“Entropy applies to every part of our lives. It is inescapable, and even if we try to ignore it, the result is a collapse of some sort. Understanding entropy leads to a radical change in the way we see the world. Ignorance of it is responsible for many of our biggest mistakes and failures. We cannot expect anything to stay the way we leave it. To maintain our health, relationships, careers, skills, knowledge, societies, and possessions requires never-ending effort and vigilance. Disorder is not a mistake; it is our default. Order is always artificial and temporary.”
The Daily Stoic Marcus Aurelius opens Meditations reflecting upon what he has learned from various influential individuals in his life. It’s titled “Debts and Lessons,” and the 17 entries spanning nine pages and more than 2,000 words make up nearly 10% of the entire book! Marcus writes with the humility of someone in the final act of their life taking stock of how lucky they are to be where they are.
It’s beautiful. And it totally dispenses with the notion of the “self-made man,” the idea that someone got somewhere all on their own. Marcus knew he was a product of so many mentors, influencers, advisors and teachers. Debt is the operative word in that title—he owed them so much.
But he didn’t do it on his own, Arnold told us. “I have been a creation of hundreds of people,” he said in our episode. “Thousands of people. I had Kurt Marnul, Mr. Austria, say to me when I was a scrawny 15-year-old kid, ‘You can become Mr Austria in a few years from now. Go to the gym with me, and I will show you how to exercise.’” For the next two minutes, Arnold went on talking about just of the people who helped him throughout his life. “It’s unbelievable the amount of people that helped me and pushed me,” he said.
Ultimately, each of us is the sum of our surroundings. We are products of our influences, our environments, our family and friends. Success is a collaborative effort. The myth of the self-made man is just that, a myth. Embrace the idea that we are all interconnected, and our achievements are a collective effort. We are, in the end, a reflection of the support and guidance we receive from the countless people who shape our lives.
1. A 5% February: What Worked and What Didn’t-Bespoke
The S&P 500 finished February with a gain of more than 5% for just the 11th time in the index’s history since 1928. Below is a look at prior 5%+ gains in February along with the S&P 500’s performance in March and for the remainder of each year. The last time we had a 5% February was 2015. That March, the S&P fell 1.74%, and the index fell 2.88% from the end of February through year-end. Let’s hope we don’t see that type of action for the remainder of 2024, although a repeat of 2015 would be a lot better than what investors experienced in 1931 when the S&P rallied 11.37% in February only to fall 54.96% for the rest of the year!
4. Wall Street Banks Now Lending to Private Equity Lenders
Semafor Blog Wall Street banks have lost out on billions of dollars in fees to private lenders. A few have figured out how to get some of that money back. As private lenders muscle in on banks’ bread-and-butter business of corporate lending, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and others have built sizable businesses lending to these upstart competitors, which are eager to juice their own returns with that favorite of Wall Street tools: leverage. This lending casts these two camps more as frenemies than existential rivals in a game that is “less zero-sum than it seems,” said Dee Dee Sklar, who ran this business at Wells Fargo until retiring in 2019. Liz Hoffman
Psychology Today Andy Lopata Edmondson challenges the perceived wisdom that all failure is, by its very nature, bad for us. She talks about “intelligent failure”, an outcome that results from experimentation. “An intelligent failure is an undesired outcome; it’s not the outcome we had hoped for, maybe even expected, but it takes place in new territory where we lacked available knowledge about how to get that result that we wanted.
“An intelligent failure happens in pursuit of a goal. We’re not just messing around with resources; it’s thoughtful. We’ve done our homework. “These are the kinds of failures that we really must train ourselves to welcome because they are the source of discovery.”
In The Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson talks about how failures in early attempts at open-heart surgery laid the pathway for the successes we have witnessed in this field ever since. She explains how we take for granted that “surgeons today can crack open the breastbone and operate on the heart of a living person and repair it and give you more years of life.
“And yet there was a point in history where no one had ever done that before. It was initially considered more or less impossible because you couldn’t operate on a beating heart.”
To get from that point to the daily miracles we witness in the current era, doctors had to fail and patients died. But the key, according to Edmondson, is that they never operated on a patient who had a better option. “If the choice was between operating and possibly making them better or not operating and they would still be OK, they wouldn’t operate.”
Intelligent failure is all about the failure being “no bigger than it has to be to get the new knowledge that it brings.” By only operating on patients who had no other alternatives and would have died without an attempt to save them, the risk of failure was mitigated.
Culture Blocks The challenge is that too few modern organisations operate within a culture that encourages intelligent failure. Short-term pressures can often make failure something to hide under a rock rather than shine a spotlight on to learn from and progress.
Edmondson argues that organisations need to think beyond short-term reporting and, if necessary, take a hit. After all, if everyone just focused on quarterly profits, nobody would ever take a risk or try something new at all. “I don’t think you have to be a visionary, but you have to be reasonably thoughtful. And you do need to get people on board with that.
It’s important to recognise longer-term thinking as a cost of being in business five years from now and making that a cost you are willing to pay.”
Perfectionism also, somewhat naturally, creates a barrier to learning from failure. Edmondson argues that “perfection equals disconnection”, explaining that leaders who strive for perfection may impose the same unrealistic standards on their team members, creating a culture of fear. “There’s no such thing as perfect”, Dr. Edmondson explains, “and so they end up blaming and shaming if they make a mistake.”
Rather than striving for perfection and creating a climate of fear, Edmondson wants to see leaders who are focused on developing trusted relationships across their team and encouraging honest and vulnerable conversations that lead to growth and innovation. “High-quality relationships, are ones where we’re willing to tell each other the truth and we can roll up our sleeves and get hard things done because we have that honesty, because we’re not posturing and we’re not putting on a show for each other. We’re authentically digging into the challenges on our mutual plates. “That’s how I think of high-quality relationships, not people who I know really well, but ones where I believe I can be truthful.”
Story by Shannon Osaka Washington Post If you try to imagine a “green” car, an EV is probably the first thing that comes to mind. A silent motor with tons of torque; no fumes, gasoline smells, or air pollution belching from an exhaust pipe. Last year, U.S. consumers had over 50 electric car models to choose from, up from about 30 the year before.
But a new report from the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy suggests that the “greenest” car in America may not be fully electric. The nonprofit group, which has rated the pollution from vehicles for decades, says the winning car this year is the Toyota Prius Prime, a plug-in hybrid that can go 48 miles on electricity before switching to hybrid.
“It’s the shape of the body, the technology within it, and the overall weight,” said Peter Huether, senior research associate for transportation at ACEEE. “And all different types of Priuses are very efficient.”
It’s not the first time that a plug-in vehicle has topped the GreenerCars list; the Prius Prime also won out in 2020 and 2022. But with more and more electric vehicles on the market, the staying power of the plug-in hybrid is surprising.
Robot people aren’t just for science fiction movies anymore.
XPrize Foundation founder Peter Diamandis predicts that millions or even billions of robots that look and move like people could integrate into consumers’ homes and workplaces, thanks to technological breakthroughs including artificial intelligence and a looming labor shortage. The market for these robots could hit $150 billion by 2035 and as much as $3 trillion by 2050, according to figures cited by Diamandis.
“It’s only now, driven by major advances in sensors and actuators, battery technologies and artificial intelligence, that a new generation of useful and affordable robotic labor is within reach,” Diamandis wrote in a recent blog post.
Recent advancements in generative AI, the technology that enables applications like ChatGPT, have taken the world by storm. Generative AI “magnifies a robot’s adaptability,” Diamandis wrote, by using “reinforcement learning” combined with decision-making algorithms. Plus, robots have the potential to instantaneously share learned skills with others in their network–something humans cannot do.
The market for these robots could be huge. In a 2022 report, Goldman Sachs predicted the market value of humanoid robots in a “blue sky scenario” could hit as much as $154 billion by 2035. Cathie Wood, founder and CEO of investment management firm Ark Invest, sets the bar even higher,at $1 trillion by 2030. Financial services company Macquarie, meanwhile, anticipates a whopping $3 trillion market for humanoid robots by 2050.
Diamandis extolled the utility of a humanoid robot laborer who “operates 24/7, who doesn’t need drug testing, and doesn’t call in sick from a fight with their boyfriend or girlfriend,” in a recent conversation with Inc.
Lidar, or light detection and ranging sensors, is the technology that gives sight to autonomous vehicles–and could do the same for humanoid robots. It works by rapidly firing a laser off of surrounding objects, and then using a sensor to measure the length of time it takes for the light to travel out and bounce back, according to the National Ecological Observatory Network. These measurements, used for mapping out surroundings, help robots navigate, according to San Jose, California-based lidar company Velodyne Lidar. The size and cost of lidar units have shrunk 1,000 times and 100 times, respectively, Diamandis writes, making the technology more accessible.
Driving the demand for humanoid robots is a looming labor shortage as Baby Boomers head into retirement with fewer young workers to replace them, Diamandis notes. This could be an advantage to workers as robots replace less desirable jobs in industries like manufacturing and agriculture. But more than industry is behind Macquarie’s massive market predictions. Wendy Pan, an analyst for Macquarie Research in Japan, sees humanoid robots as the next logical step in a long line of technological advances.
“The car helped shorten people’s commute time. I see the purpose as similar for humanoid robots: to shorten people’s time spent on housework, making people’s lives easier and more convenient,” writes Pan.
Diamandis isn’t alone in his sentiments. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Tesla CEO Elon Musk are among the big names bullish about humanoid robots.
Jefferies Zach Goldberg Seasonality…Carson noted, the S&P 500 is about to be up in November, December, January, and February. The full calendar year has never been lower when that happened before? Higher 14 out of 14 and up 21.2% on average.
4. Monthly Returns Election Years vs. Non-Election Years
Nasdaq Dorsey Wright
5. Investors Back in for Biotech
Dave Lutz Jones Trading BIOTECH BOOMING– WSJ says “Investors Flock Back to Biotech After a Long, Cold Spell” – The deep freeze in biotech is beginning to thaw. About half a dozen biotechnology companies have gone public since the start of 2024, with some raising hundreds of millions of dollars. The jump-start to the new year is a welcome sign for the industry after a challenging two years fueled by layoffs, scientific hurdles and rising interest rates, investors say. Fewer than 20 companies went public in both 2022 and 2023.
Biotechs have attracted more than $6 billion in follow-on financing since the start of the year through mid-February, which Jefferies analysts say is a record-setting pace—one that has already exceeded each quarterly amount recorded since the second quarter of 2021. “The healthy market is back,” said Jordan Saxe, head of healthcare listings at Nasdaq, “and it’s not just a fad.”
6. Biotech ETF Chart-Closes Above 200-Week Moving Average
XBI long-term weekly chart.
7. ZOOM Chart
I have not checked ZM in a long-time …Pop yesterday but sideways 18 months
8. Commodities Fall to Lowest Since 2021
9. Home prices hit a new all-time high in December, says Case-Shiller
Psychology TodayLoren Soeiro, Ph.D. ABPP To turn conflict into agreement, try reframing what you’re asking for.
KEY POINTS
Framing your criticisms and requests in negative ways is likely to cause arguments.
Defensive replies are often triggered by remarks framed toward the negative.
Instead, try asking for what you want and avoiding negative words like “don’t” or “didn’t.”
“I don’t like that outfit.” “Turn down that terrible music.” “You did not do this assignment well.” “I really hate it when you do that.” “This is the wrong road to take.”
If you’re like me, you won’t enjoy hearing any of the above remarks—from your partner, boss, or children. No one ever really wants to hear direct criticism, but difficult truths still need to be communicated. Mistakes happen; people close to you may take wrong turns, make unexpected clothing choices, and play music you don’t enjoy.
Life is full of unavoidable little conflicts that get on our nerves and chip away at our good moods. Usually, though, there is a way to speak up and address them without making things worse.
The most important thing to understand about criticism is that the offense it provokes generally doesn’t arise from the substance of what you’re saying but from how you’ve said it. Think about it: Aren’t most people reasonably able to understand that they’ve made a mistake or chosen an outfit that not everyone will appreciate? Remember what it felt like when you were a student, and your teacher explained that you’d made a mistake in your work but could easily be fixed—would that have been so difficult to hear?
The real issue, then, isn’t the content but the form. And the best way to think about the form of what you’re saying has to do with something quite black and white—or, to be specific, positive and negative. Each of the little criticisms I listed above (which I made up but drew from real-life examples patients have told me over the years.) is formulated in a particular way: toward the negative.
The first example, “I don’t like that outfit,” focuses on something the speaker doesn’t like. The second, “Turn down that terrible music,” goes out of its way to insult the music and demands that its volume be reduced. The third points out that an assignment has been done badly; the fourth uses a very strong word, “hate,” to come down on another person’s behavior. And the last, “This is the wrong road,” simply points out that the driver’s choice is wrong and bad.
If you’ve already noticed the similarities among these examples and the way they are all framed—toward things that are “wrong” or “hated” or “terrible” or “disliked”—perhaps you’ve also suspected what is wrong with this. Simply put, framing one’s remarks toward the negative is almost guaranteed to elicit a defensive response.
If you tell someone else you don’t like something, they’ll most likely shut you down by saying, “Well, I do,” and leaving it at that. If you say you don’t like what they’re wearing, their first impulse will probably be to contradict you and to say why they chose it. Essentially, you’ve just attacked them, and in doing so, you’ve provoked their psychological defenses. (You may also cause hurt feelings, but I’m choosing to center on defensiveness for our purposes.)
To say it another way: When you premise your remarks on criticism, the person you’re speaking to will feel a small burst of defiance inside, and the response you’re most likely to hear will be an expression of that defiance—and a negation of whatever you’ve said. You might hear, “This song is awesome,” or “I don’t care, I always go this way,” or even just “Deal with it.” And if your original remark hasn’t gone over well with them, their response probably won’t strike you in any kind of friendly way, either, and before you know it, you’ll be in a fight.
Now, take a step back, as you might have to do when in the middle of a tough conversation with a friend or partner. Reconsider the gist of what you’re trying to say. What are you really asking for—a change of some kind? Is there a way to reframe your statement to ask for that change without losing the essential meaning?
If you don’t like the music your friend is playing, your goal isn’t to get them to admit that they have terrible taste, but really only to change whatever’s playing to something else. If you don’t like the road your partner has chosen, you probably only want to get to your destination quickly rather than override their choices entirely.
So, is there a way to express these needs without turning them into criticism?
There is if you reframe your remarks away from the negative and toward the positive. You’re really saying the same thing—expressing your preferences in a way that differs but without triggering that defensiveness I mentioned earlier. To wit, “I like the other shirt a little better” is much less likely to cause a fight than “I don’t like that outfit.” You’re saying what you like rather than complaining about what you don’t.
Try the other examples, too:
“Turn down that terrible music” vs. “Can we put on something else for a while?”
“You did this assignment badly.” vs. “I think you might need to revisit this part.”
“I really hate it when you do that.” vs. “I really like it when you do this instead.”
“This is the wrong road to take.” vs. “I’ve always thought the other way was faster.”
In each case, you make the same points without making it personal. It’s a small thing, of course, but in many cases, it’s not as easy as it seems because criticisms can slip out before we notice what we’re saying. But taking a few moments to anticipate what we’re about to say can often save a lot of conflict, argument, or hurt feelings.
In this way, framing your comments toward the positive and doing your best not to provoke defensive reactions can make it much easier to get difficult points across.
1. Follow-Up to Yesterday’s #1-Looks Like Hedge Funds Pulling Back on Tech
Dave Lutz Jones Trading Figures showed that after piling into tech stocks in the weeks before Nvidia Corp.’s earnings, hedge funds are now cashing out and selling at the fastest pace in seven months. Professional managers offloaded their positions for four straight sessions last week, including Thursday, the day after Nvidia posted results, according to data from Goldman’s prime-brokerage unit. The intensity of the selling ranks in the 98th percentile of the past five years.
The data suggests traders are booking profits on their tech wagers after a six-week buying streak and putting that extra cash into less volatile stocks, such as consumer staples. Companies that make household products saw the most net buying in 10 weeks, according to Goldman’s prime brokerage
2. S&P Positive 15 Out of 17 Weeks
Jim Reid Deutsche Bank We are in rarefied air in terms of the relentless risk rally since the end of October. Today’s CoTD is adapted from my colleague Henry Allen’s latest Mapping Markets (link here) and shows that the S&P 500 has now been up for 15 out of the last 17 weeks. This is the first time since 1989 that’s happened, and before that you’d need to go back to 1972 for such a run. If we get yet another advance this week, it would be 16 out of 18 for the first time since 1971, the joint record in an 18-week run.
Interestingly, looking at all such 15/17 week runs, the median price performance in the next 13 and 26 weeks is +2.0% and +5.5%, respectively, which are both high relative to an annual price move of around 6% over the last 100 years. So there is no specific evidence, from history, of mean reversion once you see one of these runs.
8. Private Equity Funds Operating in Real Estate Sitting on $544B in Cash
Cash-Flush Buyers Dip into Distressed Commercial RE
Some data shows that global real estate funds operated by private-equity firms held $544B in cash at the end of 2Q 2023, up from $457B at the end of 2Q 2022.
NEW YORK – Regional banks and other lenders have grown concerned about the volatility in commercial real estate, but investors are poised to scoop up distressed properties with cash.
Preqin data show that global real estate funds operated by private-equity firms held $544 billion in cash at the end of 2023’s second quarter, up from $457 billion at the end of 2Q 2022.
The pressure is on for office building, hotel, and apartment building owners, as higher debt-service costs are hitting those with floating rate debt. For example, Harbor Group International spent more than $600 million over the last year on seven apartment building developments, two of which are in Palm Beach, Florida, but some of those apartment buildings were not filling up as quickly as expected.
Richard Litton, president of Harbor Group, said, “Given the pressure on regional banks, those extension options were not necessarily available to developers. Now, investors are ready to either buy the properties or offer owners rescue capital for preferred returns.”
MSCI Real Assets data found that by the end of 2023, commercial property distress totaled $85.8 billion, up from $56.9 billion at the end of 2022 and the highest level since the third quarter of 2013.
Distress is likely to continue, forcing owners to refinance, particularly the over $2.2 trillion in commercial mortgages scheduled to mature between 2024 and 2027, reports Trepp.
However, with the availability of capital from funds and other resources for distressed assets, the struggles of the commercial property market are not near the levels of the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Source: Wall Street Journal (02/12/24) Grant, Peter
Chinese automaker BYD this weekend unveiled a new electric supercar that can hit speeds similar to high-end models by industry giants like Ferrari.
The U9 will be released as part of BYD’s luxury brand Yangwang, which was introduced last year.
BYD is a key competitor for Tesla as competition in the global electrical vehicle market runs hot.
Chinese automaker BYD this weekend unveiled a new electric supercar that it says can hit speeds similar to high-end models produced by industry giants like Ferrari.
The U9 supercar will be part of BYD’s luxury brand Yangwang, which was only introduced last year and has launched two other vehicles.
According to BYD, the U9 will be able to reach a top speed of 309.19 kph, or 192.12 mph. It will also be able to accelerate to 100 kph within 2.36 seconds.
This is comparable to supercars produced by long-established brands like Ferrari, whose hybrid SF90 Stradale model can accelerate to 100 kph in 2.5 seconds, according to the company’s website.
Prices for the U9 will start from 1.68 million yuan ($233,424) and deliveries are due to begin this summer, BYD said in a press release.
Friends are the cornerstone of a fulfilling and happy life. But some friendships can veer into toxicity, leaving emotional scars that make us want to withdraw altogether.
As a psychologist and expert in human connection, belonging and friendship, I help people recognize the signs of toxic relationships. But as my fellow friendship expert Danielle Bayard-Jackson argues, the most toxic friends often use crafty and underhanded forms of aggression.
Here are eight phrases that will help you spot even subtle signs of a toxic friendship:
1. ‘You’re too sensitive.’
When friends say “you’re too sensitive,” they imply that your feelings aren’t valid and that there’s something wrong with you for having them.
But expressing your emotions is a healthy part of any friendship, and being told you’re too sensitive may indicate your friend lacks empathy.
2. ‘I was just joking. Can’t you take a joke?’
Good friends are responsive and try to meet your needs. When you tell a friend you’re hurt, responsiveness looks like them trying to understand why and adjusting their behavior.
In a toxic friendship, they may instead say things like “Can’t you take a joke?” as a defense to camouflage hurtful comments and avoid accountability.
3. ‘You’re lucky to have me as a friend.’
Healthy friendships are built on equality. You’re both invested and neither of you is viewed as better than the other.
If you constantly hear your friend asserting their superiority or suggesting you should be grateful for their presence, it may be a sign of an imbalanced relationship in which you’re not valued.
4. ‘I miss the old you.’
Friends should allow you to be who you are, whether or not it fits their personal values, and encourage you to change and grow.
If your friend expresses discomfort with positive changes or, worse, undermines your progress, it could be a sign that you’ve outgrown the friendship or that your friend doesn’t have your best interests in mind.
5. ‘You owe me.’
While reciprocity is important, if a friend expects you to repay everything they offer, it may mean they see the relationship as transactional.
As you get close to someone, you begin to include them in your sense of self, so what hurts them hurts you and what makes them happy makes you happy. That’s why good friends feel comfortable being generous.
6. ‘I wonder why they gave you that promotion.’
Having a friend who downplays your accomplishments or tries to one-up your success (e.g., “Well I just got a big raise”) undercuts your confidence and joy.
In healthy friendships, friends engage in something called “capitalization,” amplifying your joy by cheerfully exclaiming congratulations or taking you out to celebrate.
7. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’
True reconciliation requires each party to recognize the harm they caused. When a friend apologizes because you feel a certain way, they imply that the problem is your feelings rather than their behavior.
If expressing your concerns or setting boundaries is met with dismissive comments like this one, your friend isn’t taking accountability for their impact on you.
8. ‘…’ (as in nothing, they just ghost you)
Losing a friendship often triggers something called “disenfranchised grief,” an experience that occurs because society trivializes friendship and doesn’t legitimize the gravity of the loss. That grief is compounded when you don’t even know why a friend is pulling away.
Getting ghosted, one study found, makes you feel hurt and sad and lowers your self-esteem. Even if they want to end a friendship, friends should show regard for you by telling you explicitly.
Diagnosing and dealing with a toxic friendship
Of course, no single phrase alone can diagnose a friendship as toxic. So be sure to consider these phrases within the larger dynamics by asking yourself questions like:
Do they show up when I’m in need?
Do they want the best for me?
Is there a balance where each of our needs are met?
If you find these phrases reflect a larger toxic dynamic, it may be a sign to pull back, set boundaries, or have an honest conversation and move on.
