What to watch for today
The Fed holds steady. Although the US economy is relatively healthy, the central bank is expected to delay hiking its benchmark rate, due to global economic instability.
Facebook versus great expectations. After a string of strong quarterly performances, the social media giant has a high bar to impress investors. Analysts expect 48% revenue growth versus last year, with mobile ads accounting for 80% of the total.
Earnings, earnings, earnings. Companies reporting quarterly results (pdf) include Marriott, PayPal, Boeing, Hilton, and Comcast—and Mitsubishi Motors, which will likely skip the earnings forecast after it admitted to cheating on fuel efficiency tests for 25 years, and has seen its market value halved in about a week.
While you were sleeping
Apple posted its first revenue decline in more than a decade. Sales of the iPhone, the company’s most important product, fell for the first time. Apple also missed expectations (paywall) for its revenue, earnings, and quarterly guidance, sending shares down more than 6%.
Trump and Clinton won some more. In primaries for a handful of states in the northeastern US, Donald Trump added five victories and a large number of Republican delegates to his increasingly dominant presidential campaign. On the other side Hillary Clinton was declared the winner in four states, with Rhode Island going to Bernie Sanders.
Twitter plunged on disappointing guidance. User growth and profits were better than expected, but investors keyed in on its revenue guidance, which was below expectations. Shares plummeted more than 10%, dealing a blow to CEO Jack Dorsey’s turnaround efforts.
Comcast is in talks to buy DreamWorks Animation for more than $3 billion. The US cable giant wants to acquire the maker of animated films including Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, according to the Wall Street Journal (paywall).
The FBI claimed it knows little about the tool it used to hack a terrorist’s iPhone. Apple won’t likely get help from the Feds in fixing the security vulnerability. The agency said that while it knows how to use the tool—for which it paid more than $1 million—it doesn’t know how it works (paywall).
A yogurt CEO made his employees potential millionaires. In an unusual move Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said he would give (paywall) some 2,000 full-time employees shares worth up to 10% of the company when it goes public or is sold. Chobani is worth billions of dollars.
Quartz markets haiku
The fat apple hangs
Pulling the branch towards the earth
Will the whole thing snap?
Quartz obsession interlude
Akshat Rathi on how new research shows an extreme diet can reverse type-2 diabetes: “We still don’t understand why such reversal is possible. A leading hypothesis is that, following weight loss, removal of excess fat from the liver and pancreas can kickstart insulin-producing cells to normalize sugar levels.” Read more here.
Matters of Debate
Driverless trucks will be hugely disruptive. They will slash shipping costs and put millions of people out of work.
The smartest people are often the least happy. They tend to use yardsticks for success that are largely meaningless.
Dating foreigners is tough in China. Not because they’re spies, but because of irreconcilable political differences, young women say.
Surprising discoveries
Led Zeppelin could settle its legal dilemma for $1. But the band would have to share the songwriting credit for “Stairway to Heaven.”
The UK might pay out research grants in bitcoin. The controversial cryptocurrency could simplify a complicated process.
Prince died without leaving a will. That could complicate the fate of the hundreds or thousands of unreleased songs in his vault.
Your dog probably hates hugs. Canines are hardwired to run from trouble, and embraces make them feel trapped.
The rich didn’t always live longer than the poor. After the 18th century, expensive medicine caused the life expectancy gap to grow wider and wider.
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