Financial Markets and Economy
Bank of America: We Won't Know What's Going On With Energy Debt Until Investors Come Back From Vacation (Bloomberg)
It seems like equity and debt markets can't go one week without fighting.
Millennials are just like everybody else (Business Insider)
Millennials are getting married and having kids later in life.
This ‘smart money’ indicator nailed the dot-com bust, and it’s even more bearish now (Market Watch)
“Smart money” is betting against the bulls in a huge way.
Nike Profit Beats Estimates as Footwear Sales Remain Strong (Bloomberg)
Nike Inc. posted second-quarter results that showed the footwear and athletic-apparel giant remains largely immune to the shopper malaise thats plagued much of retail.
The winners and losers of 2015’s 10 most closely watched tech IPOs (Quartz)
There’s no denying it: It’s been a slow year for tech IPOs.
The number of IPOs fell to a six-year low, with only 169 companies going public in 2015, according to a Dec. 18 report from Renaissance Capital. The technology industry was especially hard hit, with just 23 companies raising a total of $4.2 billion in 2015, down from the 55 firms that raised $32.3 billion a year earlier.
National Stock Exchange relaunches, aims to shake up U.S. industry (Business Insider)
The National Stock Exchange relaunched on Tuesday with a low-cost model its new management says will challenge current industry practices and could save U.S. investors billions if adopted market-wide.
How Apple, Telsa could blow away a boring stock market with 20% gains (Market Watch)
How tough was 2015 for regular investors, not to mention those poor hedge funds?
S&P Quits Grading Most CDOs That Investor Said It Underrated (Bloomberg)
Standard & Poor’s withdrew most of its ratings on a type of security built from bank debt, two months after an investor sought a court order to require more “accurate” grades.
Jim Chanos' most important chart for 2016 (Business Insider)
Let's reflect on 2015, and in those reflections get a sense of what's coming in the new year.
What contrarian investors are saying about stocks now (Market Watch)
Contrarians currently are neutral about the stock market’s near-term direction, since the current Wall Street consensus is neither excessively bullish nor excessively bearish.
Gasoline at $2 Means $1.6 Billion for U.S. Holiday Travelers (Bloomberg)
Gasoline falling to $2 a gallon at the pump will put $1.6 billion back in U.S. drivers wallets this holiday season.
Credit Suisse: Oil is going stay low for 5 years (Business Insider)
Oil prices have plunged from triple digits over 18 months ago to less than $40 a barrel, and companies, markets and the global economy have been ravaged by cheap energy.
U.S. stocks closed higher Tuesday, helped by some stabilization in oil prices and recovery in hard-hit areas of the market this year. ( Tweet This )
The Dow Jones industrial average closed up about 166 points after earlier gaining nearly 200 points in afternoon trade. Contributing most to gains, Caterpillar (CAT) closed up about 4.86 percent for its best day since October 5. The stock is one of the worst performers in the Dow year-to-date, down more than 20 percent.
Tech, Health Stocks Top Emerging-Market Rankings for Fourth Year (Bloomberg)
In a dismal year for emerging-market stocks, information technology and health-care companies have fallen the least, positioning those sectors to become the developing worlds top two performers for the fourth year in a row.
Chipotle is getting smoked (Business Insider)
Chipotle is getting smoked.
Treasuries Drop on Quicker Price Growth, Rebound in Oil Prices (Bloomberg)
Treasuries fell for the first time since the Federal Reserve raised interest rates Dec. 16 amid hints of strength in consumer and energy prices.
This chart shows just how strong the Brexit vote is right now (Business Insider)
Britons will get to vote on whether the country should stay in or leave the European Union by the end of 2017. But if the referendum were to happen tomorrow, the polls show that the outcome would be too difficult to predict.
China's Earliest Economic Indicators Show Signs of Stabilization (Bloomberg)
China’s policy makers, armed with their 2016 economic plan, can take heart they’ll start the year on firmer footing as the earliest indicators for December show more signs of stabilization.
2 charts that have one veteran trader spooked about 2016 (Business Insider)
It's time to start looking forward to a new year and what it might bring.
Extreme Oil Bears Bet on $25, $20 and Even $15 a Barrel in 2016 (Bloomberg)
Oil speculators are buying options contracts that will only pay out if crude drops to as low as $15 a barrel next year, the latest sign some investors expect an even deeper slump in energy prices.
Markets Are Getting Jumpier and We Can't Tell if That's Good or Bad (Bloomberg)
"Those aren't mountains, they're waves," says Matthew McConaughey's character in the movie Interstellar, after the team of space explorers' search for an earth-like world takes them to an oceanic planet that is not quite as it seems. What appears to be a planet of tranquil waters turns out to be rocked by occasional tsunamis before returning to its earlier, placid state.
Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts – El Niño Jesús (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
Not only the precious metals, but even 'volatility' is now trading on its own clock, almost like a pure bet without an anchoring in fundamentals.
U.S. Economy Grew 2% in Third Quarter, Led by Consumer Spending (Bloomberg)
The U.S. economy expanded at a revised 2 percent annualized rate in the third quarter, buoyed by consumer spending as businesses struggled to sell to overseas customers battered by sluggish growth.
It's looking a lot like 2015 will be the best year ever for US auto sales (Business Insider)
In about two weeks, December 2015 US auto sales will be reported, and we'll know whether the total tops the previous all-time high, set in 2000.
An impressive 17.4 million new cars and trucks rolled off dealer lots back then — 15 years ago.
But 2015 could better that milestone by over half a million vehicles.
Politics
Why Trump and Cruz Aren't Forbes or Cain (Bloomberg View)
There's a lot of loose talk in Republican politics about the battle that's supposedly raging between outsiders and the mainstream establishment. Actually, the battle's over. It's the outsiders in a romp.
Look at the poll numbers, as averaged by Real Clear Politics. They show the relentlessly growing combined strength of the four main outsider presidential primary candidates: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina. Only Cruz, a Texas senator who routinely defies his party, has held elective office. Trump and Fiorina are business leaders and Carson is a retired neurosurgeon.
Donald Trump says Hillary Clinton’s debate bathroom break ‘too disgusting’ to talk about (Market Watch)
Not even Hillary Clinton’s bathroom breaks are off limits for Donald Trump.
At a Monday-night rally in Michigan, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said Clinton’s use of the restroom during the last Democratic debate was “too disgusting” to talk about. “I know where she went — it’s disgusting, I don’t want to talk about it,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post.
Technology
Boston Dynamics' Robo-Dogs Pulling a Sleigh Is a Terrifying Glimpse of the Future (Gizmodo)
If you thought waking up on Christmas morning to above-average temperatures and no snow on the ground was scary, Boston Dynamics gives us a far more terrifying glimpse into a dystopian future where Santa’s reindeer have been replaced with (highly kickable) trotting robotic dogs.
In this (what’s the opposite of heartwarming?) holiday video we see three of Boston Dynamic’s Spot bots, the younger sibling to the company’s BigDog, pulling a sleigh.
Rescue Robots' Long Road Ahead (Popular Science)
In 2012, DARPA announced the most ambitious robotics competition in history. To kick-start the development of robotic first responders—machines capable of deploying to natural or man-made disasters—the Pentagon’s research agency proposed a series of challenges. Robots would be tasked with navigating and interacting with a mock disaster site. They would open doors, traverse rubble, climb stairs, and turn valves. At times, they would have to act with almost complete autonomy in order to simulate communications breakdowns in a real-life crisis.
Health and Life Sciences
As aging slows body clock, a new one starts ticking (Futurity)
As a person ages, their circadian clock begins to slow down. But a study of nearly 150 human brains suggests that’s also when a new biological clock kicks in.
A 24-hour circadian rhythm controls nearly all brain and body processes, such as the sleep/wake cycle, metabolism, alertness, and cognition.
Life on the Home Planet
Turkish tanks pound Kurdish militants in week-long military campaign (Reuters)
Turkish tanks on Tuesday pounded Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets in Cizre, a southeastern town at the heart of a military operation that the army said has killed 127 Kurdish militants in a week.
Black smoke rose from buildings in the town after shelling from hilltops and the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) said at least 23 civilians had been killed in the violence.
