Financial Markets and Economy
Fitch warns of emerging market shock if Fed sticks to rate plan? (Telegraph)
Emerging markets have accumulated $7.5 trillion of external debt and are acutely vulnerable to a rapid rise in US interest rates, regardless of whether they borrowed in dollars or their own currencies, Fitch Ratings has warned.
Here's why people fire their financial advisors (Business Insider)
Think Advisor says a study conducted by Spectrem Group found 58% of high-net-worth individuals will switch financial advisors at least once in their lifetime. The survey found the three biggest reasons for change were their advisor wasn't proactive, didn't give them new investment ideas or was underperforming the market. According to Think Advisor, clients who received communication over the phone were more likely to retain their advisor than those who used text message or social media for correspondence.
Goldman’s list of winners and losers after a Fed rate hike (Market Watch)
Goldman Sachs published a list of stocks to buy and dump ahead of an impending Federal Reserve interest-rate increase, which the investment bank expects in December.
“The ‘wisdom of the crowds’ as represented by fed funds futures currently assigns just a 28% probability that the Fed will hike this month, compared with a 60% probability of a raise by December,” said David Kostin, chief U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, in a report.
History suggests that the stock market will be just fine when the Fed raises rates (Business Insider)
As investors anticipate the coming FOMC meeting, there is a lot of interest in the stock market's reaction after a possible interest rate hike.
According to two Wall Street strategists, if you're willing to be patient, there is not a lot of reason to stress.
PIMCO's Harley Bassman on this obsession with rate hike timing — 'Frankly, Hamlet debated less' (Business Insider)
PIMCO's Harley Bassman has joined the group of Wall Street strategists who think the recent stock market volatility is exactly the trigger that should prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this week.
Writing for PIMCO on Monday, Bassman used a long analogy involving the New York subway system to argue that basically, what people — and by extension investors — really hate is uncertainty.
Poised for Rate Increase, Investors Hope for Small Ripples (NY Times)
The moment that Wall Street has long been dreading could happen this week.
The Federal Reserve on Thursday may increase interest rates for the first time in more than nine years. A rise would be the beginning of the end of a monetary stimulus policy that lifted stock and bond markets to new heights and brought the good times back to Wall Street after the crash of 2008.
We expect the stock market to do 1 of 3 things after the Fed speaks on Thursday (Business Insider)
All eyes are on the Fed and its decision to raise interest rates or not this week.
Stock market investors and traders will surely be among those watching.
In a note to clients, US equity strategist David Bianco at Deutsche Bank laid out three possible scenarios and point targets for the S&P 500 based on what the Fed does.
Consumers' inflation expectations are falling, and that could be a big deal (Business Insider)
This week, the Federal Reserve will decide whether or not to raise interest rates for the first time since the target fed funds rate went to zero in December 2008. One of the biggest factors in whether or not to hike interest rates is expectations for future inflation: If people are confident that inflation will finally break out of the low rates we've seen since the financial crisis, the Fed might act sooner rather than later.
PetroChina's Slump Seen Ignoring Value of Oil Pipeline Spinoff (Bloomberg)
PetroChina Co.’s slump to the lowest in six years may be ignoring the potential value from spinning off its huge pipeline network as part of the country’s energy industry reforms.
What to watch for in Oracle’s earnings (Market Watch)
Oracle Corp. ORCL, -0.95% is set to report first-quarter earnings after the market close on Wednesday. The company is coming off a rough fourth quarter, and analysts are calling for year-over-year declines in earnings and sales.
But a group of analysts at Jefferies reiterated a buy rating and $50 target on the stock this week, citing the potential for cloud revenue to outperform. Analysts at Wedbush said Oracle is pricing its cloud offerings aggressively and heavily tilting its sales force incentives toward cloud deals.
Politics
Donald Trump’s ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ replacement: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Market Watch)
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the man formerly known as The Governator in California, is about to become the new host of “The Celebrity Apprentice,” following Donald Trump’s departure as host.
Comcast’s CMCSA, -0.28% NBCUniversal said it ended its business relationship with Donald Trump in late June after he made derogatory statements regarding immigrants. But others say Trump left the show so he could focus on running for political office.
Mark Cuban says he could 'crush' Donald Trump (CNN)
The billionaire businessman also said in an email Monday that either he — or his longtime political favorite Michael Bloomberg — could "crush the Republican nominee."
He believes he could also trounce Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Technology
Robotic Limbs Get A Sense Of Touch (Scientific American)
Advanced prosthetics have for the past few years begun tapping into brain signals to provide amputees with impressive new levels of control. Patients think, and a limb moves. But getting a robotic arm or hand to sense what it’s touching, and send that feeling back to the brain, has been a harder task.
The U.S. Defense Department’s research division last week claimed a breakthrough in this area, issuing a press release touting a 28-year-old paralyzed person’s ability to “feel” physical sensations through a prosthetic hand. Researchers have directly connected the artificial appendage to his brain, giving him the ability to even identify which mechanical finger is being gently touched, according to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 2013, other scientists at Case Western Reserve University also gave touch to amputees, giving patients precise-enough feeling of pressure in their fingertips to allow them to twist the stems off cherries.
New high-end drones may mean big things for chip maker Ambarella (Market Watch)
Ambarella AMBA, +3.76% is mostly known today for making the chips that power GoPro’s GPRO, +1.42% wearable video cameras, and where one stock has gone so the other has followed. But Ambarella is pushing into a category that may offer a strong new area of growth: supplying the chips for high-end, commercial-grade drones.
Consumer drones have grown in popularity over the past few years with the introduction of hardware such as DJI’s Phantom in April and the release of a GoPro drone in July. But this year’s big drone announcements have less to do with the flying robot and more with the quality of the camera mounted on them.
Now arriving: airport control towers with no humans inside (Phys)
Passengers landing at remote Ornskoldsvik Airport in northern Sweden might catch a glimpse of the control tower—likely unaware there is nobody inside.
The dozen commercial planes landing there each day are instead watched by cameras, guided in by controllers viewing the video at another airport 90 miles away.
Health and Life Sciences
Low Vitamin D Levels Associated with Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s in Older People (Neuro Science News)
Vitamin D insufficiency among the elderly is highly correlated with accelerated cognitive decline and impaired performance, particularly in domains such as memory loss that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, researchers with the UC Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center and Rutgers University have found. The effect is “substantial,” with individuals with low vitamin D declining at a rate three times faster than those with adequate vitamin D levels.
McDonald’s is changing the eggs we eat (Washington Post)
The maker of the Egg McMuffin is taking a stand, and it could drastically change the eggs Americans eat.
McDonald's announced this morning that it will begin working toward eliminating all eggs purchased from farms that cage their hens, in both the United States and Canada. The phaseout, which could take as long as 10 years, is in line with the company's recent shift toward cage-free eggs in the European Union and Australia. It also comes on the heels of McDonald's move away from chicken treated with antibiotics — a move seen as important to human health.
Life on the Home Planet
US Navy limits 'whale-harming' sonar (BBC)
The US Navy has agreed to limit its use of sonar that may inadvertently harm whales and dolphins in waters near Hawaii and California.
A federal judge in Honolulu signed the deal between the Navy and environmental groups on Monday.
It restricts or bans the use of mid-frequency active sonar and explosives used in training exercises.
