Bloomberg American farmers already stung by President Donald Trump’s trade wars now face billions of dollars in potential losses as controversial data from the US government snuffs out a rally in corn. The Agriculture Department said farmers planted a bigger corn area than analysts estimated and pegged crop yields that also exceeded expectations, sparking the biggest rout in futures since ...
Read More »Facebook confirms it transcribes ‘audio files’
Bloomberg Facebook Inc. (FB) has been paying hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe clips of audio from users of its services, according to people with knowledge of the work. The work has rattled the contract employees, who are not told where the audio was recorded or how it was obtained — only to transcribe it, said the people, who requested anonymity ...
Read More »British artist gathered 10,000 tulips to show AI is beautiful
Bloomberg If you want to know what a large set of data points feels like, try carrying 500 tulips through the streets of the Netherlands. This was the life of 34-year-old British artist Anna Ridler, when she set out to build with her own two hands the most extensive dataset of tulips possible. While it sounds scientific, the project was ...
Read More »Renault’s no-frills brand bracing for costly exhaust rules
Bloomberg Close to 10,000 people gathered near a Cistercian abbey north of Paris in June, not for a religious festival, but to celebrate a Romanian automaker named Dacia. Eric Lanneau, a 57-year-old former plumber, attended the Renault SA brand’s annual picnic, which featured a performance by French pop star Jenifer. He bought a Dacia Duster in May, won over by ...
Read More »Let China build longest undersea rail tunnel
An ambitious project to build the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world between Helsinki and Tallinn is being held up by the Estonian government over worries about the plan and where the money is coming from. It should let the life-changing link go ahead, even if its Chinese funding looks suspicious. The project’s developer, Finest Bay Area Development Oy, ...
Read More »Android: A defensive bulwark for Google
Articles sometimes have a long gestation. One that I published this week had its roots in my disagreement with a three-year-old podcast. In this 2016 episode of the Acquired podcast, David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert assessed Google’s 2005 acquisition of the startup behind the Android operating system for smartphones. Rosenthal and Gilbert had a sensible view that Android was a ...
Read More »The Federal Reserve isn’t sending a signal to buy stocks
It’s time for investors to fight the Fed. A popular Wall Street saw is that the Federal Reserve has a heavy hand in the level of the stock market. The theory is that low interest rates buoy stocks and that high rates sink them, so by controlling interest rates the Fed controls the market indirectly. From that nugget springs the ...
Read More »Stocks slide, bonds flash warning after weak data
Bloomberg American equity-index futures slumped alongside stocks in Europe as weak data from two of the world’s biggest economies overshadowed an apparent de-escalation in the trade war. Treasuries and European bonds rallied, with key parts of both the US and UK yield curves inverting. Contracts on the S&P 500 fell alongside the Stoxx Europe 600 index as data showed Germany’s ...
Read More »China stocks cling to tariff-driven gains
Bloomberg Stocks in China and Hong Kong pared earlier advances as relief that the US will delay imposing tariffs on some consumer goods was tempered by weak economic data. The yuan climbed the most since June 20. The Hang Seng Index overcame an afternoon wobble to close 0.1 percent higher, rising for the first time in four days, while protests ...
Read More »China’s $55b MLF maturity will give a signal on easing
Bloomberg China’s central bank will likely roll over maturing debt to ease liquidity in the financial system as the economy slows amid the trade dispute with the US. The People’s Bank of China is expected to roll over 383 billion yuan ($55 billion) of medium-term lending facility loans due to mature on Thursday, analysts said, after July industrial output growth ...
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