1. KRE Regional Bank ETF Chart Update

Regional Bank ETF breaks 200 week moving average for first time since 2020

www.stockcharts.com

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2. SVB Bank Does Business with 44% of U.S. Venture-Backed Technology and Healthcare Companies that went Public Last Year

According to Bloomberg News, SVB does business with almost half of all US venture capital-backed startups, and 44% of US venture-backed technology and health-care companies that went public last year. Those sectors have been ravaged as rate hikes enacted to combat inflation tank valuations and force companies to search for cash, Bloomberg News notes. “We are taking these actions because we expect continued higher interest rates, pressured public and private markets, and elevated cash-burn levels from our clients as they invest in their businesses,” SVB Chief Executive Officer Greg Becker said in a letter to shareholders Wednesday.  https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-03-09/is-silicon-valley-bank-s-swoon-a-recession-signal?srnd=premium&sref=GGda9y2L

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3. Inflation Fight….Still Significant Cash on Sidelines

Rick Reider Blackrock

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4. Credit Spreads Not Pricing in Inflation

Torston Slok Apollo Group

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5. Investors Overweight Bonds

Callum Thomas Chart Storm

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/off-topic-chartstorm-bond-yields-callum-thomas/?midToken=AQFjhnSMpoKQvw&midSig=3dgUxrs3IkGqE1&trk=eml-email_series_follow_newsletter_01-newsletter_hero_banner-0-open_on_linkedin_cta&trkEmail=eml-email_series_follow_newsletter_01-newsletter_hero_banner-0-open_on_linkedin_cta-null-5kl89~leq0zokj~15-null-null&eid=5kl89-leq0zokj-15

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6. EFV Developed International Value ETF Sitting on 3 Year Highs…No Breakout Yet

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7. Another Unlikely Semiconductor New Highs Chart…Microchip About to Break Out to New Highs

www.stockcharts.com

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8. Chinese PPI Goes Negative

The Daily Shot Brief…China: The PPI moved deeper into negative territory. This is good news for inflation in the US.

Source: The Daily Shot

https://dailyshotbrief.com/

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9. Global Obesity Rates

Capital Group

https://www.capitalgroup.com/advisor/insights/articles/new-ways-pharma-fighting-obesity-epidemic.html?sfid=1988901890&cid=80940666&et_cid=80940666&cgsrc=SFMC&alias=F-btn-LP-18-A3cta-Advisor

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10. New Neuroscience Reveals 8 Secrets That Will Make Your Memory Stronger

My memory consists of 70 percent lines from Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes and 30 percent embarrassing moments. Why? I have no idea. Often, memory seems to make no sense. But here’s the thing: a lot of what we think we know about how memory works is wrong. First off, it’s not a perfect video recording of what happened. Memories are a lot more like Legos, assembled and reassembled each time, and rarely in the same way twice. And memory isn’t even one system. It’s a collection of different systems in your brain: episodic, semantic, procedural, working, sensory, etc. This is why you can maintain a memory in one type despite losing it in the other. (I doubt you have any problems tying your shoes — procedural memory — but you may find it impossible to recollect the moment you learned to tie your shoes — episodic memory.) No, your memory is never going to be perfect. (Having a photographic – “eidetic” — memory is almost unheard of in adults, though it’s not uncommon in children.) But we can all improve our memories. We’re going to cover a lot of different techniques here but don’t worry; I’ll give you mnemonics to help remember them. This way we can prevent any unintended irony. Andrew E. Budson is a professor of neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine and Elizabeth Kensinger is the chair of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College. Their new book is “Why We Forget and How To Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory.” Bite into that madeleine cake. Let’s get to it… Reminder: Your Brain Is Part Of Your Body Yeah, shocking. But it matters. The things that improve your physical health improve your brain’s health — like exercise. You might refer to the treadmill as the “dreadmill” but spending a little more time on it can help. Exercise increases brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a hormone that increases hippocampal volume and improves your memory. (In fact, a vigorous exercise regimen in midlife might delay dementia onset by a decade.) Of course, nutrition matters too. Variations on the Mediterranean diet have been shown to have positive effects on the performance of your mental hard drive. And take it easy with the booze. Or even better, eliminate it altogether. And get some sunshine. Low levels of vitamin D double your chance of Alzheimer’s. BAH, BAH, BAH. “Exercise and eating right are good.” Get to the fancy brain stuff. Okay, I hear you. But there’s one more thing that’s a big deal when it comes to fundamentals: sleep. It matters. A lot. Sleep is when a lot of the hard work of memory consolidation gets done. Don’t deprive yourself. (And sleeping poorly may increase the chance of Alzheimer’s too.) Sleep is one of the reasons why “cramming” doesn’t help students learn over the long haul. Spacing out your learning does work. Why? You need some sleep in there to really retain stuff. Okay, enough basics. You try to learn something but your brain immediately blows it out the airlock. How do we get memories to stick? Encoding Yes, yes, Sherlock Holmes used a “memory palace” on TV and it was really cool. That technique is real but, it is, as they say: a lot of frickin’ work. We’re gonna concentrate on stuff you’ll actually use. There are four techniques for better encoding your memories, so remember the acronym FOUR: Focus Organize Understand and relate Recruit multiple systems Focus What’s the primary reason you forget? Because you weren’t paying attention in the first place. Focus is key. When trying to make a deposit in your memory bank, don’t multitask and avoid distractions. Beyond that, get motivated. If your brain is surrounded by a moat of indifference, there’s a lot less chance that anything going in will ever come out. The mere intention to remember things matters. When students tell themselves “This is going to be on the exam”, they’re more likely to retain it. The reverse is true as well – when you tell people “This isn’t important” it makes them less likely to remember it. Organize Giving structure and meaning to information provides scaffolding for memory. This is why remembering lists of numbers is hard – it’s totally abstract. Memory works off patterns so create patterns to remember better. This is why mnemonics (like FOUR) are helpful. I’m not a doctor, but if you tell me your symptoms I know the first steps to do a differential diagnosis. How? Because I remember the word VINDICATE: Vascular, Infection, Neoplasm, Drugs, Idiopathic, Congenital, Autoimmune, Traumatic, Endocrine. (Please don’t email me with your health issues. I don’t accept your insurance.) Creating visual images works too. The more silly and wacky, the better because your brain remembers things that are distinctive. If you’re trying to remember that the word “jentacular” means “relating to breakfast”, imagine your friend Jen tacking you to an enormous bowl of cereal. Or, if you’re of the musical type, take the information and create a catchy jingle that will mentally plague you for the rest of your life. Understand And Relate Don’t just treat information like random facts. Try to understand it. Often, we don’t encode stuff well because our efforts are undercooked. More effort means more remembering. Distill ideas to fundamental principles. Write a summary. Explain it to someone else. Or if you’re really nuts, write long blog posts about them and share those with the world. Work with the information so much that it leaves cognitive stretch marks. Along similar lines, make information relatable. Again, abstract is no good. We remember important things so find a way to relate it to you or your life. Connect it to prior knowledge. Recruit Multiple Systems The reason you can’t remember where your car is in the parking structure or what you ate for lunch last Thursday is because those things happen often and they’re not distinctive. You do remember great meals – or ones that made you sick. So notice details that make these everyday moments unique if you want to be able to pull them out of your mental landfill later. If those details are emotional, all the better, because emotion tags memories better than almost anything. (This is why you can’t remember facts you learned in school, but you easily remember embarrassing moments from school.) A good way to make things distinctive is by leveraging multiple memory systems. Rather than merely trying to recollect where you put your keys (episodic memory), always put your keys in the same place (procedural memory). Or say “I’m putting my keys on the dresser” to engage semantic memory. Okay, we got the memories in – how do we get them out? Recall To recall, use RAMS: Relaxed Aids Minimize Interference Situation Relaxed Merely telling people that their memory is being tested stresses them out and they perform worse. Anxiety helps encoding but usually hurts recall. So when trying to remember, relax and give it a moment. We all get stuff stuck on the tip of our tongue. (If you’re hearing impaired and use sign language, it gets stuck on your fingertips.) Aids If your memory is a repeat offender, don’t be afraid to take notes. Memory aids are a positive. Be deliberate and consistent about outsourcing memory. Develop a routine around this and it can work wonders. You have a notes app on your phone. Use it. Minimize Interference Do not run through all the possible answers in your head. This leads to something memory researchers call “interference and blocking.” You get stuck on those wrong answers. Instead, think around the subject. When your brain is doing its internal Google search, try using related search terms. When we leverage general and diverse retrieval cues, we do better. When trying to remember someone’s name, ask yourself: Where did I last see this person? Who else knows them? What did we talk about last time I saw them? What else do I know about them? Situation Memories are strongly associated with the context you learned them in. When facing Ambien level of amnesia, mentally return to the situation where you learned something — both internal and external. Imagine the layout of the book you read or the notes you took. Think about how you felt at the time of encoding. Similarly, research shows people remember better when the test happens in the same place and under same conditions as studying did. Try to acquire information in the same way you will need to retrieve it. Reading a book about jiu-jitsu techniques won’t produce the same effect as performing the technique on the mat. Okay, time to address the big, scary issue. You’ve been forgetting things lately. Is it normal aging or a sign of dementia trying to reformat your hard drive? Normal Aging Or Alzheimer’s? Is it harder to briefly keep a fact or number in your head as you’re working with it? Does it take more effort to get something into long term storage? To retrieve it? Do you have trouble with names? Are your memories less reliable and sometimes inaccurate? Well, then don’t worry because these are all normal as you age, especially after 60. Sorry, the mental warranty is up. But the techniques above (and a little effort) can help. But what’s dementia look like? The most common symptom of Alzheimer’s is rapid forgetting. New information just vanishes or is difficult to recall while older facts remain. This happens to everyone occasionally but if it happens a lot, that’s a concern. Also, with dementia, word finding becomes difficult even for ordinary nouns. (If you can’t remember the dog’s name, that’s normal. If you can’t remember the word “dog”, that’s a problem.) How do we reduce the chance of getting dementia? No, brain games don’t help. But spending time with friends and loved ones does. And reduce those negative social interactions as much as you can. Too much TV and social media is not a good thing. But seeking out rich, novel experiences is a positive. So keep learning new, interesting stuff. “Use it or lose it” is true. And don’t sweat normal age-related memory issues too much. People with positive views of aging show 30% less decline in cognitive performance. Alrighty, we covered a lot. Let’s round it all up – and learn the upside of an aging brain… Sum Up Here’s how to make your memory stronger: Your Brain Is Part Of Your Body: Take care of your body to take care of your brain. Most important: get your sleep. Encode: Remember the acronym, FOUR: Focus, Organize, Understand and Relate, Recruit Multiple Systems. Recall: Remember the acronym, RAMS: Relaxed, Aids To Memory, Minimize Interference, Situation. Normal Aging Or Alzheimer’s?: Memory worsens with age. Most problems are normal. If you are rapidly forgetting things – it just happened and it feels like it never occurred – that’s an issue. This happens to everyone occasionally but if you’re full-on Dory from “Finding Nemo,” see a doctor. So what’s the upside to an aging brain? Older brains aren’t as good at remembering details but they’re very good at recalling the gist of things. So as you get up there in years, you can actually be better at “seeing the forest for the trees.” Just like when it’s difficult to find something on your computer because there are too many files, having too many details can make getting to what’s relevant harder. Older brains can also be better at seeing commonalities between situations and discerning what’s key. We’re always complaining about our inability to remember things. When I think of my imperfect memory, I’m often thankful. To let things go and forget, rather than taking another ride on the Satan’s Merry Go Round of lousy memories. We don’t fully grasp the human mind but, as Emerson Pugh said, “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.” But, in a way, what our brains choose to remember can teach us a few things about what’s important in life. We remember what is distinctive, organized, and useful. We remember what we work hard at. And, perhaps most of all, we remember emotion. You’ve learned how to encode. You’ve learned how to recall. Now go do some things worth remembering. https://bakadesuyo.com/

1. Yield Curve Inversion Hits Record

The inversion between the 2-year and 10-year Treasury yields hit a record 103.5 basis points on Tuesday, according to Refinitiv data. It later narrowed to 102.4 basis points. The last time the yield curve inverted by more than 100 basis points, or 1 percentage point, was in 1981, due to similar circumstances. Then-Fed Chair Paul Volcker was also battling surging inflation. Recession followed and the unemployment rate soared. Business Insider https://www.businessinsider.com/

Fred Charts 10Year to 2Year

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y

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2. 10-Year Treasury Yield Runs Back to 4%….Fed Fund Futures 100% Probability of 2 More 25 basis point Rate Hikes

www.stockcharts.com

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3. Speculators Bearish Bets on Rates Hitting Extreme Levels.

From The Daily Shot Brief Rates: Treasury market bearish bets are hitting new extremes.

Source: Deutsche Bank Research

 https://dailyshotbrief.com/

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4. Spread between S&P 500’s earnings yield and 10y Treasury yield continues to grind lower; now testing low point seen in 2010

Liz Ann Sonders Schwab

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizannsonders/

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5. Recession? Industrial Stocks About to Break to New Highs

www.stockcharts.com

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6. Recession? Cruise Lines 2023….

RCL +48% … CCL +35% …….vs. S&P +4%

www.yahoofinance.com

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7. International Small Cap

ECNS Chinese Small Cap Stocks…3 Runs at 200 Week Moving Average Fail

European Small Caps Siting on 200 week moving average

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8. Average Short Interest by Sector S&P 500

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright

https://www.nasdaq.com/solutions/nasdaq-dorsey-wright

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9. Hedging Against Stock Market Dangers Could Make Losses Much Worse

Bloomberg Lu Wang

(Bloomberg) — Stocks are unpredictable, so people buy protection in case they crash. But the tactics Wall Street has devised to protect investors at times of crisis are just as hard to forecast, and what seems like prudent hedging may just make things worse.

That’s a finding of new research by Roni Israelov, chief investment officer of Boston-based financial services firm NDVR, who made waves with prior papers arguing that cash is usually a better equity hedge than buying put options. Now the former AQR Capital strategist is back with a point-by-point dissection of how popular volatility strategies sometimes fail users at exactly the wrong time.

The warning comes as predictions for market chaos abound. A little over a month ago, Mark Spitznagel at tail-risk hedge fund Universa Investments told clients that ballooning debts across the global economy are poised to wreak market havoc rivaling the Great Depression. Israelov’s paper says that it takes more than knowing an asset will stumble to make money buying protection on it.

“Different protection strategies protect against different types of drawdowns. And who knows what the next drawdown is going to look like?” Israelov said in an interview. Is it “a catastrophe as markets drop by 30% in a week, or they drop by 30% or 50% over the entire year? How it occurs has a huge impact on which hedging will pay off, and which will not.”

In the paper titled “Equity Tail Protection Strategies Before, During, and After Covid,” Israelov and colleague David Nze Ndong studied three popular hedging strategies’ performances during those regimes. Each met with success and failure, which is Israelov’s point: Hedging tools that work well in one environment tended to struggle in others. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hedging-against-stock-market-dangers-120000116.html

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10. Yes, students are in crisis. But going easy on them might make it worse.

Jonathan Zimmerman Philadelphia Inquirer

Young people do best — academically, socially, and psychologically — when we hold them to high standards. By going easy on them, we might have made their lives even harder.

Our students are experiencing a crisis in mental health. They have problems studying, sleeping, and interacting with others. Teachers should assign less work and let students complete it at their own pace. Strict deadlines will only harm them further.

That’s been the message I and other teachers (both college and K-12) have received from school officials since March 2020, when the pandemic sent us into lockdown. Many of us have responded by lowering our expectations, in a good-faith effort to alleviate the very real pain that students are suffering.

But it hasn’t worked. Many teachers have been coddling students for almost three years now, and the kids are still struggling.

As a long line of research reminds us, young people do their best — academically, socially, and psychologically — when we hold them to high standards. By going easy on them, we might have made their lives even harder.

For example, procrastination among college students has long been associated with poor mental health. But we also know that people are less likely to procrastinate if they are required to produce small amounts of work on a regular basis, instead of something big that they can put off until the end.

That’s why I require a piece of writing from each of my students, every week. It’s not long, but it’s also not optional. It keeps them engaged in the course. And, most of all, it lets them know that I think highly of them: I believe they are competent human beings, who can accomplish the tasks set before them. And almost all of them do.

“I require a piece of writing from each of my students, every week.”

Cutting them slack communicates the opposite. It signals that I believe they are feeble, inept, or fragile. And that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, another well-known phenomenon in psychological research. If students think they are weak and wounded, they may be more likely to behave that way as well.

I also insist that my students come to class. Woody Allen might have exaggerated when he said that 90% of success in life is just showing up, but he wasn’t off by much. In a 2019 study, scholars at Indiana University showed that more students go to class when there are strict attendance rules, and that — surprise! — the students who show up get better grades.

So why are so many colleges saying that students don’t have to show up, or even offering “wellness days” when everyone gets to play hooky? I don’t doubt the good intentions of the people behind these policies. But that doesn’t mean they’re good for our students.

Let’s be clear: There really is a crisis in mental health among American students. In a 2021 survey, nearly three-quarters of college students reported moderate or serious psychological distress. And in a 2022 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost half of high school students said they had felt sad or hopeless almost every day for at least two weeks in a row.

Some of those problems were surely exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. But I haven’t seen any indication that our students’ mental health is improving now that the pandemic is abating.

So what can we do about that? Of course, we need more psychological services for students at every level. Many K-12 schools report that they are overwhelmed with demands for mental health treatment and lack the funds or staff to meet them. And even at an extremely well-resourced university like Penn, where I teach, students complain that they can’t obtain timely or effective psychological assistance.

But I also think we need to look more carefully at the causes of the mental health crisis. I believe one of them, ironically, is the culture of leniency around mental health itself.

Students with diagnosed mental illnesses might need special accommodations, of course, including extra time to complete schoolwork. And everyone should be encouraged to seek out psychological help when they need it. But I fear that teachers who routinely let their students off the hook — in the mistaken belief that this will help them feel better — could actually make them feel worse. The best thing we can do for their psychological well-being is to require that they show up, stay engaged, and submit their work on time. And, most of all, we need to have faith in their capacity to do it.

A beautiful new charter school just opened up in the South Bronx, in a repurposed former ice plant. Designed by the celebrated Ghanaian British architect David Adjaye, the school features a staircase with a simple inscription in bold red letters: “ALL KIDS CAN.”

If we tell our students they are frail and debilitated human beings, they will feel — and act — accordingly. The only remedy is to tell them that they are strong and that they can succeed. All of them can.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools,” which was recently published in a revised 20th-anniversary edition by the University of Chicago Press.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/students-mental-health-teachers-go-easy-20230301.html

1. Tuition Revenue Has Fallen at 61% of Colleges During the Pandemic

From Barry Ritholtz Blog

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education https://ritholtz.com/2023/03/sunday-reads-314/

2. AAII Sentiment Poll….Less Than 25% of Investors are Bullish

Bespoke Investment Group Sentiment Back to Bearish The consistency of declines throughout February and to start the month of March has sent sentiment decisively lower. The latest data from the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) showed 23.4% of respondents reported as bullish, up modestly from 21.6% last week but still down significantly from 34.1% two weeks ago. With less than a quarter of respondents reporting as bullish, bullish sentiment continues to sit firmly below its historical average of 37.5% for a record 67 straight weeks.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/sentiment-back-to-bearish

3. Bank of Americas Sell Side Indicator Lining Up with AAII Poll in #2

Barrons At February’s close, Bank of America’s Sell Side Indicator, a measure of Wall Street sentiment, was still leaning Sell, but the metric was only 1.5 percentage points away from where Sell would become Buy. When that happens, the S&P 500 has a 95% chance of being positive 12 months later, with an expected return of 16%, making this the most bullish of BofA’s market metrics. By

Carleton English
https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-dow-nasdaq-s-p-500-253c4a1a?mod=past_editions

4. Private Equity Dry Powder Up 15.6% End of 2022 vs. 2021 to $3.7 Trillion-Bain Capital

https://www.bain.com/insights/private-equity-outlook-global-private-equity-report-2023/

5. Crude Oil Production Still Below 2019 Peaks

Avi Salzman -Barrons

https://www.barrons.com/articles/u-s-oil-will-grow-only-3-this-year-one-reason-executive-compensation-de460308?mod=past_editions

6. New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq Dominate Global Listings

WSJ New York’s dominance over London has grown over time. At the end of last year, the combined market cap of listed companies at the NYSE and Nasdaq was $40.3 trillion, roughly 13 times the $3.1 trillion at the London Stock Exchange LSEG 1.94%increase; green up pointing triangle, according to data from the World Federation of Exchanges. A decade earlier, the combined market cap at the two U.S. exchanges was about six times LSE’s total market cap, WFE data shows.

By Ben Dummett, Alexander Osipovichand Josh Mitchell

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chip-designer-arm-intends-to-list-in-new-york-12210e53?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo

7. 40% of U.S. Mortgages were Locked in During Pandemic at Low Rates

(Bloomberg) — More than 40% of all US mortgages were originated in 2020 or 2021, when the pandemic drove borrowing costs to historic lows and triggered a refinancing boom, according to data from Black Knight.

That’s good news for all the homeowners who locked in cheap loans — but maybe not so great for the Federal Reserve, as it seeks to cool the economy by raising interest rates.

Almost one-quarter of all mortgages are 2021 vintage, according to Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider. That year, the average cost of a 30-year fixed-rate loan touched a low of 2.8%. Another 18% of home loans date from the previous year, when the pandemic hit.

The numbers illustrate one obstacle for the Fed, which is hiking rates at the steepest pace in decades to rein in inflation.

One way that monetary tightening works is by damping consumer demand, as credit becomes more expensive. That’s having an impact on housing markets now, because new buyers have to pay 7% or more. But the large majority of American homeowners have fixed mortgages, mostly much cheaper than today’s going rate. Those who refinanced in the pandemic have locked in extra purchasing power for potentially decades ahead.

Things used to be different when more Americans had mortgages that carried variable interest rates. In a report this week, UBS economists estimated that the share of floating-rate debt in the US mortgage pile has shrunk to about 5%, from a peak of around 40% in 2006. That’s one reason for the “lower responsiveness of household credit to higher rates,” they wrote.

Still, even if the shift to fixed-rate mortgages makes the Fed’s anti-inflation campaign a little harder, there’s an obvious upside.

The last time the Fed hiked rates by a comparable amount was in the mid-2000s when adjustable-rate mortgages were widespread. The result: Housing markets crashed — and not long afterwards, so did the world economy.

©2023 Bloomberg L.P. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/sorry-fed-most-us-mortgage-rates-were-locked-in-during-pandemic-lows-1.1890930

8. Institutional CFA’s MBA’s Turn to Reddit for Stock Picks

Institutional Investors Are Using Reddit to Make Investment Decisions. Here’s Where They Lurk.
And it’s not just Reddit — digital media from newsletters to TikTok are also playing a role.

• Alicia McElhaney

At long last, the Reddit retail investors may finally be enjoying their day in the sun: Major institutional investors are taking note of what they do — and they’re making investment decisions based on it.

A new survey shows that 58 percent of the institutional investors polled have made an investment decision based on information they found on Reddit.

Since 2020, when retail trading began to take off, the social media forum site has become a haven for retail traders interested in both meme stocks like AMC and plain vanilla passive investing.

The Brunswick Group surveyed 257 institutional investors in North America, the United Kingdom, and the European Union about how they use social media and other digital tools to inform their investment decisions. The majority of the respondents — 94 percent — were either portfolio managers or buy-side analysts.

“It’s kind of impressive year over year, not only how much they’re absorbing the information, but also [that they’re] making decisions based on it,” said Janelle Nowak-Santo, a partner at Brunswick.

The survey pointed out a convergence between institutional and retail investors, with institutions tapping into sites like Reddit and traditionally retail-oriented newsletters and podcasts for information.

In fact, according to the survey, 49 percent of respondents consider Reddit to be of “high importance” when it comes to evaluating a stock. This result is similar to TikTok’s ranking, and trails sites like YouTube and Instagram by about 10 percentage points.

“There’s an inundation of information from all sources,” Nowak-Santo said. “I’d have to guess that in order to be prudent in their research, they’re actually using more of that information to make their decisions.”

So where on Reddit are these investors finding this information? The survey showed that popular investor subreddits include r/investing and r/cryptocurrency, with over half of all respondents saying that they follow those forums. Others that are commonly referenced include r/WallStreetBets and r/personalfinance. And their popularity may grow in the months to come, with 46 percent of respondents saying that they plan to increase their use of the platform.

“I think that’s just another interesting insight that [shows that] this gap between institutional and retail is narrowing,” Nowak-Santo said.

But Reddit is less important when it comes to data harvesting via machine learning, AI, and natural language processing. Just 23 percent of those surveyed said their firms are harvesting data from the social media site.

Google search results, perhaps not surprisingly, are the most popular place to harvest data. YouTube, however, ranks second, with 47 percent of investors tapping into the video platform’s data.

The survey also showed that investors are turning their focus from traditional mediums to newsletters and podcasts. In fact, 61 percent said they plan to increase their use of e-mail newsletters for equity evaluation in the coming year, while half of respondents said the same for podcasts.

These platforms are also considered to be more trustworthy than social media, ranking fourth and fifth, respectively, among those who took the survey, after investor relation sites, Google, and LinkedIn.

Among those surveyed, the Robinhood Snacks newsletter was most popular, tied with Value Investor Insight. Meanwhile, The Economist’s Money Talks is the favorite podcast among investors, with Invest Like the Best trailing close behind

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b8xnck9hx10jdc/Institutional-Investors-Are-Using-Reddit-to-Make-Investment-Decisions-Here-s-Where-They-Lurk

9. All Portland Walmart Stores To “Permanently Close” Amid Theft Wave

BY TYLER DURDENIn order to address the issue of shoplifting and retail theft, the final two Walmart stores in the city of Portland will shutter their doors in late March.

FOX 12 Oregon reported that the Walmart locations at 1123 North Hayden Meadows Drive and 4200 Southeast 82nd Avenue at the Eastport Plaza would close on Mar. 24.

“The decision to close these stores was made after a careful review of their overall performance. We consider many factors, including current and projected financial performance, location, population, customer needs, and the proximity of other nearby stores when making these difficult decisions. After we decide to move forward, our focus is on our associates and their transition, which is the case here,” a spokesperson with Walmart told the local media outlet.

The announced closures come amid a wave of violent crime across the Portland metro area, which includes retail thefts, armed robberies, and homicides. The city has also seen a surge of violent protests from ANTIFA and BLM groups.

Oregon Live reported that in 2022, Portland set a new record for homicides with 101 cases, surpassing the previous year’s record of 92. Meanwhile, a National Retail Federation report revealed that retailers experienced an average surge of 26.5% in organized retail crime (ORC) incidents in 2021 compared to the previous year.

Data from the Portland Police Bureau indicated that between January 2022 and January 2023, the city witnessed more than 6,000 burglary incidents. Additionally, the data revealed over 27,000 larceny offenses.

An exodus of businesses will only hurt low-income residents who need the pricing power at discount stores.

Recall a similar exodus with other retailers is happening in other progressive cities across the US, such as San Francisco.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/all-portland-walmart-stores-permanently-close-amid-theft-wave

10. Here’s the No. 1 thing that ‘destroys’ relationships, say researchers who studied couples for 50 years

Dr. Jessica Griffin, Contributor@THEDRJESSICA

Dr. Pepper Schwartz, Contributor@PEPPERSCHWARTZ

As a psychologist and sexologist, we’ve been studying relationships for more than 50 years combined, and we’ve found that no matter how you slice it, most of them fail because of poor communication.

In his book “What Predicts Divorce?”, psychologist Dr. John Gottman identifies the four most problematic types of communication in relationships, based on his studies of 40,000 couples:

1. Contempt: Expressing a lack of respect for our partners (e.g., name-calling, eye-rolling, ridiculing).
2. Criticism: Attacking a partner’s character.
3. Defensiveness: Protecting from criticism by using excuses or shifting blame.
4. Stonewalling: Withdrawing from communication by ignoring, zoning out or acting busy.

Of these four, Gottman says, the biggest predictor of a failed relationship is contempt.

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What does contempt look like?

Contempt is more than criticism or saying something negative. It’s when one partner asserts that they are smarter, have better morals, or are simply a better human being than the other.

The partner on the receiving end feels unworthy and unloved.

For example, continually interrupting the other person is disrespectful. But it turns into contempt when the interruption is not an overeager desire to talk, but rather a statement that the partner has nothing interesting or important to say.

It could be as obvious as a spouse saying, “Oh, he’s not worth listening to. He couldn’t tell a story to save his life.”

When this type of behavior becomes more than rare — and when it is either unrecognized or delivered with intent — any relationship, much less a marriage, is in trouble.

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How contempt destroys relationships

Contempt makes it impossible for partners to feel like they have each other’s back. Instead of “it’s you and me against the problem,” partners are now the opponents. They never know when they might be attacked or undermined.

This often stems from individuals feeling that they are standing up for themselves, which is usually a healthy thing to do. But the problem is that they are standing up for themselves against their partner, trying to raise themselves up while tearing their partner down.

Contempt isn’t just bad for relationships — it’s also bad for our health. We need one another to survive. Contempt cuts off or threatens those ties to other people.

Research has shown that individuals who use contempt in their communication have higher rates of disease, including cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses such as colds or the flu.

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How to eliminate contempt in your relationship

1. Identify and share negative feelings.

When we don’t know how to name or talk about negative feelings, it’s tempting to take them out on others.

For example: “I can’t believe you are canceling our date night to meet with your friends. You’re a selfish jerk. You never think about my feelings!”

To avoid contemptuous communication, use this formula instead:

1. State what you’re feeling: “I feel annoyed and sad because I was looking forward to spending time together.”
2. Add a request: “I’d like to avoid this happening in the future by talking about it first before changing plans.”
3. Invite your partner to the conversation: “Do you think we can do that?”

2. Create a culture of appreciation.

Expressing appreciation helps us notice more of our partner’s positive qualities rather than the negatives.

Ideally, we want our positive statements and gestures to outweigh the negative ones — the magic ratio is at least five positive statements or feelings to one negative one.

Track your communication patterns over a week. How often are you engaging in negative interactions (e.g., nagging, criticizing, ignoring, eye-rolling) versus positive ones (e.g., praising, complementing, doing something nice for the other partner)?

The following week, interact with your partner using the magic ratio. Do you feel differently?

You can also try each making a list of 20 things you love about each other. Read them out loud, and challenge yourselves by adding to the list over time.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/03/no-1-thing-that-destroys-relationships-say-psychology-researchers-who-studied-couples-for-50-years.html

1. S&P Earnings Surprises vs. Historical

Nasdaq Dorsey Wright Out of the 457 companies in the S&P 500 that have already reported their results, roughly 70% have posted a positive EPS surprise. However, aggregate earnings reported by S&P 500 companies have exceeded estimates by just 1.3% which is the second lowest surprise in the past five years (Source: FactSet Earnings Insight). Granted, there is a fair amount of relative recency bias here given the extreme deviations and uncertainty of earnings in 2020 and 2021, but even compared to pre-pandemic quarters, Q4 of 2022 was low.

2. Third Worse February in 25 Years

3. 40% of Stocks Still Trading Above Their 10 Year Median

Carla Mozée Business Insider

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/stock-market-outlook-valuations-too-high-sp500-inflation-economy-selloff-2023-2?_gl=1*12pzged*_ga*MTcwNTA0MjU4My4xNjYxMzU3MTY0*_ga_E21CV80ZCZ*MTY3NzUzODE4MC4zMi4xLjE2Nzc1MzgyNjkuMC4wLjA

4. Investors Sold Record Amounts of Stock at 2020 Covid Lows

https://twitter.com/PeterMallouk

5. Gold Fell Short of 2022 Highs

GLD ETF holding above 200 week moving average

www.stockcharts.com

6. Electricity by Source 2001-2023

Wolf Street The chart below shows the amount of electricity generated by source since 2001. For this chart, I combined wind, hydro, solar, geothermal, and biomass into the “renewables” category.

https://wolfstreet.com/2023/02/28/u-s-electricity-generation-by-source-in-2022-natural-gas-coal-nuclear-wind-hydro-solar-geothermal-biomass-petroleum/

7. 10% of U.S. Population Owns 84% of Stocks

Barry Ritholtz The Big Picture Blog

https://ritholtz.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Stock-ownership.png

8. Office Entry Swipes 50% in Top 10 Metros

Scott Galloway Blog

https://www.linkedin.com/in/profgalloway/

9. Homicide clearance rates slump to their lowest level in four decades from 71% in 1980 to around 50% in 2020

• Clearance rates are how many murders are solved of those committed
• The US police have solved more murders than in any year since 1997
• However, the amount of committed homicides have doubled in the past decades

By FFION HAF

Homicide clearance rates have decreased to their lowest level from 71 per cent in 1980 to around 50 per cent in 2020, according to analyses of FBI data by the Marshall Project and Murder Accountability Project.

America is now at risk of becoming the first developed nation where the majority of murders go uncleared, according to Thomas Hargrove, founder of the Murder Accountability Project, which tracks unsolved homicides in the US.

Although US police have solved more murders than in any year since 1997, because of the increasing number of homicides, the clearance rate has dramatically declined to a little below 50 per cent.

Clearance rates are the metric used to determine how many homicides police solved according to FBI reports.

This comes after a substantial surge in homicides in some of America’s biggest cities, including Kansas City when it saw 15 murders for every 100,000 people in 2022.

America is at risk of becoming the first developed nation where the majority of murders go uncleared as the national homicide clearance rates are at their lowest in four decades

Researchers found thst the top five homicide hotspots were Detroit, Michigan, St Louis, Missouri, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Denver, Colorado, was the best performing of the 50 big cities in the study.

To clear a case it requires at least one suspect to be arrested, charged with the offence, and turned over to a court for prosecution.

However, according to the FBI homicides can also be cleared by ‘exceptional means’ – this is when police believe they have enough evidence, but were unable to make an arrest.

Examples of such include the death of a suspect, another jurisdiction’s refusal to extradite someone, or police identification of a suspect.

From 2019 to 2020, police across the United States solved 1,200 more murders, which is a 14 per cent increase.

However, in comparison to previous decades, murders have now risen twice as quickly and are at 30 per cent – leading to a drop in cleared crimes as only one in every two murders are solved.

Across the country, murders and manslaughters a were being cleared at the highest rates, at 50% and 69% respectively as other crimes, such as rape, robbery and assault, were solved at much lower rates.

Local law enforcement agencies reported only 14,715 homicides while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention so far have counted 25,988 murders, according to data collected by the Murder Accountability Project.

This is because the FBI has mandated that all crimes committed in 2021 and afterwards must be reported via the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) rather than the Summary Reporting System.

Philip Cook, a public policy researcher at the University of Chicago Urban Labs, who has been studying clearance rates since the 1970s offers the suggestion that a decline in clearance rates might not be a bad thing.

He told the Marshall Project: ‘It also could be that the standards for making an arrest have gone up and some of the tricks they were using in 1965 are no longer available’.

Additionally, the change in clearance rates over the years can be pinned down to the fact that the nature of crimes police are being asked to solve has changed over the years.

Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics demonstrates that killings are now less frequently committed by people the victim knew, with growing proportions of homicides being done by strangers.

Alternatively, often in minority communities where trust in the law is lower, officers struggle to get witnesses to talk to them, Peter Moskos, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice claims.

Melina Abdullah, co-director of the national community organizing group Black Lives Matter Grassroots, claimed that one of the reasons behind engaging with law enforcement is due to a fear of violent reprisals.

Abdullah suggested that police are often guilty of incorrectly criminalizing victims and treating them as suspects, specifically in Black communities.

CBS also noted a growing discrepancy in homicide clearance rates according to the race and ethnicity of the victim, with African American victims experiencing the lowest clearance rate.

Additionally, the Murder Accountability Project reported 100 per cent of the US’s decline in homicide clearance was borne by black victims as clearance rates for white, Asian American and American Indian victims have held steady or even improved over time.

As a result of this cycle, police are viewed as inefficient in their work when they are not given essential leads.

‘Declining homicide clearance rates are the result of inadequate allocation of resources — detectives, forensic technicians, crime laboratory capacity, and adequate training of personnel,’ said Hargrove.

However, although a case may be cleared, this does not always result in imprisonment.

A 2009 report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics states that almost one-third of people accused of murder were acquitted or had their charges dismissed in the nation’s 70 largest counties.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11798717/Just-half-Americas-murders-solved-homicide-clearance-rates-lowest-four-decades.html

10. This Simple Cognitive Reframing Technique Can Instantly Boost Confidence and Self-Assurance

Start seeing feelings of stress as a positive signal and your mind–and body–will respond in a completely different way.

BY JEFF HADEN, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, INC.@JEFF_HADEN

Illustration: Getty Images

If you often feel anxious or stressed, you’re in good company. Statistics show approximately 80 percent of U.S. workers say they experience stress at work, half say stress negatively affects their behavior, and more than three out of four say stress results in headaches, fatigue, and problems sleeping.

Stress also, to put it bluntly, kills: An Oregon State University study found that people who experience persistently moderate or high levels of stressful life events over a number of years have a 50 percent higher mortality rate.

But here’s the thing: Research shows that how stress impacts you depends not on level or amount of stress you experience, but on how you perceive that stress.

As psychologist and Stanford professor Kelly McGonigal describes in her 2013 TED Talk, the researchers asked 30,000 adults two questions:

• How much stress have you experienced in the past year?
• Do you believe that stress is harmful for your health?

Then they tracked those individuals for the next eight years to find out who died. (Not a warm and fuzzy task.) The results?

• People who said they experienced a lot of stress in the previous year had a 43 percent greater risk of dying, but only if they also believed that stress was harmful for their health.
• People who said they experienced a lot of stress but who did not view stress as harmful to their health were no more likely to die. In fact, they were less likely to die than anyone in the study, including people who said they experienced relatively little to no stress.

The conclusion? As McGonigal says, the researchers estimated that over that eight year period, 182,000 Americans died prematurely not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you.

As with most things, perspective is everything.

Which means a little mental reframing is in order.

How Your Body Responds to Stress

When something happens that makes you feel nervous, challenged, scared, etc. — in short, “stressed” — your body responds. Your heart rate increases. Your breathing might get shallower and faster. Your body temperature rises.

Those responses are automatic and normal. Your body spotted a problem or challenge and said, “Time to gear up!”

Problem is, you also vasoconstrict. The muscles inside your blood vessels tighten, making the space inside smaller. Vasoconstriction raises your blood pressure. Reduces circulation to your extremities (which is why, when you feel super stressed, your fingers and toes can feel cold.) If chronic — if, like many, you tend to feel stressed much of the time — it can be a cause of cardiovascular disease.

That natural response to a problem or challenge? Terrible for you.

But here’s the thing: A study published in Journal of Experimental Psychology found that when people viewed their stress response as helpful — that their body’s natural response to stress, like increased heart and respiration rate, signaled their body’s rising to the challenge — they didn’t vasoconstrict. Their blood pressure didn’t rise.

In fact, their physiological profiles looked like what McGonigal describes as what happens in “moments of joy and courage.”

Thinking about stress differently, seeing stress as a good thing, changed how their bodies responded.

Reframing Stress

And likely made them respond more thoughtfully, proactively, and successfully to whatever challenge they faced.

Research shows that feeling stressed — feeling afraid, hesitant, anxious, etc. — negatively impacts professional and personal performance. Makes sense. We all perform better when we feel more confident and self-assured.

So what should you do? While research shows simply trying to ignore stress rarely works, reframing “stress” can. (If you aren’t familiar, cognitive reframing is a psychological technique that consists of identifying and changing the way you view situati

1. History of Bond Cycle

Barrons Over the near term, Treasury yields have significantly further to rise, even after their recent jump, according to Bianco’s analysis. In every cycle, he finds, the two-year note’s yield tops out above the eventual peak in the Fed’s funds rate target.  Treasury yields probably will rise further, if the Fed meets the market’s expectations of three more 25-basis-point hikes, in March, May, and June, to a 5.25%-5.50% target range. (A basis point is 1/100th of a percentage point.) In that case, the two-year note should hit about 5.40% from 4.81% Friday, according to the precedent cited by Bianco. Friday’s yield topped the previous recent high of 4.70%, reached in November, and was the highest since 2007.   Randall W. Forsyth

https://www.barrons.com/articles/hopes-for-lower-interest-rates-fade-inflation-doesnt-6c798d57?mod=past_editions

https://ycharts.com/indicators/2_year_treasury_rate

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2. Supercore Inflation Well Above Fed Target

The PCE inflation data that came out on Friday shows that the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, namely core inflation excluding housing, also known as supercore inflation, increased in January to 4.6%, dramatically above the Fed’s 2% inflation target. The economy outside the interest rate-sensitive components – which only make up 20% of GDP – is simply not slowing down.

Even the housing market is starting to show signs of a rebound, driven by strong job growth, high wage growth, and high levels of savings across the income distribution, which is particularly problematic given the consensus expectation that OER should be declining over the coming quarters. As a result, the Fed has to raise interest rates more, and this continues to be a downside risk to equity and credit markets.

A Fed-driven tightening in financial conditions with higher rates, lower equities, and wider credit spreads increases the probability that no landing will be followed by a hard landing.

Torsten Slok, Ph.D.Chief Economist, PartnerApollo Global Management

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3. Natural Gas Surplus

Bloomberg –Sophie Caronello

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-26/five-key-charts-to-watch-in-global-commodity-markets-this-week?srnd=markets-vp&sref=GGda9y2L

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4. Sector Performance YTD ….Tech and Discretionary Lead…Defensives Negative

Bespoke Looking more recently at sector performance YTD, it’s a similar trend.  Consumer Discretionary, Technology, and Communication Services have all outperformed the S&P 500 by a factor of at least 2x while defensive-oriented sectors are not only underperforming the market, but they’re also down YTD.  The market may not exactly be following the bull market playbook, but sector leadership isn’t following a recessionary playbook either.

https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/mixed-signals

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5. PKW Stock Buyback ETF Did Not Make New Highs.

www.stockcharts.com

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6. Dominos Pizza Breaks Thru Lows Going Back to 2021

DPZ Chart 50week thru 200week to downside.

www.stockcharts.com

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7. Retail Investors are Selling Stock and Bond Funds

Last week we showed a chart of retail investors still trading individual stocks at high level….But fund flows are negative

Top Down Charts-Callum Thomas

https://twitter.com/Callum_Thomas/status/1629763416327081986/photo/1

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8. 17 New Electric Vehicle Battery Plants are Under Construction

Barrons Most new investment since the law passed has gone into battery factories, primarily to supply electric vehicles. There are subsidies for those plants, and auto makers need North American batteries to qualify for the largest tax benefits. At least 17 new battery plants are being built, including factories for Panasonic in Kansas and Toyota in North Carolina, according to Bank of America. But the factory expansion also threatens industry profitability. Credit Suisse predicts the U.S. market could actually be oversupplied by middecade as capacity ramps up, “which could put pricing pressure on battery manufacturers down the road.”

https://www.barrons.com/articles/us-clean-energy-infrastructure-corning-enphase-neste-stock-12b0e19d?mod=past_editions

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/30/1145844885/2022-ev-battery-plants

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9. How people in other countries view Biden vs Trump

From Barry Ritholtz The Big Picture Blog

Source: @crampellhttps://ritholtz.com/2023/02/sunday-reads-313/

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10. Stress is a Deviation from Homeostasis

Farnam Street “Stress is any deviation from homeostasis or our neutral baseline position. So every time we tilt that pleasure, pain, balance to the side of pleasure or pain, we’re also setting off our own endogenous adrenaline or stress hormone. That is the definition of stress, a deviation from homeostasis. So I think that in many ways the source of our stress in modern life is the constant stimulation, the constant hits of pleasure from reaching for our phone in the morning to our morning cup of Joe to the donuts, to the Netflix binges at night, to the hookup, you name it. We’re actually experiencing stress as a result of overabundance.” 

— From my conversation with Dr. Anna Lembke on pleasure, pain, and addiction. We discuss dopamine, addictive behaviors, warning signs, and treatment. She offers plenty of actionable insights and takeaways. Listen here or read the transcript.

https://fs.blog