My end of week morning train WFH reads:
• Stonks Are Bonkers, and Other Lessons From the Reddit Rebellion A tendies-fueled fever upended finance, albeit briefly, and left normies hugging index funds. The serious money is still going long. (Businessweek) see also Options pricing framework buckles under GameStop frenzy Wild retail trading sees calls sink below intrinsic value ahead of expiry as puts break spot correlation (Risk.net)
• What Artificial Intelligence Can—and Can’t—Do for Investors While machine learning still has major shortfalls, it is gaining ground at divining useful patterns, like analyzing how executives talk in earnings calls. (CIO)
• The Best Way to Manage Sequence of Return Risk For retirees, it’s important to remember it’s not the overall returns that matters as it is the order in which you receive those returns. The problem facing investors is no one knows in advance whether they’ll have good luck or bad luck on the timing of their retirement. A bear market at the outset could severely dampen your ability to spend while a bull market could actually improve your standing. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
• Study: 50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down London School of Economics and King’s College study examined 18 developed countries over a 50-year period from 1965 to 2015. The study compared countries that passed tax cuts in a specific year, such as the U.S. in 1982 when President Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on the wealthy, with those that didn’t. The economic outcomes including per capita gross domestic product and unemployment rates were nearly identical after five years in countries that slashed taxes on the rich and in those that didn’t. (CBS News)
• Routine in Quarantine: The Upside of a Pandemic Novel experiences expand our perception of time, whereas routine ones contract it. Since most of us value routines, habits, rituals, and skill-building, something seems to be missing from this picture. A life spent in the doldrums of routine seems downright wasteful. We can’t shake off the niggling suspicion that psychological time maximization—in the form of memory-collecting—shouldn’t be our single, overarching goal. (The Decision Lab)
• How to Date Like a Game Theorist A professor in economics who teaches mathematical modeling of strategic decisions applies game theory app-based dating: How with limited information (three to four pictures, a couple of sentences, some basic demographics) and a limited set of actions (swipe left, swipe right), users can search through dozens of profiles in a few seconds to try to score a date, who may eventually become a long-term partner. (Behavioral Scientist)
• Essays That Became Books One of the best ways to find good things to read is to look for the essays that were so good that they eventually became books. (Joseph Wells)
• How the New Orleans Streetcar Revival Left Bus Riders Behind The city’s expansion of its tourist-friendly streetcar network did little to help long-suffering NOLA commuters, transit advocates say. But change may be en route. (CityLab) see also The Best Ways to Drive Across Country During Covid, even driving vacations can get a little bumpy so we asked AAA trip-planning pros to suggest three foolproof routes (for now or after the pandemic) and a few tips for smoothing the way. (Wall Street Journal)
• Trump People Were the Worst Restaurant Guests Trump couldn’t pull off a coup, but he had inspired thousands of regular-ass Americans to roam the streets of their own country like Blackwater mercenaries screaming obscenities to $12-an-hour retail workers and restaurant hostesses for having the audacity to ask them to don masks during a pandemic that was killing more than 100 fellow citizens every hour. (Slate)
• From ‘Supernova’ to a Viral Video, Stanley Tucci Is Having a Moment Reports of Tucci breaking the internet abounded, perhaps because the three-minute video felt so uncalculated, so pure in its simplicity. “I thought, well I guess I have to keep doing them,” he notes. “Which is fun to do, even though I barely know how to use my phone.” (Variety)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business next week with Kevin Landis, Firsthand Funds. The firm’s Firsthand Technology Opportunities Fund (TEFQX) was created in 1999, and has gained 21.1% annually over the past 10 years vs 13.9% for the S&P500 and 18.5% for the Nasdaq Index. It gained 102% over the past 12 months.
Remote Working’s Longer Hours Are New Normal for Many
Source: Bloomberg
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