Financial Markets and Economy
All Monetary Policy Is Global as Foreign Inflation Tests Yellen (Bloomberg)
Janet Yellen may be about to discover that if all politics is local, all monetary policy is global.
Brexit polls show Britain is on the cusp of leaving the EU right now (Business Insider)
The latest set of polls show that it is too close to call whether Britain would leave the European Union if a referendum was called today.
Emerging Stocks Rise From 2009 Low Before Fed as Currencies Gain (Bloomberg)
Emerging-market stocks rebounded from a six-year low and currencies gained as the dollar retreated before the Federal Reserve meets to decide whether to raise interest rates from near zero.
China ready to moderate sharp offshore yuan falls: sources (Business Insider)
China’s central bank is on guard against a sudden attack on the yuan in offshore markets, and is ready to intervene if the gap between offshore and onshore exchange rates becomes destabilizing, sources involved in policy discussions say.
Tesco Sales Deteriorate Ahead of Crucial Christmas Period (Bloomberg)
Tesco Plc's sales continued to worsen in the run up to Christmas as the U.K.s largest supermarket chain bore the brunt of competition from discounters Aldi and Lidl.
Crude struggles on, waiting for direction from the Fed (Market Watch)
Crude oil prices edged higher after paring earlier losses in early Asia trade Tuesday but the gains are likely to be limited as concerns of a swelling global supply and softening demand still weigh on market sentiment.
SMFG agrees to buy GE's Japan leasing business for $4.8 billion (Business Insider)
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (SMFG) <8316.T> agreed to buy General Electric's <GE.N> Japanese leasing business for $4.8 billion, the two companies said on Tuesday.
Advanced Info Paces Gains Among Thai Telecom Stocks on 4G Bids (Bloomberg)
Advanced Info Service Pcl andTotal Access Communication Pcl surged to pace gains for Thai stocks as the nations biggest mobile-phone companies started bidding for licenses to providefourth-generation wireless services.
U.S. brands tap European auto recovery as Volkswagen left behind (Yahoo! Finance)
European car sales rose 13.7 percent in November, according to industry data published on Tuesday, with U.S. brands recording strong gains as Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) continued to pay the price of its diesel emissions test-rigging scandal.
US trade body declines Nvidia's review petition against Samsung (Business Insider)
A U.S. trade body on Monday upheld its earlier decision that rejected Nvidia Corp's claims of patent violation by Samsung Electronics Co and Qualcomm Inc over use of Nvidia's graphics chip technology.
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) decided not to review an initial order by an administrative law judge on Oct. 9 as it found no violation of Nvidia's patents related to graphics-processing chips.
Gold to Breach $1,000 as Fed Lifts Rates in `16, SocGen Says (Bloomberg)
Gold is going to be a casualty of the Federal Reserve, according to Societe Generale SA.
Dell says could buy back at least $3 billion in VMware tracking stock (Business Insider)
Dell Inc [DI.UL] said in a filing on Monday that it has the flexibility to buy back at least $3 billion in VMWare Inc <VMW.N> tracking stock, the special class of shares the computer maker plans to issue to help finance its acquisition of EMC Corp <EMC.N>.
The disclosure could prove important as Dell seeks ways to boost the value of VMware, a virtualization software maker majority-owned by EMC.
StanChart axes top bankers in energy M&A team – sources (Yahoo! Finance)
Standard Chartered plc (STAN.L) has axed at least half a dozen oil and gas advisory banking roles in recent weeks, ending an eight-year attempt to build a global energy M&A team, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Asia-focused lender Standard Chartered (2888.HK) expanded its energy M&A advisory team just before the global financial crisis by acquiring Harrison Lovegrove, a well regarded boutique advisory firm for oil and gas.
U.S. Index Futures Rise After Stock Gains as Investors Await Fed (Bloomberg)
U.S. stock-index futures rose, following equities’ rebound from a weekly slump, before Federal Reserve officials meet to decide whether the economy is strong enough to withstand a rate increase.
Dow, DuPont eye big tax savings in rare merger of equals (Business Insider)
The tax-free treatment of the spin-offs Dow Chemical Co DOW.N and DuPont DD.N plan to carry out after they merge their businesses is a prime driver of the deal, potentially saving tens of billions of dollars, industry experts said.
Snapdeal Goes Multilingual Seeking Next Big Indian Consumer Boom (Bloomberg)
Snapdeal.com is introducing versions of its popular e-commerce website and app in 11 Indian languages as it seeks to tap the vast majority of local consumers who can’t speak or read English.
The website will be available in Hindi and Telugu starting Tuesday, and nine other local language versions will be active by Jan. 26, Chief Operating Officer Rohit Bansal said in an interview. The effort involved about 45 engineers working for six months to ensure that each language’s nuance and grammar was properly handled, he said.
Europe Shares Rebound From 10-Week Low as Investors Look to Fed (Bloomberg)
European stocks rebounded from a 10-week low as investors prepare for what will likely be the Federal Reserves first rate increase in almost 10 years.
Asian stocks stabilize as oil prices try to recover (Market Watch)
Asian shares tried to stabilize early Tuesday as jitters about the high-yield bond market receded and oil prices recovered slightly, a reprieve from deep selling across the region a day earlier.
Here's What the Fed Will Be Watching to See If Liftoff Worked (Bloomberg)
On the eve of liftoff, the Federal Reserve must be feeling pretty good about the ability of its new tools to raise interest rates: Key money market rates are already floating obediently upward in anticipation of the U.S. central bank’s first hike in nearly a decade.
Creditors Bawl: How Investors Ignored Risk of Junk-Bond Rout (Bloomberg)
You had to see this one coming.
Warnings of a high-yield bust were plentiful: The shale driller that missed its first payment. The clothing manufacturer and the software maker among the many companies that issued debt, payable in more debt, earmarked to reward managers who’d already loaded them up with debt.
Another billion-dollar tech startup smacked by reality (Market Watch)
Another high-flying “unicorn” appears to be crashing to earth, in the latest sign that a correction is here for tech startups’ pie-in-the-sky valuations.
Gilt Groupe, once among the hottest of New York startups with a $1.1 billion paper valuation, is in talks to sell itself to The Hudson’s Bay Co. HBC, -3.85% for about one quarter of that pie-in-the-sky valuation, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Australia's Budget Blows Out as Growth Slows, Iron Ore Slumps (Bloomberg)
Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison is grappling with a budget blow out less than a year out from an election as the economy adjusts to plunging commodity prices and recession-level wage growth.
China's Stocks Fluctuate After Biggest Gain in Five Weeks (Bloomberg)
China's stocks swung between gains and losses in thin turnover after the benchmark index posted its biggest advance in five weeks.
Politics
Cornering Russia – Risking World War III (Consortium News)
We all know the narrative in which we (the West) are seized. It is the narrative of the Cold War: America versus the “Evil Empire.” And, as Professor Ira Chernus has written, since we are “human” and somehow they (the USSR or, now, ISIS) plainly are not, we must be their polar opposite in every way.
Meet The Protesters Who Just Shouted Down Donald Trump In Las Vegas (Think Progress)
Hotel mogul and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump had just handed the microphone over to a group of parents of people killed by undocumented immigrants when the chants began to ring out in the cavernous hall at the Westgate Casino.
“Dump Trump!” shouted two local activists as they were quickly dragged out of the room by hotel security guards. “Black lives matter. Muslims matter.”
Technology
Should Robots Ever Be Making Life-Or-Death Decisions In War? (Gizmodo)
Current warfare seems ugly enough, what with the drones and Kalashnikovs. But add a dose of computerized efficiency, and the battlefield of the future could be one truly optimized—and terrifying—killing machine.
Tom Scott has a succinct and depressing look at the kind of changes we can expect to see on future battlefields, if a U.S. Army thinkpaper is accurate. The gist goes something like this: the quantity and speed of information will overwhelm human operators, who will need to let computers handle most of the immediate decision-making in order to keep fighting.
New ceramic firefighting foam becomes stronger when temperature increases (Phys)
A team of chemists from ITMO University, in collaboration with research company SOPOT, has developed a novel type of firefighting foam based on inorganic silica nanoparticles. The new foam beats existing analogues in fire extinguishing capacity, thermal and mechanical stability and biocompatibility. The results of the study were published in ACS Advanced Materials & Interfaces.
Health and Life Sciences
Alecensa Approved for Lung Cancer Tied to Gene Mutation (Medicine Net)
Alecensa (alectinib) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug administration to treat anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non-small cell lung cancer, the agency said Friday in a news release. This type of canceroften spreads to the brain.
Intermittent Fasting (Science-Based Medicine)
Fasting can mean anything from total abstinence from food and beverages to restricting specific foods or the hours of food intake. Many religions have traditions of fasting, with various restrictions. There is a good summary of those traditions on Wikipedia. The reason for religious fasting is not to improve health, but for other reasons like improving discipline and demonstrating devotion.
There are many health claims for different fasting regimens. Daily calorie restriction has been demonstrated to prolong lifespans in several organisms, from yeast and worms to mice and monkeys, although the evidence for monkeys is equivocal and there is no evidence for humans.
Life on the Home Planet
Dramatic videos on social media show Typhoon Melor hitting the Philippines (Mashable)
Typhoon Melor, known in the Philippines as Nona, made landfall on Monday and brought heavy rains and destructive winds that reached 150 km/h (93 mph).
