Financial Markets and Economy
In a Bad Neighborhood, the Czech Republic Becomes Investor Haven (Bloomberg)
The Czech president this week quipped that he might settle his differences with the prime minister with a Kalashnikov. The countrys finance minister is a billionaire who sees no conflict of interest in controlling a chemical and media empire.
British oil and commodities stocks are jumping (Business Insider)
Britain's biggest oil and commodities stocks are jumping in the first two hours of trading on Thursday, after the UK government announced a major support deal for the sector and a major resources group said it is not going to stop digging no matter how bad the collapse in prices are.
Platinum producer Anglo American's shares are up nearly 11% after production climbed by 5% in 2015. That's despite platinum prices hitting a 7-year low at the end of last year.
U.S. stocks set for upbeat day as oil rallies, tech shares jump (Market Watch)
U.S. stock futures logged gains ahead of the open on Thursday, propelled higher by optimism over a stabilization in oil prices and rallies for some of the tech majors.
Investors were also waiting for a trio of economic data, including the closely watched durable-goods orders and weekly jobless claims.
Global Stocks Mostly Steady as Fed Keeps Options Open (Wall Street Journal)
Global stocks were mostly steady Thursday as investors digested the Federal Reserve’s latest stance on interest rates.
The Stoxx Europe 600 flittered between small gains and losses in morning trade after the U.S. central bank kept a March interest-rate increase on the table but signaled concerns about global turbulence.
Anglo American Says Fourth-Quarter Copper Production Rises 23% (Bloomberg)
Anglo American Plc said copper production increased 23 percent in the fourth quarter, while it also mined more nickel than a year earlier.
Fiat Chrysler shares fall on concerns over revised business plan (Business Insider)
Shares in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles fell more than 2 percent in early trade on Thursday as investors raised concerns about the carmaker's updated business plan to 2018, which pins its future on North America and sales of utility vehicles.
FCA raised the financial targets of its turnaround plan following a better-than-expected performance in North America and Europe and strong sales of Jeeps.
U.K. Economic Growth Moving Through the Gears Into 2016: Chart (Bloomberg)
The pound gained versus the euro on Thursday before a report that analysts say will show the U.K. economy expanded in the final quarter of last year.
It’s ‘impossible to deny Facebook’s momentum’: analyst (Market Watch)
When it comes to Facebook Inc. and its blowout results, one early verdict is in: Get on board or get out of the way.
“With a premium valuation for Facebook and a lack of a ‘wall of worry’ to climb, we remain Sector Weight, but it is impossible to deny Facebook’s momentum,” wrote Pacific Crest analysts Evan Wilson and Tyler Parker.
Almost a quarter of Unilever's $8 billion ad budget is now spent on digital (Business Insider)
Almost a quarter (24%) of Unilever's global ad budget goes towards digital media, the company's chief marketing and communications officer Keith Weed told Business Insider.
Repsol Books $3.2 Billion Charge as Provision for Oil Drop (Bloomberg)
Repsol SA, Spain’s largest oil company, said it will book an impairment charge of about 2.9 billion euros ($3.2 billion) for 2015 as a provision after crude prices collapsed.
The gold market just lost its best measure of Chinese demand (Market Watch)
The Shanghai Gold Exchange has stopped publishing its weekly gold withdrawal figures, forcing the market to lose its “best measure of Chinese wholesale demand,” according to Koos Jansen, precious-metals analyst and blogger for Singapore-based bullion dealer BullionStar.
Jansen, well known for his analyses on the Chinese gold market, pointed out in a blog Jan. 26, that the SGE’s Chinese Market Data Weekly Reports on the first two trading weeks of this year don’t list gold vault withdrawal figures. He said the SGE told him those figures will no longer be published.
Investor pressures J&J to consider split up: sources (Busines Insider)
Artisan Partners, a major shareholder in Johnson & Johnson, has urged several activists to pressure the consumer products giant to consider major changes that include a potential split, according to sources and documents. Artisan has asked Johnson & Johnson’s management to consider separating its three divisions – consumer products, pharmaceuticals and medical devices – into standalone companies in hopes of unlocking up to $90 billion in enterprise value, said sources familiar with the matter.
Here's What China Is Doing to Tighten Noose on Capital Flows (Bloomberg)
China is increasingly resorting to administrative measures to curb capital outflowsand calls are mounting for further restrictions as the defense of the yuan burns through the nations foreign-exchange reserves.
These U.S. dollar-based stocks and ETFs can buck choppy markets (Market Watch)
Investors are rightly paying attention to oil prices, China, and U.S. stocks. But they’ve largely overlooked the strong U.S. dollar and what it can and will do for their portfolios this year.
America’s currency is stronger and more attractive than it has been in more than a decade. The proof is in the U.S. Dollar Index — which measures the greenback vs. a basket of other major currencies including the euro and Japanese yen — is bumping up against yet another 52-week high, after appreciating another 5% or so in the last year.
Samsung C&T books $2.15 billion potential losses in 2015 results (Busines Insider)
Samsung C&T Corp said on Thursday it booked 2.6 trillion won (1.50 billion pounds) in potential losses in its 2015 earnings results, from projects such as its construction work in Australia's Roy Hill iron ore mine.
Samsung Group's de facto holding company said it booked about 850 billion won in estimated losses and contingent liabilities for the Roy Hill project.
Equity Fund Promises Gone Wrong Leave TDC Owners Counting Losses (Bloomberg)
When TDC A/S was sold by a group of private equity funds five years ago, they marketed the Danish phone company as a yield stock that acted like a bond.
Economics Might Be Very Wrong About Growth (Bloomberg View)
Has the world entered a period in which economies simply won’t grow at the rate they once did? Radical as the thought may seem, it might not be radical enough.
A few years ago, the economist Larry Summers stirred much debate when he suggested that the anemic growth of recent years might not be just a temporary affliction, and might have little to do with the 2008 financial crisis. Instead, he surmised, it could reflect secular stagnation — a new normal of low consumption and lagging growth stemming from accumulated household debts and rising inequality, among other factors. In different terms, considering the impacts of technological innovations, economist Robert Gordon has been arguing for much the same conclusion.
Deutsche Bank Investment Bank Has Pretax Loss on Revenue Slump (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG reported a loss at its investment bank, Europes largest, in the fourth quarter as revenue from each of its businesses fell.
Green Energy Boom Helps Chile Contain Surging Power Prices (Bloomberg)
Chile’s solar industry is proving a win win. Not only has it cut emissions of the global warming gas carbon dioxide, but it has also helped slash some of the highest electricity costs in Latin America. Those benefits have come at no expense to the government, which refused to offer any of the subsidies that drained resources in countries such as Spain and Japan. Looking ahead, the industry could even turn into a major export earner.
The Shipping News Says the World Economy Is Toast (Bloomberg View)
Trucks, planes and boats paint a dismal picture, again.
Chinese Stocks Head for Longest Losing Streak in Three Weeks (Bloomberg)
Chinese stocks fell for a third day as concern slumping commodity prices and a weakening economy will reduce corporate profits overshadowed the biggest cash injection into the financial markets in three years.
Politics
With No Détente, Donald Trump’s Feud With Fox Takes Center Stage (NY Times)
For months, Donald J. Trump had kept up a relentless and sometimes personal barrage against the Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, in retaliation for the tough — and, he said, unfair — questioning she submitted him to in the first Republican debate last summer. And for months, Fox News and Ms. Kelly had avoided taking the bait, intent on sticking to Ms. Kelly’s vow to avoid becoming part of the story.
Presidential election comes down to: ‘Are you better off now than you were last year?’ (Market Watch)
Every presidential election cycle brings out countless analysts, both expert and amateur. They examine the nuances of speeches, the details of policy positions, the images in advertising. No doubt these and other factors have a bearing on elections outcomes.
Technology
These Gecko Gloves Can (Kind of) Turn You Into Spider-Man (Gizmodo)
If you were upset at the news that Spider-Man is an impossible dream, don’t despair. A set of gecko gloves created by a Stanford researcher make the ability possible once more.
Earlier this month, University of Cambridge zoologist David Labonte pointed out that geckos are the largest animals able to maneuver along vertical walls because of scaling limitations as animal body size increases. That may be the case for purely biological creatures, but humans have a technology card to play—and Elliot Hawkes from Stanford just played it.
Harvard is getting computers to think like humans (Market Watch)
Modern computers are powerful data-processing machines, but they still need a tremendous amount of information to accomplish certain feats of recognition. Researchers at Harvard University are working hard to rectify this situation.
Health and Life Sciences
Seniors Need to Take Extra Care in the Cold (Medicine Net Daily)
Seniors are especially vulnerable to hypothermia during cold weather because their body's response to the cold can be affected by age, medication or medical condition.
Signs of hypothermia — a core body temperature below 95 degrees Fahrenheit — include slowed or slurred speech, confusion or sleepiness, shivering or stiffness in the arms and legs, slow reactions or poor control over body movements and a weak pulse, according to the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA).
Are fitbands the future of genetic research? (BBC)
Thanks to advances in DNA sequencing technology, researchers around the world are now faced with a deluge of genetic data gathered from hundreds of thousands of people.
Despite the headlines claiming to have found "genes for" everything from alcoholism to Alzheimer's disease, we actually know relatively little about how the strings of DNA letters that make up our genome influence our bodies and brains, either in sickness or in health.
Life on the Home Planet
In the bleak winter – Syrian refugees in Sulaymaniyah, N Iraq (The Huffington Post)
UNHCR together with other humanitarian and development agencies in Iraq launched an appeal this week (26/1) seeking $298m to assist refugees in the country and reinforce their resilience for the coming year.
There are an estimated 250,000 Syrian refugees living in Iraq – the vast majority staying in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I). Some 94,500 refugees live in ten camps directly supported by UNHCR; but the majority live outside camps and can face great hardship during winter. Caroline Gluck has met some families in Sulaymaniyah province, KR-I, where temperatures this week dropped to below zero, who have benefitted from extra winter help from UNHCR, including heating and cash assistance.
