Financial Markets and Economy
People won't stop complaining about this thing that experts struggle to define (Business Insider)
Back in March, Oaktree's Howard Marks wrote the memo read 'round the investing world that set off what has now been over six months of seemingly non-stop concerns about bond market liquidity.
JPMorgan's Chang Says Fed Rate Hike Would Help Emerging Markets (Bloomberg)
A U.S. interest-rate boost would help emerging markets by reducing uncertainty that’s kept investors from taking on risk there, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s global head of research, Joyce Chang.
“The Fed should get it over with,” Chang said in an interview after speaking on a panel discussion at the Institute of International Finance in Lima, Peru.
U.S. stocks: The punches keep coming (CNN)
The American economy and the stock market just can't catch a break.
The Dow is down 4% so far this year and the broader index, the S&P 500, is down 2%. Most Wall Street experts thought both would be UP this year.
A slew of earnings this week may help stocks turn the corner in the right direction. But there are so many headwinds to overcome now.
"We Should Have Known Something Was Wrong" (Zero Hedge)
Remember when stuff such as the following was written exclusively on "conspiracy" tin-foil blogs by deranged lunatics who could not appreciate the brilliance of the neo-Keynesian system and central-planning by academics, in all its glory? Good times.
Dollar Braces for Inflation Test After Worst Week Since June (Bloomberg)
A rough stretch for the dollar may be about to get worse.
The Real Reason We Trade Emotionally (Trader Feed)
OK, so here comes one of my best posts.
Ready?
I'll give you a view you won't hear from any mentor, coach, guru, or furu.
Internet of Things? Stock You've Never of Heard Just Rose 500% (Bloomberg)
A little-known stock listed in London has become a trade of choice for investors looking to profit from the technological megatrend known as the Internet of Things.
Politics
Obama Won’t Seek Access to Encrypted User Data (NY Times)
The Obama administration has backed down in its bitter dispute with Silicon Valley over the encryption of data on iPhones and other digital devices, concluding that it is not possible to give American law enforcement and intelligence agencies access to that information without also creating an opening that China, Russia, cybercriminals and terrorists could exploit.
The Republican Party has now entered an 'historic state of chaos' (Business Insider)
No one would believe him, but Adam Brandon was already claiming another scalp.
It was Wednesday, a handful of hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) would stun Washington and drop out of the race to become the next House speaker.
Technology
These Mechanical Cat Legs March Us Toward The Robopocalypse (Fast Company)
When the robots come, what horrifying form will they take?
In order to better understand cats, researchers at the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan built robot cat legs. The result of their labors is documented in this video, which shows the terrifying prospect of disembodied feline legs rendered in metal, leaping to 1.3 times their own height.
Deep-learning robot shows grasp of different objects (Phys)
Robot researchers have had much success in getting robots to walk and run; another challenge has persisted for years, and that is getting robots to pick up and hold on to objects successfully. An international workshop on autonomous grasping and manipulation last year spoke of "new algorithms for selecting, executing, and evaluating grasps. In parallel to the progress made on the software level, new robot hands and sensors have also been designed for operating in everyday environments."
Health and Life Sciences
The Ups and Downs of Sex (Scientific American)
In the delivery room, the (slight) odds are that a newborn is a baby boy, not a girl. Males make up 51.3 percent of live births in the U.S., a rate that has remained about constant for the past seven decades. Experts assumed that this male-skewed sex ratio began at conception, but a new analysis of fetal records shows that the chances overall of finding a boy or a girl start out at 50–50 and change over the course of pregnancy—leaning female, then male, then female again as nine months pass.
Life on the Home Planet
The bombing of a pro-Kurdish rally in Ankara highlights the 'dangerous cocktail' brewing in Turkey (Business Insider)
A twin bombing at a pro-Kurdish peace rally in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Saturday killed at least 86 people and wounded 186 others, Turkey's health minister has confirmed.
The bombing took place outside Ankara's main train station shortly after 10 a.m. as hundreds of people gathered to protest the conflict between Turkish police and Kurdish militants in the southeast.
Tepco Expects to Begin Freezing Fukushima Ice Wall by Year End (Bloomberg)
Tokyo Electric Power Co. expects to begin freezing a soil barrier by the end of the year to stop a torrent of water entering the wrecked Fukushima nuclear facility, moving a step closer to fulfilling a promise the Japanese government made to the international community more than two years ago.
