My back-to-work morning train reads:
• The End of the South Florida Dream: A similar phenomenon is taking place across all of South Florida, where a majority of the state’s aging condos are concentrated. Over the past few months, condo listings have shot up in the region as owners fear being unable to meet rising fees, flooding the market with inventory that is struggling to find interested buyers. (Newsweek)
• Tax and Tariff Fears Have Rocked Municipal Bonds. Why They’re Still Appealing. Many long-term munis now look like bargains. How to get tax-equivalent yields of up to 8%. Tax and Tariff Fears Have Rocked Municipal Bonds. Why They’re Still Appealing. (Barron’s) see also Swiss franc surge sparks bets on return to negative interest rates Switzerland’s currency has soared as investors seek a haven from US President Donald Trump’s trade war. (Financial Times)
• Is Trump Is Making the Next Fed Chair’s Job Harder? Trump Says Powell is a Loser. The Real Loser Might Be Trump’s Pick for the Next Fed Chair. (Wall Street Journal)
• Go Delete Yourself From the Internet. Seriously, Here’s How. Find your data, request removal…and repeat. (Wall Street Journal)
• Your iPhone is a target for thieves. Do this to help protect your data. Do this to help protect your data. A bit of due diligence could help prevent months — or more — of digital heartbreak (Washington Post) see also How to Protect Yourself From Phone Searches at the US Border: Customs and Border Protection has broad authority to search travelers’ devices when they cross into the United States. Here’s what you can do to protect your digital life while at the US border. (Wired)
• These Maps Show Federal Employees Work in Every Corner of America. They show employees based in every state and in thousands of cities and small towns across the country, far beyond Washington, D.C. (New York Times)
• The Creativity Hack No One Told You About: Read the Obits. Reading obituaries can boost creativity by exposing you to distant ideas, fueling the associations that lead to unexpected breakthroughs. (MIT Press Reader)
• How the Radical Right Captured the Culture: Blame Hollywood’s “unwokening” and the extraordinary rise of right-wing podcasters on slop: intellectually bereft, emotionally sterile content that’s shaped by data and optimized for clicks. (New Republic) but see They Criticized Musk on X. Then Their Reach Collapsed. Anastasia Maria Loupis runs a popular account on X that used to receive hundreds of thousands of views each day for her far-right commentary, conspiracy theories and antisemitic statements.In late December, she criticized Elon Musk, the site’s owner, over his support for visa programs that many of President Trump’s supporters despise.Her reach plummeted on X and never recovered. (New York Times)
• Half of the universe’s hydrogen gas, long unaccounted for, has been found: New measurements of the diffuse ionized hydrogen surrounding galaxies account for missing mass. (UC Berkeley News)
• Jon Hamm Finds His Way Back to the Hilltop: For the actor, the decade since “Mad Men” ended has been a period of personal change and mixed professional success. Suddenly, he is everywhere again. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business this week with Jeff Becker, Chairman and CEO of Jennison Associates (a division of PGIM). The firm was founded in 1969. Prior to joining Jennison in 2016 as CEO, Becker was CEO of Voya Investment Management.
Cross-section of global total returns in Dollar and local currency terms
Source: Jim Reid, Deutsche Bank
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