Alibaba's astronomical Singles' Day sales failed to boost its share price, with shares closing down 2 percent in New York on Wednesday, so what happened?

The e-commerce giant handled $14.3 billion in sales over the 24-hour shopping period, a 60 percent increase compared to 2014. At first the stock was up until the 51-year old founder Jack Ma made some cautionary comments about growth expectations in China and the impact on Alibaba.

The Company’s founder said the next five to 15 months would be a tough time for the mainland, citing the impact of President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption fight. But he said Beijing's 7 percent gross domestic product (GDP) target was still achievable during that time frame.

In a bigger perspective, Alibaba shares are down more than 20 percent from last year as the world's second-largest economy grows at its slowest pace since 2009, with GDP sliding below 7 percent in the July-September quarter following weakening investment, excess capacity in the industrial sector and a strong currency.

Because Alibaba's business model relies on consumption, a broad economic slowdown is worrisome in the longer term and shadowing any short-term boost from record Singles' Day sales.

"The largest area of concern for Alibaba is the slowdown of Chinese growth and how that might hurt the domestic consumption, and that's the dark cloud over all the Chinese internet names today.

Others were more upbeat on Alibaba's outlook as they acknowledge that negative sentiment on the company's stock was directly tied to views on the broader economy, but said it was misguided. They believe that this is a complete misread for China internet/e-commerce, because those companies are delivering solid fundamentals even during a time that the country is slowing.

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China's online shoppers spent billions today, smashing records on "Singles' Day."

The annual online shopping festival, the Chinese version of "Cyber Monday" is the biggest single day of shopping anywhere in the world.

Within the first eight minutes, customers had spent $1 billion on Alibaba's popular shopping platforms, Taobao and Tmall. By 12:32 p.m. in China, gross merchandise volume settled through its payment service, Alipay, topped $9.3 billion, breaking last year's tally.

Numbers climbed rapidly as shoppers bought refrigerators, dresses, purses, groceries and more. Sales on this day beats Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the U.S.

Singles' Day in China began as a clever counter to Valentine's Day. It takes place each year on Nov. 11 -- or 11/11, which represents four single people. Originally, lonely singles were encouraged to pamper and spoil themselves and other single friends by going shopping for gifts. Now, it's morphed into a crazy shopping bonanza that rakes in tons of cash for brands and retailers, both big and small.

This year's blowout featured more than six million products from 40,000 merchants and 30,000 brands from 25 countries on Alibaba's shopping platforms. Other online platforms, such as JD.com (JD), also got in on the game, with international brands and retailers, including Macy's, Costco, Apple and Nike, offering deals on everything from sneakers to smartphones.

The 24-hour sale is expected to generate 760 million packages for delivery, 40% more than last year, China's postal bureau estimated. Many delivery services hired thousands of temporary workers to ease the burden.

Huge signs advertising promotions started popping up last month. Some shoppers prepared themselves in advance to make sure they could get their hands on the best deals.

Shoppers weren't the only ones competing for the goods. China's e-commerce firms also gear up for the big day, and compete with each other over final sales amounts.

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Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in on the latest odd Starbucks controversy, saying that maybe Americans shout boycott the Company.

Trump thinks it is reasonable to boycott Starbucks after the coffee giant announced it would abandon its Christmas-themed cups.

"I have one of the most successful Starbucks, in Trump Tower. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks? I don't know. Seriously, I don't care. That's the end of that lease, but who cares?" Trump told a crowd in Springfield, Illinois, on Monday. "If I become president, we're all going to be saying Merry Christmas again, that I can tell you. That I can tell you."

Trump's comments, on the eve of the next Republican presidential debate, is his latest rhetoric to win over Christian evangelicals who are much of the base in states like Iowa and South Carolina. Trump is grappling with Ben Carson, the other Republican front-runner and an evangelical favorite, in those two early voting states.

Starbucks said earlier that it had removed "symbols of the season" used in the past, which have included reindeer and ornaments, in favor of a simple, two-toned red cup. Some Christian leaders have long attacked secular businesses for waging a "War on Christmas" and prevented customers and employees from sharing Christmas greetings.

Trump previously pledged to his allegiance to Christmas during a campaign rally in October. "I guarantee if I become president, we're going to be saying 'Merry Christmas' at every store," he had said.

Only the customers can decide whether they think it’s justified to boycott Starbucks because of a change in their cups design and the fact that they don’t want to tell their customers ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook is out creating a buzz for the 12-inch iPad Pro tablet, which launches later this week, and he doesn't really see why anybody would need a full personal computer anymore.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Cook said, "I think if you're looking at a PC, why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?"

He continued: "Yes, the iPad Pro is a replacement for a notebook or a desktop for many, many people. They will start using it and conclude they no longer need to use anything else, other than their phones."

But recent history is against him. The iPad has seen seven straight quarters of declining sales — measured against the previous year — dipping below 10 million for the first time since mid-2011, and analysts seem to have given up on it.

The overall tablet market has been declining for the past year as well. Meanwhile, Apple's Mac business has been doing better than ever before, last quarter, the company sold a record 5.71 million Macs.

The iPad Pro is Apple's latest attempt to reverse this trend. Like the Microsoft Surface, which Cook once described as being like a combination refrigerator and toaster, the iPad Pro comes with an optional attachable keyboard. You can also buy a stylus for it to sketch on the screen. It also has a larger screen than those of previous iPads, coming in at almost 13 inches diagonally.

Cook acknowledged that the larger iPhone screen, introduced with the iPhone 6 in 2014, might have hurt iPad and iPad Mini sales. But he said Apple didn't mind as long as it was eating itself.

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The dollar is inching closer and closer to being worth the same as one euro. The last time that happened was 13 years ago.

So will the dollar really close on the euro anytime soon?

And if so, what does that mean for consumers, businesses and investors?

This year, the dollar has surged against the euro and most other global currencies. The U.S. Dollar Index, which measures the dollar versus the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc, is up nearly 10% so far in 2015.

The main reason? Economic conditions in the United States are better than Europe and Japan. The value of a nation's currency typically rises and falls along with its economy.

As a result, the Federal Reserve is likely to soon hike interest rates, even as the European Central Bank and many other global central banks have been cutting rates. The dollar picked up even more steam Friday after a solid United States jobs report boosted the chances that the Fed may raise rates next month.

The euro is currently worth about $1.07, while this time a year ago, for each euro you got around $1.24. The drop in the value of the euro has been stunning. And it doesn't look like it's over just yet.

So if it the Dollar will keep gaining momentum, who will win and who will lose?

The strong dollar makes the price of imported goods cheaper in the United States, and gives advantage to Americans traveling abroad. The dollar has more purchasing power.

But the strong dollar is not good news for large corporations with a big international presence. For example, look at online travel agency Priceline, on Monday Shares tumbled nearly 10% after the company issued an earnings outlook that was below forecasts.

During a conference call with analysts, Priceline CEO Darren Huston said its domestic travel business has been strong and that Chinese travelers are still taking many trips to the U.S. But added that "generally almost everyone else is going a little less to the U.S. because of the currency effect."

The strong dollar has also hurt Coca-Cola (KO), IBM (IBM, Tech30), Caterpillar (CAT) and Procter & Gamble (PG) this year. That's something the Fed is going to have to watch closely before it decides to raise rates.

While many economists and Wall Street strategists now think a rate hike is all but certain at the Fed's next meeting in December, investors shouldn't ignore the role the dollar may play in the decision.

To put it in simple words: the strong dollar is hurting Corporate America. An eventual rate hike should boost the dollar further, especially if the ECB, the People's Bank of China and others continue to cut rates.

So when coming to conclusion, a strong dollar is good and bad at the same time, it depends who you’re asking. One can just hope he’s on the winning side of things when it comes to the rise of the Dollar.

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Investigators of the Russian plane crash in Egypt are "90 percent sure" the noise heard in the final second of a cockpit recording was an explosion caused by a bomb.

The Airbus A321 crashed 23 minutes after taking off from the Sharm al-Sheikh tourist resort eight days ago, killing all 224 passengers and crew.

Islamic State militants fighting Egyptian security forces in Sinai said they brought it down. "The indications and analysis so far of the sound on the black box indicate it was a bomb," said the Egyptian investigation team member, who asked not to be named due to sensitivities. "We are 90 percent sure it was a bomb."

His comments reflect a much greater degree of certainty about the cause of the crash than the investigation committee has so far declared in public.

A Lead investigator said on Saturday that the plane appeared to have broken up in mid-air while it was being flown on auto-pilot, and that a noise had been heard in the last second of the cockpit recording. But he said it was too soon to draw conclusions about why the plane crashed.

Confirmation that militants brought down the airliner could have a devastating impact on Egypt's lucrative tourist industry, which has suffered from years of political turmoil and was hit last week when Russia, Turkey and several European countries suspended flights to Sharm al-Sheikh and other destinations.

It could also mark a new strategy by the hardline Islamic State group which holds large parts of Syria and Iraq. Asked to explain the remaining 10 percent margin of doubt, the investigator declined to elaborate, but cited other possibilities on Saturday including a fuel explosion, metal fatigue in the plane or lithium batteries overheating.

He said debris was scattered over a 13-km (8-mile) area "which is consistent with an in-flight break-up".

"What happened in Sharm al-Sheikh last week, and to a lesser extent with the ... (Germanwings) aircraft, are game changers for our industry," Emirates Airlines President Tim Clark said, referring to the crash of a Germanwings airliner in the French Alps in March, believed crashed deliberately by its co-pilot.

Clark said he had ordered a security review but was not suspending any flights as a result of the disaster. Emirates does not operate regular flights to Sharm al-Sheikh.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond also said the incident could lead to changes in flight security.

"If this turns out to be a device planted by an ISIL operative or by somebody inspired by ISIL, then clearly we will have to look again at the level of security we expect to see in airports in areas where ISIL is active," Hammond told the BBC.

Islamic State militants fighting security forces in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula have said they brought down the aircraft as revenge for Russian air strikes against Islamist fighters in Syria. They said they would eventually tell the world how they carried out the attack.

If the group was responsible, it would have carried out one of the highest profile killings since al Qaeda flew passenger planes into New York's World Trade Center in September 2001.

In St Petersburg, where the flight was headed on Oct. 31, the bell of St Isaac's Cathedral rang 224 times and a service was held in memory of the victims.

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In a new report released on Sunday, the World Bank has warned that more than 100 million people could be pushed back into poverty within 15 years due to rising temperatures and extreme weather.

The World Bank also said climate change was already preventing people escaping poverty but the situation could get much worse.

"This report sends a clear message that ending poverty will not be possible unless we take strong action to reduce the threat of climate change on poor people and dramatically reduce harmful emissions," said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim.

Crop failures due to drought, big rises in food prices after "extreme weather events," and a higher incidence of disease following heat waves and floods would hurt the poorest the hardest, the World Bank said in a statement.

The report found people in Africa and South Asia were especially vulnerable.

Stephane Hallegate, an economist who led the team preparing report, said that the future for these 100 million people is not yet determined.

"We have a window of opportunity to achieve our poverty objectives in the face of climate change, provided we make wise policy choices now," he said.

That would mean tackling the cause of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as taking steps to reduce the impact on the poor such as improved social safety nets and healthcare, building better flood defenses and developing climate-resistant crops, the report said.

The report comes roughly a month before top officials from around the world will attend the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris.

Previously, Nature Climate Change published studies indicating climate change could make parts of the Middle East too hot for human beings to survive.

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This is how our Signals look just minutes after the crucial U.S jobs report. As you can see in the picture below, 9/10 of our Signals were correct by the time the announcement was out.

The report was huge for the U.S economy, Here are the big numbers:

- US economy added 271,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate dropped to 5%. That unemployment rate is now at the lowest level since April 2008, and economists consider a 5% rate to indicate full employment.

Average hourly earnings grew 0.4% month-on-month, better than forecast. The report had been expected to lift the pace of jobs growth from the unexpected slump we saw over the last two months.

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The Fed needs to see one thing in Friday's big jobs report: 'further improvement'

On Friday morning, (8:30am Eastern Time), the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the employment report for October.

This report will be a good indication of how comfortable the Federal Reserve might be with actually raising rates at its December meeting.

Here’s what Wall Street is expecting:

Nonfarm payrolls: +182,000

Unemployment rate: 5%

Average hourly earnings month-on-month: 0.2%

Average hourly earnings year-on-year: 2.3%

Average weekly hours worked: 34.5

Change in manufacturing payrolls: -4,000

The Fed needs to be confident that, as it has said repeatedly, there is "further improvement" in the labor market and that the slowdown in jobs growth during the summer wasn't indicative of a new, negative trend for the US economy.

On Wednesday, Fed chair Janet Yellen reminded markets that a December rate hike was "a live possibility" as she testified before the House Financial Services Committee. This comment is part of why Friday's report, the first of two before the Fed's December meeting, is quite important.

In a sense, markets are back where they were just before Fed's September meeting when every data point appeared almost like a road block that had to be cleared. The difference is that during this run-up to the December meeting, the Fed has been more aggressive about prepping markets for a hike should the data line up.

Economists also expect the unemployment rate to drop to 5% for the first time since April 2008.

That's a level most economists consider to be “full employment”, one hurdle that the Fed is likely to want to clear before raising interest rates.

If all goes well, and the U.S economy will show signs of further improvement, we can expect the USD to rise against the EUR. This is a good chance for traders to make profits from the USD/EUR pair on Friday. 

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Europe predicts massive wave of refugees will keep on flowing to the continent.

The European Union is predicting that 3 million more migrants could arrive in the 28-nation bloc by the end of next year, with the refugee emergency already providing a serious test of EU capacities to provide shelter and welcome the new people.

More than 700,000 people have come to Europe seeking sanctuary or jobs so far this year, overwhelming reception centers and border authorities.

EU autumn economic forecasts released on Thursday show that based on current migrant entries and a "technical assumption" about future flows, arrival rates are unlikely to slow before 2017.

The EU's executive Commission said that "overall, an additional 3 million persons is assumed to arrive in the EU over the forecast period."

The Commission says the refugee crisis has resulted in additional government spending but that it could have a small, positive impact on European economies within a few years.

However the EU said the real impact on national budgets is difficult to predict, given a lack of complete and reliable data about exactly who is arriving in the bloc and whether they are staying.

Most people are arriving in Europe through Italy and Greece, while Hungary and Austria have been affected by heavy migrant flows. Germany and Sweden are also feeling the impact.

Those nations, among others, want the EU to apply its budget rules with flexibility, taking into account Europe's biggest refugee emergency in well over half a century.

The Commission said Thursday that Sweden, which has the highest share of refugees per capita, is likely to feel the economic impact most, perhaps 0.5 percent of its gross domestic product this year.

Other hard-hit migrant transit and destination countries are likely to see an impact of 0.2 percent of their GDPs in 2015. While acknowledging the potential short-term impact, the Commission did not clearly state whether it would be flexible on budget policy.

However a senior EU official said on Wednesday that some flexibility might be allowed "taking into account well-specified costs and for a limited period of time."

"This has been an asymmetrical shock for some member states," said the official, briefing reporters on condition that he not be named.

As long as any help is "one-off, short-term," members of the euro single currency bloc would agree to it, he said.

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