Financial Markets and Economy
China’s Subprime Crisis Is Here (BBG)
Sorry, Kyle Bass, you're a bit late to the game. The debt problem in China has already reached the proportions of the U.S. subprime mortgage debacle. Don't worry, though: Chinese authorities are on the case — discussing reducing the required coverage for bad loans so that banks can keep booking profits and lending.
Hedge Funds Will Pay for You to Own Small-Cap ETFs (Bloomberg)
With many exchange-traded funds already dirt cheap, everyone is waiting for the first free ETF. Turns out, it's already here.
Oil prices seesaw as investors hope Iran will change its mind (Business Insider)
Oil prices see-sawed once again after Iran gave some faint hope that it will join Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar, and Venezuela and freeze oil production at January levels.
China's Consumer Prices Climb in January as Food Costs Rise (Bloomberg)
China's consumer price inflation continued to climb while factory-gate deflation moderated, signalingthat demand is beginning to stabilize.
Fed sharpshooters can’t hit 2% inflation target, much less 4% (Market Watch)
To overshoot or not to overshoot: That is the question confronting the Federal Reserve as the unemployment rate sinks to levels previously associated with full employment.
Pratt & Whitney, VietJet sign $3 billion engine deal (Business Insider)
Engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney has signed a $3.04 billion contract to sell engines to budget airline VietJet Air for Airbus aircraft, the airline said in a statement.
Dollar struggles to make it to ¥114 as oil-price uncertainty remains (Market Watch)
The U.S. dollar was largely unchanged against the yen and the euro in rangebound trade in Asia on Thursday, as investors were reluctant to make major moves despite an improved market mood.
The U.S. currency was at ¥113.95, slightly higher than ¥113.82 late Wednesday in New York.
Investors just went bonkers, so you know it’s time to buy stocks (Market Watch)
When investors get downright flakey, it’s always a sign of a market extreme. And the prevalence of nutty ideas making the rounds nowadays confirms the market is scraping the bottom and it’s time to buy.
Japan Stocks Follow U.S. Shares Higher After Crude Oil Rebounds (Bloomberg)
Japanese stocks advanced, following U.S. equities higher, as a rebound in crude oil buoyed demand for risky assets.
Asia gains as oil bounce supports equities, debt yields higher (Business Insider)
Asian stocks rose on Thursday and safe-haven government bond prices fell as crude oil prices extended gains on hopes that big producers will cap production, improving investors' appetite for riskier assets.
7 things investors should watch for this year (Market Watch)
If January signaled what the stock market is going to be like in 2016, fund investors could face a gut-wrenching year.
Worries about China and the global economy, a surging dollar and oil’s collapse helped send the S&P 500 index down 5.07% in January, the market’s worst performance for that month since the 2009 financial crisis. The poor start came after the index’s six-year winning streak ended in 2015. What’s more, stocks may not have seen the lows for this correction yet, money managers caution.
U.S. crude climbs further on Iran support for oil output cap (Business Insider)
U.S. crude futures rose as much as 3 percent in early Asian trade on Thursday after Iran backed plans by Russia and Saudi Arabia to cap crude oil production at January levels, extending steep gains in the previous session.
This is how to stay in the market when stocks spin out (Market Watch)
If you weren’t so worried about losing money, it might happen to you less often.
That’s because losses, according to a new study, occur when people are so desperate to avoid them that they blunder into them. Once that fear is in the mind, and you adjust your thinking to avoid it, the trouble starts.
Apple’s iPhone sales fall for the first time, says Gartner (Market Watch)
Sales of Apple Inc.’s iPhone dropped for the first time in the fourth quarter last year, losing market share in an arena that is increasingly being taken over by phone makers in developing countries.
In the final quarter of 2015, iPhone sales dropped 4.4%, cutting Apple’s market share to 17.7% from 20.4% in the same quarter of 2014, according to technology research company Gartner.
Politics
Obama Said to Plan Historic Trip to Cuba Next Month (BBG)
President Barack Obama said Thursday that he will travel to Cuba next month in a history-making reset 55 years after the U.S. broke diplomatic ties with the Communist island nation amid the angst of the Cold War.
The Republicans' Scalia Hysteria (The Atlantic)
A half-century ago, the brilliant British comedy troupe Beyond the Fringe produced “The End of the World,” a skit in which a group of cultists gather atop a mountain to greet the Apocalypse, prophesied for that very day. “Now is the end!” they chant. “Perish the world!”
An embarrassed silence follows.
Trump leads Republican field nationally by more than 20 points: poll (Reuters)
Donald Trump has taken a more than 20-point lead over U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in the Republican race for the presidential nomination, bolstering his position ahead of the party's primary in South Carolina on Saturday, according to a national Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Among Republicans, Trump, a billionaire businessman, drew 40 percent support in the poll conducted from Saturday to Wednesday, compared with 17 percent for Cruz, 11 percent for U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 10 percent for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and 8 percent for former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
Technology
Fuel cells powering inner-city vehicles (Phys)
Inner-city deliveries in Austria may soon be powered by pollution-free fuel cell technology that is also being explored by ESA for satellites and robotic missions to Mars.
This Insanely Detailed Robotic Hand Works Just Like the Real Thing (Gizmodo)
Robots are becoming more dextrous than ever. This incredibly detailed robotic hand is one of the most accurate mechanical devices modelled on the human body that we’ve ever seen—because it simply swaps bones and tissue for exact mechanical replicas.
Health and Life Sciences
How Meditation Changes the Brain and Body (NY Times)
The benefits of mindfulness meditation, increasingly popular in recent years, are supposed to be many: reduced stress and risk for various diseases, improved well-being, a rewired brain. But the experimental bases to support these claims have been few. Supporters of the practice have relied on very small samples of unrepresentative subjects, like isolated Buddhist monks who spend hours meditating every day, or on studies that generally were not randomized and did not include placebocontrol groups.
Cholesterol in Eggs May Not Hurt Heart Health: Study (Medicine Net Daily)
The once-maligned egg may not be a heartbreaker after all, new research suggests.
Finnish say that even carriers of a gene — called APOE4 — that increases sensitivity to dietary cholesterol don't seem to have anything to fear when it comes to the impact of eggs, or any other dietary cholesterol, on heart health.
Life on the Home Planet
Australia town consumed by 'hairy panic' (BBC)
A fast-growing tumbleweed called "hairy panic" is clogging up homes in a small Australian town.
Extremely dry conditions mean the weeds pile up each day outside a row of homes at Wangaratta, in Victoria's northeast.
Australia says China 'challenged' South China Sea missile report (Reuters)
China has "challenged" reports that it deployed advanced surface-to-air missiles to a disputed island in the South China Sea, but any militarization would be a concern, Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Thursday.
