My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• Attorney Roberta Kaplan is about to make Trump’s life extremely difficult Roberta Kaplan’s clients include writer E. Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation case after Trump claimed she was “totally lying” about her allegation that he raped her a quarter-century ago in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, and niece Mary L. Trump, who claims that Trump and two of his siblings deprived her of an inheritance worth millions. “I became the go-to person to sue the president,” says Kaplan, 54, with considerable relish. (Washington Post)
• Five ETFs to Watch in 2021 Exchange-traded funds—some low-cost and boring, others highly concentrated—that discerning investors should consider. (Businessweek)
• What Low-Paying Fixed Income Still Gives Us: Ballast Despite small interest payments and not much price appreciation potential, many investors say it does deliver in this one area. (CIO)
• Elliott Management Flees the Amateurs at the Gate The legendary activist hedge fund has been decamping Hong Kong since 2018. It really doesn’t need to engage with the wave of new investors from the mainland. (Bloomberg)
• The Founders of Harry’s Got a $1.37 Billion Offer to Sell. But the FTC Wasn’t Sold The founders of the razor startup relished their challenger status, picked a fight with a consumer goods giant, and made the biggest deal of their lives. Then they learned some of the toughest lessons of hardball capitalism. (Inc.)
• Their noses paid the bills. Then Covid took their sense of smell As many as half of Covid-19 sufferers lose their sense or smell or taste. For master sommeliers and professional bakers, it could spell the end of their careers (Wired)
• After Alarmism: The war on climate denial has been won. And that’s not the only good news. All year, a planet transformed by the burning of carbon discharged what would have once been called portents of apocalypse. Our time has been so stuffed with disasters that it was hard to see the arrival of perhaps the unlikeliest prophecy of all: that the plague year may have marked, for climate change, a turning point, and for the better. (New York Magazine)
• How to Talk to Friends and Family Who Share Conspiracy Theories Increasingly, friends, colleagues and readers share the same story with me: Online, somebody they know and love has stumbled into the treacherous world of online conspiracy theories and, in some cases, might not even know it. I’m often asked: How do you talk to people you care about who might be on the precipice of or headed down the conspiratorial rabbit hole? (New York Times)
• Insurrection Made the Ultimate Case for D.C. Statehood The Capitol attack and locked-down inauguration both illustrate how powerless the residents of Washington, D.C., are, statehood advocates say. (Citylab) see also Clamping down on DC rioters, Airbnb is finally acting like it owns the place The home-sharing platform took drastic measures to prevent violence in the capital — but at what cost? By (Vox)
• Have We Already Been Visited by Aliens? An eminent astrophysicist argues that signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life have appeared in our skies. What’s the evidence for his extraordinary claim? (New Yorker)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Andrew Beer, Founder and Managing Member of Dynamic Beta investments. The firm manages several ETFs that seek to replicate illiquid alternatives at lower costs, with full transparency and daily liquidity. Their hedge fund replication fund, iM DBi Long Short Hedge Strategy ETF (DBEH) is up 27.7% since it launched in December 2019.
Where you think bubbles are… (asked of global market professionals)
Source: Deutsche Bank
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