Monday morning news drop
American Consumers Are Shopping, Traveling and Working Out Like It’s 1999 2019 People have returned to their old habits in many ways, while pandemic stars like hand sanitizer and stationary bikes have faded.(Wall Street Journal)
Was the ‘Bond King’ Great? Bill Gross was synonymous with fixed income investing for 40 years — but the question of whether he generated real alpha still hovers over his legacy. (Institutional Investor)
How Technocrats Triumphed at Apple: The man who helped give the world candy-colored computers eventually walked out the door. What does that mean for the company’s next big thing? (New York Times)
Elon Musk bets the farm: How the billionaire’s Twitter buy could blow back on Tesla Musk is leveraging Tesla stock for his Twitter purchase, making the companies odd bedfellows. (Grid)
Elon’s Twitter Play: Valuation and Corporate Governance Consequences To get a measure of Musk’s bid for Twitter, you have to also understand the company’s path to its current status. In this section, I will focus on the milestones in the company’s history that shape it today, with an eye on how it may affect how this acquisition bid plays out. (Musings on Markets)
Does China have hidden reservoirs of growth potential? Sheer market size. The most important reason to be invested in China switched long ago from cheap labor costs to market access. Even if the Chinese government takes various steps to limit foreign companies’ market access and support home-grown competitors, even a tiny sliver of a billion consumers equals vast riches. So obviously, the question of whether the Chinese market will continue to grow is an important factor for investors. (Noahpinion)
How the Blockchain Could Fix Asset Management: A DAO is like the crypto version of an investment club — and it could be the solution to one of the industry’s most nettlesome problems, writes columnist Angelo Calvello.(Institutional Investor)
The strange business of hole-in-one insurance When golf tournaments promise big cash prizes for holes-in-one, they turn to niche insurers to protect against a stroke of luck. (The Hustle)
Putin vs. His Oligarchs: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third month, Putin’s chummy ruling class is feeling the burn. It’s a reminder that they were never so chummy in the first place (Puck)
Why is it so hard to control our appetites? A doctor’s struggles with giving up sugar We’ve become convinced that if we can eat more healthily, we will be morally better people. But where does this idea come from? (The Guardian)
Getting in the groove Music reminds us that the mind is more than a calculator. We are resonant bodies as much as representing machines (Aeon)
You wouldn’t believe what he said’: The greatest trash talker ever, Larry Bird Jayson Jenks Apr 9, 2020 Michael Jordan once said, “Larry Bird is the greatest trash talker and mind-game player of all time. He taught me everything I know about getting in folks’ heads.” That was reason enough to call 17 of Bird’s former teammates and opponents and ask for their best trash-talking stories about Larry Legend. They delivered. (The Athletic)