Financial Markets and Economy
RBS cries 'sell everything' as deflationary crisis nears (The Telegraph)
RBS has advised clients to brace for a “cataclysmic year” and a global deflationary crisis, warning that major stock markets could fall by a fifth and oil may plummet to $16 a barrel.
The bank’s credit team said markets are flashing stress alerts akin to the turbulent months before the Lehman crisis in 2008. “Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small,” it said in a client note.
Investors on Gold ETF Buying Spree Amid Global Stock Rout: Chart (Bloomberg)
Investors embarked on the biggest three-day buying spree in gold-backed exchange traded funds for a year as bullion rallied at the start of 2016 amid a stock-market slump.
Oil is about to crash past $30 a barrel (Business Insider)
Crude oil is tanking, again.
Small businesses see rising sales but tougher conditions (Market Watch)
A measure of small-business optimism showed an unusual split in December, as owners became more confident about sales at the same time they become more pessimistic about business conditions.
Chinese Options Signal Stocks Not Yet Out of the Woods: Analysis (Bloomberg)
China equity option term structures have aggressively inverted over the past week and implied volatilities are edging closer to peaks seen during August rout, as yuan devaluation roils global markets, Bloomberg strategist Tanvir Sandhu writes.
China fourth-quarter GDP growth seen slowing to weakest pace since 2009 (Business Insider)
China is expected to post its weakest economic growth since the global financial crisis in the fourth quarter, adding pressure on policymakers to take more steps to ward off a sharper slowdown that could jolt global markets.
A renewed plunge in China's stock markets and the yuan have stoked concerns among global investors about the health of the world's second-biggest economy, although analysts see few signs of an abrupt drop-off in activity.
Stocks still aren’t even close to being cheap (Market Watch)
Even with the recent plunge, the stock market has a long way to fall before stocks are even fairly valued, much less undervalued.
European Bonds Slide as Four Nations Hit Market With Sales (Bloomberg)
Euro-zone government bonds fell as investors took on at least 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) of new supply.
Debenhams is flying (Business Insider)
Debenhams shares are going crazy after the department store announced record sales in the week of Christmas and a strong start to its financial year.
Plunging prices could force a third of U.S. oil firms into bankruptcy (Market Watch)
Crude-oil prices plunged more than 5% on Monday to trade near $30 a barrel, making the specter of bankruptcy ever more likely for a significant chunk of the U.S. oil industry.
Three major investment banks — Morgan Stanley MS, +0.28% , Goldman Sachs Group Inc. GS, +1.09% and Citigroup Inc. C, +1.56% — now expect the price of oil to crash through the $30 threshold and into $20 territory in short order as a result of China’s slowdown, the U.S. dollar’s appreciation and the fact that drillers from Houston to Riyadh won’t quit pumping despite the oil glut.
Commodity Crash Redux as 2016 Starts Out Worse Than Last Year (Bloomberg)
Sure, 2015 was bad for commodities. So far, 2016 is even worse.
Here's why China's currency matters more than its stock market (Business Insider)
The financial carnage at the start of the year was the worst of its kind for many markets.
John Maynard Keynes: Great Economist, Terrible Currency Trader (NY Times)
If you watch a lot of business news on cable, you will inevitably see advertisements for software platforms that enable do-it-yourself currency trading.
Great fortunes have been made by traders who correctly predicted swings in the dollar, yen or pound, that much is true.
Central Bankers Rattle Currency Sabers to Keep FX Rates Weak (Bloomberg)
Central bankers around the world may be sharing the same New Years resolution: a weaker currency.
Asian shares shaky, oil near 12-year low on China worries (Business Insider)
Asian shares hovered near four-year lows and oil prices languished at near 12-year lows on Tuesday as investors fretted over whether Beijing may be losing control of the economy.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.MIAPJ0000PUS> rose 0.3 percent in early trade but still stood near a four-year low touched on Monday, and was still down more than 8 percent since the start of 2016.
Dubai Stocks Lead Drop in Gulf Arab Markets as Oil Rout Deepens (Bloomberg)
Qatar’s stocks declined to the lowest level in more than two years, leading a retreat across the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, after oil extended its slump from the lowest close since 2004.
Oil steadies below $32 as investors book profits (Reuters)
Crude oil steadied near $32 per barrel on Tuesday, recovering slightly as investors booked profits after it fell to a near-12-year low on concerns about oversupply and fragile demand from China.
Prices are down around 15 percent since the start of the year, dragged lower by a glut, China's weakening economy and stock market turmoil, as well as the strong dollar, which makes it more expensive for those using other currencies to buy oil.
Negative Rates Backfire to Worsen Japan Economic Slump, BNP Says (Bloomberg)
Reiko Tokukatsu has written a bestseller on Japans failed experience with negative interest rates and its challenging the economic playbooks adopted by central bankers around the developed world.
Morrison Snaps Sales Decline as Potts Changes Start to Resonate (Bloomberg)
Wm Morrison Supermarkets Plc unexpectedly snapped a four-year record of declining same-store sales as new Chief Executive Officer David Potts put his stamp on the struggling British grocer.
Goldman Sachs Sees $64 Billion in Buybacks Rescuing Japan Stocks (Bloomberg)
After Japanese stocks’ worst start to a year on record, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has a $64 billion reason to keep the faith.
Keep Calm and Invest in Infrastructure (Bloomberg View)
George Osborne, the U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer, depressed both his currency and his countrymen last week with a downer of speech that blamed "a dangerous cocktail of new threats from around the world" for a considerably gloomier economic outlook than the one he delivered less than two months ago.
China, oil still hanging over Wall Street (Yahoo! Finance)
First, Wall Street is watching China for any further weakening in the yuan and the action in the local stock market. Stabilization in the yuan on Monday helped U.S. equities close mixed, despite a sharp decline in mainland Chinese stocks and a plunge in oil prices.
Politics
Obama's last State of the Union to set final goals, promote legacy (Reuters)
President Barack Obama will present an agenda for his final year in office and beyond on Tuesday in his last State of the Union address, aimed at generating support for a Pacific trade pact, tighter gun laws and closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Scheduled for 9 p.m. (0200 GMT on Wednesday), the speech to a joint session of Congress will be one of Obama's few remaining chances to capture and hold the attention of millions of Americans before he is eclipsed by his would-be successors.
Bernie Sanders' Plan to Fight Mass Incarceration Doesn't Add Up (Mother Jones)
The Sanders campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an explanation, but the short answer is that the Democratic candidate couldn't realistically fulfill his promise. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, about 2.2 million Americans were locked up as of the end of 2013. Of those, only 215,000 inmates (9.6 percent) were in federal prisons. The rest were in state and local facilities. So even if President Sanders abolished federal prisons altogether, the United States would still have more prisoners than any other country by a pretty large margin. China, which is number two in the world, has 1.7 million prisoners.
Technology
Apple is testing multiple user accounts on iPads (Quartz)
Apple is testing a new feature that allows students to log into classroom iPads with their account profiles.
Multiuser support has long been available on Apple’s computers. With its iOS 9.3 beta release today (Jan. 11), Apple is extending the feature to iPads used in schools starting this fall.
Health and Life Sciences
Kids With Vision-Damaging Cancers May Face Ills Later (Medicine Net Daily)
Some survivors of childhood cancers that affect vision may face increased risk for long-term health and economic problems, two new studies suggest.
Vaginal Birth After C-Section: How Safe Is It? (Science-Based Medicine)
What’s the best route to this happy outcome?
Doctors used to insist “once a C-section, always a C-section.” Today it is standard practice to allow vaginal births after C-section (VBAC) for appropriately selected patients. The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has issued a Practice Bulletin to guide obstetricians in determining which patients are appropriate candidates for VBAC.
Life on the Home Planet
Bombing in Istanbul Tourist Area Leaves at Least 10 Dead (Wall Street Journal)
A powerful explosion hit the heart of Istanbul’s central tourist district on Tuesday, killing at least 10 people and injuring 15 others in what authorities were investigating as a possible suicide bombing.
Police immediately cordoned off the site of the blast in Sultanahmet Square, which is bordered by three destinations popular to foreign tourists: the Blue Mosque, the Ottoman-era Topkapi palace and Hagia Sophia, a 6th-century Byzantine church that is now a museum.
Save The Manatee (Popular Science)
Manatees, also known as sea cows, are gentle, slow-moving herbivores that like to paddle about in shallow, slow-moving rivers, estuaries, saltwater bays, canals, and coastal areas. In the US, they can be spotted anywhere from Texas to Massachusetts, but they are mostly seen in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina in the summer, and Florida in the winter. Elsewhere, they can be found in the shallow waterways of Central America and along the north coast of South America.
