“America is a great power—today probably the only superpower. We accept that” —Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Yep, you read that right. He also said he’s willing to work with whoever wins this year’s presidential election—we’ll see how that goes.
MARKET SNAPSHOT
Big Picture
- U.S. stocks fell on Friday, like they did for most of last week, as Brexit fears ramped up and didn’t let up. These jitters should last until Thursday, when the vote is scheduled to take place
CORPORATE PRIMER
Apple and China are in a bit of a tiff…
…the latest drama? Here’s the deets: lagging iPhone sales in China played a major role in Apple’s rough second quarter, and to make matters worse, Beijing has nowbanned Apple from selling models of the iPhone 6. Why? According to Beijing, the iPhone is too similar to an already-existing Chinese phone. Chinese consumers, don’t freak out just yet—the iPhone will still be available for sale while Apple appeals China’s decision. But regardless of the outcome, this isn’t what Tim Cook and Co. were hoping for—remember, China already shut down Apple Movies and Books earlier this year, and there was speculation that Apple’s sizable investment in Chinese Uber rival Didi Chuxing was meant to mend the tense relationship. Guess there’s more work to be done.
America’s most hated stock…
…has just become America’s most beloved one-day gainer. That’s right, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission told hardwood flooring company Lumber Liquidators a full recall of its made-in-China laminate wood wasn’t necessary—appropriately sending shares up over 19% on Friday. In case you haven’t been keeping up with the world of treated wood, Lumber Liquidators fell into disgrace last year after a CBS special exposed the company for unhealthy levels of formaldehyde in its flooring. LL isn’t quite off the hook, and it’ll continue to test and retest its products to prevent any other scares from popping up.
Mitsubishi hopped on the scandal-wagon…
…with its very own inflated mileage debacle—and it finally came back to bite the automaker over the weekend. Mitsubishi will be issuing $960 to each Japanese owner of the car in question after officially admitting fault—which will total $913 million for Mitsubishi when all is said and done. It’s getting hard to trust what auto manufacturers are promising these days—but hey, at least Japanese Mitsubishi owners are receiving some cash for their troubles.
WORLD MACRO
India’s Central Bank governor shocked the world…
…stepping down from his post in a surprise move. Well, not yet: Raghuram Rajan announced he would resign from the position when his term ends in September. With Rajan at the helm, India has enjoyed the largest GDP growth of any major economy, and his efforts to curb India’s longstanding issues with inflation were largely considered a success. Rajan’s announcement is sure to inflict further volatility on markets already bracing themselves for the pending Brexit vote. Plus, those are some big shoes to fill…
OTHER STORIES
- Waze is fixing one of its most annoying features to make streets safer
- Twitch sues makers of bots that boost viewer counts
- Dish drops NFL Network
- IEX gains approval for new stock exchange
ECONOMIC CALENDAR
- Monday: Treasury Bill Auctions
- Tuesday: Adobe, FedEx Earnings
- Wednesday: Bed Bath & Beyond, Barnes & Noble Earnings; Existing Home Sales
- Thursday: BlackBerry, Accenture Earnings; New Home Sales; Weekly Jobless Claims
- Friday: Durable Goods Orders; Consumer Sentiment
WOULD YOU RATHER…
…have a 90% chance of earning $1.1 million, or a 10% chance of earning $10 million? If you’re studying computer science, chances are you stuck with the first choice—recent grads tend to play it safe by sticking with big, established brand names like Google or Facebook:
- So exactly which companies are plucking the best and brightest computer science minds? Unsurprisingly, Google, Microsoft, GM, Amazon, IBM, Facebook and Apple dominate the hiring out of top CS schools like MIT, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Michigan.
- Working for any of those companies sounds like a dream, right? They have more resources than start-ups, and they’re hiring more: Google and Microsoft have over 50,000 employees, and IBM had 20,000 job openings alone as of March 2016.
- But as with everything in life, playing it safe by working for established players may mean a lower reward. Harj Taggar, CEO of tech recruiting startup Triplebyte, says that taking risks is the only way for aspiring programmers to make it big.
- In other words, present-day Google? Eh. Google in 1999? Now we’re talking. According to Taggar, some of today’s up-and-comers with a high risk-reward include Airbnb, Dropbox, Uber and Stripe. Go get ‘em, grads.
INTERVIEW QUESTION OF THE DAY
When should investors turn to junk bonds (high-yielding, riskier bonds with poorer credit ratings) like Sprint’s bonds? (Answer)
BUSINESS TERM OF THE DAY
Security — A financial “instrument” that represents an ownership position in a stock, bond or rights to ownership (option). Securities are usually divided into debts and equities. A debt security represents borrowed money with terms of repayment. An equity security represents ownership interest held by shareholders in a corporation.
HISTORY-MAKING STATISTIC
13 years after Finding Nemo, Pixar and Disney have struck gold again with Finding Dory. With an opening weekend box office haul of $136.2 million, Finding Doryrecorded the biggest domestic opening ever for an animated film. Just keep swimming (in dough).
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