What we’re reading (2/12)
“After The Great Resignation, Tech Firms Are Getting Desperate” (Wired). “Amazon, PayPal, Intel, and Pinterest acknowledged that rejecting remote work will cost them dearly in the fight for talent, particularly as Facebook, Twitter, and Shopify have made it the norm. In Japan, where remote working still isn’t common, Yahoo has announced employees can work from anywhere in the country and it will pay for their flights if they ever need to come into the office.”
“Deals Are Booming, But Antitrust Scrutiny Has Deal Traders Worried” (Wall Street Journal). “Merger-arbitrage traders seek what is supposed to be safe money: They buy shares after deals are announced, hoping to capture the final bit of upside when the transaction closes. Delays associated with antitrust challenges hinder their ability to make a quick return, and hedging strategies run up their costs.”
“We Found The Real Names Of Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Pseudonymous Founders” (Buzz Feed). “Artistic value aside, the people behind BAYC are courting investors and running a business that is potentially worth billions.”
“Systemic Risk Regulation And The Myths Of The 2008 Financial Crisis” (Cato Institute). “In general, the large increase in securitization—issuing securities whose value is tied to pools of other assets, such as mortgages or consumer loans—that started in the late 1980s was driven primarily by [regulated commercial] banks. In 2012, a Federal Reserve report affirmed that ‘banks are by far the predominant force in the securitization market,’ and that banks were ‘a significant force in these shadow banking segments related to securitization all along.’”
“Is The Modern, Bank-Light Financial System Better Than The Old One?” (The Economist). “Robert Shiller of Yale University, who won a Nobel prize for his work on financial bubbles, sees parallels with the go-go years before the crash of 1929. Back then, ‘there was an explosion of fun things to do with stocks. I think we’re in a similar situation now.’ According to Mr Shiller’s surveys, over the past year the share of individual investors who think the market is overpriced has been higher than at any point since the turn of the millennium, before the dotcom bubble burst…[y]et at the same time their belief that stocks will rally if there is ever a fall has never been so high. This contradictory combination of fear of overvaluation and fear of missing out mirrors the dynamic in 1929.”
