Business

In a spirited defense of today's inefficient market, one which is allegedly unimpaired by the relentless metastasis of passive investing, Bloomberg wrote an article using Macro Risk Advisors data, in which it said that "for all the handwringing about how the growth of passive investing strategies is distorting the stock market" it concluded that "there’s virtually no market impact from it. Correlations remain at all-time lows and the amount of shares that are passively managed isn’t affecting single-stock."

Stormy weather was unleashed in Tesla longsville today when the company's veteran director of battery technology, Kurt Kelty, unexpectedly resigned to "explore new opportunities", abruptly ending a tenure with the company that stretched for more than a decade, and comes at a critical time for Elon Musk: just as Tesla enters "production hell" after it delivered its first Model 3 electric car to the general public with a dramatic production ramp up expected in the coming weeks. Kelty joined Tesla in 2006 and was one of the longest-serving executives at Tesla after Elon Musk.

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

The Italian mafia may have teamed up with the Islamic State to smuggle crude oil from the Middle East into Italy, an ongoing police investigation has suggested, according to The Times who cited a report by La Repubblica.

The Italian daily noted that the police had found substantial amounts of Libyan and Syrian crude that were greater than some local refineries’ inventories, with sources connected with the investigation saying that crude, “should not have been there.”

It was hard to find a bright spot for auto investors in July's auto sales figures released earlier today with GM down 15% YoY, Ford off 7% and Chrysler down 11%.

The companies blamed the drops on lower fleet sales but GM’s retail sales also fell 14.4% from July 2016.  Meanwhile, Ford and Fiat Chrysler retail sales had single-digit declines, and their fleet sales fell 26% and 35%, respectively.

Here's a recap of how each of the largest OEM's made out in July:

GM:

With Apple trading just shy of all time highs (and with a quarter trillion in cash on the books), the market was wondering if AAPL can once again surprise to the upside ahead of the all important iPhone 8 quarter, as well as provide some guidance what it plans to do with its cash hoard. And while, there was no explicit guidance on the now $260BN+ in gross cash, Apple has surged after hours on the strong top and bottom line beat, and just as strong guidance, despite a small iPhone sales miss in the current quarter.