Friday morning articles
The Worst Bond Market Ever: By history’s standards, stocks have not performed too badly, but bonds certainly have. (Morningstar)
The Best 50-Year-Old Investing Advice Money Can Buy: Nearly 50 years ago, the economist Burton Malkiel came out with a book that said, in effect, that all of us should be in index funds. The stock and bond markets incorporate new information into prices almost instantly, so trying to beat them is a fool’s errand, Malkiel wrote. Instead of trying to winnow winners from losers, you’re better off saving on brokerage commissions and headaches by spreading your investment dollars across the entire market. (New York Times)
Billions of Dollars at Stake in a Puzzling Holiday Shopping Season: It promises to be unpredictable, with retailers and consumers still figuring out how much will be spent and on what kinds of goods. (New York Times)
The donut effect: How COVID-19 shapes real estate: Rents in high-density areas and central business districts of America’s largest cities have fallen more than 10 percent since the start of the pandemic. Though housing demand within cities is shifting from dense urban centers to more spacious suburbs, there has yet to be a substantial move from more expensive to less expensive cities. Working from home has caused commercial office occupancy rates to plummet and commercial property prices to fall in crowded zip codes. Falling property values in cities are likely driven by richer, more skilled residents leaving high-value properties. That will cause a drop in property taxes and strain city budgets. (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research)
Climate Change from A to Z: The stories we tell ourselves about the future. (New Yorker)
A comprehensive guide to how Elon Musk is changing Twitter: Mass layoffs, trolling, and check marks: How Elon Musk is running Twitter. (Vox)
The $6 Billion Shot at Making New Antibiotics—Before the Old Ones Fail: Antimicrobials cost as much to develop as other drugs, but don’t earn the same returns. Congress could give drugmakers a boost, but time is running out (Wired)
The Robot Tractors Are Coming, Just as Soon as We Crush a Few Bugs: A plucky team from a small English agricultural college tackles one of the hardest challenges in tech. (Businessweek)
Inside the Hip-Hop Record Store Run by Undercover Cops: Locals knew Boombox as the shop with a recording studio in the back. It was also part of a Met Police sting codenamed Operation Peyzac. (Vice)
The World Cup’s New High-Tech Ball Will Change Soccer Forever: All tournament long, match balls will contain a sensor that collects spatial positioning data in real time — the first World Cup to employ such a ball-tracking mechanism. This, combined with existing optical tracking tools, will make VAR (video assistant referees) and programs like offside reviews more accurate and streamlined than they’ve ever been. Combining these two forms of tracking has long been a holy grail of sorts in technology circles, and FIFA’s use of the ball sensor in particular will serve as a highly public test case over the next four weeks. (Fivethirtyeight)
Qatar’s World Cup is an unparalleled disgrace: There’s truly only one story at this World Cup. (SFGate)
The Qatar World Cup Exposes Soccer’s Shame: The absurd spectacle of a tiny Gulf petrostate hosting the world’s premier tournament reveals the ugly side of “the beautiful game.” (The Atlantic)