An American 14-year-old has reportedly become the youngest known person in the world to create a successful nuclear reaction. The Open Source Fusor Research Consortium, a hobbyist group, has recognised the achievement by Jackson Oswalt, from Memphis, Tennessee, when he was aged 12 in January 2018.

Teen launched North Tabor Capital hedge fund from his NJ bedroom

Walking at an average pace was linked to a 20% reduction in the risk of mortality compared with walking at a slow pace, while walking at a brisk or fast pace was associated with a risk reduction of 24%, according to a new study. A similar result was found for risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. It’s not too late to start. In fact, the benefits were far more dramatic for older walkers. Average pace walkers aged 60 years or over experienced a 46% reduction in risk of death from cardiovascular causes, and fast pace walkers a 53% risk reduction, the study found... A recent Harvard University study concluded that you could add 10 years to your life by following five habits: eating a healthy diet, exercising 30 minutes or more a day, maintaining a healthy weight — a body mass index between 18.5 and 24.9 — never smoking and drinking only a moderate amount of alcohol.

Scientists from 5 universities say doing this one thing faster could add years to your life - MarketWatch

A woman with advanced breast cancer which had spread around her body has been completely cleared of the disease by a groundbreaking therapy that harnessed the power of her immune system to fight the tumours. It is the first time that a patient with late-stage breast cancer has been successfully treated by a form of immunotherapy that uses the patient’s own immune cells to find and destroy cancer cells that have formed in the body.

Doctors hail world first as woman’s advanced breast cancer is eradicated | Science | The Guardian

Adam and Raquel Gonzales had been together for five years when he woke up one morning with no idea who she was - he had lost all memory of marrying her. But Raquel was determined to win him over again.

'I woke up and didn't recognise my wife' - BBC News

Alongside this study have come disturbing reports of the alcohol industry’s involvement in funding science that may have helped drinking look more favorable, as well as a growing worry that many people are naive about alcohol’s health effects. How many people know, for example, that as far back as 1988, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer designated alcohol a level-one carcinogen? Some say too few.. A couple of drinks a day aren’t bad for you and may even be good for you. Right?That’s been the message — from researchers, governments, and beverage companies — for decades. And as a result, many of us don’t think twice about tossing back a couple of glasses or wine or a few beers after work.

But maybe we should. Because it turns out the story about the health effects of moderate drinking is shifting pretty dramatically. New research on alcohol and mortality, and a growing awareness about the rise in alcohol-related deaths in the US, is causing a reckoning among researchers about even moderate levels of alcohol consumption. In particular, an impressive new meta-study involving 600,000 participants, published recently in The Lancet, suggests that levels of alcohol previously thought to be relatively harmless are linked with an earlier death. What’s more, drinking small amounts of alcohol may not carry all the long-touted protective effects on the cardiovascular system.

How much alcohol is too much? The science is shifting. - Vox

Chipmaker, software stocks close sharply lower as tax overhaul progresses - MarketWatch

Penny Stocks to Watch for December 2017 By Alan Farley | MTBC Medical Transcription Billing Corp 2.96 +2.07% MNKD MannKind Corp 3.01 -3.83% KGJI Kingold Jewelry Inc 2.16 -0.92% LLNW Limelight Networks Inc 4.71 -5.04% SRRA Sierra Oncology Inc 3.00 -5.36% CETV Central European Media Enterprises Ltd 4.90 +1.03% UMC United Microelectr 2.62 +1.55% LTS Ladenburg Thalmann Financial Services Inc 3.35 -0.59% UQM UQM Technologies Inc 1.35 -10.00% Mega-cap and blue-chip stocks attracted the lion’s share of speculative capital in November, lifting major benchmarks to bull market highs. Buying interest in penny stocks and other high-risk securities waned, with market players concentrating their firepower on big tech and other groups expected to benefit from D.C. tax reform and deregulatory legislation. Careful stock picking paid off despite the headwinds, with a narrow selection of low-priced issues zooming to multi-year highs. The market calendar is working its way toward 2018. That means the January Effect will soon be in full swing, marking the most favorable penny stock seasonality of the year. This bullish influence often unfolds in the last weeks of December so penny stock players should watch for a buying surge that might signal healthy gains through the first quarter. The well-documented phenomenon usually favors beaten down issues over the prior year’s top performers so building a watch list of stocks stuck near 52-week could be beneficial.

Penny Stocks to Watch for December 2017 | Investopedia

More broadly, Morgan Stanley struck a generally upbeat tone on European stocks for the new year. With a 6% expected rise for the MSCI Europe, the region is the bank’s favorite region in the short term, Secker said. “The reason why we think Europe is more interesting now is because it’s underperformed global markets quite materially over the last six months. We now think it looks tactically oversold,” he said. The Stoxx 600 has lost 1.6% over past six months, while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.11%  is up 8.4% and the MSCI World index has risen 7.2%.

European ‘FANG’ stocks? They exist, but here’s why you shouldn’t buy them - MarketWatch

Senate Republicans, in their push to pass a sweeping tax bill, undermined a research-and-development tax credit many companies use to encourage innovation, and business interests are in revolt. Late Friday, just hours before the Senate voted for the bill, Republicans decided to preserve the corporate alternative minimum tax instead of repealing it as planned. The change gave them money for lawmakers’ other priorities, but it could force many companies to lose tax breaks the bill’s authors intended to protect.

Passage of Senate Tax Bill Puts R&D Tax Credit in Doubt - WSJ

China’s benchmark stock index will trade weaker than current levels for much of next year as an official deleveraging campaign crimps credit growth and keeps interest rates elevated, according to Bocom International Holdings Co.’s Hao Hong. The Shanghai Composite Index will move between 2,800 and 3,900 for the next 12 months, with brief episodes of volatility driven by changes in liquidity conditions, Hong wrote in a research note to clients. That compares with a current level of around 3,300. Large cap stocks have surged in 2017, and their valuations are approaching extreme levels, he added, predicting a “zig-zag” rotation into smaller peers.

China's Stock Rally May Run Out of Steam Next Year - Bloomberg

Jason Karp of Tourbillon Capital on stock market - Business Insider

Sentiment on the US stock market may be too positive for its own good. Wall Street analysts showed "extreme bullishness" on stocks at the end of September, based on a monthly survey conducted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. As such, the firm's proprietary "Sell Side Indicator" — which monitors investor overexuberance — is now nearly two standard deviations above its four-year average. BAML points out that it's historically been a bearish signal when Wall Street gets extremely bullish. Described by the firm as a "reliable contrarian indicator," the sell side gauge helps bolster the long-standing argument from stock market pessimists that US stocks are overheating.

Stocks are flashing a major sell signal - Business Insider

Stocks in Europe still have room to push higher in the next few years despite a series of political pressures weighing on sentiment in the region, equity analysts told CNBC. "Core Europe remains one of the preferred markets for us and one we believe offers attractive opportunities for investors over a multi-year time period," Jeff Donlon, managing director of global strategies at investment management firm Manning & Napier, told CNBC via email.

Why now is an ‘ideal time’ to buy European stocks — and especially banks

The IMF exhorts its members to turn to longer-run problems while economic conditions are good. It points to risks that may undercut future growth and prosperity while welcoming central bank efforts to sustain economic activity by keeping interest rates low. But investors then search for higher returns in market segments that are less closely regulated and more at risk of default. Banking remains the key institutional structure providing credit but with unregulated nonbanks expanding their reach, the IMF worries that the basis for a future crisis may be growing.

IMF tells nations to 'repair roof' of global economy | TheHill

In the 1850s, half the population of the US would have had a life expectancy at birth of only 40. Now, Amercians can expect to live until at least 78. Recent medical research has teased us with the promise of extending human life further. But, what are the implications of this new medicine and what consequences would it have upon society? Films, such as Logan’s Run and Soylent Green, have painted grim visions of an overpopulated future, where drastic measures are taken to control these overcrowded worlds and their scarce resources. The need for strict population control is not pure fantasy – until recently, China had the One-Child Policy, due to their booming population in the 1970s. One might think that a longer-living society would lead to an increase in population, but the reality is quite different. Population growth is more determined by birth rates than mortality rates. Recent clinical trials in mice have shown diabetic animals given the drug metformin, first introduced in 1957, are living longer than non-diabetics, who did not take the drug. And it’s been suggested that metformin could protect against basic ageing itself, and not just type 2 diabetes. However, there are some possible pharmaceutical treatments that may not only protect against ageing, but actually reverse the effects of ageing itself.

BBC - Future - Anti-ageing: Is it possible, and would we want it?

A Legendary Dividend Growth Stock Trading At Fire Sale Prices - The Walt Disney Company (NYSEIS) | Seeking Alpha

For the first time in over three years, each of the three major Dow stock market averages has just hit a new all-time high — the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.18%  , Dow Jones Transportation Average DJT, +0.46% and Dow Jones Utility Average DJU, +0.22% This development is rare: It’s happened in fewer than 4% of the months since 1970. But here’s the even better news: Never have any of these prior events occurred at a bull market top. The least bullish of any prior occurrences (which came in the spring of 2007) still came five months before a top.

September saw this rare — and bullish — trifecta - MarketWatch

A multimillion dollar bet on a surge in market volatility is gaining notice in the options market and appears on track to become the largest trade this year in the CBOE volatility index. That's according to Pravit Chintawongvanich, head of derivatives strategy at Macro Risk Advisors. In a note to clients Tuesday, Chintawongvanich pointed out that the trade initiated in July is betting that the CBOE's VIX will rise meaningfully in the short term. The index has traded around historically low levels for much of this year.

Mysterious trader is making a huge bet on a volatility spike

Amid the carnage in brick-and-mortar retail and a juggernaut called Amazon that's humbling its competition online, one technology start-up has come up with a motto: "Retail isn't dead, it needs a revival." Enter software-powered retailer b8ta, which sells tech products that don't have an offline retail footprint of their own. b8ta gives a leg up to small technology makers who might not be able to break into big stores, and lets customers test gadgets like smart locks, high-tech skateboards, and connected stove monitors in physical locations.

b8ta uses try before you buy to revive retail model

Perhaps it’s only to be expected that the Nobel peace prize has descended into farce. It was, after all, born out of a mistake. As the story goes, in 1888 a French newspaper erroneously wrote that Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, had died. The paper marked the event of Alfred’s non-death with a bit of quality French snark: “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Nobel was mortified that he was going to be remembered as a “merchant of death” and so set up the Nobel prize. It was a calculated rebranding effort; an exercise in PR.

The Nobel peace prize is a who’s who of hawks, hawks, hypocrites and war criminals | Opinion | The Guardian

$1,000 per month cash handout would grow the economy by $2.5 trillion

The earnings recession is over. S&P 500 operating earnings per share were eclipsed by the energy recession from Q4-2014 through Q2-2016, when the Thomson Reuters (TR) measure was flat to down on a y/y basis. Growth resumed during the second half of 2016 and first half of 2017. The TR measure of earnings rose 10.1% y/y during Q2-2017 to a new record high, while revenues rose 5.7% y/y. That put the S&P 500 operating profit margin (based on TR data) at a record high of 10.8%. “Ouch” is the sound you just heard from all those reversion-to-the-mean bears, who can go back to sleep.

Dr. Ed's Blog: S&P 500 Earnings: The Shining

Emerging markets will start to dominate rankings of the world's top economies by 2030, according to a report published earlier this year. The report, published by PricewaterhouseCoopers, finds that emerging markets such as India and Brazil will increasingly challenge the economic dominance of the USA and China, while others slip behind.

PwC predicts the most powerful economies by 2030 - Business Insider

Just two weeks after Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans in 2005, economist Cary Leahey of Decision Economics Inc. sat down and wrote a report to his clients estimating that total damages would total $125 billion, making the storm the nation’s largest natural disaster ever. A dozen years later, Leahey’s estimate stands the test of time. In fact, the official government estimate of the cost of the storm is $125 billion in nominal terms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. Leahey now thinks that the damage from Hurricane Harvey could be “mind boggling” and rival or even exceed Katrina. Estimates he has seen from some major Wall Street banks are too timid, he said.

Economist who nailed the cost of Katrina thinks the final bill for Harvey could be larger - MarketWatch

Moore’s Law owed its success to the fact that as transistors were made smaller, they became simultaneously cheaper, faster, and more energy efficient. The ­payoff from this win-win-win scenario enabled reinvestment in semi­conductor fabrication technology that could make even smaller, more densely packed transistors. And so this ­virtuous ­circle continued, decade after decade. Now though, experts in industry, academia, and government laboratories anticipate that semiconductor miniaturization won’t continue much longer—maybe 5 or 10 years. Making transistors smaller no longer yields the improvements it used to. The physical characteristics of small transistors caused clock speeds to stagnate more than a decade ago, which drove the industry to start building chips with multiple cores. But even multicore architectures must contend with increasing amounts of “dark silicon,” areas of the chip that must be powered off

The Future of Computing Depends on Making It Reversible - IEEE Spectrum

A short-term correction looms in the U.S. stock market - MarketWatch

Analysts are angry over the latest Wells Fargo scandal where hundreds of thousands of the bank's customers were overcharged. Wells Fargo shares fell 2.6 percent Friday after The New York Times first reported the news. The stock closed 1.2 percent higher Monday, meanwhile. The article cited a 60-page internal report, which revealed more than 800,000 of Wells Fargo's auto loan customers were charged for car insurance they did not need. Wells Fargo estimated the mistaken auto insurance sales would cost the bank $80 million in damages. Piper Jaffray said the true cost is likely understated.

Wall Street is livid over Wells Fargo’s latest scandal: 'Here we go again'

For AMD, the rush to mine Ethereum has provided an unexpected boon. "Relative to cryptocurrency, we have seen some elevated demand," CEO Lisa Su said in the company’s earnings call following another beat last week. "But it’s important to say we didn’t have cryptocurrency in our forecast, and we’re not looking at it as a long-term growth driver. "But we’ll certainly continue to watch the developments around the blockchain technologies as they go forward."

Cryptocurrency miners are renting entire Boeing 747s just to stay in the game - Business Insider

In the real analysis, investment requires funds that are released by savers. Saving creates investment. In the monetary analysis, investment is financed with money that is created by banks or provided by individuals holding liquid money balances. Investment generates higher incomes and additional saving. In the real analysis, saving directly affects the financial market. In the monetary analysis, saving affects the IS-curve but has no direct impact on the financial system represented by the LM-curve. In the real analysis, banks depend on deposits to supply loans. Deposits create loans. In the monetary analysis, banks create deposits by making loans. The LM-curve assumes that banks can create a multiplicity of money balances if they are provided with offered a certain amount of monetary base. In the real analysis, banks are not fundamentally different from other financial intermediaries. In the monetary analysis, banks create new funds, whereas financial intermediaries redistribute existing funds. In the real analysis, there is a single equilibrium of saving and investment. In the monetary analysis, multiple equilibria displayed by the IS-curve are possible. Even in the ZLB, an excess of planned saving over planned investment is not possible. Thus, in the monetary analysis, the natural rate of interest equilibrating saving and investment is not a useful concept. This point was already made by Keynes (1936, p. 243) who preferred the term ‘optimum rate’.

Excess saving and low interest rates: Theory and evidence | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

Let me get this out of the way up front: I don’t begrudge a person earning their money. If that money is a fortune made by hoodwinking suckers, more power to the hustler. So I admire McGregor, to an extent. He’s done brilliantly on his own in MMA, and has now latched onto the tail of Mayweather’s GNP-level income comet, which will take him places unheard of in his own sport.

Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Vs. Conor McGregor Is The Second-Biggest Possible Fuck-You

German bonds may offer the clearest warning that the stock market’s bull run is sputtering - MarketWatch

The Fed has been charged/blessed with a powerful dual mandate: low, stable inflation and maximum employment. It’s really pretty simple. However, central bank officials seem to have all but given up on the 2% inflation target they formally identified in January 2012 as an ideal level for price growth, one that is consistent with a predictably robust economy that allows businesses and consumers to plan ahead. Policymakers seem bent on raising interest rates despite an inflation rate that has fallen short of that stated 2% goal for most of this economic recovery, which began in the summer of 2009.

Fed rate hikes clash with falling inflation - Business Insider

Japan's Tankan report showed big manufacturers' sentiment beat expectations, with the index hitting a three-year high. The Big Manufacturers Index for June came in higher than expected at +17, compared with a Reuters poll forecast for +15. That was up from +12 in the March survey.

Japan Tankan June Big Manufacturers Index beats forecast

To celebrate the halfway point, and all that has happened thus far, Business Insider compiled 10 of the most important assets and grabbed a chart of each of their performances in 2017. From bitcoin to the Dow, scroll down to find out which assets have grown, and which have fallen. Then check back at the end of the year to see how they did over the next six months.

How the 10 most important assets did in the first half of 2017 - Business Insider

Market capitalization levels around the world show the U.S. approaching an all-time high while overseas markets are near all-time lows. The outlook for European markets has markedly improved. China is stabilizing and emerging markets are rallying. Given the valuation gap between the U.S. and everywhere else, isn’t it time to consider rebalancing portfolios toward non-U.S. markets?

Latest Global Economy Brightening | Capital Ideas

The contrarian investor’s best bet is coming down the pike - MarketWatch

No area of the stock market has been hotter than tech since the election, and it seems investors still haven't gotten their fill. They poured $1.8 billion into the largest exchange-traded fund tracking the sector on Tuesday, the biggest single-day inflow since September 2010. That jibes with data compiled by Bank of America Merrill Lynch last week, showing that the group is on pace to absorb the most capital since the dot-com bubble 15 years ago.

Investors pouring billions into the hottest part of the stock market - Business Insider

Yet something related to the Brexit referendum—the tumble in the value of sterling—is now causing the economy to slow. The British economy is highly dependent on consumer spending. With inflation now nearing 3%, Britons’ “real” wages (ie, adjusted for inflation) are falling. That means that the average person can now buy less in the shops.  And whereas in recent months Britons have papered over weak wage growth by borrowing, the latest figures from the Bank of England, published this morning, suggest that Britons are now taking a more cautious approach to their personal finances.

Postponed, not avoided: The Brexit slowdown is under way | The Economist

Proposed legislation currently being scrutinized by Congress poses a greater threat to the U.S. dollar's global reserve currency status than does any competing legal tender, according to ratings agency Fitch. The two pieces of draft legislation in question – the Federal Reserve Transparency Act (FRTA) and the Financial Choice Act (FCA) – are both aimed at restricting the independence of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and permitting greater political oversight of monetary policy.

Domestic politics is greatest threat to dollar’s global reign, says Fitch

Amazon.com Inc. has transformed businesses including retailing, filmmaking and data storage. But no one anticipated the bananas. It started with a brainstorm from founder and CEO Jeff Bezos that Amazon should offer everyone near its headquarters—not just employees—healthy, eco-friendly snacks as a public service. After considering oranges, Amazon picked bananas, and opened its first Community Banana Stand in late 2015.

Amazon’s Latest Market Disruption: 1.7 Million Free Bananas - WSJ

World's Most Painful Short Just Gets Worse for Evergrande Bears - Bloomberg

Big money investors have always sought an edge. Everything from star traders to fast computers to unique analysis can give a big hedge fund an advantage over competitors. The latest battleground is data. Investors are vying for new data sets that their competitors don't have, or haven't thought of using. These can range from the basic credit-card sales information to satellite data that tracks shipping routes, and parsing this kind of data for trading signals has been called "the future of investing." The industry providing this to the funds has sprung up amid an explosion in obtainable data over the past decade. The bad news for the regular investor: the cost of data, and the complexity associated with turning it into investment insights, means it will probably only be available to the biggest and most sophisticated funds. .

This is the future of investing, and you probably can't afford it - Business Insider

Temer and his closest allies, including Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, have urged legislators to separate the political from the economic crisis and to continue backing bills to deregulate the labor market and to establish a minimum retirement age. Still, approval looks like a tall order. Even before the latest scandal, the government was struggling to cobble together the necessary votes to approve a key overhaul of the pension system. With the departure of at least a few dozen allied legislators, that task now looks virtually impossible.

A Quick Guide to How Brazil's New Political Crisis May Play Out - Bloomberg

Put another way, $100,000 invested in bitcoin at the beginning of 2011 would have plunged to less than $10,000 by the end of that year—the kind of volatility a typical investor would likely be unable, or unwilling, to endure. “One of its attractions, apart from its price rise, is the fact that it is not highly correlated with stocks or bonds, so is viewed as a true alternative. But its price volatility makes it unsuitable for most investors. As an adviser it would be reckless for me to advise you to buy cryptocurrencies,” Lee recommended.

Want to invest in bitcoin? Investors need to be willing to lose it all, adviser says - MarketWatch

By late May standards, Thursday was a pretty eventful day for tech earnings reports. Here are some thoughts on the numbers reported after Thursday's close by machine data analytics software leader Splunk (SPLK) , hyperconverged hardware/software supplier Nutanix (NTNX) , cloud life sciences software firm Veeva Systems (VEEV) and storage/networking chip supplier Marvell Technology (MRVL) .

Top Earnings Takeaways for Splunk, Nutanix, Veeva and Marvell - TheStreet

Mirror, Mirror, Which Asset Class Is the Sleepiest of Them All? - Bloomberg

George Soros's hedge fund Soros Fund Management placed a big bet on Snap Inc. SNAP, +8.36% over the past quarter while dumping its position in Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, -0.35% according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Monday. Soros reported a nearly 1.7-million share stake in Snap. Meanwhile, Soros dumped his positions in Amazon, Abbott Labs ABT, +0.18% Delta Air Lines Inc. DAL, +1.06% and eBay Inc. EBAY, +0.32% Soros also took a new stake in ConocoPhillips COP, +1.00% and FireEye Inc. FEYE, +7.51% while adding to positions in Facebook Inc. FB, -0.09% Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. HPE, +0.58% and Mondelez International Inc. MDLZ, +2.09%

Soros places big bet on Snap, dumps Amazon stake - MarketWatch

We have 4.4% unemployment, lower than Reagan ever got it. Last Friday’s inflation report showed core inflation still under 2% a year; liberal economist Dean Baker points out that inflation excluding housing is below 1%. Housing prices are up about 6% in the last year. And in one of the last vestiges of 2008’s crisis receding, new household formation by homeowners is even up — more millennials are confident enough to leave Mom’s basement..

In spite of Trump, it’s morning in America again - MarketWatch

Olathe, Kansas, became a global magnet for tech talent, thanks to plentiful jobs, cheap housing, and good schools. Then someone opened fire on a pair of Indian-born engineers.

What an Immigrant Murder in Kansas Says About America - Bloomberg

It’s now clear that cyberattacks are a fact of life for corporations and governments. What’s less clear are the winners and losers among companies focused on stopping the digital break-ins. News about the WannaCry digital extortion attack that crippled hundreds of thousands computers worldwide caused predictable stock market euphoria on Monday. As tends to happen when there is a highly public cyberattack, share prices of cybersecurity technology specialists such as Palo Alto Networks, Proofpoint and Fortinet climbed.

Cyberattacks Are Certain. Cybersecurity Business Is Not. - Bloomberg Gadfly

The commodity conundrum — why are prices so weak? - MarketWatch

Legendary bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach, founder of Double Line Capital, told a group of investors to be very afraid of the US stock market. He was speaking at the Sohn Investment conference. Specifically, he told attendees to go long the iShares Emerging Markets ETF and short the S&P 500. He argued the outperformance of passive investors in the S&P 500 and the underperformance of Emerging Markets are both cyclical — and both of those cycles are about to change.

Jeff Gundlach Sohn short SPY long EM - Business Insider

Shopping for stock market insights is poised to become as seamless as buying a purse on eBay Inc. Or so hopes a slew of startups. As asset managers prepare for new European rules that will put more distance between analysts and investment banks, online research marketplaces are emerging as a way to price and sell investment ideas. The so-called ORMs may be looking at a $2.4 billion opportunity by 2025, making up 30 percent of global research spending, according to Quinlan & Associates’ Benjamin Quinlan.

New Startups Aim to Be the EBays for Market Research - Bloomberg

Two top Fed officials, speaking at a Hoover Institution conference panel, argued that because estimates for the "neutral" interest rate are now around 3%, the central bank is likely to need to bring rates down to zero more frequently than in the past. This means the Fed will find itself reaching for other policy tools to add stimulus to growth and employment, namely large-scale purchases of government bonds like the ones undertaken during and after the financial crisis. "I think it is inevitable that we’re going to be talking about the balance sheet expanding during recessions," said Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed.

FED OFFICIAL: QE is 'inevitable' when the next recession hits - Business Insider

Consuming cheese, milk and yoghurt – even full-fat versions – does not increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke, according to research that challenges the widely held belief that dairy products can damage health. The findings, from an international team of experts, contradict the view that dairy products can be harmful because of their high saturated fat content. The experts dismiss that fear as “a misconception [and] mistaken belief”. The results come from a new meta-analysis of 29 previous studies of whether dairy products increase the risk of death from any cause and from either serious heart problems or cardiovascular disease. The study concluded that such foodstuffs did not raise the risk of any of those events and had a “neutral” impact on human health.

Eating cheese does not raise risk of heart attack or stroke, study finds | Society | The Guardian

Businesses Don’t Benefit Equally From Trump’s Tax Proposal - Bloomberg

The Trump administration has proposed reducing the maximum tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. House Republicans favor a 20 percent rate; they also want to lower the top rate for so-called pass-through entities, a category that includes limited liability companies and S corporations, from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. More than 90 percent of U.S. businesses—28.3 million—are pass-throughs; most are small to midsize. Under Trump’s plan, the 15 percent rate would also apply to such enterprises. That could benefit his own businesses, which are structured as limited liability companies.

Businesses Don’t Benefit Equally From Trump’s Tax Proposal - Bloomberg

Last month, both the US Department of Homeland Security and the UK Department of Transport issued a new ban. Passengers flying from certain areas of North Africa and the Middle East can no longer carry electronics larger than a smartphone on flights. Royal Jordanian airlines cheekily responded by offering travellers “12 things to do on a 12-hour flight with no tablet or laptop.” Number 11 was “analyse the meaning of life.” These days, spare moments are filled with using our smartphones and other devices There’s nothing inherently funny about this suggestion. It’s amusing because the thought of quiet contemplation on a long flight rather than being entertained via a screen is, in today’s world, ridiculous... In 2012, researchers found that letting your mind wander can lead to better creative problem solving. And anecdotal links between daydreaming and creativity abound. From Einstein to Nobel Prize-winning chemists to the inventor of the Post-it note, many of the world’s great thinkers have espoused the benefits of giving your mind a rest. And perhaps you too have noticed that your best ideas come in the shower or while out for a walk.

BBC - Capital - Why idle moments are crucial for creativity

Governments damage their economies when they shut down Internet applications and services, according to a new analysis. During the past year, 81 disruptions in 19 countries cost those economies at least $2.4 billion, according a study by Darrell West at the Brookings Institution that estimates the cost of disrupting a nation’s online activities. Governments can cut off citizens’ Internet access for a variety of reasons, including to quell dissent or force a company to comply with a law. In 2011, the Egyptian government shut down access for five days to prevent communication between protesters, while more recently, Brazil blocked the messaging app WhatsApp after it refused to comply with requests for user data.

Shut Down the Internet, and the Economy Goes With It - MIT Technology Review

There is something fishy about our attitude to fish. It is estimated there are a staggering 250,000 species of fish in our oceans, yet despite their diverse looks and behaviour, many people perceive them to be universally dim-witted. This widely-held belief may persist due to an unconscious bias, based on an old-fashioned view of how evolution works. Culum Brown of Macquarie University in Australia, who is also assistant editor of the Journal of Fish Biology, suspects that many people underestimate how smart fish are because they assume fish are primitive creatures. "The reality is that most of the fish on the planet today evolved around the same time as humans," he says.

BBC - Earth - Why fish do not deserve their reputation for forgetfulness

If you like the euro, why not just call for a global gold standard? | FT Alphaville

Exchange rates affect the economy through a financial channel, as well as the trade channel. The financial channel works in the opposite direction to the trade channel. In emerging market economies especially, a weakening of the domestic currency against the dollar saps both cross-border bank lending and investment. Such effects flow through the dense interconnections of dollar lending in the global financial system. In devising policy for financial stability, a tight focus on underlying causes (excess leverage and funding risk) rather than on the symptoms (capital flows) stands a better chance of being more effective in addressing the vulnerabilities as they emerge.

Accounting for global liquidity: reloading the matrix

Scott Galloway is a marketing professor at the NYU Stern School of Business and the founder of business intelligence firm L2. Galloway appears on this week's episode of The Bottom Line with Henry Blodget and explains how Amazon could eliminate the existence of brands with voice technology. The following is a transcript of the video: So I think the biggest thing in technology in 2017 is voice. I think Amazon has effectively conspired with voice and technology and half a billion consumers to kill brands. When you go into a store, you see the packaging, you see the endcaps, you might see pricing go up and down. All of these things that big brands ranging from Unilever and Procter & Gamble to Kraft and Heinz have spent billions of dollars and generations building.

SCOTT GALLOWAY on the biggest thing in tech in 2017: Amazon could eliminate the existence of brands with voice - Business Insider

The chart illustrates that with every postwar expansion, as the economy grew, the bottom 90% of households received a smaller and smaller share of that growth. Even though their share was falling, the majority of families still captured the majority of the income growth until the 70s. Starting in the 80s, the trend reverses sharply: as the economy recovers from recessions, the lion’s share of income growth goes to the wealthiest 10% of families. Notably, the entire 2001-2007 recovery produced almost no income growth for the bottom 90% of households and, in the first years of recovery since the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, their incomes kept falling during the expansion, delivering all benefits from growth to the wealthiest 10%. A similar trend is observed when one considers the bottom 99% and top 1% percent of households (for details, as well as complete business cycle data, see here).

Inequality Update: Who Gains When Income Grows? - New Economic PerspectivesNew Economic Perspectives

The attack that injured one Borussia Dortmund player and led to a Champions League game being postponed earlier in April looks to have been an attempt to manipulate the stock market. The German police on Friday arrested a man on suspicion of planting the explosives that injured Spanish defender Marc Bartra on April 11, accusing the man of attempted murder, inflicting serious bodily harm, and causing an explosion. The suspect, a 28-year-old man identified by prosecutors as Sergei V, had reportedly bought options on Borussia Dortmund's stock worth roughly €78,000 (£65,000; $83,600).

Borussia Dortmund bus attack was share scam gone wrong - Business Insider

Q4 2016 US earnings season: how did it go? - Investors' Corner

Since the US election, the financial sector has gained 27% compared to a 9% advance for the market as a whole. The S&P 500 banks index has powered ahead by 40%. The price-to-book value of the index has risen to 1.3x from a global financial crisis (GFC) low of 0.6x. Whether the current price-to-book metric means banking stocks are expensive or cheap depends on whether the future resembles the pre-GFC or post-GFC world. Before the global financial crisis, the average price-to-book multiple for the index was 2.3x, which compared to the current 1.3x would suggest banking stocks are still attractively valued. But the multiple since the GFC has been just 1.2x, suggesting that stocks have become slightly pricey. Though there is still a significant degree of uncertainty about the prospect of regulatory reform, in our view there is still some value in the sector.

Q4 2016 US earnings season: how did it go? - Investors' Corner

Equity analysts have reacted to the US earnings releases so far by revising more of their forecasts for 2017 downward (58%) than upward (42%), which is another reason for investors to be cautious after the recent strong performance in equity markets (see Exhibit 3). On a sector basis, telecomm services, real estate, consumer staples and healthcare have seen the majority of negative revisions, while energy, utilities, financials, and technology had have a majority of upward revisions.

Q4 2016 US earnings season: how did it go? - Investors' Corner

A major reason for the rallies in the steels -- and now the drubbings they got yesterday -- has to do with a belief that we are no longer going to let China push us around on trade. Same with the aluminums, the rails and anything materials or material handling, including Caterpillar (CAT) . Sure, while worldwide economic growth may be greater now than it was, much of the move has to do with a belief we would end the "business-as-usual doctrine" with China. We would make sure they understood that their currency was still way too low.

Cramer: Is Trump Turning His Back on the American Worker? - TheStreet

The Fed’s balance sheet now amounts to around USD 4.5 trillion dollars. In order to maintain an accommodative monetary policy, the Fed has reinvested principal payments from its holdings of US Treasury securities (USD 2.5 trillion) and mortgaged-backed securities (USD 1.8 trillion), as well as rolling over maturing Treasuries since net asset purchases ended in 2014. As a result, the total liabilities in the balance sheet has remained broadly unchanged since the end of quantitative easing. The current balance sheet differs from the pre-recession balance sheet in size and composition. Pre-crisis the balance sheet totalled around USD 1 trillion. On the asset side most of the assets were Treasuries. On the liabilities side, the main components was currency in circulation. Since the global financial crisis reserves have been increasingly dominant (rising from a share of 1.3% to 53%), while demand for currency and reverse repos has also increased.

US Watch - Shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet - Insights

Tesla gets highest price forecast ever from a major analyst

Somehow Elon Musk has found the time to start another company. The company will be the vehicle for the development of the "neural lace" Musk discussed on Twitter and elsewhere, according to the The Wall Street Journal. The "neural lace" Musk has talked about is typically described as an implant or an appendage that would be attached to the brain, that would provide a way for brains to interact with devices, or otherwise augment human intelligence.

Elon Musk is founding another company

The European Central Bank is bracing for a painful ‘taper tantrum’ as it reins in emergency stimulus and slows the pace of bond purchases next month, all too aware that market liquidity could dry up suddenly. Mario Draghi, the ECB’s president, said investors have come to rely on easy money from Frankfurt and nobody knows what will happen when the spigot is turned off. “We need to be extremely careful,” he said. “Markets have adjusted to plenty of liquidity for a long time. Liquidity is there until it is not, and it goes very quickly,” he told the European Parliament. The warning comes as investors fret about the fate of southern Europe’s debt markets once the ECB stops buying eurozone bonds, which it may have to do sooner than it may like as headline inflation picks up and pressure builds in Germany for an end to quantitative easing (QE).

ECB's Mario Draghi warns on liquidity shock as tapering nears

After years of disappointment, a quiet revolution may be underway in the Japanese stock market. Japan’s companies have for years sat on record piles of cash -- the equivalent of $2.4 trillion in September, the most in the world. The issue has been deploying those funds for shareholder benefit. A key part of Abenomics has been sharpening the focus on return on equity, and now --through a mix of carrots and sticks -- some investors see change on the horizon. French fund giant Amundi Group, for one, is targeting cash-rich companies with sleepy management practices that are ripe for overhaul.

A Quiet Revolution May Be Underway in Japanese Stocks - Bloomberg

The Gemini is eventually expected to have a retail price of $499 and up, but backers of the campaign can reserve one for as little as $299. What Planet Computer is promising for that price is a pocket-sized computer with features including: 5.7 inch, 2,880 x 1,440 pixel touchscreen display (564 ppi) MediaTek Helio X25 deca-core processor 4GB RAM 64GB storage + microSD card slot 802.11ac WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and NFC 2 USB Type C ports 5MP front camera Stereo speakers Removable 8,000 mAh battery

Gemini PDA is like a tiny Android/Linux laptop with premium specs (crowdfunding) - Liliputing

Apple and Amazon Are the Biggest Stories So Far This Year, but Fortunes Could Quickly Turn - TheStreet

A pullback in Asian equities looms after a stellar start to the year, according to fund managers, who remain bullish for the longer term thanks to cheap valuations and optimism that the region will benefit from improving global growth. While managers see strong fundamentals, they ticked off several risks that may weigh in the second quarter, from French elections and Brexit to U.S. interest rates, as well as Donald Trump’s stance on protectionism and his ability to steer his agenda through Congress.

A Pullback in Asian Stocks Looms: Fund Managers - Bloomberg

The bond market has been quiet. Too quiet in fact.  That's about to change, says Societe Generale's fixed income team led by Vincent Chaigneau.    "Spring is likely to be more threatening for bond investors as US data improves, political risk in Europe ebbs and investors refocus on a slow central bank exits," the team wrote in a note to clients on Thursday. The note is titled "The Sleeping Beast."

Bond market risks could rise in Spring SocGen says - Business Insider

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi last month highlighted the improving jobs figures as proof that the central bank’s quantitative easing isn’t just boosting asset prices and widening inequality, but benefiting ordinary citizens. Still, the latest jobless numbers indicate the level of slack still in the labor market, even as the headline rate has come down from its peak of more than 12 percent four years ago. “We’re still very far away from the wage growth we saw pre-crisis,” said Bert Colijn, senior euro-area economist at ING Bank NV in Amsterdam. “With labor market conditions as slack as they are, and with youth unemployment still quite high, it seems that Draghi will probably need to remain cautious until we really see some strengthening labor market signs.”

Youth Unemployment Shows Euro-Area Recovery Not Working for All - Bloomberg

This is not a drill. Yes April Fool’s Day might be just around the corner, but you can now play Ms Pac-Man in Google Maps, really. Getting the jump on the day of jokes, Google has given its iOS and Android Google Maps an arcade gaming makeover. To play, all you have to do is open the app and click the new pink, Ms Pac-Man adorned circle in the bottom right hand corner, where the usual current location and navigation buttons still sit.

You can now play Ms Pac-Man in Google Maps, really

Eurozone growth nears six-year high, survey data suggests - BBC News

Earnings growth remains solid. Energy has weighed down earnings over the last few years. The general assumption is that earnings estimates are too optimistic. FactSet reports that the expected y-o-y growth in Q1 is 9.1%. You probably do not see that data very often, unless you are wisely following Brian Gilmartin, who has been on top of this story for many months.

Weighing The Week Ahead: What Does The Obamacare Decision Mean For Stocks? - SPDR S&P 500 Trust ETF (NYSEARCA:SPY) | Seeking Alpha

Investors have been nervous about growth, and that anxiety has been exacerbated by a closely watched indicator: the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker, which keeps a running tally on how quarterly growth is progressing. In early February, the gauge had pointed to first-quarter growth at 3.4 percent. That, however, tailed all the way down to 0.9 percent in March, and on Friday it got just an incremental bump to 1 percent. That certainly wasn't the way things were supposed to go. And it may not in fact be an accurate picture of what's really happening. In an analysis released Thursday night, Goldman Sachs asserted that first-quarter growth actually may be close to double what the Atlanta Fed thinks — more like 1.8 percent than the barely 1 percent indicated by the central bank's tool. At the core of its forecast is a belief that growth has accelerated as the quarter has progressed, with the Fed forecast underestimating consumer spending, exports and inventory growth, all critical components in the GDP measure.

The whole Trump growth story is about to face a huge challenge

Trouble in the charts sent one previous market bull running to sell all his stocks, as Todd Gordon of TradingAnalysis.com sees two key "warning [signs]" brewing that could take down the rally. "I flattened out all my positions on the 21st," he said Thursday on CNBC's "Trading Nation." "I am carrying no long positions right now and for the first time in months, and I'm actually finger on the trigger to go short."

Something I just saw in the charts made me sell all my stocks: Trader

In Moscow this past summer, a woman drifted-off to sleep after playing Pokemon Go on her smartphone. Later that night, she was awoken by a crushing pressure. She opened her eyes and reportedly saw that she was being assaulted by a real-life Pokemon character. Not a person in a Pokemon outfit, an actual Pokemon. Panicking, but unable to speak, she struggled with the creature while her boyfriend slumbered ignorantly beside her. Eventually, she was able to rise, and the Pokemon vanished. After a brief search of her home, the woman proceeded to report the assault the police. News of the woman’s police report was quickly, and somewhat gleefully, picked up by a variety of international tabloids. It rattled about the internet, and eventually surfaced on my Twitter feed. But my first thought, as an experimental psychologist with a particular focus in anomalous perceptual experiences was, “Well, that could have happened to anybody.”

BBC - Future - The strange case of the phantom Pokemon

It’s full steam ahead for dividend ETFs after Fed meeting - MarketWatch

For the second week in a row, Deutsche Bank's strategist Parag Thatte has a somewhat conflicted message for the bank's clients: on one hand, he writes that positive economic surprises continue "but are getting less so", and although the divergence between hard data surprises and sentiment is diminishing the bank is somewhat confident that a "pullback in the very near term is unlikely" (here DB disagrees with Goldman Sachs). However, Thatte is increasingly hedging, and notes that because a "rally without a 3-5% sell-off that is typical every 2-3 months is now running over 4 months and is in the top 10% of such rallies by duration", he cautions that "the probability of seeing a negative shock is high" especially since Q1 buyback blackout period has begun.

Deutsche Bank: "The Probability Of A Negative Shock Is High" | Zero Hedge

When it comes to living a long life, Italy is the place to be. The high-heeled boot surrounded by five seas is ranked the healthiest country on Earth in the Bloomberg Global Health Index of 163 countries. A baby born in Italy can expect to live be an octogenarian. But 2,800 miles south in Sierra Leone, the average newborn will die by 52.

Italy's Struggling Economy Has World's Healthiest People - Bloomberg

A high carbohydrate diet of rice, plantain, manioc and corn, with a small amount of wild game and fish – plus around six hours’ exercise every day – has given the Tsimané people of the Bolivian Amazon the healthiest hearts in the world. It may not be a life that everyone would choose. The Tsimané live in thatched huts with no electricity or modern conveniences. Their lives are spent on hunts that can last for over eight hours covering 18km for wild deer, monkeys or tapir and clearing large areas of primal forest with an axe, as well as the gentler pastime of gathering berries.

Tsimané of the Bolivian Amazon have world's healthiest hearts, says study | Society | The Guardian

What nobody really expected, though, is how liberating all that recuperation and rehabilitation time has been, finally freeing Federer from all woes concerning Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray et al. Federer had plenty of time to brood and evaluate while he was away for the second half of 2016. He was able to decide why and how he wanted to play when he returned. That stunning win over his career-long nemesis Rafael Nadal in the Australian Open final confirmed his desire to play exuberant, attacking, and -- yes -- flashy tennis was not only justifiable, it was lethal to his rivals. It has made all the difference in the world. And it made all the difference in another dominant run to the Indian Wells final, where he beat Swiss countryman Stan Wawrinka 6-4, 7-5 in Sunday's final.

Indian Wells tennis - Believe it or not, this might be just the start for Roger Federer