Financial Markets and Economy
Oil-Bull Agony Prolonged as Commodity Currency Drop Extends Glut (Bloomberg)
Crude bulls, stung by the worst July on record, should expect further pain as slumping commodity currencies cut production costs.
Hyundai replaces China executives after sales slump (Business Insider)
Hyundai Motor Co <005380.KS> and sister firm Kia Motors Corp <000270.KS> replaced three China executives, the South Korean carmaker said on Tuesday, after sales skidded in the country, the group's largest market.
Hyundai and Kia, which together are the world's fifth-largest automaker by sales, saw their July China sales fall by 32 and 33 percent, respectively, from a year earlier.
Shanghai stocks plunge 6% as volatility returns (CNN)
The Shanghai Composite shed 6.2% on Tuesday, once again bringing the key index below the 3,800 point mark. The cause of the sell off was not immediately apparent, but it was a return to form for Chinese markets, which have been rocked by volatile trading sessions for most of the summer.
Beijing managed to stabilize equities with a dramatic rescue in late June and early July, intervening in a number of ways to limit losses for investors.
Some digital-currency startups are fleeing New York (Market Watch)
Several digital-currency exchanges have blocked New York state residents from accessing their services—and at least one that was founded in New York City has packed up and moved—instead of complying with new regulations.
The move followed the Aug. 8 application deadline for the New York Department of Financial Service’s BitLicense.The license, which had been in the works for more than a year before it took effect on June 24, consists of a series of regulations that apply to companies that transmit, store, buy, sell or issue digital currencies.
Here's What Gradual BOE Rate Increases Look Like to Economists (Bloomberg)
As the time for the Bank of England's first interest-rate increase since the financial crisis draws nearer, Governor Mark Carney is trying to get people to focus less on the starting point and more on the long term.
Gold is undervalued for the first time since 2009 (Business Insider)
The Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of what fund managers are doing with their money shows a few similarities between the markets of today and the post-Lehman collapse of 2009.
U.S. stock futures slump as investors wait for reasons to buy (Market Watch)
Wall Street was set for a downbeat trading day Tuesday with stock-index futures pointing lower, as a fresh slide in China’s stock market and lackluster earnings pave the way for an uneasy trading session, a day ahead of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy meeting are released.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average YMU5, -0.33% dropped 54 points, or 0.3%, to 17,449, while those for the S&P 500 index ESU5, -0.29% slipped 5.55 points, or 0.3%, to 2,093.75. Futures for the Nasdaq-100 index NQU5, -0.33% gave up 14.25 points, or 0.3%, to 4,551.10.
Futures Signal S&P 500 Running Out of Steam After Two-Day Climb (Bloomberg)
U.S. stock-index futures declined on growing concern that a rout in emerging-market assets and commodities will hurt global growth prospects, while investors weighed the implications of tighter monetary policy.
Standard & Poor’s 500 Index E-mini contracts expiring in September fell 0.2 percent to 2,094.75 at 6:27 a.m. in New York. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 31 points, or 0.2 percent, to 17,473.
UK inflation came in a little stronger in July than analysts expected (Business Insider)
British consumer price inflation was a smidgen stronger in July than analysts had expected, coming in at +0.1% year-on-year.
Core prices, which strip out the effects of volatile items like food and energy, rose by 1.2%, considerably more than expected.
Stock market bulls are playing with fire (Market Watch)
nvestors who are giving the bull market in stocks the benefit of the doubt are playing with fire. That’s because the bear market’s warning signals have created a situation as vulnerable to the slightest spark as a parched desert.
Home Depot Posts 9% Profit Increase, Raises Earnings Forecast (Bloomberg)
Home Depot Inc. posted second-quarter profit that gained 9 percent and boosted its earnings forecast for the year as the continued rise of home prices encourages Americans to fix up their houses.
Net income in the three months through Aug. 2 increased to $2.23 billion, or $1.73 a share, from $2.05 billion, or $1.52, a year earlier, the Atlanta-based company said Tuesday in a statement. Excluding some items, profit was $1.71 a share, matching analysts’ estimates.
Venezuela's currency is now so worthless that people are using it as napkins (Business Insider)
There's an image going round that sums up just how ridiculous Venezuela's economy has become.
A Reddit user uploaded a picture on Monday of a man using a 2 bolivar note to hold an empanada.
10 industrial stocks that might interest Buffett (Market Watch)
When Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett discussed his company’s agreement to acquire Precision Castparts, there were probably many people who read about the $32 billion transaction who weren’t familiar with the Portland, Ore.-based maker of metal parts.
Let’s face it: Industrial companies don’t usually make for titillating headlines. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider them as long-term investments, especially if they have fat profit margins.
Chinese Stocks Tumble 6.2% Amid Government Intervention Efforts (NY Times)
Mainland Chinese stock markets unexpectedly slumped again on Tuesday, with the primary index for the Shanghai market plunging by 6.2 percent.
The stock sell-off was the steepest since an 8.5 percent decline in Shanghai on July 27, which was the market’s biggest daily drop in eight years. The sudden drop on Tuesday came just one week after China sent a jolt through global financial markets with a surprise devaluation of its currency, the renminbi, in an attempt to reinvigorate the country’s exports.
Investors haven't hated the US stock market this much since 2007 (Business Insider)
Investors haven't been this cautious on the US stock market since 2007.
According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's latest global fund manager survey, overall exposure to the US stock market moved to a 14% net underweight position.
Politics
In Iowa, Hillary Clinton Battles the Ghost of 2008 (Bloomberg)
Hillary Clinton had just exited the Iowa State Fair grounds on Saturday when I ambled over to the fair’s fabled soapbox and started gabbing with Michelle Gadbois and Tracy Garland. A married couple, both bone-deep Democrats, they were at the soapbox to catch Bernie Sanders, who would shortly be uncorking the blistering jeremiad that constitutes his stump speech. But Gadbois and Garland were not, in fact, #feelthebern-ers. They were Hillary fans—with caveats. “I want to be for her,” Tracy said, “but only if she pulls her head out of her ass and gets real.”
Technology
Glasses Let The Colorblind See Pigments For The First Time (Popular Science)
They may look like typical sunglasses, but these are making waves for people who are colorblind. Since they first went on sale in 2012, glasses from the company EnChroma Labs have allowed people to see colors as they’ve never seen them before, according to an article published this weekend in the New York Times.
You can see colors because you have receptors in you eyes called cones. If you have normal color vision, you have three sets of them that pick up red, green, and blue pigments. Most people who are colorblind have trouble distinguishing red and green because their cones pick up colors with spectra that overlap. Usually everything else in the visual system—the wiring that connects the retina (where the cones are found) to the brain, the brain itself—is intact, so EnChroma or similar glasses just have to change how the color is perceived.
A peek into our robotic future (Phys)
In an underground laboratory in central Sydney, a robot and a drone are being put through their paces. From time to time, their young inventors hunch over their respective offspring, fine-tuning movements and adjusting software.
CROC, an autonomous robot inspired by the movement of an inchworm, is edging its way along a customised tunnel in the corner. With its special magnetic foot, CROC can climb vertical steel walls, avoid obstacles and pivot through small spaces inside bridges and other steel structures such as ship hulls, transmission towers and oil rigs. Along the way, it can collect and record inspection data and compare it with data from previous visits.
Health and Life Sciences
Swallowed capsule would wait for large intestine (Futurity)
Scientists are developing a new “smart capsule” that could deliver medications directly to the large intestines.
“Usually, when you take medication it is absorbed in the stomach and small intestine before making it to the large intestine,” says Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. “However, there are many medications that you would like to deliver specifically to the large intestine, and a smart capsule is an ideal targeted-delivery vehicle for this.”
Life on the Home Planet
GM crop ban 'threatens research' (BBC)
A ban on growing genetically-modified crops in Scotland could threaten the country's contribution to scientific research, according to scientists, universities and farming leaders.
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead announced the move earlier this month.
Almost 30 organisations have signed an open letter seeking an urgent meeting with him to discuss their concerns.
Twin typhoons Goni and Atsani threaten Southeast Asia (Mashable)
Two typhoons churning in the Pacific Ocean are intensifying, with one likely to meander for days in the vicinity of Taiwan and the northern Philippines later this week, potentially bringing disastrous amounts of rainfall
Typhoons Goni and Atsani are currently spinning in the Northwest Pacific Basin, well away from any landmass — for now
