Financial Markets and Economy
Marcellus Shale Gas Revolution Deals Blow to Rockies Producers (Bloomberg)
Eight years ago, a group of companies led by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners began building a $6.8 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from Americas Rocky Mountains to fuel-hungry markets in the East.
Asian shares fragile, dollar loses edge on Fed minutes (Business Insider)
Concerns about slowing growth in China pressured Asian shares and oil prices, while minutes from the U.S. Federal Reserve's July meeting dented expectations for a rate hike in mid-September.
Japan's Nikkei <.N225> fell 0.3 percent in early trade while MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> was almost flat, barely holding above its two-year low hit on Wednesday for now.
U.S. Consumer Prices Rise in July (The Atlantic)
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today that consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in July. This is the sixth straight month that the consumer price index (CPI) has increased, with July's gains slightly down from a 0.3 percent gain in June and 0.4 percent in May.
The main contributor to July’s increase was a 0.4 percent increase in the cost of shelter—the government’s measure of housing costs which looks at rent. The indexes for food, energy, and medical care also rose. The index for airline fare experienced the largest decline since 1995.
Google loses data after lightning strikes (CNN)
Lightning struck a local utility grid near one of Google's data centers four times last week, causing a tiny but permanent loss of data in affected systems.
An electrical storm on August 13 "caused a brief loss of power" to some of Google's cloud storage systems in a Belgium facility. Backup power kicked in automatically and quickly, Google says, but a small fraction of data were temporarily unrecoverable.
Bison Is the New Beef as More Diners Choose It Over Steak (Bloomberg)
At $47, the bison filet at Eddie Merlots steakhouse is just as expensive as the New York strip steak. Its also half the size.
A ‘death cross’ in Apple’s stock is coming (Market Watch)
These four charts of Apple’s stock, including one showing that a bearish ‘death cross’ pattern should appear this month, warns that the stock could fall into bear-market territory for the first time in years.
Oracle is ‘too optimistic on profitability of the cloud business' according to this analysis (Business Insider)
Oracle’s shares haven’t recovered from its disappointing fourth quarter miss in June.
That's historically Oracle’s biggest and most important quarter, when salespeople push to close deals to make their annual quotas.
And a new research note from Citi probably isn’t going to help that much. (Citi is neutral on Oracle, not bearish.)
Fed watch: Inflation is non-existent, worrying some (CNN)
The Federal Reserve is expected to raise its key interest rate in 4 weeks for the first time in almost a decade. The move would signal that the U.S. central bank sees the economy getting close to full health.
However, the inflation level continues to be a big worry because it isn't where the Fed would like to see it before hiking interest rates.
Pimco's Rate-Rise Bond Strategy: Buy Corporates Straddling Junk (Bloomberg)
Good news for bond investors that have the flexibility to cross the line between high-quality and junk-rated debt: securities near the middle of the quality scale will probably be in a sweet spot when the Federal Reserve raises rates.
Financial advisors think this bull market has years left in it (Business Insider)
A survey conducted by Aberdeen Asset Management found that 58% of financial advisors believe the bull market in stocks has not yet reached its pinnacle. In addition, of the 49% of advisors who think stocks will reverse in the near-term, 41% expect the bull market to persist for at least another three years. As for how to protect yourself in the event of a downturn, 38% of those surveyed said to seek shelter in international and emerging markets while 27% preferred US fixed income or alternative investments.
Oil Refinery Outage Outlook Adds to Pressure on Slumping Prices (Bloomberg)
Crude markets already in a downward spiral sank under the weight of a supply report showing growing stockpiles of oil after a major U.S. Midwest refinery shutdown.
Coca-Cola buys minority stake in organic juice maker Suja Life (Market Watch)
Coca-Cola Co. said Wednesday it acquired a minority stake in Suja Life LLC, a small but fast-growing maker of organic, cold-pressed juices.
The deal represents the latest diversification move by Coke, whose sales have slowed as health-conscious consumers scale back on soda, which still represents about 70% of company revenue.
Big banks are 'just cracking the surface' of an exponentially powerful industry (Business Insider)
The lender isn't alone, and recruitment efforts by companies from American Express to Geico highlight the way big financial-services companies are making use of their troves of user data to reengineer their business.
Big data is an industry that's barely in its infancy, but is growing thanks to the pickup in the speed at which data can be processed, and the realization that companies can use information to predict consumer behavior (like how weather affects spending patterns.)
Copper Bear Raids Jump After 1st-Half Price Sag Vexes Glencore (Bloomberg)
Glencore Plc says bear-fund raids punished copper prices in the first half of the year. The latest data indicates those assaults are continuing.
U.S. Consumer Prices Up Slightly, Airfare Weighs (NY Times)
U.S. consumer prices rose only slightly in July, but tame inflation pressures will probably not discourage the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates this year.
Fed Minutes Leak (Business Insider)
The Minutes from the Federal Reserve's July 28-29 meeting are out early after a leak.
A headline came over from Bloomberg at around 1:36 p.m. ET, indicating that "most Fed officials in July saw conditions for rate rise nearing."
The Minutes were set for release at 2:00 p.m. ET. The Fed released the Minutes on its website at about 1:50 p.m. ET.
Latin Americas Boom-Year Promises Unravel in Stock-Market Bust (Bloomberg)
Latin American stock markets are shriveling.
UK stocks took a battering today (Business Insider)
UK stocks sank 1.88%, led lower by miners and energy companies.
China woes and falling commodity prices dented confidence. Glencore led the fallers, crashing by more than 9% after reporting a sharp drop in profits for the first half of the year.
Economist: Three Reasons Oil Will SurgePast $70 By the End of the Year (Bloomberg)
Oil has been demolished over the past year, falling from $100 a barrel to the low 40s.
But one oil expert says things are about to turn the corner once again, and Brent crude is going to surge to $71 a barrel by the end of the year. Credit Suisse energy economist Jan Stuart spoke on Bloomberg TV yesterday, giving the reasons behind his big target.
Comcast begins extending its low-cost internet program to senior citizens (The Verge)
Comcast is beginning to extend its low-cost internet service offering to senior citizens, launching pilot programs in San Francisco and Palm Beach County, Florida. The pilots are an extension of Comcast's Internet Essentials service, a low-cost internet plan that it's been offering to low-income families since 2011. It was initially launched on a temporary basis as a condition of its NBCUniversal purchase, but Comcast has kept the program running and continues to expand it. The program has traditionally offered 10 Mbps internet access for $9.95 per month to households with a child in the school lunch program; it's not stated what the requirements will be for senior citizens — it may well be something that Comcast is figuring out through these pilots.
'The US housing market is on fire' (Business Insider)
"The US housing market is on fire."
In a note to clients on Wednesday morning, David Rosenberg, chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff, was crystal clear regarding his thoughts on the US housing market.
Politics
Trump’s stock rises in political prediction markets (Market Watch)
Here’s a bit of good news for Donald Trump: As of Wednesday, political prediction markets saw an 11% chance of the billionaire winning the Republican presidential nomination. Back on Aug. 10, Trump was at just 7% — so he’s broken double digits.
The bad news for Trump: He remains in fourth place overall, according to prediction market aggregator PredictWise.com, far behind former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has a 38% chance of winning.
Political campaigns comb data, but what is it worth? (Futurity)
The first Republican presidential debate in the United States is already over. Voters are learning more about the presidential hopefuls—but they’re not the only ones. Candidates’ campaigns are combing databases to learn more about voters, too.
President Barack Obama’s successful 2008 and 2012 campaigns were well known for their data-driven voter outreach.
Technology
A Solar-Powered Mayflower Will Cross The Atlantic In 2020 (Popular Science)
This is one MARS mission that is firmly grounded on Earth. Plymouth University researchers are designing the Mayflower Autonomous Research Ship, or MARS, which will set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in 2020, 400 years after another ship named the Mayflower made the same journey.
The original Mayflower took several months to transport settlers across the ocean, leaving Plymouth, England in July and arriving in what would become Plymouth, Massachusetts in mid-November of 1620.
Technology may soon kill these jobs (CNN)
If history repeats itself, most of us won't have to worry about technology killing off our jobs.
For a century and a half, computers, machines and robots have created more jobs than they have destroyed, according to new research published this week.
Health and Life Sciences
A New Blood Test Can Predict Whether A Patient Will Have Suicidal Thoughts (Popular Science)
Researchers now have a more sophisticated understanding of mental health, and many are trying to take that understanding to the next level by predicting human behavior. Though this idea is worrying to some, many mental health experts see these predictive tools as a way to intervene with treatment before a patient has taken irrevocable action—like suicide. Now researchers from Indiana University have developed a test that detects specific biomarkers in a patient’s blood to determine if he or she is at risk for suicidal tendencies, according to a study published yesterday in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Vaccine against Middle East Mystery Disease Shows Promise (Scientific American)
When the mystery virus was first detected in Saudi Arabia three years ago, researchers did not know quite what to make of it. The virus causing Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, it turns out, is a cousin of the bug behind severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and has been responsible for the deaths of more than 500 people, primarily in the Arabian Peninsula. Researchers on August 19, however, are reporting that a vaccine has begun to show promise against the disease—at least in monkeys, mice and camels. The vaccine, at both low or high doses, managed to protect monkeys from becoming ill with MERS.
Life on the Home Planet
'Coal error' skewed China CO2 data (BBC)
Confusion over the types of coal being burned in Chinese power stations has caused a significant overestimation of the country's carbon emissions.
Researchers, published in the journal Nature, say existing CO2 calculations had used a globally averaged formula.
But when scientists tested the types of coal actually being burned in China, they found they produced 40% less carbon than had been assumed.
Drought can kill trees for years and years (Futurity)
The fact that drought kills trees is well known. But a new study of nearly 29,000 trees at two research forests in North Carolina shows the effects can be far more long-lasting than experts once thought.
“This is the first research to show that declines in tree growth during a drought can significantly reduce long-term tree survival in Southeastern forests for up to a decade after the drought ends,” says Aaron Berdanier, a PhD student in forest ecology at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.
