Financial Markets and Economy
Morgan Stanley Calls 2016 the Year of the Yen With BOJ on Hold (Bloomberg)
The yen will outshine the dollar as next year’s star performer in the $5.3 trillion-a-day global currency market, according to Morgan Stanley.
A top Wall Street strategist believes the global bull market will end in 2017 (Business Insider)
Societe Generale is out with a call for the end of the global stock bull market: 2017.
In its year-ahead outlook for 2016, SocGen expects that aside from the US, next year will be another good year for global stocks.
The ‘candlesticks man’ says he’s not buying stocks (Market Watch)
When Steve Nison says candlestick charts are telling him not to buy stocks, people might want to listen.
Traders Happy to Position for Weaker Swiss Franc (Bloomberg)
Option market offers evidence that investors are now increasingly looking for upside protection in euro against the swiss franc, Bloomberg strategist Vassilis Karamanis writes.
The world's 'economic canary in the coal mine' offers no reason for optimism (Business Insider)
There continues to be little doubt that the global economy is slowing.
South Korean exports — also referred to as the world's economic "canary in the coal mine" — fell 4.7% in November from a year earlier.
Gold edges higher ahead of ECB decision, U.S. payrolls (Market Watch)
Gold futures edged higher Tuesday, posting gains for a second day after ending last week near a 5½-year low as traders covered short positions ahead of a European Central Bank policy decision on Thursday and key U.S. labor-market data on Friday.
ECB's Split With Fed Risks Running Until Draghi Near Retirement (Bloomberg)
By the time the European Central Bank raises its key interest rate again, Mario Draghi might be on the verge of retirement.
These 6 nightmare charts most worry the Bank of England about the financial system (Business Insider)
The Bank of England published its financial-stability report on Tuesday, and it's full of useful charts and graphs about threats to the UK's banking system.
Fed officials clammed up once transcripts were released, study finds (Market Watch)
The decision to release transcripts of closed-door Fed policy committee meetings altered the discussions and maybe not for the better, a new study concluded.
U.K. Factory Growth Cools From Fastest Pace in 16 Months (Bloomberg)
A U.K. manufacturing gauge fell more than economists forecast in November, while still signaling solid growth after reaching a 16-month high the previous month.
U.S. crude oil prices remain weak ahead of OPEC meeting (Business Insider)
Crude oil prices held at low levels in early trading in Asia on Tuesday as traders bet on continued high production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) ahead of its meeting later this week.
On Giving Tuesday, tech companies follow Salesforce’s example (Market Watch)
As #GivingTuesday donation pleas flood social networks and in-boxes today in a worldwide effort to raise attention and funding for nonprofits, some might be skeptical of pleas or philanthropic touts from tech companies, which have an inconsistent reputation for philanthropy.
Charting the Markets: December Begins With Appetite for Riskier Assets (Bloomberg)
Yuan drops after IMF announcement, copper rises for a second day and U.K. banks advance after stress test results.
Amazon crushes Black Friday weekend with record sales of its own devices (Market Watch)
Christmas seems to have come early for Amazon.com.
The online retailer AMZN, +1.05% said Tuesday the Thanksgiving holiday weekend marked a record sales period for its own devices, jumping more than three times compared with the Thanksgiving period last year. Amazon’s Fire devices were the best-selling products across its platforms, with the tablet, TV and TV Stick among the favorites.
Lenders Lead Britain Stock Jump After BOE Stress-Test Results (Bloomberg)
HSBC Holdings Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc and Barclays Plc pushed the FTSE 100 Index higher after the Bank of England said all seven major lenders passed stress-test results.
Fortnum & Mason May Take Its British Indulgences to U.S. Market (Bloomberg)
Fortnum & Mason, the 300-year-old mainstay of London’s Piccadilly, may take its 5,000-pound ($7,538) luxury food hampers and classic English teas across the Atlantic.
The billionaire Weston family, who have owned the quintessentially British retailer since 1951, are exploring options to open a store in the U.S., Ewan Venters, chief executive officer of Fortnum & Mason, said in an interview.
Target website stumbles on Cyber Monday, rivals out of stock (Yahoo! Finance)
U.S. shoppers seeking to avoid the holiday crowds at bricks-and-mortar stores and snare deals on Cyber Monday came face-to-face with traffic jams and product sellouts, with some customers of Target Corp forced to wait in a virtual line.
Fiat Chrysler November Sales Rise as U.S. Carmakers Near Record (Bloomberg)
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV said its U.S. auto sales rose 3 percent in November, leading off reports for a month that is shaping up as one of the best ever for automakers.
A ‘wild card’ option for investors as stocks dither (Market Watch)
Happy 1st of December! Time to bust out the Advent calendars and Christmas trees(if you can find them), and start keeping an eye out for the big guy in the red suit to make good on what has been a tradition of sorts — the Santa Claus rally.
U.S. Stock-Index Futures Rise After November Lull for S&P 500 (Bloomberg)
U.S. futures signaled a bullish start to what has historically been the strongest month of the year for global equities.
Dow sells portfolio of herbicides amid consolidation drive (Yahoo! Finance)
Dow Chemical Co (DOW.N) has struck a deal to sell a part of its global herbicide business, as low crop prices continue to drive talk of consolidation in the agriculture industry.
Dow on Monday said it agreed to sell a portfolio of weed killers known as dinitroanilines to privately held Gowan Company. The deal comes a month after Dow said it was reviewing all options for its farm chemicals and seeds unit, which has reported falling sales for nearly a year.
Politics
Obama Urges Common Anti-Terror Focus Amid Putin-Erdogan Rankle (Bloomberg)
Obama took time out from climate talks in Paris Tuesday to meet with Erdogan to discuss the situation with Russia and the campaign against Islamic State, also known as ISIL. Putin gave Erdogan the cold shoulder on Monday following Russia’s decision to impose sanctions on Turkey for shooting down a Russian warplane on the Syrian border.
Donald Trump says taxes gave Bernie Sanders a hernia (Market Watch)
Bernie Sanders needed hernia surgery because of the heft of the tax hikes his proposals would carry, according to Donald Trump.
Sanders, the Vermont senator seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, had an outpatient procedure Monday and was expected to return to work Tuesday. CNN reports Trump joked to a crowd in Macon, Ga., on Monday night about Sanders’ procedure: “You know why? Carrying around too much tax problems.”
Technology
The High-Stakes Race to Rid the World of Human Drivers (The Atlantic)
The race to bring driverless cars to the masses is only just beginning, but already it is a fight for the ages. The competition is fierce, secretive, and elite. It pits Apple against Google against Tesla against Uber: all titans of Silicon Valley, in many ways as enigmatic as they are revered.
Health and Life Sciences
Weight Loss May Spare Knee Cartilage, Study Finds (Medicine Net)
Losing a large amount of weight slows the loss of knee cartilage in obese people, a new study shows.
Obesity is a major risk factor for knee osteoarthritis, a degenerative joint diseasethat often leads to joint replacement surgery.
How A High Fat Diet Could Damage Your Brain (Forbes)
The science is clear that regularly eating a diet high in saturated fats is damaging to your heart, but it may also be devastating to your brain. That’s the finding of new research that focused on the effects of consuming hefty portions of saturated fat on the connections between brain cells.
The study used mice to track the comparative effects of two diets that mirrored low and high-saturated fat diets in humans. One group of mice ate a diet with only 10% of calories from saturated fat, while the other group’s diet contained 60% saturated fat.
Life on the Home Planet
In Pictures: China Is Enveloped In Thick and Dangerous Smog (Gizmodo)
Beijing is currently choking on a thick smog, with air pollution in the city over 20 times the safe levels defined by the World Health Organisation. This is what it looks like.
As the world’s governments gather in Paris to decide the future of our planet, there’s an all too obvious reminder of pollution hanging above Beijing. The thick brown-yellow smog doesn’t just look horrible, either: the air quality index was measured by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing on Monday to be 611 for what’s referred to as small particulate matter.
Charles: 'We must save our forests' (BBC)
Prince Charles has expressed hope that politicians and businesses are starting to act on the need to protect forests.
The Prince of Wales told a meeting at the Paris climate summit that attitudes were beginning to change, with forest protection initiatives being introduced.
