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"Healthier consumer spending, housing investment and government spending growth are expected to make outsized contributions to the projected acceleration in overall economic activity. Accordingly, recent labor market strength is expected to continue," John Silvia, the association's president and the chief economist at Wells Fargo, said in a statement.
Business forecasters boost 2-year outlook for US economy - Yahoo Finance
Shareholder payouts by large companies in Europe soared over the last financial year, according to new research from Markit, reflecting a brighter economic backdrop.
Payout time in Europe as dividends soar
U.S. consumer spending barely rose in February as households boosted savings to their highest level in more than two years, the latest sign that economic growth slowed sharply in the first quarter.
Personal income rose 0.4% in Feb vs. 0.3% increase expected
Arguably, no central banker in the world has been bolder and more aggressive about quantitative easing than Japan's Haruhiko Kuroda. Yet his $700 billion in bond purchases every month have failed to generate the 2 percent inflation targeted by the Bank of Japan: New figures released on Friday showed that core consumer price inflation had once again flattened to zero in February. This raises the obvious question: Has monetary policy become ineffective? Several factors are driving prices down in Japan -- from lower energy costs, to anemic wage growth and a fast-aging population, to the lack of structural reform and tenacity of a "deflationary mindset" that's been 20 years in the making. Here's another possibility, though: Central bankers may simply have become too open about their thinking.
Is It Time to Rethink Forward Guidance? - Bloomberg View
In a speech on Friday, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen stayed her dovish course, maintaining that an increase the federal funds rate "may well be warranted later this year." She also emphasized the Fed's data dependence, as well as her general tone of "cautious optimism" in the economy. Yet it was in her discussion of what she termed "special risks and other considerations" where things got interesting.
This controversial theory has got Janet Yellen worried
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Recent debt crises have brought the fragility of the Eurozone into focus. It has been argued that members are vulnerable to sudden changes in market sentiment. This column examines how debt markets reacted to an ECB announcement that it would serve as a lender of last resort, finding that recent debt crises have strong self-fulfilling dynamics.
How did the ECB save the Eurozone without spending a single euro? | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal
While he and his team toil away on strengthening Chrome's architecture, there are a lot of things the average person can do to stay safer online. Schuh gave Business Insider some of his top, easy tips:
Justin Schuh Google Chrome Security Interview - Business Insider
Start with that second proposition, that there's such as thing as Asian capitalism. In fact, East Asia's miracle economies achieved rapid growth in different ways. For instance, in its years of fastest growth, Hong Kong's approach was close to laissez-faire; South Korea relied heavily on state-directed investment; Taiwan and Singapore were somewhere in between. Across the region, the role of industrial policy, state-owned enterprises, business alliances and inward foreign investment all varied from country to country, and still do. The same goes for legal codes and political systems.
Lee Kuan Yew and the Myth of Asian Capitalism - Bloomberg View
Higher education is stuffed with overpaid administrators squeezing every ounce of efficiency out of lecturers and focusing on the ‘profitable’ areas of science, technology, engineering and maths. Are the humanities at risk of being wiped out?
The war against humanities at Britain's universities | Education | The Guardian
In the first quarter of 2015, earnings estimates for the S&P 500 were reduced by 8.2% per share as of Friday, the worst quarter for a reduction in expectations since the first quarter of 2009, smack in the middle of the financial crisis. S&P 500 earnings are now expected to fall 4.6% in the first quarter from prior expectations for growth of 4.2%.
First-quarter earnings revisions - Business Insider
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Durumeric leads a team of researchers at the University of Michigan that has developed scanning software called ZMap. This tool can probe the whole public Internet in under an hour, revealing information about the roughly four billion devices online. The scan results can show which sites are vulnerable to particular security flaws. In the case of FREAK, a scan was used to measure the scale of the threat before the bug was publicly announced.
Software that Scans the Entire Internet Helps Pinpoint Security Weaknesses | MIT Technology Review
The AIIB is exactly what the world needs. China must recycle its trade surpluses and its $3.8 trillion reserves by one means or another. It can buy US Treasuries, Bunds, or Gilts, perpetuating a global bond bubble. It can make surgical investments abroad to acquire technology for its champions and pursue a narrow national interest. Or it can recycle the money in concert with other members of the AIIB - with a start-up capital of $50bn - for sewage projects, clean energy, ports, roads, and railways in Asia, helping to plug a $700bn shortfall in infrastructure investment that the World Bank is too small to cover and which is of collective benefit to the world.
US risks epic blunder by treating China as an economic enemy - Telegraph
GSN Games, which designs mobile games like poker and bingo, collects billions of signals every day from the phones and tablets its players are using—revealing everything from the time of day they play to the type of game they prefer to how they deal with failure. If two people were to download a game onto the same type of phone simultaneously, in as little as five minutes their games would begin to diverge—each one automatically tailored to its user’s style of play.
Technologies Smart Enough to Exploit Human Nature | MIT Technology Review
Conventional wisdom that a weaker yen would drive up prices in Japan across the board doesn't hold, Goldman Sachs says, as cheaper oil undercuts price pressure.
Why a weaker yen is not driving up prices: Goldman
In addition to their Icelandic gene map, the scientists pinpointed a couple of very important gene tweaks, or mutations, that can influence how likely we are to develop certain diseases. For example, the researchers found a specific genetic mutation in a gene called ABCA7 (rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?) that doubles a person's chances of developing Alzheimer's.
Iceland genetics future of medicine - Business Insider
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You don't have to know much about trading to figure out that if a stock is in "breakout mode," you probably want a piece of the action. But what exactly constitutes a breakout? And why do they work?
How to Trade a Breakout: Breakout Trading Technical Analysis Primer - TheStreet
Investors should sell any equities bought over the past year, hold the proceeds as cash and take a holiday from the market for six months, according to Steen Jakobsen, Saxo Bank A/S’s chief economist.
Economist: Sell Your Stocks and Take Six Months Off - Bloomberg Business
Turns out, an apple a day won't keep the doctor away but it may mean you will use fewer prescription medications, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine. The apple has come to symbolize health and healthy habits. But can apple consumption be associated with reduced health care use because patients who eat them might visit doctors less?
An apple a day won't keep the doctor away but maybe the pharmacist | EurekAlert! Science News
If that all sounds bad, the details of Tippen’s firing are much worse—and provide an important lesson for policymakers to protect low-income workers. It wasn’t even Tippen’s idea to speak to a reporter. Her boss, hotel manager Herry Patel, had told Harlan to interview her.
The State Must Protect Poor Workers From Employers Like Herry Patel | The New Republic
A series of large studies, including the Nurses’ Health Study of 76,464 women and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study of 42,498 men, found that the more nuts people consumed, the less likely they were to die at any given age, especially of cancer or heart disease. And a clinical trial conducted in Spain showed that death rates were lower among those consuming a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra nuts.
Nuts Are a Nutritional Powerhouse - NYTimes.com
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While Expedia is trying to design its website so as to trigger someone to visit daily, Jawbone has built features into its fitness bands and other products that executive Kelvin Kwong grandly describes as “using our best understanding of how the brain works to get you to act.” And Kwong says it’s working. Sending carefully designed messages to people wearing Jawbone fitness trackers has helped them get an additional 23 minutes of sleep per night on average, and move 27 percent more, the company says.
Technologies Smart Enough to Exploit Human Nature | MIT Technology Review
If you could send a message to a planet of intelligent aliens, what would you say? One scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, doesn't want to send just one message: He wants to broadcast billions of messages by transmitting the entire internet into space.
SETI wants to send the internet into space - Business Insider
A leading member of Germany's Bundesbank has backed U.S. calls for "shadow banking", the unregulated sector that provides credit on a global scale, to be subject to stress-testing.
Is it time for ‘shadow bank’ stress tests?
He argued that American's global dominance isn't over, as some believe; the price of oil will rise faster than many expect; Europe is not doomed to long-term slow growth and deflation; and the Japanese economy will actually be revived by the stimulus programs known as Abenomics.
Byron Wien: Four macro myths to rethink
Outflows from equity-based funds in 2015 have reached their highest level since 2009, thanks to a seesaw market that has come under pressure from weak economic data, a stronger dollar and the the prospect of monetary tightening.
Investors flee market at crisis-level pace
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Banks, looked to as a bright spot for the upcoming earnings season, might not live up to expectations, according to an analysis from Goldman Sachs
Ouch! Here's Wall Street's next headache - Yahoo Finance
They also found that 26 percent of the people who get classified as not in the labor force by the Labor Department -- those who are not employed and not looking for a job -- have actually worked informally in the past two years. That supports Fed Chair Janet Yellen's sense that there is still ``cyclical weakness'' in the labor market not captured by the 5.5 percent unemployment rate.
Why Wage Growth Is So Slow Even in a Hiring Boom - Bloomberg Business
Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group was working on a project that would increase battery life on mobile devices by 5 to 10 times before Google killed it, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Google ATAP killed project to improve mobile battery life - Business Insider
We've rounded up a collection of totally free antivirus products that should serve you well.
The Best Free Antivirus for 2015 | PCMag.com
But throughout the industrial world the vast majority of the revisions in growth forecasts have been downwards for many years now. So, I continue to urge that it is worth taking seriously the possibility that we face a chronic problem of an excess of desired saving relative to investment. If this is the case, monetary policy will not be able to normalize, there will be a continuing need for expanded public and private investment, and there will be a need for global coordination to assure an adequate level of demand and its appropriate distribution. Macroeconomists can contribute by moving beyond their traditional models of business cycles to contemplate the possibility of secular stagnation.
Larry Summers responds to Ben Bernanke - Business Insider
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By 2050, the number of deaths caused by air pollution — which includes tiny particles found in smoke and haze, ground-level ozone typically emitted by cars, and toxic components in household products and building materials — will soar, killing more than 6 million people every year, according to a recent report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Ways the world will be terrifying in 2050 - Business Insider
However, one could reasonably argue that Georgia is doing more to reform its criminal justice system than any other state in the country—from sentencing to felon employment after release to juvenile detention.
GOP Governor Nathan Deal Is Leading the U.S. on Prison Reform | The New Republic
"March saw the sharpest increase in new export orders since April 2014. Companies reported that the weaker euro was the main factor driving new export orders higher," said Chris Williamson, Markit's chief economist.
Weak euro boosts eurozone manufacturing, says PMI survey - BBC News
Again, the comparison with Asia is instructive. After World War II, Asia was ruled by many autocrats who essentially came to their people and said, “My people, we’re going to take away your freedom, but we’re going to give you the best education, infrastructure and export-led growth policies money can buy. And eventually you’ll build a big middle class and win your freedom.” Over that same period, Arab autocrats came to their people and said, “My people, we’re going to take away your freedom and give you the Arab-Israel conflict.”
Tell Me How This Ends Well - NYTimes.com
Such snapshots of growing distress in the world’s largest emerging markets are echoed among many of their smaller counterparts. Several countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are beset by dwindling revenues and rising debts. Even the turbo-powered petroeconomies of the Gulf, hit by a halving in the price of oil over the past six months to $55 a barrel, are moving into a slower lane.
Emerging markets: The great unravelling - FT.com
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While Expedia is trying to design its website so as to trigger someone to visit daily, Jawbone has built features into its fitness bands and other products that executive Kelvin Kwong grandly describes as “using our best understanding of how the brain works to get you to act.” And Kwong says it’s working. Sending carefully designed messages to people wearing Jawbone fitness trackers has helped them get an additional 23 minutes of sleep per night on average, and move 27 percent more, the company says.
Technologies Smart Enough to Exploit Human Nature | MIT Technology Review
If you could send a message to a planet of intelligent aliens, what would you say? One scientist at the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute, doesn't want to send just one message: He wants to broadcast billions of messages by transmitting the entire internet into space.
SETI wants to send the internet into space - Business Insider
For the past year, the Kremlin has strenuously denied that its troops are supporting pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine — but fighters on the ground are apparently no longer bothering to keep up the farce. St. Petersburg native Dmitry Sapozhnikov, who went to Ukraine in October to fight alongside the rebels, told the BBC Russian service in a candid interview from Donetsk that Russian military units have played a decisive role in rebel advances, including the operations in February that led to the capture of the transport hub of Debaltseve. Russian officers directly command large military operations in eastern Ukraine, he noted.
Russian soldiers have given up pretending they are not fighting in Ukraine - Business Insider
In an earlier article, I emphasized that not all dividend exchange-traded funds are created equal. I examined 11 large-cap dividend-oriented ETFs that had all launched prior to 2007 and were put through the ringer in the 2008-09 bear market. There are another 12 large-cap dividend-oriented ETFs of relatively newer vintage that were omitted from this examination, as they were not subjected to the same stress test as their longer-lived peers. Among this relatively new crop, Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity (SCHD) stands out.
A Closer Look at One of Our Favorite Dividend ETFs
Jim Cramer often teaches investors about game changing elements of the stock market that can impact a portfolio. He has spoken in the past about everything from earnings to commodity prices, but this time he sees something different. This is one thing that could bring down the entire market, and perhaps change history.
Watch out! The market's No.1 enemy right now
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Paris (AFP) - The euro's slide against the dollar has reignited talk of a "currency war", with analysts in opposing camps over whether or not countries are consciously playing with their exchange rates. War language is no stranger to modern monetary policy. The massive bond buying programmes, or quantitative easing (QE), that central banks have used in response to the financial and economic crises that have rocked the global economy since 2008 are often referred to as a bazooka.
Euro weakness sparks analyst clash over currency war
After increasing capital spending by 6 percent in the just-completed fiscal year, small manufacturers plan a 14 percent decrease in the current year, according to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly survey released this week. Big manufacturers like Daikin plan a 5 percent increase, but overall investment remains 10 percent below pre-crisis 2007 levels. Over the same time, corporate earnings have increased by 11 percent, shares have rallied – Daikin's are up more than four-fold from its 2008 low - and Japanese companies have socked away a record 87 trillion yen ($730 billion) in cash.
Japan's wary manufacturers are keeping the country's economic recovery stuck in the slow lane - Business Insider
If you're struggling with feelings of gloom or stress, staring up at the night sky might sound like an odd solution. Yet a handful of recent studies have found a link between experiencing a sense of awe — that feeling you get when you look up at a starry sky or out across a wide open valley — with feeling less stressed and more satisfied.
How to boost your mood - Business Insider
Bradley Wiggins has admitted to mixed feelings about his success, claiming that media scrutiny following his 2012 Tour de France win left him hating cycling, and that losing his title was “a monkey off my back”. “I still look back and think ‘how did I win the Tour, going day to day under that pressure?’” Wiggins said in an interview with cyclingtips.com.
Bradley Wiggins: I hated being the winner of the Tour de France | Sport | The Guardian
The winning proposals include Resnic’s; a condom made of graphene, which is a form of carbon that’s a single atom thick; a condom incorporating plant-based antioxidants; and an “ultra-sheer wrapping condom” made of polyethylene, a type of plastic often used in packaging. Meanwhile, in 2014 a California inventor raised more than $100,000 on the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo to develop the Galactic Cap, a condom designed to fit snugly on the head of the penis while leaving the shaft bare.
We're long overdue for condoms that actually feel good during sex - Business Insider
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