Financial Markets and Economy
The Fed Won't Ruin Bond Markets (Bloomberg View)
With the Federal Reserve poised to unleash its first interest rate increase in almost a decade there's a debate among investors about whether the past is any guide to how markets will react to a monetary tightening. The to-and-fro brings to mind automobile entrepreneur Henry Ford's famous insistence that "history is more or less bunk." But traders might be better served to recall a quote attributed to Mark Twain — that even if history doesn't repeat itself, it does rhyme.
We’re saving more in our IRAs, but we’re not ready to retire (Market Watch)
The amount of money Americans have socked away in their individual retirement accounts (IRAs) is rising. And that’s a step — though perhaps small in the scheme of things — in the right direction.
On average, Americans who owned at least one IRA had $119,804 in their accounts in 2013, an increase of 30.4% from 2010, according to a new report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), a Washington, D.C. research firm.
Monday: Industrial Production, Empire State Mfg Survey, Homebuilder Survey (Calculated Risk)
While investors have been hyper-focused on the timing of the Fed’s first rate increase since 2006—many are now looking to September and not this week’s Fed meeting—Fed officials have been trying to hone a tricky post-liftoff message about where rates are going in the longer-run.
U.S. Economy Turns On The Afterburners – Is A Rate Hike Next? (Value Walk)
Quick, think back nine years ago to June 2006. Can you recall what was happening then?
Let me give you some hints. Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” was blasting from radios, and moviegoers were lining up to see The Da Vinci Code. The U.S. was deeply involved in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein was being held and awaiting trial. And with Windows Vista still in beta testing, Bill Gates announced he would step down as chairman of Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).
Euro & Stocks Maintain Losses Before EU Open As China Market Cap Tops $10 Trillion For 1st Time Ever (Zero Hedge)
The total market capitalization of China's stocks is now over 40% the size of the US stock market and topped $10 trillion for the first time in history. This represents at 8-fold increase in Chinese market cap since Lehman.
Stock futures point to losses after more failed Greek talks (Market Watch)
Losses spread from Europe equities to U.S. stock futures on Monday after another bout of failed talks between Greece officials and its creditors.
A New York-area manufacturing survey and a home builders’ index are on tap for later in the day, and investors are gearing up for a policy statement from the Federal Open Market Committee midweek.
Saudi Arabia just opened the Middle East's biggest stock market to global investors for the first time in history (Business Insider)
Saudi Arabia just did something that Western investors have been pining for — the oil-rich nation has opened its stock market to the world.
Until now, Saudi stocks were restricted in ownership to just Saudis and citizens of the nearby Gulf states. Westerners could only get a slice of the action through exchange-traded funds and similar financial vehicles.
The Doomsday Bunker For Billionaires (Zero Hedge)
Two months ago we went inside the Fed's "doomsday" bunker: a 135,000 square foot facility built in 1969, and nestled inside Mount Pony, east of Culpeper, Virginia that housed some $4 billion in hard currency as well as the central hub of FedWire, the computer network which allows the nation’s banks to communicate and transfer funds.
It was meant to ensure that the US banking system could still function in the event there were still any banks left in the post-apocalyptic world, Culpeper Switch (officially the Federal Reserve System’s Communications and Records Center) was equipped with everything a Fed official would need to survive in the wake of a nuclear holocaust.
China's stock market is now worth over $10 trillion (CNN)
As of the end of May, the Shanghai Stock Exchange had a total market cap of $5.9 trillion while the Shenzhen Stock Exchange clocked in at $4.4 trillion, according to the World Federation of Exchanges.
Stocks may be pricey but it’s been the pricier, the better so far this year (Market Watch)
Not even the staunchest market bulls would argue that stocks aren’t feeling at least a wee bit pricey nowadays. You’re sick of hearing it from the media. It’s a common refrain on Wall Street. Warren Buffett’s favorite valuation indicator (see “the chart” below) agrees. Nobel-winning economist Robert Shiller recently echoed the popular sentiment. Then again, he also says to buy them.
The Futility of Our Global Monetary Experiment (Mises Daily)
Jeff Deist: The Fed recently announced just this past week that it would not use specific dates for targeting higher Fed funds rate this year and you almost get the sense that poor Janet Yellen is at the end of this Greenspan-Bernanke experiment and there’s not much left for her to do. I mean, what’s our sense of Yellen and her position?
David Stockman: Yeah, I agree with that. I think in some ways they’re petrified as to where they ended up or they should be. After all, we’re in an experiment of monumental proportions.
Trading
Stocks are going nowhere this summer but up (Market Watch)
With stock market volatility at historic lows, many investors are looking over their shoulders and wondering if the gains of the past few years are in jeopardy.
While it’s always wise to keep perspective and be realistic about the risks in the stock market, you can drive yourself crazy living with one foot out the door and thinking about market timing.
A Different Way to Use Traditional Technical Indicators (Trader Feed)
The above chart depicts a running cumulative total of buy signals minus sell signals for all NYSE stocks for the Wilder Parabolic SAR indicator (raw data from the excellent Stock Charts site). It has been a useful overbought/oversold measure for the broad stock indexes. Note how we've bounced off an oversold level recently.
Politics
Bill Clinton on GOP's 2016 field: 'No dummies' (CNN)
Bill Clinton said in an interview set to air Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that he is impressed by many of the Republicans considering a presidential run in 2016, offering praise for a group that has made attacking his wife a badge of honor. "They've got a lot of youth, they've got a lot of energy, they've got some significant diversity and they're no dummies," the former president said during an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper at the annual Clinton Global Initiative America meeting in Denver.
Hillary Clinton Aides Wave Off Trade Fight on Capitol Hill (Bloomberg)
Aides to Hillary Clinton, on a Sunday-show blitz, dismissed questions about the Democratic front-runner's position on fast-track trade authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, suggesting the tumultuous week on Capitol Hill meant little to the average voter.
President Barack Obama's trade agenda suffered a setback Friday at the hands of House Democrats. Clinton made little mention of trade at her first campaign rally in New York on Saturday, and she has drawn criticism from liberals such as primary rival Bernie Sanders for not yet taking a position on the pact.
In Iowa, Bernie Sanders Gets Pressed on Immigration (Bloomberg)
It was the closest Senator Bernie Sanders had come to getting heckled during his trip to Iowa. As Sanders was leaving a town hall meeting in Marshalltown, Iowa, on Saturday, Isaac Medina, a 19-year-old University of Iowa sophomore, followed the Democratic presidential candidate out of the building with a question he hadn’t been able to ask during the question-and-answer session: What was Sanders going to do about immigration?
For Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, It's Time to Get Serious (Bloomberg)
With Republican Jeb Bush's official campaign kickoff from Miami, two days after Democrat Hillary Clinton's first major stump speech from New York, the two marquee legacy names of the 2016 presidential race are in it now, for real.
One is mostly running against herself. The other is still trying to separate himself from the pack, not to mention his sometimes inconvenient political dynasty. Both are haunted by the notion of becoming some version of the 2008 Clinton, a supposedly prohibitive favorite who lost the expectations game and, ultimately, the nomination, to a political upstart.
Technology
Now You Can Make 360-Degree Movies at Home (Ozy)
The world isn’t flat, so why should our videos be? Welcome to the latest innovation in changing the way we capture the world: 360-degree spherical video cameras. These dome-shaped devices allow the professional and amateur videographer to document their perspective of the universe in an incredibly interactive manner — videos where you can adjust the display to focus on the sky or the ground.
New electric engine improves safety of light aircraft (Phys)
Researchers at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the AXTER Aerospace firm have developed an electric propulsion system to install in small gasoline-powered planes for extra power and range in emergency situations. This new hybrid system could prevent 600 accidents a year.
The Logic Pros: How to control anything in Logic using your hardware MIDI controller (9 to 5 Mac)
The Logic Pros is a new regular series exploring all of the most interesting gadgets and software for making music on your Mac/iOS devices. If there is any gear you would like us to take a closer hands-on look at, let us know in the comments section below or shoot us an email.
In this week’s edition of The Logic Pros, we will be looking at how to map all those fun looking sliders, switches, buttons and encoders on our controllers to various functions inside of Logic Pro X.
Health and Life Sciences
Cervical cancer 'not just a young woman's disease' (BBC)
It argues that the age limit for cervical screening should be raised to 70 and older women should be targeted in health campaigns.
There was an average of 449 deaths from the cancer in over-65s and seven in under 25s between 2010 and 2012. The report says the number of older women affected is set to increase.
Why learning in your sleep is an idea that's reawakening (New Scientist)
EVEN as science fiction, the idea that we can learn as we sleep has a controversial history. In Aldous Huxley's dystopian novel Brave New World, recorded voices whisper class prejudices into the ears of sleeping children, conditioning them for their future roles in society. Despite the evil ends that Huxley imagined, the appeal of getting something for nothing was irresistible to readers and, following the book's publication in 1932, there was a surge in interest in sleep learning. But was there any fact in the fiction?
Life on the Home Planet
A Paleontologist Deconstructs 'Jurassic World' (NY Times)
As “Jurassic World” hit theaters on Thursday with its gang of velociraptors and fictitious hybrid rex, paleontologists braced themselves for a wave of misinformation.
“I feel like paleontologists fear they may get a lot of dumb questions because of the dinosaurs in this film,” said Brian Switek, a fossil enthusiast and author of the book “My Beloved Brontosaurus.”
Chinese dog-eating festival outrages foreigners (BBC)
Outrage on social media over an annual dog-eating festival in China has been growing every year – and this year it's trended across the world. Will the anger eventually end the practice of eating dog meat in China?
Each year during summer solstice, it's thought that 10,000 dogs are cooked and eaten in Yulin, in Guangxi province in southern China, as part of the city's yearly dog meat festival. Although it's not illegal to eat dog meat in China, opinion is divided on how deep the "tradition" really runs. On Chinese social media in recent years, the Yulin Festival has become a focus for the large numbers of animal lovers – mostly within China – who are against it.
Goose Exterminator of the Netherlands Enrages Animal Rights Activists (NY Times)
The hiss of gas, released by a red lever turned by Arie den Hertog in the back of his white van, signaled the start of the massacre. The victims, crammed into a sealed, coffin-like wooden case, squawked as they struggled to breathe. Then, after barely two minutes, they fell silent.
