Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
The northeastern US goes to the polls. Voters in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Rhode Island could give frontrunners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton a final push to secure their respective presidential nominations.
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. The central banks of New Zealand and Japan will also announce interest rate decisions.
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.
Mitsubishi faces up to its scandal. After the carmaker admitted it cheated on fuel efficiency tests for 25 years, it may be unable to issue any financial guidance, according to Reuters. Other companies reporting quarterly results include Marriott, PayPal, Boeing, Hilton, Comcast, and Nintendo.
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 ever. Apple also missed expectations for its revenue, earnings, and quarterly guidance, sending shares down more than 6%.
Twitter plunged on disappointing guidance. The company posted mixed results: user growth and profits were better than expected, but investors keyed in on its revenue guidance, which was way below expectations. Shares plummeted more than 10%, dealing a serious blow to CEO Jack Dorsey’s turnaround efforts.
The FBI claimed it barely knows anything about the tool it used to hack a terrorist’s iPhone. If Apple was hoping to fix the vulnerability, it won’t be getting help from the Feds. The agency said it knows little about the tool, for which it paid more than $1 million to a mysterious hacking group.
Exxon lost its AAA credit rating. For the first time since the Great Depression, Standard & Poor’s downgraded Exxon, citing high spending and low oil prices. The only remaining US companies with AAA ratings are Microsoft and drugmaker Johnson & Johnson.
A yogurt CEO made his employees into overnight millionaires. Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya unexpectedly handed out shares to all 2,000 full-time workers—equal to about 10% of the multi-billion dollar company. The move is likely to anger the private equity group that loaned Chobani money two years ago.
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.
What if we just gave everyone enough money? The concept of basic income is gaining support, but it raises difficult questions about the meaning of life.
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 may pay out research grants in bitcoin. The controversial cryptocurrency may 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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