Financial Markets and Economy
The Nasdaq just topped its dot-com record…thanks to these stocks (CNN)
Finally! It took 15 years for the Nasdaq index to top its dot-com era peak on Thursday.
It was a marathon run, and every marathon has its winners. While many stocks helped the Nasdaq to bounce back, some added more momentum than others.
STR on Hotels: "The Best Fundamentals (Maybe in Our Lifetime)" (Calculated Risk)
April 2015 saw the highest annualized occupancy in the U.S. hotel industry’s history, [Amanda Hite, president and COO of STR said].
U.S. Stocks End Lower (Wall Street Journal)
U.S. stocks ended lower Friday, but the Dow industrials and S&P 500 notched a second straight week of gains.
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"Bank Holiday" Preparations Begin In Greece, Lines Form At Athens ATMs (Zero Hedge)
The writing has been on the wall for quite sometime.
Deposit flight from Greece's ailing banking sector has been running north of €500 million per day this week as the threat of capital controls casts a pall over the Greek government's efforts to reassure the public and head off a terminal bank run.
Investors eye improvements in data for housing stocks (Business Insider)
Housing stocks rallied on Friday and the industry group should get more good news next week, though sustained and robust future gains may depend on wage growth and other signs of improving home affordability.
On Monday, the National Association of Realtors is expected to report strong growth in existing home sales for May. On Wednesday, Lennar, the No. 2 U.S. homebuilder is expected to report that it had a strong second quarter.
A Quick Look at Sentiment in the Stock Market (Trader Feed)
I find it interesting–and surprising–that the five-day equity put/call ratio is hovering at its lowest level since the start of 2014. Amidst concerns about rate hikes and Greece, traders of individual stocks don't seem particularly bearish on their names. Breadth also continues mixed, as we had 594 stocks across all exchanges make fresh monthly highs and 530 register new monthly lows.
True to form (Economist)
FOREIGN skiers were bound to suffer. So was the Swiss economy, most assumed, after the Swiss National Bank (SNB) suddenly abandoned the Swiss franc’s peg to the euro in January. The franc rose by 30% against the euro in a matter of minutes, and remains about 15% higher than it was. This made Swiss exports more expensive for foreigners, and foreign goods cheaper for the Swiss. That would dent exports and deter tourists, the assumption ran—a particular worry in a country where net exports (ie, exports less imports) make up 12% of GDP. In addition, shopkeepers seemed likely to suffer for another reason, as more Swiss headed across the border into the euro zone to load up on cheap goods.
Here's what stock market valuations look like if you add back all the bad stuff companies like to take out (Business Insider)
When a company announces its quarterly financial results, it'll sometimes offer a two sets of earnings.
The first is GAAP earnings, which are based on generally accepted accounting principles. This is an industry standard that requires every industry and company to account for and report items in a uniform way.
BLS: Twenty-Five States had Unemployment Rate Increases in May (Calculated Risk)
Regional and state unemployment rates were little changed in May. Twenty-five states had unemployment rate increases from April, 9 states and the District of Columbia had decreases, and 16 states had no change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
How Overgrown Financial Service Sectors Kill Growth (Naked Capitalism)
It's now becoming cutting edge conventional wisdom that oversized financial service industries are bad for your economic health. Yet the media is only occasionally and timidly is willing to say that what is good for Jamie Dimon is bad for the rest of us.
4 observations about the relationship between jobless claims and payroll gains (Business Insider)
A reader asked about the relationship between initial unemployment claims and monthly payroll employment. And if claims are so low, does that mean a surge in employment gains?
If you mostly own U.S. stocks, think again (CNN)
Your investments are like your vacations: you probably want to take some of them outside the United States.
If you only invest in America, you ignore about half of the investment quality stocks in the world. It's like only looking at half the dinner menu.
Politics
Obama on the Charleston shootings: Sympathy alone 'is not good enough' (Business Insider)
President Barack Obama opened his remarks to a room of mayors by describing another tragedy that has "become far too commonplace."
"Racism remains a blight that we have to combat together," President Obama said at the U.S. Conference of Mayors annual meeting in San Francisco on Friday.
The Charleston shooting, as Obama described, left nine churchgoers dead after "congregates invited a stranger into their place of worship" who later turned on them. "We should be strong enough to acknowledge this," he said.
Hillary Clinton Is Trouncing Everyone in the Facebook Primary (Bloomberg)
It's not even close—Hillary Clinton has been far and away the presidential candidate with the most Facebook buzz.
According to data from Facebook collected May 13, 2015 to June 13, 2015, Clinton leads in all of the first three primary states when it comes to likes, posts and views. In fact, she has about twice as many interactions as the second place candidate in both Iowa and New Hampshire and more than four times the online interaction of the closest candidate in South Carolina.
President Obama's Hard Rhetorical Shift on Gun Control (Atlantic)
In the days following the 2011 Tucson shooting, in which six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, were killed and Representative Gabby Giffords was severely injured, President Obama flew to Arizona to address the attack.
“For the truth is none of us can know exactly what triggered this vicious attack,” the president said. “None of us can know with any certainty what might have stopped these shots from being fired, or what thoughts lurked in the inner recesses of a violent man’s mind.”
Technology
Experimenting With Virtual Reality, Financial Services Enter The Matrix (Tech Crunch)
“You take the blue pill –- the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill -– you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Morpheus and The Matrix introduced virtual reality (VR) to a mass audience, and the technology — once largely the domain of the entertainment industry — is now poised to reinvent a range of industries, from healthcare and the military to education and financial services.
This Tech Bets People Want Few Features, Not More (Wired)
WE HAVE COUNTLESS COMMUNICATION channels available to us today—computers, tablets, smartphones, social networks, video apps. And with all those choices come, unavoidably, some generational gaps. Teenagers prefer the ephemera of Snapchat; parents text; and grandparents always want to call. For families seeking to stay connected, settling on a medium of choice can be complicated.
Keith Kocho, an entrepreneur who sold his previous startup to IT company Cisco, became preoccupied with this problem, especially when he saw how difficult it was to get his children to connect with his father, who lived away from them in Canada.
Health and Life Sciences
Eating a Small Amount of Chocolate May Potentially Be Associated With Minor Health Benefits (The Atlantic)
There is no shortage of academic research (or ensuing news coverage) about whether the things people enjoy in excess—chocolate, red wine—are actually beneficial in small amounts. Even when research methods are as good as they can be, the practical takeaways are almost inevitably oversimplified. The current study appears in the journal Heart, and is a meta-analysis of data from 20,951 people. It does well in establishing an interesting correlation between chocolate intake and cardiovascular health. But it relies on surveys, in older adults only, and tries to overcome far more confounding variables than could ever be possible to overcome: What else is going on in the lives of these people? What else are they eating, drinking, doing, feeling, enduring, wearing, etc.? Can we say that chocolate is making people healthy? No.
Life on the Home Planet
‘If Sugar Is Fattening, How Come So Many Kids Are Thin?’ (Atlantic)
Sugar, these days, has a bad reputation. The crucial ingredient in the foods that many Americans count among their favorites (hey, Ben! what is up, Jerry?) has become, in the public mind, not just a source of sweetness on the palate, but also a “poison.” A “toxin.” Something that, some argue, should be regulated the same way alcohol is. The consumption of refined sugar, as we commonly understand it today, is a direct cause not just of obesity and fatigue, but also of diabetes and depression—not to mention many more maladies that are the current subjects of research. Refined sugar, the current thinking goes, won’t just make you gain weight; it will also leech away your health, pretty much, one red velvet cupcake at a time.
UN steps closer to treaty for protecting ocean life (Phys)
The United Nations took a step closer Friday toward crafting a major treaty that would protect marine life beyond territorial waters by passing a resolution at the General Assembly.
The eventual UN treaty would be the first to specifically address protection of marine life, calling for the preservation of vast areas threatened by pollution, overfishing and global warming.
Barn owls threatened by Africanized bees in South Florida (Science Daily)
Throughout the past two decades, University of Florida researcher Richard Raid has seen barn owl populations in the Everglades Agricultural Area, centered around Belle Glade, expand from mere dozens to more than 400 nesting pairs.
But these beneficial raptors, currently listed as a threatened species, are now being threatened by Africanized honey bees. Swarming as frequently as eight times per year, the invasive bees have been taking over nesting boxes that Raid and students have built for the owls, using them as hives, and displacing or even killing the desired raptors.
