• In the 1970s, future shock was a huge issue. Theorists feared that technology was progressing so quickly that people would soon be unable to keep up or even cope. Today, Douglas Rushkoff, author of Present Shock and head of Code Literacy at Codecademy, argues that the future is here and what we’re faced with is present shock.

    Because of technological advancements, we have a new relationship with time where there is a persistent need for immediacy. Rushkoff claims that we live in “an always-on 'now' where the priorities of this moment seem to be everything.” As a result, our sense of the future, direction, and goals are lost.

    “You can go into a shock about it,” Rushkoff tells The Daily Ticker, “where you’re just chasing the moment and responding to every Twitter feed and kind of acting like an air traffic controller.”

    We are constantly on our phones, trying to figure out if anything better is happening somewhere else. We expect political action immediately. We want answers before they

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  • As we move deeper into the second quarter, the realities of summer and all the seasonal trends that go with it begin to come into focus. For many of us, warmer weather means vacation time. And even though the broader economy continues to grind along in low gear, don't be surprised to see higher prices and fewer vacancies when it comes to booking your next trip because the tourism business is heating up.

    "It's really an amazing number," says Nick Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, of the double-digit growth that vacation destinations like New York and San Francisco are experiencing. "Especially considering the still very sluggish economy and employment picture," he adds.

    In fact, he says in New York alone, hotels are running at 85% capacity --a pace that he describes as "the level at which they have to start adding rooms." And they are. Colas says more than 36,000 rooms are "coming on line" in New York in the next couple years to accommodate the influx.

    If you're wondering why this is happening, Colas explains in the attached video that there are a few good reasons.

    "We're still seeing a lot of European inbound tourism," he says, adding that there's a lot more domestic tourism as well. "Americans are effectively staying home a little more and Europeans are coming over a little more, and the combination is driving a lot of volume."

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  • West Texas Intermediate crude oil has seen a precipitous drop over the last 52-weeks. Having traded over $106 at this time last year, the U.S. benchmark for oil is trading under $90 a barrel and down more than 4% for 2013. Charles Nenner of the Charles Nenner Research Center says crude is nearing a bottom and may be heading higher for grim reasons.

    He's looking for a near term low just under $85 sometime in the next week or two. Nenner says the crude catalyst is based not on economic strength but a global conflict, likely stemming from the Middle East. "My cycles show that we're going to have a major conflict starting this year," says Nenner with stunning pragmatism, "and that is a very good reason why oil prices could shoot up."

    Having forecast a major geopolitical conflict, the obvious question is to ask what that might mean for natural gas prices. In Nenner's view nat gas is going to give back the one year double he predicted on Breakout more than a year ago.

    Now he sees natural

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  • You can forget that triple-digit loss the Dow suffered yesterday. Markets are poised to move higher on several impressive earnings. Verizon (VZ), Morgan Stanley (MS) and Pepsi (PEP) all beat the street this morning with their quarterly reports. Meanwhile, weekly jobless claims rose slightly from last week. But keep in mind, at that point they had taken a surprise drop. The Labor Department says there were 352,000 new claims filed.

    Nothing seems more rotten on Wall Street than Apple's (AAPL) stock performance. Shares dipped below $400 apiece in trading yesterday and ended the session more than 5% lower. The plunge was precipitated by word from Apple suppliers that orders have been down; tthey didn't explicitly say it was Apple but that's the implication. That also sent many of their stocks lower. Remember, Apple was trading at $705 back in September. It's now at less than 60% of that, and has shed 22% of its value since the start of the year.

    STOCKS TO WATCH

    Google (GOOG) reports after

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