Financial Markets and Economy
Calgary Loses Jobs Bragging Rights to Toronto and Vancouver (Bloomberg)
Calgary, the capital of Canadas oil industry, has lost its bragging rights as the countrys strongest labor market.
Tesla's cars and NASA's Mars rovers have this one mysterious material in common (Business Insider)
Lithium is one of the most mysterious elements in the universe to scientists, but it's also a growing commodity for automotive companies like Nissan, Tesla, Volkswagen, and even NASA's Mars rovers, who are using it in the game-changing re-chargeable batteries that fuel their all-electric automobiles.
Weekend Reading: Serious Indigestion (Street Talk Live)
Another week of market volatility with no ground gained. It's enough to give you indigestion. I made an assessment earlier this week in reference to the markets rally attempt stating.
Here Comes The Next Crisis "Nobody Saw Coming" (Of Two Minds)
When borrowing become prohibitive (or impossible) and raising taxes no longer generates more revenues, state and local governments will have to cut expenditures.
Strangely enough, every easily foreseeable financial crisis is presented in the mainstream media as one that "nobody saw coming." No doubt the crisis visible in these three charts will also fall into the "nobody saw it coming" category.
Millennials are saving — but they’re doing it wrong (Market Watch)
Growing up during an economic downturn scared 20-somethings into saving — but they’re also too skittish to do much with the money they’re socking away.
Are You Sick of Hearing About Rising Yields? So Are Debt Traders (Bloomberg)
This should be a very exciting time in debt markets.
The Federal Reserve looks like it might finally raise interest rates next month after leaving them near zero since 2008. That should mean turmoil, with bond yields rising and their values falling, right?
Apparently not.
The Elevator Down… (Zero Hedge)
Between SUNE (7.92% holding), MU, gold, and a litany of other recent Einhorn blowups, will Greenlight be the first fund of the New Normal to gate… or will it be Andy Hall?
Wall Street now thinks Fed hike in September will be 2015's only move (Business Insider)
Top Wall Street banks still expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in September, but a growing number now believe the central bank is likely to only hike once this year, a Reuters poll found on Friday.
Thirteen of 19 primary dealers, or the banks that deal directly with the Fed, polled said they expect the Fed to raise rates by September but just nine now believe the Fed will hike rates twice in 2015, compared with 15 of 20 in the July Reuters poll.
Bigger paychecks for the bosses, but for the workers, not so much (Market Watch)
Paychecks are accelerating a little for the bosses, but are stagnant for the vast majority of workers. Where have we heard this story before?
The Game of Chicken Behind Low Oil Prices (The Atlantic)
Oil prices are now near a six-year low, moving down earlier today to about $44 a barrel. Friday’s decline came on the back of an upbeat jobs report, which strengthened the dollar,lowering oil prices. The fall has been precipitous: Only a year ago, crude oil was more than $100 a barrel.
It's Still The Economy, Stupid (Mises)
We're regularly told by the Fed and defenders of the current incumbent president that the economy is humming along pretty well. Yes, there are concerns, we are told, the US is performing below its "potential output" level, but we've achieved the most that can be expected under the circumstances. People who write columns for the New York Times and who compile government reports are doing pretty well. Unfortunately for those who don't write columns or enjoy comfortable government jobs, things seem less rosy.
In fact, in an economy with a rising cost of living (especially in housing), stagnant real wages, and falling worker productivity, many in the so-called working class are very, very worried about the future.
Ambev Leads Brazilian Stocks Lower as Central Bank Supports Real (Bloomberg)
Ambev SA led Brazilian stocks lower as faster-than-forecast inflation damped prospects for the brewer and other companies that depend on consumer demand.
Doing this one easy thing will make you feel better about money (Business Insider)
Research conducted by Cameron Newton, a professor at QUT Business School, a leading school for financial advice in Australia, found people who have financial advisors are happier. According to Newton, "What stood out from the data overall was that the longer a client spent developing a relationship with their advisor, the more positive the outcomes for the client." He continued, "Longer term clients enjoyed greater feelings of financial well-being, psychological health and life satisfaction overall.” CBS reports many people give themselves too much credit when it comes to their knowledge about financial literacy and regulations.
At 38-year low, participation rate may have found footing (Market Watch)
It’s an odd thing to say for a number at a 38-year low, but it looks like the percentage of Americans who participate in the labor market has found its footing.
Half the Gain Gone in Energy Partnerships Bitten by Rates, Oil (Bloomberg)
An energy investment vehicle best known for providing reliable cash payouts is running out of gas.
Here's proof that credit rating agencies are just the worst (Business Insider)
Credit rating agencies were vilified during the financial crisis for failing to detect risk in the subprime market before it was too late.
10-year Treasury yield falls for 4th straight week (Market Watch)
Treasury yields finished lower Friday for a fourth straight week, after July jobs data leaves the Federal Reserve on track for a rate hike in the near future.
Bill Gross Says Global Economy Dangerously Close to Deflation (Bloomberg)
Bill Gross, money manager at Janus Capital Group Inc., said the global economy is “dangerously close to deflationary growth.”
Once there is a “whiff of deflation, things tend to reverse and go badly,” Gross said Friday in a Bloomberg Radio interview with Tom Keene. Gross pointed to how the CRB Commodity Index isn’t just at a cyclical low, but lower than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went bankrupt.
Meet the Ambitious Franchisees Who Turned Modest Investments Into Bustling Businesses (Entrepreneur)
In late 2013, Matthew Sprague was feeling aimless. After a tour in Iraq, where he injured his back, he left the Army and was living in Pasadena, Calif., with his wife and new baby. Then he saw an advertisement for a franchise expo, and an unexpected path emerged.
“I’d never really thought about franchising,” he says. “I met a franchise broker at the expo. We started going through concepts, and I found Bar-B-Clean. I decided that’s the one I’m going with.”
Oil rig count climbs for third straight week (Business Insider)
The US oil rig count rose by 6 this week to total 670, according to driller Baker Hughes.
The tally has now climbed for three straight weeks and for the fifth time in six weeks.
Economists Think Brazil Will Get Downgraded to Junk in the Next Few Years (Bloomberg)
From another economic recession to a juicy corruption scandal embroiling PresidentDilma Rousseff, Brazil has had a tough 2015. It's now looking down the barrel of another likely event: a junk rating of its government bonds.
Latin America's largest economy has a 70 percent chance of losing its investment grade rating in the next few years, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Standard & Poor's said last week it may downgrade the country's rating and revised its outlook to negative from stable. Brazil's bonds are currently rated BBB- which is one step away from junk. The company cited Brazil's political and economic challenges amid an ongoing probe into kickbacks at the country's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, which President Rousseff chaired at the time.
Buffett Bailout 2.0? Berkshire Hathaway Misses Earnings By Most Since Lehman (Zero Hedge)
It looks like it is time for Warren to get on the Obamaphone and make it clear this is unacceptable…
Chobani Said Working With Goldman Sachs to Explore Sale of Stake (Bloomberg)
Chobani LLC, the Greek-yogurt maker founded by billionaire Hamdi Ulukaya, is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to explore the sale of a minority stake in the business, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Chobani is looking for an investment from a company that could help increase distribution and production as it looks to meet rising demand for its products, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private. The deal may involve a buyout of private equity firm TPG’s stake in the company, the person said.
Politics
Kim Kardashian gives Hillary Clinton her strongest endorsement possible: a group selfie (The Verge)
Kim Kardashian is the queen of selfies. Maybe she didn't write the book on selfies, but she certainly published a book on it. And as you go through her bountiful Instagram archive, you might notice a few rules — chief among them, Kim rarely if ever posts a partial-face selfie. Even if she isn't the focus of the image, even if the space is split in two, a Kim selfie is the full Kim Kardashian face. (Exceptions are made for children.) Also, if husband Kanye West is present, the only person that's allowed to come between them is their daughter. (Exceptions are made for Italian fashion designers the day before their wedding.)
6 things Donald Trump doesn’t know about immigration (Market Watch)
It pays to be politically incorrect, if you’re Donald Trump.
A few weeks after Trump declared his candidacy for the presidency of the U.S., he is crushing his competition in the polls. That is despite a series of incendiary remarks, including broadly characterizing Mexican immigrants as criminals.
Republican Debate Draws 24 Million Viewers (NY Times)
Fox News’s telecast of Thursday night’s Republican debate drew a staggering 23.9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated presidential primary debate ever and among the most-viewed events in cable TV history.
The debate smashed Fox News’s previous record for viewership and it became the ninth-most-viewed cable program ever, according to Nielsen. The top eight were college football bowl games broadcast on ESPN. The debate also had 7.9 million viewers in the 25-to-54-year-old demographic that is coveted by advertisers.
Technology
Keeping the spies off your smartphone (Venture Beat)
The recent hacking of Italian spyware outfit Hacking Team reminds us all that we may well have spyware on our phones.
In one of the leaked documents, called Fighting Crime Now, Hacking Team boasts of how it can plant an agent on a target’s mobile phone, circumvent encryption, and essentially see what the target sees.
In another document it says rather grandiosely that its smartphone ‘agent’ is undetectable by antivirus software. The company says its agent is planted on the target’s device when a document is opened or a website is visited. It can also be delivered via a SMS, QR code or web link.
MIT Makes A Robot With Human Reflexes (Popular Science)
The world as made by humans is designed for bipedal bodies, ones capable of navigating the world while maintaining balance on two precarious legs and manipulating objects using a pair of arms. Sometimes, human-made spaces become hostile, but still need a human hand. This is the premise behind DARPA’s rescue robots challenge, where teams built human-shaped robots for such future emergencies like shutting off valves in broken and leaking nuclear reactors. HERMES, a new robot by researchers at MIT, is another solution to the same problem: a humanoid robot, steered by a human pilot strapped into a remote-control exoskeleton, with built in reflexes.
Health and Life Sciences
Some Sexually-Transmitted Microbes Could Make You Healthier (Gizmodo)
One risk of sexual behavior is catching a disease from a partner. But sex partners trade a lot of other microorganisms as well, and some of them might actually have beneficial effects.
Natasha Gilbert, writing for Scientific American, reports on a human virus called GBV-C which seems to improve survival in HIV-positive people. It’s one of four known sexually transmitted infections that seem to help their animal hosts, and evolutionary ecologists Chad Smith and Ulrich Mueller from the University of Texas, Austin think that if biologists start looking, there might be even more.
Thousands of Ebola Survivors Face Persistent Joint Pain and Other Problems (Scientific American)
The Ebola virus is leaving an indelible mark on survivors. Emerging findings, amassed by tracking unprecedented numbers of people who recovered from the disease in west Africa, suggest it causes joint pain in about half of Ebola survivors and often leads to vision problems. Meanwhile other research indicates that survivors who were pregnant when they were infected can pass the virus to the fetus. The virus has also been detected in the placenta. And semen may contain Ebola longer than was previously thought. Such discoveries are giving healthcare workers and researchers new insights into how to care for the thousands of people who survived this year’s outbreak and into potential risks for their communities.
Life on the Home Planet
Raging Northern California wildfire could destroy $200 million worth of homes (Market Watch)
Nearly $200 million in real estate property is threatened by the “Rocky Fire” raging in Northern California, according to a survey from CoreLogic.
About 1,000 of the 3,949 homes just north of the Bay Area in Colusa, Yolo and Lake counties — which are worth more than $220 million — are at what CoreLogicCLGX, +0.68% described as the two highest risk categories for fire damage. CoreLogic is an Irvine, Calif.-based real estate research firm. The Rocky Fire, which ignited on July 29, encompasses more than 69,000 acres (almost 400 square miles), mostly in the Cache Creek Wilderness region, and less than half of it is contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire.
Watch (And Be Terrified) As These Flesh-Eating Shrimp Strip A Pig To The Bone (Fast Company)
Nature, man.
What do you know about shrimp? Probably that they're small sea creatures that are mostly good for eating with cocktail sauce. You probably can't even really picture a shrimp in the water. And be thankful for that, because they are not the cute, delicious creatures you think they are. Researchers from England's National Oceanography Centre have discovered a new kind of shrimp that hunts in swarms. These shrimp-like amphipods, each just 3 millimeters long, comb the oceans for dead sea creatures and strip carcasses clean.
NASA sees a wider-eyed Typhoon Soudelor near Taiwan (Phys)
Clouds in Typhoon Soudelor's western quadrant were already spreading over Taiwan early on August 7 when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead. Soudelor is expected to make landfall and cross central Taiwan today and make a second landfall in eastern China. NASA satellite imagery revealed that Soudelor's eye "opened" five more miles since August 4.
