What we’re reading (9/6)
“Ex-World Bank Head Robert Zoellick: ‘The World Could Look Like 1900 Again’” (BBC). “Robert Zoellick pointed to the rift between the US and China as a serious threat to the global economic recovery. Mr Zoellick, one of America’s most senior public officials, has advised six US presidents during his career. He told the BBC co-operation was ‘the only way the global economy will emerge from the recession.’ Mr Zoellick, who was also the US deputy secretary of state, said his biggest concern was the escalating tensions between the US and China. ‘I think [the relationship] is in freefall today and I don’t think we know where the bottom is, and that is a very dangerous situation,’ he told the BBC’s Asia Business Report.”
“Amazon Bans Foreign Plant Sales To U.S. Amid Global Seed Mystery” (Wall Street Journal). “Amazon.com Inc. is barring foreign sales of seeds into the U.S. after thousands of suspicious packets, many postmarked from China, arrived at households around the world this summer. The move by Amazon comes as the mystery seeds led U.S. officials to raise alarms about the ease with which seed sales can occur on e-commerce sites, creating potential threats to U.S. agriculture.”
“U.S. Considers Blacklisting China’s Largest Chipmaker As Tech Tensions Escalate” (CNBC). The Commerce Department manages an unassumingly named “entities list” that restricts the foreign entities on it from receiving certain good produced domestically. DoD is in talks to add Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC)—China’s largest manufacturer of semiconductors—to the list.
“Elon Musk’s Brother Kimbal Made More Than $8 Million Selling Tesla Shares 2 Days Before He Bought Them” (MarketWatch). Sell high, buy back low, pocket $8 million. Further proof that TSLA is an absolute circus of a stock.
“Tesla (TSLA) Excluded From S&P 500 Reshuffle Despite Being Worth 9x All 3 New Firms Combined” (Electrek). Speaking of TSLA being a circus, it looks like the gentry at Standard & Poor’s agree: S&P surprised some people this week when it announced that it would be replacing H&R Block, Coty, and Kohl’s from the index this week with Etsy, Teradyne, and Catalent—read: “not Tesla”—despite the fact that Tesla is worth nine-times as much as the latter three combined. Here, Elektrek makes a pretty good point: “I won’t pretend to understand the S&P committee, but if your goal is to be representative of the US stock market, I would think that Tesla should be included. It generates tens of billions in revenue per year, has been profitable for 4 quarters in a row, and it is worth over $300 billion.”
