What we’re reading (1/16)
“Day Traders as ‘Dumb Money’? The Pros Are Now Paying Attention” (Wall Street Journal). “Fund managers who might have once derided small-time day traders as ‘dumb money’ are scouring social-media posts for clues about where the herd might veer next. Some 85% of hedge funds and 42% of asset managers are now tracking retail-trading message boards, according to a survey by Bloomberg Intelligence.”
“Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation” (M.I.T. Sloan Management Review). “We also analyzed the free text of more than 1.4 million Glassdoor reviews, using the Natural Employee Language Understanding platform developed by CultureX, a company two of us (Donald and Charles) cofounded…[i]n general, corporate culture is a much more reliable predictor of industry-adjusted attrition than how employees assess their compensation…[a] toxic corporate culture, for example, is 10.4 times more powerful than compensation in predicting a company’s attrition rate compared with its industry.”
“Price Controls Set Off Heated Debate As History Gets A Second Look” (New York Times). “As consumer prices soared this fall…a handful of mostly left-leaning economists reignited the long-dormant debate, arguing in opinion columns, policy briefs and social-media posts that the idea deserves a second look. Few if any are arguing for a return to the Nixon-era policies. Many say they aren’t yet ready to endorse price controls, and just want the idea to be taken seriously.”
“Mostly Wealthy ‘Boomerang Kids’ Moved Back Home During The Pandemic, And It's Intensifying The Wealth Gap” (Insider). “Analyzing the Current Population Survey, the [Federal Reserve] [B]ank [of Cleveland] found that 36% of boomerang kids are from families that earned more than $140,000 per year — the top 20% of the income quintile. Meanwhile, only 10% of boomerang kids are in the lowest income quintile of households earning less than $28,000 per year. And the majority of young adults who didn't live with their parents are from families earning incomes in the middle of this range.”
“Washington's Proposed Rules To Protect Investors Could Widen The Wealth Gap” (Time). “[T]he SEC says it wants to increase the financial transparency of large companies which raise money away from the public markets. In addition, the regulator wants to limit the ability of people with less than $200,000 in annual income or $1 million in net worth to invest in non-public companies. In short, the current system, which already excludes the vast majority of Americans, could get more restrictive.”
