News You Can Use From Phil’s Stock World

Financial Markets and Economy

China’s GDP Growth Beats Forecasts as Stimulus Supports Spending (Bloomberg)

China’s economy expanded quicker than economists forecast in the third quarter as the services sector offset weaker manufacturing, keeping Premier Li Keqiang’s 2015 growth target within reach.

China GDP: Deflategate Comes to Beijing (The Wall Street Journal)

The world’s second largest economy registered an official 6.9% growth rate, in inflation adjusted terms, in the third quarter compared with a year ago, just a smidgen off the government’s official target of 7%.

Commodities Resume Selloff on Chinese GDP; Stocks Little Changed (Bloomberg)

While signs of weakness in the Chinese economy rekindled declines in commodities, U.S. stocks ended Monday little changed at an eight-week high as consumer companies advanced before a barrage of earnings reports.

It's 'uninformed' to compare the stock market today to Black Monday in 1987 (Business Insider)

Last week, Citi technical analysts put two charts next two other and emerged with an overlay that gave them "the chills."

The chart showed the S&P 500 this year meshed with the index in 1987, leading up to the "Black Monday" crash that year. On October 19, 1987 — 29 years to this day — the Dow plunged 508 points, or 22.6%.

Saudi Arabia sets record with mammoth $17.5 billion bond issue (Reuters)

Saudi Arabia conducted the largest-ever emerging market bond sale on Wednesday, selling $17.5 billion of debt in the government's first international offer while attracting investor orders totaling almost four times that amount.

The ETF Whale Blamed for Moving Japanese Markets Gets Reeled In (Bloomberg)

In the final moments before Japan’s stock exchange closes each day, one investor has increasingly captured the attention of traders in Tokyo: the world’s biggest leveraged exchange-traded fund.

NOMURA ON CHINA GDP: Whatever (Business Insider Australia)

China’s economy did something that it’s never done before in the three months to September – at least in modern times – recording a year-on-year growth rate of 6.7% for the third quarter in a row.

While assisted by government investment and rapid credit growth, for the moment, the slowdown in economic growth has been halted.

U.S. Workers Put in Staggeringly More Hours Than Europeans Do (Fortune)

According to the paper, Americans work nearly 25% more hours than Europeans. In other words, that’s an additional 258 hours per year or an hour more each weekday. The working paper, which has not yet been published, was written by three economists—Alexander Bick of Arizona State University, Bettina Bruggeman of McMaster University in Ontario, and Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln of Goethe University Frankfurt.

ECB Heads to Malta Meeting as More QE Seen a Matter of Time (Bloomberg)

A rocky outcrop exposed to the elements appears to be just the right setting for the European Central Bank to discuss whether the euro-area economy needs more help.

ECB President Mario Draghi will convene his Governing Council on the Mediterranean island of Malta this week to set monetary policy for a 19-nation region that is seeing its recovery buffeted by slowing international trade and global market volatility.

Chinese Copper-Trading Surge Shakes Up Market (The Wall Street Journal)

Chinese investors hamstrung by stock-trading restrictions are piling into copper trading, a shift that analysts and traders say has distorted the global market for the metal.

Since the start of July, when authorities began limiting stock trading in China, trading in stock-index futures has fallen 97% to around 65,000 contracts a day, while trading in Chinese copper futures has nearly doubled to roughly 710,000 contracts a day.

Debt, Growth Concerns Rain on Deficit Parade (The Wall Street Journal)

WASHINGTON—The U.S. budget deficit is lower than before the 2008 financial crisis. But the good news is tempered by concerns on two fronts, one about the nation’s debt load and the other about the economy.

NYC's Stuyvesant Town Said for Sale With Blackstone Weighing Bid (Bloomberg)

Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex is being prepared for a sale, five years after its prior owners defaulted on the mortgage and walked away from the property in one of the biggest collapses from the last decade’s real estate boom.

Stocks Plunge: A Drop Of 22.6% (Barry Ritholtz)

On this day in 1987, I was in grad school; I recall this day as if it were just another school day (I remember Reagan calling Black Monday a simple correction). Just goes to show you how much perspective matters in all things (insert Upton Sinclair quote here).

‘Scarily overpriced’: Outsiders fear for Canada’s housing markets (The Globe And Mail)

Observers outside Canada are ringing (loud) alarm bells (again) over inflated house prices.

Both Moody’s Analytics and The Economist issued fresh warnings within days of each other, each citing swollen household debt.

ECB Wants To Curb Bitcoin Use Over Fears It May "Lose Control Over Money Supply" (Zero Hedge)

The first time the ECB officially warned about the dangers of virtual currencies in general, and in particular, bitcoin – what was then a mostly unknown currency trading in the single digits (in USD terms) – was in November 2012 when in a report called "Virtual Currency Schemes" it warned that "in an extreme case, virtual currencies could have a substitution effect on central bank money if they become widely accepted.

Companies

China will get a new Starbucks every day for 5 years (CNN Money)

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is unfazed by China's slowing economy.

Even with China growing at its slowest pace in 25 years, Starbucks is planning to open more than one new store a day for the next five years in the world's second largest economy.

Wal-Mart puts the squeeze on suppliers to share its pain as earnings sag (Reuters)

Suppliers of everything from groceries to sports equipment are already being squeezed for price cuts and cost sharing by Wal-Mart Stores (WMT.N). Now they are bracing for the pressure to ratchet up even more after a shock earnings warning from the retailer last week.

Technology

Police Raid Volkswagen Headquarters in France (The Wall Street Journal)

PARIS—Police have raided Volkswagen AG’s main office in France in connection with the probe into the company’s rigging of emissions tests, a company spokeswoman said Sunday.

These ‘EarPrint’ headphones will make you realize how bad your hearing is (The Next Web)

Get ready for the next audio trend: ‘EarPrint’ headphones that essentially work as glasses for your ears.

Even, a newish company that recently made waves with its original set of $99 in-ear monitors, is today introducing its second product, the full-size $179 H1. I’ve had the chance to try them out for a couple of weeks, and the concept behind them is simple, but clever.

Which will be the first country to ban fuel-burning cars: Norway, Germany, India? (Think Progress)

You know the electric vehicle (EV) revolution is at a tipping point when German legislators of both parties vote for a resolution to ban the internal combustion engine (ICE) by 2030.

After all, Germans invented the first practical motorcar and the diesel engine. They’re such a car-loving culture that large stretches of their autobahns have no speed limit.

8 Ways AI Will Profoundly Change City Life by 2030 (Singularity Hub)

How will AI shape the average North American city by 2030? A panel of experts assembled as part of a century-long study into the impact of AI thinks its effects will be profound.

The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence is the brainchild of Eric Horvitz, a computer scientist, former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and managing director of Microsoft Research's main Redmond lab.

This suitcase will follow you home like a puppy (CNN Money)

A California company has launched an Indiegogo campaign for an autonomous suitcase that it says will dutifully follow you. There's no need to grab its handle and drag it along.

The suitcase stays three to five feet behind a person by tracking the location of their smartphone. It moves either upright, or while laying on its side.

Politics

Amid Slumping Economy, Canada’s Stephen Harper Braces for Tight Election Race (The Wall Street Journal)

LONDON, Ontario—Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, after nearly a decade in power, heads into Monday’s federal election caught in a tight race for his political survival.

Betting website pays out $1 million because it's certain Clinton beats Trump (CNN Money)

A major betting website is so certain Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump that it has made a huge gamble — already paying out $1.1 million to those who bet on Clinton.

The United States' election day is still three weeks away. But Irish betting site PaddyPower says Trump's campaign is dead already.

Trump's Record: Decades of Sexual Attacks and Blaming the Victims (Truthout)

At the presidential debate on October 9, Donald Trump argued that his recorded comments about women — asserting that he forcibly kissed them and would "grab them by the pussy" — was mere "locker room talk." "If you look at Bill Clinton, far worse," Trump said. "Mine are words, and his was action."

Megyn Kelly Destroyed Trump’s Spokesman When He Tried To Discredit Trump’s Accusers (The Huffington Post)

Fox host Megyn Kelly pressed Donald Trump’s campaign spokesman to explain why the candidate denied disparaging the looks of several of accusers something he clearly had done.

Donald Trump Dodges On His Medicare And Social Security Plans (The Huffington Post)

Donald Trump avoided answering when Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked him whether he would back a compromise package of Social Security and Medicare reforms that balances benefit cuts with tax increases.

A Peek Into the Clinton Campaign in Damage Control Mode, From the Podesta Emails (The Intercept)

WHEN HILLARY CLINTON came under attack last February for her 2001 vote in favor of a bankruptcy bill that made it more difficult for poor people to discharge their debts, she defended herself by saying she did it for women and children.

Health and Biotech

Gene Editing Shifts Food Possibilities Forward (Popular Science)

The aisles of your corner grocery may look mundane. But as you walk past the stacks of cherries and blueberries, the ears of corn and bottles of white wine, consider that you are witnessing a race against time.

Adding seaweed to cattle feed could reduce methane production by 70% (Science Alert)

If we add dried seaweed to 2 percent of sheep and cattle feed, we could cut methane emissions by more than 70 percent, scientists have found.

Scientists say they've identified the physical source of depression in the brain (Science Alert)

The region of the brain that serves as the physical source of feelings of depression has been identified, with new MRI data being the latest evidence to show that depression isn't just a 'frame of mind'.

Life on the Home Planet

The Philippines Braces for Super Typhoon Haima (TIME)

The super typhoon, equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, is expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early Thursday morning local time.

The Philippine island of Luzon — the largest and most populated island in the archipelago — is on high alert as a super typhoon roars across the western Pacific.

Global air travel could double to 7.2 billion passengers in 20 years (Business Insider Australia)

If you think that the skies are already full of planes, you haven’t seen nothing yet.

According to a new report from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), passenger numbers are likely to surge in the years ahead.

Turkish PM Davutoglu says downed drone was Russian-made: TV (Reuters)

A drone shot down by Turkish warplanes in Turkish air space near Syria on Friday was Russian-made, but Moscow has told Ankara the unmanned aircraft did not belong to Russia, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday.

American tourists in Iceland will outnumber Iceland's population this year (Vox)

Among young professionals, the sparsely populated European country has suddenly become some sort of exotic pilgrimage: Facebook and Instagram feeds are filled with oversaturated images of fjords, colorful villages, and ice melt waterfalls. The country has been touted as an up-and-coming, must-see destination by a multitude of outlets, from Lonely Planet to National Geographic.

Syrian rebels say they receive more weapons for Aleppo battle (Reuters)

Rebels battling the Syrian army and its allies near Aleppo said on Monday they had received new supplies of U.S.-made anti-tank missiles from states opposed to President Bashar al-Assad since the start of a major government offensive last week.

Russian fleet spotted off Norway as it heads toward English Channel (The Guardian)

The Norwegian military said Tuesday it had taken photos of a Russian fleet, including its flagship aircraft carrier, which were shadowed off its coast as they headed for the eastern Mediterranean.