My back to work morning train WFH reads:
• One year later: 15 ways life has changed since the onset of the COVID pandemic Virtually no one has been left untouched after 12 months of such dramatic disruption. A generous dose of empathy and understanding of that truth will make us all stronger as we rebuild and remake our world in the year ahead. (Fortune)
• The Booming IPO Market Shows No Signs of Slowing. What Investors Need to Know. The market for new stocks is experiencing a moment of exuberance not seen in roughly 20 years.So far this year, 302 U.S. initial public offerings have raised $102.3 billion as of March 10, according to Dealogic. That is up 763% from the 35 offerings, valued at $11 billion, for the same period in 2020. For all of 2020, there were 457 IPOs, collecting $167.8 billion. Before that, the high-water mark for IPOs came during the dot-com bubble of 1999 when 547 offerings raised about $108 billion. (Barron’s)
• 16th-Century Traders Could’ve Predicted Zero Rates A Q&A with Paul Schmelzing, author of a paper that traces 800 years of borrowing costs, on central banks, inflation and the U.S.-China rivalry. (Bloomberg)
• Endowments Embrace Net-Zero Portfolios: Is It the Future of Investment Management? Questions remain about how to measure risks and what a proper framework looks like, but more colleges and universities are taking the plunge. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Tell Your Boss the Four-Day Week Is Coming Soon A century after the invention of the weekend, more companies are adding another day.(Businessweek)
• How Covid’s Toll Compares With Other Things That Kill Us Stacking up the disease’s impact on young and old against other causes of death in the U.S., including influenza, heart disease, car accidents and drownings.(Bloomberg)
• In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise Driven by technological advances, facilities are being built with storage systems that can hold enough renewable energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes. The advent of “big battery” technology addresses a key challenge for green energy — the intermittency of wind and solar. (Yale Environment 360)
• ‘Follow our podcast’: Apple Podcasts to stop using ‘subscribe’ A small change with a big impact: no more “subscribe” as podcasting moves to “follow” (Pod News)
• With bipartisan support in Congress for permanent daylight saving time, could this weekend’s time change be the last? Congress may be more divided than ever, but there’s one thing on which Republicans and Democrats can agree: No one likes losing an hour of sleep when the nation “springs forward” at the start of daylight saving time every March. (Spokesman Review)
• A Drone Went Bowling. Hollywood Noticed. A drone video shot in a Minneapolis bowling alley was hailed as an instant classic. One Hollywood veteran said it “adds to the language and vocabulary of cinema.” (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this past weekend with Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric from 2001 to 2017. He joined GE in 1982, in its plastics, appliances, and healthcare division, and led GE’s Medical Systems division from 1997 to 2000. His new book is: Hot Seat: What I Learned Leading a Great American Company.
Private-sector economic forecasters are incredibly optimistic
Source: Goldman Sachs via Paul Krugman
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