Feb 19, 2023
Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
While you’re here, join Bespoke Premium with a 30-day trial!
Inflation
The world’s biggest food company says prices will rise further this year by Hanna Ziady (CNN)
Nestle guided further price increases on staple items that are staple parts of grocery shops all over the world, citing a process of “repairing our gross margin”. [Link]
There’s a new inflation warning for consumers coming from the supply chain by Lori Ann LaRocca (CNBC)
A glut of goods brought in to the US over the past year are stuffing warehouses, sending the cost to rent or buy temporary extra space soaring; logistics industries remain key inflationary drivers in the US. [Link]
Big Tech
The maze is in the mouse by Praveen Seshadri (Medium)
A founder of a company acquired by Google just before the pandemic hit describes the difficulties Google has operating at scale, while also offering his own prescriptions for how to make it out of the mess. [Link]
Yes, Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first by Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton (Platformer)
Frustrated that the President of the United States (yes, the President of the United States) got more engagement on a throw-away tweet about the Super Bowl, the Twitter CEO demanded his engineers boost his tweets to users and drive up engagement. [Link]
Bing AI Can’t Be Trusted by Dmitri Brereton (DKB Blog)
A series of examples showing how the not-ready-for-primetime AI chatbot rolled out by Microsoft this week, leading to an embarrassing failure. [Link]
Amazon Takes a 50% Cut of Seller’s Revenue by Jouzas Kaziukenas (Marketplace Pulse)
Transaction fees, fulfillment fees, and advertising and promotions can mean that third party Amazon sellers are surrendering more than 50% of revenue to the company amidst already-stiff competition and low margins. [Link]
Ballooning
Hobby Club’s Missing Balloon Feared Shot Down By USAF by Steve Trimble (Aviation Week)
The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade reports that the last time one of its balloons was observed was at 39k feet on February 10 near Alaska. The small hobbyist group is one likely benign source for the unidentified objects the Air Force has shot down in recent weeks. [Link]
The latest info on the aerial objects we shot down by Jeff Jackson (Substack)
Freshman Congressman Jackson offers some useful briefing information he received this week that goes part of the way to explain the litany of unidentified aerial phenomena in US skies. [Link]
Auto Industry
Tesla Workers Launch Union Campaign in New York by Josh Eidelson (Bloomberg)
A group of employees who work in data processing for Tesla notified management this week that they are seeking to unionize. The company’s Buffalo plant includes roughly 800 employees in that role. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]
Automobile Ads from 100 Years Ago (The Saturday Evening Post)
More than a dozen different auto manufacturers booked full page ads for their vehicles in the Saturday Evening Post from 100 years ago. Sedans and coupes dominate the offerings. [Link]
COVID
Immunity acquired from a Covid infection is as protective as vaccination against severe illness and death, study finds by Akshay Syal (NBC)
It shouldn’t be a huge surprise that exposure to an actual virus creates more immunity than vaccines (though COVID vaccines still offer great protection too). [Link; auto-playing video]
Debt Ceiling
This Is What Happens If the US Actually Hits the Debt Ceiling by Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal (Bloomberg)
Bespoke’s own George Pearkes discusses the financial market and economic implications of the debt ceiling, as well as a general framework for understanding its politics. [Link; paywall]
Transitions
Decarbonization: The long view, trends and transience, net zero (Nat Bullard)
Over 100 slides on the mechanics and dynamics of moving the world away from fossil fuels after centuries of dependence. [Link]
Turning offices into condos: New York after the pandemic by Joshua Chaffin (FT)
With booming demand to live in Manhattan and falling interest for offices inside the city, conversions of office towers into apartments is under way at scale. [Link; paywall]
Taxes
Get Paid Online? Here’s How to Tell if You Owe the IRS Taxes by Aslea Ebeling (WSJ)
Online payment platforms and gig economy sites will send millions of 1099-K forms this year as part of a growing trend of Schedule C filings. [Link; paywall]
Trauma
Teen girls ‘engulfed’ in violence and trauma, CDC finds by Donna St. George (WaPo)
A remarkable study from the CDC (link; 89 page PDF) has some downright dire data on the state of American teens who are facing horrifying rates of violence. [Link; paywall]
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Have a great weekend!
Feb 15, 2023
Searching for ways to better understand the fixed income space or looking for actionable ideas in this asset class? Bespoke’s Fixed Income Weekly provides an update on rates and credit every Wednesday. We start off with a fresh piece of analysis driven by what’s in the headlines or driving the market in a given week. We then provide charts of how US Treasury futures and rates are trading, before moving on to a summary of recent fixed income ETF performance, short-term interest rates including money market funds, and a trade idea. We summarize changes and recent developments for a variety of yield curves (UST, bund, Eurodollar, US breakeven inflation and Bespoke’s Global Yield Curve) before finishing with a review of recent UST yield curve changes, spread changes for major credit products and international bonds, and 1 year return profiles for a cross section of the fixed income world.
In this week’s report, we review the movement in short-term interest rates over the past year.
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Feb 12, 2023
Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
While you’re here, join Bespoke Premium with a 30-day trial!
Frauds
The Great Gatsby of Gold Took Their Millions—and Vanished by Emily Shugerman (The Daily Beast)
An investment manager who promised investors that he would shepherd their savings via physical precious metals certificates ended up absconding with millions in client assets. [Link]
Commodity Trader Trafigura Faces $577 Million Loss After Uncovering Nickel Fraud by Archie Hunter and Jack Farchy (Bloomberg)
One of the world’s largest metals traders may have bought bogus nickel by the hundreds of millions. The metal is a favorite for fraudsters because of relatively high value-weight ratios but less scrutiny and security than precious metals. [Link; soft paywall, auto-playing video]
‘Sam? Are you there?!’ The bizarre and brutal final hours of FTX by Joshua Olver (FT)
A detailed look at leadership of the crypto trading giant as its entire business model evaporated over the course of a couple days last fall, leading to frantic calls trying to borrow billions in order to meet client redemptions. [Link; paywall]
Platform Demise
Elon Musk fires a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count by Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton (Platformer)
When engineers tried to explain to the irate CEO of Twitter that people might be losing interest in his whole narrative (as opposed to his own tweets’ reach being suppressed by the company’s algorithm) one was fired. There are now only two principal engineers left at the company. [Link]
Tiktok’s enshittification by Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic)
As platforms grow, they stop optimizing for users and start optimizing for advertisers and other paying customers, creating negative feedback loops of bad experiences which eventually doom the audiences advertisers are trying to access. [Link]
Big Mistakes
‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’ by James Fallows (Breaking The News)
Some background on a harrowing incident at Austin’s airport which would likely have led to a disastrous mid-air collision if not for some quick thinking by a very attentive FedEx flight crew. [Link]
Your jailbroken ChatGPT might violate OpenAI’s safety guidelines when role-playing as ‘DAN’ by Clint Rainey (Fast Company)
OpenAI has built guardrails into its popular ChatGPT chatbot, but a set of instructions posted on Reddit appear to show how to get around the restraints that have been placed on the AI system by its creators. [Link]
Government Chaos
A single Republican holdout doomed the GOP’s ‘skinny budget’ on Monday by Jerod Macdonald-Evoy (AZ Mirror)
A single Republican state House legislator in Arizona is preventing the passage of a budget until the 2022 election can be re-done as she claims that the election was rigged. With a one vote majority, that means the state is faced with a difficult path to keeping government operating. [Link]
Moldova’s Pro-Western Government Collapses as Fallout From Ukraine War Worsens by James Hookway (WSJ)
The small neighbor to Ukraine, which has also been put under pressure by Russia, saw its pro-EU government resign this week after a brutal series of economic shocks related to the war in Ukraine. [Link; paywall]
Fungus
Fungal infections are becoming more common. Why isn’t there a vaccine? by Berkeley Lovelace Jr (CNBC)
While fungal infections are less of a threat than bacteria or viruses, a warmer planet is making them more common with some fungal infections untreatable. But no vaccine currently exists. [Link]
Texas
How the Crispy Dog Became San Antonio’s Signature Snack by José R. Ralat (Texas Monthly)
A cheese-stuffed dog fried in a tortilla shell is a famed snack for San Antonians, but the demise of small family restaurants that popularized the treat is making it harder to find in the city. [Link]
Investing
The Retreat of the Amateur Investors by Gunjan Banerji (WSJ)
First-time investors went from near-overnight millionaires thanks to free-to-trade apps and lots of leverage to working in delis after a year-long bear market that hit momentum and growth plays especially hard. [Link; paywall]
Real Estate
Boomer Dads Are Driving Real-Estate Agents Nuts by Adriane Quinlan (Curbed)
Millennials are relying on their parents for advice buying homes as well as funding, which has Boomer Dads more involved in real estate transactions than has historically been the case. Realtors, at least, are not fans of this arrangement. [Link]
Superbowl
Patrick Mahomes Is the NFL’s Half-Billion Dollar Quarterback. He’s Still a Bargain. by Andrew Beaton (WSJ)
While a half-billion dollar contract may sound impossible to live up to, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes has turned out to be worth much more than the Chiefs pay him. [Link; paywall]
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Have a great weekend!
