Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Apple and Alibaba report quarterly earnings. Apple’s figures are murky, but the market is largely expecting it to beat its earnings targets. Chinese tech giant Alibaba is also set to beat estimates and maintain its year-over-year growth record.
The Bank of England will likely hike interest rates. The central bank is expected to raise its benchmark for the first time in a decade, despite weak economic growth. Inflation, however, hit a five-year high of 3% in September and unemployment is at a 42-year low.
Donald Trump taps the next Fed head. After considering five candidates for several months, the president is expected to nominate Jerome “Jay” Powell, who has served as Fed governor since 2012, as the next head of the US central bank. Current chair Janet Yellen’s term expires in February 2018.
While you were sleeping
Trump demanded the death penalty for Sayfullo Saipov. The president appeared to ignore judicial process in his most recent tweet about the suspect in New York’s terror attack. The Uzbek native was charged on Tuesday with providing material support to ISIL and violence and destruction of vehicles.
The Houston Astros won the World Series. Houston won the baseball title for the first time ever, after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in Game 7. A prescient Sports Illustrated called the Astros’ 2017 victory back in 2014.
Shell pumped its profits by almost 50%. The Anglo-Dutch giant smashed expectations with its third-quarter results, making $4.1 billion in net income and ramping oil production by 2% to 3.7 million barrels per day (paywall). The results reflect an overall recovery in the oil sector: Brent crude is now over $60 per barrel, its highest level since 2015.
Aung San Suu Kyi made her first visit to Rakhine state. The Myanmar leader urged people in the northern state “not to quarrel.” Rakine is home to the persecuted Rohingya people—some 600,000 of them are reported to have fled to Bangladesh. The Nobel Peace Prize winner was criticized internationally for failing to react to what the UN says is “ethnic cleansing.”
Women are now worse off than last year. The World Economic Forum’s latest report found the gender gap widening in 2017 for the first time since 2006. The WEF says that economic disparity will not be closed for another 217 years.
Quartz obsession interlude
Lynsey Chutel on the apartheid flag’s comeback in South Africa. “Yet, groups like AfriForum argue farm attacks are characterized by torture and specific brutality. It’s what has fueled the myth that a ‘white genocide’ is waiting to happen in South Africa. The myth has gained traction among white supremacists around the world, especially among conservatives in the US. It’s also a myth that wraps itself in the apartheid-era flag for comfort.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Amazon is invading finance without really trying. Its cloud-computing platform has drastically lowered barriers to entry for financial startups.
Activist investors are just rebranded corporate raiders. Their goal is to load up companies with debt while only owning a tiny percentage of shares.
The internet is dying. The web is losing the structural and economic diversity that defines it, as Google, Facebook, and Amazon become ever more dominant.
Surprising discoveries
Russia-linked Facebook ads often didn’t mention the US election. The ads targeted both Muslims and people who dislike Muslims, and blacks and people against Black Lives Matter.
Audible lets romance fans jump to the juicy parts. Listeners can skip to first dates, marriage proposals, and, of course, sex scenes.
Researchers in Japan say they can predict policy by analyzing facial expressions. But their favorite subject, Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda, laughed it off.
“When I pray, sometimes I fall asleep,” confessed Pope Francis. The leader of the Catholic Church justified himself by saying that even saints napped.
Finnair is weighing passengers. The airline says it needs the data to ensure total weight, fuel, and safety are accurate on its planes.
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