Financial Markets and Economy
Brazil Business Backs Rousseff to Stem Deepening Economic Crisis (Bloomberg)
Brazil’s most powerful business groups and its bar association will urge Congress to support measures to put a contracting economy back on track.
The national confederations for transport, industry and agriculture, as well as the Brazilian Lawyers Organization are preparing a statement that would ensure President Dilma Rousseff support for proposals to avoid a credit-rating downgrade and speed Brazil’s recovery from a looming recession.
Finally, some good news for Greece (Business Insider)
Fitch Ratings isn't unhappy with Greece.
On Tuesday, the ratings agency raised its rating on Greece's debt, albeit from a pitiful 'CC' to a slightly less brutal 'CCC.' These ratings are both well below investment grade.
In its release on Tuesday, Fitch wrote that, "The 14 August agreement reached between Greece and the European Institutions on the framework for a third official bailout programme has reduced the risk of Greece defaulting on its private sector debt obligations."
Why oil prices could sink to $15 a barrel (CNN)
Oil prices have already taken a dramatic fall that's saved consumers big time at the pump. Last week, crude tumbled below $42 a barrel, down from $100 last year.
One big-name investor is predicting an even sharper drop.
"There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest we have bottomed. You could have $15 or $20 oil — easily," influential money manager David Kotok told CNNMoney.
What to expect from Gap’s earnings (Market Watch)
Gap Inc.’s GAP, -0.93% earnings are expected to reflect a tough second-quarter thanks to some fashion misses and a shrinking customer base.
The company is scheduled to report earnings after the market closes Thursday.
Sprints Claure Revives CEO Twitter Spat With More Profanity (Bloomberg)
The telecom CEO Twitter spat goes to a second round.
Sprint Corp.'s Marcelo Claure came out swinging against T-Mobile US Inc.'s John Legere with a tweet overnight that taunted his rival for his last place in a network performance study that measures speed, reliability and call quality at the four largest U.S. wireless carriers.
$40 oil could be a game-changer for Russia (Business Insider)
If oil prices tumble below $40, then the Russian Central Bank could be inspired to interrupt its rate-cutting agenda.
“If the situation on the foreign-exchange market changes as a result of a significant drop in oil prices — to $40 a barrel, with fluctuations between $40 and $45 — then the central bank will probably halt the process of cutting the rate,” Kremlin economic aide Andrey Belousov told Bloomberg in an interview.
Snapdeal raises $500 million from investors including Alibaba, Foxconn, Softbank (Market Watch)
Indian e-commerce company Snapdeal.com raised $500 million from investors including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., Foxconn and SoftBank Corp., in a fundraising round that valued the company at $5 billion.
Snapdeal runs an online marketplace that sells everything from smartphones to three-bedroom apartments. The company said the investment will help it increase the number of merchants on its site to one million, from around 150,000 today, as it gears up to compete with its rivals.
Amid China Gloom, Shenzhen Shines Bright (Bloomberg)
The boom is back in Shenzhen, and not even a bursting of its stock bubble can stop it.
This is a problem (Business Insider)
How much more can corporate earnings grow?
If you look at the recent history, you can see clearly that growth has plateaued. And it's a theme that Wells Capital Management's Jim Paulsen warns "could become problematic" for stock market investors.
Companies Just Aren't at Capacity Yet … (Bloomberg)
And they won't start to spend money until they get there, says Adam Parker. He's head of U.S. equity strategy at Morgan Stanley and on Bloomberg Surveillance, I asked him a chestnut of a question on Monday: When will companies start to spend their cash on new plants and shiny equipment, rather than dividends and buybacks?
Monica Lewinsky will be the keynote speaker at a conference for financial advisors (Business Insider)
Peak Advisor Alliance founder Ron Carson announced Monica Lewinsky will be the keynote speaker at this year's Excell fall conference. Carson says he chose Lewinsky because she is willing to talk about her darkest moment and that she will be a "great example of how we can use that same transparency." According to Investment News, Carson thinks Lewinsky will be able to teach advisors to think about what they say and how they say it and that once something is said it cannot be taken back. The conference will take place October 7-9.
Look What the Heat Wave Is Doing for Power Prices in New York City (Bloomberg)
New York City residents will have to wait until Wednesday for a break from the first official heat wave in two years — and from the high power prices that come with it.
U.S. economy on track to grow 1.3 percent in third quarter: Atlanta Fed (Business Insider)
The U.S. economy is on track to grow at an annualized rate of 1.3 percent in the third quarter following news of a stronger-than-expected 0.6 percent rise in industrial output in July, the Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow forecast model showed on Tuesday.
This was stronger than the regional Fed bank's prior estimate on Aug. 13 of a 0.7 percent rise in gross domestic product, the Atlanta Fed said on its website.
China's Richest Traders Are Fleeing Stocks as the Masses Pile In (Bloomberg)
The wealthiest investors in Chinas equity market are heading for the exits.
China’s Turbulent Markets Keep Investors Guessing (NY Times)
As China’s once-staid currency suddenly dropped sharply last week, Wall Street began sniffing around for a way to profit.
A trader on Goldman Sachs’s Hong Kong trading desk sent a memo to hedge fund clients highlighting one opportunity: Taking advantage of a price difference between China’s onshore renminbi and its offshore version. The currency is not freely tradable, and it was trading in Hong Kong as much as 1.5 percent lower than in China.
The FTSE 100 got whacked by metal (Business Insider)
The FTSE 100 just closed in London down 14.34 points, or 0.22% at 6535.96.
It's not a big fall — it's August after all — but the reason behind the fall is metal. Concerns about Chinese demand sent copper prices tanking to a 6 year low, while other metals also dived.
That hit miners — Chilean copper giant Antofagasta was the biggest faller down 2%; Anglo American fell by 1.7%; Fresnillo was 1.7% lower; and BHP Billiton slipped 1.8%.
Tencent invests $50M in Kik at a $1B valuation (Venture Beat)
China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd has taken a $50 million stake in Kik Interactive, an investment that values the Canadian mobile messaging company at more than $1 billion, Kik said on Wednesday.
Kik, a Waterloo, Ontario-based company whose chat platform is popular with U.S. teens, has long said it aims to emulate the success of Tencent’s WeChat, which has expanded from messaging to facilitating commerce in China.
Politics
Jeb! Bush Thinks We Haven't Given the NSA Enough Power to Spy on Us (Gizmodo)
He’s trailing an openly misogynistic troll doll in the polls, but Jeb Bush has outdone his opponents in the “slavish praise for the government’s surveillance apparatus” department. Bush thinks we need more NSA surveillance, not less.
“There’s a place to find common ground between personal civil liberties and NSA doing its job,” Jeb! said at a national security conference in South Carolina today. “I think the balance has actually gone the wrong way.”
Why Republicans can’t pit Hillary Clinton vs. Warren Buffett over solar (Market Watch)
Hillary Clinton goes to Las Vegas today and the Republican National Committee thinks it has laid a trap for her.
The issue: Clinton’s campaign and political action committee have taken $27,500 in donations from Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B, -0.67% CEO Warren Buffett — and Clinton supports so-called “net metering” rules that force utilities like Berkshire’s Nevada-based NV Energy to buy solar power from people who install solar panels on their houses.
Presidential Campaigns See Texting as a Clear Path to Voters (NY Times)
Even a presidential candidate’s most devoted supporters could be forgiven for trying to tune out the torrent of campaign emails, Twitter messages, Facebook posts, Instagrams and Snapchats that steadily flood voters’ inboxes and social-media feeds in this digitized, pixelated, endlessly streaming election cycle.
But a text message is different.
Technology
The Navy Wants A New, Far-Reaching Robot Submarine (Popular Science)
Like expectant parents eagerly picking out names for their firstborn children, no Pentagon project is really real until it gets a terrible acronym. Earlier this year, the Navy posted a solicitation for a “Large Displacement Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (LDUUV) System.” Last week, they posted even more details about what they’re looking for in their brand new robot submarine.
For the first version of the LDUUV (ideally pronounced “Lud-oov”), the Navy wants two things. The first is “intelligence, scouting, and reconnaissance” underwater, which means the combined jobs of watching an area for potential threats and then sending back useful information to people on shore.
Health and Life Sciences
What a family history of cancer means for you (CNN)
One look at President Jimmy Carter's family history, and you have to wonder whether he and his relatives live in fear.
His brother, father and two sisters all died from pancreatic cancer. His mother had breast cancer that later moved to her pancreas, and now Carter, 90, has been diagnosed with cancer. He has not yet revealed what kind.
Why antibiotics are precious (BBC)
You need only go back 70 years to a time when a scratch and a common infection could prove deadly.
Routine surgery and childbirth could be a hazardous business.
Penicillin had been discovered in 1928 by Sir Alexander Fleming, but human trials did not begin for over a decade.
MRI scanner steers cancer-killing virus inside the body (Futurity)
MRI scanners, normally used to take detailed images inside the body, can noninvasively steer tumor-busting therapies to target sites.
Cell-based therapies, which exploit modified human cells to treat diseases such as cancer, have advanced in recent years. However, targeted application of cell-based therapy in specific tissues, such as those deep in the body where injection is not possible, has remained problematic.
Life on the Home Planet
Islamic call to end fossil fuels (BBC)
Islamic environmental and religious leaders have called on rich countries and oil producing nations to end fossil fuel use by 2050.
The Islamic Climate Declaration says that the world's 1.6bn Muslims have a religious duty to fight climate change.
It urges politicians to agree a new treaty to limit global warming to 2C, "or preferably 1.5 degrees."
How Much Will Antarctica and Greenland Ice Raise Seas? (Scienctific American)
Scientists have figured out the worst that could happen if the mammoth chuck of continental ice at the bottom of the world—the West Antarctic Ice Sheet—continues melting. By 2100, ice sheet melt would raise sea levels by 7.9 inches, enough to pose a risk to low-lying nations, according to a study published today in The Cryosphere.
By 2200, ice sheet melt would raise sea levels by 1.6 feet.
