Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

FT – Big Tech makes vast gains at our expense – Rana Foroohar 9/17

• “Data-driven companies have a license to print money, with few restrictions.”

Bloomberg – The Way Humans Get Electricity Is About to Change Forever – 9/13

Markets / Economy

WSJ – New Data Shows Retirees Are on the Move, But Young Folks Are a Different Story  – Andrew Van Dam and Paul Overberg 9/15

Health / Medicine

BuzzFeed – Harvey Damaged 13 Toxic Waste Sites. It Could Take Years to Know The True Health Risks. – Nidhi Subbaraman and Peter Aldhous 9/3

Shipping

FT – Container shipping: surf’s up – Lex 9/17

• “If only investors in shipping had the equivalent of a mariner’s tide tables. They can see where the low water mark in share prices lies, but must divine for themselves how high the waters might now rise.”
• “In this particular cycle, the ebb lasted a long time after container lines ordered too many ships and then struggled to fill them. The low point was probably last autumn, when Korean line Hanjin filed for bankruptcy.”
• “The market has improved markedly since then. Industry volume growth is expected to hit 5% this year, from 3.8% last year. Scrapping rates have picked up, while new capacity on order is finally falling. Such newfound discipline might last longer than in previous cycles because consolidation has increased the market share of the top six operators to almost two-thirds, from two-fifths in 2013. Four alliances have become three. In other industries — airlines, for instance — concentration of this sort led to greater self-control.”
• “Such developments have not gone unnoticed. Antitrust regulators have raised concerns about the shrinking number of alliances and their control over certain routes. And the Dax global shipping index has risen 15% (in dollar terms) since January.”