My Two-for-Tuesday morning train reads:
• All-time highs have been great times to invest in the stock market: Sam Ro with the empirical companion piece: forward returns from all-time highs have historically beaten forward returns from random days. The chart is the argument. (TKer)
• The Spanish Exception: The Atlantic on why Spain keeps outgrowing Europe despite — and partly because of — the political reaction to immigration. The contrarian European data point. (The Atlantic) but see Germany Has Lost What It Did Best: NYT opinion on Germany’s industrial model snapping under the combined weight of energy, China, and tariffs. The Merz government is finding out which post-war assumptions still hold. (New York Times)
• If It Walks Like a Bubble and Quacks Like a Bubble, Then It’s Probably a Bubble. Indisputably, there are signs—some of which hark back to the dot-com era—that it is. For instance, take a gander at this not-so-little equation: $1.75 trillion divided by $18.674 billion equals 93.71 times. (Barron’s)
• Berkshire Beyond Buffett. In the 60 years he led Berkshire, he returned 6,000,000%, beating the S&P 500 by a factor of 130. Those wanting an education in business could do worse than listening to recordings of those Q&A sessions over the years. They could also do worse than by reading Buffet’s 60 years of annual letters. (The Weekend Reader)
• Amazon Thinks the Future of Data Centers Depends on a Technical Problem It Just Solved: The tech giant says a breakthrough in data center networking has dramatically accelerated the flow of information through its massive cloud infrastructure. (Wired)
• The SpaceX IPO: How Index Funds Will Adapt: Upcoming mega-IPOs will force tough choices for index providers. (Morningstar)
• I Profile Celebrities for a Living. Nothing Prepared Me for Tilly Norwood.: NYT Magazine on profiling the AI “actress” Tilly Norwood — what the interview actually consists of, who the handlers are, and what publicity for a synthetic person looks like in practice. Strange and well done. (New York Times)
• The Wild, Strange Case Todd Blanche Can’t Seem to Escape: Vanity Fair on the case that keeps following the President’s lawyer-turned-deputy-AG. The kind of slow-burn legal exposure that doesn’t show up in cable coverage until it does. A fake Mossad agent. Twin grifters. The nation’s top lawman. A head-spinning legal drama has the attorney general fighting off accusations of forgery, malpractice, and more. (Vanity Fair)
• How a mysterious particle could explain the universe’s missing antimatter: Knowable on the neutrino results that might finally close the matter-antimatter asymmetry gap. Patient, well-sourced physics writing; pair with coffee. (Knowable Magazine)
• The Tall Man Who Changed Basketball: You Cannot Miss Victor Wembanyama: WSJ on Wembanyama’s Finals run and what he is doing to a sport that has not had a true mold-breaker in a decade. Even if you only check in for the Finals, worth it. A mystery not long ago, San Antonio’s star from France has conquered the NBA and vanquished its defending champion. Does New York have an answer? (Wall Street Journal)
Video of the day: The SpaceX IPO… It’s Worse Than You Think
Be sure to check out our special Masters in Business this week, Remembering Jonathan Clements with Bill Bernstein and Jason Zweig. The two recall Clements’ impact on the investor community; they discuss his posthumous book, “Money and Me.”
Industries from footwear to computers require huge expansion to satisfy domestic demand
Source: McKinsey
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