Financial Markets and Economy
Charting the Markets: Europe Shrugs off China Data, While Asian Stocks Decline (Bloomberg)
China prompted another drop in Asian and emerging market stocks after a private manufacturing gauge fell to the lowest since March 1999. The currencies of commodity-producing nations including Australia and New Zealand followed suit. China is the world's biggest consumer of raw materials. European stocks opened higher after the biggest one-day drop since Aug,24.
US manufacturing is still at a two-year low (Business Insider)
US manufacturing may have been lukewarm in September.
Treasury prices fall as flight-to-safety trade loses steam (Market Watch)
Treasury prices fell Wednesday morning, driving yields higher, as the market gave back some of the gains it booked during Tuesday’s global flight-to-safety rally.
Concerns over a global growth slowdown have recently fueled demand for safe investments, such as U.S. government bonds.
More Disclosure Heads for European Trading Desks. In Spoonfuls (Bloomberg)
The drive for transparency in financial markets is hitting a fog patch.
Volkswagen shares are bouncing back (Business Insider)
Volkswagen shares are going crazy on Wednesday. They're down for the third day running, at one point plunging 7% at the market open, and then rising to 4% up on the day. VW shares have lost more than a third of their value in three days.
Gold looks to log first gain in three sessions (Market Watch)
Gold futures edged higher on Wednesday, finding support after posting losses over the past two trading sessions.
“The correction of the last couple of days has run its course, and gold is resuming the upswing that started back in July,” said Colin Cieszynski, chief market strategist at CMC Markets.
Divide Copper Price by 1,000 to Find Strength of Chinese Economy (Bloomberg)
For an accurate diagnosis of China’s economic woes, it may be time to page Dr. Copper.
Even with the world’s No. 2 economy on course to record its weakest expansion since 1990 this year, international economists and policy makers still worry the government overstates its rate of growth.
The market just completed an epic round-trip (Business Insider)
US stock futures got crushed overnight after some ugly economic data out of China. But they have since recovered those losses.
U.S. stocks inch higher as oil rebounds (Market Watch)
U.S. stocks inched higher Wednesday, as a rebound in commodity prices gave investors a respite from gloomy data pointing to decelerating growth in China and tepid improvement in the eurozone’s manufacturing sector.
The S&P 500 SPX, -0.40% advanced 6 points, or 0.3%, to 1,942, with seven of its 10 main sectors trading higher. Health-care and energy stocks led gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, -0.63% added 11 points to 16,342. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.26% was up 23 point, or 0.5%, to 4,780.
“The S&P 500 has been moving in lockstep with crude oil prices.
Wall Streets Biggest Dollar Boosters Are Throwing In the Towel (Bloomberg)
Six months after the dollar’s ascent faded, Wall Street is giving in.
For a second straight quarter, the greenback is set to trail strategists’ projections. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are among banks that have lowered their dollar forecasts against the euro during the past two weeks. The median year-end estimate for Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s U.S. Dollar Index, which tracks the currency against six major peers, has been cut to the lowest since March.
Oil edges up on falling U.S. inventories, but Asia concerns to drag (Business Insider)
Oil prices edged up early on Wednesday after U.S. crude stocks were estimated to have dropped last week, stripping some supplies out of an oversupplied market that has seen prices more than halve since June 2014.
Industry group the American Petroleum Institute reported that U.S. crude stockpiles fell 3.7 million barrels last week, with stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude futures alone down almost 500,000 barrels.
U.K. Stocks Rebound From Lowest Level in Month as HSBC Advances (Bloomberg)
U.K. stocks rebounded from their lowest level in almost a month as gains in banks and energy companies outweighed further evidence of China’s economic slowdown.
Another big selloff may be just what this stock market needs (Market Watch)
Those awake in the wee hours after China manufacturing data could be forgiven for thinking Wall Street was going to pick up that sell baton and just keep going.
For now, the red ink has vanished. But it could still come back before the day is out, given that the word “concern” is on everyone’s lips.
China’s economy was back in our face this morning. A preliminary measure of Chinese manufacturing output slumped to a 6½-year low just as President Xi starts winging his way across America.
European Stock-Index Futures Drop After China Manufacturing Data (Bloomberg)
Optimism that Europe’s economy is recovering and a gain in commodities spurred a rebound in the region’s shares after their worst decline in a month.
‘Stay away from the DAX’ as auto sector downgraded, Société Générale says (Market Watch)
Pain for the automobile sector in the wake of Volkswagen’s emissions scandal doesn’t bode well for Germany’s blue-chips benchmark, with Société Générale warning investors to keep their distance from the DAX 30 index.
There’s “likely to be dead money for a while” in the auto sector, said Société Générale, as Volkswagen deals with the fallout from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s accusation the company sold certain diesel cars with software that systematically cheated pollution standards. The turmoil surrounding Volkswagen prompted Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn to resign Wednesday.
UBS Spread the pain Puerto Rico's Decy Crisis to Clients (Bloomberg)
UBS had a good thing going in Puerto Rico. The Swiss bank served as an adviser to the commonwealth’s Employees Retirement System, led the underwriting of a $2.9 billion bond issue for the pension agency in 2008, and then stuffed half of those bonds into a family of closed-end mutual funds it sold exclusively to customers on the island. It collected fees at every step.
Now, with the U.S. territory in the downward spiral of a government debt crisis, it’s all coming apart for UBS, long the biggest retail brokerage on the island.
Politics
Obama to Bask in Pope's Aura, But Francis Wants Economic Justice (Bloomberg)
When Pope Francis meets Barack Obama at the White House on Wednesday, the president will bask in his guest’s moral authority and iconic popularity. But the first pontiff from Latin America is likely to exploit those assets to pressure his host on U.S. global economic leadership.
On Francis’s first full day in the country, Obama and as many as 15,000 guests will welcome him on the South Lawn of the White House. For the president, it’s an opportunity to showcase the pope’s support for his initiatives on income inequality, immigration and climate change.
Trump threatens to sue conservative group over attack ad (Market Watch)
Donald Trump has had enough of the Club for Growth’s ad against him.
A lawyer for the Republican White House hopeful has told the conservative group that its ad slamming Trump for supporting higher taxes, national health care and bailing out Wall Street is “not only completely disingenuous, but replete with outright lies, false, defamatory, and destructive statements and downright fabrications.” As CNN writes, the Trump campaign is taking issue with an ad titled “Politician.” It also features a clip of Trump saying in 2004 that in many cases he probably identifies more as a Democrat.
Technology
Virtual Reality Will Soon Feel More Like ‘Going to the Movies’ (PSFK)
In collaboration with Samsung, the team over at Oculus Rift have spent a lot of time contemplating how to introduce social elements to a device that is otherwise rather isolating. One first-party VR application, Oculus Cinema, tackles the constraints of strapping Netflix to your face by recreating a movie theater where virtual avatars will occupy the seats.
In a move that seems almost counterintuitive—why recreate a movie rather than just stream video to multiple headsets?—Oculus wants to fashion the experience around the familiarity and sociability of going to the movies.
Health and Life Sciences
Everyone has a 'microbial cloud' (BBC)
Everyone is surrounded by a unique "cloud" of millions of their own bacteria, according to scientists at the University of Oregon in the US.
Walk through someone else's cloud, and it will "rain" bacteria on your skin and be breathed into your lungs.
The study on 11 people, published in the journal PeerJ, showed it was possible to identify people from their microbial miasma.
The ultimate cold and flu survival guide (CNN)
Each year, the typical adult can expect to contract two or three colds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Skip the annual flu vaccine and you set yourself up for a bout of that as well. But it doesn't have to be this way! Aside from good hand washing (with soap, for at least 20 seconds), "there's a lot you can do to drastically cut your risk of getting sick," says Holly Phillips, MD, a general internist in New York City. "And even if you do catch a bug, you may be able to cut short the duration of your illness." Arm yourself with these tips from the experts, and make this cold and flu season your healthiest yet.
Life on the Home Planet
Migrant crisis: Fleeing life under Islamic State in Syria (BBC)
"If they knew I was talking to you, I'd be killed," says Mohamed.
Young and a fluent English speaker, he comes from the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of so-called Islamic State.
The threat posed by the group is one of the main factors pushing the mass migration of people to Europe.
Volcanologists Raise the Alert at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa (Wired)
The big news from Hawai’i is the change in the alert statusfor the big island’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa. Quiet now for 31 years, Mauna Loa was raised to a Yellow alert statusafter continued deformation of the volcano’s surface and shallow earthquakes at the volcano’s summit, upper Southwest Rift Zone, and west flank. All these signs came before the last two bouts of eruptive activity at Mauna Loa in 1975 and 1984. However, the Hawaii Volcano Observatorysays that there is no indication that a new eruption is imminent. This new swarm was one of many that have occurred at Mauna Loa over the past 20 years, including a strong sequence of earthquakes in 2004-05. The largest threat from Mauna Loa is the potential for lava flows on the Northeast Rift reaching all the way down to Hilo, which has happened as recently as 1881.
