Today may be the biggest sick day, but I am heading in: Here are my morning train reads:
• A Bright Spot in Commercial Real Estate: Retail Shops. New store openings remain strong, overcoming inflation and interest-rate challenges (Wall Street Journal)
• Five Ways the Fed’s Deflation Playbook Could Be Improved: The Fed should congratulate itself for wrestling down inflation, but the process could use some improvement. (Businessweek)
• Emerging Market Debt Appears Poised for a Revival: The big yield advantage they enjoyed over developed countries’ debt issues has narrowed, but EM paper retains other pluses. (Chief Investment Officer)
• Goodbye Bathtub and Living Room. America’s Homes Are Shrinking. Faced with high mortgage rates, cost-constrained Americans are embracing smaller homes. (Wall Street Journal) but see Never Mind Shrinking Households, Builders Are Adding Bedrooms: One explanation: A lot of those rooms aren’t meant to be slept in. (Businessweek)
• Dave Portnoy Bought Barstool Back. Can Erika Ayers Badan Keep His Pirate Ship on Course? As Penn pivots from Portnoy’s brand of bro-ish excess to family-friendly ESPN, Barstool is free to be itself. (Vanity Fair)
• How China’s Economic Troubles Could Spread Globally: Policy risk is growing as Beijing has stuck to a more targeted and gradual approach to stimulus even with an underwhelming recovery from three years of strict Covid restrictions hampered by beaten-up consumer and business sentiment and an ailing property sector. Youth unemployment hit a record 21% in June, and a spate of July data has disappointed, including continued declines in property prices in major cities. (Barron’s)
• There’s a way to get healthier without even going to a gym. It’s called NEAT. All the calories that a person burns through their daily activity excluding purposeful physical exercise: Think of the low-effort movements that you string together over the course of your day – things like household chores, strolling through the grocery aisle, climbing the stairs, bobbing your leg up and down at your desk, or cooking dinner. (NPR)
• The Constitution Prohibits Trump From Ever Being President Again: The only question is whether American citizens today can uphold that commitment. (The Atlantic)
• The Expanding Universe: 100 years later: The first observational evidence showing the Universe is expanding is 100 years old now: in 2023. Here’s the story of its 100th anniversary. (Big Think)
• Jon Batiste on his awards glory: ‘Overnight a lot of stuff changed’ The former bandleader for Stephen Colbert has picked up a Grammy and an Oscar on his way to making a new album featuring Lana Del Rey and Lil Wayne. (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Greg Davis, Chief Investment Officer of the Vanguard Group. Davis is responsible for the oversight of approximately $7 trillion managed by Vanguard fixed income, equity index, and quantitative equity groups. He also serves as a member of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee of the US Treasury Department.
Chinese consumer prices slip into deflation, signaling weak demand
Source: Financial Times
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