Welcome to December! My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• ‘It’s Been Amazing’: November’s Record Moves in Charts November that will go down in the history books. Small caps rose the most on record, Bitcoin reclaimed an all-time high and gold slumped the most in four years. Advances on vaccine trials sparked a furious rotation into stocks that benefit most from economic growth. The U.S. election delivered a clear winner and central banks reiterated plans to keep monetary policy loose. (Bloomberg)
• Where Did All the Rogue Traders Go? These men cost their banks billions of dollars. Yet in the eyes of the public, they evoke a degree of fascination, even admiration. Their stories reveal the inner workings of finance and how it can be corrupted. Who are these men; what drove them? (Net Interest)
• The Best Case Scenario For Bitcoin: It didn’t help that by the time the 2017 bubble ramped up the charlatans and snake oil salesmen (and they were all men) descended on cryptocurrencies faster than your relatives when the pies come out after Thanksgiving dinner. (A Wealth of Common Sense) see also Five Reasons Why Bitcoin is Going Up Call it the “Respectability Rally”… A few reasons for Bitcoin’s return to the record highs. It’s past the previous highs from 2017’s original explosion. (TRB)
• I have seen the future of housing The future of American housing densification probably looks less like San Fransokyo, and more like the village-like half-city half-suburb areas. A sort of modest densification that leaves “neighborhood character” intact. The new housing in rich neighborhoods will usually not be “affordable,” meaning that it won’t be subsidized. Modest densification won’t change the way people get around town — still plenty of parking, not enough density for trains. (Noahpinion)
• ‘It will change everything’: DeepMind’s AI makes gigantic leap in solving protein structures An artificial intelligence (AI) network developed by Google AI offshoot DeepMind has made a gargantuan leap in solving one of biology’s grandest challenges — determining a protein’s 3D shape from its amino-acid sequence. (Nature) see also London A.I. Lab Claims Breakthrough That Could Accelerate Drug Discovery Researchers say they have solved “the protein folding problem,” a task that has bedeviled scientists for more than 50 years.(New York Times)
• People Are Jailbreaking Used Teslas to Get the Features They Expect Tesla is getting more aggressive in revoking paid software features on used cars, raising the stakes in a battle over what used Teslas can do that has raged for years. (Vice)
• Adam Silver Goes Deep on the Wildest Year in NBA History In a rare conversation with Bomani Jones, the NBA commissioner talks about China, the bubble, and the league’s ongoing commitment to social justice. (GQ) but see also Denial Isn’t Working Out for College Football The coronavirus keeps infecting players and disrupting game schedules, but schools are acting as if the pandemic isn’t happening. (The Atlantic)
• As a food writer with covid, I worried I’d lose my sense of taste. It turned out to be much worse. The cough began in earnest on Nov. 10. It was a dry hack, and it got worse as the day progressed. I went to bed early and awoke the next morning feeling as if I had been hit by a truck and left for dead by the side of the road. My fever was nearly 103 degrees, and I didn’t want to move. (Washington Post)
• Today Would Be a Good Time to Start That Diet More than 40% of American adults are clinically obese. That’s dangerous—and costly (Businessweek) see also Once the Disease of Gluttonous Aristocrats, Gout Is Now Tormenting the Masses It can be tempting to ascribe the affliction’s prevalence to our current climate of indulgence, but that’s not the full story. (New York Times)
• Top Shots From the 2020 International Landscape Photographer of the Year Judges narrowed the field from more than 3,800 entries to award several category prizes and the International Landscape Photographer of the Year award (The Atlantic)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Greg Fleming, founding CEO of Rockefeller Capital Management based on the prior Rockefeller Family Office. They have about $43 billion in AUM. Previously, Fleming was President of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management and served as Chief Operating Officer of Merrill Lynch, where he ran Merrill’s Global Investment Banking business.
Dow Jones Industrial Average has its best month in more than 33 years
Source: YCharts
