Best wishes for a Happy, Exciting and Prosperous 2016! ~ from all of us at PSW
Financial Markets and Economy
A Roller Coaster Year Ends With U.S. Markets Mostly Down (NY Times)
Investors may be disappointed with the lackluster performance of the United States stock market in 2015, but, given all that happened, it could have been worse.
It was a year when corporate earnings underwhelmed, Greece nearly crashed out of the euro, China carried out a shock devaluation of its currency, the price of oil slumped and the Federal Reserve increased interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade.
Apple shares to close year with worst performance since 2008 (Business Insider)
Shares of Apple Inc, the largest U.S. company by market value, are set to finish the year in the red on notable weakness for a stock that had largely been impervious to pain for several years.
Treasury yields fall, but end 2015 with largest annual gains in years (Market Watch)
Treasury yields finished lower again Thursday on their last trading day of the year, as stocks fell, boosting demand for safe-haven assets.
But for 2015, Treasury yields saw the largest annual advance in years as the U.S. central bank lifted interest rates for the first time in about a decade. Yields rise as bond prices fall.
Oil ends 2015 down 35 percent; long, painful hangover seen (Reuters)
Oil prices rose on Thursday but fell as much as 35 percent for the year after a race to pump by Middle East crude producers and U.S. shale oil drillers created an unprecedented global glut that may take through 2016 to clear.
Global oil benchmark Brent and U.S. crude's West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures rose between 1 and 2 percent on the day on short-covering and buying support in a thinly traded market ahead of the New Year holiday.
India to tighten rules for credit cooperatives to protect investors: official (Business Insider)
India will crack down on errant financial firms that raise funds, mainly from millions of rural poor customers, through loosely regulated credit cooperative societies, a senior official in the agriculture ministry said.
This follows a Reuters investigation that revealed an expansion in fund-raising by embattled conglomerate Sahara India Pariwar using four credit cooperatives in different parts of the country.
Worst Year for Oil Rigs in Quarter Century Closes With a Whimper (Bloomberg)
Oil explorers shut down more rigs in U.S. fields to finish out the worst year for drilling cutbacks in almost three decades.
Icahn Wins Bidding War for Pep Boys (NY Times)
After a tug of war between the activist investor Carl C. Icahn and theBridgestone Corporation, the auto-parts retailer Pep Boys on Wednesday officially picked its suitor.
Icahn Enterprises won the bidding for Pep Boys, announcing a definitive agreement to buy the chain in an all-cash deal for $18.50 a share, or roughly $1 billion. The boards of Ichan Enterprises and Pep Boys have approved the deal, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016, the companies said.
The Year That Investors Lost Their Appetite for Chipotle: Chart (Bloomberg)
Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., pummeled by E. coli and norovirus outbreaks this year, was the worst-performing stock in the restaurant index of the Standard & Poor’s 500 in 2015. Starbucks Corp., which used technology and a greater emphasis on food to drive growth, had the group’s best year.
These 12 market calls of 2015 have one lesson for investors (Market Watch)
Forward-thinking investors and would-be market prognosticators, heed this lesson: Among the biggest and boldest market calls of 2015, playing it safe didn’t necessarily pay off.
MarketWatch editors analyzed and ranked 12 notable calls from 2015 from our essential daily Need to Know column (sign up for the email newsletter here, or follow our Twitter or Facebook accounts). We looked at just how far outside of conventional thinking these calls were (from “No, duh” to “Have you gone totally bonkers?”) and just how big of a payoff (or wipeout) you could have been in for had you invested in the concept underlying the call.
IMF chief Lagarde warns of disappointing global growth in 2016 (The Guardian)
Global economic growth will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has also deteriorated, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.
The IMF managing director, Christine Lagarde, said the prospect of rising interest rates in the US and an economic slowdown in China were feeding uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide.
Copper, Metals Sag Most Since 2008 as Cuts Too Late to Save 2015 (Bloomberg)
Industrial metals fell, capping the worst year since 2008, as production cuts and signs of improving demand in China came too late to counter falling consumption and excess supplies.
China Investment Corp retreats from Canada after mining, energy investments sour (Financial Post)
After a string of bad investments, China Investment Corp. (CIC) has shut down its Toronto office and is opening a new one in New York, part of a quiet retreat from Canadian natural resources by China’s state-controlled entities.
The decision ends a five-year presence by China’s sovereign wealth fund in the city, picked for its first and only overseas office to monitor investments in Canada’s mining and oil and gas sectors, a top Chinese priority when they were made.
Get ready for a crummy Q4 earnings season (Business Insider)
As 2015 comes to an end, so does Q4. And that means corporate America will announce the financial results of their fourth quarter in a few weeks.
A Year of Sovereign Defaults? (Project Syndicate)
Like so many other features of the global economy, debt accumulation and default tends to occur in cycles, with one- and two-decade lulls in defaults typically followed by a new wave of defaults. As 2016 begins, there are clear signs of such a wave on the horizon.
'Vomitous' Year for Canadian Stocks as Valeant, Crude Lead Rout (Bloomberg)
Canadian stocksheaded for the worst annual loss in four years mired in a three-day losing streak, as the resource-rich nations benchmark equity index sank amid a global retreat in commodities from crude to gold.
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts (Jesse's Cafe Americain)
And it is.
Have a Happy New Year.
The Case for Ros on New Year's Eve (Bloomberg)
Why the long-pilloried pink wine is trendier than you may realize.
Politics
Poland's New Leaders Take Aim at Democracy (Bloomberg View)
Not every democracy needs a supreme court with the power to block legislation it deems unconstitutional. But Poland’s reforms of its Constitutional Tribunal, enacted by a right-wing majority and signed into law by a conservative president, are worrisome signs for the country's prospects of democratic government. The political timing — and the nature of the changes — provides a valuable guide to what judicial review is good for, and why so many countries have adopted it since World War II.
Two top aides to Ben Carson campaign resign (Market Watch)
Two top aides to GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson resigned on Thursday, setting off a major shakeup in a campaign that has been struggling with declining poll numbers and shaky finances.
Doug Watts, who had been Carson’s communications director, issued a statement saying he and campaign manager Barry Bennett, have resigned effective immediately.
Technology
Oculus delays Touch motion controllers until second half of 2016 (The Verge)
Oculus' Touch motion controllers have been delayed until the second half of next year, the company recently announced. "On the path to perfecting Touch, we've decided that we need more time before release," reads a statement released this morning, noting that preorders will begin "a few months prior to launch."
This won't affect the availability of the Rift virtual reality headset, which is still supposed to ship in the first quarter of 2016. As we've heard before, Oculus says that preorders for the Rift will open "very soon."
Tech Wizardry Solves Mysteries of Egypt’s Royal Mummies (Wired)
Roughly 400 miles from the Great Pyramids, ancient pharaohs of the New Kingdom lay at rest in the Valley of Kings. Nondescript chambers built into the valley’s dusty hills hold royal remains, buried between 1550 and 1070 BC. The crypts were designed to deter robbers, and for the most part, they worked—which makes it difficult for today’s archaeologists to find them and identify their inhabitants.
Health and Life Sciences
Gene Therapy To Treat HIV In Clinical Trial (Forbes)
One of the more interesting developments I learned about at the recent Till-McCulloch conference is a novel gene therapy with great promise for HIV patients.
Calimmune, based in Tucson, Arizona, is currently in a Phase I clinical trial to test safety of the procedure, and while the company is holding comment until more data become available, their approach to blocking the HIV virus looks fascinating.
Kill Pain and Addiction (Bloomberg View)
There is a grim connection between two worsening addictions in the U.S.: to prescription opioid painkillers and to heroin. Both can be partly traced to worthwhile public-health initiatives that deserve to be protected.
The first initiative was a 1990s campaign to get doctors to take people's pain more seriously. This worked amazingly well — for some people, too well.
Life on the Home Planet
New Year’s Eve crowd gathers at Times Square amid tight security (Market Watch)
Amid sharply increased security, thousands of New Yorkers and tourists gathered in Times Square Thursday ahead of the New Year’s Eve celebration despite terror concerns.
The city has been on increased alert heading into the busy holiday season following the November attacks in Paris and the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif.
B.C. earthquake shakes Victoria and Vancouver area: Buildings rattle but no damage reported (National Post)
An earthquake hit southern British Columbia just before midnight Tuesday, rattling buildings, shaking beds and swaying light fixtures.
The earthquake was moderate, between magnitude 4.3 and 4.8, with its epicentre near Sidney on Vancouver Island. But with a depth of 60 kilometres, it was deep enough to be felt across the region, with residents reporting effects in both the Vancouver and Victoria areas, a Canadian seismologist said.
