Ryanair had to cancel 400 flights on Friday, following pilot strikes.  The budget airline canceled flights in Germany, Ireland, Belgium and Sweden, affecting about 15% of the carrier's scheduled flights. Staff strikes occurring lately are due to conflicts between Ryanair with its employees over labor demand and worker contracts.

The count of working oil rigs in the country increased by 10 this week to peak at 869 - their highest point so far this year, according to data from Baker Hughes. Since January, U.S. rig fleet has grown by more than 115 rigs since January.This should mitigate supply concerns following U.S. President Donald Trump’s restoring of sanctions on Iran and withdrawing from the nuclear deal with the nation.

The World Bank is turning to blockchain to raise funds. The international financial institution will be issuing blockchain bonds – the first of its kind - to raise upto 100 million Australian dollars ($73 million).World Bank has hired Commonwealth Bank of Australia to manage the issuance of the bond, which is nicknamed “bond-i”. Blockchain, which is the technology undergirding bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, allows direct transaction between people/organizations without requiring an intermediary or third-party in between.

A very interesting study published by the scientists from Yale University, Professor Aleh Tsyvinski and economics Ph.D. candidate Yukun Liu claims that there are “good and bad times” to buy and sell bitcoins. There has been thousands and thousands of scientific (and not so scientific) studies on the predictors of the stock market starting with simple moving averages and ending with the correlation between winning teams in Super Bowl and the behavior of S&P 500.While the past performance, as we all know, is not a guarantee of future results, these scientists have discovered two non-trivial statistical phenomena: 1.

Starbucks Corp. will offer cold-pressed drink kombucha, as it tries to juice up sales amidst consumers’ shifting preferences in beverages. Kombucha is a type of fermented tea gaining rapid popularity, and Starbucks wants to launch six flavors  of it.As more and more consumers ditch sugary drinks for healthier alternatives, kombucha – with its low-calorie/digestive benefits - might help Starbucks leverage the latest dynamics in beverage market. Starbucks will launch the drinks in New York City, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and Seattle before expanding to more cities this fall. 

President Donald Trump tweeted that he’s doubling tariffs on imports from Turkey. In his latest tweet, Trump wants Turkey to ‘pay’ for its weak Lira – which he believes is eroding U.S. competitiveness in global trade.“Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”, he said.

U.S. crude exports to China had risen to 15 million barrels in June - the highest volume since 1996, according to U.S. Census Bureau and Energy Information Administration data. Earlier, the Chinese government was reportedly considering tariffs on U.S. crude, but changed its mind following consultations with industry associations and corporations.That reflects how much of a market clout U.S. crude exporters potentially have on Chinese refineries, more so as the latter continue to face supply disruptions from Venezuela and Iran.

At the one end of the extreme spectrum of speculative investments are famous FAANG’s (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google).On the other end of the spectrum are the so-called dividend aristocrats – blue-chip companies that pay high dividends. As the investors are getting more and more concerned with the possibility of the market downturn, they are looking for “safer” investments.

Samsung has new investment plans in four areas: Artificial Intelligence(AI), 5G, automotive electronic parts, and biopharmaceuticals. Focused on autonomous vehicle technology, the South Korean conglomerate wants to hire 1,000 AI researchers and also strengthen its presence in 5G network  – these are critical parts of its plan for investing 180 trillion won ($160 billion) over the next three years on capital expenditures and research and development.

Cryptocurrencies have a massive sell-off, causing them to drop to new lows. On Wednesday, the market value of digital currencies tracked by Coinmarketcap.com plummeted to about $230 billion - the lowest level since November.The crypto plunge follows the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's holding off its decision on whether to approve  a VanEck exchange-traded fund backed by Bitcoin, thereby probably muting investors’ hopes of seeing cryptocurrencies gain a wider acceptance.

Is Tesla soon going to be a private company?Tuesday’s tweet from Elon Musk reads, “funding secured” at $420 per share. In his letter posted on Tesla’s blog, Musk said that he wants to turn Tesla into a private company because he is concerned that its stock price swings and short-selling on the market are potentially hammering the company’s prospects and could be hurting its employees who are shareholders. He wants to maintain his stake – 20% - in the company, while also encouraging existing shareholders to stay invested even if the company goes private.  

Facebook is launching augmented-reality-styled games on its Messenger chat app. Named "Asteroids Attack" and "Don't Smile”, the two new games will juxtapose digital objects over real-life images/videos – a concept earlier popularized by Snapchat followed by Instagram.And now with the new games introduced, Facebook is probably hoping to see the number tick even higher.

But that did not stop the company from registering solid growth in revenues. In the three months ending June, Snapchat’s number of daily users was -2% less compared to the previous quarter.At 188 million daily active users, the social networking platform fell short of analysts' expectations of about 193 million. However, revenues surged +44% on a year-over-year basis to reach $262 million for Snap (parent company of Snapchat), while loss per share was lower than expected.

China will slap 25% tariff rate on $16 billion worth of its U.S. imports, starting August 23 – in an apparent tit-for-tat against the U.S. The announcement from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce comes close on the heels of the U.S. Trade Representative’s decision to impose 25% levies on $16 billion of Chinese goods also commencing on August 23. And the ‘war’ might be far from over.  The U.S. is also weighing its options to raise tariff rate to 25% from 10% on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports. 

China’s state-backed newspaper argues that Apple Inc. should share more of its profits with China. People’s Daily claims in an article that the iPhone maker substantially benefits from the supply chain and cheap labor in China, and could face "anger and nationalist sentiment" amid the ongoing trade war unless the tech firm gives out a bigger slice of its earnings to Chinese citizens. The article also states that China is the “most important” overseas market for Apple, and indicated that the tech giant could be caught in the crossfire of U.S.-China trade tensions.The article suggests that Apple should increase its payouts to Chinese people if it does not want any potential nationalist sentiment to dampen its products’ popularity in China. 

Daimler AG has suspended operations and production of cars in Iran. Back in 2016, the automotive corporation had decided to resume operations in Iran following the lifting of U.S. sanctions in exchange for Iran’s agreement to limit nuclear activity."

 This happened even as the fitness/weight management company tried new marketing strategies – such as collaborations with celebrities DJ Khalid, Kevin Smith and Chef Eric Greenspan, and aimed to expand its reach among the youth. Nevertheless, the firm had an 18% increase in revenue from a year ago, while gross margins rose 430 basis points. Weight Watchers reportedly wants to focus on short video ads on social networking platforms as its next marketing move.

The company, however, said that it collaborates with credit card firms and banks to provide customer chats and account management services. 

New York’s city council might approve a one-year upper limit on new licenses to ride-sharing cabs such as the ones operated by Uber Technologies Inc. The official vote is expected to come out on Wednesday, and might see ride-sharing companies face a major restriction - apparently due to some regulators’ fears of an over-congestion of traffic coupled with a crimping of the city’s drivers’ incomes due to a glut in taxis and e-hail services.The count of app-based cars in New York City has gone up to 80,000 up from 12,600 since 2015 – as suggested by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission data.

Following corporate tax cuts in December, major U.S. banks have been reducing costs and planning hikes on shareholder payments. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, 23 banks regarded as most important by the Federal Reserve (and hence subject to the central bank’s stress tests) each saved $388 million on average in the first half of the year.The banks slashed 3,200 jobs in aggregate, while decided to boost shareholder payouts by more than $28 billion through mid-2019. JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.,Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley – raked in more than $29 billion in net earnings in each of this year’s first two quarters – in large part due to lower corporate tax rates.