Financial Markets and Economy
Summer's Over Get Smart on Cash Flow and Become a Very Serious Investor (Bloomberg)
In 1863, the Dowlais Iron Company had recovered from a business slump, but had no cash to invest for a new blast furnace, despite having made a profit. To explain why there were no funds to invest, the manager made a new financial statement that was called a comparison balance sheet, which showed that the company was holding too much inventory. This new financial statement was the genesis of [the] cash flow statement that is used today. In the United States in 1973, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) defined rules that made it mandatory under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP) to report sources and uses of funds, but the definition of "funds" was not clear. Net working capital might be cash or might be the difference between current assets and current liabilities. — The Cash Flow Statement, Wikipedia.
A big bank's glitch adds to confusion on Wall St. (CNN)
The past week has featured an unprecedented 1,000-point plunge for the Dow, dramatic stock market rebounds and mini-flash crashes for General Electric (GE) and some exchange-traded funds.
As if those events weren't enough, a technology glitch is adding to the confusion.
Dow posts worst August decline in 17 years (Market Watch)
The month of August can be pretty rough for stock investors. But this August has earned its place in the record books, as stocks were unsettled by uncertainty over the state of affairs in the world’s second largest economy, China.
As far as Augusts go, this has been the worst in nearly two decades for the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.69%
Stocks Fall, Oil Explodes Higher: Here's what you need to know (Business Insider)
It was another choppy day of trade to finish August, one of the most volatile months for the stock market in years.
Oil took center stage again on Monday, rising 8% after a nearly 20% gain at the end of last week. Crude oil is now up nearly 30% in just 3 days, its biggest 3-day rally in 25 years.
Each of the major US stock indexes finished the month down more than 6%, their biggest monthly loss since May 2012.
SocGen: Half-Hearted Capital Controls Are Coming to China (Bloomberg)
It's a tough time to be a Chinese policymaker.
Obvious overcapacity in industrial sectors forced the world's second-largest economy to shift to a more consumer-oriented growth model.
Maintaining an elevated currency was conducive to this goal, as it boosted the purchasing power of Chinese citizens.
What sell-off? These stocks were UP in August (CNN)
It's been a gruesome month for stocks. But some well-known companies did surprisingly well while the broader market tanked.
Sixty stocks in the S&P 500 actually sported gains for the month of August.
Emerging Markets Report: Goldman slashes China’s economic growth targets (Market Watch)
Goldman Sachs on Monday cut its economic outlook for China over the next three years, as signs of weakness in the world’s second-largest economy has picked up.
Goldman analysts, led by Andrew Tilton, cut its outlook for Beijing’s gross domestic product growth in 2016 to 6.4% from 6.7% and trimmed their forecast for 2017 to 6.1% from 6.5% and reduced their 2018 outlook to 5.8% from 6.2%.
Now might be a great time to be in the stock market (Business Insider)
Last week's insanity in the stock markets was highlighted by the 1,089-point drop in the Dow in a single day.
From its May 20 high of 2,134 to its August 24 low of 1,867, the S&P was down by as muich as 12.5%. And yet after it was all said and done, the S&P 500 managed to close the week up 0.9%.
To be clear, we are not in the clear. We very well could be in the middle of an ongoing crash.
Goldman Sachs Thinks This Volatility Index Should Be Much Lower (Bloomberg)
Oh, how times have changed.
For much of the past year the story has been the extremely low levels of volatility in the market, but that trend came to a screeching halt last week when the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index rose to levels not seen since the financial crisis.
Crude oil is going parabolic (Business Insider)
Crude oil is going parabolic.
In just a few minutes on Monday morning, the price of oil went from down 3% on the day to up more than 7%, with West Texas Intermediate crude rising above $48.40 a barrel for the first time in a month.
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Is Your 401(k) Safe During Volatile Markets? (Bloomberg)
To investors already nervous about being able to afford retirement, seeing massive market swings reflected in 401(k) balances can be deeply unsettling. What feels best at times like that is finding peace of mind, which for many people brings thoughts of cutting back on stocks. That impulse is often best ignored when there's market turmoil, a look at the S&P 500's history shows.
Politics
Wall St. billionaire: Run, Biden, Run (CNN)
Hedge fund billionaire Jim Chanos is a big fan of Joe Biden's. Chanos said Biden would "make a great president."
"The vice president is a good friend," Chanos told NPR's Roben Farzad in a recent interview. "I have no idea if he's going to run or not, but if he does, I will support him."
Republicans Wary of Donald Trump’s Populist Tone on Taxes (NY Times)
For years, Republicans have run for office on promises of cutting taxes and bolstering business to stimulate economic growth, pledging allegiance to a Reaganesque model of conservatism that has largely become the party’s orthodoxy.
But this election cycle, the Republican presidential candidate who currently leads in most polls is taking a different approach, and it is jangling the nerves of some of the party’s most traditional supporters.
Technology
Samsung’s Slick New Smartwatch Makes Calls Without a Phone (Wired)
JUST A FEW weeks ago, Samsung teased a new smartwatch at the end of its Galaxy Edge S6+ and Galaxy Note 5 launch event. Details were scant, but the elegant aesthetics looked promising: a circular face, a rotating bezel for controlling it, and—given the 3G connectivity in last year’s Gear S—possibly the ability to use it for voice calls and texts without being tethered to a phone.
It looks like Samsung has delivered on all promised fronts. The new Samsung Gear S2 is indeed round, the bezel rotates like a little steering wheel to navigate apps, and one version of the watch has its own embedded 3G e-SIM card that can make calls and slurp data without a phone. There’s also another version of the Gear S2 without that 3G connectivity. Both options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1, and NFC, and the ability to use it as a wrist-mounted credit card via Samsung Pay support.
Health and Life Sciences
Lack of sleep can lead to the common cold (CNN)
So, it turns out your mother was right again: The less sleep you get, the more likely you are to catch a cold.
A new study published in this week's journal SLEEP, finds that people who sleep less than six hours are more likely to catch a cold. Researchers tracked 164 healthy men and women for a week at a time, monitoring how much they slept and exposing them to the rhinovirus, also known as, the common cold.
Depressed people suffer chest pain more often (Futurity)
Depressed patients tend to have more frequent chest pain, even in the absence of coronary artery disease, report cardiologists.
The findings suggest pain and depression may share a common neurochemical pathway, says Salim Hayek, a cardiology research fellow with Emory Clinical Cardiovascular Research Institute.
Life on the Home Planet
Termites Engineer Solar-Powered Ventilation Into Their Mounds (Popular Sciences)
Termites get a bad reputation in the housing business. They are often looked at as signs of the domestic apocalypse, causing billions of dollars in damage to houses every year. But when it comes to building their own homes, termites are master engineers. Such is their architectural prowess as some of their mounds even have solar-powered ventilation systems.
Don't worry, termites aren't beating us when it comes to solar panel production. But they are using the power of the sun as a sort of makeshift ventilation system. A recent study published in PNAS found that some termites build mounds that circulate air by harnessing the warming power of the sun.
The Unusual Abundance of Ascension Island (Scientific American)
There’s a fascinating natural experiment happening around Ascension Island. While the number of fish here is astounding, surprisingly few species have been hardy enough and lucky enough to make the long journey and settle here successfully. Now a team of scientific divers has taken the rare and brief opportunity to come to this rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and study one of the most poorly understood marine communities in the world—to try to figure out where these fish come from, how long they’ve been here, and how they’re making a living in such isolation.
