What we’re reading (11/26)
“After Admitting Mistake, AstraZeneca Faces Difficult Questions About Its Vaccine” (New York Times). “The announcement this week that a cheap, easy-to-make coronavirus vaccine appeared to be up to 90 percent effective was greeted with jubilation. “Get yourself a vaccaccino,” a British tabloid celebrated, noting that the vaccine, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, costs less than a cup of coffee. But since unveiling the preliminary results, AstraZeneca has acknowledged a key mistake in the vaccine dosage received by some study participants, adding to questions about whether the vaccine’s apparently spectacular efficacy will hold up under additional testing.”
“The Athleisure Market Is Heating Up As Consumers Flock To ‘Comfort In Uncomfortable Times’” (CNBC). “If you walk into any Old Navy store this holiday season, you’ll notice a plethora of athletic gear paired with other comfy clothes front and center. Knowing consumers have been drawn to loungewear like leggings, pajama sets and other cozy options during the coronavirus pandemic, the retailer reshuffled its store layout to accommodate the trend, placing those items right at the door. It also ordered more fleece hoodies, stretchy bottoms, and the like, to make sure its inventories were plentiful ahead of the holiday rush.”
“Disney Increases Number Of Planned Layoffs To 32,000 Employees” (CNN Business). “Walt Disney Co. is planning to shed 32,000 employees by the end of March — 4,000 more than previously announced — as the coronavirus pandemic continues to hammer its parks and resorts business.”
“Wall Street Dealers In Hedging Frenzy Get Blamed For Volatility” (Bloomberg). “Two professors have just lent academic heft to a suspicion running rampant on Wall Street all year: The options market “is whipsawing share prices like never before. As retail investors spur a boom in derivatives trading to rival actual stock volumes, dealers rushing to hedge themselves are said to have fueled the 2020 melt-up in tech names from Netflix Inc. to Microsoft Corp. They’re also suspected of amplifying two big drawdowns in September and October. New research sheds light on just how this dynamic tends to play out. A study from the Imperial College Business School and the University of St. Gallen has concluded that structural changes to the industry in the past two decades mean dealers are indeed contributing to intra-day volatility as they balance their exposures.”
“[Review of] Debts Hopeful And Desperate: Financing The Plymouth Colony By Ruth A. McIntyre” (The New England Quarterly, June 1964). A little Thanksgiving financial history in the form of a book review from nearly 60 years ago. Did you know Plymouth Colony was financed by a private placement of common stock (basically a 17th century VC deal)? “In this concentrated study Miss McIntyre examines the whole financial story in great detail…‘The terms of July 1, 1620 were not unlike those of other colonial enterprises tried in Virginia and Bermuda. The entire capital, including lands, was to be a joint stock fund, divided into shares. Every person over the age of sixteen going to the new colony was rated at £10, and £10 was accounted a single share…The adventurers who contributed only money and stayed at home, and the planters, were to continue the joint stock for seven years during which time all profits from ‘trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means’ must remain in the common stock. Then they would divide equally the capital and profits, viz., lands, houses and goods. The common stock would furnish food, apparel, and provisions.’”
