What we’re reading (8/14)
“Consumer Sentiment Suddenly Crashes Below Early-Pandemic Levels” (CNN Business). “Americans are extremely worried about the Delta variant and the spike in Covid-19 cases. A key survey of consumer confidence plunged in August below where it was in April 2020 when the first Covid-19 outbreak slammed the brakes on the US economy. The University of Michigan said that its influential consumer sentiment index plunged 13.5% from July to August and hit a level of 70.2. That's the most bearish reading for this measure since December 2011.”
“How Millennial Investors Lost Millions On Bill Ackman’s SPAC” (Institutional Investor). “The structure was too complicated for both investors and their brokerages to quickly unpack, and the stock, along with the warrants and options attached to it, tanked. Within weeks, the Securities and Exchange Commission stunned Ackman, essentially killing the deal by telling his lawyers that it did not meet the New York Stock Exchange’s requirements for a SPAC — even though Ackman said on CNBC that the NYSE had given him the go-ahead months earlier.”
“The Robinhood Bros Who Keep Their Stock Losses Secret From Their Wives” (Mel Magazine). “Driven by the stock-market craze earlier this year, there are a number of men who gambled their entire family’s savings on single stocks without ever telling their significant other…‘When I first started, I really didn’t know anything about trading stocks,’ he explains. A graphic designer by trade, Austin often found himself frantically googling terms like ‘limit order,’ ‘calls’ and ‘earnings reports,’ as he dumped additional installments of $100 to $250 into his account.”
“American Motherhood vs. The American Work Ethic” (Vox). “Mothers working from home during the pandemic have reported higher rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness than fathers. Last year, 3 million women dropped out of the workforce — and 1.6 million of them still have not returned. That means companies have lost employees with valuable perspectives that have been proven to make companies more innovative and profitable. It also shrinks the talent pool for companies who are desperately seeking workers. That all creates an unfolding crisis, not only for women and their families, but for society and the economy as a whole.”
“Yale Researchers Say Social Media’s Outrage Machine Has The Biggest Influence On Moderate Groups” (Fast Company). “For the study, the team of researchers built machine-learning software capable of identifying moral outrage in Twitter posts, which then trawled nearly 13 million tweets from over 7,000 users. After tracking the users’ pages over time, they discovered those who racked up more ‘likes’ or ‘retweets’ after showing outrage were more likely to keep doing so in future posts. This was subsequently backed up by controlled behavioral experiments conducted by the team.”
