My back-to-work morning train WFH reads:
• Are U.S. Stocks Overvalued? When stocks go up presidents get too much credit and when they go down they get too much blame. It’s mostly circumstantial depending on the timing of cycles and such. But the markets move faster than ever these days. Investors are constantly pricing in the future, sometimes right, sometimes wrong, yet never in doubt. The stock market was already up big heading into the election but things took off in the days following the outcome. Many investors are positioning for a boom under a Trump presidency. The biggest pushback I’ve seen is that valuations have been stretched after the big run-up since the 2022 bear market. (Wealth of Common Sense)
• Many retailers offer ‘returnless refunds.’ Just don’t expect them to say for which products: It’s one of the most under-publicized policies of some of the biggest U.S. retailers: sometimes they give customers full refunds and let them keep unwanted items too. Returnless refunds are a tool that more retailers are using to keep online shoppers happy and to reduce shipping fees, processing time and other ballooning costs from returned products. (AP News) see also Returns Are a Headache. More Retailers Are Saying, Just ‘Keep It.’ In a survey, nearly 60 percent of retailers said they had policies that refund customers for items that aren’t financially viable to send back. (New York Times)
• What Does a Once-in-a-Generation Investment Opportunity Look Like? We are at a major inflection point in macro fundamentals and market leadership, offering investors a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reposition portfolios. To put the magnitude of this opportunity into perspective, we have identified what we believe are the best trades of the past 50 years — those asset class, regional and sector allocation decisions that would have netted the greatest long-term outperformance. Each of these trades would have generated excess returns averaging 7-19% per year spanning periods of 8-22 years: (CAIA)
• Just Because You Inherit a Co-op Doesn’t Mean You Can Live in It: Some instances allow for automatic approval, while others require you to be OK’d by the board (WSJ)
• The Rapid Adoption of Generative AI: Aalmost 40% of the U.S. population ages 18 to 64 used generative AI to some degree, and almost 1 in 3 respondents said they used it daily or at least once but not every day during the week prior to the survey. (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) see also OpenAI just scored a huge victory in a copyright case … or did it? McMahon’s ruling may also undermine what has been a growing trend toward the licensing of copyrighted content by AI developers — in part to forestall copyright infringement claims. OpenAI reached a $250 million licensing deal with Dow Jones, the parent of WSJ; OpenAI also cut deals with Axel Springer, the owner of Business Insider and Politico; the Financial Times; and the Associated Press. (Los Angeles Times)
• The New York Times is a right-wing newsletter, with recipes: Trash newspaper does trash thing. (Finding Gravity)
• The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years: Chefs, writers, editors and a bookseller gathered to debate — and decide — which titles have most changed the way we cook and eat. (New York Times)
• How a breakthrough gene-editing tool will help the world cope with climate change: Jennifer Doudna, the co-developer of CRISPR, says there’s a “coming revolution” in climate-adapted crops and animals. (MIT Technology Review)
• Most “humane” farms are lying to you — and the government isn’t stopping them: A new investigation finds false advertising continues to dupe consumers. (Vox)
• The Clint Squint: “If I lost my squint, I think my whole career would go down the tubes.” — Clint Eastwood. (New York Times)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Colin Camerer, the pioneering neuroeconomist at California Institute of Technology. His field of study looks at the interface between cognitive psychology and economics. Professor Camerer was became a MacArthur Fellow (Genius grant) in 2013 for his work on risk, self-control, and strategic choice. His book “Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction” is credited with creating a new the field within strategic theory. He is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow with the Wharton Neuroscience.
Fed Expectations Are Usually Wrong
Source: Apollo
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