What we’re reading (9/17)
“The Billionaire Who Wanted To Die Broke…Is Now Officially Broke” (Forbes). The inspirational story of Chuck Feeney. “Charles “Chuck” Feeney, 89, who cofounded airport retailer Duty Free Shoppers with Robert Miller in 1960, amassed billions while living a life of monklike frugality. As a philanthropist, he pioneered the idea of Giving While Living—spending most of your fortune on big, hands-on charity bets instead of funding a foundation upon death. Since you can't take it with you—why not give it all away, have control of where it goes and see the results with your own eyes?”
“Fed Sets Higher Hurdles For Rate Increase” (Wall Street Journal). “The Federal Reserve pledged to support the economic recovery by setting a higher bar to raise interest rates and by signaling it expected to hold rates near zero for at least three more years.” Zero percent for three years, what a world. Note: that’s zero percent for the U.S. government, not for you, but all debt, including yours—scratch that, all securities—should be correlated. In any case, If you haven’t refi’d lately, now’s as good a day as any (and, by the way, a good friend of/advisor to SPC is a refi expert, so do let me know if you’re interested in any pro tips).
“A Low Profile Investors Who Bet On Snowflake Eight Years Ago Is Up More Than $12 Billion After IPO” (CNBC). Snowflake (ticker: SNOW)—the cloud-based data-warehousing startup—was founded just eight years ago. Yesterday it went public at a value of +$70 billion. How’s that for value-creation?
“Is The Coronavirus Crisis Finally Over? A Nobel Laureate Says It Might Be” (Issues & Insights). “Stanford biophysics professor Michael Levitt, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, says the pandemic might have come to an end…Levitt has a strong record predicting how the virus runs its course. He ‘began analyzing the number of COVID-19 cases worldwide in January,’ the Los Angeles Times reported in March, ‘and correctly calculated that China would get through the worst of its coronavirus outbreak long before many health experts had predicted.’”
“A Simple Eviction Moratorium Sows Confusion Around The Country” (New York Times). “Fending off an eviction could depend on which judge a renter in financial trouble is given, despite a federal government order intended to protect renters at risk of being turned out. The order, a moratorium imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is meant to avoid mass evictions and contain the spread of the coronavirus. All a qualifying tenant must do is sign a declaration printed from the C.D.C. website and hand it over to his or her landlord. But it’s not as simple as it sounds: Landlords are still taking tenants to court, and what happens next varies around the country.”
