Our Weekly Read column features Fortune staffers’ and contributors’ takes on recently published books about the business world and beyond. We’ve invited the entire Fortune family — from our writers and editors to our photo editors and designers — to weigh in on books of their choosing based on their individual tastes or curiosities. This week, writer Katie Benner takes a look at Exile on Wall Street, outsider analyst Michael Mayo’s insider look at high finance.

FORTUNE — Michael Mayo, the analyst who has never seemed afraid to criticize and cajole the world’s most powerful banks, wants you to know that he’s a rebel. It’s the persona that he’s cultivated in the press and with investors; and it’s also at the heart of his new book, Exile on Wall Street, the title itself is a riff on the Rolling Stones’ 18-track paean to sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll.

Mayo, 48, convincingly shows himself to be pretty punk rock among sell side analysts. He called the bottom in bank stocks in 1994, and he was derided for it until the markets proved him right. He said to sell those very same stocks in 1999, a move that he asserts got him fired from Credit Suisse First Boston. (Fortune came to the same conclusion in a 2001 story about Mayo called “The Price of Being Right.”) And long before the mortgage crisis revealed executives at the nation’s largest banks to be some combination of cynical, morally bankrupt, or naïve, Mayo was calling out Wall Street executives for cronyism, lavish pay, and mismanagement. As one might imagine, his work has not made him wildly popular with his employers, who have mostly been bank CEOs. In a short time he burned several jobs and now works as a banking analyst at the small firm CLSA, an affiliate of France’s Credit Agricole Securities.

Mayo explains that he comes from a family of non-conformists. His mom, who was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home, embraced yoga, divorced, and remarried all before Mayo was five. And his beloved stepfather was an outsider and a fighter who escaped Communist Romania, fought for Israel in 1948, and slept with a handgun by his bed for his whole life. Mayo wasn’t armed with an Ivy League education or family connections as were so many of his contemporaries who were also seeking jobs in finance. And even after he had worked at firms including UBS, Lehman Brothers, and Credit Suisse, he never really fit in with the culture of Wall Street. At a party thrown at the summer house of a Lehman client in 1994, Mayo writes that he and his wife were fish out water in a sea of navy blue sport coats. “Jackie and I were used to the parties at Dewey Beach, where you showed up to parties in a bathing suit, and if you wanted to be a little dressy, you put a neon T-shirt over it,” he recalls.

Mayo’s sense of always being different from everyone around him gives him freedom to act and think outside of the conventions of his industry. This sentiment is at the heart of his book, which is a close up look at what it means, for better or for worse, to not go with the flow when you work in finance. Mayo is the rare analyst who doesn’t hobnob with the executives he’s supposed to cover. (It’s not unusual for star analysts to attend lavish parties and private dinners thrown by CEOs). And he scoffs at the pomp and perks that come with a job in banking.

Exile on Wall Street plays up the idea that Mayo is always an outsider peering into the alien world of bankers. Sometimes this can get a little tedious, but it never seems false, in part because Mayo is such a weirdo that it’s hard to imagine a world where he would fit right in. For example, he times himself to see whether it’s faster to take the local subway stop near his apartment, or to backtrack to the nearest express train. He once decorated his bachelor pad with photos of Alan Greenspan. And while studying for his chartered financial analyst certification, he wooed his then-girlfriend (who is now his wife) by having her carry flashcards with CFA topics.

Mayo often revels in his interloper status, but it would be wrong to say that he doesn’t care about what other people think of him. He cares deeply about setting the record straight, and at times he seems to have a persecution complex. One example of this is in his account of a public row he had with Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase JPM . Clearly his dispute with Dimon — which focused on whether or not Mayo had accurately rated Bank One and JPMorgan correctly — took a psychological toll on Mayo. He perceives two comments made by Dimon, spread out over as many years, as a coordinated attack. In all likelihood, they were offhand remarks made by a CEO known for making audacious, showman-like statements, and who had a lot to prove after being fired from Citigroup C . What better way for Dimon to show that his bank was firing on all cylinders than to say that the likes of Mike Mayo, the Street’s most circumspect analyst, had been forced to change his rating from sell to buy? But the comments are personal for Mayo, and he describes in great detail his obsession with settling the score.

Exile also gets bogged down in a two-chapter discussion of Citigroup, which comprises nearly a fifth of the book. While Citi has no doubt had many problems, and continues to struggle along with its peers, shoehorning a full history of the bank in a book about Mayo’s career feels clunky and out of place. Given the fact that Mayo has been embroiled in a long-running fight with Citi management, the detour into Citi (Part I: A Long, Sad Saga; Part II: The Plot Sickens) also feels like a rather tedious act of vengeance.

But for the most part, Mayo’s book is a good story about a strange and fascinating career. It’s well-written, fast-paced, and often very entertaining. It’s a great inside look at Wall Street’s inner sanctums through the eyes of an outsider.

Summary: Our Weekly Read column features Fortune staffers' and contributors' takes on recently published books about the business world and beyond. We've invited the entire Fortune family -- from our writers and editors to our photo editors and designers -- to weigh in on books of their choosing based on their individual tastes or curiosities. This…


Sexism in Hollywood, a topic that’s been bubbling in the news for months, finally made the front page Tuesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union asked state and federal agencies to investigate hiring practices in Tinseltown. The A.C.L.U. says that major studios, networks and talent agencies are systematically discriminating against female directors.

In that context, Broad Focus, a new Lifetime initiative designed to provide women with more opportunities to direct, write, develop, and produce content, could not seem more timely–or important.

Nancy Dubuc, CEO of Lifetime parent company A+E Networks, has seen first hand just how few women have managed to climb to the top ranks of the entertainment industry. “I can’t count the number of times I’ve sat in a meeting where it’s been 20 men and me,” she says. Then there are the little things, she says, like the recent meeting where a male attendee stopped to comment on how nice she looked before addressing a question she’d asked him.

Broad Focus, which was announced late last week, is intended to give concrete support to women creators–and put more pressure on other companies in the industry to do the same. “Of late, there have been some meaningful steps backwards,” says Dubuc. “We’re not seeing enough women rising to the top.”

“We’ve been talking about this issue for a long time, but nothing is changing,” says Danielle Carrig, senior VP of publicity and public affairs for Lifetime, who originally created the idea and brought it Dubuc. Carrig says the CEO was immediately on board.

Lifetime is kicking off the initiative with a partnership with the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, which took place last weekend in Bentonville, Arkansas. The festival was co-founded by actor Geena Davis, and is devoted to promoting women and diversity in film. Lifetime has committed to televising one of the winning films, as well as choosing a script from the festival’s upcoming script writing contest to put in its development pipeline. The company says it will also get female creators involved in the sales and marketing side of things, through sponsored content about women filmmakers and short films directed by women in partnership with marketers.

Even without Broad Focus, Lifetime is already lapping most of the industry when it comes to putting women into behind-the-camera roles. Women accounted for 7% of film directors and 11% of film writers in 2014, according to the Center for the Study of Women in Television & Film at San Diego State University. At Lifetime, those stats were 20% and 43%, respectively. The network also beats the industry average when it comes to female writers, directors and producers of television series.

The company also has a history of giving well-known actors their first shot at expanding their repertoire. Eva Longoria, for instance, is currently an executive producer and director of the Lifetime show Devious Maids, while Angela Bassett recently directed the Whitney Houston biopic Whitney.

But while they no plans to stop supporting established names, Carrig says Broad Focus is targeted at finding fresh faces, and filling up the company pipeline with fresh talent. One of the factors that perpetuates Hollywood’s Old Boy network is the industry’s aversion to risk, she says. People are often afraid to take a shot on someone they don’t know, says Carrig, so they call someone they’ve worked with before–who is almost always a man.

As examples of Lifetimes’s up-and-coming female talent she points to Nickole Beckwith, a first-time feature director and writer whose movie Stockholm, Pennsylvania was just nominated for three Critics Choice Awards, as well as Sarah Gertrude Shapiro and Marti Noxon, co-creators Lifetimes’s new scripted series UnREAL.

Dubuc says she has no specific numerical goal for how many new female creators she wants to add through the initiative. “I’m bottom line focused. There has to be commercial and creative excellence first,” she says. “It would be nice to see our numbers improve, but moving the industry-wide numbers would be a real victory. That’s the end goal.”

To subscribe to Kristen Bellstrom’s daily newsletter on the world’s most powerful women, go to www.getbroadsheet.com.

Summary: The company just launched a new campaign to provide women with more opportunities to direct, write, develop and produce.


The following article is based on reporting by Leslie Maitland and Michael Oreskes and was written by Miss Maitland:

The Justice Department is considering whether to recommend the appointment of a special prosecutor to examine charges that Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan was present during a reported payoff to a union leader in 1977.

Mr. Donovan was a high officer of a New Jersey construction company at the time. The charges were brought to Federal prosecutors by a former union official, Mario Montuoro.

Mr. Montuoro said Mr. Donovan attended a lunch in 1977 at which an official of Mr. Donovan's company handed an envelope to Louis C. Sanzo, president of Lcoal 29 of the Laborers International Union. Mr. Montuoro said the envelope contained an illegal $2,000 payment.

Mr. Montuoro, the former secretary-treasurer of the Blasters, Drillers and Miners Union, repeated the charges in interviews with The New York Times. He said he had also given his information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn.

He maintained that the payment had been designed to encourage Mr. Sanzo to fight another union for jurisdiction over a New York City subway project on which Mr. Donovan's company was the prime contractor.

When first reached yesterday for comment, Vernon Louviere, a spokesman for the Labor Department, said that Mr. Donovan "knows of nothing that lends substance to these reports," referring to the investigation.

Under the Ethics in Government Act, the Attorney General must investigate any charge that a high-level Government official - including the President, the Vice President and Cabinet members - has violated a Federal law. After a 90-day preliminary investigation, the Attorney General must report to a designated panel of three Federal Appeals Court judges as to whether the charges warrant the apppointment of a special prosecutor. Any payment by an employer to a union leader is a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act.

Later in the day, Mr. Louviere, the Labor Department spokesman, issued the following statement:

"The Secretary understands the interest that this story has generated, but he reiterates his earlier comment that he has no direct knowledge of these allegations. He will obviously cooperate with the appropriate government officials in this matter and he quite clearly is anxious to put this whole thing to rest.

"Mr. Donovan finds it completely inappropriate to comment on information apparently being passed out by unnamed, unidentified sources and he refers all further questions to the Department of Justice."

When asked if the Secretary would comment on information from named sources, Mr. Louviere said no. Reagan Was Informed

At the White House, David Gergen, the communications director, said President Reagan had been informed of the investigation by Attorney General William French Smith but had received no information to cause him to lose confidence in Mr. Donovan.

Mr. Sanzo, reached at his union office in Queens, denied accepting any payoff or even attending such a luncheon.

"It's not fair - this never took place," he said. "Mr. Donovan is an honorable man, and his company is an honorable company. As far as any hanky-panky, it never took place. It's just not right what's going on."

Mr. Sanzo later called back to request that his statements not be published, and asked that he be quoted instead as saying only, "No comment."

Mr. Montuoro was a witness for the Organized Crime Strike Force in Mr. Sanzo's trial last summer on racketeering and income-tax evasion charges. A jury in Federal District Court in Brooklyn convicted Mr. Sanzo on three tax counts and he was sentenced to three years in prison and a fine of $22,500.

Mr. Montuoro acknowledges that he, too, has a criminal record - a conviction on narcotics charges in the 1960's and another on weapon-possession charges in the 1970's.

For Mr. Donovan, Mr. Montuoro's charges revive the sort of controversy that preceded Senate confirmation of his Cabinet appointment. The Senate's action had been delayed while the F.B.I. checked on reports by underworld informers of improper activities by Mr. Donovan and his company, Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, N.J.

The bureau's inquiry was prompted by charges that Mr. Donovan had business and social associations with organized-crime figures and had given money to a teamster racketeer to assure labor peace for the Schiavone company. But these charges were not substantiated, and Mr. Montuoro's charges were never raised in Senate confirmation hearings.

The charges by Mr. Montuoro came to the attention of the Justice Department through an investigation of Local 29 by the Brooklyn strike force.

That investigation led to the indictment of Mr. Sanzo, his wife, Bertha, and eight others. They were charged with racketerring, tax evasion, contempt and perjury in a scheme involving $400,000 in payoffs to allow nonunion employees to work at construction sites in the New York metropolitan area.

According to law enforcement officials, Thomas P. Puccio, head of the strike force, brought Mr. Montuoro's charges to the attention of the Attorney General. The officials said the Attorney General met yesterday with Mr. Puccio and other top members of the Justice Department to discuss the charges against Mr. Donovan and whether a special prosecutor should be named.


WASHINGTON, Nov. 15— The Soviet Union, looking at what could be large costs it would have to bear if the Polish economy collapsed, acquiesced to Polish membership in the International Monetary Fund to limit future drains on the Soviet economy and open the door to more Western assistance, American and European analysts believe.

A Polish delegation led by Zbigniew Karcz, state secretary in the Finance Ministry, formally applied to join the 143-nation lending agency last Tuesday in a bid to solve grave economic problems growing out of production stoppages, labor militancy and a $27 billion debt to Western commercial banks and governments.

Poland is actually seeking to rejoin the I.M.F. and its sister agency, the World Bank, both products of World War II established to speed postwar reconstruction, and now the agents for financial assistance and project lending largely in the third world. Forced to Withdraw in 1950

An original member of both institutions, Poland was forced to withdraw in March 1950 at the demand of the Soviet Union, which has viewed the fund and the bank for years as mainstays of the Western capitalist structure and instruments for the export of capitalism.

That Moscow has now lifted its veto reflects less a Soviet change of heart, the analysts feel, than a recognition by the Soviet Union that it does not have the means to bail out Poland and that it, too, has an interest in preventing a Polish collapse, even if politically distasteful help from the West may be involved.

As one Washington specialist in Soviet affairs put it: ''The Russians have a major hard-currency drain. They may be limiting oil supplies to Eastern Europe. They are having to go to the markets for their biggest grain purchases ever. I think the Russians are saying that, if the West is so interested in helping the Poles, then let the West pay for it.''

Added one Western central banker: ''Whether the I.M.F. can do it in a country where eveything is so different, God only knows. But at least they have a chance.''

That Communist hard-liners may find the developments distasteful was seen in the sharp attack against Polish membership recently published in Zolnierz Wolnosci, the Polish army newspaper. It said Poland would be falling into the hands of ''capitalist money grubbers.'' Alternatives Set Up 20 Years Ago

It was just to prevent such an occurrence that the Soviet Union set up 20 years ago two Communist bloc institutions - the International Bank for Economic Cooperation and the International Investment Bank - designed expressly as Communist alternatives to the I.M.F. and the World Bank.

Officials in West Germany suggested that the Bonn Government might have ''leaned a bit'' on Moscow to get it to say yes. West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, at a meeting with Poland's Foreign Minister, Jozef Czyrek, last Aug. 18, had urged the Poles to apply, and Bonn officials noted that the Poles acted less than two weeks before a visit to Germany by Leonid I. Brezhnev, the Soviet leader.

Mr. Brezhnev is scheduled to arrive in Bonn on Sunday and leave the country on Nov. 25. It is his first trip to the West since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979.

Simon Serfaty, a professor of foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, commented that the Soviet assent ''adds to an image of moderation,'' which he noted was especially useful now as Moscow wages its peace offensive in Western Europe.

''This helps with Brezhnev's stated interest in arms control, making the point that Moscow is not closing the door on the West and that, if anyone is closing the door, it is the Reagan Administration,'' added Mr. Serfaty. Application by Hungary

The Polish application almost bumped into one filed only five days earlier by Hungary. At a news conference in Vienna last Wednesday Polish Foreign Minister Czyrek said both moves were discussed within the Council of Mutual Economic Assistance, the economic group of Warsaw Pact states.

''Comecon remains the organization on which we base our economic development and security,'' said Mr. Czyrek, adding that Poland had already received significant help from its allies to help overcome its economic crisis. He noted that the Soviet Union, despite difficulties of its own, would deliver 30,000 tons of meat to Poland before Christmas.

Far smaller but much more prosperous Hungary has been at the leading edge of economic experimentation in the Soviet bloc. Analysts in Moscow said that the Russians probably realize that they cannot unilaterally supply the needs of Hungary's burgeoning economy, and are prepared to let the West come in, both to keep the Hungarians happy and to monitor the experiment.

Of Warsaw Pact countries only Rumania is a member of the I.M.F. and the World Bank. It joined in 1972 in a demonstration of economic independence by President Nicolae Ceausescu that analysts said was tolerated by Moscow because of the Communist Party's tight political control over that country. Aid Called 'Fairly Substantial'


DETROIT, Mich., March 22— Moral Majority, President Reagan's economic recovery plan and the political coattails of David A. Stockman will be tested Tuesday in a Congressional primary election in southwestern Michigan.

Seven Republicans and two Democrats are vying for party nominations for the April 24 general election to fill the seat Mr. Stockman left when he became President Reagan's director of management and budget. The race between the two Republican front-runners will test the power of Mr. Stockman's endorsement and political organization against a candidate supported by Michigan's Moral Majority, the politically conservative evangelical Christian group, and antiabortion groups.

The two Democrats, meanwhile, are party to be sent to Washington from Michigan's solidly Republican Fourth Congressional District since 1932.

Mr. Stockman has endorsed John Globensky, a 58-year-old St. Joseph tax attorney, who was chairman of the budget director's three successful Congressional campaigns. Mr. Stockman, who won his last race with 75 percent of the vote before President Reagan catapulted him to national prominence, has also bequeathed Mr. Globensky a campaign organization that includes his mother, Carol Stockman. The local newspaper has endorsed him, along with the radio station, and his campaign manager is a member of the Upton family, founders of the Whirlpool Corporation, which is one of the area's largest employers. Poll Favors Globensky

A poll done for the Globensky campaign on Feb. 25 by Market Opinion Research, a respected Detroit polling organization, gave Mr. Globensky 35 percent of the vote among registered Republicans who said they were sure to vote in the primary. Mr. Globensky is accordingly regarded as the front-runner.

But No. 2 in the poll, with 24 percent, was Mark Siljander, 29, a three-term member of the Michigan House of Representatives. Mr. Siljander has not lost an election in eight tries and is campaigning hard on the fact that Mr. Globensky has never been elected to public office.

Mr. Siljander has also been endorsed by the state branch of Moral Majority and by the antiabortion Right to Life group. Mr. Siljander had nominally spurned the support of Moral Majority, but he is enjoying its campaign work in his behalf nonetheless. Local politicians note that the movement's members usually fall outside conventional political alignments. Their impact at the local level will be given one of its first tests in the race.

State Senator John S. Mowat, with 12 percent, ran third after Mr. Globensky and Mr. Siljander in the Feb. 25 opinion poll. He was followed by the remaining four Republicans, including a former Nazi running as a Republican on a ''White Rights'' platform. Most Liberal Republican

Mr. Mowat, 53, a fruit farmer and State Senator, is the most liberal of the leading Republicans and the only one of them to dispute some of President Reagan's proposed reductions in social programs. He is also the only one to favor passage of the equal rights amendment, an often-used barometer of social conservatism or liberalism in this district.

In the Democratic race, Johnie A. Rodebush, 58, an Arkansas native and seven-term member of the Cass County Board of Commissioners, is favored over Jimmy Burke, a General Motors worker with connections to the neo-conservative American Independence Party. Mr. Rodebush's aides have charged, in fact, that Mr. Burke entered the race to assure a Democratic primary and so prevent Mr. Rodebush's supporters from crossing over to split the Republican vote.

Mr. Rodebush is running a low-key and decidedly low-budget primary campaign, saving his resources for the expected race with the Republican victor. He is counting on being able to use the Republicans' unswerving support for President Reagan and Mr. Stockman's programs in the general election campaign, hoping that the effects of these measures, such as the rise in fuel costs since President Reagan's deregulation of oil and gas prices, will not sit as well with the voters as the Republicans believe.


Former Gov. Reubin Askew of Florida, a Democrat, speaking to the Tulsa County Democratic Executive Committee, Tulsa, Okla. Feb. 18, 1982:

First of all, we must persuade the people that we can still be practical. We must move beyond all the old nostrums of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society, beyond the rhetoric and the slogans and the nostalgia for other days.

Should the American voyage with the Reaganauts end in the shoals of disillusionment, the worst possible response by the Democratic Party would be to veer our own course back sharply to the left. For such a course would only lead this nation to still more disappointment, and the Democratic Party would surely dwindle into the irrelevant relic that some already believe it to be.

If the various constituencies which comprise the Democratic Party make individual, uncompromising demands on our party's candidates on an array of divisive single-interest issues, and if, as a result, we are so distracted that we do not focus on the central economic concerns of the people as a whole, then others will. And we will continue to lose elections.

Just as it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to turn our course back sharply to the left, so too would it be a mistake for us simply to run against government. Indulgence in anti-government rhetoric may be fashionable. It may even be therapeutic.

But if we deride government needlessly in the competition for votes, if we diminish the credibility of government even more in the eyes of the people, and if somehow, in so doing, we manage to win elections, can we then expect that same government to enjoy any greater credibility with the people merely because our names are on the office doors?


Patrick Watson (front) with (from left) Mishka Stein, Robbie Kuster, and Joe Grass.

The carefully crafted sonic textures that hug the hips of Patrick Watson’s new album — not to mention the concept-heaviness implied by its title, “Love Songs for Robots” — could be taken as evidence of sprawling studio sessions with a bit of 1970s-style flair.

But the cool synthesizer tones, carefully dialed beats, and frequently immersive soundscapes of the record, whose 10 songs include three longer than six minutes and another that’s just a few ticks under, are a result not of indulgence, but of extreme discipline.

Watson and his cohorts — the Montreal quartet functions very much as a band but takes the name of its frontman — crafted these latest sounds through hours and hours of rehearsal huddled around a single microphone. By the time they hit the recording studio, they were ready to cut the tracks live, with few overdubs. Yes, they treated themselves to all of three days recording in the fabled studios of Capitol Records in Los Angeles, pretty much just for the heck of it — and methodically nailed four songs while they were there.

“If [a song] didn’t sound good and didn’t work in one mike, it wasn’t going to be an overdub that was going to fix it,” frontman Watson says, speaking by phone between European and American tours in support of the album, which was released this month. The band — which includes multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Watson plus bassist Mishka Stein, drummer Robbie Kuster, and guitarist Joe Grass — plays the Sinclair in Cambridge on Saturday, with Providence’s the Low Anthem opening.

“It was quite good to fight the habit of endless overdubs in a digital world,” Watson says. “We still have the same detail of depth and sound design, but we spent a lot of time on the arrangements to make those sounds.”

The mixture of the band’s frequently lush sound and Watson’s expressive vocals can summon comparisons to Rufus Wainwright and Andrew Bird, though the new record comes after the more acoustically oriented “Adventures in Your Own Backyard,” recorded in a home studio and released in 2012. “Places You Will Go,” the album’s closing track and first single, has all the shimmering beauty of Broken Social Scene’s more introspective moments.

Watson says the new material is challenging to play — not so much for its technical demands, but because of its careful balance of sonic colors.

“It’s real tricky to get it right on the nose: You’ve got a bit of R&B, a bit of electronics, a bit of acoustic,” Watson says. Hitting it right in the middle is very tricky, but when it works it’s [expletive] amazing. It’s a very specific color that you’ve got to nail.”

Indeed, “color” is a word Watson uses a lot when talking about music. Though “Robots” is not a full-on concept record, it employs a defined palette of sounds, summoning a cool, semi-electronic lushness that indeed suggests a reconciliation of digital circuitry and hot passion.

“I’m a huge fan of science fiction and even just real science journals,” Watson says, “and that color, of that other world that’s being built very rapidly. I wanted to find a way of making that really sensual and warm. Good science fiction for me is about people, not about dragons and [expletive], it’s about how the people react. It’s always been about that.”

Watson cites the self-driving car now being developed by Google, drawing comparisons to Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” series. “At this point our science journals are weirder than our science fiction,” he says. “Now, most of the science fiction books are outdated in a weird way.”

Drummer Kuster says the new LP and its distinct personality reflects his band’s affection for the album as a unit of artistic statement. “We try to evolve every time we make a record. That’s a big point for us,” he says. “I still love to listen to an album, and I still have very much respect for somebody that puts out a concrete work, 40 or 50 minutes that holds its own throughout the whole thing and holds my attention.”

For his part, Watson says that each of his group’s albums makes its own statement, but the process is not as simple as setting out at the beginning with list of creative objectives.

“If you’re going to change your sound, it’s a very long process. You can’t be the same person and make a new sound. You’ve got to be a new person,” Watson says. “When you sing, you can’t hide. You can tell when someone’s faking — it’s so obvious. If you’ve got something new to say, you’ve got to hide that in your bones well. You have to change into the person that you want to tell these stories.”

At: The Sinclair, Cambridge, Saturday at 9 p.m.

Summary: Montreal quartet Patrick Watson, named for its frontman, comes to the Sinclair in Cambridge on Saturday to celebrate the release of its newest album.


HARTFORD — Much of the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford’s great civic museum, is closed for renovations this summer as the institution prepares for its grand reopening in September after a major refurbishment. But it’s still well worth a visit — especially if you love modern and contemporary art. The recently and brilliantly reinstalled postwar and contemporary galleries remain open, as do the galleries showing the Atheneum’s collection of modern European and American art.

But I drove to Hartford last week to see just three works, all by the Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford. The mini-show constitutes the 172d iteration of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s MATRIX series, now celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Set up with a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1974, MATRIX was initially an experiment designed to give museum exposure to worthy contemporary artists. It kicked off in January 1975 with a small show of drawings by Ellsworth Kelly. That same year also saw shows by Eva Hesse, Romare Bearden, Neil Jenney, William Wegman, Richard Tuttle, and Sol LeWitt. Clearly, someone at the Wadsworth knew what they were doing.

The list of artists subsequently given MATRIX shows is stellar. It includes Cindy Sherman, Glenn Ligon, Chris Burden, Barbara Kruger, Sherrie Levine, Pippilotti Rist, Cheri Samba, Helen Levitt, Krzysztof Wodiczko, Robert Arneson, Annette Lemieux, Gerhard Richter, and many more.

Bradford fits right in. His star is as high as anyone’s right now. An exhibition of new works, “Scorched Earth,” just opened at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. He was profiled this month by Calvin Tomkins in The New Yorker. Boston audiences had the chance to see his work at the ICA in 2010 and the Rose Art Museum last year.

In honor of LeWitt, the great conceptual artist who was born in Hartford and whose wall drawings feature prominently at the Atheneum, Bradford has made his own version of a wall drawing for MATRIX 172. It runs most of the 60-foot length of the museum’s Bunce Gallery. (Interestingly, during a 2011 residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Bradford made a work, “Pinocchio Is on Fire,” in part by uncovering fragments of a LeWitt wall drawing that had subsequently been painted over.)

About two months before this show opened, Bradford sent a Home Depot shopping list to Patricia Hickson, the Atheneum’s curator of contemporary art. (Bradford gets almost all his supplies at Home Depot.) He asked for acrylic matte varnish, matte black paint, tubes of clear caulk, and lengths of multicolored rope.

When he arrived in Hartford, he and two assistants rolled a long rectangle of the matte black paint directly onto the wall. They then stuck perhaps 20 long lengths of rope to the paint, in a parallel horizontal formation.

Over these they pasted layers and layers of the colored papers Bradford had brought with him from his Los Angeles studio, fixing each layer with varnish. Bradford then performed his signature subtracting operations — a kind of excavation of the built-up layers performed by sanding, peeling, and stripping away fragments of paper.

The result is ravishing. Although it is entirely abstract and was made according to a kind of formula, it is far removed from LeWitt’s famously systematic and comparatively hygienic processes. (“Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically,” LeWitt once said.)

It is messy, for one thing. Crumpled and torn bits of paper, distressed and ravaged by the processes they have been subjected to, hang off it at every point. The ropes groan and buckle beneath. Flashes of canary yellow, crimson, blushing peach, and fluorescent orange burst through a fragmented overlay of black and white. Much of the white has a pale, icy blue hue, but there are otherwise no deep blues, greens, or purples.

LeWitt tended to make things according to additive principles: this, then this, then this. His wall drawings developed over the course of his career in much the same way, as anyone who has visited the extraordinary LeWitt wall drawings retrospective at Mass MoCA will know: first gray pencil, then colored pencil, then colored ink, then colored paint.

Bradford’s processes begin as additive (layers and layers of paper), but then turn against themselves as he assaults the work’s built-up integrity, like a farmer plowing back into soil exhausted by overuse. Other analogies — a divided society turning against its best self; a weathered antique with a beautiful patina — may fleetingly rise to the surface of your consciousness, but tend to evanesce.

In Tomkins’s recent profile, Bradford describes his work as “social abstraction” — abstract art “with a social or political context clinging to the edges.” And indeed, the edges of this wall drawing, which is titled “Pull Painting 1,” are themselves remarkable, with frayed bits of rope and paper hanging loose, and paint on the wall itself flaking off.

But Bradford is right, I think, to be modest about the political meanings of works such as these. They are essentially beautiful and satisfying abstractions — and to admit that in no way diminishes them.

Bradford’s intermittent installations and video works have been more pointedly political, while his admirable acts of philanthropy and activism inevitably appear more efficacious than his art. (Bradford and his partner, Allan di Castro, run a private foundation, Art and Practice, which provides, among other things, life-skills training for foster youth in the 90008 ZIP code of Los Angeles.)

And yet, partly because so much of the paper Bradford uses is salvaged and has served other purposes, there is a sense even in Bradford’s most abstract work that the world — the real world, just outside, of naked commerce and racial prejudice and sexuality and shouting and threats and frightened eyes and intangible yearning — is always close at hand.

This 172d iteration of MATRIX — for which Bradford designed a limited edition poster, just as LeWitt made one for the first MATRIX exhibition in 1975 — includes two other works that hang opposite “Pull Painting 1.”

Called “Pile of Blocks” and “Wet Grass,” they’re both new paintings, 7 feet across and 6 feet high. Although they also use colored paper and ropes or caulking in long horizontal lines, they have more physical integrity than the wall drawing — no loose bits hanging off. Snippets of text show through on a surface that is otherwise exquisitely painterly.

The Atheneum has placed a comfortable bench in the middle of the Bunce Gallery, which has a window at one end letting in natural light. You could do worse than spend part of an afternoon there. There’s a lovely park with a huge Alexander Calder sculpture outside, and usually a food truck selling good hot dogs on the sidewalk.

At: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. Through Sept. 6. 860-278-2670, thewadsworth.org

Summary: Commissioned to create a new piece for the Wadsworth Atheneum’s prestigious MATRIX series, Mark Bradford tore into the assignment with gusto.


Here’s a name that Boston’s arts-related nonprofits will soon want to have on speed dial: Allyson Esposito.

She’s the Boston Foundation’s new director of arts and culture, which means she’ll play a key role in deciding which local organizations should receive foundation funding; last year, it distributed about $2 million to the local arts community.

Esposito, 36, is currently director of cultural grantmaking for the City of Chicago, where she was a colleague of Julie Burros, the City of Boston’s new arts chief. A dancer, Esposito has also worked for a family foundation and been executive director of a nonprofit dance company, “so she understands not only the philanthropic and grantmaking requirements, but she’s also an artist who understands what it takes to run a nonprofit organization,” said Boston Foundation vice president Travis McCready.

Esposito begins her new gig in August.

Summary: The Boston Foundation has hired Allyson Esposito, the City of Chicago’s director of cultural grantmaking, as its new director of arts and culture.


NEW YORK — Globalization, a fact of recent economic life, has long been a fact of cultural life. The title of “From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola” reminds us of that. The thousands of miles separating Germany and Argentina meant little during the interwar years. This very large and exciting retrospective, with more than 300 examples of its subjects’ work in photography, film, and graphic design, runs through Oct. 4 at the Museum of Modern Art.

“Art on Camera: Photographs by Shunk-Kender, 1960-1973,” also at MoMA through Oct. 4, provides another reminder. Harry Shunk was German. János Kender was Hungarian. They did some of their best-known work in Paris and New York. Art ignores distance as geography does not.

Stern was born near Düsseldorf, in 1904. She and a friend, Ellen Auerbach, started a photographic studio, ringl + pit (based on their nicknames), in 1928. The firm focused on portraits and advertising. In the graphic work especially, one can see a blend of styles: Soviet Constructivism; Surrealism; the clean lines of the Bauhaus; the sharp focus of the New Objectivity photographers. Disparate though they may be, the styles cohere. The result is very ’20s, which is to say inventive and alert and radically new.

Coppola was born in Buenos Aires, in 1906. Using a large-format camera belonging to one of his brothers, he started taking photographs in 1927. He played with appearances — odd angles, abstraction, reflections. A 1931 photograph of a building and trees reflected in a puddle led his friend Jorge Luis Borges to exclaim, “This is Buenos Aires!” By then, Coppola was using a Leica — and had visited Europe several times. The camera’s handiness and portability liberated Coppola, turning his vision outward.

Where Stern combined a taste for the surreal with a graphic designer’s formalist rigor, Coppola united Surrealism with a documentary impulse. The result was a stream of striking cityscapes: of Berlin, Prague, London, Buenos Aires. The London images recall those of Bill Brandt, a comparison that honors both men.

In a cityscape like “Plaza San Martín desde Kavanagh” (Plaza San Martín from Kavanagh), from 1936, Coppola achieves a bravura balance between dream and document. Shot at a slight angle, several limousines line a Buenos Aires boulevard. A small billboard dominates the foreground, with a woman’s eyes dominating the billboard. Is she the daughter of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, in “The Great Gatsby”? Her identity doesn’t matter. What does is the interplay of here-and-now real with here-and-now fantastical.

It was at the Bauhaus, in the early ’30s, that Coppola and Stern met. They married in 1935 and moved to Buenos Aires. Before their marriage, they lived in London. Stern continued to work as a portraitist there. Among her subjects were several fellow German emigres, such as the playwright Bertolt Brecht and his second wife, the actress Helene Weigel. In Argentina, Stern took portraits of literary and artistic figures, Borges and the poet Pablo Neruda among them. “I was interested in faces before I became interested in photography,” she once said. That interest is palpable. Her portraits convey a sense of unvarnished scrutiny. They’re stripped-down and basic. One of Stern’s Argentine sitters called them “facial nudes.”

There’s a comparable feeling of exacting connection in Coppola’s photographs of Buenos Aires. Commissioned by the city to survey Buenos Aires for its 400th anniversary (Stern designed the cover of the resulting book), Coppola produced more than 200 photographs, a body of work at once arresting and sweeping: cafes, cinemas, night scenes, tree-lined thoroughfares, crowded sidewalks, pleasure seekers at the beach and race track. There’s an obvious affinity with Berenice Abbott’s “Changing New York” (1939). But Coppola’s Buenos Aires is even more varied and filled with an even greater sense of discovery. Some of that discovery, surely, is owing to Buenos Aires being unfamiliar to North American viewers’ eyes. Some of that discovery, just as surely, is owing to Coppola.

Stern and Coppola divorced in 1943. The exhibition concludes with a remarkable series of photomontages she did between 1948 and 1951, her “Sueños” (Dreams) series. They accompanied a weekly column called “Pyschoanalysis Will Help You” that ran in an Argentine women’s magazine. The figure of a woman is the centerpiece of an electric light, juxtaposed with a man’s finger about to flip the light switch. Another woman (note the stylishness of her gloves) finds herself next to — maybe even embraced by — a man with a tortoise’s head (note the nonchalance with which he holds his cigarette). These dream images are funny and alarming and somehow just right: Surrealism, and feminism, with a vengeance.

Nine years separate the final works in “From Bauhaus to Buenos Aires” and the earliest ones in “Art on Camera.” That’s not much of a distance in time — and even less in spirit. That the two shows are adjacent is fitting. It’s not just that both draw on collaboration, and transnational collaboration, at that. It’s the sense of consistent vitality and openness to the new.

The inspiration for “Art on Camera” is a gift from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation of more than 600 works from the Shunk-Kender Photography Collection. First in Paris, then in New York, Shunk and Kender were important figures in the contemporary world of the ’60s and ’70s. Sometimes they photographed as documentarians: recording angels of the avant-garde. Other times, they functioned as collaborators, their photographic presence effectively enabling a work.

Shunk-Kender © J. Paul Getty Trust

“Leap into the Void” by Shunk-Kender.

Both roles applied to their work on Yves Klein’s celebrated “Leap into the Void,” from 1960. Their photographs make up the composite image of Klein’s blithe jump from a second-story window, while other of their photographs record how the stunt was done (assistants holding a tarp beneath Klein, the multiple jumps he made).

By 1968, Shunk and Kender are in New York. “Art on Camera” includes sequences of two Yayoi Kusama happenings in New York: “Mirror Performance” and “The Anatomic Explosion.” The latter involved young people taking off their clothes in and around Wall Street. It’s a much funnier — and, by necessity, more fleeting — version of the Occupy movement. Both works also further remind us of cultural globalization, Kusama having been born in Japan.

For the 27 artists in “Pier 18,” who undertook various operations along the Hudson River in the late winter of 1971, Shunk and Kender enabled. No audience was there. The photographers’ visual recording completed, or even enacted, the various works. It also could enhance them. William Wegman’s “Pier 18 Bowling” would be amusing under any circumstances. But Shunk and Kender’s camera makes the duck pins looks so sculptural — and that much more amusing — not to mention the tell-tale splash of bowling ball into river.

FROM BAUHAUS TO BUENOS AIRES: Grete Stern and Horacio Coppola

ART ON CAMERA: Photographs by

11 W. 53d St., New York, through Oct. 4, respectively,

Summary: Two exhibitions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art show show photography transcending borders.


Bao Lanfang (right), whose daughter-in-law, son, and granddaughter were aboard MH370

08/06/2015 AT 12:30 PM EDT

Family members of the passengers of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 expressed frustration with officials on Thursday for sending out conflicting information on whether a piece of the plane had

Last week, a 10-ft. fragment, which has been identified as a flaperon from a

, was found on Réunion island, a French territory east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

On Wednesday, the Malaysian Prime Minister confirmed that the piece was indeed from MH370, which

on March 8, 2014, after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, en route to Beijing. But an unidentified American official told the

that further investigation was necessary, citing a modification to the flaperon that did not exactly match airline maintenance records.

However, French officials have said they are fairly confident the piece comes from MH370, largely because it is the only missing Boeing 777 in the world.

"Why the hell do you have one confirm and one not?" asked Sara Weeks, whose brother Paul was on board the ill-fated flight, according to the

The piece of debris from MH370

Yannick Pitou / AFP / Getty

"I don't believe it," Bao Lanfang, whose son, daughter-in-law and 3-year-old grandchild were on MH370, told

. "It has been 515 [days] – that is enough time for them to have produced fake debris."

On Thursday morning, officials said that they had recovered more aircraft debris from the tiny, remote island, including seat cushions and window panes, as well as a piece of aluminum,

Authorities have not confirmed that the pieces belong to MH370.

A policeman and a gendarme stand next to the piece of debris from an aircraft found in the coastal area of Saint-Andre de la Reunion

Yannick Pitou / AFP / Getty

On Thursday, police officers were called to hold back angry relatives outside the building where the Malaysia Airlines offices are located in Beijing.

"Please don't let them keep lying," Lanfang yelled, as she was escorted out of the building's lobby and onto the street. "I can't allow them to keep lying. I want them to reveal the truth immediately. I won't believe them – no matter what the French results say."

Summary: On Thursday, aircraft window panes and seat cushions were recovered from Réunion island


Net neutrality has prompted contentious debate as the FCC considered passing the regulatory measure. Proponents tout its emphasis on treating all Internet traffic equally, while critics contend that the regulations are a government invasion of private enterprise.

Read MoreWhat the net neutrality battle is really about

Cable and telecom providers argue that stricter measures would stifle investments, while Republicans see the rules as a government power grab. The agency pursued new net neutrality rules after a federal court rejected a previous version in January 2014.

The "Open Internet Order" passed Thursday will prohibit broadband providers from blocking lawful Internet traffic on the basis of content, the FCC said. It also bans "paid prioritization," which would favor some traffic or create paid Internet "fast lanes."

"The bright-line rules against blocking and throttling will prohibit harmful practices that target specific applications or classes of applications. And the ban on paid prioritization ensures that there will be no fast lanes," the FCC said in a release.

Read MoreWho wins—and who loses—on net neutrality rules

Obama on Thursday said that the FCC's move encourages innovation and levels the playing field for Internet entrepreneurs.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, who publicly championed net neutrality, said in a release that the agency faces a challenge in encouraging investment in broadband while promoting open Internet.

"Our challenge is to achieve two equally important goals: ensure incentives for private investment in broadband infrastructure so the U.S. has world-leading networks and ensure that those networks are fast, fair and open for all Americans," he said.

The vote has not been unanimously praised, though. Verizon in a statement called the regulations "unnecessary" and "misguided."

"The FCC's move is especially regrettable because it is wholly unnecessary. The FCC had targeted tools available to preserve an open Internet, but instead chose to use this order as an excuse to adopt 300-plus pages of broad and open-ended regulatory arcana that will have unintended negative consequences for consumers and various parts of the Internet ecosystem for years to come," Verizon said.

Summary: The measure, passed in a 3-2 vote, restricts broadband companies' power to control download speeds.


``The long-end of the curve has been outperforming with the general sentiment that there's not a lot of inflationary pressure out there to be concerned about,'' said Ian Lyngen, senior government bond strategist at CRT Capital in Stamford, Connecticut.

Low inflation expectations may have also helped demand for Tuesday's sale of $26 billion in a new two-year note supply.

Read MoreFed's Bullard: Zero rates no longer right for US

The Treasury will next sell $35 billion in five-year notes on Wednesday and $29 billion in seven-year notes on Thursday. It will also sell $13 billion in reopened two-year floating rate notes on Wednesday.

``I think the auctions will go well this week because the FOMC did such a complete twist to the marketplace last week,'' said Tom di Galoma, head of rates and credit trading at ED&F Man Capital Markets in New York.

``There's very little inflation in the system and will continue to be going forward,'' di Galoma added.

British data earlier on Tuesday showed inflation completely disappeared, hitting zero for the first time on record.

Summary: The U.S. Treasury Department auctioned off $26 billion of two-year notes at a high yield of 0.598 percent.


If you were paying attention earlier this month, your world might have seemed just a little bit odd.

Meteorologists delivered the weather while dressed like

. Crowds spelled out words that could be seen from

. Flash mobs creeped up everywhere – at malls, post offices and schools.

got into the act, inexplicably Tweeting to

that he loves the TV show

Happy to help @WilliamShatner . I love Supernatural for #TeamShatner

Down in Florida, a group of

contestants dressed as characters from

and had a tea party with children at Give Kids the World.

Survivor: China contestants dress as Alice in Wonderland characters for a tea party with Navaeh and Ray LaFrancois

So what was it all about?

As it turns out, you have

It was all part of

, a massive global scavenger hunt that Collins developed a few years ago. (The name stands for Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen.) Collins describes it as "part silliness, part art, part kindness and 100 percent fun."

To the uninitiated, here's how it works: Thousands of participants divide into teams of 15. Some of the teams have celebrity involvement; others do not. In 2015, Shatner,

were on teams. (Full disclosure: PEOPLE senior writer Steve Helling was on Guarini's team this year.)

For a week in August, the teams were given more than 200 tasks to complete. Some of them are philanthropic: "Find a local school that needs instruments, art supplies, etc., and donate a needed item to it."

Others are nearly impossible: "Send an encouraging message using either crop circle-style writing or some other form of land art. The message must be at least 2 acres across. Have your artwork photographed from space." (Amazingly, a team actually managed to complete this task.)

There was a task that involved a

stormtrooper. We'll let the photo speak for itself.

So what's the point? For one thing, Collins wants to push people out of their comfort zones. "I always liked the idea of pushing the rules just a little bit," Collins, 41, tells PEOPLE. "I like the challenge of endeavoring to do things that you're not quite supposed to do."

But there's a higher purpose, as well. "Over the last five years, I've added a lot more charitable or kindness items. I want people to understand that doing charitable things can be really fun and exhilarating. It doesn't always have to be onerous."

Case in point: Teams were asked to turn a vacant lot into a community garden. Shatner's team enlisted

star Scott to help make it happen.

Jonathan Silver Scott turns a vacant lot into a community garden

"I've always loved scavenger hunts, and I love pranks, so it was amazing," Scott, 37, tells PEOPLE. "It gave me a chance to be as resourceful as possible; I called in a lot of favors. It took every free minute I had that week."

Scott was tasked with bringing a camel onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He reread the rules and realized that the camel didn't have to be real, so he dressed in a camel costume.

But Collins is insistent that GISHWHES (pronounced

-wez) is not only be about well-connected celebrities. "I want to avoid it being known as a celebrity scavenger hunt, because this should go beyond that. Everyone can do it."

Participants were tasked with creating dresses out of construction paper and posing next to fancy cars. Others were asked to create a portrait of

made out of salt and pepper.

GISHWHES Participant Kate McNally wearing a gown made from construction paper

"Everyone has different skills that come in handy for GISHWHES," says Collins. "And that's what I want to unlock. I want people to be surprised at what they can do and what they can accomplish."

"My hope is that people realized that it doesn't cost them anything to be kind, and artistic, and decent people," he continues. "And it's a way to meet people."

Adds Guarini, 36: "I loved working with my teammates. We overcame obstacles, pooled our creativity and shared a lot of laughs. I loved meeting new and passionate people, all the while doing good for the world at large."

A GISHWHES portrait of Robert Downey Jr. made completely out of salt and pepper

A winning team hasn't been crowned yet; judges are still going over the submissions. ("It's not about winning," says Collins, although he is offering a trip to Costa Rica for the winning team.)

And what's next for the 2016 GISHWHES hunt? Collins promises bigger and better. "I never want to come up with items that will get people hurt," says Collins. "But in my ideal, GISHWHES will become part of the collective consciousness. And more people will get involved, and have a delightful experience doing it."

Summary: Celebrities – and normal folk – perform crazy, kind and artistic feats for a good cause


Fund manager Margaret Vitrano also anticipates more volatility ahead. However, she thinks it creates an opportunity to buy good large-cap companies to own over the next several years.

Specifically, Vitrano likes Adobe, which she thinks has a lot of runway left due to the several million people who have not yet shifted to its subscription model. Such a model is harder to pirate, she said.

"That shift from a licensed model to a subscription model is going to be a nice tail wind for them to start to capture some lost revenue that they haven't been able to generate in the past," Vitrano, manager of the Morningstar four-star rated ClearBridge Investments Large Cap Growth fund, said on "Power Lunch."

Another name on her list is American Express, which she said has been good at cutting costs over the last couple of years and has room for margin expansion.

"We like the U.S. consumer. It's one of the few bright spots out there. American Express is a nice derivative play on the U.S. consumer because more half their revenue comes from U.S. consumer spending," she added.

—CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.

Disclosure: SBLYX owns Adobe, American Express and Google.

Summary: The recent market turbulence has been part of the bottoming process, UBS strategist Julian Emanuel says.


Federal Reserve moves to raise interest rates could lead to more market volatility, but overall the impact should be manageable, the Fed's vice chairman said on Tuesday.

Stanley Fischer, in prepared remarks, said markets should not be surprised by the timing or pace of rate hikes and that the Fed has prepared them for "what lies ahead."

Fischer also said most emerging markets were prepared for U.S. interest rates to rise.

The Fed has said it could raise rates as soon as June, though Fed funds futures currently price the first better-than-average chance of a rate hike in December.

Last week, Fed Chair Janet Yellen reiteratedthat the Fed was on track to raise rates this year.

Summary: Fed moves to raise interest rates could lead to more market volatility, but overall the impact should be manageable, the Fed's vice chairman said.


EVERETT, Wash., Sept. 3, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE:BA] and Emirates Airline today celebrated the simultaneous delivery of three 777s – two 777-300ERs and one 777 Freighter – marking the entry of the 150th 777 into Emirates' fleet.

Today's delivery marks the first time in 15 years that Boeing has delivered three 777s at one time to a single customer.

Emirates is the world's largest operator of the 777 and also the only airline ever to operate all six of the 777 variants introduced into service by Boeing.

Sir Tim Clark, President, Emirates airline, said: "We have enjoyed a strong and long-standing relationship with Boeing on the 777 programme. As the world's largest 777 operator, our multi-billion dollar commitment to the programme continues to support jobs and innovation across the aerospace manufacturing supply chain. The 777s give Emirates the range, reliability, and flexibility to efficiently serve close to 100 destinations on six continents with non-stop flights from our hub in Dubai. We are pleased to mark the delivery of our 150th 777 aircraft, and will continue to work closely with the Boeing team on the next generation 777X for the Emirates fleet."

"This triple delivery to Emirates is an outstanding moment in a partnership that has grown phenomenally over the last three decades," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner. "As Emirates takes delivery of its 150th 777, it underlines the remarkable track record of this aircraft, undiminished as the leading long-haul passenger and cargo carrier. We are proud of this relationship and the confidence that Emirates has shown in Boeing airplanes over the years."

Emirates ordered its first Boeing 777s in 1992 with delivery beginning in June 1996. The airline's order book for the 777 continued to grow over the following years including a then record-breaking order for 50 777-300ERs at the 2011 Dubai Airshow and 150 777Xs at the 2013 edition.

Today's 777-300ER, which forms the largest part of the Emirates fleet, is the most fuel and cost-efficient airplane in its class and the most reliable twin-aisle aircraft in the world with an on-time departure rate of 99.5 percent. It also has the highest cargo capability of any passenger airplane. Emirates currently has 46 additional 777-300ERs on order with Boeing.

With today's delivery, Emirates now has 13 777 Freighters, the world's largest and longest range twin-engine freighter, capable of flying 4,900 nautical miles (9,070 kilometers) with a full payload at general cargo market densities. The airplane's range capability translates into significant savings for cargo operators – fewer stops and associated landing fees, less congestion at transfer hubs, lower cargo handling costs and shorter cargo delivery times.

Boeing also provides Emirates with essential support and services including parts and components and Airplane Health Management to speed the detection and resolution of maintenance issues, Jeppesen Crew Rostering services to optimize flight crew scheduling, and AerData STREAM (Secure Technical Records for Electronic Asset Management) to manage aircraft and engine records.

Contact: Saffana MichaelInternational CommunicationsBoeing Commercial Airplanes +9 7150-4590651saffana.michael2@boeing.com

Photo and caption will be available here: http://boeing.mediaroom.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/boeing-emirates-celebrate-airlines-150th-777-delivery-300137515.html

Summary: EVERETT, Wash., Sept. 3, 2015/ PRNewswire/-- Boeing and Emirates Airline today celebrated the simultaneous delivery of three 777 s– two 777-300 ERs and one 777 Freighter– marking the entry of the 150 th 777 into Emirates' fleet. Sir Tim Clark, President, Emirates airline, said: "We have enjoyed a strong and long-standing relationship with Boeing on the 777 programme.


"The Saudi escalation of its Yemen campaign is producing exactly the kind of geopolitical tensions oil is known to rally for," said Gene McGillian, senior analyst at Tradition Energy, an oil markets advisory in Stamford, Connecticut.

"You also have the assumption that U.S. production will continue to decline from cutbacks in oil rigs count and exploration expenditure, though I'm not too much of a believer in such improving fundamentals," he said.

Read MoreA big oil bull? Why this analyst is saying 'buy'

U.S. oil production notched its third weekly decline in four weeks, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Oil prices have risen as much as $10 this month due to worries about Middle East supplies and signs of stronger global demand, particularly for automotive fuels.

But so far, world supplies of crude are still in a glut. Latest estimates put production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries at almost 2 million barrels per day above demand for its oil in the first half.

U.S. government data on Wednesday showed domestic crude stockpiles rose by 5.3 million barrels last week, well above a forecast 2.9 million barrels, to a record 489 million barrels.

Read MoreLong-awaited audit may shed light on Petrobras scandal

It was the 15th straight weekly build for U.S. crude stocks and pushed U.S. commercial inventories almost 100 million barrels above their year-ago level.

Executives at an industry conference in Houston this week said the cost of drilling wells in the United States had fallen much faster than expected, allowing producers to work oilfields that just months ago looked uncompetitive.

Summary: U.S. crude futures closed up 2.81 percent at $57.74 on Thursday after Saudi Arabia and its allies maintained a bombing blitz in Yemen.


Of course, this is far from Russia's first pivot East. Since the first tracks were laid on the trans-Siberian Railroad in the late nineteenth century, Russia has gone through several cycles of growing closeness, estrangement and then closeness again with China.

"There is no pivot East. What we are doing is just pragmatically developing economic ties with the fastest growing region in the world," Stanislav Voskresenskiy, Russia's deputy minister of economic development, told CNBC at Spief.

"We should have been doing this for a decade."

Among the Sino-Russian projects are plans for a joint project between Russian Railways and the Chinese government to build a new $300 billion high-speed rail link between Beijing and Moscow – cutting the journey from five days to between one and two days.

Russia's Pacific coastline is sparsely populated and economically depressed – and initiatives which bring jobs and money are likely to be welcome. The very name of a planned pipeline, the 'Power of Siberia', which will bring gas from this coastline to Northern China, suggests that it will help restore dynamism to the region. It will effectively shift Russia's gas industry focus from West to East.

Another pressure point for the West is the new China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which the U.S., unlike many other Western powers, has declined to join.

Read More Russia isolation won't stop investment: Sistema

Summary: Russia's pivot to the East looks set to become even sharper, with its relationship with China deepening, following sanctions imposed by the West.


NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The Airline Passenger Experience Association's (APEX) CEO Joe Leader will take center stage at FTE Global on 11 September to showcase technological advancements that will transform the air travel experience. Leader will make his premier industry presentation in the keynote slot adjacent to Lee McCabe, Global Head of Travel, Education and Consumer Services at Facebook. In the spirit of following Facebook's curation around each individual, Leader will demonstrate how airlines will customize experiences for passengers during all phases of their journey.

"Future Travel Experience is delighted that APEX's new CEO, Joe Leader, has selected FTE Global as the forum where he will give his first industry address and meet the hundreds of industry-leading figures in attendance," said Daniel Coleman, Future Travel Experience Founder.

Leader's presentation, entitled "The Future Has Already Arrived: The Airline Experience of You," will demonstrate how flight curation will help shape individual passenger experiences based on personal preferences. Using currently available technologies, Leader will fly through how the airline passenger experience will be customized at each step including flight purchase, airport arrival, in-airport guidance, enhanced in-flight entertainment, predictive onboard services, intelligent in-flight delay options, and guided arrival.

"I am thrilled to present at Future Travel Experience to demonstrate how technology combined by APEX airlines and member companies will advance airline passenger experience to an entirely new level," APEX CEO Joe Leader stated. "Leveraging this approach offers better service to airline customers while also accelerating ancillary revenue opportunities for the air travel industry."

With the last minute addition of Leader, members of the press are still being fully accommodated by FTE Global and APEX press services. Following his presentation at FTE, Leader will speak later this month to over 3500 attendees at the member-exclusive event APEX EXPO in Portland, Oregon on 28 September.

About The Airline Passenger Experience (APEX)

APEX encompasses a network of businesses and professionals that are committed to providing a world-class airline experience for passengers around the globe. As a non-profit, APEX reinvests all of its resources to better serve its members. Every day, APEX members evaluate the passenger experience through an influential community and are improving every aspect of the airline experience: from designing, building and installing seating, entertainment and communications systems on commercial aircraft, to airport lounges and inflight dining. APEX works to strengthen the industry and enable business opportunities through education, innovation, networking and recognition. For more information, please visit APEX.aero.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

This content was issued through the press release service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: www.newswire.com

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/apex-ceo-joe-leader-to-make-premier-presentation-at-10th-annual-fte-global-in-las-vegas-alongside-facebook-300138535.html

SOURCE The Airline Passenger Experience (APEX)

Summary: NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2015/ PRNewswire/-- The Airline Passenger Experience Association's CEO Joe Leader will take center stage at FTE Global on 11 September to showcase technological advancements that will transform the air travel experience.  "Future Travel Experience is delighted that APEX's new CEO, Joe Leader, has selected FTE Global as the forum where he will...


Tesla is expected to unveil two new battery-charging units, one for the home and one utility version, which the company has said will be more compelling than those on the market right now. There are reports that Tesla has already been testing these new products in a pilot program in California with both residential and corporate customers.

This week, Deutsche Bank analyst Rod Lache argued the technology has the potential to completely change how consumers and investors look at the electric automaker.

"Based on preliminary work on the economics of stationary storage, we believe that this has potential to be more significant than the Street currently expects," he wrote in a note to investors.

Read More Tesla hack turns personal for one Illinois family

Lache said the stationary storage business could add $5 to his firm's $20 earnings-per-share estimate for Tesla in 2020. He went on to say that if Tesla trades with a price to earnings ratio of 20, then the battery business would be worth $100 a share.

There are plenty of suppositions behind Lache's estimate. But his optimism is noteworthy, as the battery business will be critical to Tesla's future.

Tesla plans to build the battery packs at its Gigafactory just outside of Reno, Nevada. The massive plant will employ 6,500 workers and has the potential to crank out a half-million lithium-ion batteries by 2020.

Since it was announced last year, most have focused on the importance of the Gigafactory for Tesla's electric vehicle business. But now, some are zeroing in on the potential of the stationary storage business.

"While the stationary storage market is still in its infancy, we believe that there are clear indications that significant growth lies ahead," Lache wrote.

Read MoreDrivers here pay double for insurance

Most of that growth is expected to come from Tesla working with solar energy companies such as SolarCity. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the chairman of that firm.

Still, questions remain about Tesla's plans for the stationary storage business, including how much demand there will be.

Colin Langan, auto analyst at UBS, told CNBC last week that he doesn't forecast his firm ratcheting up earnings per share or revenue estimates given new plans for the batteries. Still, he said it's a positive that the firm is building momentum in the area.

"I think if you look at what Tesla's indicated for the Gigafactory, about a third of the capacity by 2020 if they hit their plan would be dedicated to stationary storage," he said. So even at that point it would still be two-thirds auto."

Tesla will announce its first-quarter earnings results May 6.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho.

Summary: Tesla shares are having their best month in more than a year leading up to the company's battery announcement.


CARACAS, May 8 (Reuters) - The Venezuela division of Ford Motor Co will begin selling vehicles only in dollars in the coming months, two sources familiar with the situation said on Friday, as currency controls leave the automaker unable to recover revenue from local sales.

A lack of parts for assembly in April led Ford de Venezuela to halt operations as it was unable to obtain dollars for import through the exchange control system. The controls have also left Ford unable to turn the local bolivar currency into greenbacks.

"We will begin sales in hard currency toward the end of June; things are very advanced," said a source linked to the Venezuelan network of Ford retailers, who is unauthorized to speak publicly about the issue and requested anonymity.

"It has been very secretive. The government has asked that Ford be very discrete about this."

The source said retailers had put in their own dollars to import parts from Ford headquarters, which "deconsolidated" Venezuela operations because it could neither ensure supplies of parts nor repatriate dividends.

The agreement also requires that Ford be allowed to export part of its output to other Latin American countries to ensure further supplies of hard currency, the source added.

Ford de Venezuela did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Communication Ministry did not answer an email seeking comment.

The measure is unlikely to be well-received by Venezuelan consumers, who have limited access to dollars. Cars are already difficult to obtain due to the production problems.

A second source in the auto retail business, who is also unauthorized to speak publicly about the issue, said the remaining assembly plants are evaluating similar actions, adding that cars are already being sold in dollars by some retailers through "under the table" transactions.

Selling goods and real estate in hard currency is not uncommon in Venezuela, but was outlawed for years and is seen as a legal gray area.

The 12-year-old currency control system created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez has steadily reduced disbursement of dollars as last year's tumble in oil prices slashed the country's hard currency revenue from exports.

General Motors Co in April fired 450 workers and Ford is preparing to lay off 267, a union leader said in April.

He added that plants that assemble Toyota, Chrysler , Iveco, Mack, and Mitsubishi vehicles are also working at minimum capacity.

(Writing by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Richard Chang)

Summary: CARACAS, May 8- The Venezuela division of Ford Motor Co will begin selling vehicles only in dollars in the coming months, two sources familiar with the situation said on Friday, as currency controls leave the automaker unable to recover revenue from local sales. A lack of parts for assembly in April led Ford de Venezuela to halt operations as it was unable to obtain...


Since June 2013, "the stock has been in a really well-defined range between $80 and $70," said Nathan. Yet Wal-Mart will have to take action to significantly revive the stock, he adds.

"The company obviously is having their share of problems," he said. "Financially, they need to get their things together and need to get investors back on board, not just employees."

Wal-Mart unveiled plans Tuesday to raise its minimum wage for over 100,000 employees. Earlier in the year, the company announced minimum wage hikes for 500,000 employees.

On Friday, Wal-Mart's board of directors decided against picking an independent chairman to replace Rob Walton, the son of the company's storied founder Sam Walton. Instead it elected vice chairman Greg Penner—Rob Walton's son-in-law—to the position.

Summary: Wal-Mart shares have fallen 14 percent since the start of the year but some traders have been betting the stock will rally in the next month.


* White/raw sugar premium above $105/tonne

* El Nino could hasten rebound in sugar prices

* Coffee trade focused on big front-month robusta premium

(Rewrites throughout, updates prices; adds comment, second byline, NEW YORK dateline)

NEW YORK/LONDON, July 29 (Reuters) - Sugar futures on ICE rallied nearly 4 percent on Wednesday, buoyed by the stronger currency in top grower Brazil and the rising premium of whites over raws, indicating physical demand.

Coffee and cocoa futures were also firm as the 19-commodity Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity Index rose for the second straight day, recovering from the lowest level since 2009.

A recovery in the Brazilian real supported raw sugar and coffee prices, though the currency remained near 12-year lows.

"The real recovered last night and some of that was priced into sugar at the opening," said James Kirkup, head of sugar brokerage at ABN AMRO. "I think we're seeing technical short-covering today."

Also supportive was the rallying premium of the spot white sugar contract over the spot raw contract <LSU-SB1=R>, which rose as high as $105.87 per tonne, a one-month high.

"The differential has definitely blown up on the whites over the raws," said Ben Ross, co-portfolio manager for Cohen & Steers' commodity fund.

Traders said this indicated more demand than previously expected.

October raw sugar settled up 0.29 cent, or 2.6 percent, at 11.46 cents a lb, having soared 3.9 percent to 11.61 cents after buy-stops above 11.40 cents per lb were triggered, traders said.

An El Nino weather pattern damaging sugar crops may mean global demand will outstrip production to a greater extent than expected in the upcoming season, hastening a rebound in prices from a 6-1/2 year low hit last month.

October white sugar jumped $7.90, or 2.3 percent, at $357.20 per tonne.

Arabica coffee futures also gained ground, supported by the currency in Brazil, the world's biggest coffee grower, though prices remained near the 1-1/2-year low reached on Monday.

September arabica ended up 1.9 cent, or 1.6 percent, at $1.2215 per lb.

In robusta coffee, traders focused on a large front-month spread <LRCN5-U5> premium before the July contract expires on Friday.

September robusta finished up $12, or 0.7 percent, at $1,638 a tonne, trading near Tuesday's two-month low of $1,624.

September New York cocoa closed up $13, or 0.4 percent, at $3,217 a tonne, while September London cocoa ended up 5 pounds, or 0.2 percent, at 2,139 pounds a tonne.

(Editing by David Holmes, Pravin Char and Andrew Hay)

Summary: *Coffee trade focused on big front-month robusta premium. NEW YORK/ LONDON, July 29- Sugar futures on ICE rallied nearly 4 percent on Wednesday, buoyed by the stronger currency in top grower Brazil and the rising premium of whites over raws, indicating physical demand. Coffee and cocoa futures were also firm as the 19- commodity Thomson Reuters CoreCommodity...


Having an enormous stake in a company can be a blessing or a curse—especially if the stock is volatile during the year. With that baseline, 2014 proved kinder to some notable corporate titans than others.

CNBC calculated 2014's biggest winners and losers of 2014 based on the stock's 12-month performance and the individual's stock ownership. Some of the richest got even richer, while others suffered some punishing results they'd probably rather forget.

What follows are some of the biggest 2014 movers among the holdings of notable company founders and executives.

Summary: Notable, wealthy founders and executives saw a wide spectrum of gains and losses from their company's stock movement in 2014.


The group has urged other businesses to emulate its move, arguing such action could transform the way electricity is generated much faster than expected.

"If every business and organisation did what we did, we would flip electricity generation into being renewable-based by 2020 or shortly thereafter," said Steve Howard, Ikea's chief sustainability officer.

Read MoreUsing smart tech to slash energy bills

The group's announcement comes as officials from nearly 200 countries gather in Bonn, Germany, to shape the negotiating text for a global climate change pact due to be finalised at a UN meeting in Paris in December.

One of the stumbling blocks to sealing the Paris agreement is a reluctance by some wealthy countries to meet poorer countries' demands for money to help them deal with climate change.

Ikea's move is a sign of what private sector groups can offer, though the flat-pack furniture giant does not face the same constraints as a publicly listed company.

However, the prospect of a meaningful global warming deal finally being sealed, after more than 20 years of UN negotiations, has prompted other companies and investors to demonstrate their climate concerns in recent weeks.

The French insurer Axa said last month it would ditch €500m worth of coal investments this year and triple its green investments to €3bn by 2020.

Six of Europe's largest oil and gas groups wrote to the UN's top climate official, Christiana Figueres, on Friday asking her to let them help devise a global carbon pricing system.

More from the FT: Huge fines loom for environmental offenders Wind power industry threatens to sue if subsidies are cut Southwest rides wave of marine energy projects

Separately, Norway's parliament has just asked the country's massive sovereign wealth fund to curb its holdings in companies that produce or burn coal.

Ikea's €1bn commitment is notable for a company of its size: it reported revenues of €28.7bn last year, one-third of Axa's 2014 sales.

The Swedish group is already a sizeable renewable energy player, investing €1.5bn in wind and solar power since 2009.

It has installed 700,000 solar panels on its own buildings, as part of a plan to produce as much renewable power as it consumes at its own properties by 2020.

It has also committed to owning and operating 314 wind turbines, mostly away from its own stores, in places such as Canada and the US. Last year it bought two large wind farms in Illinois and Texas.

Mr Howard said investing in renewable power made a lot of business sense and at least 20 large companies, including Apple, were also spending more money on clean energy.

"Carbon is a significant risk so if you can eliminate that risk, or a good share of it, that's a good thing for investors," he said.

Summary: Ikea, the Swedish home furnishing group, has vowed to spend €1bn on renewable energy and other measures, the Financial Times reports.


Syrian refugees arrive on a dinghy after crossing from Turkey to Lesbos island, Greece.

Eastern Europe has rejected migrant quotas despite German warnings of the "biggest challenge" in EU history, amid disturbing footage of refugees in Hungary being fed "like animals".

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met counterparts from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia in Prague on Friday, but failed to convince them to accept an EU plan to distribute 160,000 refugees around the continent.

"We're convinced that as countries we should keep control over the number of those we are able to accept," said Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek after the meeting.

Record numbers of people, many of them fleeing war and conflict, continued to pour into Europe, with about 7600 entering Macedonia in the past 24 hours.

Faced with the surge, Germany says the EU plan does not go far enough, but Chancellor Angela Merkel has few options for convincing countries that refuse to take part, having already rejected punitive measures such as cutting EU subsidies.

Hungary's response has been to send more troops to help build a four-metre fence along its southern border, and images from inside its controversial Roszke holding camp showed families being fed "like animals in a pen", with hungry women and children caught in a scrum as police threw sandwiches at them.

"It was inhumane and it really speaks for these people that they didn't fight over the food despite being clearly very hungry," said Austrian volunteer Michaela Spritzendorfer, who filmed the scenes.

They raised further concerns over the treatment of refugees in Hungary, which saw record numbers of arrivals on Thursday and is set to implement harsh new laws next week that will allow it to jail migrants.

The UN's refugee agency welcomed the EU plan to distribute refugees, but said more was needed to relieve pressure on front-line states.

"The relocation scheme can only succeed if it is accompanied by large-scale emergency reception, assistance and registration efforts in the countries most impacted by arrivals, particularly Greece, Hungary and Italy," said spokesman William Spindler, adding that 200,000 places would be needed by the end of 2016.

Much of eastern Europe remains bitterly opposed to relocating migrants.

"It is inappropriate to talk about mandatory quotas, calculated on an extremely bureaucratic basis, almost like an accountancy exercise I might say, without consulting member states," said Romania President Klaus Iohannis.

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Summary: The Czech foreign ministry has announced a meeting between the European Union's eastern members, Germany and Luxembourg to discuss the migrant crisis.


DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AT&T* will webcast a keynote address by John Stephens, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2015 Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills on Thursday, September 10 at 8:00 a.m. PT. The webcast will be available live and for replay at AT&T Investor Relations.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) helps millions of people and businesses around the globe stay connected through leading wireless, high-speed Internet, voice and cloud-based services. We’re helping people mobilize their worlds with state-of-the-art communications, entertainment services and amazing innovations like connected cars and devices for homes, offices and points in between. Our U.S. wireless network offers customers the nation’s strongest LTE signal and the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network. We offer the best global wireless coverage*. We’re improving how our customers stay entertained and informed with AT&T U-verse® TV and High Speed Internet services. And businesses worldwide are serving their customers better with AT&T’s mobility and highly secure cloud solutions.

Additional information about AT&T products and services is available at http://about.att.com. Follow our news on Twitter at @ATT, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/att and YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/att.

© 2015 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the Globe logo and other marks are trademarks and service marks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Reliability and signal strength claims based on nationwide carriers’ LTE. Signal strength claim based ONLY on avg. LTE signal strength. LTE not available everywhere.

*Global coverage claim based on offering discounted voice and data roaming; LTE roaming; voice roaming; and world-capable smartphone and tablets in more countries than any other U.S. carrier. International services required. Coverage not available in all areas. Coverage may vary per country and be limited/restricted in some countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150903005216/en/

For AT&T Corporate CommunicationsMcCall Butler, 917-209-5792butlerm@att.com

Summary: DALLAS---- AT&T* will webcast a keynote address by John Stephens, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2015 Media, Communications& Entertainment Conference in Beverly Hills on Thursday, September 10 at 8:00 a.m. PT. *AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates...


Cramer's opinion on Apple is pretty clear, as he has shared his mantra of "own it, don't trade it" a million times over. Does Moreno agree?

Apple's weekly chart resembles that of a staircase, periods of the stock moving up, followed by trading sideways for a few months. Moreno pointed out that Apple has been stuck in one of those consolidation phases lately.

But that's what Apple does—it goes into a consolidation period, and then roars higher. Moreno pointed out that the daily chart shows a strong floor of support around $123.50, which is about $3 from where it closed on Tuesday. He thinks it would be a terrific buy if the stock pulls back to $123.50, as its powerful uptrend is still intact for the long term.

---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Twitter—get it together or fail Target & CVS CEOs: Deal of a lifetime Cramer: How to profit from a Grexit ----------------------------------------------------------

So, while both Salesforce and Apple haven't been that exciting lately, Cramer thinks investors should not be discouraged. (Tweet This) The charts indicate that both stocks are just taking a breather before heading higher.

"I have to agree with him. As always you own Apple, don't trade it, just like Moreno's charts would suggest, and I think Salesforce has a fantastic long-term story," Cramer said.

Summary: Jim Cramer goes off the charts to find out if tech giants Apple and Salesforce are getting ready for action, or is it time to ring the register?


It will astonish many people that Jenny Saville is opening her first solo show in a British public gallery, but the artist does not feeling upset or wronged.

"I don't have a complaint about not being fashionable, I don't feel I've been ignored. It's out of choice that I haven't shown in the UK," she said as she put the final touches to an exhibition at Modern Art Oxford.

The show includes the mountainous fleshy nudes she became known for in the 1990s right up to new work so fresh that on Friday it was still wet. "I finished it at 10am yesterday," she said, pointing to her most recent work. "I just hope people don't lean against it."

Saville was one of the YBAs, one of many British artists helped by Charles Saatchi exhibiting in his Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1997. Since then she has built up an international reputation showing across Europe and in the US, yet no British museum show.

"It is incredible isn't it," said Modern Art Oxford's director, Michael Stanley. "But audiences who come here will feel they know her work because you would have seen so many images of it in different ways."

The lack of shows is partly down to Saville and partly down to her work not always being flavour of the month in certain art circles. "She's had a dogged determination and interest in figuration," said Stanley. "It has not been fashionable at all, especially in painting. This show is important because it shows what an incredible painter and draughtsman she is."

It is also down to her not producing a huge amount of work ("I'm slow," she said) and wanting to build a reputation in the US. "I wanted to see if I could stand up in that environment and I got the opportunity to do it, which was thrilling."

The time felt right for a UK show, especially in Oxford where she has her studio. "The YBA thing has calmed down a bit here and there's a bit of space and distance from that, so I feel it is the right time to show in this country and this is a beautiful museum with wonderful daylight."

Almost all of the loans are from private collections and they include enormous works such as the 16ft-wide Fulcrum from the late 1990s. "I used to call it the bitch," Saville said. "I look at it now and think no wonder it took me two years."

Two of Saville's recent works will be found 10 minutes away from the gallery in the Italian Renaissance room of Oxford's Ashmolean. Sandwiched between works by Veronese and Titian's The Triumph of Love is a Saville drawing inspired by Leonardo's The Burlington House Cartoon in the National Gallery.

"It is amazing," she said. "I was daunted by it. To show directly in a dialogue with old masters is so rare, normally the best you get is your painting reproduction next to their painting reproduction, but this is a direct relationship and it is thrilling. I'm really grateful to the Ashmolean for taking that jump."

• Jenny Saville is at Modern Art Oxford and in Room 43 of the Ashmolean from 23 June to 16 September.

Summary: Oxford exhibition includes the mountainous fleshy nudes she became known for in the 1990s, as well as days-old new work


* U.S. share indexes up over 1.5 percent

* Top European stocks index up over 1 percent

* China numbers contrast with forecast-beating Germany

* Brent crude prices rise on euro zone grwoth , China crude imports data

(Adds U.S. market open, changes byline, dateline; previous LONDON)

NEW YORK, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Stock markets worldwide rallied on Tuesday on hopes of more stimulus measures in China and on strong German trade data, while Brent crude oil prices also rose.

China's imports shrank far more than expected in August, falling for the 10th straight month, though exports fell less than expected. Analysts said the imports data could lead to further policy easing from the Chinese government in coming months.

Those hopes boosted U.S. shares, while data showing Germany saw imports and exports hit record highs in value terms in July underpinned gains in European stocks. Germany's benchmark DAX share index was last up nearly 2 percent.

A late bounce in Chinese stocks, which pushed the Shanghai Composite Index up 2.9 percent after earlier declines, also also supported European shares.

"With volatility having receded somewhat during the past few days it appears that investors have been reassessing the potential negative fallout from the slowdown in China," said Markus Huber, a senior analyst at Peregrine & Black.

Brent crude rose on data showing the euro zone's economy grew faster than expected in the second quarter, with gross domestic product up 1.5 percent year-on-year versus a previous reading of 1.2 percent.

Brent prices were also helped by data showing China crude oil imports rose 5.6 percent in August from a year earlier.

Brent crude was last up $1.01, or 2.12 percent, at $48.64 a barrel. U.S. crude, meanwhile, was down 68 cents, or 1.48 percent, at $45.37 per barrel.

MSCI's all-country world equity index, which tracks shares in 45 nations, was last up 4.62 points or 1.2 percent, at 389.27.

The Dow Jones industrial average was last up 241.25 points, or 1.5 percent, to 16,343.63. The S&P 500 was up 27.04 points, or 1.41 percent, at 1,948.26. The Nasdaq Composite was up 76.20 points, or 1.63 percent, at 4,760.12.

Europe's FTSEurofirst 300 index of top regional shares was up 1.23 percent, at 1,416.55.

U.S. Treasury yields rose ahead of the U.S. Treasury's scheduled sale of $24 billion in three-year notes later on Tuesday. Benchmark 10-year notes were last down 15/32 in price to yield 2.18 percent, from a yield of 2.13 percent late Friday.

The renewed risk appetite led the dollar to gain against the safe-haven yen, but the greenback still inched lower against the euro. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of six major currencies, was last down 0.26 percent .

"The market is trading more risk-on across the board," said BNP Paribas FX strategist Sam Lynton-Brown in London.

Gold firmed but remained close to 2-1/2 week lows as uncertainty over the timing of the U.S interest rate hike persisted. Spot gold prices rose $2.43 or 0.22 percent, to $1,121.53 an ounce.

(Reporting by Sam Forgione; additional reporting by Nigel Stephenson in London and Tanya Agrawal)

Summary: *China numbers contrast with forecast-beating Germany. *Brent crude prices rise on euro zone grwoth, China crude imports data. NEW YORK, Sept 8- Stock markets worldwide rallied on Tuesday on hopes of more stimulus measures in China and on strong German trade data, while Brent crude oil prices also rose.


Only five retailers tend to experience higher sales when gas prices fall (or lower sales when gas prices increase). Those are CarMax, Burlington Stores, Gap, Restoration Hardware, and TJX Companies, which operates discount apparel chains T.J. Maxx and Marshalls.

Read MoreBe cautious about store credit cards--Here's why

Of course, correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, and it would be reckless to invest based on such findings without putting them in context. The study also looked at situations when gas prices fell by more than 10 percent in one month. In those cases, same-store sales rose by 0.85 percentage point, the study showed.

Further complicating matters, the current situation is unusual because the economy is improving while gas prices are in decline. "While it is difficult to know for sure, we believe the U.S. consumer is more likely to see a benefit this time compared to history for exactly this reason," Lejuez said.

The conclusion? "Our analysis finds little correlation in the retail group overall, but certain companies whose target customers may be more value conscious… should see some incremental tailwind if lower gas prices persist," Lejuez said. Those include Burlington Stores, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, Gap, Kohl's, J.C. Penney, Ross Stores, Target, TJX, and Wal-Mart.

Summary: An analysis shows that many retailers actually see sales decline when oil prices fall. That may not be the case this time around.