My back to work morning train WFH reads:
• Tech’s Influence Over Markets Eclipses Dot-Com Bubble Peak Companies that do everything from manufacturing phones to operating social-media platforms now account for nearly 40% of the S&P 500 (Wall Street Journal)
• Is James Gorman of Morgan Stanley the next king of Wall Street? Jamie Dimon has long been considered the King of Wall Street for running the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, for 15 years — profitably and for the most part scandal-free. But there’s competition afoot for the crown, and it’s coming from an unlikely source. (New York Post)
• Older Americans are selling the stock market, slowly but ceaselessly, to junior generations: Baby boomers own an outsize helping of the market and are constantly reducing it, a process with significant implications for the supply and demand for equities, the interpretation of fund-flow statistics and the kinds of stocks likely to perform better and worse in coming years. (Santoli/CNBC)
• The debt bubble legacy of economists Modigliani and Miller: Research laid the intellectual groundwork for a dramatic erosion of corporate creditworthiness (Financial Times)
• The stock market’s strength tells us less about the true state of the economy than at almost any other time over the last five decades: The disconnect between the stock market and the economy increases as valuations become more stretched (Marketwatch)
• America’s Money Men Could Save Us. But They’re Stuck in the Seventies. It is likely that no further economic relief is coming from Congress before the election, even as coronavirus deaths continue to mount and normalcy remains elusive. It was far too soon to end relief but Congress did it anyway.. (New York Times) see also What small business owners really need from the next president: It’s a concern shared by business owners across the country, as colder weather and the possibility of converging flu and Covid-19 outbreaks threaten the makeshift operating models that have helped keep revenue flowing during the pandemic (CNN)
• How to make this winter not totally suck, according to psychologists: This one idea may help you conquer the dread of pandemic winter. (Vox)
• How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest: Within weeks of the gathering that drew nearly half a million bikers, the Dakotas, along with Wyoming, Minnesota and Montana, were leading the nation in new coronavirus infections per capita. (Washington Post)
• Antony Starr on becoming the worst superhero ever in The Boys: The Kiwi actor talks to GQ ahead of the release of the second series of Amazon’s biggest hit of last year, The Boys, which sees a group of outcasts try to take down a massive corporation fronted by dodgy caped crusaders (GQ)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Lisa Cook, a professor of economics and in international relations at Michigan State University. The Marshall Scholar served as a senior researcher at the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama, and held positions at the National Bureau of Economic Research; the Federal Reserve banks of Minneapolis, New York and Philadelphia; and the World Bank.
U.S. Virus Cases Climb Toward a Third Peak
Source: New York Times
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