What we’re reading (2/8)
“Third Point Has A Stake In Salesforce” (Wall Street Journal). “Third Point is known for taking stakes and pushing for change at blue-chip companies including Campbell Soup Co., Shell PLC and Walt Disney Co., with which it reached a settlement agreement last year. The size of the position and what Third Point’s plans are couldn’t be learned. It is possible the firm will stay quiet and not launch a campaign.”
“Microsoft Will Let Companies Create Their Own Custom Versions Of ChatGPT, Source Says” (CNBC). “Microsoft is seeking to capitalize on the attention in multiple ways. The company provides the cloud-computing back end for ChatGPT, and in January Microsoft said it had invested billions of dollars in OpenAI. Microsoft has also been working to incorporate OpenAI technologies into its own products. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it is augmenting Bing, its search engine, and Edge, its internet browser, with ChatGPT-like technology.”
“Google Chatbot Blunders As AI Battle With Microsoft Heats Up” (AFP). “Google on Wednesday announced a slew of features powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), but a mistake in an ad caused its share price to tank. The search engine giant is rushing into the space after the bot ChatGPT caught the imagination of web users around the world with its ability to generate essays, speeches and even exam papers in seconds.”
“Revisiting The Summer Of Stagflation” (Paul Krugman, New York Times). “What is clear, however, is that until a few months ago many if not most economic prognosticators were far too negative about America’s prospects. In particular, we went through what I think of as the summer of stagflation — a period, actually extending some way into fall, when many influential economists were making extremely grim pronouncements about what it would take to bring inflation under control.”
“The Core Principles Of Momentum Investing” (Validea). “There is some debate as to why momentum works in public companies, but the most popular reason relates to the fact that public companies have prices that are regularly quoted and many investors buying and selling them. This introduces all the biases we all suffer from as human beings into the process. I won’t get into all the details here, but the end result is that we often tend to underestimate the good news with companies that have performed well in the intermediate term. That obviously won’t be true for every company, but it is true for a group of them. By investing in a basket of these companies, an investor can benefit from this mispricing and generate an excess return. This is what is often referred to as the behavioral explanation for momentum.”
