Hedge funds are known for making big bets, and there are none bigger than giant short positions. In Goldman Sachs' quarterly "Hedge Fund Trend Monitor," the bank tracked the movements of 841 hedge funds in the first quarter of 2016. Included in the note is the "Very Important Short Position" list, detailing the biggest bets by hedge funds that certain stocks will tank.

GOLDMAN: Hedge funds' biggest shorts - Business Insider

Hedge funds were shunning Apple’s shares. For hedge funds, Apple Inc.’s stock went from gadget-making darling to pariah in the first quarter. Apple shares AAPL, +1.08%  were the most sought after by hedge-fund managers in the fourth quarter of 2015 but morphed into an asset that investors couldn’t sell fast enough in the first three months of 2016, according to a detailed review of holdings of the 50 largest hedge funds by FactSet. The review was based on recent public filings known as 13Fs.

As hedge funds dumped Apple in first quarter, this stock was their biggest buy - MarketWatch

Marijuana legalization does many things. It lets, for instance, people use their drug of choice without fear of arrest, and it eliminates a dangerous black market for pot. But one Colorado city, Aurora, is leveraging its tax revenue from legalization for something else: to combat homelessness.

A Colorado city is using marijuana tax revenue to combat homelessness - Vox

Shell has created a new, separate division called New Energies to invest in renewable and low-carbon power. Europe’s largest oil company’s new green energy arm will explore renewable resources, focusing on wind power over the next decade or so. The decision to make this long-term investment comes soon after experts at Chatham House; a London-based international affairs think tank, released a report stating that international oil companies such as Shell must completely transform their business models or face a “nasty, brutish and short” end over the next decade.

Shell to Invest 1.7B in New Energies Division | Investopedia

As Quora user Joos Meyer explains in response to the question, "What uncomfortable things such as cold showers can improve your life?" pushing your comfort zone is the key to self-improvement. "I think the best methodology is to every day or week set a task or find a situation that makes you slightly uncomfortable. Do that thing. This will incorporate the experience into your model of 'normality' and hence expand your 'comfort zone,'" he writes.

These uncomfortable deeds could change your life - Business Insider

Researchers have come to the conclusion that just six miles a week can make for a healthy lifestyle. They also concluded that excessive running can actually have negative effects on your health.

Running a few miles a week is good for health - Business Insider

Instead of morphing into omnipotent, all-knowing masters of the universe, the human mob might end up jobless and aimless, whiling away our days off our nuts on drugs, with VR headsets strapped to our faces. Welcome to the next revolution. Harari calls it “the rise of the useless class” and ranks it as one of the most dire threats of the 21st century.

AI will create 'useless class' of human, predicts bestselling historian | Technology | The Guardian

Every animal on Earth belongs to one of about 35 groups called "phyla". Some are familiar, but others are profoundly strange. The number of species per phylum is always changing, as more animals are discovered. In 2014 alone, over 1,400 new marine species were discovered, and the largely unexplored deep sea surely holds many more surprises. Also, seemingly separate phyla sometimes turn out to be the same. As a result, this list of phyla is not definitive. But it is our best attempt to sum up the vast diversity of Earth's animal life.

BBC - Earth - There are only 35 kinds of animal and most are really weird

Lezlye Donahue survived Hurricane Katrina. Going on “The Biggest Loser,” she says, was worse than that. “It’s my biggest nightmare,” she says, “and it’s with me to this day.” Following a controversial study that claims to explain why almost all “Biggest Loser” contestants regain massive amounts of weight, numerous ex-”Losers” reached out to the New York Post to dispute its findings — exclusively revealing that the show encouraged contestants to take street drugs while starving themselves and to lie about how much weight they were losing.

‘Biggest Loser’ contestants were drugged: New York Post report - MarketWatch

A new study suggests that we could cut cancer deaths by half — and reduce the rate of new cancers by up to 60 percent — all without any new treatments. In fact, it wouldn't take any drugs at all. All we need to do is get people to follow the recommendations that doctors have been making for decades: don't smoke, drink moderately, maintain a healthy weight, and exercise regularly.

We already know how to cut cancer deaths by half - Business Insider

On February 9, Amazon stock (AMZN) hit its lowest point of 2016, at $482. This was a week after disappointing Q4 earnings sent shares tumbling. But in the three months since that date, the stock has soared up 42%, an almost unprecedented gain. It has some analysts saying that even in the $700s, the stock is undervalued. Bernstein, in a note this month, predicts the price could hit $1,000 before 2017.

Here’s why Amazon stock is up 42% in just 3 months - Yahoo Finance

Shortening the work week doesn't just make for happier employees — it could end up saving lives. A radical experiment has been underway in the Swedish city of Gothenburg for the past several months. Rather than ask employees to work a normal 40-hour week, a nursing home, a hospital, a factory, and a tech start-up have all implemented six-hour workdays. The Svartedalens nursing home shortened its shifts in the fall of 2015, and has already reported higher standards of care and received effusive praise from its 80-person staff. "I used to be exhausted all the time," Lise-Lotte Pettersson, an assistant nurse at Svartedalens, told the Guardian last September. "I am much more alert. I have much more energy for my work, and also for family life."

Gothenburg's six-hour work day revolution - Business Insider

Air pollution has been linked to heart disease for years, prompting concern as well as skepticism, as the physiological steps showing a cause-and-effect have been less understood. But now, a multi-year study has for the first time documented that air pollution thickens blood and hardens arteries, a condition that causes cardiovascular problems like heart attacks and strokes. “What’s new here is the linkage between air pollution and actual evidence of progression of atherosclerosis, the underlying disease process that leads to most [heart] attacks and strokes,” Joel Kaufman, lead author and University of Washington professor, told ThinkProgress. “The study provides important new information on how pollution affects the main biological process that leads to heart disease.”

This is How Air Pollution Harms Your Heart

India tends to be one of the most expensive markets for an iPhone, given the strong U.S. dollar. iPhone 6 prices in India are 131% more expensive relative to the U.S., according to Deutsche Bank, which released an annual report analyzing prices on Monday. That makes India the fourth most expensive iPhone 6 market behind Brazil, Indonesia and Sweden. For the iPhone 6S, India is the second most expensive market behind just Brazil, according to Deutsche Bank.

Apple admits iPhone prices are too high in India - MarketWatch

Cantona, back on the small screen this summer as the face of ITV’s marketing campaign for its sports coverage, believes Mourinho’s once and future nemesis would have been a much better fit. “Guardiola was the one to take. He is the spiritual son of Johan Cruyff,” he says, praising the late Dutch master for having overseen “two revolutions” – one as a player at Ajax and another as a coach at Barcelona. “I would have loved to have seen Guardiola in Manchester [United]. He is the only one to change Manchester. He is in Manchester, but at the wrong one.”

Eric Cantona: ‘I love José Mourinho but he is not Manchester United’ | Football | The Guardian

Apple and Samsung supplier Foxconn has reportedly replaced 60,000 factory workers with robots. One factory has "reduced employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000 thanks to the introduction of robots", a government official told the South China Morning Post. Xu Yulian, head of publicity for the Kunshan region, added: "More companies are likely to follow suit." China is investing heavily in a robot workforce. In a statement to the BBC, Foxconn Technology Group confirmed that it was automating "many of the manufacturing tasks associated with our operations" but denied that it meant long-term job losses.

Foxconn replaces '60,000 factory workers with robots' - BBC News

All the same, something is plainly stirring. In the first quarter of this year, Eurozone growth was markedly higher than both the US and the UK. Job creation too has been substantially better in recent months. That the Eurozone is finally beginning to play catch-up should come as no great surprise to close observers of economic events, for the main reason for this bounce is that belatedly policymakers have begun to apply some of the same therapies as their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Indeed, the real surprise is that the scale of the recovery has not been greater.

Hold on a moment: the European corpse may be rising from the slab

“I have a sense that the recovery is slow but it is not in great danger, at least no more than usual,” Mr Blanchard says. “We can talk about risks, they are always there. But the notion that around the corner there is a catastrophe waiting — that really strikes me as totally off.

Olivier Blanchard and Adam Posen believe a recovery is on track - FT.com

A grandmother plagued by a huge swarm of bees for more than 24 hours while driving her car home from a nature reserve has spoken about the “incredible” ordeal. Carol Howarth, 65, was amazed when a swarm of over 20,000 insects flew down onto her silver Mitsubishi Outlander, covering the back end of the vehicle.

Swarm of bees follow grandmother's car for over 24 hours attempting to rescue their queen

A Russian billionaire whose business partner is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the former chairman of a defunct Nigerian bank and a Kyrgyz vodka tycoon appear to be among more than 130 foreign buyers in Britain’s tallest residential skyscraper. Almost two-thirds of homes in the Tower, a 50-storey apartment complex in London, are in foreign ownership, with a quarter held through secretive offshore companies based in tax havens, a Guardian investigation has revealed.

The London skyscraper that is a stark symbol of the housing crisis | Society | The Guardian

Facebook, news apps, Snapchat — there’s endless temptation for bored teens to take out their smartphones and scroll. The Washington Post recently wrote an in-depth piece on kids these days and their social media usage, and in it was this startling statistic, courtesy a 2015 study by the nonprofit group Common Sense Media: Teens are spending nearly nine hours a day consuming media.

A study says teens are staring at screens for nearly nine hours - Business Insider

Antibiotic resistance is really a big, scary deal. Consider this new and frightening discovery: Researchers just reported the first discovery of the MCR-1 gene in E. coli bacteria in an American patient.  This "nightmare superbug" — which was found in the urine of a Pennsylvania woman with symptoms of urinary tract infection — is resistant to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic commonly used to treat hospital-acquired infections when all other drugs have failed.  "[This] heralds the emergence of truly pan-drug resistant bacteria,"

Scientists have just found a “nightmare superbug” in the US - Vox

First-quarter earnings season is close to over, and the numbers it’s produced are as gloomy as they have been since the Great Recession. Overall profit for S&P 500 companies was the weakest in 6 1/2 years. The financial sector showed a double-digit percentage decline, while even stodgy utilities saw earnings fall into the red as unusual weather weighed.

Earnings fall at fastest rate since the Great Recession - MarketWatch

Thiel's parents didn't let him watch TV when he was a kid. He did like to read and J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" was his favorite read as a teen. He tends to choose "Lord of the Rings" inspired names for his ventures. For instance, Palantir refers to the "seeing stones" in Tolkien's books.

WHO IS PETER THIEL? - Business Insider

Samsung is rumoured to unveil a new smartphone that can fold shut like a wallet thanks to a new super flexible OLED screen. Now the company has shown off that very display at the SID 2016 event in San Francisco. While Samsung uses a flexible OLED in its edge handsets, the Galaxy X is rumoured to be bendable. The screen shown off here can be rolled up thanks to its 0.3mm thin build and 10R rolling radius. While the handset could work this way, like a scroll, it's rumoured to fold up.

Samsung Galaxy X roll-out OLED screen shown off, just 0.3mm thin - Pocket-lint

James Grant, editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, cautions investors not to believe all the Wall Street chatter they may hear about a possible Federal Reserve rate hike anytime soon. “The Federal Reserve will not act.  I think the Fed wants to, I think it would love to normalize things, but I think it has missed its chance,” he told Fox Business Network. “My opinion is no rate hike this year,” he said.

James Grant: Fed's Bluffing, No Rate Hike This Year

Trade has been growing more slowly since the Great Recession not only because global GDP growth is lower, but also because trade itself has become less responsive to GDP. The causes of the changing trade-income relationship have been studied, but its consequences have not. This column presents a simple framework to assess some of the demand-side and supply-side implications. The change hurts growth, although the quantifiable effects are not large.

Why the global trade slowdown may matter | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

Abe presented data showing that global commodities prices fell 55% from June 2014 to January 2016, the same margin as from July 2008 to February 2009, after the Lehman collapse.

Japanese PM warns of 'Lehman-scale crisis' - Business Insider

Ultra-low interest rates are a big part of the reason why the market is trading for such lofty earnings multiples. But this is a market of stocks; you don't have to buy the whole stock market. There are still places to find great businesses trading at attractive prices. Here we found three of Warren Buffett's top dividend holdings that are attractive buys right now. One of these holdings is a Dividend Achiever -- a stock with 10+ consecutive years of dividend increases. Click here to see all 274 Dividend Achievers. Another operates in an the credit industry -- and has a market cap of over $60 billion.

3 Elite Warren Buffett Stocks the Market Hates (but You Should Love) - TheStreet

Or so goes one argument against taxing the rich: States that levy a “millionaires tax” risk chasing those millionaires away to Florida, Texas, and other places with no income tax. Hedge fund manager David Tepper's recent decision to move from New Jersey to Florida, possibly creating a billionaire-size hole in Jersey’s budget, raised alarms. Golf great Phil Mickelson, shortly after his infamous Dean Foods stock trade, complained about his high tax rate in California and threatened to move to Florida.  Now, a study based on 13 years of tax data finds that most millionaires don’t move cross-country just to avoid a tax bill. It turns out that the rich, while perhaps different from us, aren’t all that mobile. When they do move, it’s often for reasons that have nothing to do with taxes. For one thing, they appear to like the beach.

Higher Taxes Don’t Scare Millionaires Into Fleeing Their Homes After All - Bloomberg

Commodities have rebounded under the lead of oil, but this advance should soon run into resistance should AxJ  [Asia ex-Japan] economic data not improve soon. AxJ is the biggest commodity consumer globally, which is due to its supply driven growth models. However, these models seem exhausted, as indicated by high capacity and debt overhangs. Hence, demand for commodities should come down. The result would be that commodity prices can only hold up if the anticipated decline in demand is mirrored by downward capacity adjustments, suggesting lower sector investment.

Exhaustion new hot word in markets - Business Insider

Tesla bet big on its battery design in the early days, enabled the company to have a long-range EV before anyone else. Most EVs from traditional automakers top out at around 100 miles on a charge. Tesla's competitors have also looked to battery pack designs that aren't as complex, that don't require thousands of individual Li-ion cells. Clearly, Tesla made the right choice. But now it has to make another choice: Stick with Li-ion, or prepare for a shift to a newer, better battery chemistry. Several cheaper designs that promise better range on a single charge are on the horizon, but they aren't ready for prime time. Over the next decade, however, they probably will be.

Tesla change most advanced feature - Business Insider

Here’s what may surprise you: Among the S&P 500, only one stock has majority “sell” ratings among analysts, according to FactSet. Here are some numbers illustrating just how overwhelmingly sunny the analysts are

Only one company in the S&P 500 Index has majority ‘sell’ ratings - MarketWatch

Children who grow up near toxic waste sites are more likely to suffer from cognitive disabilities, repeat grades, score lower on tests, and misbehave in school than siblings born after the pollution has been cleaned up, new research suggests. It's a striking sign of the long-term toll, often hard to assess, that pollution takes on children and communities, and it suggests that the economic benefits of cleaning up toxic sites may be greater than previously estimated.

Here’s What Living Near a Toxic Waste Site Can Do to Kids’ Grades - Bloomberg

"The pillars that supported the EM rally earlier this year seem to be crumbling, as risk conditions have turned and have started to expose weak fundamentals and structural imbalances in EM once again," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note released Tuesday called "The Great Bear Rally Unwind."

Emerging markets show signs of strain - Business Insider