What we’re reading (7/8)
“Musk Backs Out Of $44 Billion Twitter Deal Over Bot Accounts” (Bloomberg). “Elon Musk is trying to end an agreement to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion and take it private, alleging that the company misrepresented user data and setting the stage for an arduous court brawl.”
“How The FBI Wiretapped The World” (Vice). “For years criminal organizations around the world were buying a special phone called Anom. The pitch was that it was completely anonymous and secure, a way for criminals to do business without authorities watching over their shoulder. It turned out that the whole thing was an elaborate honeypot and that the FBI and law enforcement agencies around the world were listening in. They’d help develop the phones themselves.”
“How Will We Know If We’re In A Recession?” (Vox). “By many measures, the economy still looks pretty resilient. In June, employers added a robust 372,000 jobs to the economy. Job openings have dipped slightly, but at 11.3 million, they still remain well above pre-pandemic levels. Wage growth continues to climb in certain sectors, and new jobless claims are low. The unemployment rate stands at 3.6 percent, just slightly above its level before the pandemic, which was at a 50-year low.”
“Start Investing Early And Stick With It, Especially When Stocks Fall” (New York Times). “Consider what would have happened if you had started to invest in the first commercially available stock index fund, the Vanguard 500 stock index fund, in July 1980. You would have experienced a nasty bear market that began in November 1980 and lasted until mid-August 1982. The S&P 500 index lost 27.1 percent in that stretch. You might have been tempted to sell all your shares and forget about stock investing entirely. But suppose that you had stuck with it, not only through that bear market but through the six others that followed over the next 40 years, including this one. According to FactSet, your initial investment would have grown 6,600 percent, including reinvested dividends.”
“Bankers Go Behind Closed Doors To Sell Junk Debt In Big Shake-Up” (Bloomberg Law). “Struggling to launch high-yield deals as recession fears swirl, investment bankers in Europe are conducting more business behind closed doors in order to sell big chunks of corporate debt in a market that’s increasingly closed.”
