TheChek News Flow

When it launched its UberRush delivery service in New York last spring, Uber was paying bike couriers bonuses that were as high as $20 for a single delivery — while charging customers as little as $5, sources told The Post.

In addition to the bonuses, UberRush pays its riders 80 percent of its customer fee — $5 for the first mile and $2.50 for each additional mile.

The $20-per-delivery bonus bonanza rocked New York’s bike-courier community for “a few months” after UberRush launched last April, according to one source.

“There were guys getting paid $20 to take something across the street,” the source added. “I heard one guy made $3,200 in a single week.”

The Uber bonus later fell to $10 and became somewhat sporadic in 2015 — but that didn’t stop the tech company from building an army of hundreds of on-demand couriers throughout the city, sources said.

Still, desperate to find riders during last month’s historic snowstorm, the Uber bonus returned: $20 for four trips in a single day, sources said. Some got $25 for five deliveries.

“It’s unheard-of pay for messenger work,” says 53-year-old David Mitchell, who has been making UberRush deliveries since last year. “Uber is such a great company — I can’t say enough nice things about them.”

Two New York congressmen are trying to derail Canadian Pacific Railway’s effort to buy Norfolk Southern.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Sean Patrick Maloney on Thursday sent a letter to the US Surface Transportation Board, saying a merger would have “very negative impacts for the rail shippers, communities and freight rail installations across the state of New York.”

Last year, Norfolk bought Canadian Pacific’s rail line that delivers freight to NYC. The Democratic lawmakers said that Norfolk was “restoring service levels to address shipper needs” — and Canadian Pacific would jeopardize its progress.

Their letter comes as Canadian Pacific’s hedge fund backer, Bill Ackman, weighs in during the next few weeks about whether to launch a proxy fight after Norfolk Southern rebuffed a takeover offer from Canadian Pacific. Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital declined to comment.

The 10-year Portuguese/German Gov't bond spread at approx 290bps, wider by over 5bps and highest since Aug 2014

publication is to present equity style views across regions using a common

business cycle framework. Historical performance, valuation, positioning and

macro sensitivities are some of the characteristics analyzed and compared.

Style views are also accompanied with list of stocks to favor and avoid.

* The style selection framework relies on growth, inflation, liquidity and

sentiment indicators and uses both long-term trends and their 2nd derivative to

identify the phase of the business cycle. The cycle indicator is referred to as the

Quantitative Macro Index (QMI) and is the key input for style positioning.

* While the US business cycle led the global recovery in the aftermath of the

Financial Crisis due to aggressive Fed stimulus, more recently EM has been

leading the global cycle as China slows down and weighs on commodity prices.

In early 2015 the European cycle got a boost from ECB QE program. However,

lately that trend has also been decelerating, albeit from a higher level.

* The US and GEM are currently in Contraction phase of the cycle, with their

respective QMIs below long-term trends and further decelerating. In this phase,

empirical analysis would suggest to be long Quality and Low Volatility, neutral

Growth and start rotating from Momentum into Value stocks. Meanwhile,

Europe is in the Slowdown phase, with a decelerating QMI but still above

long-term trend. This would imply favoring Momentum, Growth, Quality and

Large Caps over Value, High Volatility and Small Caps.

* High Quality stocks look expensive across the globe reflecting investors’

preference for relative safety in a slowing economic environment. Momentum

stocks are expensive in the US and Asia, reflecting strong macro momentum

trends that have been fueled by diverging central bank policies, persistent USD

strengthening, and weakening EM currencies and commodity prices. Valuation

of Growth stocks looks stretched in Europe and Asia (has normalized some

in US) reflecting bidding up of these exposures in an anemic growth

environment. Given the positive correlation of Momentum with Quality, Growth

and Low Volatility, their valuation richness is likely a symptom of the same

macro momentum trends. Value is the polar opposite, trading at extreme

discount relative to the market and versus history in all regions.

* Given the already extreme valuation spread of Momentum-like styles

versus Value, we see increasing likelihood of Momentum selloff and

reversal to Value, a risk we have been highlighting in our recent strategy

reports. Since such a reversal may be difficult to time, we recommend that

investors, while maintaining exposure to cycle-consistent styles, favor stocks

with more reasonable valuations and reduce exposure to expensive

momentum stocks. In effect, transition from expensive Momentum into

Momentum at Reasonable Price (MARP), expensive Quality into Quality at

Reasonable Price (QARP), expensive Low Volatility into Low Volatility at

Reasonable Price (VARP) and expensive Growth into Growth at Reasonable

Price (GARP) – see pages 14-17 for screens of “Stocks to Avoid”.

2016 is the 4713th Chinese Year. According to Chinese Horoscope calendar, the first day of Red Monkey is on February 4, 2016. This day is not the Chinese New Year Day. Most of Internet Chinese horoscope sites use Chinese New Year Day to determine the Chinese zodiac sign, which is wrong. Chinese New Year Day of Red Monkey Year is on February 8, 2016. This is the reason that some people confuse their Chinese zodiac signs.