What we’re reading (9/4)
“U.S.-Stock Funds Are Down 17.3% So Far In 2022” (Wall Street Journal). “The average U.S.-stock mutual fund or exchange-traded fund is down 17.3% for the year to date, through August, according to Refinitiv Lipper data. That includes a 3.5% average decline in August, reflecting the stock market’s reaction to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell’s comments that the central bank will keep raising interest rates to fight inflation, despite recession risk.”
“Flash Boys Face Fund Managers In Treasury-Market Feud Over Data” (Bloomberg Law). “There’s a battle raging in the $23 trillion US Treasury market, and it’s not over the trajectory of interest rates. Rather, it’s all about data. On one side, you have high-speed traders, hedge funds and electronic market makers. On the other, some of the biggest US banks and asset managers. At issue: whether the publication of real-time transaction figures will help or harm a market already suffering from faltering liquidity.”
“Car Companies Are Making A Deadly Mistake With Electric Vehicles” (Slate). “On Aug. 16, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, whose climate investments include a muscular effort to convince more Americans to purchase an electric vehicle. The new law offers $7,500 off many new electric or plug-in hybrid cars or trucks, without restricting the number of credits that a carmaker can receive. A day later the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that American road deaths soared once again in the first quarter of 2022, rising 7 percent to 9,560 fatalities—the highest quarterly toll since 2002. The two news items may seem unrelated, but they are not.”
“The Family That Mined The Pentagon’s Data For Profit” (Wired). “What turned into a business opportunity for the Poseys began as a Cold War-era fight for government transparency. In 1947, President Harry Truman signed an executive order that gave the executive branch power to investigate and fire any federal employee who was deemed to be disloyal to the country, without having to supply evidence. The results of those investigations were held in secret FBI files. In the mid-1950s, the US government, and the Pentagon, in particular, hoarded information as compulsively as atom bombs. In the midst of the Red Scare, the design of a bow and arrow was deemed too sensitive for public release. The amount of peanut butter American soldiers consumed annually was a military secret. Shark attacks on sailors could neither be confirmed nor denied.”
“Jefferies CEO Pushes Return To Office, End To ‘Lonely Home Silos’” (New York Post). “Jefferies CEO Richard Handler signaled the firm will take a lighter approach than other firms by not tracking office attendance and allowing staffers to occasionally work from home.”
