What we’re reading (7/10)
“Investors Pile Into Longer-Dated Treasury ETFs As Bond Yields Fall” (Reuters). “Recent price rallies in U.S. government debt drove flows into exchange-traded funds tracking longer-dated Treasuries, according to BlackRock ETF provider iShares. The iShares 20+ year Treasury Bond ETF attracted $1.4 billion of inflows in the past three weeks to Thursday, with around $447 million added in the last week. Comparatively, investors pulled $547 million out of the iShares 7-10 year Treasury Bond ETF over the same period, according to iShares fixed income investment strategist Dhruv Nagrath.”
“Where Is My Patio Table? Supply Delays Leave Consumers Waiting.” (Christian Science Monitor). “The garden supply store in suburban Baltimore has been waiting six months for a shipping container from Vietnam full of $100,000 worth of wicker and aluminum furniture. Half of the container has already been sold by showing customers photographs. The container should have arrived in February, but it reached U.S. waters on June 3 and has just docked in Long Beach, California.”
“The Billionaire Playbook: How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Millions in Taxes” (ProPublica). A good primer on M&A accounting: “[Steve] Ballmer pays such a low rate, in part, because of a provision of the U.S. tax code. When someone buys a business, they’re often able to deduct almost the entire sale price against their income during the ensuing years. That allows them to pay less in taxes. The underlying logic is that the purchase price was composed of assets — buildings, equipment, patents and more — that degrade over time and should be counted as expenses.”
“A Little-Known ‘Back Door’ Trick For Boosting Your Roth Contributions” (Wall Street Journal). “Most people won’t ever get a chance to own pre-IPO stock. But the mega-backdoor Roth conversion strategy is available to many people with 401(k) accounts, so long as they have the means to save significant amounts of money. It lets those in 401(k) plans that allow after-tax contributions put up to $58,000 a year into a 401(k) account and convert some or all of the money to a Roth, with a minimal tax hit if executed well.”
“News Organizations Are Taking Different Approaches To How Often Employees Will Come Back To The Office” (CNBC). “Newsroom leaders are beginning to make decisions based on internal employee surveys and conversations, but they’re not all making the same choices. The decisions companies make could have major implications for how future employees select between potential employers. They’ll also be an industry-wide test for whether more flexible work arrangements can be long lasting.”
