Financial Markets and Economy
Asia Futures Point to More Stock Losses Before China Factory PMI (Bloomberg)
Asian stocks were poised to extend the global equity selloff, with index futures from Australia to the U.S. sliding as the anxiety that marked last months market turmoil returns.
There's a corporate profit engine revving up in Japan (Business Insider)
Japan's not-so-great economy has been on analysts' radars for some time now.
It's been growing painfully slowly, while the government has accumulated a huge pile of debt.
Most recently, Standard & Poors, one of the world's biggest credit-rating agencies, even cut Japan's rating from an AA- to an A+.
Slower China could ‘take a bite’ out of Apple and these stock-market sectors (Market Watch)
When it comes to China’s slowing economy, it isn’t always clear which U.S. sectors and companies are most in danger.
For instance, most analysts agree that a prolonged Chinese economic slowdown will impact Apple Inc. AAPL, -1.57% which counts the country as its second largest market after the Americas. But other tech giants in the diversified information technology industry such as Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ, -2.99% and International Business Machines Corp. IBM, -1.40% are mostly immune given that the country represents less than 5% of total revenue for the sector, according to a report published Tuesday.
Facebook finds yet another way to make money (CNN)
You bought a bag of chips for lunch, but it turns out they're all broken. It's a sad bag of chip dust. How do you let the company know?
The hot new way to communicate with businesses is through Facebook (FB, Tech30) private messages, according to Facebook. In the six months since launching new Messenger features just for businesses, it's become an even more popular way for brands to talk to their customers.
BioMed Said Exploring Sale, With Interest From Blackstone (Bloomberg)
BioMed Realty Trust Inc., a landlord with properties catering to biotechnology companies, is exploring a sale and has drawn interest from firms including Blackstone Group LP, according to people familiar with the talks.
DOW FALLS 170: Here's what you need to know (Business Insider)
Stocks ended up in the ditch again on Tuesday, with the Dow losing nearly 300 points at its lowest. Commodity prices also took a beating, with crude oil falling 2%, and copper prices sliding to a three-week low.
GDP Risks Outweigh Currency Concern as Nigeria, Kenya Hold Rates (Bloomberg)
The threat of recession in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, and weaker growth in Kenya prompted policy makers in the two countries to keep interest rates unchanged despite pressure on their currencies to weaken.
Volkswagen’s scandal hits other European car stocks (Quartz)
On the day European stocks slid to their lowest level since last month’s global financial panic, carmakers were hit especially hard.
The sharing economy has changed everything, and these 10 companies are at risk (Business Insider)
The rise of the sharing economy has fundamentally changed the business landscape, and some companies are going to have to adapt to survive.
Business Insider last week compiled a list of the biggest winners in the booming sharing economy, based on a report published by Credit Suisse report Friday.
The 10 companies listed below are those that could lose out.
Canada Stocks Fall Most in 3 Weeks as Oil, Metals Drop on China (Bloomberg)
Canada stocks tumbled the most in three weeks, joining a rout in global markets as commodities prices slumped amid growing concern Chinas growth is slowing.
These comments are causing stock market uncertainty (CNN)
Fed Chair Janet Yellen seemed worried last week about the weakening global economic outlook, saying: "The situation abroad bears close watching." It signaled a "dovish" or cautious approach to the timing on lifting the Fed's benchmark interest rates from zero.
In the days since then she's been contradicted several times by "hawkish" Fed presidents who want to raise interest rates sooner rather than later.
Jeff Gundlach recommends this trade for when the Fed finally hikes rates (Business Insider)
Bond guru Jeff Gundlach of DoubleLine participated in a webinar, "The Road Ahead: What's Next for Fixed Income," along with James Ross, global head of SPDR Exchange Traded Funds.
Think Advisor reports that Gundlach told advisers to take on more interest-rate risk and less credit risk if they believe the Fed is going to raise rates in December.
Chile Peso Falls Most in 20 Months as Copper Leads Metals Drop (Bloomberg)
Chiles peso sank the most since January 2014 as the countrys principal export, copper, led declines in metals.
The pope's visit to the US could be an ominous sign for the stock market (Business Insider)
Pope Francis is visiting the United States, with stops in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York City.
Inspired by a tweet from Bloomberg's Tracy Alloway, we decided to take a look at what has happened in the stock market after visits by popes in the past.
Politics
Hillary Clinton is still trying to convince us she's 'likable' (CNN)
Last week, she invited Jimmy Fallon to touch her hair. On Sunday, when asked to describe the "real Hillary Clinton," she replied: "Look, I am a real person."
Despite two-and-a-half decades in the public eye, Clinton is still trying to convince American voters that she is real, authentic and, yes, likable. Nothing is standing in the way of that goal so much as the candidate herself, Democratic strategists and political journalists say, which could pose a real problem if Clinton is forced to face a spirited Republican candidate like Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina, or a dynamic Democratic challenger like Joe Biden.
Wall Street might be opening its doors to a dark-horse Republican presidential candidate (Business Insider)
Wall Street may be warming up to Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Private-equity titan and Blackstone Group co-founder Steve Schwarzman hosted a meet-and-greet for the Republican presidential candidate in New York on Tuesday, when dozens of CEOs pressed flesh with the man making a name for himself in a crowded GOP field.
Technology
‘Swiss Army knife’ helps turn algae into biofuel (Futurity)
Scientists have figured out a way to streamline the molecular machinery that turns cyanobacteria—also known as blue-green algae—into biofuels.
They fabricated a synthetic protein that not only improves the assembly of the carbon-fixing factory of cyanobacteria, but also provides a proof of concept for a device that might improve plant photosynthesis.
Marines Are Testing A Robot Dog For War (Popular Science)
Robots can’t die–at least, not in the tragic, irrevocable human sense–so having a robot accompany soldiers gives them at the bare minimum an expendable scout. Spot, the little brother to Alphabet-owned Boston Dynamic’s iconic BigDog robot, is now training with the Marine Corps in Quantico, preparing for a future where robots fight alongside American troops at war.
Spot isn’t the first of BigDog’s siblings to train with the Marines. LS3, a heavier, sturdy robot designed as a mechanical mule that can carry up to 400 pounds of gear for a squad on the move, participated in exercises with Marines last year.
Health and Life Sciences
When Radiation Isn’t the Real Risk (NY Times)
This spring, four years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, a small group of scientists met in Tokyo to evaluate the deadly aftermath.
No one has been killed or sickened by the radiation — a point confirmed last month by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Even among Fukushima workers, the number of additional cancer cases in coming years is expected to be so low as to be undetectable, a blip impossible to discern against the statistical background noise.
Life on the Home Planet
A Controversial Plan to Redistribute Migrants in Europe (The Atlantic)
European Union ministers approved a plan to distribute 120,000 migrants among the bloc’s member states in the face of strong opposition from four Central European countries.
Under the deal agreed to in Brussels on Tuesday, migrants now in Greece, Hungary and Italy will be moved to other countries over the next two years. Of the three EU members that have an opt-out agreement with the bloc on migration, Denmark and Ireland are part of Tuesday’s deal. Britain, the third country, is not—though it is accepting 4,000 refugees this year, and 20,000 over the next five.
Satellite images show Russia building military support for Syria (Mashable)
The Syrian government on Tuesday confirmed the import of sophisticated weapons and fighter jets from Russia — just as fresh satellite images purported to show the construction of two new Russian military bases in the northwest of the country.
A senior Syrian military official told AFP that the government had "taken delivery of at least five fighter planes from Moscow as well as reconnaissance aircraft which allow us to identify targets with great accuracy," boosting its ability to fight Islamic State militants.
