The Market’s Best Days Are Behind, Condo Buildings, and Inflation

Tuesday morning news drop

• Nervous S&P 500 Traders Bet the Market’s Best Days Are Behind It The relentless rally in U.S. equities has driven bears almost into extinction. But to say bullishness is ubiquitous would be a stretch. From options trading to stock preferences to the direction of retail money flows, signs of trepidation are budding in a market where $27 trillion has been added to equity values in a little over a year. (Bloomberg)

• The Mystery of the Missing Workers, Explained A retirement boom, a turn for the worse in the opioid epidemic, and the rising cost of child care all stand in the way of employers seeking to fill open slots. (BusinessWeek)

• How the Robinhood Era Is Changing Stock-Market Investing When investor communities, not institutions, drive security pricing. (Morningstar)

• Superstar Fund Managers Are Launching ETFs. Are They Worth the Price? Actively managed ETFs have pros behind the scenes making investing decisions, but they’re also more expensive. (Bloomberg)

• How Condo Buildings End Aggressive developers looking for a way in—or desperate homeowners looking for a way out. (Slate)

• Understanding inflation measurement and housing How could it be that average home prices are up 18% year over year while inflation is only 3.1% as of the June figure? Inflation has been running a little hot lately, with the latest reading of 3.1% above the official 2% target. But as with real estate, to understand what’s going on, you first want to zoom out to put the data into context. (House Hunt Victoria)

Climate Change, Crypto, the Housing Boom, and Lil Nas X

Monday morning news drop

• Climate Scientists Reach ‘Unequivocal’ Consensus on Human-Made Warming in Landmark Report The first major assessment from the UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in nearly a decade sees no end to rising temperatures before 2050. (Green)

• Going for Broke in Cryptoland It’s hard to think of another financial craze in which so many people poured so much into entities with so little intrinsic value. Few hype coins have any utility as currency. Good luck buying lunch with one. Many are minted in numbers rarely seen outside astronomy books — trillions, quadrillions — which dooms them to vanishingly tiny prices. Some hype coins mint instant millionaires. Others go bust. Why not take a chance? (New York Times)

• ‘Green Bitcoin Mining’: The Big Profits In Clean Crypto Bitcoin is infamous for wasting enough electricity to add 40 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere a year—but now, a growing cadre of U.S. miners are developing green, and lucrative, new strategies worth a fortune all their own. (Forbes)

• Simple Explanations For Complex Topics. One of the biggest residential real estate brands in the world is getting hammered in the midst of one of the biggest housing booms we’ve ever seen? What gives? I posed this question on Twitter this past week… (Wealth of Common Sense)

• The Pandemic Business Boom COVID-19 killed countless businesses. Surprisingly, it also launched a whole bunch of new ones. (The Atlantic)

• The Big Money Behind the Big Lie Donald Trump’s attacks on democracy are being promoted by rich and powerful conservative groups that are determined to win at all costs. (New Yorker)

• What’s Rarer Than Gold? Making It Onto A Wheaties Box. The Wheaties box endures as a symbol of athletic achievement for the same reason it continues to be a successful marketing strategy for the brand: Wheaties has been doing this for a very long time, and it has been incredibly discerning in who graces its cardboard. If 100 athletes were on the box every year, it wouldn’t be nearly as prestigious. (FiveThirtyEight)

• Lil Nas X, DaBaby and the question of homophobia in hip hop Lil Nas X is challenging what it means to be a hip-hop star — but was he really the first? (CBC)

• How Dua Lipa Shut Down the Trolls and Conquered International Pop Before she rocketed into the pop stratosphere, before she delivered a record of club catharsis to a world stuck dancing in its bedroom, before she broke the billion-stream barrier, before the Grammys…Dua Lipa had to learn to believe in her own powers. (Vanity Fair)

All 24 medals Canada won at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 4 minutes

Videos of the Week, Surplus Weed, Economic Recovery, and BC Unemployment

Friday morning news drop and videos of the week

• What Do You Do with a Billion Grams of Surplus Weed? Cannabis legalization was supposed to be a licence to print money. Three years on, nobody is turning a profit (Walrus)

• The chip shortage is getting worse The semiconductor supply crunch came for cars and phones. Now consumers are facing higher prices. (Vox)

• The speed of the US economic recovery has been record-breaking. It won’t last. Despite the continued optimism about the country reopening, US economic growth is already starting to slow. Yes, year-over-year comparisons to the catastrophic conditions in the spring of 2020 have been puffing up recent economic growth data. But it’s important to understand that there’s much more to the story from an economic cycle perspective. That’s our conclusion not only from the data we regularly monitor that define economic cycles — like GDP and jobs — but also economic indicators that foresee peaks and troughs in those cycles. (CNN)

• My Investing Nightmare: If I had to pick a market to represent my investment nightmare, I would pick Spain from 1973-1983. For the uninitiated, from the mid 1970s to early 1980s Spain experienced high inflation, high unemployment, and sluggish growth that destroyed their capital markets over the course of a decade. And, as the chart below shows, it was a slow ride down for those 10 years: (Of Dollars And Data)

• Deal Of The Century: How Michael Dell Turned His Declining PC Business Into A $40 Billion Windfall After years battling Silicon Valley skeptics and Wall Street adversaries, Michael Dell has pulled off the deal of the century, borrowing and flipping his way to a $50 billion fortune. His biggest ambitions lie ahead—and they have nothing to do with space. (Forbes)

• Just-in-Time Manufacturing? Not With Rickety U.S. Infrastructure Tortured logistics at one factory in Pennsylvania reveal the economic toll of strained highways and ports. (Businessweek)

• Is Hot Vax Summer Even Happening? “The rumors of this ‘casual hookup summer’ were vastly overstated,” said one dating app’s director of relationship science. (Vice)

• ‘The Ascent Was Just Wild’ – The Oral History of The Strokes’ ‘Is This It’ On the 20th anniversary of modern rock’s most seminal album, VICE spoke to its producer, publicist, journalists and the guy who shot the “arse cover.” (Vice)

Videos of the Week

This is Home: Matt Hunter | SHIMANO For many people, mountain biking is a migratory sport. Once you get a taste for the trails, moving closer to ride every day is a no brainer for those who choose the lifestyle. For Matt Hunter, migration was never necessary. He grew up in Kamloops, where the surrounding landscape was an ever-present inspiration for his own riding.

2021 Dunbar Summer Series Kicking Horse DH Nationals

Dusty Days With Colby Pringle || Riding in Pemberton & North Vancouver

We used to ride Biketrials 2 guys out on theyr bikes, just having fun and enjoying the sun, trying out some old skills on the bikes

NIKITA DUCARROZ - BMX HERITAGE

After X Games | Monster Energy BMX It's like an X Games recap with what happened after. After a year of no visit to the states, we got an international crew (Lewis Mills, Felix Prangenberg, Alex Donnachie) hitting the streets of San Diego with Kevin Peraza and a few spots in between.

CULTCREW/ AUSTRALIA 2021 / Jason Watts, Callan Stib, Benn Pigot, Zac Miner

Teen skateboarders sweep Olympic medals | Women's Street Final | Tokyo 2020

Where The Hell Did This Girl Come From?! | Rayssa Leal 12-year-old Rayssa Leal took the world by storm 5 years ago with her viral fairy heelflip clip, and last year she placed first in Street League and fourth in X Games. Give her another five years and she'll rule the world… it must be nice.

The Yuto show ! April Skateboards

Nolan Miskell's "Blood Wizard" Part Nolan hops out the gate with an earth-shaking slam, then proceeds to attack spot after spot before taking down a deadly circle bar.

Harry Lintell's "Northern Grit" Part Harry’s quest for crust bears fruit, with a stream of clips from the dilapidated spaces around Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Watch the concrete crumble.

Chris Blake's "Fire Tonight" Part Riding windows, smashing bins and scraping wallies, Chris systematically shuts down spots from FL to LA.

The Bond Market, Green Bonds, Fossil Fuels, and China

Thursday morning news drop

• Companies Pay New Workers Higher Wages, and Current Employees Ask, ‘What About Us?’ As companies like Chipotle and Sodexo increase the pay floor for entry-level employees, they are also rethinking wages of long-time staffers and managers. U.S. wage growth among job switchers increased 5.8 percent since June 2020 according to the latest ADP Research Report while overall wage growth decelerated to 2.3 percent. (Wall Street Journal)

• 'Some just say I've had enough': Labour shortage holding back hospitality industry There’s a shortage of housekeeping staff across the industry, with many flocking to health care and seniors’ homes for more stable employment. And that means only 80% of hotel rooms will be ­available on weekends, and about 50% during the week. (Times Colonist)

• Yes, bonds still belong in your portfolio, and this is why There has been a large distaste among investors for maintaining Treasury bond exposure in the asset mix. The argument typically points out the low level of yields, or how stretched valuations are (not that it’s stopped equity investors), or how much more money they can make in the stock market. Is investing really that simple? And are concentrated, non-diversifying strategies really the most efficient way to build returns? The answer is no. (Globe and Mail)

• Canadian companies are issuing new bonds at a record pace Canadian companies are on track to sell a record volume of bonds in their own currency this year, taking advantage of low rates to refinance and fund post-pandemic investments. (Bloomberg)

• Where’s All That Green Bond Money Really Going? Overall issuance is skyrocketing, but transparency is hard to come by. (Bloomberg)

• Big investors are divesting from fossil fuels – should you? (Morningstar)

• Europe Unveils Plan to Shift From Fossil Fuels, Setting Up Potential Trade Spats Europe Unveils Plan to Shift From Fossil Fuels, Setting Up Potential Trade Spats (New York Times)(New York Times)

• “This Is Going to Change the World” As the new millennium dawned, a mysterious invention from a charismatic millionaire became a viral sensation—then went down in flames. Ever since, I’ve wondered: Was it all my fault? (Slate)

• Feds are seizing cryptocurrency from criminals. Now they have to figure out what to do with it. The US government has hired a cryptocurrency company to store all the bitcoin it’s seizing. (Vox)

• The cardboard real estate boom is here The packaging industry is growing—and so are the buildings needed to house it. (Fast Company)

• China Century Missing In World’s Most-Valued Equity The dearth of Chinese enterprises at the top of the market capitalization rankings is a referendum on the world’s second-largest economy. (Bloomberg)

• Yesterday’s Wars Didn’t Prepare the Pentagon for Tomorrow’s China The U.S. military’s long-sought pivot to Asia is slow, uneven, and beset by difficulties. (Businessweek)

• Where There’s Smoke, There’s a Fire Lookout Trina Moyles’s new memoir documents gruelling summers scanning for wildfires in northern Alberta. An excerpt. (Tyee)

Kyle Lowry Leaves Toronto and Inside L.A.’s Ultimate Mid-century Modern Home

Wednesday morning news drop

• Construction industry faces reckoning over racism on job sites Contractors and trade unions have pledged to crack down on anti-Black racism and hate of all forms after a number of recent incidents (Globe and Mail)

• Why Even The Most Elite Investors Do Dumb Things When Investing. The bottom line is that these investment managers are failing to maximize returns for their clients. Without some changes to improve their selling decisions, they’d be better off strictly focusing on buying stocks and letting “a robot manage their selling decisions,” Schmidt says. (NPR)

• Go Big, Then Stop What I’m talking about is a savings philosophy so effective that it can put your future finances on easy mode. It can help you to build wealth for decades while you literally do nothing. It may just be the lowest effort way to set yourself up for a nice retirement. How does it work? You save as much as you can as early as you can, then you stop saving altogether (if you want). Go big, then stop. (Of Dollars And Data)

• The Seas Are Rising. Could Oysters Help? How a landscape architect is enlisting nature to defend our coastal cities against climate change—and doing it on the cheap. (New Yorker)

• Inside L.A.’s Ultimate Mid-century Modern Home The story behind an icon of California bliss, featuring images from the new book The Stahl House. (Vanity Fair)

House Hunt Victoria, The Delta Variant, Food Monopolies, and Snoop Dogg

Tuesday morning news drop

• Delta Is Ruining the Summer, and It’s Anti-vaxxers’ Fault The vaccines promised freedom, but political opportunists have spoiled that. No single factor explains the stall-out, but foremost among the culprits are partisan polarization and political opportunism. (The Atlantic)

• What’s Covid?’ Why People at America’s Hardest-Partying Lake Are Not About to Get Vaccinated At the Lake of the Ozarks, vaccines are shunned, masks are mocked and the long-term consequences take a back seat to the time at hand. (Politico)

• Unvaccinated Canada: Who’s left behind, and why aren’t they getting their COVID-19 shots? Canada’s high overall COVID-19 vaccination rates are concealing pockets where less than half the population has received a first dose, most of them in small towns and rural, remote parts of the country, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of provincial vaccination data. (Globe and Mail)

• They Spurned the Vaccine. Now They Want You to Know They Regret It. People who once rejected the vaccine or simply waited too long are now grappling with the consequences, often in raw, public ways. (New York Times)

• Google and Facebook lead the way with Covid-19 vaccine mandates. Will corporate America follow? Tech companies continue to be at the forefront of how employers respond to the pandemic. (Vox)

• Revealed: the true extent of America’s food monopolies, and who pays the price A handful of powerful companies control the majority market share of almost 80% of dozens of grocery items bought regularly by ordinary Americans, new analysis reveals. A joint investigation by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch found that consumer choice is largely an illusion – despite supermarket shelves and fridges brimming with different brands. (The Guardian)

• The Amazon Is Fast Approaching a Point of No Return Brazil’s rainforest is being stolen and cleared at an accelerating pace, and the Bolsonaro government is fanning the flames. (Businessweek)

• America’s Investing Boom Goes Far Beyond Reddit Bros Robinhood traders have earned the most attention, but they’re only part of a larger story about class stagnation and distrust. (The Atlantic)

• Are Stratospheric Stock Valuations Here to Stay? The past 30 years have either been an anomaly or a new normal. Don’t bet against the latter. (Bloomberg)

• A Heat Wave Has Triggered a ‘Massive Melting Event’ in Greenland Greenland’s ice sheet melted enough in one day to cover all of Florida in two inches of water. (Vice)

• The Tao of Snoop Dogg: “Companies that get down with me know how I get down.” Zooming from his compound in Los Angeles, he smoked an enormous blunt while discussing how he went from a shy musician to a multiplatform entrepreneur with several new ventures in the burgeoning cannabis industry. (New York Times)

• Who Actually Gets to Create Black Pop Culture? A closer look at the economics of Black pop culture reveals that most Black creators (outside music) come from middle-to-upper middle class backgrounds, while the Black poor are written about but rarely get the chance to speak for themselves. (Current Affairs)

• New listings disappear and constrain sales The market continued much the same in July as in June, with the big exception being that new listings dried up quite dramatically. After over a year where new listings were surprisingly unaffected by COVID, they suddenly dropped substantially as soon as we hit Stage 3 of the re-opening. The month ended with new listings down 35% from last year, and lower than we’ve seen for 15 years. (House Hunt Victoria)

Videos of the Week, Inflation, and the AirPod Killer

Friday morning news drop and videos of the week

• Have We Been Thinking about Inflation All Wrong? For decades, governments have done all they can to keep inflation down. But maybe letting things run hotter is exactly what we need (Walrus)

• Mandate the vaccine, not masks Vaccines are the solution to Covid-19. Let’s make the most of them. (Vox)

• A California city raised essential worker pay — and their expectations Hazard pay changed the lives of California grocery store employees during the pandemic and may have begun a long-term shift for lower-wage workers. (Politico)

• Hiltzik: The Atlantic says ‘the California Dream is dying.’ So what else is new? Magazine writers’ chestnuts don’t get any more dependable than the “death of the California dream” trope. It’s got everything a writer looking for buzz could ask for: the irresistible opportunity to simultaneously evoke and denigrate the sun and fun of the Golden State. Bikini-clad prurience and quelling of readers’ enviousness in one glittering package. Hollywood glamor, Silicon Valley wealth and the dark side of both, all at the same time. (Los Angeles Times)

• The Sports Collectable Market Is Booming. Is It about the Money or the Memories? Rookie cards are selling for millions and NFTs are thriving. The question isn't just how big the bubble will it grow but what will happen once it pops (Walrus)

• How Nothing Designed ‘Ear 1s’ to Beat Apple AirPods The head of design at Nothing explains how their product could take on Apple’s all-conquering wireless earbuds, at a fraction of the cost. (Wired)

Videos of the Week

Skateboarding Is Now an Olympic Sport—and Lizzie Armanto Is Going for Gold | The New Yorker She’s one of the best skateboarders in the world. In “Chasing Tokyo 2021,” by Nathan Fitch, Lizzie Armanto recounts her award-winning career as she prepares for the 2021 Summer Olympics.

Almost Skateboard's "Rosarito" Video Tyson, Yuri and the Almost crew deal out a deadly batch of high-tech hammers before Dilo dishes the final blows in NYC. Run it back all you’d like, this one will still throw you

Kurt Sorge - Demesne - A Backyard Jump Paradise Bringing the dream of having jumps in the back yard to life!

Christian Rigal x Ransom | San Diego Flow Christian Rigal swaps tarmac for trail, flowing through the dusty goodness of his hometown hills in San Diego, California aboard his SCOTT Ransom.

Mike “Hucker” Clark has been busy putting in work on this full length edit for some time now with fellow rider and filmer, Matt Cordova. Hucker lays down some heavy moves from dirt, park and ditches. Don't let that "Hucker" laid back personality fool you, he's all business in this one! -

CULTCREW/ WOODWARD/ 2021 Some of the Crew went on a Edventure to WOODWARD CAMP EAST…Nothing but summer fun with the homies and yes Anthony Panza is in this…

R-Dog x Beacon Hill, WA After spending an off-season and a year of lock-down on his home trails in Santa Cruz, California, R-Dog, aka Ryan Howard, finally flew the coop to visit a friend and check out their riding scene. When you’re a frequent flyer at world-class riding destinations throughout the years, it can be hard to find that level of trails, jumps, and stoke elsewhere. But with the right mix of features, banter, wildflowers, and local insight to lead the way, any place can become your next epic destination.

Climate technology, CFA Pass Rates Plummet, and Vaccine Refusal

• More Money Than Ever Is Flowing Into Climate Tech The question now is, where and how is that going to pay off? (Green)

• CFA pass rate plummets to lowest level since testing began Only 25% of applicants passed the test (Financial Post)

• The Delta Variant Is the Symptom of a Bigger Threat: Vaccine Refusal There are almost as many reasons for vaccine hesitancy and refusal as there are unvaccinated Americans. But this problem, not the variant, lies at the root of rising infection rates. (New York Times)

• The Best And Worst Places to Be as Reopening, Variants Collide: 1) Norway 2) Switzerland 3) New Zealand 4) France 5) United States. The world got a reality check this month. The road to recovery from the worst pandemic in a generation won’t be smooth. (Bloomberg)

• Starbucks Is the New Talent Factory Powering Corporate America The coffee chain—which has produced as many executives as significantly larger companies—is a favorite source for recruiters, and it’s fine with that. (Businessweek)

• The Chobani Story: Strained yogurt and a strained balance sheet Is it possible for an immigrant to build a multi-billion dollar food business without venture capital? Chobani’s founder Hamdi Ulukaya made an all-in bet on his heritage and a powerful emerging consumer trend: Greek yogurt. (Neckar’s Notes)

• The Time Tax: Why is so much American bureaucracy left to average citizens? To make sure that the safety net catches us, to make sure that our social-insurance programs insure us, to make sure that we get what we pay Uncle Sam for, we work as our own health-care administrators. Our own tax professionals. Our own social workers. Our own disability-law experts. Our own child-support advocates, long-term-care reps, and public-housing officials. (The Atlantic)

• Hou Yifan and the Wait for Chess’s First Woman World Champion For years, Hou was the only woman who stood a chance against the very best. But she had her own ambitions. (New Yorker)

Investing, the End for US Listed Chinese Companies, and Vaccination Rates

Wednesday morning news drop

• ‘I’m Not Anti-Anything. I’m Pro-Hawaii.’ U.S. Olympic surfers from Hawaii — the proud home of the sport — would prefer to compete under their own red, white and blue banner. (New York Times)

• Is the End Near for U.S.- Listed Chinese Companies? Probably, Says Carson Block The short-seller argues that China’s recent crackdown on public companies is a way for the country to get in front of an American law requiring auditors of Chinese companies to open up to U.S. regulators. (Institutional Investor)

• The stuff don’t teach you in books I was raised in this business to believe that stock and bond and fund selection was the most important aspect of helping investors succeed. We weren’t given a benchmark in terms of what a client succeeding even meant. “Lets emphasize whichever of these things went well in the next conversation.” (Reformed Broker)

• Corporations aren’t going to save America The danger in corporate solutions to government problems. (Vox)

• My Community Refuses to Get Vaccinated. Now Delta Is Here. Only 35 percent of Arkansas is fully vaccinated, and with case rates rising, living there can feel like moving through a distorted reality. (The Atlantic)

• They Live in an N.Y.C. Virus Hot Spot. But They Won’t Get Vaccinated. Staten Island’s recent uptick in coronavirus cases foretold a larger increase across New York City. (New York Times)

• Hollywood Calls the Russo Brothers When It’s Time to Build a New Universe Joe and Anthony Russo went from making movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to creating their own worlds. Amazon’s Citadel will test their vision. (Businessweek)

• Swimming gives your brain a boost – but scientists don’t know yet why it’s better than other aerobic activities Regular swimming has been shown to improve memory, cognitive function, immune response and mood. Swimming may also help repair damage from stress and forge new neural connections in the brain. But scientists are still trying to unravel how and why swimming, in particular, produces these brain-enhancing effects. (The Conversation)

• Matt Damon’s Disappearing Acts The enduring career of the megastar no one really knows. (New York Times)

House Hunt Victoria, Inflation, and Real Estate

Tuesday morning news drop

• The Dream Team days are long gone for USA Olympic basketball The era when American players could win gold at the Games just by showing up is over. The rest of the world has simply become too good (Guardian)

• What Does the Delta Variant Mean for the U.S. Economy? Predictions of a second “Roaring Twenties” have proved premature. (New Yorker)

• Anti-vaccine groups changing into ‘dance parties’ on Facebook to avoid detection The ban-evasion efforts on Facebook and Instagram are ratcheting up as the White House has increased pressure on the social media platforms to do more to contain vaccine misinformation. The secret language being used by anti-vaccine groups to skirt detection (NBC News)

• The China Model: What the Country’s Tech Crackdown Is Really About After spending years emulating Silicon Valley, the world’s second-biggest economy is now officially charting its own course. (Businessweek)

• U.S. inflation just topped 5 per cent. Is Canadian inflation next? Prices have steadily climbed since the start of the year and the Bank of Canada won't be changing its guidance just yet (National Post)

• As Good As it Gets? The U.S. stock market is not only up 12 out of the past 13 years (assuming this year’s gain holds), but 10 out of those 13 years have been double-digit gains. And the worst down year was a loss of just 4%. (Wealth of Common Sense)

• Real Estate Agents Target Record $100 Billion as Home Sales Boom Commission revenue — the cut that brokers collect for helping buy and sell homes — is on track to surge 16% in 2021, surpassing $100 billion for the first time. (Bloomberg)

• New listings drought while out of town buyers stay high Buyer origin data is out for the second quarter, and we’ve seen a continued growth in the percentage of buyers from out of town. The proportion of all deals year to date rose to 26.4% from 22.9% in 2020. It’s not at record levels (that was 28.4% in 2016) but it’s substantially elevated from the roughly ~20% average between 2004 and 2012. Remember that out of town buyers are one of the categories of pure demand and any increase has a much bigger effect on the market than an increase in buyers that already own locally (i.e. market turnover). (House Hunt Victoria)