Financial Markets and Economy
Pound Drops to Lowest Since 1985 as Angst Builds Over Brexit (Bloomberg)
The pound tumbled to its lowest level in three decades amid mounting concern the U.K. is heading for a so-called hard Brexit that would restrict access to the European Union’s single market.
Fed’s Lacker wants central bank to be ‘preemptive’ like 1994 (Market Watch)
The Federal Reserve should adopt a strategy of raising interest rates before inflation moves higher like it did in 1994, said Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker on Tuesday.
The dollar is bulking up (Business Insider)
The US dollar index is up 0.5% at 96.21 as of 7:35 a.m. ET, around a two-month high.
The greenback's appreciation follows comments by Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester, who said: "We have to be a little pre-emptive in making sure that we're moving the interest rate up so that we can keep the expansion sustained."
Negative-Yielding Bonds Jump to Almost $12 Trillion (Bloomberg)
The unprecedented worldwide surge in the market for bonds that are certain to lose money if held to maturity regained strength last month.
Negative-Yielding Bonds Jump to Almost $12 Trillion (Bloomberg)
The unprecedented worldwide surge in the market for bonds that are certain to lose money if held to maturity regained strength last month.
500 Startups to Double Down on Southeast Asia With Second Fund (Bloomberg)
500 Startups, the venture firm that successfully backed ride-hailing startup Grab, is doubling down with a second fund focused on Southeast Asia.
Through the $50 million Durian II fund, Managing Partner Khailee Ng plans to invest in 200 seed-stage companies. Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd., the country’s largest venture capital firm, anchored the new fund, just as it did when the first debuted in June 2014.
Here's a super-quick guide to what traders are talking about right now (Business Insider)
Dave Lutz, head of Exchange Traded Funds at JonesTrading, has a brief overview of what traders are talking about before the US market open on Tuesday.
Austria Set to Close Heta Chapter as Creditors on Track for Deal (Bloomberg)
Austria may soon be able to close the book over its worst postwar bank failure.
Creditors of bad bank Heta Asset Resolution AG have accepted a discounted offer for their bonds in sufficient numbers for the deal to go ahead before a deadline expires this week, Finance Minister Hans Joerg Schelling told journalists on Tuesday.
Emerging Equity Rally Wins Converts as Bearish Bets Slide: Chart (Bloomberg)
Months of skepticism on the sustainability of a rally in emerging-market stocks is waning, if short sellers are any guide.
ECB Must Weigh Impact of Low Rates on Bank Profits, Knot Says (Bloomberg)
The European Central Bank must consider the impact of negative interest rates on the profitability of the region’s banking system, Governing Council member Klaas Knot said.
Tracking Speculative Sentiment in the Market (Traderfeed)
I recently posted on the importance of identifying who is in the market as a way of gauging how the market is likely to move, tracking the behavior of large institutional participants. A different way of assessing market participation is by looking at speculative sentiment in the market.
Companies
Astra Cuts $3.5 Billion Target for Brilinta After Trial Setback (Bloomberg)
AstraZeneca Plc’s ambitions for its heart pill Brilinta have been thwarted after the medicine didn’t beat an older blood-thinner in a key study, the second such failure this year.
The owner of Olive Garden reported dynamite earnings and the stock is leaping (Business Insider)
Darden Restaurants, the owner of various restaurant chains such as Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, reported higher than expected earnings and guidance for their first fiscal quarter of 2017 on Tuesday.
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Buys Back U.K. Business From PE Firm (Bloomberg)
Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc. agreed to buy the brand’s U.K. business from its private-equity owner, consolidating ownership on both sides of the Atlantic.
Ericsson Slashes 3,000 Jobs in Sweden (The Wall Street Journal)
STOCKHOLM—Ericsson AB plans to lay off nearly 20% of its home-country workforce as the Swedish maker of telecom-network equipment races to cut costs in the face of intensifying competition from Chinese rivals and weak demand for its specialty wireless products.
Salesforce starts using its $750 million Quip deal to steal Microsoft Office users (Business Insider)
Salesforce just rolled out new updates that tightly integrate Quip, the work collaboration app it bought for $750 million, with its core product offerings.
Implication of sabotage adds intrigue to SpaceX investigation (The Washington Post)
The long-running feud between Elon Musk’s space company and its fierce competitor United Launch Alliance took a bizarre twist this month when a SpaceX employee visited its facilities at Cape Canaveral, Fla., and asked for access to the roof of one of ULA’s buildings.
Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited Is a Victim of Its Success in Japan (The Wall Street Journal)
TOKYO— Amazon.com Inc.’s all-you-can-read subscription service in Japan was so successful that it had to be sharply scaled back within weeks of its introduction.
That is the seemingly paradoxical explanation being offered by Japanese publishers after a clash broke out this week over Amazon’s decision to remove more than 1,500 titles from the service.
PayPal Promotes Braintree, Venmo Executive to Operating Chief (The Wall Street Journal)
PayPal Holdings Inc. said it promoted William J. Ready, whose most recent roles have included heading the online-commerce company’s Braintree unit and peer-to-peer payments app Venmo, to chief operating officer.
Politics
VP candidates to debate in Virginia town as campaigns court rural vote (Reuters)
Jay Fortner, a truck driver who hauls construction material around Virginia, is putting his faith in Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to revive rural America, including the small town of Farmville where he lives.
Donald Trump Tax Records Show He Could Have Avoided Taxes for Nearly Two Decades, The Times Found (NY Times)
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
In the vice-presidential debate, Mike Pence has a problem: Donald Trump (The Guardian)
If you viewed the presidential debate as a bloody mixed martial arts cage match, the vice-presidential debate is more likely to be akin to a game of patty cakes.
Young Adults Prefer Clinton On Income Gap, Divide On Jobs (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Young adults are more likely to trust Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump on handling wages, income inequality and personal finances, but they're divided on which candidate would better handle job creation, a new GenForward poll shows.
Technology
Tesla's Billion Dollar Problem: Who Will Sell and Service All Those Cars? (Forbes)
Californian carmaker Tesla famously has plans for producing 500,000 of its electric cars by 2018, and a million of them two years later. This is a tall order for a company that made just 25,185 units in the third quarter of 2016, and which has an eye on making some 80,000 for the year.
Uber’s self-driving cars are already getting into scrapes on the streets of Pittsburgh (Quartz)
Uber driver Nathan Stachelek was pulled off to the side of the road when he saw the self-driving car turn the wrong way.
It was the night of Sept. 26 and the car he had spotted, one of the autonomous Ford Fusions that Uber is testing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was heading through the city’s Oakland neighborhood, just steps from the center of campus for the University of Pittsburgh.
'Google Magic' top feature of Pixel phone, per Verizon leak (CNet)
With hours to go until Google announces its newest products, wireless company Verizon has accidentally leaked details of the new Pixel phones, which include something called "Google Magic."
What (we think) we know about Google’s new Pixel phones — and why you should care (The Washington Post)
Google is expected to announce two new phones Tuesday, but information seemingly posted early by a British retailer may have given us all a sneak peek.
Panasonic's new prototype TV can hide in plain sight (Engadget)
Panasonic showed off an early transparent TV before, but the company has now improved the image quality to the extent that the idea of a TV built into your furniture's glass panes is not only possible — it's right here. The OLED screen is made of a fine mesh, embedded into the glass sliding door.
You Can Program 3D-Printed Materials With Exact Shock Absorbent Qualities (Digital Trends)
These days, 3D printing lets us print objects in a growing number of different materials. One problem with these materials, however, is they contain the same properties throughout. An object created from silicone, for example, will possess the same properties throughout its body — with the only control the designer has being to vary the thickness of different elements.
Health and Biotech
Physics Nobel Awarded for Breakthroughs in Exotic States of Matter (Scientific Alert)
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 was split, with one half going to David J. Thouless at the University of Washington, and the other half going to F. Duncan M. Haldane at Princeton University and J. Michael Kosterlitz at Brown University.
Could A Chemical Found In Marijuana Be A Treatment For Alzheimer's Disease? (Popular Science)
Sometimes researchers come across a discovery purely by accident. They develop a hypothesis, perform a number of experiments and expect to see a series of results. However, at times, surprises happen within the petri plate or culture dish.
Life on the Home Planet
Philippine-U.S. war games underway as doubts hang over alliance (Reuters)
The Philippines and the United States launched annual joint military exercises on Tuesday, barely a week after the new president in Manila said they would be the last.
Why is Haiti vulnerable to natural hazards and disasters? (The Guardian)
Haiti, which is feeling the force of Hurricane Matthew, with winds of 145mph and 3ft of rain, is all too accustomed to natural hazards and disasters.
The Caribbean country is regularly battered by tropical storms and floods and has also been struck by powerful earthquakes.
Our local region of the Milky Way is 4 times bigger than we thought (Science Alert)
Astronomers have discovered that our spiral region of the Milky Way – called the Local Arm – is approximately four times larger than previously estimated.
Indonesia air force holds its largest military exercise in South China Sea (Reuters)
Indonesia's air force is holding its largest military exercise this week, near some of its islands in the South China Sea, in a show of sovereignty over the gas-rich area on the fringe of territory claimed by China, officials said on Tuesday.
Refugees stuck in Serbia begin marching towards Hungarian border (The Guardian)
Hundreds of refugees stranded in Serbia have begun walking from Belgrade towards the border with Hungary to protest against its closure for most people trying to reach the European Union.
NASA releases terrifying footage of Hurricane Matthew from space (Science Alert)
NASA has just released footage of Hurricane Matthew captured from the International Space Station, and it puts into perspective just how intense this Category 4 storm really is.
