What we’re reading (1/22)
“Charles Schwab Just Survived A Year From Hell. The Trouble Isn’t Over Yet.” (Wall Street Journal). “Charles Schwab last year weathered a banking crisis, layoffs and a sharp drop in its stock price. Inside the company, employees are preparing for another uncertain year. The largest publicly traded U.S. brokerage on Wednesday reported a third consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue and profit declines, hit hard by higher interest rates. Net income in 2023 dropped to $5.1 billion, down 29%. Shares fell 17% last year and are down 7% year to date.”
“The Market Has Had A Fabulous Run, But This Peak Doesn’t Really Matter” (New York Times). “Suppose you had gotten the market cycle as wrong as you possibly could, but had nonetheless decided to become a long-term stock investor — and had actually stuck with it, despite colossal losses. That would have meant buying at the market peak of Oct. 9, 2007. You would have lost most of your money by the spring of 2009, but you would have gained it back, and then some. These are the returns of the S&P 500 from Oct. 7, 2007, through Jan. 18, [2024] according to FactSet: [c]onsidering price alone, the index gained 7.1 percent annualized, or 207 percent cumulatively. With reinvested dividends, the index gained 9.3 percent annualized, or 325 percent cumulatively.”
“From 942-Year-Old Directors To ‘Financial Anomalies,’ These Red Flags Reveal Whether A Shell Company Might Be A Fraud, According To Moody’s” (Business Insider). “Moody's found instances of individuals holding a ridiculous number of jobs simultaneously, including one person who was observed to have 5,751 roles in nearly 3,000 companies. The data includes 11.5 million outlier directorship flags, the report said. Other unusual employee details include the extreme age listed for some employees, either ludicrously old or young. The data revealed that some firms have ‘beneficial owners’ older than 122, and some as young as 0. More than 4,000 directors were listed as younger than five years old, while another director at a Belgium-based firm was even listed as 942 years old, putting this person's birthdate somewhere around the year 1082.”
“FAA Urges Door Plug Checks On Second Boeing Model ‘As Soon As Possible’” (Washington Post). “The Federal Aviation Administration is recommending that airlines inspect the door plugs on a second type of Boeing plane, after one blew out midflight in another model and caused a dramatic emergency landing.”
“Harvard Teaching Hospital Seeks Retraction Of Six Papers By Top Researchers” (Wall Street Journal). “The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, is seeking to retract six studies and correct 31 other papers as part of a probe involving four of its senior cancer researchers and administrators. More than 50 papers, including four co-authored by Chief Executive and President Dr. Laurie Glimcher, are part of a continuing review, according to Dr. Barrett Rollins, the cancer institute’s research-integrity officer. Some requests for retractions and corrections have already been sent to journals, he said. Others are being prepared. The institute has yet to determine whether misconduct occurred.”
