Business

S&P500 futures point to a slightly lower open, as Asian stocks rise to trade near decade highs, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 closing at highest since 1996. European stocks are little changed, with Spanish shares gaining after Catalan President rows back from an immediate declaration of independence. MSCI's all-world stocks index briefly hit a fresh record high in opening European trading as a 1.5% jump in Spain's IBEX added to a 10-year high set by Asian shares overnight.

Robert Shiller isn’t the only Nobel Laureate who’s worried the US stock market is sleepwalking toward disaster.

In an interview with Bloomberg’s Jeanna Smialek, Thaler, who was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday for his pioneering work in establishing that humans are “predictably irrational”, said that the stock market’s complacency in the face of the North Korean nuclear threat and political uncertainty at home is disconcerting.

We spend fair amount of time discussing the soaring costs of Obamacare, but, as the Kaiser Family Foundation points out in a new study, employer sponsored plans, while not as bad as Obamacare, are also gradually pushing more healthcare costs onto their employees through surging deductibles and co-insurance payments all while wages remain fairly stagnant.

Japan's third-biggest steel producer is in trouble. After admitting falsifying data about the quality of aluminum and copper it sold, shares in Kobe Steel have collapsed 37%,  -20% limit down yesterday and another -17% at the open today following news that the falsification also involved iron powder product, in the biggest bloodbath the company has ever seen.

Bloomberg provides a quick Q&A:

Authored by Nicholas Trickett via OilPrice.com,

Oil Royalties