My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• Love Him or Hate Him, Elon Musk Is Enjoying a Spectacular Run: Whether you find him admirable or obnoxious, Elon Musk is having a fantastic year. SpaceX, the company he founded in 2002, blasted two American astronauts to the International Space Station in late May and brought them safely home in a historic splashdown Sunday. Tesla Inc., his electric car-maker, celebrated its 4th straight quarter of profit and may soon join the S&P 500 Index. (Bloomberg)
• The 50 Percent Female Portfolio Management Team That’s Trouncing Its Benchmark: Kathryn Koch, co-head of the fundamental equity business at Goldman Sachs Group’s asset management unit, spends a lot of time digging around the social aspects of companies. Her team, which oversees about $60 billion in assets globally, seeks to invest in businesses with strong cultures that include gender diversity. These characteristics provide companies a competitive edge — and for GSAM, alpha.(Institutional Investor)
• Why SPACs Are the New IPO: The traditional route to going public is too slow for companies that want to cash in on hype (Medium)
• Jeremy Siegel On Why Rising Stocks Won’t Peter Out: Well, we’re in a new bull market for stocks. Given the still-raging pandemic and the deep recession, this run can’t continue, right? Maybe it can. (Forbes)
• Big Tech Faithful Shouldn’t Ignore Antitrust Risk: Investors in Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google have basked in the companies’ profits, but what happens if the authorities step in? (Bloomberg) but see On Diversity, Silicon Valley Failed to Think Different: “Tech had started to take over our world, but as the industry added tens of thousands of jobs, it was ushering in the same systemic racism we’ve faced for 100 years,” (Businessweek)
• After A Record Drop In US GDP For Q2, What’s Next? The epic decline in US economic output in the second quarter was the deepest dive in GDP on record that surprised exactly no one. Economists and macro models have for months been projecting a massive decline as the nation’s economy shut down to combat Covid-19.(Capital Spectator)
• Spit, snot rockets and hand licking in sports: Navigating ‘the perfect storm for coronavirus’ The coronavirus pandemic has been a referendum on societal cleanliness. Not just regarding the time spent washing one’s hands or wiping down household surfaces but also going right to the source: bodily fluids.(ESPN) see also Athletes are paying attention, don’t like what they hear in push to start college football: The 2020 college football season will happen to whatever extent it possibly can because athletics departments need the money, and they’re placing that burden on the backs of unpaid amateurs who are taking on all the risk to their health and inconvenience to their lives without any added incentive to do so.(USA Today)
• The Mask Slackers of 1918: As the influenza pandemic swept across the United States in 1918 and 1919, masks took a role in political and cultural wars. (New York Times)
• Why are ‘Karens’ so angry? Videos of white women losing their cool and confronting Black people have taken social media by storm: Memes provide a handle on behaviors born of entitlement and privilege vs, economic disenfranchisement. What’s behind their rage? (Marketwatch) see also You Don’t Mean “Culture War” The phrase is often lazy shorthand that oversimplifies and avoids critical context (The Objective)
• Pickup Trucks Are Getting Huge. Got a Problem With That? America’s hardest-working status symbols, pickups are exploding in size and eating up roadways. Questioning these behemoths’ styling…and safety. (Wall Street Journal)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Simon Hallett, Co-CIO at Harding Loevner, which manages about $70 billion dollars. Hallett is also the owner of Plymouth Argyle Football Club, a League One team based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England.
Robo Advisors Thrived Amid the Covid-19 Volatility.
Source: Barron’s
