1.Facebook Closes Below 200 Day Moving Average.

FB below 200 day and 50 day rolling over ….-19% from highs

www.stockcharts.com

2.Follow Up to my Coal Charts Earlier in the Week……Coal Inventory at 25 Year Low.

Dave Lutz Jones Trading–Coal stockpiles at U.S. power plants plunged to the lowest in at least 24 years as electricity generators burn the fuel faster than miners can dig it out of the ground. – Inventories fell to 84.3 million tons in August. That’s the lowest in records going back to 1997, when Bill Clinton was beginning his second term as U.S. president.

3.Two-Year Yield Rise…Bond Traders Betting FED will Raise Rates.

@lisaabramowicz1

4.October Volatility Drop…..VIX -30% in October to 52 Week Low

5.Microsoft (MSFT) Closes in on Apple (AAPL) as World’s Largest

With a gain of more than 4% today in reaction to earnings, Microsoft (MSFT) is suddenly challenging Apple (AAPL) for the title of world’s largest company. Coming into today, Apple had a market cap of $2.468 trillion versus Microsoft’s market cap of $2.328 trillion. That spread of $140 billion has shrunk all the way down to just $27 billion after Microsoft’s gain of $117 billion in market cap today alone.

As shown below, Microsoft (MSFT) had a market cap of $615 billion versus Apple’s (AAPL) market cap of just $15.9 billion back in late December 1999 near the peak of the Dot Com Bubble. From there, Apple began to gain ground with its iPod and iPhone releases in the early and mid-aughts. On May 26th, 2010, Apple’s market cap finally crossed above that of Microsoft and didn’t look back for quite some time. Remember, before shifting focus on the cloud, Microsoft’s business was struggling mightily. The company’s market cap essentially went sideways for 15 years before exploding higher again in the second half of the 2010s as Office 365 took hold.

While MSFT was actually bigger than AAPL at various points between 2018 and 2020, Apple’s widest market cap margin versus Microsoft actually came in January of this year when Apple was at $2.4 trillion versus MSFT at $1.74 trillion. Since that peak on January 25th, though, MSFT has been rapidly gaining ground. It will only take another small move higher on a relative basis for MSFT to eclipse AAPL’s market cap at this point. AAPL reports earnings on Thursday, so how the stock responds to that report will have a big impact on how this relationship stands heading into the month of November.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/msft-vs-aapl

6.Central Banks Are Getting Serious About Digital Money

By Carolynn Look

The rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has prompted a major push among central banks to develop their own digital currencies. This week, Nigeria’s central bank joined those of the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean region in launching the world’s first digital versions of cash. China is likely to be among the countries to follow next as it prepares a digital yuan trial in time for the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.

Follow @crypto Twitter for the latest news.

Found at Crossing Wall Street https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-26/central-banks-are-getting-serious-about-digital-money-map?sref=GGda9y2L

7.Inflation Sensitive Names Outperforming.

The stock market is also betting on higher inflation. The Horizon Kinetics Inflation Beneficiaries ETF has been outperforming.

www.etf.com

8.Tesla Becomes Lowest-Revenue Company to Hit $1 Trillion Market Value

Vehicles at a Tesla dealership in Vallejo, Calif. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News)

[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]

Tesla Inc. has joined the trillion-dollar-valuation club as the member with the lowest revenue.

The electric vehicle maker’s shares have run past several milestones over the past couple of weeks amid a rush of positive news. That helped bolster sentiment among investors, who are betting on Tesla’s potential for rapid future growth as EVs become mainstream and eventually replace gas-driven cars. Their focus means Tesla’s market valuation touched a trillion dollars even before its revenue could reach the $50 billion mark.

See more transportation stock listings

This unique feat came as car-rental company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. placed an order for 100,000 Tesla cars, a move that signals EVs are here to stay and gives bulls confidence that Tesla’s sky-high valuation is sustainable, too.

“Wall Street is starting to believe the skyrocketing move with Tesla’s stock price is nowhere near over since Tesla has a massive lead in the EV space and improving growth potential as the U.S., European and Asian markets for electric cars grows,” Oanda analyst Edward Moya wrote in a note Oct. 25.

— With assistance from Thyagaraju Adinarayan.

Want more news? Listen to today’s daily briefing below or go here for more info:

https://www.ttnews.com/articles/tesla-becomes-lowest-revenue-company-hit-1-trillion-market-value

9.News Sites Lower Traffic 2021

Big tech might be thriving, but news websites are having a slightly more modest year.

Data from SimilarWeb, via Press Gazette, reveals that the majority of English-speaking news websites have seen their web traffic fall in September, relative to this time last year, continuing a trend seen in recent months for some of the biggest publishers.

The “Trump Bump” was a well-documented boost in ratings for a number of news sites, that now seems to be somewhat reversing, with sites from both sides of the political spectrum struggling for traffic (particularly in a non-election year). Washington Post’s traffic fell 24% year-on-year in September. Fox News saw a 22% decline. The New York Times, Daily Mail, Buzzfeed and Business Insider are all down double-digits.

chartr.co must have just slipped off the rankings somehow.

10. 50 Things I Know at 50: Reflections on a Half-Century of Life

By Matt Crossman

I’m turning 50 this month. As in 50 years old. As in I have finished five decades and am starting my sixth. It’s just like every other birthday except it’s halfway to 100, so it’s not like any other birthday. At all.

I thought by now I would be a) creakier b) balder c) grayer and most of all d) smarter. I thought for sure I would know what life was about at this age, but ha, no, I have only marginally more of a clue now than I did 20 years ago. Young people, don’t tell anybody I said this, but all us geezers are winging it nearly as much as you are.

My parents, teachers, professors, mentors, bosses—all the “old” people I looked up to because I thought they had life figured out—had me completely snowed. I believed they knew what they were doing, why they were doing it, what they were talking about. I thought with age came wisdom.

Nope… unless you think these 50 lessons from a 50-year-old contain wisdom.

1. Everyone wants to know if 50 feels different. Physically, no. Mentally, yes, not least because everybody and their brother keeps asking me. This is a big number, so of course I’m thinking big thoughts. What have I done with my life so far is healthy only as long as it turns into, what can I do with the rest of my life.
2. I struggle with regret. I know it’s a waste of time to look back and wish I had/had not done this or that, but sometimes I can’t help it. On my better days, I try instead to pre-engineer a lack of regret. I try to imagine future me. What kind of life does he want to look back on? That’s the kind of life I want to lead. Twenty-year-old me did nothing intentionally to create 30-year-old me. Thirty-year-old me did marginally better, and 40-year-old me did better still. Forty-five-year-old me started to figure it out, and now 50-year-old me is going to try to fill 60-, 70-, 80-, 90-, 100-year-old me with joy, wisdom, strength and perseverance. I’m trying to create a me in the future who will look back at the me of now and say, “Thanks, brother. I’m worn out, but it was worth it. Thanks for occasionally having pie for breakfast, especially.”
3. I know more now than I used to, but I am also more aware of how much I don’t know. The more questions I ask, the more I realize there are even more questions to ask that I don’t even know of yet. When I think about it that way, I come to the incongruent conclusion that my knowledge related to available knowledge is actually decreasing and will continue doing so forever.
4. Related: I am never as right as I think I am.
5. This is not to say I’m regressing. I suppose because of experience I won’t stick my honey-covered face into a nest full of murder hornets again. That’s not so much progress as it is stopping screwing up, and thank heaven for small victories. But I also know there’s always a chance my face will be covered with the equivalent of honey while I stick it into a metaphorical nest full of murder hornets and I’ll be whatever that version of stung is 100 times before I even know I’m in there.
6. Life would be boring if it was easy.
7. When I die and give my body back to God, I want Him to say, what did you do to this thing?
8. I want to bring to Him a soul full to overflowing because of the relationships and experiences I have had. I want joy to be spilling over the side of my soul bucket like ice cream melting over the side of a cone.
9. There are a million things I wish I knew when I was younger. Maybe No. 1 is that pursuing hard things brings joy. No. 26: Shrimp and grits should be eaten as frequently as possible.
10. If you tell me you’re not ready for Hard Thing X I say do it anyway because if you wait until you’re ready you’ll never do it.
11. I spent far too much of my life chasing easy and avoiding hard. No more.
12. This I know to be true: Enduring one trial gives me more strength and perseverance when the next one arises.
13. Please don’t interpret this as an unhealthy obsession with never quitting. It’s not that. It’s about enduring. There’s a difference. “Never quit” as an unyielding life motto is unsustainable.
14. I wrestle with my ambition because it can be dangerous. If I slavishly follow my heart, it will take me places I’ll regret. But I can say this: my midlife crisis is ambitious as can be. I want to be a better and nicer version of me. That’s a never-ending cycle, too, but it’s not vicious.
15. I don’t want better and/or nicer things. They’ll break, or get worn out, or my neighbor will get something even better or nicer and I’ll long for that instead. That’s a never-ending and vicious cycle.
16. I love my friend Andy for many reasons. Among them is the fact he doesn’t think like I do. Twice on the morning of long hikes we took together, we went out to breakfast before hitting the trail, and he ordered pie. PIE FOR BREAKFAST. I was jealous both times.
17. Next time we go out to breakfast before a hike, I’m ordering pie.
18. It’s going to be chocolate, because if I’m going to eat pie for breakfast I need to love it.
19. Corollary: Cherry pie for breakfast would completely miss the point of having pie for breakfast. (Don’t @ me, I just don’t like cherry pie.)
20. Drive to a state you’ve never been to, find a small-town diner and tell the server, “bring me the most (name of state) item on your menu.” Eat it no matter what it is.
21. Better yet, do that in a country you’ve never been to.
22. Anyone who tells you age is just a number is either young, lying, or so old they forgot how old they are.
23. Sandals paired with socks will never become cool, neither will what passes for your hairstyle, or really your overall aesthetic. You will just stop caring, or at least care less. Age is not an excuse to dress like a dork, but it often explains it.
24. Just because not caring about your aesthetic is you being authentically you, you not caring what the world thinks, you not succumbing to the changing vagaries of style and culture, your spouse will not find it attractive.
25. Everything in moderation.
26. Except love.
27. And generosity.
28. And laughter.
29. And especially practice moderation in having pie for breakfast.
30. You have better things to do with your life than learning how to fold fitted sheets.
31. Call your parents, not because they’ll be gone one day and you’ll wish you had more time with them. Well, not JUST because of that. Call them because they are your parents and they love you and want to hear from you. Hold up, calling my dad now.
32. Get sweaty outside as often as you can, bare minimum once a week.
33. There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There is just life, and work is part of it.
34. Nobody looks back from the end of their life and wishes they worked more. Smarter, maybe, or more efficiently. But not more.
35. Embrace hard conversations. You will be stronger for it, and so will the people you have the conversations with.
36. I am not going to get bigger, faster, stronger, more flexible. In fact, to whatever extent I have any abilities in those areas, they are deteriorating even as I type this. But I can become kinder, more empathetic and more helpful.
37. Be vulnerable.
38. Be the kind of person other people feel comfortable being vulnerable with. Eventually one of you will say, “you too?!? I thought I was the only one!” and that’s when relationship magic happens.
39. I love the song “Time Stand Still,” by Rush. The lyricist laments he’s moving so fast he’s not enjoying what’s important in life. The line that sticks with me, now more than ever, is “freeze this moment a little bit longer.” I want my life to be full of moments worth freezing. C.S. Lewis called those moments joy, elusive glimpses that show there is more going on in the world than what our five senses tell us.
40. Those moments almost never happen when I’m alone, and they sure as hell never happen when I’m alone in front of a screen.
41. This is universal. Everyone wants their lives to be full of meaningful and freezable moments, transcendent experiences. Others might catch those moments through art or music or food or animals. My vehicle happens to be adventure. I feel most alive when my heart is racing, my body is covered in sweat, and my mind is wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
42. I can hear objections now—I’m talking about slowing down and using adventure to illustrate my point. That’s a fair critique. But if I’m hiking, biking, canoeing, running, I’m never alone, and I never go faster than 15 miles per hour. We spend most of our time in conversation or absorbing the beauty of creation or, in the best of times, both.
43. I sometimes worry that in chasing adventure I’m running away from my problems, that I’m going out into the woods and hiding under the guise of pursuing a vibrant life. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but I prefer to think that I’m preparing for whatever problems life throws at me. I’m going to keep telling myself that, at least.
44. Work less, so you can sleep more, so you can play more.
45. Be careful about the false masks you wear. Eventually you’re going to get confused about which one you wear in what setting. Try leaving them at home.
46. Eight years ago I concluded I needed to be tougher. When life got difficult, I got scared and curled up into a little ball afraid of what the world would throw at me next. I needed to improve my perseverance. One way I have done that is continuously walking right up to the edge my comfort zone, taking a deep breath, and taking a few more steps. As my friends have taught me to do that, so do I try to pass that along to others—my kids especially.
47. Being a journalist has been a tremendous blessing on my life. I get paid to ask people questions about their lives, listen to their answers, and then write the story. The most important skill—the one all of us need, without exception—is listening.
48. Never be afraid to ask for help.
49. Carry someone who needs it.
50. Let someone carry you when you need it.

 

 

 

 

Matt Crossman

Articles

Matt Crossman is a writer based in St. Louis. He writes about sports, travel, adventure and professional development. Email him at mcrossman98@gmail.com.

https://www.success.com/50-things-i-know-at-50-reflections-on-a-half-century-of-life/

1.Money Flows Remain At Historic Highs

Of course, it is not just corporate share buybacks supporting asset prices currently, but record global inflows of capital at a pace never before seen in history. Now at $982 billion, and counting, the flood of liquidity globally into equities is unprecedented.

“Global equity inflows surpassed $774.5 billion on a year-to date basis. It is the best year on record by a mile. In the 190 trading days ending on October 6th. This will be roughly $1 Trillion worth of inflows for 2021. That is approximately +$4.1 billion worth of [retail] demand every single day of 2021.” – Goldman Sachs

https://www.advisorperspectives.com/commentaries/2021/10/25/the-bullish-bearish-market-case-1

2.Three Markets Sitting Right at Highs

QQQ..No breakout yet.

Transports-No breakout yet

IWM Small Cap…No break out yet.

www.stockcharts.com

3.S&P and Dow New Highs

S&P new high

Dow Jones new high

www.stockcharts.com

4.Average Returns Versus Inflation Stocks and Bonds

Capital Group

Pramod Atluri and Ritchie Tuazon

https://www.capitalgroup.com/advisor/insights/articles/inflation-transitory-troublesome.html?sfid=1988901890&cid=80557084&et_cid=80557084&cgsrc=SFMC&alias=E-btn-LP-12-A2cta-Advisor

5. Bonds Are Set to Reap $5 Billion in Pension-Rebalance Shift

-Move from equities into debt likely by month-end: Wells Fargo

-Most of flows expected into long-term bonds, flattening curve

The flattening of the U.S. yield curve is set to get a bit more fuel as U.S. pension funds will need to rebalance this month by moving $5 billion into fixed income and out of equities.

Wells Fargo & Co. strategists reckon that shift will take place because the pensions’ funding ratios have improved given rising equities as well as higher yields — which reduce the discounted value of the systems’ liabilities. By the bank’s calculation it will be the biggest such wave since a $23 billion flow in March.

By Liz McCormick and Lu Wang https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-25/bonds-are-about-to-reap-5-billion-from-a-pension-rebalance-wave?sref=GGda9y2L

6.Private Debt No Slowdown–Credit managers race to fundraise ever-larger funds

Despite lower expected returns, belief is funds will best fixed income

ARLEEN JACOBIUS

Private credit managers are moving fast, raising larger funds than ever, but the question for investors is whether these behemoths will break anything, chiefly the yield and illiquidity premium to public debt that makes the asset class attractive.

In the past, a maxim of alternative investment investing has been that the more capital pours into a sector, the lower the performance. Private credit returns already are muted compared with other alternative investment asset classes because they are tied to interest rates, which many expect to continue to remain low.

“Multiple factors impact returns for a given vintage, including the general level of interest rates, which is independent of fund flows,” said Mary Bates, Portland-based managing principal and private markets consultant at Meketa Investment Group.

Private credit is popular among investors as a fixed-income alternative. Asset owners now think about private credit as a separate asset class rather than a one-off investment, Ms. Bates said. What’s more, since the pandemic started, more investors are expanding their view of private credit beyond traditional loans to companies to include real estate and infrastructure credit, she said.

Managers are capitalizing on investor interest by raising funds sometimes 50% to 100% larger than their predecessor offerings and ex- panding into new types of private credit.

Burgeoning private funds

The average size of global private debt and direct lending fundraising has skyrocketed in 2021. Dollars are in U.S. millions.

https://www.pionline.com/alternatives/credit-managers-race-fundraise-ever-larger-funds

7.Robinhood Earnings…Revenues Down and Expenses Skyrocket.

From Michael Batnick Twitter https://twitter.com/michaelbatnick

Full Earnings Deck Presentation

https://s28.q4cdn.com/948876185/files/doc_financials/2021/q3/Q3-2021-Investor-Presentation.pdf

8.Top 10% of Americans Own 89% of Stocks.

Ben Carlson A Wealth of Common Sense–The top 1% now owns nearly $22 trillion in stocks and funds which represents almost 54% of the total ownership. The top 10% owns 89% of the stocks in this country, meaning the bottom 90% owns just 11% of the stocks.

Ownership Inequality in the Stock Market by Ben Carlson https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2021/10/ownership-inequality-in-the-stock-market/

9.The new Fear and Greed

by Joshua M Brown “All through time, people have basically acted and reacted the same way in the market as a result of: greed, fear, ignorance, and hope. That is why the numerical formations and patterns recur on a constant basis.”

Jesse Livermore said this a hundred years ago. It’s still true. But I want to modify it somewhat to account for the things I am seeing on a daily basis out there. I used to think of Fear and Greed as being the fear of losing money and the greed for making more money, but I have come to understand that it is not that simple.

The Fear I see these days is a fear of becoming a relic of the past. A fear of seeing your peers catapult themselves ahead of you. A fear of missing out, which has been well documented and has become the spirit of the times we live in. This has come to be as a result of the Nasdaq having gained an average annual 25% since the end of the last real bear market in 2009 – a 1500% return. Add on the hundreds of billions of dollars that have been flooding the private markets, creating a new class of mega wealthy while regular folks do not even get to see a ticker symbol or a price quote. Then add on the overnight billion-dollar fortunes for the crypto people as we watch the largest mass wealth creation event in the history of mankind taking place right before our very eyes.

The type of fear that now drives most market activity (because it drives most market participants) is something different than the fear we’ve been accustomed to from reading about history. I would label this type of fear Insecurity. The fear of being left behind and looking like a fool. It’s no surprise that Have Fun Staying Poor or #HFSP has become one of the most enduring memes of the moment we’re in now. It’s the anti-Keep Calm and Carry On. Whenever you see people doing inexplicable things with their capital in the markets these days (public or private), the explanation is not as far from your grasp as you might think. Insecurity is probably the answer.

The other driving force in the markets, traditionally, has been Greed. I think we’re witnessing a variation on Greed that I would label Envy. I spent 15 minutes on Financial Twitter yesterday for the first time since the spring of 2020. It’s everywhere. Almost every interaction I saw on my timeline was tinged with it. Just skirmishes and drive-by eggings and curb stompings.

Even the people winning – that’s not enough for them. The money is beside the point. They also need others to feel the pain of not having been right. I told you so, should’ve listened to me. The public victory laps and displays of haughtiness seem almost purposely staged to provoke hostile reactions from the crowd. Like it’s a sport. And fortunately for the engagement metrics, there is no supply chain shortage of bitterness to bring about this desired reaction. We have an infinite well of it from which to draw. If you’re looking for problems in your life, tweeting about your wins is a really convenient way to produce them. It has never been easier to get a thousand strangers to viscerally hate you and wish for your demise. Other than that, it’s a lot of fun.

Envy will make you take wild risks with a portfolio. Especially when all you see around you are so many people you have such little regard for profiting off of things you know they themselves barely understand. The more exposure we have to the way others are investing, the more we begin to look at their returns as though that’s the appropriate benchmark. All sense of reason and perspective is left behind. If that asshole is doing it, I can do it better. We have an entire class of stocks today that are invested in under the premise that the other people involved in them are bad people who don’t deserve to make money on either the long or the short side. It’s a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) like World of Warcraft. That’s not investing anymore. It’s something else. On the Reddit boards, you can see how much of the emphasis is on those people losing as opposed to our side winning. It makes no sense until you start thinking about it in video game terms.

Livermore also said “There is nothing new in Wall Street. There can’t be because speculation is as old as the hills. Whatever happens in the stock market today has happened before and will happen again.” And I think that’s still true, but with a twist. Livermore had a few dozen men playing alongside him in the bucket shops of Boston, or a few hundred men on the stock or commodities exchange, where everyone knew each other and saw each other in person each morning. You had rivals, and counterparties you saw as the enemy, but it was small and it was close quarters. A knife fight. This thing today is nuclear war. No survivors. It’s a Squid Game event on a global scale. Millions of nameless, faceless strangers in an online environment that literally knows no spatial or geographic limitations. It’s an environment in which the wealthiest, most successful players like Chamath and Steve Cohen can be publicly – daily – accosted by the mob throwing fistfuls of horseshit at them from the alleyways. I don’t know if the heuristics Livermore played the game by would be so easily applied now.

Bloomberg has an index that calculates the rising and falling wealth of the world’s billionaires in real-time. Imagine sitting in your truck in the parking lot of a Walmart looking at that on your phone while your wife runs in to get detergent. While Nathan Mayer Rothschild was racking up his fortunes on the bourses of London and Paris in the early 1800’s, 99.99% of all people living on earth were wholly unaware of his existence, let alone the hourly exploits of his market speculations. Today we learn about rappers making reaping ten-figure profits on IPOs via text alerts from TMZ.

And in the midst of this miasma, with trillions of dollars being accumulated in full view of everyone, it’s no surprise that two feelings consistently bubble up to the surface – Insecurity and Envy – over and over again. Why am I falling behind? Why is that son of bitch not?

You can practically feel it in the air.

***

In The Divine Comedy, Dante and Virgil arrive at the Fourth Circle of Hell and come across the souls who are being punished for their greed. They are broken up into two distinct groups – those who hoarded their fortunes and those who ostentatiously spent too much and lived lavishly. The two sides are engaged in an eternal jousting match. They attack each other with giant weights pushed from their chests, a metaphor for their relentless drive toward wealth while they were alive. These tormented souls are so busy with this activity that the poet and his underworld guide do not even bother attempting to speak with them.

For disclosure information please visit: https://ritholtzwealth.com/blog-disclosures/

The new Fear and Greed

10.How to Speak Well… and Listen Better

By Nido Qubein | August 30, 2017 | 2

There are two sides to every conversation, and both are essential to the art of communication.

So, how are your conversation skills? Think about it: Are you a smooth talker, or do you ramble? Are you an attentive listener, or do you tend to interrupt?

Here’s how to master the art of conversation—both sides of it:

When it’s your turn to talk…

1. Get your thinking straight.

The most common source of confusing messages is muddled thinking. We have an idea we haven’t thought through. Or we have so much we want to say that we can’t possibly say it. Or we have an opinion that is so strong we can’t keep it in. As a result, we are ill-prepared when we speak, and we confuse everyone. The first rule of plain talk, then, is to think before you say anything. Organize your thoughts.

2. Say what you mean.

Say exactly what you mean.

3. Get to the point.

Effective communicators don’t beat around the bush. If you want something, ask for it. If you want someone to do something, say exactly what you want done.

4. Be concise.

Don’t waste words. Confusion grows in direct proportion to the number of words used. Speak plainly and briefly, using the shortest, most familiar words.

5. Be real.

Each of us has a personality—a blending of traits, thought patterns and mannerisms—which can aid us in communicating clearly. For maximum clarity, be natural and let the real you come through. You’ll be more convincing and much more comfortable.

6. Speak in images.

The cliché that “a picture is worth a thousand words” isn’t always true. But words that help people visualize concepts can be tremendous aids in communicating a message.

But talking, or sending messages, is only half the process. To be a truly accomplished communicator, you must also know how to listen, or receive messages.

If you’re approaching a railroad crossing around a blind curve, you can send a message with your car horn. But that’s not the most important part of your communication task. The communication that counts takes place when you stop, look and listen—a useful admonition for conversation, too.

So, when it’s your turn to listen…

1. Do it with thought and care.

Listening, like speaking and writing, requires genuine interest and attention. If you don’t concentrate on listening, you won’t learn much, and you won’t remember much of what you do learn. Most of us retain only 25 percent of what we hear—so if you can increase your retention and your comprehension, you can increase your effectiveness.

A sign on the wall of Lyndon Johnson’s Senate office put it in a down-to-earth way: “When you’re talking, you ain’t learning.”

2. Use your eyes.

If you listen only with your ears, you’re missing out on much of the message. Good listeners keep their eyes open while listening. Look for feelings. The face is an eloquent communication medium—learn to read its messages. While the speaker is delivering a verbal message, the face can be saying, “I’m serious,” “Just kidding,” “It pains me to be telling you this,” or “This gives me great pleasure.”

3. Observe these nonverbal signals when listening to people:

• Rubbing one eye. When you hear “I guess you’re right,” and the speaker is rubbing one eye, guess again. Rubbing one eye often is a signal that the speaker is having trouble inwardly accepting something.
• Tapping feet. When a statement is accompanied by foot-tapping, it usually indicates a lack of confidence in what is being said.
• Rubbing fingers. When you see the thumb and forefinger rubbing together, it often means that the speaker is holding something back.
• Staring and blinking. When you see the other person staring at the ceiling and blinking rapidly, the topic at hand is under consideration.
• Crooked smiles. Most genuine smiles are symmetrical. And most facial expressions are fleeting. If a smile is noticeably crooked, you’re probably looking at a fake one.
• Eyes that avoid contact. Poor eye contact can be a sign of low self-esteem, but it can also indicate that the speaker is not being truthful.

It would be unwise to make a decision based solely on these visible signals. But they can give you valuable tips on the kind of questions to ask and the kind of answers to be alert for.

4. Make things easy.

People who are poor listeners will find few who are willing to come to them with useful information. Good listeners make it easy on those to whom they want to listen. They make it clear that they’re interested in what the other person has to say.

This post was originally published in May 2015 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.
Image by nchlsft/Shutterstock.com

Nido Qubein

1.U.S. Five Year Inflation Expectations Hit 20 Year High.

From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading

2.Public Companies with Bitcoin Reserves.

www.dorseywright.com

3.Musk Blasts Past Bezos

Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) / Twitter

4.Biggest cryptocurrency exchanges based on 24hour volume in the world

https://www.statista.com/statistics/864738/leading-cryptocurrency-exchanges-traders/

Regulation ? Close to $3B in Fines

The crypto industry has racked up $2.5 billion in fines since bitcoin was launched in 2009—Isabelle Lee

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/crypto-industry-bitcoin-racked-up-25-billion-fines-penalty-sec-2021-6

5.Bulk of Earnings Coming in the Next Week.

Heavy Hitters on Deck for Earnings

Earnings season is now off to the races and the week ahead is one of the busiest of the season. Of the S&P 1500 index members, 472 are scheduled to report over the coming week, and another 557 are scheduled to report the following week. In terms of market cap, that is more than $20 trillion this week and $7 trillion the next. Obviously, there is a huge divergence in the number of companies reporting and the size of those companies over the next couple of weeks. As we noted in today’s Chart of the Day and as shown in the chart below, one big reason for that is the fact that the FAAMG cohort is reporting this week. Today, Facebook (FB) is the first of those stocks with its $900+ billion market cap. Similarly, Tuesday will see Alphabet (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) report, and their combined market cap is over a trillion dollars more than the 86 other S&P 1500 members reporting that day. Even more impressive, on Thursday, Amazon (AMZN) and Apple’s (AAPL) combined $4 trillion market cap outweighs the entire market cap of every other S&P 1500 stock reporting that day. In other words, this week has a huge number of stocks reporting, but the overall market’s direction will likely be dictated by the results of a small handful of names.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/heavy-hitters-on-deck-for-earnings

6.Energy High Yield Spreads Fall to 2013 Levels.

https://dailyshotbrief.com/the-daily-shot-brief-october-22nd-2021/

7.Tesla Gained More than the Market Cap of GM and Ford in One Day.

Here Is The Gamma Bomb That Just Sparked Tesla’s Insane Meltup BY TYLER DURDEN-ZEROHEDGE If you, like us, are watching the insane meltup in TSLA which not only topped $1 trillion in market cap today, but has gained more than $140 billion since opening, a value that is almost as big as the market cap of GM and Ford, and is now rising by $1 billion every 5 seconds…

… the last thing you care about is what is behind this move (clearly it is not fundamentals). Still, some may ask just what is the driving force in this market that allows a $1 trillion company to trade like a pennystock, and gain over $100 billion in market cap the answer – to no one’s surprise – is gamma, and specifically $900 call shorts who were trapped by today’s jerk higher and who have been unable to exit their positions in time, creating a gamma vacuum above $900…

… that sparked a covering feedback scenario which has sent the stock surging and forcing yet another Volkswagen-like squeeze.

The full explanation in the clip below courtesy of our friends at Spot Gamma.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/here-gamma-bomb-just-sparked-teslas-insane-meltup

8. Remote work is bringing the city to the suburbs….The number of net new households that moved to the suburbs grew 43 percent last year

VOX–By Rani Molla@ranimolla In the spring of 2020, many of the typical draws to cities — plays, nightclubs, restaurants — shut down. Space took on a premium, as small apartments close to others felt particularly claustrophobic. All of a sudden, a big home in the suburbs for the same monthly price as a tiny apartment in the city got a whole lot more attractive. The lifestyle also seemed safer, as you could travel in the isolation of your own vehicle and play in personal green spaces with less fear of infection. More companies than ever are allowing employees to work from home, and studies say that between 13 and 45 percent of the workforce is now remote some or all of the time.

As a result, a new rush to the suburbs is well underway. The number of net new households that moved to the suburbs grew 43 percent last year, according to data from the Wall Street Journal, compared to 2019. While that naturally slowed in the first half of 2021, urban areas are still losing people as they relocate to suburban and rural areas.

People who left their city apartments for houses in the suburbs aren’t just living in the suburbs, they’re working there now, too. In turn, the people and services these workers may have relied on in city centers are moving to the suburbs as well. All of this will affect which businesses thrive and what real estate develops in the suburbs. It could also change traffic patterns, exacerbate urban sprawl, and heighten inequality.

New suburban businesses and improved real estate trends could lead to revitalized communities, less travel, and better quality of living for some. But not everyone will benefit. Sprawl is bad for the environment and can make life worse for the poorest Americans

Housing in the suburbs is changing, too. It’s getting more expensive. Due to high demand and limited supply, housing prices in the suburbs and exurbs have skyrocketed, while prices in major city centers have stagnated. For example, central Boston saw its home value grow 9 percent in the last two years, while prices for places within commuting distance of the city like Worcester and Providence grew about 30 percent, according to data from Zillow and HERE Technologies.

The difference is even more apparent in New York City — a city with a high concentration of remote workers — where the median home price in urban areas of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens actually declined while prices for homes 90 minutes away went up about 25 percent in the past two years.

“Small, expensive homes close to the office that previously benefited from a short commute as well as proximity to urban amenities — those homes saw a lot of their appeal decline,” Jeff Tucker, senior economist at Zillow, said. That’s because many of the city amenities were curtailed during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the home office became the new office.

“The relative value of space definitely went up,” he said.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22714777/remote-work-from-home-city-suburbs-housing-traffic

9.Opinion: These are 5 promising ways to live healthier for longer – and it’s more than diet and exercise

By Richard Faragherand Lynne Cox

However fit you are and well you eat, your immune system will get less effective as you age — how to fight back

Most people want to live a long and happy life – or at least avoid a short and miserable one. If you’re in that majority, then you’re in luck. Over the last decade, a quiet research revolution has occurred in our understanding of the biology of aging.

The challenge is to turn this knowledge into advice and treatments we can benefit from. Here we bust the myth that lengthening healthy life expectancy is science fiction, and show that it is instead scientific fact.

1. Nutrition and lifestyle

There’s plenty of evidence for the benefits of doing the boring stuff, such as eating right. A study of large groups of ordinary people show that keeping the weight off, not smoking, restricting alcohol to moderate amounts and eating at least five servings of fruit and vegetable a day can increase your life expectancy by seven to 14 years compared with someone who smokes, drinks too much and is overweight.

Cutting down calories even more – by about a third, so-called dietary restriction – improves health and extends life in mice and monkeys, as long as they eat the right stuff, though that’s a tough ask for people constantly exposed to food temptation. The less extreme versions of time-restricted or intermittent fasting – only eating during an eight-hour window each day, or fasting for two days every week – is thought to reduce the risk of middle-aged people getting age-related diseases.

2. Physical activity

You can’t outrun a bad diet, but that doesn’t mean that exercise does not do good things. Globally, inactivity directly causes roughly 10% of all premature deaths from chronic diseases, such as coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and various cancers. If everyone on Earth got enough exercise tomorrow, the effect would probably be to increase healthy human life expectancy by almost a year.

But how much exercise is optimal? Very high levels are actually bad for you, not simply in terms of torn muscles or sprained ligaments. It can suppress the immune system and increase the risk of upper respiratory illness. Just over 30 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity is enough for most people. Not only does that make you stronger and fitter, it has been shown to reduce harmful inflammation and even improve mood.

3. Boosting the immune system

However fit you are and well you eat, your immune system will, unfortunately, get less effective as you get older. Poor responses to vaccination and an inability to fight infection are consequences of this “immunosenescence”. It all starts to go downhill in early adulthood when the thymus – a bowtie-shaped organ in your throat – starts to wither.

That sounds bad, but it’s even more alarming when you realize that the thymus is where immune agents called T cells learn to fight infections. Closing such a major education center for T cells means that they can’t learn to recognize new infections or fight off cancer effectively in older people.

You can help – a bit – by making sure you have enough key vitamins, especially A and D. A promising area of research is looking at signals that the body sends to help make more immune cells, particularly a molecule called IL-7. We may soon be able to produce drugs that contain this molecule, potentially boosting the immune system in older people.

Another approach is to use the food supplement spermidine to trigger immune cells to clear out their internal garbage, such as damaged proteins, which improves the elderly immune system so much that it’s now being tested as a way of getting better responses to COVID vaccines in older people.

4. Rejuvenating cells

Senescence is a toxic state that cells enter into as we get older, wreaking havoc across the body and generating chronic low-grade inflammation and disease – essentially causing biological aging. In 2009, scientists showed that middle-aged mice lived longer and stayed healthier if they were given small amounts of a drug called rapamycin, which inhibits a key protein called mTOR that helps regulate cells’ response to nutrients, stress, hormones and damage.

In the lab, drugs like rapamycin (called mTOR inhibitors) make senescent (aged) human cells look and behave like their younger selves. Though it’s too early to prescribe these drugs for general use, a new clinical trial has just been set up to test whether low-dose rapamycin can really slow down aging in people.

Discovered in the soil of Easter Island, Chile, rapamycin carries with it significant mystique and [has been hailed] in the popular press as a possible “elixir of youth”. It can even improve the memory of mice with dementia-like disease.

But all drugs come with pros and cons – and as too much rapamycin suppresses the immune system, many doctors are averse to even consider it to stave off age-related diseases. However, the dose is critical and newer drugs such as RTB101 that work in a similar way to rapamycin support the immune system in older people, and can even reduce COVID infection rates and severity.

5. Clearing out old cells

Completely getting rid of senescent cells is another promising way forward. A growing number of lab studies in mice using drugs to kill senescent cells – so-called “senolytics” – show overall improvements in health, and as the mice aren’t dying of disease, they end up living longer too.

Removing senescent cells also helps people. In a small clinical trial, people with severe lung fibrosis reported better overall function, including how far and fast they could walk, after they had been treated with senolytic drugs.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Diabetes and obesity, as well as infection with some bacteria and viruses, can lead to more senescent cells forming. Senescent cells also make the lungs more susceptible to COVID infection, and COVID makes more cells become senescent. Importantly, getting rid of senescent cells in old mice helps them to survive COVID infection.

Aging and infection are a two-way street. Older people get more infectious diseases as their immune systems start to run out of steam, while infection drives faster aging through senescence. Since aging and senescence are inextricably linked with both chronic and infectious diseases in older people, treating senescence is likely to improve health across the board.

It is exciting that some of these new treatments are already looking good in clinical trials and may be available to us all soon.

Richard Faragher is a professor of biogerontology at the University of Brighton in England. Lynne Cox is an associate professor of biochemistry at the University of Oxford, also in England. This was first published by The Conversation — “Life extension: the five most promising methods – so far“.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/these-are-5-promising-ways-to-live-healthier-for-longer-and-its-more-than-diet-and-exercise-11634831792?mod=article_inline

10.A Stoic Response to Bad News

A Stoic Response, Wisdom, and More

“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, because an artful life requires being prepared to meet and withstand sudden and unexpected attacks.” Marcus Aurelius

Life can knock us on our ass, can’t it? Just out of nowhere, our legs are suddenly in the air and we’re on the ground. An email from your investors—they are pulling out. A phone call from your wife—your place has burned down. The specifics vary for each one of us but in a second, your whole life changes. How do you respond? How do you carry on?

Step 1) Get control of yourself.

We must steady our nerves and take hold of any extreme emotions (anger, fear, resentment). Replace them with grace. The modern day Stoic and philosopher Nassim Taleb would write that in some moments we are only left with one solution: dignity in the face of the unthinkable. As he would advise, “Start stressing personal elegance at your next misfortune. Try not to blame others for your fate, even if they deserve blame. Never exhibit self-pity. Do not complain. The only article Lady Fortuna has no control over is your behavior.”

“The first qualification of a general is a cool head,” Napoleon once said. So too for the Stoic.

Step 2) Focus on what you’re going to do about the bad news.

What happened, happened. Now the question is, what are you going to do about it? The great astronaut Chris Hadfield would say, “I know that this is dangerous, but there are six things that I could do right now, all of which will help make things better. And it’s worth remembering, too, there’s no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse also.”

The Greeks had a word for this: apatheia. It’s the kind of calm equanimity that comes with the absence of irrational or extreme emotions. Not the loss of feeling altogether, just the loss of the harmful, unhelpful kind. Don’t let the negativity in, don’t let those emotions even get started. Just say: No, thank you. I can’t afford to panic. I can’t afford to make it worse.

The student of Stoic philosophy learns many things but the first and the most important: Don’t make hard things harder by losing your cool.

Step 3) Look for some good in the situation.

Viktor Frankl, when he lost nearly everyone he loved in the Holocaust, was able to find solace in the fact that they were spared the pain that he felt. That they did not have to live through the horrors he faced.

This is only a small consolation of course, but small is better than nothing.

Think of Seneca here: “A good person dyes events with his own color . . . and turns whatever happens to his own benefit.”

The great philosopher Nietzsche’s recipe for greatness was the phrase amor fati. “That one,” he said, “wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it…but love it.” What he meant was that since we cannot change what happened, we can at least embrace it. We can embrace it as something that was chosen for us. The bestselling author of 48 Laws of Power Robert Greene has talked about how amor fati is a kind of power, a power “so immense that it’s almost hard to fathom.” “With it,” he said, “you feel that everything happens for a purpose, and that it is up to you to make this purpose something positive and active.”

The Stoics were not only familiar with this attitude but they embraced it. Two thousand years ago, writing in his own personal journal which would become known as Meditations, Emperor Marcus Aurelius would say: “A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.” Another Stoic, Epictetus, who as a crippled slave has faced adversity after adversity, echoed the same: “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happen the way it happens: then you will be happy.”

It is why amor fati is the Stoic mindset that you take on for making the best out of anything that happens: Treating each and every moment—no matter how challenging—as something to be embraced, not avoided. To not only be okay with it, but love it and be better for it. So that like oxygen to a fire, obstacles and adversity become fuel for your potential.

Step 4) Remember that the Stoics actually practice mental preparation for future disasters so that bad news will not hurt so much in the future.

“Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation,” Seneca wrote to a friend. Why? Because he engaged in the Stoic practice of premeditatio malorum (premeditation of evils). It is a simple exercise that asks you to visualize all the things that can and will go wrong. A writer like Seneca would begin by reviewing or rehearsing his plans, say, to take a trip. And then, in his head (or in writing), he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent it from happening—a storm could arise, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates.

Let us dig in and be prepared from this point forward. The specifics of the attacks might be unknowable, but that they are coming? Well, you’re on notice.

A Stoic Response to Bad News (dailystoic.com)

1.Hockey Sticks Galore in Venture Capital.

Venture Investments in Tech Spike

Nontraditional investors are breaking into venture capital-Venture capital firms are no longer the only—or even the biggest—game in town when it comes to startup funding, according to Pitchbook’s analysis. The firm estimates that traditional venture funds have about $221 billion in cash on hand to invest, compared with the $350 billion that nontraditional startup backers like hedge fund Tiger Global and private-equity firm SoftBank are prepared to invest in startups.

2021 has already shattered yearly records for startup funding By Nicolás Rivero

2021 has already shattered yearly records for startup funding — Quartz (qz.com)

2.QE Ending, Rates Rising, Oil Prices Rising…VIX Falling.

Bloomberg-The global pandemic is still raging, U.S. policy makers are about to cut stimulus, energy prices are surging and bonds are being sold off. And yet, Wall Street’s fear gauge is near an 18-month low.

The Cboe volatility index or VIX, which measures expected fluctuations in the S&P 500 Index, has been on a downtrend for the past month and dropped to 15.7 on Tuesday, near the lowest since February last year. The gauge is now well below its lifetime average of about 19.5, according to data compiled by Bloomberg stating in 1990.

The divergence between what is happening in the stock and bond markets can be seen in the ratio of the VIX and the MOVE Index, which tracks implied volatility in Treasury options. That proportion surged this week to the highest level since February 2020.

There are four potential reasons why the VIX may be so subdued, according to Chris Murphy, a derivatives strategist at Susquehanna International Group.

• U.S. earnings have been positive so far, and earnings season tends to reduce correlations and overall volatility
• Investors may be getting more comfortable with the “inevitable” Federal Reserve tapering of asset purchases, and are focusing on historical tendencies for equities to perform well in the early stages of a rate-hike cycle
• There may be expectations for investors to boost stock allocations due to a lack of appealing alternatives and high levels of cash
• The S&P 500 was below its 50-day moving average for most of the past two weeks, the longest stretch since it emerged from its Covid lows

Joanna Ossinger

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-20/stock-fear-gauge-defies-bond-turmoil-here-are-four-reasons-why?sref=GGda9y2L

3.Tesla Deliveries Still Beat During Chip Shortage.

Reporting by Subrat Patnaik in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Maju Samuel

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-beats-quarterly-revenue-estimates-2021-10-20/

4.The Correlation Between Bond Yields and Total Returns Since 1984

Mark Hulbert Marketwatch-This chart plots the yields of intermediate-term corporate bonds for each month since 1984, along with what your total return would have been for each of those months had you bought and held for nine subsequent years. Notice how remarkably close is the correlation between the two.

 

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/you-can-beat-your-fear-of-losing-money-with-bonds-as-interest-rates-rise-if-you-understand-this-one-thing-11634742389?mod=home-page

5.BITO-Bitcoin Futures ETF $570m One Day vs. GLD $1B in 3 Days.

The fastest ETF to ever get to $1b (naturally) was $GLD in 2004. It did it in 3 days. No one has really come that close since. $BITO has $570m after one day a legit shot to at least tie this DiMaggio-esque feat. Here’s the fastest in a Missile Command-y looking chart from @JSeyff

 

@EricBalchunas

https://twitter.com/EricBalchunas/status/1450795276977987587/photo/1

6.Another bitcoin-futures ETF is slated to start trading in October

Carla Mozée

Bitcoin notched a new all-time high above $66,000 on Wednesday.

Edward Smith/Getty Images

• VanEck looks ready to launch its bitcoin-futures ETF next week under the ticker “XBTF,” according to an SEC filing.
• VanEck’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF will begin trading after October 23, suggesting the launch could be on Monday, October 25.
• ProShares on Tuesday was the first to launch a bitcoin-futures ETF.

Asset management firm VanEck looks set next week to launch an exchange-traded fund tied to bitcoin futures, just days after ProShares debuted the first-ever such product in the public markets.

VanEck’s Bitcoin Strategy ETF will begin trading after October 23 on the Cboe BZX Exchange, according to a company filing Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund will only invest in cash-settled bitcoin futures traded on exchanges registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, such as the CME Group.

The product will carry the ticker symbol “XBTF” and will begin trading “[as] soon as practicable after the effective date,” of the registration statement. Since October 23 is a Saturday, that points to a potential start date of Monday, October 25.

Investors would then have another choice in a futures-based product after Tuesday’s launch of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. The “BITO” ETF invests in bitcoin futures contracts rather than the bitcoin, the world’s most-traded cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, a filing on Monday by alternative asset management firm Valkyrieindicates it’s also set to soon launch its own bitcoin futures ETF.

The new ETFs will follow a blockbuster debut by ProShares, which reportedly said its ETF brought in $570 million in assets on its launch day. It was the second-most heavily traded fund, landing turnover of nearly $1 billion with more than 24 million shares exchanged, according to Bloomberg data.

Bitcoin on Wednesday soared to a new all-time record high of $66,930.39, according to CoinMarketCap.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/currencies/vaneck-launch-bitcoin-futures-etf-october-cryptocurrencies-xbtf-sec-markets-2021-10

7.Chicago Board Options Exchange to aquire cryptocurrency market Erisx…Adds to Institutionalizing Crypto Market

Kia Kokalitcheva-Axios

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) has agreed to acquire ErisX, a crypto derivatives and spot market. Cboe invested in ErisX back in 2018.

Why it matters: The move underscores the increasing institutional interest in cryptocurrency investments.

Details: A group, including DRW, Fidelity Digital Assets, Galaxy Digital, Interactive Brokers, NYDIG, Paxos, Robinhood, Virtu Financial and Webull have agree to advise Cboe as part of a committee, and some participants also intend to acquire minority stakes in Cboe Digital (the ErisX rebrand).

The bottom line: “Cboe was among the first companies to try listing bitcoin futures in the U.S., taking its cash-settled futures product live at the end of 2017 just days before CME launched a similar product. … ‘That was an early entry and looking back at it, it was, it was a good entry … we tend to iterate on products and usually the first iteration of a product is not perfect,’ [Cboe COO Chris] Isaacson said.” — Nikhilesh De, Coindesk

https://www.axios.com/authors/kiakokalitcheva/

8.Manheim Used Vehicle Index Spike.

Jim Reid DB Bank–Yesterday we saw another spectacular increase in the Manheim used car index for the first half of October which could easily lead to this month seeing the largest increase in prices ever. The index was up +8.3% in the first 15 days of the month. The record is the +8.9% and +9% mom rate seen in May and June 2020 after a -11.3% monthly fall in April 2020 immediate after the pandemic hit.

Although used cars and trucks make up only about 4% of the core US CPI index, they have added nearly 1pp to YoY core CPI inflation recently. You can see this graphically on pages 13 and 14 of DB’s US economists’ latest chart book (link here) on the current more persistent price pressures.

The YoY rate is currently at +37% for the Manheim index with used cars at +24.4% YoY in the last US CPI report. There has been a lag of 2-3 months between the two so as we enter 2022 used cars will still likely be a big upward influence on the CPI number.

Clearly this can’t last forever and at some point this will surely mean revert and take a chunk out of CPI. However, remember primary rents and owners’ equivalent rent (OER) make up around a third of the basket (40% for core), and while they are not going to grow at the same breakneck speed, the forward looking models suggest that they could be a big story in 2022 and the baton could be passed from cars to housing for CPI strength.

9.Zillow …How do they Make Money?

Off the market

For a long time, property website Zillow didn’t surprise anyone. The company listed houses for sale or rent, making money from sponsored listings, advertising and agent fees.

Then, in 2019, Zillow started ramping up its side hustle: house flipping.

Armed with a mountain of property data, Zillow was — in theory — in a unique position to find bargains in the home aisle. Since then the company has scaled “house flipping” into a sizeable business that accounted for almost 60% of its revenue last quarter.

Open door for OpenDoor

But this week Zillow slammed the brakes on buying homes, announcing that it would stop buying and renovating homes for the rest of 2021, as it grapples with labor shortages and a huge backlog of properties that it’s already bought. That news sent Zillow shares down more than 10% on Monday, while doing the opposite for shares of OpenDoor — Zillow’s biggest competitor in the space.

It will be interesting to see if Zillow returns to house flipping in the same way in 2022. Buying real houses, renovating and selling them is a much messier business than just listing properties on a website — and it’s a lot less profitable too. Zillow’s gross profit margin was around 9% in its Homes division. Its Internet, Media and Tech division? More than 90%.

www.chartr.com

10.3 Stoic Exercises That Will Help Create Your Best Month Yet

Stoic Exercises, Wisdom, and More

For more than two thousand years, wise men and women have relied on an ancient philosophy known as Stoicism to help them live their best lives. It’s been a source of guidance, wisdom and practical advice for millions. It’s been used by everyone from Marcus Aurelius and Seneca (one of the richest men in Rome), to Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick the Great and Michel de Montaigne and now coaches like Pete Carroll and athletes like Kerri Walsh Jennings to help them live better, more resiliently and more peacefully. Below are three Stoic exercises and strategies, pulled from The Daily Stoic, that will help you have your best month yet.

RISE AND SHINE
“On those mornings you struggle with getting up, keep this thought in mind—I am awakening to the work of a human being. Why then am I annoyed that I am going to do what I’m made for, the very things for which I was put into this world? Or was I made for this, to snuggle under the covers and keep warm? It’s so pleasurable. Were you then made for pleasure? In short, to be coddled or to exert yourself?”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.1

Nobody likes Mondays so it’s comforting to think that even two thousand years ago the emperor of Rome (who was reportedly a bit of an insomniac) was giving himself a pep talk in order to summon up the willpower to throw the blankets off each morning and get out of bed. From the time we’re first sent off to school until we retire, we’re faced with that same struggle. It’d be nicer to shut our eyes and hit the snooze button a few more times. But we can’t.

Because we have a job to do. Not only do we have the calling we’ve dedicated ourselves to, but we have the larger cause that the Stoics speak about: the greater good. We cannot be of service to ourselves, to other people, or to the world unless we get up and get working—the earlier the better. So c’mon. Get in the shower, have your coffee, and get going.

THE CHAIN METHOD
“If you don’t wish to be a hot-head, don’t feed your habit. Try as a first step to remain calm and count the days you haven’t been angry. I used to be angry every day, now every other day, then every third or fourth . . . if you make it as far as 30 days, thank God! For habit is first weakened and then obliterated. When you can say ‘I didn’t lose my temper today, or the next day, or for three or four months, but kept my cool under provocation,’ you will know you are in better health.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 2.18.11b–14

The comedian Jerry Seinfeld once gave a young comic named Brad Isaac some advice about how to write and create material. Keep a calendar, he told him, and each day that you write jokes, put an X. Soon enough, you get a chain going—and then your job is to simply not break the chain. Success becomes a matter of momentum. Once you get a little, it’s easier to keep it going.

Whereas Seinfeld used the chain method to build a positive habit, Epictetus was saying that it can also be used to eliminate a negative one. It’s not all that different than taking sobriety “one day at a time.” Start with one day doing whatever it is, be it managing your temper or wandering eyes or procrastination. Then do the same the following day and the day after that. Build a chain and then work not to break it. Don’t ruin your streak.

HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING
“Pay attention to what’s in front of you—the principle, the task, or what’s being portrayed.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.22

It’s fun to think about the future. It’s easy to ruminate on the past. It’s harder to put that energy into what’s in front of us right at this moment—especially if it’s something we don’t want to do. We think: This is just a job; it isn’t who I am. It doesn’t matter. But it does matter. Who knows—it might be the last thing you ever do. Here lies Dave, buried alive under a mountain of unfinished business.

There is an old saying: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” It’s true. How you handle today is how you’ll handle every day. How you handle this minute is how you’ll handle every minute.

A final trick for having a great month comes to us from the Stoic philosopher Seneca. In a letter to his older brother Novatus, Seneca describes a beneficial exercise he borrowed from another prominent philosopher. At the end of each day he would ask himself variations of the following questions: What bad habit did I curb today? How am I better? Were my actions just? How can I improve?

We shouldn’t just do this daily, but also monthly, quarterly and yearly. We should reflect on our lives and on our actions. What could we do better? How have we kept our chain of progress and good actions unbroken (or indeed, where have we failed?) And finally, have we done our proper job as people? Have we done the work we’ve needed to do? The more we think about this, the more we follow these habits, the better we will get at them.

3 Stoic Exercises That Will Help Create Your Best Month Yet (dailystoic.com)