Financial Markets and Economy
Greece's Stocks Tumble in First Day of Trading After Shutdown (Bloomberg)
Lenders led a record plunge in Greek equities as the Athens Stock Exchange reopened after a five-week shutdown, with restrictions in place due to capital controls.
China and Asia are on shaky ground (Business Insider)
Headwinds for the world's second-biggest economy intensified at the start of the third quarter, with manufacturing conditions in China deteriorating to their worst in two years in July and triggering fresh slides in global commodity prices.
Similar business activity surveys for Taiwan, South Korea and Indonesia — all heavily reliant on Chinese demand — reflected varying degrees of weakness that is clouding hopes for a convincing global recovery in the second half of the year.
Oil falls to 4-month low, hit by data on China, rigs (Market Watch)
Oil prices slid to fresh four-month lows Monday as a rise in the number of U.S. oil rigs fueled supply glut concerns even as weak China manufacturing activity weighed on the demand outlook.
West Texas Intermediate crude for delivery in September CLU5, -1.61% dropped 73 cents, or 1.6%, to $46.39 a barrel in electronic trading. The contract briefly traded as low as $46.26, a level not seen since March by a most-active contract, according to FactSet data. WTI slid 2.9% on Friday, ending up with its biggest monthly percent drop since 2008.
Monetary Metals Supply and Demand Report 2 Aug (Zero Hedge)
You cannot understand gold if you think it goes up and down, that the dollar is money and therefore the measure of all things, including gold. This is a very bold statement, so let’s look a little closer.
Investors Burned by China Rout Buy Wealth Products as Bonds Gain (Bloomberg)
Alarmed by a rout that wiped $4 trillion of value from Chinese stocks, investors are driving demand for bonds by returning to wealth-management products.
The Tide Has Turned And These Charts Predict The Next Stop (First Rebuttal)
What we saw with the latest GDP reports is something truly remarkable. A market that was explicitly told the past 4 years of economic growth had been overstated simply shrugged off the news. That is, absolutely no price recalibration took place. This really evidences beyond any doubt that there is no relationship between the economy and the market. It further evidences the Fed’s increased proficiency in directly guiding the market.
Western companies are backing away from China as growth slows (Business Insider)
The Chinese slowdown is forcing many Western companies to take a hard look at their businesses there, leading many to reduce investments, costs and product lines and to tackle increasing bad debts.
Double digit growth rates during the first decade of the millennium lured scores of Western companies to invest heavily in China. But in recent years growth has slowed sharply, hitting demand and raising doubts about the financial health of Chinese companies.
U.S. stocks on pace for lower open (Market Watch)
U.S. stocks looked on track to edge lower at the open Monday, as sentiment was hurt by another drop by Chinese stocks, offsetting mostly positive action by European equities.
While Greece’s stock market plunged as trading reopened, investors in other markets appeared to take that in stride. U.S. investors also will watch for fresh readings on personal income, consumer spending, manufacturing and construction, plus earnings from companies like Tyson and Clorox.
Tsipras Battling on All Sides Finds No Solace in Greek Economy (Bloomberg)
Alexis Tsipras has faced off against the International Monetary Fund, fellow euro-area leaders and even his own lawmakers in his battle to avert a financial crisis. The economy is proving just as big a hurdle.
With one-quarter of the Greek population without a job, prices falling and banks weakened, the Greek prime minister faces a mammoth task to revive growth. Manufacturing shrank at record pace in July and data this week, including the latest unemployment statistics, will probably confirm the picture of an ailing economy mired in deflation.
Chinese Economy Crashes To 2-Year Low; China Stocks Plunge, Asian Stocks Test 2015 Lows (Zero Hedge)
Yet again the endless reasurance from the talking heads of the world is proven fallacious as the crash in China's stock market has apparently crashed its economy. China's Manufacturing PMI final print for July collapsed to 47.8 – its lowest since July 2013. The reaction is not pretty.
Greece's industry has been absolutely obliterated by the bank and bailout turmoil (Business Insider)
Greece's manufacturing sector was absolutely trashed in July, as capital controls were introduced and bailout negotiations reached their dramatic climax — Markit's latest survey of Greek industrialists confirms that firms have seen their output collapse.
FTSE 100 seesaws as miners fall (Market Watch)
U.K. stocks wobbled Monday, with miners struggling after soft manufacturing data out of China.
The FTSE 100 UKX, -0.07% turned less than 1 point lower at 6,695.81, and has slipped between small gains and losses during the session.
The mining sector was under pressure after data showed factory activity fell in China, a key market for the group. A preliminary reading of China’s official manufacturing purchasing managers index slipped to 50.0 in July from 50.2 in June, while the Caixin flash China manufacturing PMI dropped to a two-year low at 48.2.
No Access to Dollars Imperils Nigeria Retailers, Stokes Prices (Bloomberg)
Mojeed Jamiu is cutting jobs and raising prices to prevent his furniture and clothing store in Lagos from closing after Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele restricted foreign currency supply for some imports.
Emefiele in June banned importers from using official foreign-currency channels leaving many to use illegal markets for about 40 categories of goods, including furniture, textiles and rice, the latest in a series of controls since December that have dried up dollar supplies in Africa’s biggest economy and oil producer.
Chinese stocks are still falling (Business Insider)
Chinese stocks had a mixed finished to the new trading week with large-cap stocks outperforming their smaller peers.
Meet China's Stock Rescue Chief: He Never Saw the Crisis Coming (Bloomberg)
After China’s stocks crashed in June, the government put more than $400 billion at the disposal of a little-known state agency, the China Securities Finance Corp., headed by an academic and bureaucrat named Nie Qingping. It was told to save the market.
The agency’s unique mandate is to intervene in the market to buy stocks, with money borrowed from the central bank and other sources, in order to help prop up share prices. With the recent volatility evidenced by another crash on July 27, its success so far isn’t readily apparent.
No growth for China's manufacturers in July (Business Insider)
Growth across China’s vast manufacturing sector stalled in July with the government’s official PMI gauge slipping to 50.0.
Shaping the Investment Climate and the Dollar Trade (Zero Hedge)
There are two events this week that will shape the investment climate potentially for the rest of the year. The first is the Bank of England meeting. The following day is the US employment report.
Both events take on added significance. The Bank of England enters a new era. The Monetary Policy Committee meets as usual, but shortly after it, the minutes will be published, and this will contain the vote itself. There will no longer be a couple week delay. It will be interesting to see if other central banks, including the Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan adopt a similar approach over the medium term.
Japan's Love for Mexico Is Ending as Uridashi Buyers Shun Peso (Bloomberg)
For Japanese bond buyers, Mexico’s peso just isn’t what it used to be.
Mexico's wage crisis is so bad 'that it violates what’s stipulated in the Constitution' (Business Insider)
At the end of 2014, Mexico’s 16 billionaires were worth an average of nearly $9 billion.
That same year, the bottom 20% of Mexicans — nearly 25 million people — were worth an average of $80.
Economic hardship is widespread in Mexico, which is home to more than 120 million people, more than half of whom lived in poverty at the end 2012. Now inequality and wage disparity have emerged as further challenges to the development of Latin America’s second-largest economy.
Bubble Finance And A Tale Of Two Spheres (Credit Bubble Bulletin)
In a tiny subsection of the analytical world, analysis is becoming more pointed and poignant. I appreciate Bill Gross’s August commentary, where he concluded: “Say a little prayer that the BIS, yours truly, and a growing cast of contrarians, such as Jim Bianco and CNBC’s Rick Santelli, can convince the establishment that their world has changed.”
I’ll include the names Russell Napier, Albert Edwards and David Stockman as serious analysts whose views are especially pertinent. I presume each will exert minimal effect on “the establishment.”
Coal Left Fighting Over Americas Last Plants as Rules Mount (Bloomberg)
For the latest front in the war on coal, look no further than the Coffeen Power Station, about 60 miles south of Springfield, Illinois.
Dubai's real-estate market is looking vulnerable again (Business Insider)
Dubai's property market looks like it has hit a peak.
Residential real-estate sales fell by 69% in the first half of 2015 compared to the same period the year before, according to a report released by the country's Land Department.
This after the IMF warned the Dubai government that it could be facing another property bubble due to “unsustainable price dynamics and an eventual correction” in May 2014.
Rio to Play Exploration Matchmaker With X-Rays Spotting Riches (Bloomberg)
Mining companies uncovered the lowest number of major discoveries in about two decades last year. Now Rio Tinto Group wants to help explorers spot the missing riches.
The second-biggest mining company, which spent $1.7 billion on greenfield exploration in the past decade, is offering competitors access to its x-ray and laser technology to analyze their rock samples for trace elements, with the aim of spurring new finds and sharing in the spoils.
Gold And The Grave Dancers (Acting-Man)
Back in the 1960s, Alan Greenspan wrote a well-known essay that to this day is an essential read for anyone who wants to understand the present-day monetary and economic system (which is a kind of “fascism lite” type of statism, masquerading as capitalism) and especially the almost visceral hate etatistes harbor toward gold. Greenspan’s essay is entitled “Gold and Economic Freedom”, and as the title already suggests, the two are intimately connected.
Blackrock: Here's why the dollar's strength will persist (Business Insider)
Overall, the U.S. dollar has rallied this year, with the Dollar Index (DXY) now up by roughly 8 percent year-to-date, according to Bloomberg data. But the gain hasn’t been steady. Instead, the dollar has been on a rocky ride, as investors have repeatedly re-calibrated their expectations for U.S. growth and the timing of a Federal Reserve (Fed) rate hike.
With Growth Target at Risk, China Lays Ground for Fresh Spending (Bloomberg)
China’s leadership is preparing fresh fiscal spending to ensure that signs of economic weakening don’t put their 2015 growth target out of reach, a danger that was underscored by a deterioration in manufacturing in July.
Ahead of the top leadership’s annual gathering at the Beidaihe seaside resort east of Beijing, the Communist Party’s Politburo pledged last week to make “pre-emptive” policy adjustments in the second half. Premier Li Keqiang highlighted one area targeted for spending will be a “severely outdated” underground pipe system in the nation’s expanding megacities.
Trading
What We Know, What We Feel, and How We Trade (Trader Feed)
One of the great challenges of trading is reconciling–and integrating–two modes of knowing: the explicit and the implicit. Explicit knowledge is what we readily verbalize as part of reasoning processes. Implicit knowledge is what we feel and sense as part of intuitive processes. We navigate life through a complex interplay of these modes of processing.
I recently fielded a phone call from one of my daughters who described stomach pains she was feeling. I walked her through a few questions to try to establish the possible cause of her pain. My first hypothesis was that she might be experiencing a gastroenteritis due to food poisoning, so I asked questions relevant to sharp pains, nausea, what she had recently eaten, etc. That is explicit reasoning at work: I am drawing on a database to establish a cause-effect relationship.
Politics
The Politicians’ War On Uber (Reason)
Hillary Clinton gave a speech warning that the new “sharing economy” of businesses such as the ride-hailing company Uber is “raising hard questions about workplace protections.”
Democrats hate what labor unions hate, and a taxi drivers’ union hates Uber, too. Its NYC website proclaims, “Uber has the money. But we are the PEOPLE!”
The taxi cartels, which provide inferior service and are micromanaged by government, don’t like getting competition from efficient companies like Uber.
There's something fishy about Donald Trump's charitable donations (Business Insider)
Donald Trump, widely believed to the be the wealthiest American ever to run for president, is nowhere among the ranks of the country's most generous citizens, according to an Associated Press review of his financial records and other government filings.
Trump has said he donated $102 million worth of cash and land to philanthropic and conservation organizations over the past five years.
But his campaign has provided little documentation for most of these contributions, and tax filings of the Donald J. Trump foundation show Trump has made no charitable contributions to his own namesake nonprofit since 2008.
Economy Takes Center Stage as Harper Kicks Off Canada Election (Bloomberg)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper began Canada’s longest election campaign in more than a century by touting his economic stewardship as his main rivals jockeyed to be seen as the best agent of change.
The incumbent Conservative leader fired the starting gun early on Canada’s 42nd election campaign Sunday morning, meeting Governor General David Johnston, Queen Elizabeth II’s representative in Canada, to request parliament be dissolved. The visit marked the formal start of campaigning for an Oct. 19 vote, with polls showing Harper’s nine-year reign being threatened by a leftist party that’s never governed the country.
Obama looks to legacy with new climate-change rule (Market Watch)
A new rule mandating the first-ever federal limits on power-plant carbon emissions aims to change the way Americans make and consume electricity, accelerating a shift already under way toward cleaner fuels, renewable energy and consumer-generated power.
The regulations, which will be unveiled by President Barack Obama at a White House event Monday, are part of a broader push by the administration to position the U.S. as a leader in tackling climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency regulations are central to the administration’s submission to an international climate conference set for December in Paris.
Technology
Japan has a new hotel operated almost entirely by robots (Business Insider)
The Henn na Hotel in Japan, which translates to "Weird Hotel" in English, is almost entirely operated by robots. The only humans on staff are security officers and a cleaning crew. A night's stay at the hotel is relatively cheap, running about $80 per night.
Researchers Create First Firmware Worm That Attacks Macs (Wired)
THE COMMON WISDOM when it comes to PCs and Apple computers is that the latter are much more secure. Particularly when it comes to firmware, people have assumed that Apple systems are locked down in ways that PCs aren’t.
It turns out this isn’t true. Two researchers have found that several known vulnerabilities affecting the firmware of all the top PC makers can also hit the firmware of MACs. What’s more, the researchers have designed a proof-of-concept worm for the first time that would allow a firmware attack to spread automatically from MacBook to MacBook, without the need for them to be networked.
Health and Life Sciences
Four dead in Legionnaires' disease outbreak (CNN)
The number of deaths in the New York City Legionnaires' disease outbreak is up to four.
Seventy-one cases of the flu-like disease have been reported since mid-July in the South Bronx, up from 31 on Thursday, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said Sunday.
Legionnaires' disease is a respiratory bacterial infection usually spread through mist that comes from a water source, such as cooling towers, air conditioning or showers. It is not transmitted person to person. Symptoms of the disease include fever, chills and a cough.
Pancreatic cancer urine test hope (BBC)
A simple urine test that could detect pancreatic cancer much earlier than at present has been developed by scientists.
They found a protein "signature" only present in people with the disease.
Pancreatic cancer is often very advanced by the time it is diagnosed – and only 3% of patients are alive five years after diagnosis.
Life on the Home Planet
Greener, Not Cleaner: How Trees Can Worsen Urban Air Pollution (Gizmodo)
No one enjoys choking on smog, but are more trees really the answer for polluted city air? It’s not as clear-cut as you might think. Air pollution is clearly a problem for health and well-being – and as more and more people across the world move to live in megacities, they could miss out on the fresh air associated with the green countryside.
So far, many strategies have been put in place to try and mitigate urban air pollution: from introducing congestion charges to imposing car bans, promoting electric vehicles to providing more car-free zones. One group has even suggested making London a “national park city”. If you can’t escape to the countryside, then you can instead bring the countryside feel to the city.
Native Alaskans Study and Clean Up a Legacy of Pollution (NY Times)
America’s Far North cherishes its image of wild purity in a landscape so vast it can sometimes seem barely touched by people. But the roughly 600 military installations across Alaska — some dating from World War II, others built during the Cold War — tell a different story, in polluted sites that were never fully cleaned up, and the related health problems that have lingered and festered.
