What we’re reading (8/24)
“Many Companies Planned To Reopen Offices After Labor Day. With Coronavirus Still Around, They’re Rethinking That.” (Wall Street Journal). A survey of major companies employing some 2.6 million people revealed that nearly 60 percent had decided to postpone their back-to-the-office plans in light of recent upticks in covid infections and, apparently, backlash from employees.
“‘The Big Short 2.0’: How Hedge Funds Profited Off The Pain Of Malls” (New York Times). Mall defaults in the last several months have allowed some to profit handsomely from bets against their mortgages (Carl Icahn has netted $1.3 billion on the trade so far).
“Money Funds Waive Charges To Keep Yields From Falling Below Zero” (Wall Street Journal). “Money-management giant BlackRock Inc. is waiving costs typically borne by customers for certain money-market funds to prop up investor yields, said people familiar with the matter. Fidelity Investments, Federated Hermes Inc. and J.P. Morgan Asset Management are also ceding some fees to stave off negative yields. The moves are the latest sign of how a roughly $5 trillion piece of the financial system is bracing for new pressure as interest rates plummet. Fee waivers will hit the revenues of firms that shoulder the costs.”
“Why TikTok Will Lose” (Dealbook). The folks at dealbook think TikTok’s lawsuit against the Trump Administrations executive orders (among which is an order for TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance Ltd., to divest its U.S. assets) is “a delaying tactic, at best.”
“Joel Greenblatt on Tesla: ‘I really can’t explain it’” (CNBC). I don’t normally take these sensational hot takes from purported experts too seriously, but when Greenblatt is up to the plate, it’s a different story. Greenblatt is the author of The Little Book That Beats The Market, which espouses a systematic, scientifically rigorous stock-selection model that you might rightfully argue was effectively a quantamental strategy before quantamental was cool.
