Wednesday morning news drop
Bitcoin throws an interest rate tantrum like a 13-year-old Bitcoin is growing up. The original cryptocurrency turns 13 this year and is showing signs of becoming a more mature financial asset – but watch out for the teenage tantrums. This drift towards the mainstream, driven by the big bets of institutional investors, has seen bitcoin become sensitive to interest rates and fuelled a sell-off in the coin this month as investors braced for a hawkish Federal Reserve policy meeting. (Globe and Mail)
The Rise of the Crypto Mayors This new political breed accepts paychecks in Bitcoin. The mayors also want to use buzzy new tech like NFTs to raise money for public projects. (New York Times)
Nasdaq Days Like This Once Were Common. During the Dot-Com Crash Nasdaq Index hasn’t wiped out loss of almost 5% since early 2001; Late-day rally latest lurch in volatile market this year. (Bloomberg)
Intangible Value One of the reasons why traditional value investing has struggled over the past few years is because the way it measures a business is incomplete. It relies on things that show up on a financial statement like revenue or PP&E. But a lot of value accrues off the balance sheet. This is what Kai focuses on. Getting a more complete picture of the value of a company by quantifying intangibles; Brand equity, human capital, intellectual property, and network effects. (Irrelevant Investor)
Is This the End of the Go-Go Years? We humans are pattern-seeking creatures so it makes sense that we would continually look to the past to help us explain the present or future. Assuming we understand exactly what’s going to happen based on what’s already occurred helps put our minds at ease, even if we all know predicting the future is impossible. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
Why Is Silicon Valley Still Waiting for the Next Big Thing? The tech industry has grown ever more rich off big ideas that were developed more than a decade ago. New things like quantum computing and self-driving cars could take a while. (New York Times)
Four-day weeks and the freedom to move anywhere: Companies are rewriting the future of work (again) As omicron spreads, more companies are adopting creative approaches and using technology to help mitigate workplace inequity (Washington Post)
Why is Ukraine such an economic failure? One obvious culprit is the war itself, which since 2014 has chilled foreign investment and forced the government to divert resources toward the military. In my overview of the post-Soviet countries, I concluded that Rule #1 for economic development was not to piss off Vladimir Putin. But looking at the graphs above, it’s very clear that that can’t be the whole story, because Ukraine’s problems began well before 2014. (Noahpinion)
Google AI Research: Themes from 2021 and Beyond Over the last several decades, we’ve witnessed a lot of change in the fields of machine learning (ML) and computer science. Early approaches, which often fell short, eventually gave rise to modern approaches that have been very successful. Following that long-arc pattern of progress, expect to see a number of exciting advances over the next several years, advances that will ultimately benefit the lives of billions of people with greater impact than ever before. (Google AI Blog)
Four Classics, All With Walk-Off Endings, Deliver The Best NFL Playoffs Weekend Ever In 25 hours on the greatest playoff weekend in the 102-year history of professional football, the headlines, one by one, kept overtaking the last one: (NBC Sports)
What happened to the real estate cycle? Back in 2018, the mortgage stress test was introduced. Nearly overnight it knocked about 20% of the buyers out of a pretty hot market and stopped price gains from continuing. After prices had jumped 40% in two years, the stress test and gradually rising rates put the market on a pretty steady cooling pace for a solid 18 months. I puzzled somewhat about why the hot market had only lasted 2 years when it usually goes for longer, but I thought the stress test had changed the game and we were likely on track to keep cooling down for a few more years. That was clearly wrong. And while it’s tempting to ascribe the missed forecast to the pandemic and associated firehose of stimulus, the reality is that prices would have risen substantially even without it. That was clear two years ago, after interest rates had dropped and market conditions were pointing to hefty price gains before anyone had heard of COVID. The pandemic with its increases in out of town buyers and rock bottom rates turbocharged a trend that was already in place. (House Hunt Victoria)
China trying to buy influence in Canada