From Bloomberg:
California's New Era of Heat Destroys All Previous Records
The California heat of the past 12 months is like nothing ever seen in records going back to 1895. The 12 months before that were similarly without precedent. And the 12 months before that? A freakishly hot year, too. (More)
Shell’s Bet on Gas Underscores Big Oil’s Push to Replace Coal
BP Plc coined the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” The new industry mantra might be “Beyond Oil and Into Gas.” Oh, and while we’re at it, “Down With Coal.”
Consider Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s recent $70 billion acquisition of BG Group Plc — clearly a huge bet that natural gas will prove to be its cash cow of the future. (More here)
Muted Debut for Apple Watch With Sparse Crowds in Europe and Asia
For the debut of Apple Inc.’s watch, Tim Cook wanted to overcome the endless lines fans have grown used to with any new product. It worked a little too well.
From London to Beijing, Apple stores saw few customers lined up before opening Friday as pre-orders started. The first new gadget under Chief Executive Officer Cook is selling in eight countries and Hong Kong, with shipments scheduled to start April 24. By early Friday, New Yorkers couldn’t get appointments to try on a watch until early afternoon. (Continue reading)
Putin’s Surprising New Ruble Problem Threatens Russian Coffers
Vladimir Putin is facing a problem few could have anticipated: The ruble is becoming too strong.
Last year’s worst-performing major currency is this year’s best and while that’s buoying the nation’s bonds, driving yields to the lowest in four months, it’s also crimping Russia’s export revenue. Even though oil is little changed in dollars this year, the price when converted to rubles has plunged to the lowest since 2011. (Read more)
Amazon Receives New Delivery Drone Test Approval From U.S. FAA
Amazon.com Inc.’s drone delivery test program is back in business in the U.S. after it received a new approval from regulators.
The Federal Aviation Administration gave the online retailer a waiver allowing flights as fast as 100 miles (161 kilometers) an hour and as high as 400 feet off the ground, according to a letter dated Wednesday posted on its website. (Continue)
Investors Size Up Yellen Collar as Dudley Outlines Fed Thinking
Ever since Alan Greenspan kept cash flowing through the financial system after the 1987 stock-market crash, investors have been able to count on Federal Reserve bailouts when things went awry.
They’re now being warned about a ceiling on potential gains by one of the U.S. central bank’s most reliable forward indicators: New York Fed President William Dudley. (Read more)
U.S. States Aren't Prepared for the Next Fiscal Shock 
U.S. states, still grappling with the lingering effects of the longest recession since the 1930s, are even more vulnerable to another fiscal shock.
The governments have a little more than half the reserves they’d stashed away before the 18-month recession that ended in June 2009, according to a report last month by Pew Charitable Trusts. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Arkansas have saved the least. (Full article)
Sprint Joins T-Mobile in Bringing Wi-Fi Calling to Apple IPhones
Sprint Corp. is offering Apple Inc. iPhone customers free Wi-Fi calling, a lower-cost voice feature that’s available at smaller carriers including T-Mobile US Inc. and will soon be offered by new entrants such as Google Inc. (More)
The Middle Class Is Worse Off Than You Think 
If you worry about the declining fortunes of the U.S. middle class, take heed: It might be worse than you realized.
Tracking the middle class can be difficult, because the group is hard to define. Typically, researchers look at households with incomes or net worth in the middle of the entire population. This approach, though, might provide a falsely rosy picture. It doesn’t, for example, capture the fates of families that start out in the middle and — due to a job loss or other setback — end up in the bottom. (Read more)
ECB’s Linde Says Negative Yields Won’t Last as Economy Recovers
European Central Bank Governing Council member Luis Maria Linde said negative yields on Spanish debt probably won’t persist as the recovery continues. (More)
China Bears on Wrong End of $4 Trillion Rally Refuse to Go Away 
Bull markets are always tough on short sellers. This one in China right now, though, is proving downright brutal.
Bearish wagers on the Shanghai Stock Exchange have climbed more than threefold in the past nine months and reached a record 7.46 billion yuan ($1.2 billion) on Thursday, a period in which the benchmark equity index jumped 94 percent. Across the border in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng Composite Index has surged 7.6 percent in just the past two days, the gauge’s 20 most-shorted stocks surged 18 percent on average. (More here)
Factories Be Warned: U.S. Wholesalers Face an Inventory Glut
If wholesalers have anything to say about it, America's manufacturers may be in the doldrums for a while.
Sales of durable goods at U.S. distributors in January and February suffered the biggest two-month drop since the recession's last gasp in early 2009, figures from the Commerce Department showed Thursday in Washington. (Continue)
Citi Economist Says It Might Be Time to Abolish Cash 
The world's central banks have a problem.
When economic conditions worsen, they react by reducing interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. But, as has happened across the world in recent years, there comes a point where those central banks run out of room to cut — they can bring interest rates to zero, but reducing them further below that is fraught with problems, the biggest of which is cash in the economy. (More here)
Liquidity Concern Making JPMorgan’s Asset Manager a Bond Hoarder
With liquidity draining out of the global corporate bond market, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s asset management unit is advising investors to be prepared to hang on to their bonds. (More)
Take Off Friday and Monday Because Most Bond Traders Already Do 
Guess what? Not much happened this week in U.S. credit markets. Really.
The boredom is so bad that it looks like some traders aren’t even showing up for work on Monday morning.
“A slow start to the week has become customary, as Monday appears to have become the new Friday,” Barclays Plc analysts Jeffrey Meli and Bradley Rogoff wrote in a report Friday. It was especially pronounced this week, as “investors were slow to return to trading from the Easter holiday.” (Full article)
