Jan 6, 2017
Each month, Bespoke runs a survey of 1,500 US consumers balanced to the demographic weights tracked by the US Census. In the survey, we cover everything you can think of regarding the economy, personal finances, and consumer spending habits. We’ve now been running the monthly survey for more than two years, so we have historical trend data that is extremely valuable, and it only gets more valuable as time passes. All of this data gets packaged into our monthly Bespoke Consumer Pulse Report, which is included as part of our Pulse subscription package that is available for either $39/month or $365/year. We highly recommend trying out the service, as it includes access to model portfolios and additional consumer reports as well. If you’re not yet a Pulse member, click here to start a 30-day free trial now!
Below are charts from our most recent survey (covering the month of December) regarding personal finances. We asked consumers to tell us how they feel about their personal financial situation today, versus last year and also versus the average person. As you can see, since the election, the US consumer is significantly more comfortable with their personal financial position now as well as compared to how they felt last year. You should keep this information handy for next time you hear a CEO or CFO of a struggling retailer tell how “challenging the retail environment” is. It may be challenging, but it’s definitely not because of the consumer!
Jan 1, 2017
Happy New Years and 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.
Hedge Funds
Hedge Fund Math: Heads We Win, Tails You Lose by James B. Stewart (NYT)
A look inside the math of big revenues despite underperformance for hedge funds. [Link; soft paywall]
Trump’s Treasury Pick Moves in Secretive Hedge Fund Circles by Matthew Goldstein and Alexandra Steveson (NYT)
We’re confused: is being a Goldman Sachs alum a plutocratic non-starter for a cabinet position, or is the right angle “Mnuchin wasn’t that famous as a Goldman Sachs guy, and probably not even as a hedge fund guy, so why is he there?” We’ll let you make the call. [Link; soft paywall]
Amazon
Amazon wins patent for a flying warehouse that will deploy drones to deliver parcels in minutes by Arjun Kharpal (CNBC)
Who knows whether this new patent will come to anything – the US Patent Office literally floats on a sea of ideas that never came to fruition – but the idea of flying warehouses is certainly attention-grabbing! [Link; auto-playing video]
Want an Amazon Echo for Christmas? Sorry, it’s sold out by Stan Schroeder (Mashable)
Both the Echo and its smaller Echo Dot sister device were in high demand this holiday season, as the speakers become one of the more successful hardware efforts the company has come up with. [Link]
Fun With Hardware
From Tape Drives to Memory Orbs, the Data Formats of Star Wars Suck (Spoilers) by Sarah Jeong (Motherboard)
A hilarious look at the plethora of storage devices used to move around plans for the Death Star. [Link]
Real Estate
House Flipping Makes a Comeback as Home Prices Rise by Kirsten Grind and Peter Rudegeair (WSJ)
While it hasn’t come close to the heights reached in the mid-2000s, rising home prices and demand for housing stock has made the buy, renovate, and move on popular – and profitable – again. [Link; paywall]
A Storm Brewing on the Apartment Horizon by Mark Hickey (CoStar Group)
While single family home demand is doing great things (see the story above!), apartments are starting to enter a period of structural low demand driven by demographics. [Link]
Economic Musings
Why historians would make bad policy advisers by Neville Morley (Aeon)
While history can often be a guide to current events – and has a funny habit of repeating – Dresser argues that the human element is far more important than the abstract “laws” of history. [Link]
The emptiness of life will save us from mass unemployment (Pseudoerasmus)
A succinct and digestible argument that despite fears of machine-driven mass unemployment, there will always be demand for human labor. [Link]
The “Lucky 13” States and the Challenges of Geographically Concentrated Growth by Adam Carstens (Medium)
Summarizing the combination of geography and demographics that are currently bestowing growth on a relatively small portion of US with major tailwinds, Carstens also offers some possible solutions for the headwinds facing the rest of the country. [Link]
Long Reads
Our Favorite Wired Longreads of the Year by Charley Locke (Wired)
VR, AI, streaming, memory, robot velociraptors, ISIS social media strategy, old observatories, lead water, teens on the internet, the end of movies, terrible first seasons, pun competitions, the President on tech, graphic design, and the Dallas Police Department: 15 long reads for the year that was. [Link]
The Manhattan Cocktail: A Complete Guide to Its Myths and Mixology by Troy Patterson (Bloomberg)
A long meandering stroll down the road of whiskey, vermouth, and bitters that combine into what is still, in our opinion, a very underrated cocktail. [Link]
A Bigger Problem Than ISIS? by Dexter Filkins (The New Yorker)
When you start using billions of cubic meters and millions of acre-feet to describe volumes of water, you know you’re operating on a pretty ridiculous scale. That’s the sort of threat that’s sitting behind an aging bank of concrete in northern Iraq. [Link]
Business In America
Big Growth in Tiny Businesses by Jeffrey Sparshott (WSJ)
The ranks of manufacturers with no employees have swollen by 17% over the last decade, driven by surging demand for “craft” and “quaint” products that command a premium. [Link; paywall]
Democracy
The Toughest Death of 2016: the Democratic Norms That (Used to) Guide Our Political System by Seth Masket (Pacific Standard)
In the long run, the only real problem with 2016 might have been the damage done to norms that have served our republic well for the past two centuries. [Link]
Jul 17, 2016
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.
Labor Market
Big Businesses’ Latest Power Play: Raising Wages by Conor Sen (Bloomberg View)
During the 1990s-2000s, big business leveraged economies of scale to squeeze Main Street via lower costs and price competition. Now, that advantage may be the ability to pay higher wages. [Link]
Labor Pain And Labor Gain by George Casey (Builder Online)
The United States shed literally millions of homebuilding-related jobs in the aftermath of the last housing crash. Now, there’s a pronounced shortage of skilled trades that makes delivering new homes to market at a reasonable cost a major challenge. [Link]
Virtual Reality Versus Reality Itself
Pokémon Go Brings Real Money to Random Bars and Pizzerias by Polly Mosendz and Luke Kawa (Bloomberg)
Pokémon Go is the latest video game craze, and it’s having some impressive real world impacts that might open up new avenues for commerce. [Link, auto-playing video]
Virtual reality and Netflix: The future of in-flight entertainment is coming by Arjun Kharpal (CNBC)
The future of your flight across the Atlantic or the country is likely to be dominated by virtual reality headsets and streaming content; not all that different from the rest of the entertainment world! [Link, auto-playing video]
Business Model Changes
Mall Owners Push Out Department Stores by Suzanne Kapner (WSJ)
Many have wondered what the rise of Amazon and death of retail might mean for landlords (we’ve certainly pondered that question at length) but some malls are already pushing out retailers in favor of new anchor tenants that lean towards services. [Link, paywall]
ESPN reportedly planning to offer streaming package to cord cutters by Chris Welch (The Verge)
As total cable subscriptions come under pressure from fewer subscriptions sold to young people, the ultimate “bundle” member considers alternatives. [Link]
Live Streaming Breaks Through, and Cable News Has Much to Fear by Farhad Manjoo (NYT)
As news of the attempted coup in Turkey broke Friday night, our preferred sources of information were Twitter and Facebook live streaming video. While this article predates that particular news event, it discusses the same shift in consumption away from CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV that the above anecdote implies. [Link, soft paywall]
As Online Video Surges, Publishers Turn to Automation by John Herrman (NYT)
Similarly to cable news, online publishers are facing pressures from the explosion in video which dominates attention and traffic numbers. [Link, soft paywall]
Central Banking
The Fed’s FX swap facilities have been quite….to quiet? by Alexandra Scaggs (FT Alphaville)
Despite widespread fear around Brexit, there’s been very little activity on the facility the Fed uses to lend dollars to foreign central banks for re-lending to institutions in their jurisdictions. [Link, registration required]
UPDATE 3-ECB threatens legal action against Slovenia after police raid by Marja Novak and Balazs Koranyi (Reuters)
In a strange turn of events, Slovenian police broke into the country’s central bank to seize documents and computers in a possible violation of the ECB’s broad legal immunity. [Link]
How Have High Reserves and New Policy Tools Reshaped the Fed Funds Market? by Gara Afonso and Sam Stern (NY Fed Liberty Street Economics)
A series of new Fed tools and other non-policy factors have made the Fed Funds market, which the FOMC uses to manage US interest rates via a variety of monetary policy tools, much smaller, more thinly traded, and in all respects less relevant to the overall financial system. [Link]
The Business Of Finance
Reduced Viability? Banks, Insurance Companies, and Low Interest Rates by David Schawel (CFA Institute Enterprising Investor)
A thoughtful overview of what the low interest rates and an FOMC hesitant to move them up quickly means for investors in financial businesses from the New River Investments portfolio manager. [Link]
Some international trends in the regulation of mortgage markets: Implications for Spain (BBVA Working Papers)
While the focus of this white paper is the Spanish mortgage market, it provides a helpful overview of mortgage and housing markets for a variety of countries that is a helpful reference for investors and economic observers. [Link, 31 page PDF]
London Metal Exchange faces broker revolt over fee rise by Henry Sanderson and Neil Hume (FT)
The venerable LME is trying to ramp up revenues and drive volumes to standardized products but the result may be a flight from the historically important pricing venue. [Link, soft paywall]
Eurozone Economics
Placing Ireland’s economic “recovery” in context by Matt Klein (FT Alphaville)
Ireland’s small economy and status as an international tax haven make traditional measures of its economy’s size largely unreliable, as Klein shows in this excellent post. [Link, registration required]
Can Europe Declare Fiscal Victory and Go Home? by Brad Stetser (Council on Foreign Relations Follow The Money)
An overview of fiscal policy in the Eurozone, which is constrained in aggregate by limitations on specific members of the currency bloc and an unwillingness to ramp up budget deficits from others. [Link]
Personal Geopolitics
Turkey flies the Coup by Emad Mostaque (Governments and Markets)
An informed overview of what the attempted coup in Turkey Friday night means for one of the largest EM economies, from one of our favorite commentators in the space. [Link]
The Shadow Doctors by Ben Taub (The New Yorker)
An intense, personal, fascinating, and horrifying story of the doctors at work amidst the chaos of the Syrian civil war, with special attention paid to the innovation and technological tactics they and their instructors in the West use to save lives. There’s also a heartwarming anecdote regarding Queen Elizabeth and her corgis, which long-time readers familiar with our appreciation for canines will enjoy. Warning: this story contains graphic descriptions of violent injuries and the treatments applied to save the lives of those hurt. [Link]
Strange But True
Banker Sitting in U.S. Prison Has a Most Incredible Tale to Tell by Christie Smythe (Bloomberg)
A former Wall Street trader in prison for insider trading in Alabama purports to shed light on the wiold world of Central Asian organized crime. [Link]
The Fake Factory The Pumped Out Real Money by Mario Parker, Jennifer Dlouhy, & Bryan Gruley (Bloomberg)
Faked production of biodiesel that led to cash subsidies from the US government is the focus of this fascinating read on an imaginary factory. [Link]
Investing
35-Year-Old Bond Bull Is on Its Last Legs by James Mackintosh (WSJ)
Unless you think interest rates can go deep into negative territory (to levels that would make it cheaper to store physical cash than own an interest-bearing asset; we think this is unlikely to occur anywhere around the world) there’s a feasible limit to how much further bond prices can rise. [Link, paywall]
Why I Like This Market by Andy Harless (Medium)
A brief overview of where the stock market currently sits on a relative and behavioral basis. [Link]
Ridesharing
Vancouver Is Silicon Valley North. So Why Doesn’t It Have Uber? by Gerrit De Vynck (Bloomberg)
The regulatory tale of Uber’s failure to impress the powers that be in Canada’s third-largest city. [Link]
War of Words
Bill Ackman Says This Eccentric Short Seller Is ‘Certifiably Crazy’ by Tom Redmond, Adam Haigh, and Bei Hu (Bloomberg)
One of the more colorful Twitter accounts out there belongs to Australian investor John Hempton, who has proven to be a constant thorn in the side of acclaimed (and reeling) investor Bill Ackman. [Link]
Legal Questions
Are Police Allowed to Robot-Bomb Suspects? by Steven Nelson (U.S. News and World Reports)
Police used a robot with an explosive device to neutralize the killer in Dallas who targeted officers during a peaceful demonstration. That brings up complicated questions about the role machines should play in situations that could end with the death of a suspect; these are related to but distinct from ongoing questions about US drone policies overseas. [Link]
Jul 3, 2016
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.
After Brexit
UK existential moment: thinking about the economy, sovereignty and Article 50 by George Magnus
An excellent overview of Brexit’s economic impact and the overall damage done to the UK’s position following the last week or so of events. [Link]
Economic implications of Brexit by Ben S. Bernanke (Brookings)
Another excellent view on what Brexit means for the UK and the rest of the global economy following the vote and subsequent political mess, this time by the thoughtful former Fed Chair. [Link]
Don’t Panic, it’s just like EU 2012. by Polemic Paine (Polemics Pains)
A breath of relaxation over the tumultuous week’s long-term implications from pseudonymous blogger and market old-hand Polemic. [Link]
UK Politics
Here’s How The Internet Reacted To The Most Ridiculous Morning British Politics Has Ever Seen by Alan White (Buzzfeed)
The last day of June was probably the peak – though almost certainly not the end – of post-Brexit shakeouts in the political establishment of the UK. This guide provides a helpful overview for all the zany goings-on. [Link]
Geopolitics
Russia is harassing U.S. diplomats all over Europe by Josh Rogin (WaPo)
Suspected Russian agents have done all sorts of strange things to US diplomats recently, with some incidents quite serious despite their strange headlines, including an unfortunate incident involving a carpet. [Link, soft paywall]
So you want to secede from the U.S.: A four-step guide by Phillip Bump (WaPo)
Amusing discussion of the secession process for US states, which doesn’t exist. Our favorite quote: “Asking the U.S. if you can secede from it is a bit like asking your iPhone if you can use it as an iron lung. It’s not built to do that, and also: No.” [Link]
China
Exclusive: China to tolerate weaker yuan, wary of trade partners’ reaction – sources by Kevin Yao, Nathaniel Taplin, and Lu Jianxin (Reuters)
Sources close to the PBoC are suggesting that a further rise in USDCNY would be tolerated by authorities, so long as the depreciation remained controlled. This would likely follow the pattern we’ve seen over the last quarter or so: rallies in the broad dollar lead to declines in USDCNY, while selloffs keep USDCNY stable, pushing the CFETS index of yuan strength lower over time. [Link]
Writing China: The Compromise of China’s Millennials by Te-Ping Chen (WSJ)
One-third of China’s population are Millennials, and the group is often misunderstood – a condition which seems to be true in quite literally every country. This interview with Alec Ash, author of “Wish Lantern: Young Lives In New China” offers some interesting insights. [Link, paywall]
Ex-Lehman Trader Loads Up on Bad Chinese Debt (Bloomberg)
Bad loans are a way of life within the Chinese financial system and squeezing what value can be had from them requires a special approach (as it does anywhere else). The results are, for now, big returns. [Link]
Wealth Distribution
Not Just the 1%: The Upper Middle Class Is Larger and Richer Than Ever by Josh Zumbrun (WSJ Real Time Economics)
While much attention goes to the share of income that is taken in by the richest 1% of Americans, there’s been less attention paid to the fact that millions of people have transitioned up out of lower incomes and into the booming ranks of the upper middle class. [Link]
Capital Accumulation, Production and Employment: Can We Bend the Arc of Global Capital Toward Justice? by Richard C. Koo (WEA Conference Papers)
Koo’s work has broadly focused on the concept of the balance sheet recession, but this stab attempts to get a handle on the distribution of wealth and its importance for the global economy. [Link, 92 pg PDF]
Language
The World’s Most Efficient Languages by John McWorther (The Atlantic)
A lovely overview of linguistics and efficiency, featuring phrases like “sǝq’ayǝƛaaɣwǝaɣhaś” and “Ayam makan”. [Link]
Climate
Why the sun going blank means a ‘Game of Thrones’-like winter is coming (New York Post)
Solar activity is an often under-appreciated driver of terrestrial climate conditions, and the current lack of sunspots suggests that the sun is going to provide a lot less warmth in coming winters. [Link]
Crime
Welcome to Miami, the WORST city in America: Study claims Florida’s party hotspot has worse crime, income, and poverty levels than anywhere else in the US (Daily Mail)
Extreme inequality, wide-spread poverty, and high crime rates are key driver’s of Miami’s claim to the “worst” (an admittedly subjective) term city in America. [Link]
The Longform Guide To Manhunts (Longform)
This excellent collection of long reads about searches for the baddies will keep you busy for quite a while. [Link]
Investing
Millennials Are Pretty Cocky About Their Investing Skills by Ben Steverman
We’re shocked, just shocked to learn that young people in general are confident in their ability to do well in markets. [Link]
NYC
How 6 Bodega Owners Make An Honest Living In NYC by Steffanee Wang and Amos Barshad (The Fader)
Bodega culture is a uniquely New York phenomenon: the little shops stocking staple household goods and limited food selections along with a deli counter and tobacco or lottery ticket sales are an institution across most of the Five Burroughs. They’re also a way upwards in society for many recent immigrants. [Link]
Birth Rates
Japan and its birth rate: the beginning of the end or just a new beginning? by Olga Garnova (Japan Times)
While much is made of falling headline birth rates in Japan, the aging population is by far the largest driver; the elderly are never going to start having more children. However, there’s good reason to suspect that Japan is in the midst of a new mini-boom in fertility rates for younger women. [Link]
Modern Medicine
Chili Peppers Could Free Us From Opioids by Cynthia Koons (Bloomberg)
A new series of drugs that target pain directly instead of washing over it with chemical scrubbing as opiods do could lead to a revolution in how we treat pain. [Link]
Replacing Drivers and Workers
How Amazon Triggered a Robot Arms Race by Kim Bhasin and Patrick Clark (Bloomberg)
The story behind the 30,000 robots that Amazon and its founder Jeff Bezos employ to maximize warehouse efficiency around the world. [Link]
The End of Traffic: How the Smartest People in the World Are Fixing Your Commute by Sam Grobart (Bloomberg)
The effort to end gridlock, in video form. [Link, auto-playing video]
The First Fatal Crash In A Self-Driving Car Has Happened; NHTSA Investigating Tesla by Raphael Orlove (Jalopnik)
An unlikely series of events led to the death of driver using Tesla’s Autopilot mode in Florida during the month of May. Here’s what happened. [Link]
Apr 24, 2016
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.
Real Estate
Why the Great Divide Is Growing Between Affordable and Expensive U.S. Cities (WSJ Real Time Economics)
Zoning regulations and available land are two of the key drivers that decided whether a city remains affordable and grows or gets expensive and doesn’t. [Link]
Developers Are Turning Rust Belt Hulks Into Luxury Hotels by Patrick Clark (Bloomberg)
Rust-belt architecture is being converted by hoteliers into youth-friendly attractions. [Link]
Amusements
A Congress of Robert Reichs by Rob Reich (Medium)
Put this in the “LOL” file, with little intellectual content. However, any time there are three notable people all with the same name at a single event, people tend to notice. [Link]
Celebrating 25 years: FRED birthday fun facts (The FRED Blog)
We use the Federal Reserve Economic Data service (FRED) daily to retrieve information about financial markets and the US economy, so we were thrilled to see the service note that it’s been around for 25 whole years with a list of “fun facts”. [Link]
Tech Origin Stories
The Real Story of How Amazon Built the Echo by Joshua Brustein (Bloomberg)
The inside story on one of the most unusually loved tech devices to be released in recent years. [Link]
The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup by Kevin Kelly (Wired)
Another development story, this time taking place in unlikely Southern Florida. Magic Leap is a start-up focused on creating lenses which can augment reality and be used to turn every situation into a way to interact with machines in a new and innovative way. [Link]
I Have No Idea What This Startup Does and Nobody Will Tell Me by Sam Biddle (Gawker)
Helena appears to be some kind of foundation…or is it a company? Are the celebrities and high-profile “influencers” it claims really associated with it? Read on, this was a fascinating story. [Link]
Millennial Demographics
Shut Up About Harvard by Ben Casselman (538)
Most US students do not go to hyper-competitive undergraduate schools. While the media focuses on a narrative that obsesses over admittance rates at a few elite colleges, less than 4% of US undergrads attend schools that accept 25% or fewer of their applicants. [Link]
Americans are becoming more socially liberal — except when it comes to divorce by Catherine Rampell (Washington Post)
In an era when only men were socially permitted to earn income outside the home and retirement income was most likely to come from children, marriage was probably best described as a mutual investment. Now, it’s probably best described as consumption. [Link]
The Average 29-Year-Old by Derek Thompson (The Atlantic)
We love this piece, which knocks down a series of absurd assumptions made by the media and the culture at large about who Millennials are. [Link]
Office Perks Are Dumb by Rebecca Greenfield (Bloomberg)
Are free beer, snacks, and ping pong a way to attract the best workers or just a strategy to pay them much less? [Link]
Emerging Markets
Mr. Erdogan Will See You Now: Welcome to Banking’s Toughest Job by Onur Ant (Bloomberg)
The Central Bank of Turkey governor has gotten increasingly creative trying to keep the currency and rest of the macroeconomic landscape stable. So of course he has been fired. [Link]
Goldman Sachs: Firming Fundamentals for Emerging Markets Will Prove Fleeting by Luke Kawa (Bloomberg)
Emerging markets equities have had a fantastic run, but Goldman Sachs’ research suggest a short-term bounce has been driven by macro factors. [Link]
Big Profiles
The $2 Trillion Project to Get Saudi Arabia’s Economy Off Oil by Peter Waldman (Bloomberg)
A fantastic interview covering the man responsible for a historic economic and social shift, one of the largest in the world. [Link]
The Secret History of Tiger Woods by Wright Thompson (ESPN)
Deep inside the rise and fall of Tiger’s game and the unique twists and turns he has experienced in the rise to greatness and commensurate fall. [Link]
Big Ideas
Musk’s Secret Plan to Curb City Traffic With Self-Driving ‘Bus’ by Marie Mawad (Bloomberg)
After dreaming up the Hyperloop and continuing to roll out electric cars at present, the Tesla founder isn’t satisfied. We can’t say we’re surprised. [Link]
Can Sean Parker Hack Cancer? by Clifton Leaf (Fortune)
The Napster founder and early VC for Facebook is trying to fund and organize a revolutionary effortto reduce death from cancer. [Link; autoplays video]
Turning Cycles
On the Road to Recap: Why The Unicorn Financing Market Just Became Dangerous…For All Involved by Bill Gurley (Above the Crowd)
A summary of the general conditions and general outlook in tech VC at the moment. [Link]
This Short Seller Has Raised $100 Million to Bet Against a Single Stock (Reuters for Fortune)
Kerrisdale Capital, a small hedge fund based out of New York, is short $100mm worth of a single stock. We can’t blame him for being secretive about it. [Link]
More
A Wine Mogul Says Fidelity Cheated Him Out of Millions by Neil Weinberg (Bloomberg)
Conflicts of interest, Chinese companies, and 9 figure law suits abound in this tick-tock covering the painful blow up between Fidelity and Peter Deutsch. [Link]
Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It? By David Ingold and Spencer Soper (Bloomberg)
Rapid delivery via Amazon Prime Now is widely available in American cities…but often not in areas that have mostly minority residents. [Link]
Start a 14-day no obligation free trial to sample Bespoke’s premium research. Our Bespoke Report newsletter sent to paid members every Friday is a great read if you’re looking for additional weekend reading.
