Business

S&P futures are slightly lower (ES -0.1%) as traders paid little attention to the latest missile test by North Korea on Friday, with shares and other risk assets barely moving, gold lower and focus rapidly returning to when and where interest rates will go up. Most global market are mostly unfazed, and the Korean Kospi actually closed up 0.4%, by the latest geopolitical escalation after a North Korean ballistic missile flew far enough to put the U.S. territory of Guam in range. European stocks edged fractionally lower while Asian shares advanced.

The last week - since China unveiled its hypocritical plan to ban petrol cars - has seen record inflows into Lithium-related funds.

Trading volumes have exploded higher and prices for LIT (the Lithium and Battery Tech ETF) are back to near 6 year highs.

h/t @EricBalchunas

Never one to miss out on an opportunity, LME is reportedly looking to introduce a contract for lithium (via Mining-Journal.com)...

Just as the development of electronic trading led to mass downsizing on sales desks across Wall Street, advances in artificial intelligence could decimate the ranks of banks’ back-office staff, according to former Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit. And given the rapid pace of technological advance, jobs in operations and retail banking could begin disappearing in as few as five years.

Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,

Should you get free money from the U.S. government every month simply for being alive? 

That may sound like a crazy idea to many of us, but the truth is that this will likely be one of the biggest political issues in the 2020 presidential election.

ATTOM Data Solutions today released its Q2 2017 U.S. Home Flipping Report which reveals that residential home flippers, the same speculative crew that nearly blew up the entire global financial system in 2008, are now making more money than ever.  In fact, in 2Q the average flipped house generated gross profits of $67,516 which is well above the $60,000 peak previously set back in 2005.