Europe

Authored by Khadija Khan via The Gatestone Institute,

Authored by Shaun Bradley via TheAntiMedia.org,

Visa recently announced its new Cashless Challenge program, which offers $10,000 to restaurants willing to transition into accepting only digital payments.  As the largest credit card processor in the U.S., it’s no surprise Visa is spearheading this campaign.

Another day, another record high in tech stocks...

A very ugly 3mo T-Bill auction today (highest yield since Lehman and inverting the yield curve) sent yields soaring once again as debt-ceiling concerns are spooking cash markets (but not stocks)...

This morning, BofA has released a humongous, nearly 200-page "primer" on the global sharing economy which in the eyes of Wall Street and Silicon Valley is the biggest disruptor behind virtually all 21st century business models. Since it is impossible to summarize the report, which will be largely ignored by most of BofA's clients who will instead focus on the hundreds of charts scattered throughout, we will simply summarize the basics as laid out by BofA, and then present some of the more interesting charts, with the remainder to be published in subsequent thematic posts.

Bullish traders who insist that US economic fundamentals remain rock-solid despite tepid growth, inflation and other signs the postelection “Trump bump” in consumer confidence is already beginning to fade should take a look at the International Monetary Fund’s latest batch of quarterly forecasts for global growth.

The fund left its all-world forecasts for 2017 and 2018 unchanged from its previous quarterly update, which was released in April: It anticipates 3.5% and 3.6% growth, respectively.