What we’re reading (5/8)
“What Happens To Stocks And Cryptocurrencies When The Fed Stops Raining Money?” (Wall Street Journal). “Easy monetary policy has regularly fueled financial booms, and it is exceptionally easy now. The Fed has kept interest rates near zero for the past year and signaled rates won’t change for at least two more years. It is buying hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds. As a result, the 10-year Treasury bond yield is well below inflation—that is, real yields are deeply negative —for only the second time in 40 years.”
“U.S. Pipeline Operator That Transports 45% Of East Coast Fuel Shuts Entire Network After Cyberattack” (CNBC). “Top U.S. fuel pipeline operator Colonial Pipeline has shut its entire network after a cyber attack, the company said in a statement on Friday. Colonial’s network supplies fuel from U.S refiners on the Gulf Coast to the populous eastern and southern United States. The company transports 2.5 million barrels per day of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and other refined products through 5,500 miles (8,850 km) of pipelines.”
“Logjam!” (Slate). “[T]he culprit [for the lumber shortage] is the decade of instability and low prices that followed the Great Recession, when America stopped building homes, leaving the lumber trade out to dry. The stunted recovery stripped the industry’s crucial middlemen—the mills themselves—to the bone. Building a new deck is expensive now because mills can’t ramp up to meet the demand surge—or won’t, nervous they’ll get caught with millions in underused machinery when prices crash back to earth.”
“The ‘Hybrid Office’ Could Be Great. It Could Also Be Hell.” (New York Times). “[R]esearchers at the University of Chicago estimate the share of work done remotely will level off at about 20 percent after the pandemic restrictions end. That’s about half as much remote work as is happening right now, but still four times the prepandemic share.”
“Analysis: Fund Managers See Value, Cyclical Stocks Running Further Despite Slow U.S. Jobs Recovery” (Reuters). “[F]und managers say that they are continuing to rotate into value and cyclical stocks - whose fortunes are closely tied to economic conditions - in anticipation that the economic recovery will be longer and more gradual than originally anticipated.”
