1.US Dollar Breaks Out
Bespoke Investment Group-After roughly two months of declines, at the end of May the US dollar (proxied by Bloomberg’s dollar index) found support around the lows from the first week of the year. Since then, the dollar has rallied 4.13%, moving back above its moving averages in the process which have also acted as support ever since. This week alone the dollar has gained 1.4%, and that upward move brings the dollar to the highest levels since early November and the early spring highs when the index stopped short of its 200-DMA.
Taking a step back to look at the past five years, those lows that were reached earlier this spring and at the start of the year can actually be traced all the way back to early 2018 lows. Similarly, the recent highs that were taken out this week are around the same levels as the early 2016 lows. With the dollar now having broken out, it is no longer at the low end of that five-year range.
https://www.bespokepremium.com/interactive/posts/think-big-blog/us-dollar-breaks-out
2.30 Year Treasury Yield Rolls Back Over
50 day thru 200 day to downside…30 year yield heading back to test lows.
3.Five Largest Tech Stock $9 Trillion Market Cap
Big Tech Is in a Perilous Moment. The Stocks Are Unstoppable.
By Eric Savitz and Max Cherney https://www.barrons.com/articles/big-tech-apple-microsoft-alphabet-amazon-facebook-stock-51629429127?mod=past_editions
4.SPACS A Compensation Scam?
JP Morgan
No Sunk Costs Twitter
https://twitter.com/nosunkcosts
5. OpenSea is first NFT marketplace to pass $1 billion
by MK Manoylov
Found at Abnormal Returns blog www.abnormalreturns.com
6.The U.S. History of Accepting Refugees.
250,000 in 1980 to 25,000 2020
Center for Migration Strategies
https://cmsny.org/publications/rebuilding-the-us-refugee-resettlement-program
7.Estimated Costs of Alzheimer Disease 2020
Economic Burden of Alzheimer Disease and Managed Care Considerations
American Journal of Managed Care https://www.ajmc.com/view/economic-burden-of-alzheimer-disease-and-managed-care-considerations
8.High Income Vs. Low Income Countries Vaccine
Kaiser Family Foundation
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/tracking-global-covid-19-vaccine-equity/
9.COVID-age real estate bet: Condos for cars..Vehicle Registrations +27% in Manhattan
By Oshrat Carmiel – Bloomberg News
New vehicle registrations in Manhattan jumped 27% in 2020, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. That has increased demand for parking.
Renata Tyburczy/Dreamstime/TNS
A Manhattan garage operator is betting that city dwellers in the COVID-19 age are driving more, and would pay a premium for a personal place to put their cars.
Centerpark converted an Upper East Side garage into a condominium — but instead of apartments, it’s selling 23 parking spaces, and hired a luxury real estate broker to market them for sale to the public for as much as $350,000 each.
“So many people have said ‘I’m not going to get on the subway again for a very, very long time,’ ” said Kirsten Jordan, the Douglas Elliman Real Estate broker who’s marketing the units. “There are others saying, ‘I’m paying $60 to get from the Upper East Side to Tribeca — because Ubers are so expensive. It might make sense to buy’” a spot.
The pandemic has transformed where New Yorkers live, how they work and how they get around. As of mid-July, weekday subway ridership had plummeted 54% from the pre-COVID-19 days, according to the Partnership for New York City. The number of city-bound travelers on the suburban commuter rails was down more than half.
New vehicle registrations in Manhattan jumped 27% in 2020 to 55,748, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. They’re on course to top that total this year, with 37,735 new registrations recorded through July 29.
That has increased demand for parking, according to Centerpark Chief Executive Officer Gregg Reuben. The restaurant sheds that have sprouted up along roadways, combined with new bike lanes, have eliminated as many as 10,000 street spaces, he said. And garages that offer monthly rentals are raising prices.
“It’s simply going to become more challenging to own a car in Manhattan,” said Reuben, who estimates that at least three of the firm’s other 17 Manhattan rental garages could go condo. “People are looking for convenience and security, and there are others who see this strictly as an investment opportunity.”
Most of Manhattan’s for-sale garage spaces are open only to residents of the properties they’re affiliated with, according to Jonathan Miller, president of appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. And they’re rising in value: The average per-square-foot price of spots at condo and co-op buildings has soared 51% in the past year.
At one new condo project, 378 West End Ave., nine parking spaces open only to owners of the buildings’ priciest apartments are listed for sale at $550,000 each, filings show.
At Centerpark’s garage at 301 E. 69th St., buyers would get 185 square feet of space between painted lines — enough for a car plus additional room to hang items like golf clubs or strollers along the wall. A few contracts, at a pre-sale price of $199,000, are pending. Owners must pay property taxes — projected at $3,720 annually — and common charges, just as they would on a residential condo.
“It’s about as close to having your own driveway in Manhattan as you can get,” Reuben said.
https://www.limaohio.com/news/business/472245/covid-age-real-estate-bet-condos-for-cars
10.The five faces of curiosity
Leadership Freak Blog
#1. Inward-facing curiosity:
- Who am I?
- What do I love doing?
- When am I at my best?
- What contributions have I made?
- What contributions most energize me?
- What happens to people when I show up?
- What’s the energy level of people after they interact with me?
#2. People-facing curiosity:
Ask all the inward-facing questions with a people-facing perspective. For example, “What’s the energy level of people after you interact with them?”
- I notice you’re good at…. How did you get good at that? (Add the following question.)
- How might I get better at that?
#3. Problem-facing curiosity:
- What issues keep returning?
- What conversations are you repeatedly having?
- What’s frustrating?
- What do repeated frustrations say about you? Others?
- Five whys.
- If you explained this challenge to a novice, what would you say?
- What’s making things hard?
#4. Solution-facing curiosity:
- What have you tried?
- What would you try if you were new here?
- What do you know?
- What’s the question?
- If you did know, what would you do?
- Who might know?
- What advice would you give me if our roles were reversed?
#5. Progress-facing curiosity:
- What do you need to stop doing?
- What’s distracting you from doing what’s important?
- What’s next?
- Where would you like to be at the end of the week? What’s the first step to getting there?
- What do your really want?
Curiosity tips:
- Create a gap between what people know and what they need to do.
- Honor question askers.
- Create more than one solution to the same problem.
- Ask, “What if?”
- Ask, “What else?”
“The real cause of problems is solutions.” Eric Sevareid
https://leadershipfreak.blog/2021/08/20/the-five-faces-of-curiosity/