Financial Markets and Economy
Asian Stocks Rise on Fed Minutes as Investors Await BOJ Decision (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks rose, following a rally in U.S. shares, after minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve meeting showed policy makers’ faith in the world’s biggest economy, with officials saying the pace of any rate increases will be gradual.
U.S. Treasury to tighten corporate tax inversion rules: letter (Business Insider)
The U.S. Treasury Department this week will clamp down further on tax-avoiding "inversion" deals done by U.S. companies with foreign rivals, according to a letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
With a major inversion deal in the works between U.S. drug maker Pfizer Inc <PFE.N> and smaller Irish competitor Allergan Plc <AGN.N>, Treasury said in the letter, "Later this week, we intend to issue additional targeted guidance to deter and reduce further the economic benefits of corporate inversions."
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts – Policy Errors, Other Peoples' Money, and Fear (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
What we have freed ourselves of, however, is any genuine consciousness of how we might look to others on this globe. Most Americans are probably unaware of how Washington exercises its global hegemony, since so much of this activity takes place either in relative secrecy or under comforting rubrics.
A New Stock Exchange? (The Atlantic)
In his 2014 book Flash Boys, Michael Lewis introduced readers to Brad Katsuyama, a Canadian trader who was seeing the world of high-frequency trading for the first time. Katsuyama observed an entire market in which traders, using paid, privileged access to high-speed trading technology, made huge piles of money simply by getting in their orders ahead of everyone else. Lewis’s book sparked regulatory action, and in 2014 the New York Stock Exchange paid the SEC $4.5 million in penalties for providing these high-frequency traders an infrastructural edge to get their orders in faster.
We Need to Talk About the Global Economy (Bloomberg)
Here's what happens next, according to a dissonant chorus of central bankers, academics, and policy makers.
Fed minutes suggest reluctance to return to bond buying (Market Watch)
The Federal Reserve devoted a good part of their two-day meeting not just to the debate over when to lift interest rates, but also to the issue of what it should do if the economy turned worse.
SunEdison is plummeting in after-hours trading (Business Insider)
Shares in solar energy company SunEdison are down 11% in after hours trading, as a rumor that sent the stock upwards during the day was denied.
Chinese Savers Turn to Gold as Rest of the World Exits Holdings (Bloomberg)
Even as investors shed gold holdings almost everywhere else in the world, Chinese savers like Hu Jingjing are buying.
Despite oil’s plunge, this map shows even GDP growth is bigger in Texas (Market Watch)
Everything’s bigger in Texas, and that includes the green spikes in the map below.
Keurig Green Mountain is exploding (Business Insider)
Shares of Keurig Green Mountain surged by as much as 20% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the company reported fiscal fourth-quarter results that beat expectations, and an increase in dividends.
The company's stock has fallen more than 60% this year amid a plunge in sales.
Asia Index Futures Signal Rally on Fed Optimism; Yen Holds Drop (Bloomberg)
Stocks rallied across Asia after Federal Reserve meeting minutes reaffirmed policy makers’ faith in the world’s biggest economy and stressed the pace of any rate increases will be slow. The New Zealand dollar gained, as did precious metals.
Gold under pressure as Fed minutes loom (Market Watch)
Gold futures ended barely changed Wednesday, but were switching between gains and losses in electronic trading after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s October meeting.
The Fed minutes, which were released at 2 p.m. Eastern time, showed that the vast majority of Fed officials believe conditions are appropriate for a rate increase. The minutes come out half and hour after gold settles on the Comex around 1:30 p.m. Eastern.
How sales, profit margins, and buyback have boosted earnings per share growth each year since 1967 (Business Insider)
Investors want the companies they invest in to deliver earnings growth.
Utilities Trading Like the Fed's Going to Raise Rates Tomorrow (Bloomberg)
Do you remember that time in September when utility stocks were down on expectations of a Federal Reserve rate increase? Well, it’s happening again.
Crude oil just collapsed below $40 per barrel again (Business Insider)
Crude oil just crashed below $40 a barrel again.
Nasdaq Wants Feedback on Requiring Shareholder Votes for M&A (Bloomberg)
Nasdaq Inc. wants to hear from you on whether it should update rules requiring a shareholder vote on corporate actions such as takeovers.
The owner of the Nasdaq Stock Market is asking for public comment through Feb. 15 on its shareholder-approval rules. That includes a provision that requires equity owners to vote when a Nasdaq-listed company wants to issue shares amounting to a 20 percent stake to fund a takeover of another company. “It has been suggested that the 20 percent threshold is restrictive,” Nasdaq said.
U.S. stocks jump, dollar hits seven-month high after Fed minutes (Yahoo! Finance)
U.S. stocks gained steam and the dollar touched a fresh seven-month high on Wednesday after minutes from the most recent Federal Reserve policy meeting showed a core of officials backed a possible interest rate hike in December. "The greatest Christmas gift the Fed could give the market is certainty," said Steve Chiavarone, assistant portfolio manager at Federated Investors in New York. "I think the market is ready and comfortable for an increasing fed funds rate," said Alan Rechtschaffen, portfolio manager at UBS Wealth Management Americas in New York.
Politics
Republicans Try to Tangle the Refugee Program With Red Tape (The Atlantic)
Republican leaders in Congress don’t want to kill the Syrian refugee program outright. But they may end up shutting it down anyway with a few added layers of red tape.
The House plans to vote Thursday on legislation aimed at “pausing” the resettlement of refugees from Syria and Iraq amid fears that ISIS terrorists could infiltrate the program after last week’s attacks in Paris. At first glance, the five-page bill appears rather perfunctory: It merely requires that three top national security officials—the FBI director, the secretary of Homeland Security, and the director of national intelligence—certify that each refugee is “not a threat to the security of the United States.”
Hillary Clinton to detail plan for defeating ISIS (Market Watch)
Hillary Clinton will outline a plan to defeat ISIS on Thursday, her campaign said.
CNN reports that Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, will speak about a strategy for defeating the group and eliminating the threat it poses. The former secretary of state’s speech comes in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks.
Technology
Childhood Cancer Risk Hides in Families (Scientific American)
A substantial number of children with cancer carry cancer-predisposing mutations inherited from a parent, according to a new study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers examined the genes of more than a thousand children with cancer and found that 8.5 percent of them—most of whom had little family history of cancer—carry handed-down gene mutations that make them more susceptible to the disease. The figure might seem small, especially within a relatively rare diagnosis, but its implications are large—for the young patients and for their family members who might also be at risk—and could help doctors select more appropriate treatments.
Ingestible Sensor Can Measure Your Vitals (Popular Science)
Doctors can learn a surprising amount about your health by simply listening to your body. The pulse and breathing rate in particular can indicate if a patient is stressed, or exercises often, or if he has a heart condition doctors should be watching. Now researchers from MIT have developed a new ingestible sensor that would allow doctors to continuously monitor a patient’s vitals by listening to the body’s sounds in the gastrointestinal tract, according toa study published today in PLOS One.
Health and Life Sciences
Why a common parasite makes tuberculosis worse (Futurity)
A parasitic worm infection common in the developing world increases people’s susceptibility to tuberculosis, report researchers.
In addition, the study shows that treating the parasite reduces lung damage in mice that are also infected with tuberculosis, which eliminates the vulnerability to TB that the parasite is known to cause.
Life on the Home Planet
Big ice melt scenarios 'not plausible' (BBC)
Scientists say the contribution of a melting Antarctica to sea-level rise this century will be significant and challenging, but that some nightmare scenarios are just not realistic.
Their new study models how the polar south will react if greenhouse gases rise at a medium to high rate.
