All the news you need in one place. Updated throughout the day.
August 3
Oil dragged stocks down Monday. The Dow fell 0.5%, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dipped 0.3%. Debt investors betting on a rebound in oil-and-gas, including Blackstone Group and Franklin Resources, are being hit hard. Oil hit $45.31 a barrel Monday, a 3.8% drop. Apple got a bad case of the chills and is now trading below its 200 day moving average. Friday’s jobs report will be the next big stock mover. Bad news for cheats: Tom Hayes, charged with masterminding a bank rate-rigging scheme, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. It is the first verdict in the U.K. Libor scandal. Stay tuned in the a.m. for more earnings reports from Sina, Symantec, Kohl’s, and Applied Materials. Calendar here.
Here is what else you need to know:
Puerto Rico defaulted. Puerto Rico was only able to make a partial payment Monday of about $628,000 towards its August 1 deadline to pay back millions of dollars in debt. Moody’s labeled the situation a default. CNBC
Obama reveals climate change plan. Obama’s “Clean Power Plan” will allow the EPA to establish nationwide standards for carbon pollution. States will be required meet carbon emission reduction standards, and will be given incentives to get started early on using renewable energy. The plan is already receiving strong opposition from critics who fear large electricity price increases. CNN
SEC faces pressure to change judge appointments. A Manhattan federal judge gave the SEC seven days to notify the court of “its intention to cure any violation” of the Constitution in its appointments of in-house judges. Lawyers and defendants have said that the SEC is more restrictive than federal court. WSJ
Pimco gets Wells Notice from the SEC. The top cop is looking into trades over a four-month period involving the pricing of non-agency mortgage securities in its Total Return ETF. NexChange
London rail on strike again. The train drivers’ union announced that it will implement another 24-hour strike on the London Underground beginning at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday. Workers protested last month over the proposed new night service for the Tube, shutting the mass transit system down for a whole day in July. Reuters
Hedge funder is backing Ted Cruz. Robert Mercer gave $11.1 million to the Texas senator’s presidential campaign, almost of third of Cruz’s total campaign money. Ronald Perelman, Len Batavnick, Julian Robertson, and Steven and Alexandra Cohen have also given more than a million dollars each to Republican presidential candidates. New York Post
Greek stocks tank 16.23%. The Athens stock index closed Monday down 16.23% on its first day open in five weeks. Tons of built-up negativity sent the Athens Stock Exchange down 11% right out of the bat while the country’s largest lenders – Piraeus Bank, National Bank, Alpha Bank, and Eurobank – all dropped by 30%. Wow. The stock exchange had been closed as Greece installed capital controls during its debt crisis negotiations with European creditors. BBC News
Chinese stocks drop as manufacturing measure hits two-year low. The Shanghai Composite finished the session down 1.11% while Shenzhen and the ChiNext slipped 2.7% and 5.5% respectively. Hong Kong ended 0.85% lower. Manufacturing data from the mainland continued to disappoint as the Caixin China manufacturing purchasing managers index (PMI) came in at 47.8 in July, down from 49.4 in June and well below the 50+ reading needed to signal expansion. Any reading below the 50 mark means contraction. Hit hard in the selloff: Citic Resources, which reported more than $100 million in losses for the first half of the year; revenues fell 86%. Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, SCMP (paywall)
Believe it or not
Ultimate Frisbee could be the next Olympic sport. The World Flying Disc Federation was given “full recognition” by the International Olympic committee Sunday. “Flying disc sports” have joined American football, polo, and chess as a recognized sport not in the Olympics. Recognition is just the first step towards someday being in the games. Newsweek
Amy Schumer speaks out on guns. Actress Amy Schumer joined her cousin U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer to advocate for a new gun control law. A shooter killed two women during a showing of Amy Schumer’s new movie “Trainwreck” two weeks ago. Since then, the actress has hinted that she would be more vocal about guns. Huffington Post
Blame the temperature on men. In a study published Monday, scientists wrote that most office buildings have temperatures set to the metabolic rates of men, often leaving gentlemen comfortable and women freezing. The study suggested that offices “reduce gender-discriminating bias in thermal comfort,” and help fight climate change by raising the temp just a couple degrees. New York Times
Photo: Alex Barth