What we’re reading (7/1)
“The Incredible S&P 500” (Axios). “Give it up for the U.S. stock market. The S&P 500 has surged 14.4% from the beginning of the year through June 30, marking one of the strongest first halves of the year in history…[t]he S&P has generated better returns only 16 other times since 1950, LPL Financial’s Ryan Detrick observed.”
“U.S. Jobless Claims Fell To 364,000 Last Week, A New Pandemic Low” (Wall Street Journal). “Worker filings for jobless benefits fell to 364,000 last week, reaching a new pandemic low as layoffs continue to recede. The Labor Department said Thursday initial jobless claims in the week ended June 26 fell by a seasonally adjusted 51,000 from the prior week’s revised total of 415,000. The drop brought the four-week moving average, which smooths out volatility in the weekly figures, down by 6,000 from the previous week’s average to 392,750, also a new pandemic low.”
“BuzzFeed And Vice Media’s Next Pivot: ‘Last Resort’ Efforts To Go Public” (Hollywood Reporter). “Their risky gambit? Go public to raise cash and roll up more of their competition through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a blank-check firm that raises money in an IPO, with the goal of merging with a private company to take them public. Yet the turn to SPACs by BuzzFeed, Vice, Bustle Digital Group and Group Nine, one financier tells The Hollywood Reporter, seems ‘like a last resort.’”
“N.J. Attorney General Is Appointed Director Of Enforcement At The S.E.C.” (New York Times). “Mr. Gensler, the S.E.C. chairman, announced on Tuesday that he had picked Gurbir Grewal, New Jersey’s attorney general since 2018, to run the all-important division at the nation’s top securities regulator. Mr. Grewal previously served as a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn and New Jersey, and was the chief prosecutor for Bergen County, one of New Jersey’s most populous counties.”
“The Internet Is Rotting” (The Atlantic). “Underpinning our vast and simple-seeming digital networks are technologies that, if they hadn’t already been invented, probably wouldn’t unfold the same way again. They are artifacts of a very particular circumstance, and it’s unlikely that in an alternate timeline they would have been designed the same way…the internet was a recipe for mortar, with an invitation for anyone, and everyone, to bring their own bricks.”
