Bespoke Investment Group Here in the US, it was a broad rally last week as Real Estate was the only sector ETF to finish in the red, and seven of eleven sectors rallied over 1%, including three that were up over 2.5%. Normally, when you have a big gain in the market like last week, you can expect to see Technology at the top of the performance list, and while the 2.25% gain for the sector was pretty much right in line with the S&P 500, it was ‘only’ the fourth best-performing sector on the week. On a YTD basis, Technology ranks as just the fifth best-performing sector, and six other sectors are more extended relative to their 50-day moving average. Technology has been far from a dog lately, but it’s certainly given up some of its leadership position, and it’s understandable with several of the mega-caps now in the crosshairs of US and EU regulators.
4. This May Be Why Fed is Lowering Rates….Housing and Commercial Real Estate
5. MSTR +675% One-Year
WSJ Jason Zweig The company said this week that, as of March 18, it held 214,246 bitcoin. At the digital currency’s average price this week of roughly $65,000, MicroStrategy’s trove is worth something close to $14 billion. Adjusting for debt and options that can be converted to shares, the stock has a total market value of about $33 billion. That’s about twice the value of MicroStrategy’s remaining software business and all its bitcoin holdings combined. MicroStrategy has funded its bitcoin buying by issuing more than $5 billion in stock and debt. Normally, companies dilute their earnings per share when they issue extra stock. MicroStrategy’s stock offerings, however, have been anti-dilutive. By issuing shares at such a high premium to the value of its bitcoin, and then pouring the proceeds into more bitcoin, which in turn has risen even higher, MicroStrategy has driven up its stock price.
1. Not asking, “and then what?” 2. Blindness to large trends (blind spots) 3. Assumptions based on small sample sizes 4. Conforming to expectations/authority/group 5. Wanting the world to work the way we want rather than the way it does.”
4. Insider Selling in Technology Stocks Highest in 3 Years
Dave Lutz Jones Trading The FT reports Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg are leading a parade of corporate insiders who have sold hundreds of millions of dollars of their companies’ shares this quarter, in a signal that recent stock market exuberance could be peaking. As markets hit record highs, the ratio of corporate insider selling to insider buying is at the highest level since the first quarter of 2021, according to Verity LLC, which tracks insider trading disclosures. Stock sales at the beginning of a calendar year are normal, with pent up demand in early 2024 being exacerbated by shareholders avoiding sales last year because of depressed company valuations.
5. China Takeover Hanging Over Taiwan Markets But Rallying Toward Previous Highs
8. Bonds Helping Pensions Funds Get Back to Fully Funded
Barrons By Allan Sloan Ten years ago, in 2014, JPMorgan Chase, which gathers statistics filed by the country’s 100 biggest corporate pension funds, showed them to be 82% funded. As of the end of last year, they were up to 99.5%—essentially fully funded. (We’ll discuss the drop from 2022 to 2023 in a bit.)
10. Oakland Coach Greg Kampe Makes Less Than Players and Assistants in Today’s Division I Basketball.
Greg Kampe salary
Per information obtained by USA TODAY Sports’ Steve Berkowitz, Kampe had a base salary of $329,609 this season. Per Berkowitz, there are also bonuses of up to 19.9% of his salary built in, but the specifics of those escalators are unknown. That is seemingly by design.
By comparison, Kentucky assistant Orlando Antigua had a base salary of $900,000 this season. Calipari, for his part, has a $34.97 million buyout as of April 1 for the Wildcats. His base salary was $8.54 million, second-highest in college basketball. Izzo is third at $6.2 million, while Bill Self at Kansas leads the way at $9.63 million.
A tidal wave of money is pouring into the market with every paycheck millions of Americans receive. At the end of the 4th quarter, there was $10.56 trillion in Defined Contribution Plans. I don’t think it matters much* whether this money goes into actively managed mutual funds or index funds. The fact that it’s coming in, in this size, every two weeks come hell or high water, is absolutely having an impact on the price of stocks. Specifically, the price relative to whichever underlying fundamental metric you prefer to measure.
Today’s the day you can finally own stock in Reddit, the only social media platform where you can both stage a Wall Street coup and join a community for people who love stapling bread to trees. The 19-year-old company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange as RDDT as of today, is selling 22 million shares priced at $34 each, valuing Reddit at $6.4 billion. But that’s pretty much the only conventional thing about this IPO, which is being bet against by some of the very people who make the site what it is, prompting Reddit to warn of potential volatility. Here’s what’s going on:
In a nod to the platform’s reliance on user-generated content, Reddit set aside 1.76 million shares for certain US-based highly active users and volunteer community moderators.
Many Redditors have not only passed on the IPO—they’re getting ready to dance on its grave. The 15-million-member r/wallstreetbets subreddit, which briefly turned GameStop to gold in 2021, is filled with talk of shorting RDDT and watching it “absolutely plummet.”
Any Redditors who did buy before the bell won’t have to wait the typically mandatory six months before selling, so they could cash in on initial surges.
Growing pains Last year Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said it was time to “behave like an adult company.” But the untameable beast that is the Reddit community hasn’t always been on board with Huffman’s efforts to make the site profitable…like when thousands of moderators protest-shuttered their communities after Huffman announced that third-party developers would have to pay for site access. Now that it has a fiduciary duty to make its shareholders richer…Reddit has to figure out how to turn a profit without enraging users. But in a move that will probably anger many of them anyway, Reddit is looking to diversify its main revenue stream (ads) by letting companies train their AI models on user-generated content. It just signed a $60 million/year data licensing contract with Google, but the FTC is probing the deal.—ML
Preparation is important. Planning is important. Reflection is important. I mean, I wrote a whole book called, Stillness is the Key, because it’s true. And I was just saying earlier this month that I needed to slow down and take better care of myself because I was pushing too hard. And I just read and loved Cal Newport’s new book Slow Productivity (we had a great conversation on The Daily Stoic podcast, listen here). At the same time, I also just hung up two signs at The Daily Stoic offices and in the backstock of The Painted Porch that say “A Sense of Urgency.” It’s something I cribbed from the kitchens of Thomas Keller, the creator of Per Se. He wanted his staff to understand that they weren’t waiting on customers…the customers were quite literally waiting for them. Sure, making great food takes time and it can’t be rushed…but it also can’t be slow-walked. I’m a ‘sense of urgency’ guy. I always have been. As I was working on a draft of this article, one of my former employees sent me a short piece about the concept of “clock speed,” which in the world of computing refers to how quickly something can execute instructions. “Something you are very good at,” this former employee (and now friend) wrote. “You keep the tempo/momentum very high and if there is ever a bottleneck somewhere (decision or input), you process that as soon as physically possible. You return the ball very quickly.” It’s funny that he said “return the ball” because that’s something I used to say a lot. I’d say look, we don’t control how long other people take to do things, but we do control how long we take. We want to hit the ball back into their court—I’d rather be waiting for them than them be waiting for us. I started using a different metaphor more recently. When someone tells me that it’s going to take six weeks for our bindery to make another run of the leatherbound Daily Stoic, I want to “start the clock” as soon as possible. Meaning, I’m not pleased if I hear it took 2 weeks to make the decision about how many to order, or that somebody was slow in processing an invoice. I don’t control how long it takes to make stuff, but I do control when the clock starts on it. The project is going to take six months? Start the clock. You’re going to need a reply from someone else? Start the clock (by sending the email). It will likely take a while for the bid to come back? Start the clock (by requesting it). It’s going to take 40 years for your retirement accounts to compound with enough interest to retire? Start the clock (by making the deposits). It’s going to take 10,000 hours to master something? Start the clock (by doing the work and the study). It struck me that this has become a kind of dividing line between success and failure within my team. Those who haven’t worked out haven’t been able to start the clock or return the ball very quickly. It’s not just my team—it’s a source of frustration that fills the letters and dispatches of just about every great general, admiral, and leader throughout history. In the American Civil War, General George McClellan, for instance, seemed utterly incapable of getting to the fight quickly, to the complete exasperation of everyone who worked with him. There’s even a story about Lincoln coming to meet with McClellan for a meeting but McClellan blew him off because he wanted to go to bed (he thought it could wait until the next day). Only after repeated prods from Lincoln—by “sharp sticks,” one of his secretaries said—did McClellan finally begin to move against Lee in 1862, taking nine days to cross the Potomac. “He’s got the slows,” Lincoln said in frustration. Joking to his wife after visiting the general in the field, Lincoln poked fun at his parked commander. “We are about to be photographed [if] we can sit still long enough,” he said. “I feel General M. should have no problem.” McClellan was a brilliant soldier. But groaning under the weight of his baggage train, his conservatism, his entitlements, his paranoia, and his precaution, he was constitutionally unable to do things quickly, to act urgently, to care about the people waiting on him. He seemed to not understand how much the country was waiting on him, how much it was depending on him sending the message that the North was in the war to win it. Deep down, maybe he didn’t actually want to win the war–at least not early–hoping that a negotiated end might preserve slavery. Lincoln’s big mistake, honestly, was not firing him sooner. You could say Lincoln had the slows himself there–or was in denial–about what needed to be done. Replacing McClellan was not easy and he had to cycle through a number of replacements, but if Lincoln had started the clock sooner, who knows how much sooner the war would have ended. Not that I’m not saying you need to rush everything, I’m really not. There’s another Civil War general I like, General George Thomas. Thomas was hardly known for his speed. His nickname, in fact, was “Old Slow Trot,” which he had earned for the discipline he enforced as a cavalry commander. But it really wasn’t that he was slow; he was deliberate. After all, a trot is not a walk. Some people thought he was too slow and maybe sometimes he was. Thomas found himself at odds with Grant for not moving fast enough against General Hood’s army at Nashville, taking such an exasperatingly long time to get moving on Grant’s order to “attack at once” that Grant moved to personally relieve him. Grant thought that Thomas wasn’t hurrying, that he was dragging his feet. In fact, he was fully committed–unlike McClellan–to attacking, he just wanted to ensure he succeeded when he did so. Having prepared properly, supplied adequately, and trained effectively, he waited for the right moment and then attacked with all deliberate speed. Thomas annihilated his enemy in the Battle of Nashville in December 1864, one of the great victories of the war. (His other nickname was the “Rock of Chickamauga,” for standing fast against a massive enemy attack that would have easily broken a fair-weather general like George McClellan.) There is an old Latin expression that I think captures the balance here nicely: Festina lente. Make haste slowly. A sense of urgency…with a purpose. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control. It is about getting things done, properly and consistently. Seneca once said that the thing all fools have in common is that they’re always getting ready to start. But the thing about clocks is that they are running even when we aren’t. If someone says it’s going to take six weeks to manufacture something, that’s the minimum. It will take longer if you delay getting started, also if you’re slow to respond to emails, or if you don’t start working on your plans to receive that shipment when it’s done. If you don’t have a sense of urgency about what you do, you’ll miss opportunities for efficiency and for effectiveness. You aren’t someone who will work well on my team, or really, any great team. So it’s worth asking: Are you someone who reliably returns the ball? Are you someone whom colleagues and clients can count on to be there when they need you? Or will they have to prod? Will they have to beg? Will they have to repeat, again and again, the urgency of the situation? Are you always getting ready to start or are you in the habit of starting the clock? Do you have “the slows” or do you have a sense of urgency? Where are you slowing things down, where could your clock speed be better? Your success hinges on your answer. On your ability to effectively manage time. On your capacity to initiate projects, address tasks, expedite processes. We don’t control the clock, but we control when it begins ticking on our projects and pursuits. Every moment of hesitation delays the outcome and diminishes the potential for success. Don’t be a fool. Don’t be the person always getting ready to start. Instead, always be starting the clock.
5. 20 Year Treasury ETF-Longest Losing Streak Since 2002..Investors Betting Higher for Longer
Dave Lutz Jones Trading STREAKING– Treasury ETF Hit by Record Losing Streak, $2 Billion of Outflows – With solid economic growth pressuring bond yields and sapping demand for safe assets, the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (ticker TLT) fell again on Monday for eight straight declines. That’s the longest losing streak since its 2002 inception. For five weeks in a row, the fund has seen outflows, with withdrawals totaling $2 billion over the stretch.
If home prices increased at the same rate as inflation since 1963, the median price of a typical house in the U.S. would be $177,511, according to a new research by Clever, a real estate data company.
In reality, the cost of a typical house in the U.S. is nearly half a million dollars: the median price for a home in the U.S. $412,778, according to Redfin data.
While inflation is 10 times higher now than 60 years ago, home prices are 24 times more expensive, a new study found.
If home prices increased at the same rate as inflation since 1963, the median price of a typical house in the U.S. would be $177,511, according to a new research by Clever, a real estate data company.
In reality, the cost of a typical house in the U.S. is closer to half a million dollars: the median price for a home in the U.S. $412,778, according to new Redfin data.
“Today, it’s harder for adults to buy homes than it was for their parents’ generation,” said Matt Brannon, a data writer at Clever and the author of the report.
Why home price growth has outpaced inflation
While mortgage rates have contributed to high costs, supply and demand have also affected the price growth of homes in the U.S., Brannon said.
“When demand for other consumer products comes up, or when it increases, it’s usually not too hard for people to scale up supply,” Brannon said. “Whereas houses take months to build at a time.”
The average time to complete a newly built single-family home is about 9.6 months, according to the 2022 Survey of Construction conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Zoning restrictions, along with prohibitive land costs, can also make it hard to even secure the opportunity to build a new home, Brannon said.
To increase housing supply, local policymakers would need to lower the barriers for builders by easing land-use and zoning regulations, which determine factors like the maximum height of a building or the minimum size of a lot, C. Kirabo Jackson, an economist and member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, previously told CNBC.
“Production can’t move as quickly in housing as it does in other industries,” Brannon said. “That often means the price goes up when there isn’t enough supply to meet demand.”
It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to say that the single most important thing you can do to be more focused during the day is to get more rest at night. No one is at their best if they’re tired. Sleep is maybe your single most powerful productivity tool, so if there are things you can do to help yourself get more, that seems worthwhile.
Of course, getting more sleep isn’t always that easy. In fact, many people don’t get enough sleep, according to research. There are a number of reasons this is the case, but one of the biggest barriers to getting enough sleep is falling asleep in the first place.
There’s nothing magical about the type of paper you use, though I recommend using a small notepad or a notecard that you can keep next to your bed. That way, if you are lying in bed and can’t stop thinking about something, you can quickly reach over and write it down.
By the way, I strongly recommend you not try to do this on your iPhone, even if that’s where you keep your to-do lists. The reason, which should be obvious, is that once you pick up your phone, even if it’s to dump your brain, you’ll inevitably find a few dozen other distractions that steal away your focus and add to the list of things you’re thinking about.
This is usually some combination of tasks you need to complete, as well as other things that you’re stressed about. Maybe you have an important meeting that is causing you anxiety. Take those thoughts captive by writing down a simple word or phrase that captures your feelings. In the case of the meeting, you might just write a reminder that “Everything is set for the meeting.”
If there’s still something you need to do for the meeting, just write it down so your brain can stop worrying about whether you’ll remember. You’ll be surprised how much you can free up brain bandwidth just by writing down a simple list before you try to go to sleep.
By far, the greatest amount of worry is caused by loose thoughts and things your brain is trying to hold on to so you don’t forget. The beauty of taking a few minutes to write them down is that you give your brain permission to let go. Knowing they’re written down and waiting for you in the morning is usually enough to shut off the noise and let your brain turn off.
That’s why I call it a brain hack. It’s a way to dump all of the thoughts and information that race through your brain and get them down on paper, where you can organize or act on them later–you know, when you aren’t trying to go to sleep. It’s a way of hacking the way your brain works so that you can get to sleep and be more rested.
By the way, that list you just made is useful beyond your brain letting them go. You just made yourself a to-do list so that you can get started in the morning on the things that matter most. That list is the stuff your brain was holding on to, and it’s the perfect place to start when you think through what you need to accomplish the next morning. And, it only takes you five minutes.
