Business

Former Equifax CEO Richard Smith (now retired) can expect a serious grilling this morning as he faces a congressional hearing into the utter farce surrounding the company's gross mishandling (and potential insider trading) of a cyber-security breach which has left almost 150 million people at risk.

As The Washington Post reports, some lawmakers plan to not only grill the embattled credit reporting agency but also to cue up a fight for tighter data security standards that they and consumer advocates have long wanted.

After the investing landscape experienced a seismic shift with the introduction of the internet, helping investors benefit from lower fees and less latency, the budding initial coin offering (ICO) market could prove to be the epicenter of another investing revolution.  While the cryptocurrency space has routinely been criticized as a Ponzi scheme by noteworthy talking heads, most recently Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, the reality is much more sinister for established institutions. 

More and more signs of inflation are showing up.

In the latest ISM reading (a measure of economic activity in the US), this following tidbit showed up:

One of the reason why the torrid dollar rally of the past few weeks appears to have plateaued, at least for the time being, is that just like earlier in the year, doubts have emerged about the viability of the "new and improved" tax plan, which according to the Tax Policy Center would mostly benefit the "Top 1", even as it eventually pushes taxes for the upper middle class progressively higher.

It's deja vu all over again.

In a repeat of yesterday's session, where US equities and the dollar levitated in a one-way trade, Tuesday's muted session - where in addition to closed China and South Korean markets, Germany's Dax is also shut for holiday - has seen early dollar and European equity strength, while the S&P is set for new record highs amid higher E-minis and a VIX that is again lower after 5 consecutive days of declines.