My morning train WFH reads:
• Russia’s ‘Uninvestable’ Stocks Cut by MSCI, FTSE Russell MSCI and FTSE Russell are cutting Russian equities from widely-tracked indexes. An overwhelming majority of market participants see the Russian market as “uninvestable” and its securities will be removed from emerging markets indexes effective March 9, as London Stock Exchange suspends dozens of Russian depositary receipts from trading; (Bloomberg)
• Car Dealerships Don’t Want Your Cash—They Want to Give You a Loan Buyers say dealerships are pushing them to borrow because they make more money that way. The hot car market is giving them the opportunity. (Wall Street Journal) see also A New Brand of Sticker Shock Hits the Car Market: With vehicles in short supply, prices are skyrocketing. Last month, 82% of new-car buyers paid more than sticker price. (Wall Street Journal)
• Why Not to Worry About Slowing Earnings Growth Corporate profits are falling back to a more normal pace (absent some nightmare scenario intruding). (Chief Investment Officer)
• Here’s What Happens When Investors Ignore Corruption “It’s a reminder that if you do business in countries without a rule of law, you could lose everything,” said Bill Browder. (Institutional Investor)
• How to Seize a Russian Billionaire’s Penthouse The good news is we have a four-part plan. The bad news is that part four could take a decade. (Slate) see also Biden And Allies Are Coming For Russian Billionaires’ Yachts: Forbes Tracked Down 32. Here’s Where To Find Them (Forbes)
• Russia’s Looming Economic Collapse This is terra incognita for economic policy. No country has ever faced this kind of global freeze-out. (The Atlantic)
• The Radical Roots of Bikesharing: In mid-1960s Amsterdam, a counterculture movement with a small fleet of white bicycles pioneered a transportation model that’s swept thousands of cities around the world. (CityLab)
• What to know about Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s TV president turned wartime leader Russian President Vladimir Putin has attempted to justify his invasion of Ukraine as a “denazification” operation, but Zelensky is Jewish and many of his relatives were killed by Nazis during the Holocaust. His grandfather was the only one of four brothers to survive the German occupation of Ukraine. (Washington Post) see also Five vile things Trump did to Zelensky and Ukraine that you forgot about “Trump acted against U.S. interests with the consequence of aiding Russian interests,” said Alexander Vindman, the former lieutenant colonel who testified dramatically against Trump. (Washington Post)
• Just Steph Curry, Calmly Being Impossible Each shot drops cleanly over the exact front of the hoop and either gently grazes the back of the rim or touches nothing but the net. Curry punctuates this at the end by lofting a one-footed floater on a ludicrous parabolic arc from the free-throw line, as though throwing it over a squared-up brontosaurus; of course it goes in, and as cleanly as any of the others. (Defector)
• A first look aboard Disney’s $6000 per stay, immersive, interactive Star Wars hotel A galaxy far, far away gets a whole lot closer. (The Verge)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with David Kotok, who co-founded Cumberland Advisors in 1973. The firm manages $4 billion in assets. Kotok is Program Chairman of the Global Interdependence Center (GIC), and was on the Treasury Transition Teams for New Jersey Governors Tom Kean and Christine Whitman, but is probably best known as the creator of Camp Kotok. His recent research includes the Economic Consequences of Pandemics, and What Long Covid Means for Financial Markets.
Global Oil Supply By Country
Source: Chartr
Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.
