“The political system is obstructing our economy,” said Michael Porter, a professor and co-author of a new report on U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. The findings offer a stark indictment of Washington politics as the nation heads toward November’s election. While other countries adjust and experiment, the U.S. has fallen behind amid partisan sniping and policy gridlock, leaving the nation’s businesses less competitive and living standards lagging. “Overall, we believe that dysfunction in America’s political system has now become the single most important problem facing America,” Mr. Porter and fellow faculty members Jan Rivkin, Mihir Desai and Manjari Raman wrote.

Want to Fix the U.S. Economy? Start With the Broken Political System - Real Time Economics - WSJ

As noted in the recent posts, short-term traders profit when they track buying and selling flows and detect shifts in those flows created by the actions of large participants.  At the top and bottom ticks of market moves, those shifts have not fully occurred.  Indeed, my work suggests that the best time to be long is when we see meaningful selling flows that cannot move price meaningfully lower and the best time to be short is when we see meaningful buying flows that cannot move price meaningfully higher.  This is true across time frames and is pertinent to longer-term as well as intraday trading.

TraderFeed: How to Extract Greater Profits From Our Trading

Today the VIX sits below 11.50 and stocks are slightly higher despite weak earnings and a widely expected, but still ugly, negative print in first quarter GDP. Rather than interpreting the market action as complacency traders are generally just accepting that the VIX is lower because the market is open for business. The thing is, the VIX never measured “fear.” It measures expected volatility. If 11.5 seems like a low print that’s only because you aren’t putting it in the context of single-digit trailing volatility. The VIX is low for a reason and that reason is that stocks simply aren’t going down in large enough gaps to justify paying much for insurance.

Understanding The VIX: Now And Throughout Stock Market History | See It Market

Investors need to take a long-term view when backing new tech start-ups in the UK according to leading fund manager Neil Woodford, speaking as part of the BBC's Tech Talent coverage. He says small companies are not receiving the funding required to grow. "We have been appallingly bad at giving those minnows the long-term capital they need," said Mr Woodford. On the BBC, Tech Talent coverage is asking whether the UK can compete in the global tech industry. The UK is a magnet for entrepreneurs - around a third of them come from abroad. But according to Mr Woodford and others, home-grown tech entrepreneurs are not turning promising starts into leading global companies.

UK 'appalling bad' at funding start-ups - BBC News

The time, for example, when Rooney was being investigated by the Football Association for pushing his hand into the face of Tal Ben Haim, then at Bolton Wanderers. Ferguson was so enraged about it being brought up that day he machine-gunned 22 F-words in our direction in roughly 45 seconds. That press conference ended with him swinging his arm at the tape recorders on his table to send them flying into a wall 10 feet away. “You’ve got me to lose my temper, wonderful,” was his parting shot, pointing to the door to chuck us out, the flares burning behind his eyes.

Wayne Rooney’s years at top take their toll on Manchester United captain | Daniel Taylor | Football | The Guardian

Nobody can claim to be surprised. The carnage is exactly what Duterte promised. “All of you who are into drugs, you sons of bitches, I will really kill you,” he said before his election. While he was ­President-elect, Duterte offered medals and cash rewards for citizens who shot dealers dead. “Do your duty, and if in the process you kill 1,000 persons because you were doing your duty, I will protect you,” he told police officers on July 1, the day after his inauguration. “If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful,” he was quoted as saying to another crowd that day.

Inside Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s War On Drugs | TIME

The honeymoon period of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte appears to be over. Foreign investors are pulling money out of the country's stock market rapidly, riled by a series of remarks made by the acid-tongued Duterte against key ally U.S. and China that have cast doubts over the future of the country's foreign policies as well as his handling of the economy.

Duterte news: Philippine president's intemperate remarks shaking foreign investor confidence in the country

Corporate misconduct. Deutsche Bank via Bloomberg. "Aside from the U.S. probe into residential mortgage-backed securities, the lender also faces inquiries into matters including currency manipulation, precious metals trading and billions of dollars in transfers out of Russia." Wells Fargo creating two million phony accounts. (CNN). Exxon accounting issues. (Reuters). Bosch under investigation for possible help to VW in "Dieselgate." (Bloomberg).

Weighing The Week Ahead: Is The Long-Awaited Bond Correction At Hand? | Seeking Alpha

Go with your gut. Traders who have stronger hunches make more money and last longer in the profession, a scientific study published on Monday has found. The findings turn on its head the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH), which posits that its impossible to beat the market using human skill because prices fully reflect all available information and give man a leg up in the race between humans and algorithmic machines that have risen in prominence in trading firms. “We find on the contrary that the physiological state of traders does have large effects on their success and survival,” said John Coates co-author of the report and former Research Fellow in Neuroscience and Finance at the University of Cambridge and former Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank derivatives.

New Study Shows Best Way to Make Money on Wall Street

But if teens engage in more exercise, and limit screen time on tablets and smartphones, they have a better shot at getting sufficient sleep and performing better in school, according to a recent Texas Tech study.

Need Sleep? Unplug And Work OutTrump’s new tax plan screws the middle class

One of the biggest spots was the global imbalance of current accounts, according to HSBC Chief Economist Janet Henry. The imbalance from a world where some countries were hoarding and others were spending too freely led to malinvestment and ultimately bubbles, according to Henry. The worrying issue that faces the world now, Henry said in a note to clients, is that these imbalances are growing once again. "Just under a decade ago, the global savings glut was widely blamed for the misallocation of resources that led to bubbles, busts and ultimately the global financial crisis," wrote Henry. "The fact that global imbalances widened again in 2015 and that in dollar terms they will be close to record highs this year poses risks for both debtor and creditor countries."

Current account 'global imbalances' financial crisis growing again - Business Insider

These surpluses have built up to nearly historic levels for a few reasons, said Henry. Weak internal demand in countries with current-account surpluses means those countries' citizens are under-consuming and thus saving too much money. Additionally, the savings are being invested outside of the country. "Running persistent current account surpluses implies that these economies are constantly saving more than they are investing, preferring to invest those savings overseas," said Henry in the note. "In other words, they are building up a large net international investment position: something countries with aging populations (including Japan, Germany, China and South Korea) can argue is necessary to sustain living standards."

Current account 'global imbalances' financial crisis growing again - Business Insider

Investors will want to see whether the BOJ is willing to push rates even lower despite fears that negative rates actually encourage cash hoarding instead of spending, while also undermining pension funds, long-term savers and the business models of banks and insurance firms. If the BOJ does move further into negative territory, it could move to offset the pernicious effects through a range of measures, including negative-rate loans to banks and stronger guidance on just how far into negative territory rates can go, wrote analysts at DBS Bank in Singapore.

4 things to know about the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting - MarketWatch

T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray laid out his vision for the carrier's move into 5G, which it's making in a big way. Working with Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, T-Mobile was able to show off speeds of 12 gigabits per second. That's more than three times as fast as the trials Verizon conducted back in February. Just to put these speeds into perspective, Verizon's 5G trials alone represented a connection that was several hundred times faster than today's LTE and three and a half times faster than Google's superfast Fiber internet service.

T-Mobile's 5G speed is mind-bogglingly faster than Verizon - CNET

Indonesia’s crackdown on illegal fishing -- with the public spectacle of seized boats blown to smithereens -- may have sparked tensions with China, but the country’s fisheries minister says it has led to a significant drop in overfishing. The rejuvenation of fishing stocks will help Indonesia’s economy as other growth drivers falter, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said Thursday in an interview in Washington, DC. Growth is under pressure and set to be closer to the lower end of the central bank’s 4.9 percent to 5.3 percent target this year.

Blowing Up Boats Sets Indonesia’s Scarce Fish Swimming Again - Bloomberg

Bringing gigabit internet to rural areas is usually an expensive proposition -- but soon, it might not be. AT&T Labs today announced Project AirGig, a new wireless internet delivery system that carriers high speed internet service over power-lines without actually tapping into the physical wired infrastructure. More specifically, AT&T plans to mount hundreds of tiny radio stations atop telephone poles to bring high-speed internet to customers without laying down new cable.

AT&T's Project AirGig could be a wireless alternative to fiber

Brett Steenbarger is posting great ideas day after day. Traders should read his posts frequently. I sense another book coming! My favorite this week is about what you should do if you are in a drawdown. Are other people, trading similar strategies, also losing money? That will tell you quite a bit. If you were making money and suddenly go cold and others in the same markets, with similar strategies are doing the same, then you know that it isn't simply a psychological issue. Everyone did not suddenly lose discipline or become an idiot at the same time. Rather, the strategy is not working under current market conditions, or it has stopped working altogether. Simple, but wise and often overlooked by traders who start second-guessing themselves. I also recommend this post on The Psychology of Dealing with Choppy Markets. Most aspiring traders would save a lot of time and money if they asked Sam Seiden's question, Are You a Good Fit for Trading? (This was GEI's Investing Trading Academy's article of the week). Adam H. Grimes has another take on psychology, considering how it is linked with experience and methodology..

Weighing The Week Ahead: Is The Long-Awaited Bond Correction At Hand? | Seeking Alpha

For investors looking for more specific plays, Deutsche Bank recommends the following baskets: Clinton UnitedHealth Group Inc. Humana Inc. McKesson Corp. AECOM  Quanta Services Inc.  Exxon Mobil Corp.  Alcoa Inc.  NextEra Energy Inc. Cree Inc. First Solar Inc.  Facebook Inc.  Netflix Inc.  Prudential Financial Inc. Citigroup Inc.  and Union Pacific Corp. Trump Johnson & Johnson  Pfizer Inc., Medtronic  Northrop Grumman Corp.  L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. Halliburton Co.  Dow Chemical Co.  Duke Energy Corp. Ford Motor Co.  Martin Marietta Materials Inc.  Verizon Communications Inc.  Comcast Corp. Charles Schwab Corp. Wells Fargo & Co. and Delta Air Lines Inc.

Deutsche Bank breaks down Clinton-vs.-Trump stock-trading plan - MarketWatch

Seven per cent of women said their bosses had urged them to wear high heels in the office or with clients because it made them “more appealing”, while eight per cent were told to wear more make-up so they “looked prettier”. It comes after one receptionist said she was sent home from her job at an accountancy firm for wearing flat shoes.

Women are told by their bosses to wear more make-up and put on high heels because it's 'better for business'

There's a certain detachment to watching a conventional documentary. You may understand and appreciate what you're seeing, but you'll never quite get a sense of what it was like to be there. Time, however, believes it can do better. It's launching a Life VR brand that will use virtual reality to give you more immersive view of historic events and unusual experiences. One of the first examples includes Defying the Nazis (above), a parallel to a similarly-named Ken Burns documentary -- you'll see what it was like to take asylum seekers from occupied France to the US. Others include Lumen, a self-guided meditation exercise, and Fast Ride, a view of what it's like to drive the classic Mazda 787 race car at Laguna Seca.

Time's Life VR immerses you in documentaries

Take a look at the tag on your shirt. If you are in the U.S., chances are it was made in a country like China or Thailand and then shipped overseas. Jonathan Zornow, the sole employee of a new startup called Sewbo, thinks the U.S. could bring garment manufacturing a little closer to home by automating the feeding of fabric into sewing machines—a step that to this day is done by hand. Zornow has created a process by which a robotic arm guides chemically stiffened pieces of fabric through a commercial sewing machine.

A Robot That Sews Could Take the Sweat Out of Sweatshops

Despite massive large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs) by central banks around the world since the global financial crisis, there is a lack of empirical evidence on whether and how these programs affect the real economy. Using rich borrower-linked mortgage-market data, we document that there is a “flypaper effect” of LSAPs, where the transmission of unconventional monetary policy to interest rates and (more importantly) origination volumes depends crucially on the assets purchased and degree of segmentation in the market.

How Quantitative Easing Works: Evidence on the Refinancing Channel

Samsung has launched the highest-capacity consumer M.2 SSD around, revealing the 2TB 960 PRO at an event in Seoul this morning. Not only that, the firm has also managed to improve top speeds by 40%. The top-of-the-range 960 PRO has claimed peak sequential read speeds of 3,500MB/s (megabytes per second) and write speeds of 2,100MB/s. This is up from 2,500MB/s and 1,500MB/s respectively in the previous generation launched a year ago. The 960 PRO will be available in 512GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities.

Samsung unleashes 960 Pro and 960 Evo M.2 SSDs with ridiculous write speeds

Coinciding with that, 13 major drug companies have listed with four key commitments that they're going to uphold by 2020 in an attempt to cut back on antimicrobial resistance — that is, resistance to medicines found in bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. The goals are along the same lines as the ones laid out in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.  The pharma companies include major players like Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sanofi, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis.

Pharmaceutical companies sign pact to take on antimicrobial resistance - Business Insider

Automakers from Shanghai to Detroit have responded to Tesla’s remarkable success by accelerating their own electric vehicle ambitions. Now Tesla is promising to upend large-scale car manufacturing, but it faces tough competition.

Tesla’s Next Broken Promise