Technology

The ransomware has been identifed as WannaCry

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Update 2: Security firm Kaspersky Lab has recorded more than 45,000 attacks in 74 countries in the past 10 hours. Seventy-four countries around the globe have been affected, with the number of victims still growing, according to Kaspersky Lab. According to Avast, over 57,000 attacks have been detected worldwide, the company said, adding that it "quickly escalated into a massive spreading."

"Probably nothing..."

This morning's disappointing inflation and retail sales data (hard data) more than offset any gains in the soft data (modest rise in UMich confidence), crashing Citi's US Macro Surprise Index to its weakest (and most negative) level since May 2016...

What happens next?

With futures looking ominously ungreen this morning, what better way to prop them up than to upgrade the stock that alone has contributed to 13% of the S&P's return YTD...

... Apple.

That'sprecisely what both BofA and Goldman have done this morning, with the former raising its 12-month price target to $170 from $164, "based on a target P/E of 15x (unchanged) and our CY18 EPS estimate of $11.38 (up from $10.91)."

On the day when Snapchat erased billions of market cap from investors (and founders) accounts - as the MAUs-means-money model seems to break - we thought it worthwhile taking another glimpse into the hush-hush world of 'click-farms' and the fakeness of the latest social network fads.

There are two things in which Elon Musk is an undisputed champion: creating hype and buzz for massively cash-flow burning products and companies, and abusing every possible loophole in the US tax code to get explicit and implicit subsidies from the government. He demonstrated the latter on Wednesday, when Tesla began taking orders for its solar roof tiles, a cornerstone strategy of Elon Musk's strategy to sell a "green", fossil-fuel-free lifestyle under the brand name of its luxury electric vehicles.