’s Rise (Bloomberg)
A Spanish conservative leader compared the emergence of alternative parties to the rise of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, after the country’s political establishment suffered losses in Sunday’s local elections.
Yolanda Barcina, acting president of the northern region of Navarre and leader of the Navarrese People’s Union, said the fragmented election result had created political uncertainty in Spain and allowed extremists into office as happened in Germany in the years leading up to World War II.
Obama’s Chief Negotiator in Iran Nuclear Talks Plans to Depart After Deadline for Deal (NY Times)
President Obama’s chief negotiator with Iran, Wendy R. Sherman, said on Wednesday that she planned to leave the administration shortly after the June 30 deadline for a final deal on limiting the country’s nuclear program.
“It’s been two long years,” Ms. Sherman, the under secretary of state for policy, said in her office on Wednesday. With her departure, all the top officials who have negotiated with Iran over those two years will have left the administration, leaving questions about who will coordinate the complex process of carrying out a deal if one is struck by the deadline.
Technology
New iPhone bug reportedly crashes users' phones with a text (Forbes)
A single line of text can reportedly freeze and shut down iPhones.
Technology blogs are reporting that a specific text message, when sent to an iPhone from any device, causes the phone to crash, shut down, and turn back on—and in some cases, some users are still unable to access messages again until the offending sender sends another text message. (The recipient can also return the phone to normal by responding to the sender from a different device, like an iMessage-enabled Mac or iPad, some sites report.) Users on Reddit have been discussing the problem and how to fix it.
Here's what Uber's futuristic new headquarters in San Francisco will look like (Business Insider)
Uber is going to start building its new San Francisco headquarters this fall, and today we got the first look at what it'll look like.
The campus will be in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood near the upcoming arena for the Golden State Warriors basketball team, in the spot that Salesforce was going to occupy before it decided to build a big skyscraper downtown instead. It will open in 2017 or 2018, the company tells SF Gate.
Health and Life Sciences
H.I.V. Treatment Should Start at Diagnosis, U.S. Health Officials Say (NY Times)
People with H.I.V. should be put on antiretroviral drugs as soon as they learn they are infected, federal health officials said Wednesday as theyannounced that they were halting the largest ever clinical trial of early treatment because its benefits were already so clear.
The study was stopped more than a year early because preliminary data already showed that those who got treatment immediately were 53 percent less likely to die during the trial, develop AIDS or a serious illness than those who waited.
Life on the Home Planet
'New species' of ancient human found (BBC)
A new species of ancient human has been unearthed in the Afar region of Ethiopia, scientists report.
Researchers discovered jaw bones and teeth, which date to between 3.3m and 3.5m years old.
It means this new hominin was alive at the same time as several other early human species, suggesting our family tree is more complicated than was thought.
China’s High Hopes for Growing Those Rubber Tree Plants (NY Times)
In the farming village of Tuanjie, in the hills above Jinghong, in southwest Yunnan Province, nearly every family lives in a two- or three-story concrete house, testament to a prosperity built during the boom years for natural rubber production.
Sitting in a gleaming new kitchen larger than the thatched hut that once stood on the same spot, Wang Guiying, 51, recalled hunting wild animals to survive and growing cotton to make her own clothes in the days before her family in 1983 became the first in the village to plant rubber trees. “Our lives then just got better and better,” she said.
