Financial Markets and Economy
Zero's Add Up to Almost $8 Trillion of Pain (Bloomberg)
Bond markets aren't supposed to work this way.
There's just been a 'broad-based slowdown of global economic growth' (Business Insider)
Growth across the global services sector slowed to a crawl last month, casting renewed doubt on the prospects for a global economic recovery in 2016.
Saudi's OPEC Love-In Has Limits (Bloomberg)
Why is Saudi Arabia even prepared to discuss supply restraint?
It doesn't matter what the Fed does now — they shot themselves in the foot 3 years ago (Business Insider)
When will the Federal Reserve raise rates next?
To Eric Stein, codirector of global fixed income at Eaton Vance and manager of two of the firm's fixed-income funds worth $4.4 billion, the answer to this question doesn't even matter: The Fed already fell behind three years ago.
We'll Find Out Soon If Higher Minimum Wages Kill Jobs (Bloomberg View)
Today's jobs report confirms much of what we already know: Workers are finding employment at a steady but unspectacular rate, private-sector job creation is good but not great, hours worked are ever so slowly ticking up and wage increases are pretty much nonexistent.
China Growth Addiction Leaves Deleveraging, Reform in Back Seat (Bloomberg)
Rule No.1 in China’s blueprint for the next five years: "give top priority to development."
That’s the word from Premier Li Keqiang’s work report delivered Saturday at the start of the annual National People’s Congress in Beijing. Li acknowledged there would be some difficult battles ahead as he outlined plans to clean up the environment, boost innovation, further urbanize and cut excess capacity in industries like coal and steel. Yet the firmest target remains on the one thing he has the least control over — the nation’s economic growth rate.
Smith & Wesson just reported a blockbuster quarter and says demand for guns is through the roof (Business Insider)
Smith & Wesson just reported a very strong third quarter.
The gunmaker beat analysts' expectations for revenues and profits, as firearm sales were more than even the company had anticipated.
Short Selling (Bloomberg View)
Buy low, sell high and you’re rich and everybody’s happy. Sell high, buy low and you may be rich but odds are that quite a few people are anything but pleased. That’s the short seller’s predicament, and why shorts, as they’re known, get threatened with everything from temporary restrictions to serious jail time, particularly during times of stock market turmoil. Shorts say they’re keeping markets and companies honest. Critics say their practices can blur into market manipulation, a charge that has some regulators taking note.
China Eases Fiscal Stance to Meet Slower 2016 Growth Target (Bloomberg)
China unveiled a record fiscal deficit and pledged to accelerate the restructuring of its bloated state-owned industries while still setting a weaker growth target for this year.
Millions of job losses have China freaking out for a reason that would never occur to anyone in America (Business Insider)
The Chinese government will lay off 5 million to 6 million workers over the next few years in an effort to free up cash at massive, indebted companies in the country. Its coal and steel sectors alone will fire 1.8 million people.
Naturally, this has people within the country worried.
No, Bill Ackman, Valeant's Problems Aren't Just PR (Bloomberg)
Are federal probes bad news? Depends on who's being probed.
What Does the Election Mean for Financial Markets? (Dash of Insight)
Last week’s economic calendar was the biggest of the year and this week’s is the lightest. In the absence of important economic news and earnings, where will financial media turn to fill that space and time? The Presidential election campaign is providing a lot of zest as well as a little substance.
'China is having a heart transplant' (Business Insider)
Everyone is trying to make sense of what's happening in China's economy right now. The billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, is no different.
Here's how he put it in an interview with Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker on Thursday morning.
Politics
American Demagogue? (The New Yorker)
Nearly three decades ago, Howard Kaminsky, of Random House, called on the real-estate developer and self-marketing master Donald Trump at his office on Fifth Avenue. Kaminsky brought along a cover design for “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” its author’s literary début. Trump seemed reasonably happy. Just one thing, he said. “Please make my name much bigger.”
Plotting Bernie Sanders’ Path Forward and Donald Trump’s Downfall (Bloomberg)
Conventional wisdom in Washington may hold that the 2016 presidential race will pit Donald Trump against Hillary Clinton in the general election, but two seasoned political veterans with an interest in the matter tell Bloomberg’s Masters in Politics podcast, not so fast.
Courting Business (The New Yorker)
In Antonin Scalia’s thirty years on the Supreme Court, his name became a byword for social conservatism. And when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that the Senate would refuse to consider any replacement President Obama nominates it was natural that opponents of same-sex marriage and abortion were relieved. Yet Scalia’s death will have only a limited impact on the culture wars, because regarding many social issues he was already in the minority on the Court. But there is one area where the question of his replacement has huge consequences: business. As a member of the Court’s conservative majority, Scalia played a key role in moving American law in a more corporate-friendly direction. Now that majority is gone, and a huge amount rides on what happens next.
Megyn Kelly confronts Donald Trump with brutal highlight reel of past statements (Business Insider)
At the Fox News Republican presidential debate Thursday night, moderator Megyn Kelly played a brutal highlight reel of Donald Trump's contradictory statements on foreign policy.
"Mr. Trump, one of the things people love about you is they believe you tell it like it is," Kelly told Trump, the GOP frontrunner. "But time and time again in this campaign, you have actually told the voters one thing, only to reverse yourself in weeks or sometimes days."
Technology
China Tries Its Hand at Pre-Crime (Bloomberg)
China’s effort to flush out threats to stability is expanding into an area that used to exist only in dystopian sci-fi: pre-crime. The Communist Party has directed one of the country’s largest state-run defense contractors, China Electronics Technology Group, to develop software to collate data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and other behavior of ordinary citizens to predict terrorist acts before they occur. “It’s very crucial to examine the cause after an act of terror,” Wu Manqing, the chief engineer for the military contractor, told reporters at a conference in December. “But what is more important is to predict the upcoming activities.”
There is a 'game changer' technology on Wall Street and people keep confusing it with bitcoin (Business Insider)
Wall Street banks are buzzing about blockchain.
Goldman Sachs says the technology "has the potential to redefine transactions" and can change "everything."
Health and Life Sciences
‘Bromances’ may help guys recover from a bad day (Futurity)
Male bonding may be a great way for guys to lower stress levels after a bad day, researchers say.
When they studied male rats housed in the same cage, they found that mild stress can actually make male rats more social and cooperative than they are in an unstressed environment.
Life on the Home Planet
Europe’s Refugee Crisis (Bloomberg View)
Austria, Germany, Sweden and other countries have temporarily reintroduced some border controls to cope with a surge of refugees that began in the summer of 2015. While the migrant tide streaming through eastern Europe slowed during the winter, the totalnumber of arrivals reached 1.26 million for the year, double the number in 2014. The influx could remain at that level for most of the decade, the OECD warned. Syrians fleeing a five-year civil war made up 29 percent of the total, joined by Iraqis and Afghans who were also escaping violence. Most are smuggled by boat onto the Greek islands from Turkey, which now hosts more refugees than any other country.
Libya’s Breakdown (Bloomberg View)
The dictator’s unseemly end should have been a warning. The 42-year rule of Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi concluded with his capture and beating by an angry mob before he was killed. The 2011 uprising that led to his ouster unleashed hopes that the oil-rich country he’d turned into an international pariah would rebuild and lure investment. Instead battles between rival militias morphed into fighting between dueling governments. Libya has descended into chaos. The turmoil has devastated the country’s oil exports and helped fuel Europe’s refugee crisis, with Libyans fleeing and other asylum-seekers streaming through. The havoc also has allowed militant groups such as Islamic State to take root, raising the possibility that Libya after Qaddafi may turn out to be better equipped to export extremists than oil.
