With my new Phil’s Favorites blog, it’s possible to copy excerpts from an article and post them in approximately one minute. In our Favorites section here, I usually reprint full articles, with permission from the authors. Permission for full articles is often not an option, but I come across so many pieces you might enjoy, and I might post given more time. Now there’s a way. Here’s a sample of what I found today. My comments in red, and to read the full article, just click on the link below the excerpt. Let me know what you think. – Ilene
Arena’s Diet Pill Lorcaserin Works by a `Slim Margin,’ FDA Staff Says – Bloomberg
AP-CNBC Poll: Investors wary of stock trading – Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON – Wild gyrations on Wall Street have made U.S investors leery of buying individual stocks and skeptical that the market is a fair place to park their money.
In an Associated Press-CNBC poll of investors, 61 percent said the market’s recent volatility has made them less confident about buying and selling individual stocks. And the majority of those surveyed — 55 percent — said the market is fair only to some investors.
The survey confirms that average investors have been growing more concerned about the stock market as a safe place to invest for retirement. And news about the market has been unsettling for ordinary investors of late: More than 60 percent of those surveyed said they had paid attention to news reports about swings in the stock market.
Perhaps as a result, investors have been moving their money away from stocks and into bonds, which are generally more conservative investments and less volatile.
via news.yahoo.com
Obama May Name Warren as Interim Consumer Agency Head – Bloomberg
President Barack Obama may appoint Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard law professor who scolded U.S. banks while overseeing their bailout, as the interim head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as early as this week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
An interim appointment could allow Obama to bypass a confirmation battle over Warren in the Senate, where Republicans have raised objections to her possible nomination.
Today, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd said he was “not enthusiastic” about an interim appointment because it could jeopardize the future of the bureau by inviting retaliation by Congress that could cut off funding for the office.
via www.bloomberg.com
Politics at work… Elizabeth Warren’s a great chose for the permanent position here.
Tug of War Pits Genes of Parents in the Fetus – NYTimes.com
Under Mendel’s laws of inheritance, you could thank mom and dad equally for all the outstanding qualities you inherited.
Multimedia
Mechanisms of Imprinting
But there’s long been some fine print suggesting that a mother’s and father’s genes do not play exactly equal roles. Research published last month now suggests the asymmetry could be far more substantial than supposed. The asymmetry, based on a genetic mechanism called imprinting, could account for some of the differences between male and female brains and for differences in a mother’s and father’s contributions to social behavior.
via www.nytimes.com
‘Goldman Conspiracy’ helps China beat U.S. Paul B. Farrell – MarketWatch
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Goldman’s "ultimate goal is hunting and killing China," warns Li Delin, the Chinese author of "The Goldman Sachs Conspiracy," a bestseller in China.
Li is not as visually dramatic as Matt Taibbi’s Rolling Stone picture of Goldman as a "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." But Li’s Chinese readers love his "Goldman Sachs knows when to go for your neck" like a "Manchurian tiger."
China’s Trump shows no fear
Ren Zhiqiang, chairman of Hua Yuan Property Co. and one of China’s most outspoken real estate tycoons, explains why he criticizes the Communist Party and what it takes to attract two million followers to a Chinese microblog.
But is the Goldman Conspiracy really a threat to China? That’s a joke, right?
via www.marketwatch.com
Is China really doing that well – what do you think? I read many articles that say its not.
FT.com / Markets – High-frequency trades earn $2.3m fine
By Jean Eaglesham in New York
US regulators are to fine a high-frequency trading firm, signalling sharper scrutiny of this type of activity, amid a broader crackdown on market abuse following the May 6 “flash crash”.
The enforcement action, brought against a small New York firm for “layering”, will be settled on Monday with the payment of about $2.3m in fines and disgorgement penalties, according to people familiar with the situation.
Layering involves traders entering multiple fictitious orders, which are then cancelled within seconds. The strategy is used to drive a stock price up or down, before using a real order to profit from the artificially inflated or depressed price.
via www.ft.com
Vital Signs – Risky Additions to Atkins and Other Low-Carb Diets – NYTimes.com
NY Times reports on a study which suggests losing weight may not increase longevity if the reason is good adherence to the Atkins-style low carbohydrate diet. Especially if you swap carbos for high protein, high fat animal products. – Ilene
Atkins-style low-carbohydrate diets help people lose weight, but people who simply replace the bread and pasta with calories from animal protein and animal fat may face an increased risk of early death from cancer and heart disease, a new study reports.
The study found that the death rate among people who adhered most closely to a low-carb regimen was 12 percent higher over about two decades than with those who consumed diets higher in carbohydrates.
via www.nytimes.com
Consultant Fees Go Undisclosed in Medical Journals, Study Finds – NYTimes.com
Twenty-five out of 32 highly paid consultants to medical device companies in 2007, or their publishers, failed to reveal the financial connections in journal articles the following year, according to a study released on Monday.
The study compared major payments to consultants by orthopedic device companies with financial disclosures the consultants later made in medical journal articles, and found them lacking in public transparency.
“We found a massive, dramatic system failure,” said David J. Rothman, a professor and president of the Institute on Medicine as a Profession at Columbia University, who wrote the study with two other Columbia researchers, Susan Chimonas and Zachary Frosch.
via www.nytimes.com
SEC Questions Trading Crusade as Market Makers Disappear – Bloomberg
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has spent 15 years remaking the stock market into 11 competing exchanges and hundreds of computer-driven traders. In the process it has virtually eliminated the traditional market makers who bought and sold stocks when no one else would.
Now the SEC is concerned the revolution has gone too far, leaving markets vulnerable when selling starts to snowball.
Chairman Mary Schapiro called on the agency last week to examinewhether the loss of “old specialist obligations” has hurt investors after measures such as trading stocks in penny increments cut the number of those firms on the New York Stock Exchange to 5 from 25 in 2000. With market making now dominated by hundreds of automated traders with few rules for when they must buy and sell, the SEC will consider ways to keep the biggest from abandoning the market at the first sign of trouble.
