Financial Markets and Economy
Iron Ore's Rally Stalls as Goldman to Citigroup Forecast Retreat (Bloomberg)
Iron ore’s rally stalled on Tuesday after a record 19 percent advance a day earlier as banks from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Citigroup Inc. together with some of the largest miners said that the surge wasn’t likely to endure.
Oil is crashing again (Business Insider)
Oil prices are crashing again after a short-lived spike on Monday.
Banking Faces an Existential Crisis (Bloomberg View)
Who would choose to be a banker these days? Your colleagues are disappearing at an alarming rate as your business shrinks. The regulators don't want you doing anything exciting. The public despises you.
Dow futures slide almost 100 points as Chinese exports plunge, oil pulls back (Market Watch)
Wall Street was poised for firm losses on Tuesday, as a steeper-than-expected plunge in Chinese exports and sliding oil prices punched the air out of a five-session rally.
Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped 90 points, or 0.5%, to 16,957, while those for the S&P 500 index lost 12.10 points, or 0.6%, to 1,987.
Shale Gas Proves More Resilient Than U.S. Government Expected (Bloomberg)
Americas energy explorers have become so good at pulling natural gas out of the ground that government forecasters are having a hard time figuring out how much theyre producing.
The Most Horrendous Lie on Wall Street (Fortune)
There’s a horrendous lie being told by the brokerage industry and its army of lobbying groups. It goes something like this:
“Middle-class Americans are not worth serving if we can’t charge them egregious fees and sell them products that they do not need.”
One chart shows how catastrophic Brexit could be for the European economy (Business Insider)
Brexit — the nickname given to Britain's potential exit from the European Union — is one of the most contentioius issues in the UK, with arguments from both 'In' and 'Out' camps dominating the news in recent weeks.
China's Drug-Price Cuts Are Hitting Big Pharma Where It Hurts (Bloomberg)
The world’s largest pharmaceutical companies are facing a roadblock in China as a state-led campaign to slash drug prices has triggered a slowdown in sales growth.
Give stockholders better tools to be socially responsible investors (Market Watch)
Investments have always had more than just financial impact. Social and environmental impacts also matter.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is firing traders (Business Insider)
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is cutting jobs in its global banking and markets business on Tuesday.
U.S. Investment Banks Drive Revenue Share to New High: Chart (Bloomberg)
U.S. banks have benefited from their European rivals’ decisions to shrink, picking up share in businesses from advising on mergers and underwriting stock sales to trading commodities and bonds.
U.S. Restricts Sales to ZTE, Saying It Breached Sanctions (NY Times)
ZTE is one of China’s few truly international electronics firms. Yet American companies will now need special permission to sell to it.
The company, which makes smartphones, was found to have violated American sanctions against Iran by selling United States-made goods to the country, according to a Commerce Department statement on Monday. As a result, ZTE will be blocked from buying any technology from American companies without a special license.
The global negative interest rate experiment is fantastic news for gold (Business Insider)
The longer the world's central banks continue experiment with negative interest rates, the better for gold, according to Britain's biggest bank HSBC.
U.S. companies have enough liquidity for next 12 months, but face risk after that (Market Watch)
U.S. and Canadian companies outside of the financial sector have sufficient liquidity to cover maturing debt, capital spending and dividends for the next 12 months, but are facing a maturity cliff after 2017 that poses some risk, according to Moody’s.
Wall St. Is Down in Early Trading (NY Times)
United States markets were lower in early trading on Tuesday, led by declines in materials and energy companies.
Wall Street's nightmare stock is going nuts on the best news it could have possibly had (Business Insider)
One of the most controversial deals of the past year has been terminated, and the solar firms SunEdison and Vivint will not get together.
Here’s why stocks won’t make you as much money over the next 7 years (Market Watch)
There’s one thing we know for sure as we celebrate the 7th anniversary of the beginning of the bull market on March 9, 2009: There’s no way the stock market over the next seven years will produce a return anywhere as good as the last seven.
What’s the Solution to Middle-Class Stagnation? (The Atlantic)
A&Q is a special series that inverts the classic Q&A, taking some of the most frequently posed solutions to pressing matters of policy and exploring their complexity.
One of the underlying themes of the tumultuous presidential election is that middle-class Americans feel like they’re stuck in a rut.
Commodity traders in barter deals with Iran post-sanction: sources (Business Insider)
Global oil traders have entered into rare barter deals with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), supplying Iran with much-needed gasoline in exchange for high-quality fuel oil, after most economic sanctions against Tehran were lifted in January.
Traders, not builders, are boosting the steel price (Business Insider)
Chinese steel prices are surging back from lows but it has little to do with construction demand for the real thing.
Glencore's CEO took home $1.5 million last year despite a 69% fall in profits (Business Insider)
2015 was a tough year to be at the helm of Glencore — but at least the CEO was well paid for his troubles.
Are Treasury Shorts About To Scream: 10s, 30s Plunge In Repo, "Fails" Galore (Zero Hedge)
Over the past week we have been following a disturbing development in the US Treasury market: while the repo rate on the 10Y has been sliding deep into negative territory for a while, on Friday it finally hit the "fails charge" of -3.00%, suggesting there is a massive shortage of Treasury paper as a result of wholesale shorting by various market participants.
Old Skool Mean Reversion (The Reformed Broker)
Did crude bottom? Is there a massive short squeeze underway? Yes and yes? Maybe and yes? I don’t know, but whatever is going on, it sure feels nice. Running a diversified portfolio means always and never having to say you’re sorry.
Carney's `Brexit' Stance Under Fire as BOE Accused of Bias (Bloomberg)
Mark Carney was accused of jeopardizing the Bank of England’s credibility in the European Union debate as he faced a fiery line of questioning from U.K. legislators.
Daniel Yergin talks to James Suowieki about the oil Industry (The NewYorker)
Conventional wisdom says that cheap oil helps stimulate the economy. But Daniel Yergin, who won the Pulitzer for his history of the oil industry, “The Prize,” tells The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki that the United States’ relationship to oil has grown much more complicated. As domestic production has risen with the advent of shale oil, the U.S. is now a major producer, as well as a major consumer, and low prices run both ways.
The Bank of Japan probably won't do anything until July (Business Insider)
On January 28, the Bank of Japan shocked the global markets by introducing negative interest rates. In a 5-to-4 vote, BOJ members agreed to charge financial institutions an interest rate of -0.1% for excess reserves parked at the bank.
German Industrial Production Surges by Most Since 2009 (Bloomberg)
German industrial production jumped by the most in more than six years in January, in a sign that strong domestic demand may be helping to underpin output even as external trade cools.
Politics
The Secret World of Gamblers Betting Millions on the 2016 Election (The Daily Beast)
“This is, by far, the most interesting work I’ve done in years,” says John Aristotle Phillips, who once had the FBI come and take his blueprints for a nuclear bomb.
The Revenge of the Lower Classes and the Rise of American Fascism (Truth Dig)
As Arendt noted, the fascist and communist movements in Europe in the 1930s “… recruited their members from this mass of apparently indifferent people whom all other parties had given up as too apathetic or too stupid for their attention. The result was that the majority of their membership consisted of people who had never before appeared on the political scene.
16 Negative Stories About Bernie Sanders Published in Just 16 Hours (Truth Dig)
According to the progressive media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Washington Post has reached what the group says “has to be some kind of record” by posting an onslaught of 16 articles attacking the Vermont senator—all in less than a single day.
What Republicans' 'Demographic Death Spiral' Looks Like (Bloomberg View)
In a June 2008 Wall Street Journal/NBC poll of Hispanic voters, 49 percent of them viewed Republican nominee-to-be John McCain positively, while 47 percent had a negative impression. In November of that year, Barack Obama won the Hispanic vote over McCain by 67 percent to 31.
Technology
Tech Sector Isn't As Pricey As You May Think (Forbes)
You might be surprised to learn that based on forward P/E ratio, the technology sector is cheapest among consumer staples, telecommunication services and health care.
Is China Starting Its Own Tech Bubble? (Vanity Fair)
Wealthy Chinese investors are in a bind. All the usual, typically safe investment vehicles—commodities, stocks, even stable real estate—have been anything but usual or safe over the last couple months. The Chinese economy has slowed and inflation has picked up, the yuan has been under pressure, oil has tanked, and gold markets have been rattled. Real-estate markets in previously inviolable zip codes like Manhattan, a longtime sure bet for foreign investors looking to park their money in the stability of multi-million-dollar apartments, have started to sway.
Health and Life Sciences
Booster Shots for Grown-Ups (NY Times)
By your early 20s, there’s a good chance you are due for some boosters, said Dr. Wanda Filer, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians. You may also “need to play catch-up” if you’ve missed any vaccines or failed to complete a series, she said.
People with anxiety may be hard-wired to see world differently (Yahoo! News)
People with anxiety may not be able to distinguish between neutral and threatening stimuli as well as individuals without anxiety, a small study suggests.
Life on the Home Planet
Crippled Fukushima Reactors Are Still a Danger, 5 Years after the Accident (Scientific American)
On March 11, 2011, a giant tsunami from the Pacific Ocean swept over the 10-meter sea wall surrounding six reactors at the Fukushima power plant on Japan’s east coast. The crashing water caused reactor cores to overheatand melt, and subsequent hydrogen explosions damaged three reactor buildings. Radiation spewed in every direction. The country shut down all of its more than 40 reactors, and investigations began into radiation exposure to tens of thousands of nearby residents, as well as to wildlife on land and sea.
Americans Really Don't Like Immigration, New Survey Finds (Bloomberg)
Sixty-one percent of Americans agree that "continued immigration into the country jeopardizes the United States," according to a new poll commissioned by management consulting firm A.T. Kearney in partnership with market researcher NPD Group that revealed pessimism across a wide range of issues.
