What we’re reading (3/10)
“States Expected Covid-19 To Bring Widespread Tax Shortfalls. It Didn’t Happen.” (Wall Street Journal). “States have avoided a Great Depression-scale cash crisis. Despite the pandemic’s crushing toll on the economy, total state tax revenues were roughly flat in 2020 from the year before, according to the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.”
“Here's What We Know So Far About The Massive Microsoft Exchange Hack” (CNN Business). “Many security experts remain alarmed about the large, Chinese-linked hack of Microsoft's Exchange email service a week after the attack was first reported. The breach is believed to have targeted hundreds of thousands of Exchange users around the world. Microsoft (MSFT) said four vulnerabilities in its software allowed hackers to access servers for the popular email and calendar service, and the company urged customers to immediately update their on-premises systems with software fixes.”
“Hedge Fund Managers Are Getting Inside Information From Alumni Networks, Study Finds” (Institutional Investor). “Hedge fund managers are gathering private information from their alumni networks and using that trading edge ahead of merger announcements, a study found. Managers of hedge funds who are connected to directors of companies engaged in mergers increase their call option holdings on targets before the deals are announced, according to a [new] paper[.]”
“Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel Says Value Stocks Will Outperform Tech This Year In 'The Hottest Economy We're Going To See In A Long Time’“ (Business Insider). “Wharton School professor Jeremy Siegel is predicting a value stocks will be big outperformers on the stock market in the next year, as the economy recovers, he told CNBC's Trading Nation on Tuesday. Tech stocks, which have been under pressure in recent days, have further room to trade lower, but Siegel does not expect that correction to become a crash.”
“The World’s Consumers Are Sitting On A Pile Of Cash. Will They Spend It?” (The Economist). “The economic controls implemented during the second world war make today’s restrictions on restaurants and football stadiums look lax. In America the government rationed everything from coffee to shoes and forbade the production of fridges and bicycles. In 1943 its entire automobile industry sold only 139 cars. Two years later the war ended, and a consumer-led boom ensued. Americans put to use the personal savings they had accumulated in wartime. By 1950 carmakers were producing more than 8m vehicles a year.”
