My Two-for-Tuesday morning train WFH reads:
• Truth Is Another Front in Putin’s War The Kremlin has used a barrage of increasingly outlandish falsehoods to prop up its overarching claim that the invasion of Ukraine is justified. (New York Times) see also How Kremlin accounts manipulate Twitter The Russian government has a huge network of more than 100 official Twitter accounts. They range from foreign embassies, with a few thousand followers, to those with more than a million followers. President Putin has his own account. Many of the accounts are labelled as Russian government organisations by Twitter. (BBC)
• The Worst Run For Bonds Since 1980 The S&P 500 and the Bloomberg US Aggregate bond index have both declined for consecutive months ten times since 1976. They’ve never both had negative returns for three straight months, which is where it looked like things were headed. That is, until last week, when the S&P 500 had its strongest four-day run since the start of the pandemic. Right now, the S&P 500 is up 1.8% for the month. (Irrelevant Investor)
• Midtown Manhattan With Fewer Office Workers: Imagining the Unthinkable A neighborhood built on the five-day-a-week commuter, that is a problem so momentous that after decades as the dominant office district in the country, real-estate developers and city planners are trying to imagine what else it can offer. On the residential side, Manhattan apartment rentals are booming and sales are reaching record levels. But offices in Midtown are attracting barely one-third of their pre-pandemic workforces. (Wall Street Journal). see also Can We Untie Real Estate and Employment? How will residential real estate and migration of human capital (employees) alter the way people work, get hired, and live? Just imaging different outcomes of what might happen can occasionally lead to insights. It’s a useful exercise, especially when we are in a period of great flux. (The Big Picture)
• How Sensitive Are Your Stocks to Interest Rates? It’s Time to Find Out As central banks start lifting borrowing costs from near zero, profitless startups are certain to suffer more than telecom companies. For everything in between, investors should learn to look at stocks as if they were bonds. (Wall Street Journal)
• The Real Winner of the Used Car Bubble Is Revealed Windfall profits from car financing are padding automakers’ bottom lines. A big source is their financing units, thanks to soaring used-car prices and exceptionally low loan-default rates. (Bloomberg) see also Robot Truckers Could Replace 500K U.S. Jobs: Amid a severe driver shortage, a new study says 90% of long-haul trucking could be replaced by self-driving technology. The short trip from a factory or distribution center to an interstate is usually far more complicated than the next several hundred miles. The same is true once the machine exits the interstate. Trucking companies may set up transfer stations at either end, where human drivers handle the tricky first leg of the trip and then hitch their cargo up to robot rigs for the tiresome middle portion. (Bloomberg)
• How South Carolina Made $1B Off Low Beta Hedge Funds “We are really trying to use the portable alpha hedge fund portfolio as our engine of excess returns for our portfolio,” said RSIC’S Bryan Moore. (Institutional Investor)
• U.S. Sewer Data Warns of a New Bump in Covid Cases After Lull Data from wastewater can spot a rise in infections before it shows up through positive tests (Bloomberg) see also If You Thought Covid Was Over…Congratulations, You’re an Idiot: Covid’s Back and the Pandemic’s Not Over. Just Like — Wait for It — Science Said. (Eudaimonia)
• You are (probably) paying for pro-Russian propaganda propaganda (Popular Information)
• Trump White House aide was secret author of report used to push ‘big lie’ Report on Dominion voting machines produced after 2020 election was not the work of outside experts, think tanks, or volunteers in Trump’s post-election legal team — it came from he Office of the Presdient. (The Guardian) see also Trump lawyer knew plan to delay Biden certification was unlawful, emails show John Eastman conceded that scheme represented violation of Electoral Count Act but urged Mike Pence to go ahead anyway (The Guardian)
• The adorable love story behind Wikipedia’s ‘high five’ photos Nearly 14 years later, the tale of this iconic couple can finally be told. (Input)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Darren Palmer, General Manager of Battery EVs at Ford. He has overseen the development and rollout of Ford’s Mustang Mach E, F150 Lightning, and the E-Transit van. The 30 year Ford veteran is part of their Team Edison skunkworks group and is overseeing Ford’s $50B shift to electrification, and will be driving the split into two firms, EV, and legacy business.
How permanent daylight saving time would change sunrise and sunset times
Source: Washington Post
