9. What are the Most Dangerous Jobs in the United States? From Zerohedge
Some of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. involve significant physical labor and working in hazardous environments, like loggers, roofers, and fishing and hunting workers.
Many of these jobs also are usually done in isolated areas, like logging and fishing, where access to emergency medical attention is limited.
10. The 5 Stages of the Creative Process -James Clear Blog
In 1940, an advertising executive named James Webb Young published a short guide titled, A Technique for Producing Ideas. In this guide, he made a simple, but profound statement about generating creative ideas.
Most important, the ability to generate new combinations hinges upon your ability to see the relationships between concepts. If you can form a new link between two old ideas, you have done something creative. Young believed this process of creative connection always occurred in five steps.
Gather new material. At first, you learn. During this stage you focus on 1) learning specific material directly related to your task and 2) learning general material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.
Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind. During this stage, you examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.
Step away from the problem. Next, you put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that excites you and energizes you.
Let your idea return to you. At some point, but only after you have stopped thinking about it, your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight and renewed energy.
Shape and develop your idea based on feedback. For any idea to succeed, you must release it out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.
1. VIX Volatility Index Third Largest Rise in History
VIX had its largest increase in history (to 65.73 from 23.39 on Friday) and reached its 3rd highest (crisis) reading in history. Only the Lehman and Covid Panics had higher (crisis) VIX readings. Several brokerage firms’ systems crashed. From King Report http://thekingreport.com/
2. VIX History
Dave Lutz Jones Trading Since 2000, the VIX has closed above 28.5 just 12% of the time. But when the VIX has been that high, the S&P 500 has produced an annualized return of greater than 40% (vs an annualized return of less than 1% when the VIX has been below 28.5) – Bloggers note.
3. 40% of World Population is on META Products Daily
META sideways pattern…+42% 2024
4. The AGG Bond Index +7.7% One Year vs. T-Bill 5.4%
The Aggregate Bond ETF ($AGG) is now up 7.7% in the past year, outperforming Treasury Bills ($BIL +5.4%).
Bonds non-correlated again…Returns since July 16th highs in stock market.
5. S&P Best Performing Stocks Since 7/16 High in Market
What is impressive is that in looking only at the S&P 500’s 20 best performing stocks since the 7/16 high, the two sectors with the largest representation are Health Care and Industrials. However, looking more closely, a number of those Industrial stocks are also in the Aerospace & Defense industry with stocks like Lockheed Martin (LMT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), and RTX (RTX) all posting double digit gains.
Watching the Paris Olympics has been a blast — we’ve had it on basically all day, every day at my house. But following Paris Olympics memes has been almost as much fun. There was the ultra-casual Turkish shooter (versus the badass Korean with action star vibes), the Italian gymnast sponsored by parmesan cheese, and just about everything Snoop Dogg does and says. But obviously, the number one meme of the Games so far has been Stephen Nedoroscik, a.k.a. Pommel Horse Guy. Unless you live under a rock, you don’t need me to tell you the story of the understated pommel horse specialist whose last-minute heroics helped the U.S. men’s gymnastics team take home bronze in the all-around event (and also earned him an individual bronze). I have nothing to add to the internet’s hilarious response to Nedoroscik’s Clark Kent-like performance, except to point out that it has a surprising lot in common with the career of Jeff Bezos.
Pommel Horse Guy and the power of specialization You’re probably thinking I have lost my mind. One guy is a mild-mannered electrical engineer who happens to be a world-class gymnast. The other is among the world’s richest men. They’re both kind of buff and nerdy, but beyond that, what’s the similarity? In a sentence, both are spectacular examples of the power of clear-eyed self-assessment followed by strategic specialization. This occurred to me when I was reading through reactions to the Olympics on social media (don’t judge me–I’m far from the only one wasting time this way) and came across a LinkedIn post celebrating Nedoroscik’s triumph from executive coach Stephen Courson. Like everyone else, Courson was impressed by Nedoroscik’s humility and self-possession. But he also highlighted Nedoroscik’s unique career trajectory in gymnastics. “His story is incredible and probably applies to more people on here than a Biles or Dressel story,” Courson insists. “Stephen didn’t progress in gymnastics like he wanted to, so he niched down into the one event he excelled at: the pommel horse. He started winning all sorts of competitions as an event specialist, and literally was put on the team because he scores so big on his ONE THING.” “How many of us need to specialize a bit more to get to the next level of our journey?” he asks.
The secret ingredient to success? Brutal self-assessment I’m not sure the answer to that question. Generalists have their strengths too. As star psychologist Adam Grant has noted, “We don’t need to debate whether it’s better to be a generalist or a specialist. The world needs both.” But what Courson’s post did underline for me is the importance of being brutally honest with yourself about where your talents lie and making smart choices about how to direct your efforts for maximum payoff based on those observations. That’s something Jeff Bezos famously did early in his life. The Amazon founder has spoken about how when he arrived at Princeton as a young man, he dreamed of being a physicist. “Halfway through, I figured out I wasn’t smart enough to be a physicist,” he admitted. A cold-eyed appraisal of his abilities led him to switch to business. We all know how that turned out. There’s even a mathematical way to express the value of the kind of insight that led to Bezos’s early career switch. Physicist Albert-László Barabási, a Northeastern University-based expert on network theory, examined the careers of scientists and came up with this formula for success: S = Qr.
Put that back into plain English, and what does it mean? Your level of success in life (or S) is the product of the value of what you choose to work on (that’s r) and what Barabási termed your Q-factor, basically your innate level of skill at that activity. Or, in other words, it’s only when the right person is working in the right area for them that amazing things happen. It couldn’t have been pleasant for Nedoroscik to face the fact that he just didn’t have the chops to be an all-around gymnastics champion, or for Bezos to concede his mind wasn’t built for quantum mechanics. But by redirecting their efforts to the kind of endeavors they did have real talent for, these realizations made both their later accomplishments possible. This column isn’t an argument for any particular path. Some people are meant to be specialists, others generalists; some excel at pommel horse, others at parallel bars. Some will solve the mysteries of particle physics, others will found trillion-dollar companies. There are as many ways to be successful as there are people on the planet. But what holds true for all of us is we’re more likely to reach our dreams if, like both Bezos and Pommel Horse Guy, we’re clear eyed about what we’re really good at and really enjoy, even if it seems initially less glamorous or flattering.
Dedicating yourself to what you’re suited to with humility and dedication might not guarantee you billions or an Olympic gold medal, but it is your best shot at true success.
4. VIX Volatility Index +135% in 5 Days..What Happens Next?
Nasdaq Dorsey Wright
5. Japan Lost All of 2024 Gains in 3 Days
6. Nikkei Japan Stock Market -25% from High….Approaching 200day
7. TLT 20-Year Treasury +5% in 5 Days
8. Who is Hoarding NVDA Chips? META
9. 60% of Today’s Workers are Employed in Occupations that Didn’t Exist in 1940
Torsten Slok, Ph.D. Apollo–Global Management Research by David Autor from MIT shows that 60% of today’s workers are employed in occupations that didn’t exist in 1940, see chart below.
This is important when discussing what impact AI may have on the labor market.
10. Leave the Crown in the Garage -Farnam Street
Reading-Indra Nooyi on leaving your crown in the garage:
“I drove home. It was about 10 p.m., and the wintery roads were peaceful and dark. In those fifteen minutes behind the wheel, I let myself enjoy my accomplishment. I had worked so hard, learned so much, and earned my place. I entered our house through the kitchen door and dropped my keys and bag on the counter. I was bursting with excitement—so eager to tell everyone. Then my mother appeared. “I have the most incredible news!” I exclaimed. “The news can wait,” she said. “I need you to go out and get milk.” “Why didn’t you ask Raj to go get the milk?” I asked. “It looks like he came home a while ago.” “He looked tired, so I didn’t want to disturb him,” she said. I picked up my keys, went back to the car, drove to the Stop & Shop a mile away, and bought a gallon of whole milk. When I walked into the kitchen again, I was hopping mad. I slammed the plastic bottle on the counter. “I’ve just become president of PepsiCo, and you couldn’t just stop and listen to my news,” I said, loudly. “You just wanted me to go get the milk!” “Listen to me,” my mother replied. “You may be the president or whatever of PepsiCo, but when you come home, you are a wife and a mother and a daughter. Nobody can take your place. “So you leave that crown in the garage.”
Still, my mother’s comment that night has stuck with me—just vague enough to interpret in myriad ways. First, I think she said something deeply important about how we combine work and family. She was right, of course, that no matter who we are or what we do, nobody can take our place in our families. I was enjoying big success, but the stability of our home meant I would be equally valued and important whether or not I had been named president of PepsiCo, she indicated
The “crown in the garage” comment also speaks to the broader relationship between power and humility. This is an incredible lesson for those who rise in their careers and end up in roles that give them real authority in the workplace and in society.”
— Source: My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future (Members can access my highlights here). https://fs.blog/
Important hills usually get much steeper at the top.
99% of the training in competitive athletics is devoted to the last 1% of performance. A tenth of a second.
The same is true for squeezing the last bit of performance out of a car, a grape or a semiconductor. And healthcare, luxury goods and science as well.
As soon as we declare it important and invite the world to compete, the problems become more difficult.
Our experience tells us that more input leads to more output, but in asymptotic conditions, where competition is seeking to go to the very end of the curve, this rule is often suspended. The entire point of the competition is how extreme the last few steps are.
The options are pretty clear:
focus on activities where you’re in the sweet spot of the curve, where more preparation, focus and effort lead to huge benefits. This means walking away from competitions against people who are committed to being unreasonable.
embrace the unreasonable and accept that your competitors will as well. While the unreasonable is thrilling, it’s difficult to build a sustainable career around it.
1. No Idea What Happens Going Forward but this is 29th 5% Correction Since 2009 Low
S&P 500 pullback. “The S&P 500 is down 5.6% from its peak on July 16, the 2nd pullback of the year. This is the 29th correction >5% off of a high since the March 2009 low. They all seemed like the end of the world at the time.”
Earnings season volatility. “If it’s felt like a volatile earnings season, that’s because it is. In fact, this has been the most volatile earnings season since the financial crisis.”
4. We’ve Talked About $6 Trillion in Money Markets…B of A Saying $18 Trillion in Cash
Spilled Coffee Blog If the consumer can handle any type of slowdown, this is the time. Take a look at the amount of cash US households have now compared to pre-COVID. $18 trillion vs. $13 trillion. That’s over 40% more cash now than in 2019.
Important hills usually get much steeper at the top.
99% of the training in competitive athletics is devoted to the last 1% of performance. A tenth of a second.
The same is true for squeezing the last bit of performance out of a car, a grape or a semiconductor. And healthcare, luxury goods and science as well.
As soon as we declare it important and invite the world to compete, the problems become more difficult.
Our experience tells us that more input leads to more output, but in asymptotic conditions, where competition is seeking to go to the very end of the curve, this rule is often suspended. The entire point of the competition is how extreme the last few steps are.
The options are pretty clear:
focus on activities where you’re in the sweet spot of the curve, where more preparation, focus and effort lead to huge benefits. This means walking away from competitions against people who are committed to being unreasonable.
embrace the unreasonable and accept that your competitors will as well.
While the unreasonable is thrilling, it’s difficult to build a sustainable career around it.
