Financial Markets and Economy
Hot German Housing Getting Too Speculative for Berlin Landlord (Bloomberg)
Germany’s housing market is becoming prohibitively expensive and it’s time to prepare for a downturn, according to the head of the country’s second-largest landlord.
While some investors are willing to outbid each other in a bet that home values will continue to rise, rents don’t justify the prices being paid, Deutsche Wohnen AG Chief Executive Officer Michael Zahn, 52, said in an interview. Instead, the Berlin-based company is scaling back acquisitions and refinancing debt.
Free Trade Is Quantitative Easing For The Heroin Market (Dark-Bid)
The CDC just released a grim report about heroin abuse trends in the United States. The chart looks like the Federal Reserve's balance sheet. The report states, "During 2002-2013,heroin overdose death rates nearly quadrupled in the United States, from 0.7 deaths to 2.7 deaths per 100,000 population, with a near doubling of the rates from 2011-2013."
Freddie Mac: 30 Year Mortgage Rates decrease to 4.04% in Latest Weekly Survey (Freddie Mac, MW Newsroom)
Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® (PMMS®), showing an investor flight to safety for U.S. Treasuries is pushing average fixed mortgage rates lower and helping to keep buyer activity strong toward the close of the spring homebuying season. …
At first glance, it looks like Greece got nothing (Business Insider)
So, it looks like Greece got nothing.
On Thursday, Greece submitted its latest bailout proposal to its European creditors, and it looks an awful lot like what they rejected back on June 26 when Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras called a surprise referendum on the issue.
This decision led to last Sunday's referendum that saw Greece overwhelmingly vote "No," meaning that the people of Greece wanted a new plan and a new path for Greece.
For Your Eyes Only: How Robots are Reshaping Chinas Economy (Bloomberg)
It wasn’t the bikini-clad actresses that caught 19-year-old Chinese student Li Zexiang’s eye when he was watching the James Bond film “For Your Eyes Only” in an American movie theater back in 1981.
It was the high-tech gadgets that Roger Moore’s character deployed en route to defeating the enemy and retrieving a state-of-the-art defense communication device. In time, Li’s fascination with Bond’s equipment helped to foster a nascent robotics industry in China that’s set to reshape its economy.
More bad news for stocks: Earnings may stink (CNN)
Are you ready for some earnings?
It's time for Corporate America to issue their latest quarterly report cards. Unfortunately, a lot of them may be getting Cs and Ds.
Companies in the benchmark S&P 500 are expected to report that their profits and sales for the second quarter were down nearly 4.5% from a year ago, according to data from FactSet Research.
Greece has a new bailout plan and the market loves it (Business Insider)
Greece has submitted a new bailout proposal.
And the market likes it.
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Chart Of The Day: Bulls Better Hope It's Different This Time (Zero Hedge)
If earnings are the mother's milk of stock bull markets, then the endless supply of talking heads bloviating on the next leg of the stock market rally being driven by a post Q1 renaissance in earnings growth (ever ready to pull out their hockey-stick forecasts) may want to look away from the following chart…
How a Greek Business Owner Survives the Economic Meltdown (Bloomberg)
As Greece’s debt crisis drags on—negotiations with European lenders are nearing a new deadline set for Sunday—life goes on for ordinary citizens. For entrepreneurs across the country, the wrecked economy has been the mother of invention. How do you sustain a business in the face of capital controls that limit bank withdrawals to €60 ($66) per day? Does anyone go shopping in times of massive uncertainty and risk? The owner and designer of an Athens-based manufacturer of luxury leather handbags and accessories shares her story of small business survival in an economic meltdown.
America's stock market is shrinking (CNN)
Believe it or not, the U.S. stock market had way more companies back when Mark McGwire was chasing homerun records.
The number of publicly listed U.S. stocks peaked at a record 7,562 during McGwire's record-setting summer of 1998, according to the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index. Today, there are just 3,812.
So what gives? Simply put, there are more companies disappearing than entering the stock market.
Deutsche Bank: What China Can Learn From the 1987 Plunge Protection Team (Bloomberg)
After the Shanghai Stock Exchange Composite Index slid 5.9 percent, to 3,507.19, on Wednesday, it bounced back 5.8 percent, to 3,709.33, today.
With the roller coaster ride continuing, Chinese officials have taken action.
3 Things: Correction, Interest Rates & Oil Prices (Street Talk Live)
While yesterday's suspension of trading on the New York Stock Exchange drew attention to the plunge in equity prices, the reality is that stocks have been in a correction since the all-time highs posted back in May. Of course, until yesterday's headlines, you may not have realized that the correction was in process as it has been "as slow as a turtle running in peanut butter."
U.S. shippers push back in battle over Puerto Rico import costs (Business Insider)
Tensions over a 95-year-old shipping law have reignited after Puerto Rico's governor said it has contributed to the island's dire fiscal situation, a charge met with fierce resistance from the U.S. shipping industry but support from some oil companies and economists.
In a speech on June 29 outlining Puerto Rico's $72 billion debt burden, Governor Garcia Padilla called for the island to be exempted from the Jones Act, which requires ships carrying goods from one U.S. port to another to be built in the United States, have U.S. owners and be mostly staffed by U.S. crews.
Not Even a Greek Exit Will Stop the Fed From Raising Rates (Bloomberg)
The Greek crisis is no big deal as far as the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve are concerned.
That's the conclusion of a majority of economists polled by Bloomberg this month. They said the crisis won’t hurt the U.S. economy nor deter the Fed from raising interest rates later this year.
State of The Oil Market: H1 2015 Trading Patterns Convey a Crude Reality (Forbes)
The last five weeks have been as volatile as any for the oil markets in recent memory. For those with net short positions, the focus of market chatter has remained broadly unchanged past the midway point for the current trading year, with two tangents dominating the narrative so far into 2015 – oil oversupply and China’s economic slowdown.
The depth of Greece's banking crisis is making history (Business Insider)
From the Parthenon looming over the capital city to ancient art throughout the country, Greece is steeped in history.
Now, the depth of the nation's banking crisis has become a part of that history, and it's only getting more infamous.
I own China stocks and I'm worried (CNN)
I own stocks, and I'm very worried about the market.
The main reason I invest is to make money, but also because it's trendy right now. I've lost about 50% to 60% of my investment so far. That's around 100,000 yuan ($16,000).
The market increased so much that it is bound to fall. I don't know when things will calm down, but I'm guessing it will take at least another month.
China's Stock Slump May Hinder Third QuarterGrowth, Survey Says (Bloomberg)
A twenty-eight percent drop in the Shanghai Composite Index since June 12 will trim at least 0.1 percentage point from third quarter GDP growth and may prompt the PBOC to accelerate monetary easing, according to a majority of economists surveyed by Bloomberg from July 8-9.
Student Loans May Be Driving theTuition Explosion (Bloomberg)
The surging cost of U.S. college tuition has an unlikely culprit: the generosity of the government’s student-aid program, a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said.
Increases in federal loans, meant to help students cope with rising costs, are quickly eaten up by schools in higher prices, wrote David O. Lucca, Karen Shen and Taylor Nadauld.
Here's how much business S&P 500 companies do outside of the US (Business Insider)
There are a lot of scary global economic, financial market, and geopolitical news headlines crossing the wires lately. Greece is in a banking crisis, which threatens to bleed into the rest of Europe. China's economy is slowing suddenly and its stock market is crashing. Political turmoil and red-hot inflation is plaguing the big Latin American economies. Low oil prices are crushing Canada's massive oil sector. And the list goes on.
Schaeuble Tells Lew Hed Gladly Swap Greece for Puerto Rico (Bloomberg)
Wolfgang Schaeuble, the German finance minister who’s taking a hard line on Greece’s debt woes, says he’d gladly swap burdens with his American counterpart.
“I offered my friend Jack Lew these days that we could take Puerto Rico into the euro zone if the U.S. were willing to take Greece into the dollar union,” Schaeuble said at an event in Frankfurt Thursday. Lew, the U.S. Treasury secretary, “thought that was a joke,” Schaeuble said.
Politics
Democrats say they've found a devastating Jeb Bush gaffe, but he's mostly right (Business Insider)
Democrats made hay with a comment from former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) that they say shows he's out of touch with average Americans.
On Wednesday, Democrats seized on Bush's comment in an interview with the editorial board of New Hampshire's Union Leader. He said that growing the economy would require people to "work longer hours."
Presidential Candidates Must Submit FEC Paperwork to Get Into Fox Debate (Bloomberg)
If Republican presidential candidates want to claim one of the 10 coveted spots in Fox News' August 6 debate, they can't be behind on financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission.
The requirement that campaigns file "all necessary paperwork with the FEC" to get on the debate stage includes filing "a financial disclosure statement as part of that paperwork," according to a statement from Fox News Executive Vice President of News Michael Clemente.
Jeb Bush's mind-blowing fundraising haul in 1 chart (Business Insider)
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's (R) nascent campaign said Thursday that it had raised an eye-popping $11.4 million in the first 16 days he was official candidate for president.
On top of that, the super PAC supporting Bush's run for president, Right to Rise PAC, said it had hit its goal of raising $100 million through the first half of the year. Charlie Spies, the PAC's treasurer and general counsel, said it had raised more than $103 million from Jan. 6 to June 30.
Technology
Switzerland Has Started Testing Mail Delivery Drones (Popular Science)
The Swiss postal system, in collaboration with California-based drone delivery company Matternet, announced this week that they’re testing a new package delivery service that uses drones as couriers. Switzerlands diverse terrain, full of mountains, lakes, rivers, and other environments easier to navigate by air, make it an ideal test site for flying robot mail delivery.
Health and Life Sciences
‘Safer’ phthalates still risky for kids and teens (Futurity)
New studies link two chemicals increasingly used during manufacturing to strengthen plastic wrap, and containers for soap, cosmetics, and processed food to a rise in risk of high blood pressure and diabetes in children and adolescents.
The compounds, di-isononyl phthalate (DINP) and di-isodecyl phthalate (DIDP), are both in a class of chemicals known as phthalates. Ironically, the two chemicals were used as replacements for another chemical, di-2-ethylhexylphlatate, or DEHP, which the same researchers proved in previous research to have similar adverse effects.
Life on the Home Planet
When jazz collided with physics (BBC)
A unique combination of man and machine – the first concert performance by a pianist and the Large Hadron Collider.
A team of scientists at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland has turned live data from an experiment at the LHC into music, and a jazz pianist has been playing along.
This carnivorous plant is shaped to help bats find it, so bats can sleep and poop inside (The Verge)
Finding a snug place to sleep isn't always easy in Borneo's peat swamp forests, but Hardwicke's woolly bats have a pretty good setup. They like to sleep inside a plant calledNepenthes hemsleyana — a carnivorous plant that feeds on bat poop. It's one of nature's amazing reciprocal relationships that work out really well, even if it sounds downright weird. But there is one issue with this arrangement: these plants can be hard to find. Fortunately, the shape of their "pitchers" — the part that can be used to catch insects and, err, house a sleeping bat — are ideal for reflecting sound, according to a study published today in Current Biology. This means that bats can "spot them" using echolocation after a tiring night of flying around.
"Very Strong" El Niño Is Coming: But Will It End the Drought? (Gizmodo)
NOAA’s El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) discussion center released its latest predictions for the gigantic weather event today and, well, are you ready for some El Niño? Because wet weather is almost totally certainly coming to the Western US. The question is, how much?
