My back to work morning train WFH reads:
• How Pfizer Delivered a Covid Vaccine in Record Time: Crazy Deadlines, a Pushy CEO Albert Bourla and his team overcame unproven science and manufacturing bottlenecks; ‘you’re asking for too much’ (Wall Street Journal)
• The Return to the Office Gets Put on Hold Most Americans can’t do their jobs from home. BLS reports only one-third of U.S. workers before 2020 held jobs that could feasibly be performed remotely. For the two-thirds who didn’t, the pandemic has meant higher job losses and higher risk of disease and death for those who kept their jobs. (Bloomberg)
• Plastic surgeons say business is up, partly because clients don’t like how they look on Zoom Call it a Zoom boom. Or an opportune moment. Plastic surgeons across the globe are anecdotally reporting an unprecedented number of requests for procedures. Many workers are spending more time on Zoom, which isn’t the most flattering of mirrors. They’re also realizing they won’t have to return to an office anytime soon, which will make recovery, and keeping surgery private, easier. (Washington Post)
• Could We See Record Stock Market Valuations This Cycle? There are some similarities between the current cycle and the late-1990s dot-com bubble but some stark differences as well. While we are seeing an IPO/tech boom just like the 1990s, this time the companies actually have business plans. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
• Housel: A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About If something is impossible to know you are better off not being very smart, because smart people fool themselves into thinking they know while average people are more likely to say, “I don’t know” and end up closer to reality. (Collaborative Fund) see also Three fundamental truths about uncertainty The world is inherently uncertain, getting more uncertain, and Humans are hardwired to hate uncertainty (Richard Hughes Jones)
• Co-ops in the Time of Covid In co-ops big and small, where term limits are rare and lifers often make the rules, the sudden departure of even a few residents can have an outsize effect on governance, longstanding policies, even the vibe of a building. And while the virus might not have caused the shake-up, residents said, it has almost certainly hastened the change. (New York Times)
• Apple CEO Tim Cook on Health and Fitness: With the imminent launch of its online training platform Fitness+, Apple is positioning itself as a leader in the health and wellness space. For CEO Tim Cook, this effort has been many years in the making. A fitness obsessive, Cook works out daily, passionately believes that exercise is key to our quality of life (Outside)
• 2020 was the year that American science denial became lethal It’s hard to pinpoint when the Republican Party’s long-cherished hostility to scientific facts went, shall we say, viral. Was it when President Trump started promoting antimalarial pills as a treatment for COVID-19? Or when he mused openly about using bleach or bright light to kill the virus inside the body? Or when he became the standard-bearer for the notion that wearing masks was a sign of unmanly weakness and shunning them a test of conservative political faithfulness? (LA Times)
• ‘I won’t vote next time‘: Could Georgia Republicans’ doubts cost them the runoffs? Some national Republicans fear that Trump’s continued denial of the results could have major consequences for the party in January, when this Senate election will determine control of the upper chamber. With over 70% of Republicans, according to recent polling, now believing that November’s presidential election was not “free and fair”, there are concerns that a collapse in trust in electoral processes could cost conservatives dearly at the ballot box. (The Guardian)
• The Story Of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five’ “It’s time that the jazz musicians take up their original role of leading the public into a more adventurous rhythm.” Brubeck said it’s a good idea to shake things up a bit, and that’s exactly what he did with the song “Take Five.” (NPR)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Mike Swell, head of Global Fixed Income at Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM). Swell is responsible for co-leading the global team of portfolio managers that oversee more than $700 billion in multi-sector bond portfolios.
Equity-related ETFs ate more than 60% of all inflows last month
Source: Arbor Research
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