Financial Markets and Economy
These Jobs Are Most Likely To Be Taken by a Computer (TIME)
Telemarketers’ jobs have the highest chance of being automated, according to recent report. Other positions with huge potential for being overtaken by robots? Cashiers, tellers and drivers, among others, according to this new NPR interactive.
While telemarketers have a 99% chance of one day being totally replaced by technology (it’s already happening), cashiers, tellers and drivers all have over a 97% chance at being automated…
To play around with the complete data, check here. But beware, it’s pretty addicting.
The next big bubble: Bonds, startups, China? (CNN)
Instead of oxygen, asset bubbles grow because of easy money and unreasonable investor expectations.
For the past seven years, investors have been living in an era of extremely low interest rates. Investors have been basically forced into riskier assets to make money. That raises the potential for another dot-com style bubble (and crash) where valuations get way ahead of fundamentals.
A Unifying Approach to Preventing Asset Price Bubbles (Naked Capitalism)
Debt financing amplifies the effects of asset prices fluctuations across the financial system and this can produce bubbles. Regulation therefore increasingly focusses on restricting debt financing. Although there is no silver bullet for making the financial system failure-proof, this column argues that policymakers should adopt an integrated and consistent macroprudential approach across the financial system in order to help prevent businesses moving to less-regulated pastures.
ROUBINI: There's a market 'time bomb' raising the risk of a dramatic collapse (Business Insider)
Nouriel Roubini, one of the few prominent economists credited with predicting the 2008 financial crisis, thinks there could be another one just around the corner.
Roubini's latest piece in the Guardian is a warning particularly about the low levels of market liquidity.
U.S. Drug Shortages Frustrate Doctors, Patients (Wall Street Journal)
Robin Miller, a 62-year-old oncologist in Atlanta with bladder cancer, was scheduled to receive a potentially lifesaving drug in December. But her doctor’s office called shortly before the appointment to say: “Sorry, we don’t have any. We can’t give it to you,” according to Dr. Miller.
The disruption was due to a global shortage of the drug, BCG, which arose after manufacturing problems at two of the few global suppliers. Without the drug, Dr. Miller feared her cancer would come back and she would have to have her bladder removed, a step she called “barbaric.”
Chinese Stocks Are Surging On Weak Macro Data BTFD-iness (Zero Hedge)
Having dropped over 10% in the previous 2 days, what better way to get the speculative frenzy of Chinese housewives levered up and buying stocks again than terrible macro data. With China HSBC Manufacturing PMI printing 49.2 (the 3rd monthly contraction in a row) and China's official Services PMI tumbling to its lowest since Dec 2008, the 'bad' news seems to have been greeted wondrously as Chinese stocks are up 2-4% on the news. CHINEXT back to fresh highs, Shenzhen is outperforming, and Shanghai and CSI-300 are all pushing higher. Add to this the news that the CSI-300 its rebalancing some positions and the 'correction' in China is now old news…
Junk + Junkier = Less Junky in Mexican Bond Market Topsy Turvy (Bloomberg)
Junk-rated Mexican paper producer Grupo Papelero Scribe SA is on the verge of being bought by a two-time debt defaulter with an even lower credit rating. Bondholders couldn’t be happier.
Scribe’s $300 million of bonds due in 2020 have returned 5.9 percent in the last two months, more than twice the gain for acquirer Bio Pappel SAB’s own notes and five times the average for Mexican corporate debt. Bio Pappel said on Friday it won approval from Mexico’s antitrust commission for the $125 million takeover and expects to close the deal within days.
Stocks and Trading
What are traders chatting about this morning? Greece, China, and US economic data … (Business Insider)
Good Morning! S&P Futures are resting unchanged, wallowing near Friday’s lows – but Russell minis are jumping 25bp as Biotech shares surge north on ASCO announcements (immunotherapy headlines everywhere). Despite headlines indicating Greece’s chances of striking a deal to access a much-needed €7.2bn in rescue aid looked even bleaker ahead of Friday’s IMF payment, Most European markets are meandering around unchanged. The DAX is up 10bp as Tech and Consumer Discretionary shares act well, but Financials across the continent are firmly red as local Italian elections raise more Euro questions. Turnover is solid in the continent, with most major markets trading 20%+ heavier than normal. Over in Asia, China stocks rose sharply, as investors welcomed a chorus of domestic media commentary asserting the bull market has not yet ended…
Futures Flat With Greece In The Spotlight; China Boomerangs Higher (Zero Hedge)
Remember China's 6% crash last week? It is now a distant memory made even more remote thanks to the latest batch of ugly data out of China, coupled with hints of even more liquidity injections, which led to the latest surge in the Shcomp, an index that has put most pennystocks to shame.
GE begins sale process for $40 billion chunk of U.S. lending unit (Market Watch)
General Electric Co. has launched the bidding process for a $40 billion chunk of its U.S. commercial-lending operation, a crucial step in its effort to escape regulation by the Federal Reserve.
The conglomerate is seeking buyers for the U.S. portions of its dealer financing and corporate finance businesses, which provide loans for equipment purchases and truck vendors, as well as leasing and asset-backed loans for midsize businesses, part of a planned exit from its $500 billion financial-services arm, GE Capital.
Politics
Iowa Democrats Stick With Hillary Clinton in Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Poll (Bloomberg)
Hillary Clinton remains the overwhelming favorite among Iowa Democrats looking ahead to next year's presidential caucuses, though Bernie Sanders has quickly risen as Elizabeth Warren's proxy for the anti-establishment alternative.
Hillary Clinton's challengers may cause her grief (CNN)
Experienced members of Hillary Clinton's political team, especially veterans of the bruising 2008 Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses she lost to Barack Obama, know better than to scoff at the arrival of three lesser-known new candidates to the Democratic contest for president.
The recent campaign announcements of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, along with this week's expected entry by former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee, suggest that a lot can go wrong for Clinton before she (maybe) gets the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Chief Justice Roberts Is Poised To Score A Major Victory Against Racial Justice (Think Progress)
In February of 1982, a young John Roberts was fresh out of his clerkship for the conservative Justice William Rehnquist, and only a few months into his new job working as an aide to Attorney General William French Smith. Less than two years earlier, the Supreme Court had read the Voting Rights Act narrowly, holding that the law did not permit many cases alleging disenfranchisement against minority voters to move forward. Roberts was now working within the Justice Department to defend his boss’s position that this narrow interpretation of the law should remain in place.
The Surprising Reaction to Obama's Cuba Experiment in Miami's Little Havana (Bloomberg)
During an art walk in Miami's Little Havana this weekend, Luis Palomo ran into his friend and fellow Cuban-American Jackie Llaguna’s gift shop and gallery on Calle Ocho calling, “O-BA-MA!”
Both were ebullient that the president had just made a surprise visit to the shrine of Our Lady of Charity—La Ermita de la Caridad—in Coconut Grove. “That gesture? Look at this,’’ Palomo said, pointing to the goosebumps on his arm. The first president to visit the sea-side shrine built by Cuban exiles to “la virgen,’’ he said, had done something “sacred and personal and notthe usual photo op.”
Technology
Meet Musio, A Robot That Talks Back (Tech Crunch)
Natural language and machine learning company AKA says it’s taking the next step toward the creation of a robot that you can really, truly talk to, with a new project called Musio.
Members of the AKA team demonstrated an Android-based prototype for me last week. As you can see in the video, Musio should be able to carry on a normal conversation, complete with bad jokes and (thanks to Bluetooth connections to smart devices) magic tricks. Why would you want that? Well, besides the novelty and fun of having a talking robot, it could be useful for practicing English and other learning activities, and for controlling smart home devices.
Your Apple Watch Will Soon Control Your Volvo (Wired)
SOMETIMES OWNING A car can be really stressful. Like when you can’t remember if you locked the doors or not and you’re already at work. So, wouldn’t it be nice for your car to remind you if you leave the doors unlocked?
And, if it could, say, send a notification to your phone that you’d left the doors on your car unlocked… wouldn’t it be even nicer if it could send a message to your Apple Watch?
Health and Life Sciences
Go to Sleep: It May Be the Best Way to Avoid Getting Alzheimer’s (TIME)
Poor sleep may be contributing to the buildup of the brain plaques that drive the disease
Doctors studying Alzheimer’s disease have known for a while now that their patients are poor sleepers. But does the disease result in disrupted sleep, or do unhealthy sleep habits contribute to the disease?
Have we cured cancer? (BBC)
You will have been left with that impression if you walked past a newspaper stand this morning.
The short answer, if you're in a hurry, is no.
But something truly exciting is happening – the field of immunotherapy is coming of age.
It will not be a universal "cure" but immunotherapy is fast becoming a powerful new weapon alongside chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery.
Humor
N.S.A. Compensates for Loss of Surveillance Powers by Logging on to Facebook (The Borowitz Report, The New Yorker)
The National Security Agency is compensating for the expiration of its power to collect the American people’s personal information by logging on to Facebook, the agency confirmed on Monday.
The director of the N.S.A., Admiral Michael S. Rogers, said that when parts of the Patriot Act expired at midnight on Sunday, intelligence analysts immediately stopped collecting mountains of phone metadata and started reading billions of Facebook updates instead.
“From a surveillance point of view, the transition has been seamless,” Rogers said.
Life on the Home Planet
Facebook rants are not criminal, Supreme Court says in narrow ruling (Fortune)
In a closely-watched case about free speech online, the Supreme Court on Monday overturned by a 7-2 margin the conviction of a man whose online rants landed him in prison.
The case involved Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man who used Facebook to make a series of violent rants against his wife and others, often citing the rapper Eminem and using hip-hop lyrics. He claimed his rants did not amount to “true threats,” and that his comments were jokes and a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment.
Split Reality (BBC)
It could happen to anyone. Maybe you're out trying to find a new habitable planet for the human race, or maybe you're just on a long walk and you slip. Whatever the circumstances, at some point we all find ourselves confronted with the age-old question: what happens when you fall into a black hole?
You might expect to get crushed, or maybe torn to pieces. But the reality is stranger than that.
'Tweeting' seals chart the world's oceans (BBC)
The data, transmitted from remote and icy locations, is now available online to academics around the world.
Seals wearing sensors built at the University of St Andrews have produced nearly 400,000 environmental profiles of the Southern Ocean.
Dr Lars Boehme said the critical flow of information was "like tweeting".
Best Places to Retire Abroad: The Philippines (Wall Street Journal)
If you are considering retiring in another country, I am no doubt biased, but I believe it’s hard to beat the Philippines.
I first visited this island nation (about 7,000 islands in all) 24 years ago when I was 52 years old. At that time I was a college professor doing research, and friends introduced me to a lovely young lady who over time became my wife. I am now 76 and retired, and my wife and I plan on spending much of the rest of our lives in the Philippines.
Climate change: The bumpy road to the Paris talks (BBC)
The momentum is building, with environmentalists, politicians and scientists all keen to avoid what one called a "Copenhagen 2 scenario".
Behind the headlines there appears to be an effort to manage expectations.
And a whole new lexicon is building around the talks at the end of the year.
