Financial Markets and Economy
Asian Stock Outlook Split Again as Dollar Rules Before Payrolls (Bloomberg)
The dollar’s recovery permeated through Asian markets ahead of the much-anticipated U.S. payrolls report, fueling gains in Japanese stocks while equities in Australia retreated. Gold tried to stage a rebound as crude oil traded below $46 a barrel.
Facebook doubters now hail stock as unstoppable (Market Watch)
After Facebook Inc. went public in 2012, analysts and investors questioned the company’s future — the social network lost more than half its value as its advertising prowess was doubted.
That seems but a distant dream today.
China’s back in a bull market (Quartz)
Yes, China’s stock market crashed and burned over the summer. Yes, its economy is still having problems. And yes, everyone’s confused about what’s going to happen next.
But since the late August flop that sent stocks negative in Shanghai and dragged markets around the world down with it, things have really turned around: The SSE Composite is now more than 20% higher than its August lows.
Long Oprah, short Bill Ackman (Business Insider)
It's been a crazy year in the markets and this tweet from Bloomberg's Luke Kawa says it all: your big winning trade was going long Oprah and short Bill Ackman.
Valeant May Have Plunged Too Far Even in Worst Case, Mizuho Says (Bloomberg)
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. has fallen too far.
In One Chart: Where’s the money in America? This 3D map will show you (Market Watch)
The hardest working states and regions in America? Sorry flyover states, better luck next time. The kings of production remain in the most obvious spots: California, Texas and New York.
Disney revenue rises 9 percent as ad sales rise (Business Insider)
Media company Walt Disney Co reported a 9 percent rise in quarterly revenue as it earned more from ads on its cable TV networks including ESPN and as more people visited its U.S. theme parks.
Revenue rose to $13.51 billion in the fourth quarter ended Oct. 3 from $12.39 billion a year earlier, the company said on Thursday.
Investors Dine by Hot Tub Art, Dinan Holds Court in Central Park (Bloomberg)
Early in their marriage, on a visit to an artist’s club in a Greenwich Village townhouse, hedge-fund manager Jamie Dinan and his wife spent a few hundred dollars on their first painting.
The subject was a bridge in Central Park, cast in a pink hue, and the artist’s name is forgotten, Dinan said Wednesday night as he stepped into the Central Park Conservancy’s annual autumn gala.
China’s economy is a lot stronger than you think it is (Market Watch)
A lot of analysts distrust Chinese economic data.
But there’s a hack for that: Study the trends at companies with significant exposure to the world’s second-largest economy. They offer detailed analysis of China in their conference calls.
Weight Watchers surges after earnings beat (Business Insider)
Weight Watchers shares spiked by as much as 9% in after-hours trading after the company reported third-quarter results.
While earnings and revenues topped analysts' forecasts, the number of active subscribers fell year-on-year.
Retail Sales, Netanyahu, Euro-Area GDP: Week Ahead Nov. 7-14 (Bloomberg)
U.S. retail sales are expected to pick up in October from a month earlier as resilient consumer spending helps drive the economy, data in the coming week may show.
Gold logs longest losing streak since July (Market Watch)
Gold futures fell on Thursday, extending their losing streak to a sixth consecutive session, a day ahead of the release of a key monthly U.S. employment report.
December gold GCZ5, +0.23% shed $2, or 0.2%, to settle at $1,104.20 an ounce on Comex. The declines over six sessions in a row marked the longest losing streak since July, when prices fell for 10 straight sessions.
Shake Shack sales crush expectations (Business Insider)
Shake Shack reported third-quarter earnings results after the closing bell on Thursday, and crushed it all around.
The burger chain reported adjusted earnings per share of $0.12, versus $0.07 expected, according to Bloomberg.
U.S. 10-Year Swap Spreads Reach Record Lows as Treasuries Drop (Bloomberg)
The rate on 10-year interest-rate swaps touched a record low relative to Treasury yields as balance-sheet constraints on bond dealers and corporate debt issuance undermined prices on U.S. government debt.
Overstock has $10 million of gold and silver stored at an off-site facility to pay employees in case there's a financial crisis (Business Insider)
Overstock is ready for a real crisis.
A report in the Financial Times on Thursday highlighted the online retailer's roughly $10 million of gold and silver — that is, physical gold and silver — it owns in case there's another crisis and the company needs to make payroll.
Handbag Industry Tightens Purse Strings to Cope With Slow Sales (Bloomberg)
Michael Kors Holdings Ltd., Kate Spade & Co. and Coach Inc. all topped analysts’ earnings estimates for the past quarter after the handbag retailers cut costs and reduced discounts to cope with sluggish sales.
Growth of the once-hot segment in North America has slowed to low single digits, Kors Chief Executive Officer John Idol said Wednesday on an earnings conference call. Young customers are still buying handbags and leather goods, but styles have shifted to lower-priced large wallets and small cross-body bags. To protect their brands and margins, companies are reducing discounts, adding new products and slashing costs.
Two Former Traders Found Guilty in Libor Manipulation Case (NY Times)
A jury in Manhattan on Thursday found two former London traders for a Dutch bank guilty on all 28 counts of criminal fraud and conspiracy to rig a global interest rate benchmark.
The verdict against the two former traders, Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti, after less than a day and a half of deliberation was a surprisingly quick victory for the Justice Department as it makes a renewed effort to prosecute individuals for financial crimes.
SeaWorld slammed after earnings miss and lowered outlook (Business Insider)
SeaWorld shares fell by as much as 7% on Thursday afternoon after the company reported third-quarter results below analysts' estimates.
The Accounting Technique Valeant Used to Help It Buy Company After Company (Bloomberg)
“In Valeant, a financialized age has produced a financialized pharma company,” Jim Grant, legendary contrarian investor, wrote in March of last year. More than a year later, the wider markets are only just beginning to unpick the complicated underpinningsbehind Valeant’s stunning run.
Market Fades Ahead of Jobs Report (NY Times)
The market closed slightly lower on Thursday as investors were reluctant to make large bets before the release of the government’s closely watched jobs report on Friday.
Herbalife is rallying because the market can't inflict enough pain on Bill Ackman (Business Insider)
Herbalife is up 6%.
Politics
The Buck Stops With George W. Bush (The Atlantic)
Great news for Jeb Bush! Jon Meacham’s new book has just set off several more days of debate about his brother’s decision to invade Iraq.
In Meacham’s forthcoming biography of George H.W. Bush, the old man unloads on Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld for having wrecked his son’s foreign policy. The elder Bushsays Cheney joined forces with the “real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East.” He accuses Rumsfeld of having an “iron-ass view of everything,” the kind of Bushism that makes no sense linguistically but conveys a mood: Rumsfeld was a foreign-policy militant and a jerk.
Fed’s Fischer cool to idea of printing money to finance government spending (Market Watch)
With deflation gripping the industrial world, experts are busily ripping up the textbook for central banking in an effort to find new ways to stimulate demand.
The International Monetary Fund’s new chief economist Maurice Obstfeld has encouraged this new thinking. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Obstfeld said “I worry about deflation globally…it may be time to start thinking outside the box.”
Technology
Get Your Hands on a Robot Made Out of Robots (PSFK)
Created by a team of “Ivy-League Chinese robot geeks” looking to spread their love of androids, CellRobot is the world’s first smart modular robot.
Putting the power of DIY robot-crafting in the hands of non-specialists, the company known as KEYi Technology Inc. is inviting everyone to assemble their own orb-like cells into various unique forms. As different shapes yield different functions, a simply configured segmental robot has practical use for just about anyone.
Nissan's Self-Driving Car Of The Future Is More Transformer Than Automobile (Fast Company)
Futuristic luxury, with dubious safety features.
Like a sequence from a sci-fi movie, the Nissan IDS Concept's dashboard folds away at the tap of an oversized button, revealing a sleek entertainment system in its place. It's like something Roger-Moore-Era James Bond might have enjoyed as he engaged in some "romantic" misogyny in the movie's final scene.
Health and Life Sciences
HPV vaccine saving lives, but not for Generation X (CNN)
The vaccine given to prevent cervical cancer in women could end up saving men's lives, too.
Evidence is mounting that the HPV vaccine is also effective in preventing other HPV-related cancers, including those of the head and neck. Although most people who get HPV do not develop cancer, rates of HPV-related head and neck cancers are dramatically rising for men aged 40 to 50, according to Dr. Maura L. Gillison, the Jeg Coughlin Chair of Cancer Research at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Living With Cancer: The Lure of Alternative Remedies (NY Times)
When I get tired of being told to juice carrots, I remember that the essayist Anatole Broyard took tap-dancing lessons as he underwent treatment for prostate cancer. Sick people need all sorts of strategies, alongside medical ones, to deal with disease.
The members of my support group use meditation, acupuncture, herbal supplements, Yoga and massage to supplement standard cancer care. Judging from a number of patient accounts, traditionally trained surgeons and oncologists do not know enough about biofeedback training, hypnosis, TENS machines, mindfulness techniques, guided imagery and other pain and stress management protocols that can be more effective than prescription drugs with their miserable side effects.
Life on the Home Planet
Climate Change Signal Emerges from the Weather (Scientific American)
From Hawaii’s flurry of hurricanes, to record high sea ice in Antarctica, and a heat wave that cooked the Australian Open like shrimp on a barbie, 2014 saw some wild weather. How much of that was tied to climate change is what scientists around the world tried to answer in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society’s annual attribution report, which was published Thursday.
