Month: February 2018

February 12, 2018

Perspective

WSJ – Tech Wealth Turns Attention to Affordable Housing in Seattle – Nour Malas 2/7

WSJ – Why Even ‘Ordinary’ Homes Sell for $500,000 Over the List Price – Nancy Keates 2/8

  • “Nowhere is demand more pent up than in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past four months, 39 homes in Silicon Valley have sold for $500,000 or more over the listing price, says Mark Wong, a real-estate broker with Alain Pinel Realtors, based in Saratoga, Calif..”
  • “That figure includes a ‘lovingly cared for and well maintained home’ (read: not updated). The 53-year-old, three-bedroom, one-story house on 0.197 acre in West San Jose got 15 offers and sold to an all-cash buyer for $2.5 million—$815,000 over asking. A three-bedroom, 2,040-square-foot house in the Glen Park neighborhood sold in October for $2.6 million—nearly $1 million over its listing price of $1.675 million.”
  • “Seattle is another hot spot. Over the past year, the city has seen the greatest increase in the country in the share of sales above the asking price, surging to 52% of home sales in 2017 from 20% of sales in 2012, according to Zillow.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

NYT – One Cause of Market Turbulence: Computer-Driven Index Funds – Landon Thomas Jr. 2/9

WSJ – BlackRock’s New Ambition Is a Sign of Froth – Aaron Back 2/8

  • “One can’t begrudge BlackRock for putting out its hand for a small slice of the money on offer. Even if the experiment somehow goes awry, it won’t make much of a dent in a company with $6.3 trillion of assets under management.”
  • “But the sheer imbalance between the supply of investable funds and suitable outlets for investment that gave rise to this move should ring some alarm bells for investors generally. At market tops when money is desperate to find a home, it often winds up in places it shouldn’t.”

WSJ – When Investing in Stock Makes You Feel Like Throwing Up and You Do It Anyway – Jason Zweig 2/9

Markets / Economy

Bloomberg Businessweek – The Breakneck Rise of China’s Colossus of Electric-Car Batteries – Jie Ma, David Stringer, Yan Zhang, and Sohee Kim 1/31

Real Estate

WSJ – Gig Economy Grows Up as Lenders Allow Airbnb Income on Mortgage Applications – Laura Kusisto 2/8

  • “Homeowners soon will be able to count income they earn from Airbnb Inc. rentals on applications for refinance loans.”
  • “A new program—expected to be announced on Thursday by Airbnb, mortgage giant Fannie Mae and three big lenders—will allow anyone who has rented out property on Airbnb for a year or longer to count some or all of that money as income.”
  • “The mortgages will be backed by Fannie Mae, an acknowledgment that Americans today increasingly are earning money through the ‘gig economy,’ such as renting out rooms or ride-sharing.”
  • “Initially, three lenders, Quicken Loans, Citizens Bank and Better Mortgage, will participate in the program. Fannie will evaluate the initiative and could decide over time to back mortgages from any lender that chooses to count Airbnb income in a refinancing, as long as the short-term rentals aren’t against local laws.”
  • “Still, the move raises worries about encouraging homeowners to borrow more based on the unpredictable tourism industry.”
  • “Executives at the three lenders said one crucial difference between the housing bubble and today is technology, which makes it easy to keep track of how much income homeowners are earning from Airbnb.”

WSJ – eBay Finds Unlikely Fans in Luxury-Home Sellers – Leigh Kamping-Carder 2/8

Energy

WSJ – Venezuela’s Pain is OPEC’s Gain – Spencer Jakab 2/9

  • “The cut in oil production engineered by OPEC and Russia is now in its second year, defying skeptics and helping to boost crude prices. But the cartel’s compliance owes a big debt these days to a single member: Venezuela.”
  • “A founding member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Venezuela pumped only 1.64 million barrels a day last month, well below its 1.97 million barrel a day allocation, according to estimates by S&P Global Platts. That gap of 330,000 barrels a day is marginally more than the amount that the entire cartel is undershooting its 32.73 million barrel-a-day target.”
  • “Calling even the decline so far in Venezuela’s petroleum industry historic is almost an understatement. Just last year, output was down by almost 30%. In percentage terms, that is worse than in major producing countries that broke apart and saw their economies collapse, such as the former Soviet Union, and Iraq in 2003.”

Finance

FT – Investors resume their bets against market volatility – Robin Wigglesworth and Joe Rennison 2/8

Cryptocurrency

WSJ – Bitcoin’s Plunge Weighs on Coin Offerings – Paul Vigna 2/7

Construction

Economist – Wooden skyscrapers could be the future for cities – 2/1

  • Video

China

Bloomberg Businessweek – For China’s Wealthy, Singapore Is the New Hong Kong – Chanyaporn Chanjaroen, Keith Zhai, and Cathy Chan 2/6

  • “Hong Kong is starting to be eclipsed by Singapore as the favorite destination for the wealth of China’s rich.”
  • “At stake for banks in both cities is a huge pile of money. China’s high-net-worth individuals control an estimated $5.8 trillion—almost half of it already offshore, according to consulting firm Capgemini SE. For some, the city-state of Singapore is preferable because it’s at a safer distance from any potential scrutiny from authorities in Beijing, according to interviews with several wealth managers. Multiple private banking sources in Singapore, who would not comment on the record because of the sensitivity of the subject, report seeing increased flows at the expense of Hong Kong.”
  • “The rich may be feeling exposed by changing banking practices. Hong Kong has signed tax transparency agreements that for the first time last year required all banks to report their account holders’ information to Hong Kong tax officials, in preparation for giving that information to 75 jurisdictions, including mainland China. Singapore will have similar agreements with 61 jurisdictions. But they don’t include either Hong Kong or Beijing, meaning its accounts and account holders aren’t visible to the Chinese government.”
  • “Overall, Hong Kong remains the primary destination for China’s offshore money, according to a Capgemini survey, followed by Singapore and New York. Yet the number of Chinese high-net-worth individuals who view Hong Kong as their preferred overseas place of investment is down to 53%, from 71% two years ago, according to a survey in July by Bain & Co. More than 20% favor Singapore, up from 15% two years ago.”
  • “‘We see Singapore, not Hong Kong, as the bridgehead of China’s investment overseas,’ says Li Qinghao, co-founder of NewBanker Tech Consulting, which organized the Sentosa conference last year. About 78% of S$2.7 trillion ($1.9 trillion) in assets under management in Singapore comes from overseas sources.”

FT – Wealthy Chinese push racing pigeon prices skywards – Tom Hancock 2/8

  • “An elite group of Chinese pigeon fanciers have pushed the prices of racing birds to record highs, reflecting a mood of exuberance among China’s wealthy following a pick-up in economic growth and asset prices that has buoyed luxury spending.”
  • “Xing Wei, a property tycoon, paid €400,000 ($490,000) to purchase a Belgian pigeon called Nadine, in what is thought to be the largest deal on record. He followed that with a Rmb3m ($475,000) purchase of a champion bird called Extreme Speed Goddess at a Beijing auction in December.”
  • “Soaring pigeon prices are matched by bigger prizes for pigeon-racing competitions. China’s premier 500km ‘Iron Eagle’ race series held by the Pioneer International club in Beijing boasts a prize pot of Rmb450m ($71.2m).” 
  • “Higher property and equities prices helped the wealth of China’s 2,000 richest people increase nearly 13% last year, according the country’s top rich list. The number of people known to possess assets above $300m grew faster last year than any other in the previous decade, said Rupert Hoogewerf, the compiler of the list.”
  • “After years of declines following the anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping in 2012, sales of luxury goods in China grew 20% last year, according to business consultancy Bain. Art auction sales in Shanghai saw 42% growth last year, according to consultancy ArtTactic.”
  • “Pigeon industry insiders say just half a dozen enthusiasts are responsible for largest sales. ‘Five years ago Rmb300-Rmb400 ($47 – $63) was a very high price for a pigeon,’ said Zhang Wangbin, who runs a club in the central city of Wuhan whose auctions this winter saw several birds sell for 10 times that amount. ‘It’s the result of economic development,’ he added.”
  • “Pigeons are not the only animals to catch the eye of China’s business elite, with Japanese Koi carp prices also seeing a China effect. Kentaro Sakai, president of the Sakai Fish Farm, Japan’s biggest Koi breeder, said a single fish could sell for up to ¥42m ($380,000).”

India

Bloomberg Quint – SBI Posts Surprise Loss A Provisions Surge, Treasury Income Falls – Vishwanath Nair and Azman Usmani 2/9

  • “State Bank of India Ltd. reported a quarterly loss for the first time in at least 17 years as its treasury operations turned unprofitable and provisions for bad loans increased. The public lender reported a significant divergence in bad loans from RBI’s assessment which weighed on the bottom line.”

Other Interesting Links

WSJ – Daily Shot: Number of Times a State has Hosted a Super Bowl 2/8

WSJ – CMO Today: Super Bowl Ratings Slump – Lara O’Reilly 2/6

February 9, 2018

Perspective

Economist – When the prices are too damn high – Daily Chart 2/5

WSJ – Hard Lessons From the Federal Student-Loan Program’s Coming $36 Billion Shortfall – Josh Mitchell 2/4

  • “U.S. officials have long maintained the federal government would make a profit on its $1.4 trillion student loan portfolio or at least break even, but two recent reports suggest just the opposite will be the case. Government lending to college and graduate students could soon become an immense drain on federal coffers, worsening an already deteriorating U.S. budget picture.”
  • “The Education Department’s inspector general, an agency watchdog, in a report released last week said the profitability of the U.S. federal student-lending program is being squeezed because millions of Americans who borrowed heavily in recent years—including many graduate students—are flocking into a program to have substantial portions of their debts forgiven.”
  • “Students who borrowed in the fiscal year ended Sep. 30, 2015, and enrolled in such ‘income-driven repayment’ plans, for example, are expected to pay back $11.5 billion less than they took to pay tuition and other schooling costs.”
  • “The government still earns billions of dollars every year in interest on the loans it has made to 43 million American undergraduates, graduate students and parents of undergrads. But the losses from those not repaying are now projected to mount and could eat up all of the gains. It is hard to get precise estimates, but the Education Department’s annual financial report, released in November, offered a clue. A footnote in the report projected that money coming in for government student loan and guarantee programs will be $36 billion short of what’s needed to cover outstanding debt and accrued interest.”
  • “A year earlier, the department projected the shortfall at $8.4 billion, while in prior years it projected the program would generate billions of dollars in taxpayer surpluses. The latest report explained that one reason for the sharp switch was the rise of income-driven repayment plans. These plans set monthly payments as a share of a borrower’s income and then forgive any balance that remains after 10, 20 or 25 years, depending on the borrower’s work status and loan size.”
  • “While that $36 billion projection doesn’t quite compare to the $4 trillion federal budget, it’s still an immense sum. To put it in perspective, the government ultimately paid $33 billion in its response to the financial crisis through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

FT – The discreet terror of the American bourgeoisie – Edward Luce 2/7

  • “Elites thought they could have it both ways: capital gains and moral certainty.”

Mauldin Economics – Kill the Quants – John Mauldin 2/7: Once Again – “Kill the Quants (and the Levered ETFs and ETNs) Before They Kill Our Markets” – Douglas A. Kass 2/6

Project Syndicate – Justice Without Borders for Venezuela – Ricardo Hausmann 2/7

  • “According to estimates from MIT’s Billion Prices Project, month-on-month food inflation in Venezuela reached 117.6% in January, or the equivalent of 1,130,000% a year. At the same time, the exchange rate depreciated at an annual rate of more than 700,000%, while the real purchasing power of wages – which barely represented 1,400 calories a day in December – was decimated further. A survey published in early January estimated recent out-migration at four million people, nearly as many as from Syria.”

Markets / Economy

Bloomberg – World’s Largest ETF Hit by Biggest Four-Day Outflow on Record – Sid Verma and Dani Burger 2/7

  • “The global market maelstrom spurred money managers to yank a record $17.4 billion from the mighty SPDR S&P 500 ETF over the past four trading sessions. The $8 billion removed on Tuesday alone was the third-largest daily withdrawal in the post-crisis era.”

Real Estate

Bloomberg – HNA Group Puts $4 Billion of U.S. Properties on Market – Sarah Mulholland 2/8

  • “Among the properties on the block is 245 Park Ave., according to a marketing document seen by Bloomberg. HNA bought that skyscraper less than a year ago for $2.21 billion, one of the highest prices ever paid for a New York office building.”

Health / Medicine

NYT – In Sweeping War on Obesity, Chile Slays Tony the Tiger – Andrew Jacobs 2/7

  • “New regulations, which corporate interests delayed for almost a decade, require explicit labeling and limit the marketing of sugary foods to children.”

Canada

FT – Canada’s housing market flirts with disaster – Ben McLannahan 2/7

  • “Canada is in the grip of a housing crisis more severe, by some measures, than anywhere else in the world. Household debt now amounts to more than 100% of the country’s gross domestic product, according to the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements, one of the highest of any developed nation. House prices have raced ahead of wages for years, boosted by loose lending, low interest rates and lax controls on foreign money.”
  • “For now, the number of home loans in arrears across Canada is still very low, suggesting that people are finding ways to cope with ever-larger debts. But rising interest rates are beginning to bite, while a new stress test for mortgages issued by regulated banks has tightened the supply of credit. This week the Toronto Real Estate board said that sales in Canada’s biggest city dropped 22% in January, the weakest for that month since 2009.”
  • “Bullish observers say fears of a meltdown are overblown. Canada can sustain high house prices, they argue, because they reflect the country’s high levels of net migration, restrictive zoning laws and low unemployment.”
  • “Henry Lotin, a retired diplomat and principal at research group Integrative Trade and Economics, says the same forces that have pushed up prices in global hubs such as New York are now doing the same to the most attractive parts of Canada. ‘Torontonians should be thankful and we should manage it as best we can. We really have to be prepared that demand is going to exceed supply for the foreseeable future’.”
  • “Many also note that mortgage books at the big banks look rock-solid. Royal Bank of Canada, for example, which recently joined the club of the world’s most systemically important banks thanks to years of rapid asset growth, had a Canadian residential mortgage portfolio of an average C$231bn in the year to October. Defined as estimates of losses on impaired loans and losses incurred but not yet identified, provisions for credit losses were just C$33m — or one one-hundredth of 1%.”
  • “Others say pristine loan books are not a good indicator of the stress lurking in the system. For one thing, every homebuyer with a down payment of less than 20% of the purchase price (if less than C$1m) has to buy insurance against default. That has the effect of flattering the banks’ books but shifts the risk of default to insurers such as the state-backed Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.”
  • “CMHC was set up after the second world war to help returning veterans find housing. These days it insures about C$480bn of residential mortgages, or almost one-third of the outstanding stock in Canada, using an automated system to process about two-thirds of applications.”
  • “Meanwhile, the uninsured segment is growing. As the market has barreled upwards in recent years, borrowers have been able to convert insured mortgages into uninsured mortgages simply by buying a property, waiting for the price to rise, then refinancing.”
  • “Uninsured buyers made up about three-quarters of new loans at federally regulated banks in 2017, up from two-thirds in 2014, according to the Bank of Canada. In Vancouver, where the average sales price of condos hit a record of C$1.1m in January, more than double the level a decade earlier, about 90% of new mortgages are uninsured.”
  • “Laurentian Bank, Canada’s seventh-biggest by assets, said in December that it would have to buy back about C$300m of mortgages it had sold to third parties, having found that borrowers had ’embellished’ income and assets. Last month, the Montreal-based bank said the buyback obligations had increased to about C$400m, and it would have to raise more capital.”
  • “That kind of disclosure — in dribs and drabs, each more alarming than the last — has echoes of the beginning of the US mortgage crisis, when terms such as ‘liar loan’ began to enter the vernacular. ‘Trends are developing . . . that we took for granted were not an issue in Canada,’ says Gabriel Dechaine, an analyst at National Bank of Canada. ‘There are puffs of smoke, but I don’t want to yell fire in a crowded theater’.”
  • “More strains could emerge. With interest rates rising — three increases in the central bank’s policy rate since July has left it at 1.25% — many borrowers may be facing a struggle to refinance in a market where almost all mortgages are renewed every five years or less.”
  • “Anecdotal evidence suggests tougher rules on underwriting are also beginning to curb lending. On January 1 the federal banking regulator, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, introduced a rule requiring all new mortgage applicants to show they could cope with interest rates substantially higher than their contracted rate. Previously, stress tests applied only to insured mortgages.”

China

Bloomberg – Frenzy of Fines for China’s Bank Is Only Just Getting Started – Jun Luo and Alfred Liu 2/5

  • “China’s banking regulator is increasingly showing its teeth, slapping a record amount of fines on financial institutions in the past several months for transgressions such as lax lending procedures and manipulating bad-loan data. Expect the unprecedented frenzy to continue.”
  • “The China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) announced 3,452 penalties and confiscations of funds involving 1,877 financial institutions and totaling 2.93 billion yuan ($465 million) in 2017, a 10-fold surge from the previous year, according to official data. Some 270 banking executives were punished, including being banned from the industry for life, according to a CBRC official speaking on CCTV.”
  • “The frenzy continues this year, with an average 16 fines imposed every day of January.”
  • “The biggest of 2018 so far was levied against Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co., fined 462 million yuan for what the CBRC termed ‘a well-organized fraud.’ Last Friday, the CBRC fined Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. and 18 other banks’ branches in central China 52.5 million yuan for accepting low-quality gold as collateral for 19 billion yuan worth of loans, resulting in the banks being defrauded.”
  • “After his appointment last year as CBRC chairman, Guo Shuqing embarked on a campaign to root out malpractice in the $39 trillion banking industry, improve implementation of lending policies and curb cross-holdings of financial products.”

 

February 8, 2018

Perspective

FT – Super Bowl thriller watched by smallest audience since 2009 – Shannon Bond 2/5

  • “In spite of the upset which saw the Eagles beat the Patriots 41 to 33 in a hard-fought battle in Minneapolis that came down to the final seconds of play, the broadcast drew 7% fewer viewers to NBC with 103.4m watching, according to Nielsen.”
  • “When people who watched the game online were included, NBC counted a total audience of 106m and said it was the most-streamed Super Bowl ever. But this compares with the 111.3m people who tuned in to Fox’s broadcast last year.”
  • “While football remains the most popular programming on US television, the figures from Nielsen underscore the ratings decline that has been plaguing the National Football League for two seasons. Audiences for regular season games shrank 10% in 2017, an acceleration from 2016’s 8% decrease.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg View – Don’t Mistake the Stock Market for the Economy – Robert Burgess 2/6

FT – Bitcoin freeloads on institutions’ trust, warns BIS – Martin Arnold 2/6

  • “Cryptocurrency is ‘a Ponzi scheme and an environmental disaster’ says Agustin Carstens.”

FT – Poland’s death camp law is designed to falsify history – Jan Gross 2/6

  • “The rule barring debate of the country’s role in the Holocaust is a policy disaster.”

WSJ – Samsung Saga Shows Korea Reform Is Going Nowhere – Jacky Wong 2/5

  • “The release of the conglomerate’s de facto leader will do little to allay investors’ concerns about the country’s corporate governance standards.”
  • “Mr. Lee (Lee Jae-yong) walked free on Monday after appealing the five-year prison term handed to him in August when he was convicted on bribery and embezzlement charges: He received a reduced and suspended sentence instead. The next stage could see the case go to South Korea’s Supreme Court.”

WSJ – The Stock Market Didn’t Get Tested – You Did – Jason Zweig 2/5

Markets / Economy

FT – China smartphone sales down for first time since 2009 – Louise Lucas, Edward White, Nic Fildes 2/6

  • “Sales of smartphones in China — the world’s biggest market, responsible for about one in every three shipments — fell last year for the first time since 2009, raising fresh concerns about the strength of the global handset market.”
  • “Data from IDC, the research company, showed that smartphone sales slumped 4.9% in 2017 from the previous year as the local market, a growth engine for the global mobile phone industry, contracted.”
  • “Analysts pointed to the fact that Chinese consumers were waiting longer to replace their smartphones than they have in the past, mirroring a similar trend in other markets including the UK.”
  • “IDC’s numbers come just days after data provider IHS Markit said global smartphone sales had dropped 4.5% in the last quarter of 2017, with only Xiaomi and Lenovo’s Motorola experiencing any growth in shipments.”
  • “Apple took the biggest hit in China last year according to IDC, with unit sales down 8.3% year on year, although the company continued to dominate the premium market for phones that cost more than $600.”
  • “In terms of overall value, the China mobile market grew 11% in 2017 — from $120bn in 2016 to $134bn.”

FT – M&A boom heightens fear of credit cycle nearing peak – Eric Platt 2/4

Finance

WSJ – How the Bull Market’s Greatest Trade Went Bust – Spencer Jakab 2/6

  • “Only very rarely has a trade gone from being so good to being so bad so quickly.”
  • “Among the most profitable trades during the bull market has been to short volatility, essentially betting the market would get calmer and stay calm. An exchange-traded instrument, the VelocityShares Daily Inverse VIX Short-Term exchange-traded note, grew to $2 billion by harnessing futures on the Cboe Volatility Index.”
  • “The note, with the symbol XIV, had a 46% compound annual return from its inception in 2010 to two weeks ago. Late on Monday, though, the combined value of the note fell 95% to less than $15 million as trading was halted early Tuesday. Sponsor Credit Suisse says the last day of trading will be later this month.”
  • “The lesson in the trade’s collapse isn’t that volatility is a flawed asset class. Instead, it is one as old as markets—crowded, ‘can’t lose’ trades often end in stampedes.”

Cryptocurrency

Bloomberg Quint – Get Ready for Most Cryptocurrencies to Hit Zero, Goldman Says – Kana Nishizawa 2/7

  • “Are any of today’s cryptocurrencies going to be an Amazon or a Google, or will they end up like many of the now-defunct search engines? Just because we are in a speculative bubble does not mean current prices can’t increase for a handful of survivors…. At the same time, it probably does mean that most, if not all, will never see their recent peaks again.” – Steve Strongin, Goldman Sachs

NYT – Here Are the World’s Virtual Currency Billionaires (or at Least They Were) – Nathaniel Popper 2/7

China

Bloomberg – China’s Next Debt Bomb Is an Aging Population – Yinan Zhao and Jing Zhao 2/5

FT – China developers retreat from Hong Kong property market – Ben Bland 2/6

  • “Chinese property developers have retreated sharply from Hong Kong’s booming land market, becoming the latest industry to be dented by Beijing’s capital controls and intensified scrutiny of outbound transactions.”
  • “Chinese developers won 11% of bids by value in Hong Kong government land auctions since April, down from about 50% in the preceding two years, according to an analysis of official data by Standard & Poor’s, the debt rating agency.” 
  • “Esther Liu, an analyst at S&P, said the main reason for the pullback by Chinese developers was the clampdown on outbound investment by the Chinese government, which began in late-2016. Beijing has since intensified the crackdown as it seeks to stem capital outflows and discipline companies such as HNA that borrowed heavily to fund a flurry of overseas deals.”
  • “Ms. Liu said that Chinese developers were also deterred by the longer development cycle in Hong Kong, compared with mainland China.” 
  • “She said it typically took six to nine months in China for developers to progress from buying land to launching their first off-plan sales. In Hong Kong, by contrast, it can take several years to plan the development of the site and obtain the required permissions.”
  • “Despite the retreat of the mainland developers, analysts forecast that Hong Kong property prices will continue to rise.”

FT – Chinese tycoon sues local government for $640m – Tom Hancock and Xinning Liu 2/5

  • “One of China’s richest men has revealed an attempt to sue a municipal government for Rmb4bn ($640m) over a suspended project to build a new city, the biggest case of its kind brought by an entrepreneur against the state.”
  • “Yan Jiehe said the company he founded, China Pacific Construction Group, had not been paid for its work on Lanzhou New City, a settlement once billed as ‘Las Vegas in the Gobi’, where diggers flattened dozens of hills before officials suspended the project in 2013.”

WSJ – Chinese Police Add Facial-Recognition Glasses to Surveillance Arsenal – Josh Chin 2/7

India

Bloomberg Quint – Jio’s First Profit Is ‘Too Good to Believe’ for Bernstein – Bhuma Shrivastava and Saket Sundria 2/7

February 7, 2018

Perspective

AEIdeas – Price changes 1997 to 2017 – Mark Perry 2/2

Howmuch.net – How Much Debt Americans Have in Every State – Raul 12/26/17

Top 10 States Where People Have the Most Debt

  1. Hawaii: $869,250
  2. Maryland: $284,851
  3. Texas: $185,584
  4. Oklahoma: $174,839
  5. Indiana: $166,844
  6. Nevada: $165,740
  7. Minnesota: $113,455
  8. Illinois: $98,309
  9. Maine: $91,183
  10. Virginia: $81,194
  • “All of this suggests that average debt depends more on an individual’s choices than where he or she lives. People can achieve extremely low debt levels if they are in expensive urban areas or rural towns. If both the bureaucrats in Washington, DC and frontiersmen in Alaska can do it, then we bet you can too.”
  • Unless of course you live in Hawaii where the incomes are low and the cost of housing is high…

WSJ – How Fast Are Prices Skyrocketing in Venezuela? See Exhibit A: the Egg – Kejal Vyas 2/5

  • “With hyperinflation at 13,000%, eggs become essential to bartering.”

Markets / Economy

Reuters – A decade after recession, a jump in U.S. states with wage gains – Ann Saphir, Jonathan Spicer, and Howard Schneider 2/4

statista – Shrinking sweets – Martin Armstrong 2/5

Cryptocurrency

NYT – As Bitcoin Bubble Loses Air, Frauds and Flaws Rise to Surface – Nathaniel Popper 2/5

  • “You did not have to be a technophobe to worry that the virtual-currency boom of the past year papered over plenty of problems.”
  • “The scale of those problems is starting to become clear as digital tokens have slid more than 50% in value from their peaks in early January, with steep drops on Monday pushing the value of Bitcoin specifically below $7,000.”
  • “Hackers draining funds from online exchanges. Ponzi schemes. Government regulators unable to keep up with the rise of so-called cryptocurrencies. Signs of trouble have appeared at nearly every level of the industry, from the biggest exchanges to the news sites and chat rooms where the investment frenzy has been discussed.”
  • “’Cryptocurrencies are almost a perfect vehicle for scams,’ said Kevin Werbach, a professor at University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. ‘The combination of credulous buyers and low barriers for scammers were bound to lead to a high level of fraud, if and when the money involved got large. The fact that the money got huge almost overnight, before there were good regulatory or even self-regulatory models in place, made the problem acute.’”
  • “The fall from the peaks of early January has been dizzying. The value of all outstanding virtual currencies has been cut by more than half, down over $400 billion as of Monday, according to the website Coinmarketcap.com.”
  • “Government agencies in the United States have shut down a few notable frauds. Early last month, securities regulators in Texas and North Carolina issued cease-and-desist orders to BitConnect, an operation that had grown to be worth $3 billion.”
  • “But those moves only came after BitConnect had operated openly for months, collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from people around the world despite being labeled a Ponzi scheme by many prominent people in the virtual currency industry. BitConnect offered tokens on a decentralized network, similar to Bitcoin, but promised regular payouts to coin holders.”
  • “But regulators have not gotten near most of the brazen schemes that have popped up in the past year, many of which had been attacked by hackers first, or simply shut down by their operators after money had been raised.”
  • “A new virtual currency, Proof of Weak Hands Coin, whose creators referred to it as a Ponzi scheme on Twitter and use a pyramid as a website logo, raised $800,000 before hackers got into its systems last week and drained its funds.”
  • “One challenge facing regulators is that it is unclear how much of the deceptive activity they can legally control.”
  • “Some online groups openly try to manipulate the prices of digital tokens in what are known as pump-and-dump schemes. Similar schemes involving stocks are illegal, but people operating the groups recently told BuzzFeed that they did not think the same rules applied to virtual currencies.”
  • “Many schemes have been able to expand quickly because they do not use bank accounts and therefore do not have to win approval from established institutions. Instead, they are able to use virtual currency ‘wallets’ without any approvals. And virtual currency transactions cannot be reversed like normal bank or even PayPal transfers.”
  • “Traders have been particularly worried about the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, Bitfinex, an unregulated operation that has provided few details about its operations, raising concerns about whether it is insolvent or involved in price manipulation.”
  • “But the biggest number of incidents have cropped up around so-called initial coin offerings, in which entrepreneurs sell custom virtual currencies to investors to raise money for software they are building. About 890 projects raised over $6 billion last year, a 6,000% increase over the year before, according to Icodata.io, which tracks the offerings.”
  • “The $240 million raised through one of the most successful initial coin offerings last year, Tezos, is already frozen in a dispute between the founders of the project and the board they created in Switzerland.”
  • “’It is a perfect storm for the kind of scammy activity we are seeing, and it’s not obvious to me how that is easily removed,’ said Fred Wilson, a partner at the venture capital firm Union Square Venture and one of the earliest advocates of Bitcoin in Silicon Valley. ‘Regulation, ideally prudent and informed regulation, can help. But we may also need to have a big correction to really clean things up’.”

WSJ – Daily Shot: Bitcoin 2/5

February 6, 2018

If you were only to read one thing…

Economist – Pyramid schemes cause huge social harm in China 2/3

  • “The authorities call them ‘business cults’. Tens of millions of people are ensnared in these pyramid schemes that use cult-like techniques to brainwash their targets and bilk them out of their money.”
  • “Many countries suffer from Ponzi schemes, which typically sell financial products offering extravagant rewards. They pay old investors out of new deposits, which means their liabilities exceed their assets; when recruitment falters, the schemes collapse. China is no exception. In 2016 it closed down Ezubao, a multi-billion-dollar scam that had drawn in more than 900,000 investors. By number of victims, it was the world’s largest such fraud.”
  • “Chinese pyramid schemes commonly practice ‘multi-level marketing’ (MLM), a system whereby a salesperson earns money not just by selling a company’s goods but also from commissions on sales made by others, whom the first salesperson has recruited. People often earn more by recruiting others than from their own sales. Since 1998 China has banned the use of such methods, although it does allow some, mostly foreign, MLM companies to do business in China as ‘direct sellers’. This involves recruiting people to sell products at work or at home.”
  • “The distinguishing feature of the Chinese scams is the way they combine pyramid-type operations with cult-like brainwashing.”
  • “Many perfectly legal companies try to boost morale by getting staff to sing company songs or organizing awaydays. China’s business cults, however, combine such techniques with violence.”
  • “Business cults seem to be growing. In the first nine months of 2017 the police brought cases against almost 6,000 of them, twice as many as in the whole of 2016 and three times the average annual number in 2005-15. This was just scratching the surface. In July 2017 the police arrested 230 leaders of Shan Xin Hui, a scheme that was launched in May 2016 and had an estimated 5m investors just 15 months later. In August 2017, after the government launched its campaign against ‘diehard scams’, police in the southern port of Beihai, Guangxi province, arrested 1,200 people for defrauding victims of 1.5bn yuan ($223m). One scheme in Guangxi, known as 1040 Project, was reckoned to have fleeced its targets of 600m yuan.”
  • “The scale of the scams worries the government. Their cultish features make it even more anxious. The Communist Party worries about any social organization that it does not control. Cults are especially worrisome because religious and quasi-religious activities give their followers a focus of loyalty that competes with the party.”
  • “The authorities will find it hard to curb the scams for three main reasons. First, in order to encourage cheap loans for industry, the central bank keeps interest rates low. For years they were negative, i.e, below inflation. That built up demand among China’s savers for better returns. With gross savings equal to just under half of GDP, it is not surprising that some of that pool of money should be attracted to schemes promising remarkable dividends.”
  • “Second, it is often hard for consumers to spot frauds. In 2005 China legalized direct selling, arguing that there was a distinction between that practice and the way that Ponzi schemes operate. But Qiao Xinsheng of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law argues that the difference is often ‘blurred’ in the eyes of the public. Scammers can easily pass them themselves off as legitimate. Dodgy companies exploit government propaganda in order to pretend they have official status. For example, they may claim to be ‘new era’ companies, borrowing a catchphrase of China’s president, Xi Jinping.”
  • “Third, argues Mr Li, business cults manipulate traditional attachments to kin. Companies in America often appeal to individual ambition, promising to show investors how to make money for themselves. Those in China offer to help the family, or a wider group. Shan Xin Hui literally means Kind Heart Exchange. It purported to be a charity, offering higher returns to poor investors than to rich ones. (In reality everyone got scammed.) Business cults rely on one family member to recruit another, and upon the obligation that relatives feel to trust each other. This helps explain why investors who have lost life savings continue to support the companies that defrauded them.”

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Economist – Why sub-zero interest rates are neither unfair nor unnatural – Free exchange 2/3

NYT – Early Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built – Nellie Bowles 2/4

NYT – Amazon Asked for Patience. Remarkably, Wall Street Complied. – Michael Corkery and Nick Wingfield 2/4

  • “In a business environment that demands, and rewards, quarterly profits and short-term strategic thinking, Amazon showed extraordinary resolve in focusing on long-term goals, somehow persuading investors to go along.”
  • “Over its first decade in existence, including long stretches where it consistently reported losses, Amazon enjoyed a luxury afforded few companies: leeway.”
  • “Amazon has reported an annual profit in only 13 of the 21 years that it has operated as a publicly traded company, according to FactSet, a financial data firm.”
  • “And its profit margins, already low by some measures, have fluctuated from year to year — hardly moving in the straight upward line that Wall Street usually likes to see.”
  • “Yet investors have rewarded Amazon for plowing its profits back into growing its businesses, whether in online retail, cloud computing or, most recently, in grocery stores, with the acquisition of Whole Foods Market.”

Vanity Fair – Twitter’s Dirty Secret – Nick Bilton 2/2

  • “Twitter knew about all its fake followers, and always has – eliminating just enough bots to make it seem like they care, but not enough that it would affect the perceived number of active users on the platform.”

WSJ – China Shows How It Will Fight a Trade War – Nathaniel Taplin 2/5

  • “U.S. agriculture will be in China’s crosshairs if a trade war erupts.”

Real Estate

The Real Deal – Everything must go: Chinese investors sell off their foreign RE holdings – Erin Hudson 2/3

WSJ – Daily Shot: Bankrate.com US 30-Yr Fixed Rate Mortgage Rate 2/2

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – Home Equity Loans 2/5

  • “Home equity loan balances continue to slip as Americans remain uneasy tapping this form of credit.”

Finance

Reuters – JGBs pare losses as Bank of Japan offers “unlimited” buying to curb rising yields – Hideyuki Sano 2/1

WSJ – What Markets Are Really Telling Us About Higher Rates – Richard Barley 2/5

  • “Companies are paying slightly more to borrow, but higher risk-free yields haven’t fed through fully. This is significant.”
  • “…the ECB, is still at play. The ECB’s bond-buying actions have a twist: in the first four weeks of January, corporate purchases as a share of government purchases stood at 27%, versus 11.5% when the program was running full-tilt at €80 billion a month, according to Deutsche Bank . In other words, corporates are still getting decent support from ECB purchases.”
  • “One snag is that corporate-bond spreads are already so tight there is little room for error. In Europe, the investment-grade ICE BofAML corporate index yield premium over government bonds is just 0.74 percentage points, its lowest level since August 2007.”
  • “Investors should watch closely if spreads do widen significantly. It would mean either companies are making riskier, top-of-market types of bets or investors are getting concerned about growth and underlying cash flows. For now, the message from higher interest rates is, don’t sweat it.”

Cryptocurrency

FT – ‘Crypto crazy’ Japanese mystified by virtual heist – Leo Lewis and Robin Harding 2/2

  • “The $500m theft of XEM coins by an anonymous hacker is threatening the country’s faith in cryptocurrencies.”

FT – Bitcoin investors find tax demands are not virtual – Ben McLannahan and Vanessa Houlder 2/4

  • “Cryptocurrency traders in many jurisdictions may be liable for hefty capital gains tax bills.”

NYT – Making a Crypto Utopia in Puerto Rico – Nellie Bowles 2/2

Reuters – Bitcoin extends slide, falls below $7,000 – Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss 2/5

  • “Digital currency bitcoin BTC=BTSP fell more than 15% on Monday to a nearly three-month low amid a slew of concerns ranging from a global regulatory clampdown to a ban on using credit cards to buy bitcoin by British and U.S. banks.”
  • “On the Luxembourg-based Bitstamp exchange, bitcoin fell as low as $6,853.53 in early afternoon trading in New York. That marked a fall of more than half from a peak of almost $20,000 hit in December.”
  • “Bitcoin has fallen in six of the last eight trading session.”
  • “The currency, which surged more than 1,300% last year, has lost about half its value so far in 2018, as more governments and banks signal their intention for a regulatory crackdown. Last week bitcoin suffered its worst weekly performance since 2013.”

Tech

NYT – Early Facebook and Google Employees Form Coalition to Fight What They Built – Nellie Bowles 2/4

Health / Medicine

Economist – A revolution in health care is coming – Leaders 2/1

Asia – excluding China and Japan

WSJ – Samsung Heir Lee Jae-yong Freed From Prison by Appeals Court – Eun-Young Jeong 2/5

China

The Sydney Morning Herald – China said to mull legal gambling on Hainan – Keith Zhai and Daniela Wei 2/4

India

Bloomberg Businessweek – India’s Phantom Flats Leave Homebuyers’ Dreams in Tatters – Pooja Thakur Mahrotri, Upmanyu Trivedi, and Dhwani Pandya 1/30

  • “Across the metropolitan area that surrounds New Delhi, a string of real-estate developers including Unitech, Jaypee Infratech Ltd. and Amrapali Group have been dragged to court by irate homeowners who shelled out payments for apartments that have yet to be completed. Many of these firms took money from a stream of buyers. As sales slumped and the once red-hot market cooled, their businesses unraveled — leaving them grappling with debt.”
  • “The fallouts from the shakeup in the $126 billion property market are reverberating across companies, markets and the broader economy. Unitech, once India’s largest developer, has plunged to a fraction of its previous valuation. Jaypee is in insolvency court. State-owned banks — the lifeblood of the economy — are grappling with a pile up of bad loans from the industry. Indian families, who have long poured their life savings into real estate, are now pulling back.”
  • “Indian real-estate businesses expanded as long as firm were able to draw new buyers for planned projects. But as the economy slowed and demand softened, many firms were left short of cash and struggling to manage their debt. The downturn only worsened last year after the government tightened regulations to protect homebuyers and separately introduced a new services tax across all industries. India’s residential sector appears to have shrunk to a fraction of its size in less than a decade, according to Shishir Baijal, managing director of Knight Frank India.”
  • “Prices dropped 3% on average across the top six cities, according to Knight Frank, with some declining as much as 15% after accounting for developer discounts. And in the capital region, last year’s prices were 9% below their 2015 peak. The outlook remains bleak.”
  • “The property developers are adding to a pile-up of bad loans in India’s banking sector, which is already struggling to manage a spike in stressed assets across several industries.”
  • “India’s government has stepped in to regulate the real-estate industry with new laws, including one that forces developers to use at least 70% of sale proceeds to complete residential projects, rather than funnel money to different jobs. Other measures prevent them from pre-selling apartments before all building approvals are obtained.”
  • “The pain hasn’t been restricted to the North. India’s financial capital, Mumbai, last year witnessed a decline in residential property prices for the first time in a decade. New residential launches across eight Indian cities dropped 41% last year and were down 78% from their peak in 2010, Knight Frank data show.”

South America

Bloomberg Businessweek – Venezuelan Pirates Rule the Most Lawless Market on Earth – Jonathan Franklin 1/30

Economist – China moves into Latin America – Bello 2/1

  • “The Asian giant is taking advantage of other powers’ lack of interest in the region.”

February 5, 2018

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

Bloomberg Gadfly – Still Clutching an Old iPhone? You’re Not Alone – Shira Ovide 1/4

Bloomberg_Smartphone sales growth_1-4-18

Bloomberg Businessweek – What If China Is Exempt From the Laws of Economics? – Michael Schuman 1/24

Bloomberg Businessweek – How Hedge Funds (Secretly) Get Their Way in Washington – Zachary Mider and Ben Elgin 1/25

FT – Forget bitcoin, give me old-fashioned gold as an inflation hedge – Merryn Somerset Webb 2/1

  • Ms. Webb offers an interesting perspective at why inflation may not be that far away. Why…because the primary source of deflation – China – appears to have changed tact.
  • “For years, party officials have been incentivized to force growth out of their regions, regardless of the effects on prices, global macroeconomics or, for that matter, pollution. But in the party conference in October, Xi Jinping shifted emphasis.”
  • “Instead of focusing on growth, China’s leader talked of ‘three tough battles’: against preventing major risks (mainly financial — the new target is to be ‘further deleveraging’); poverty (Xi fancies a ‘moderately prosperous society’ in all respects); and pollution (he wants to see the sky blue again).”
  • “The result has been pretty instant. Almost as the delegates headed home, say the analysts at Gavekal, prices of natural gas (a ‘clean fuel’) doubled; steel output stalled; and cement sector output actually fell even as demand for it and hence prices rose. China doesn’t seem to be adding new capacity to the global economy in the way that it was and that should mean it isn’t exporting deflation to the rest of the world any more either.”
  • “That is a dynamic that is arguably beginning to show up everywhere else. The slack is disappearing. There is no spare capacity left in Japan (or you would see new cuts to it). Industrial production in the US hit a record high in December, despite the US being too busy with buybacks and financial engineering over the past decade to build new capacity. Manufacturing output in the UK is at its highest in 10 years.”
  • “This could all lead us to several interesting conclusions. The first, highlighted by Gavekal, is that it is an explanation for the way stock markets in countries that have been hampered with too much productive space in the past are suddenly breaking out. See China, Japan and Korea — markets you might want to stick with for a bit.”
  • “The second is that, guess what, the boom in the US might not be entirely down to Donald Trump’s policies. The factories could be humming because global capacity constraints are being hit rather than because he’s the best economic manager ever. And the third is that the real inflation our great leaders (the central banks) think is impossible however much they might print, isn’t impossible at all.”

Markets / Economy

NYT – Cash-Strapped Chinese Giant Taps a New Money Source: Its Workers – Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li 2/1

  • “Just before payday, an email went out to employees from top executives: Give us your money, and we’ll make it worth your while.”
  • “It was one of many pitches by HNA Group, a Chinese conglomerate struggling under an estimated $90 billion in debt accumulated during a global shopping spree that included buying stakes in multinationals like Hilton Hotels and Deutsche Bank.”
  • “The company, in an email, advertised an ’employee treasure’ product with an 8.5% return if workers handed over $1,500. A similar one dangled 9%. A third mentioned a return as high as 40% if employees ponied up $15,000.”
  • “These pitches, more than a dozen of which were reviewed by The New York Times, were not part of an employee stock program. Instead, they appear to be high interest loans, with the company as borrower and its workers as lenders.”
  • “The conglomerate has seen its borrowing costs rise sharply on the global bond market in recent months, an indication that some investors are increasingly worried about the company’s ability to pay its debts. Seven public companies under the umbrella of HNA have suspended trading of their stock, suggesting that big announcements that could affect key businesses are in the works. The company is also starting to sell assets.”
  • “It is unclear how much money HNA has raised from employees. The company has long offered such investments to its employees as a way to incentivize them and to share in the company’s success, Thomas A. Clare, an attorney for HNA, said in an email.”
  • “Companies around the world allow employees to buy stock or provide other ways for workers to invest in the business. But the HNA pitches do not offer direct ownership stakes in the business.”
  • “The offers reviewed by The Times had similar hallmarks, namely high returns for funding certain operations.”
  • “Chinese companies have often turned to individual investors or their own workers to raise money. But such moves, according to some China finance experts, can signal problems.”
  • “’It’s a desperation measure when companies really have no other source of financing and they are stuck,’ said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research, a corporate research firm.”
  • “A small company in the southeastern Chinese city of Wenzhou called Wenzhou Liren Educational Group made national news in 2011 after it went bankrupt and was unable to pay nearly $790 million it borrowed from employees and local residents. In 2015, an online peer-to-peer platform called Great Group pressured employees to buy investments in order to raise funds when it found itself in a financial bind, the Chinese news media widely reported. The two companies did not respond to requests for comment.”
  • “As HNA has faced more questions about its operations by both the local and foreign media, the company has issued groupwide emails urging employees to not speak to reporters. In January, HNA’s human resources department told employees they would be required to take a test on how to deal with the news media, according to an internal document reviewed by The Times.”

Real Estate

Bloomberg – Rental Glut Makes NYC the Worst Performer for Equity Residential – Oshrat Carmiel 1/31

Energy

eia – U.S. monthly crude oil production exceeds 10 million barrels per day, highest since 1970 – Jack Perrin and Emily Geary 2/1

eia_US monthly crude oil production_2-1-18

eia_US monthly crude oil production by production method_2-1-18

eia_US monthly crude oil production by location_2-1-18

Reuters – Suncor to cut 400 jobs as it rolls out self-driving trucks – Julie Gordon 1/31

  • “Suncor Energy Inc said on Wednesday that it expected to cut some 400 heavy-equipment operator positions over the next six years as it rolls out a fleet of self-driving trucks at its Canadian oil sand mining operations.”

Finance

Bloomberg – Tesla Sells $546 Million of Bonds as Buyers Can’t Get Enough – Claire Boston 1/31

Cryptocurrency

WSJ – Daily Shot: Investing.com – Bitcoin 2/1

WSJ_Daily Shot_Investing.com - Bitcoin_2-1-18

WSJ – Bitcoin Is Falling Fast, Losing More Than Half Its Value in Six Weeks – Steven Russolillo and Kenan Machado 2/2

WSJ_Bitcoin sell-offs_2-1-18

Britain

FT – Chinese investments in UK fail to materialize – Andy Bounds and Tom Mitchell 2/1

  • “Even as Theresa May inks new deals in Beijing, English cities left waiting for cash.”

China

Bloomberg Businessweek – China Starts Experiment to Tame Its Wild Property Market – Emma Dong and Paul Panckhurst 1/24

Bloomberg_China housing price gains in comparison_1-24-18

WSJ – China’s Bad Banks Face a Case of Indigestion – Anjani Trivedi 2/2

India

Economist – Low-caste Indians are better off than ever-but that’s not saying much 1/25

Economist_Indian caste statistics_1-25-18

South America

FT – Bolivar rallies after Venezuela unifies exchange rates – Gideon Long 2/1

New Zealand

FT – British and US migrants flock to New Zealand – Jamie Smyth 2/1

  • “Immigration surges after Brexit vote and Trump election shocks.”

February 2, 2018

Perspective

statista – The U.S. Cities With The Most Homeless People – Niall McCarthy 1/26

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

FT – Short sellers eye better days after Steinhoff and Carillion wins – Miles Johnson and Robert Smith 1/31

  • “A rising tide, as the saying goes, lifts all boats. This effect, which has been played out across financial markets for several years, has inflicted pain and frustration on specialist short sellers of stocks and bonds who try and profit by betting against companies they believe harbor accounting irregularities.”
  • “But after years of frustration, some of the funds who have been doggedly shorting certain companies have been rewarded. Hedge funds that made bearish bets against the South African retailer Steinhoff International and the UK construction group Carillion saw these trades dramatically pay off as both companies collapsed under the weight of their debts.”
  • “’In the past few months there have been a number of accounting-related shorts, such as Steinhoff International and Carillion, that have been big money makers,’ says Alper Ince, an investor in hedge funds at Paamco. ‘I think there is an expectation among short sellers that we may see more of these after years of companies making big acquisitions and taking on more leverage’.”
  • “’There had been chatter about Steinhoff’s accounting for years, but being short investment grade companies has been an absolute death trade,’ says a London based credit trader. ‘It’s a bit like the old mantra ‘don’t fight the Fed’ — you can’t short investment grade bonds when you know the ECB is buying them on the other side’.”
  • “The ECB was one of the largest holders of Steinhoff’s outstanding €800m bond, owning around €100m of the debt before it sold its position entirely at a deep loss earlier this month.”

NYT – Worries Grow That the Price of Bitcoin Is Being Propped Up – Nathaniel Popper 1/31

  • “A growing number of virtual currency investors are worried that the prices of Bitcoin and other digital tokens have been artificially propped up by a widely used exchange called Bitfinex, which has a checkered history of hacks and opaque business practices.”

Markets / Economy

WSJ – Daily Shot: German 5yr Bond Yield 1/31

Energy

WSJ – Daily Shot: US Crude Oil Production 1/26

FT – Shale powers US oil output to heights of 1970 – Ed Crooks 1/31

Cryptocurrency

Bloomberg Quint – India to Curb Cryptocurrency Use While Embracing Blockchain – Anto Antony 2/1

  • “India’s government said it doesn’t consider cryptocurrencies as legal tender and will take all measures to eliminate payments using them.”

How much.net – Visualizing The Meteoric Rise of Cryptocurrency in the Past 5 Years – Raul 1/30

Reuters – South Korea says no plans to ban cryptocurrency exchanges, uncovers $600 million (in) illegal trades – Dahee Kim, Cynthia Kim 1/30

Social Media

NYT – Twitter Followers Vanish Amid Inquiries Into Fake Accounts – Nicholas Confessore, Gabriel Dance, and Rich Harris 1/31

China

FT – Distressed debt investors line up to offer HNA financing – Henny Sender and Don Weinland 1/31

  • “Chinese conglomerate seeks up to $2bn secured against Hong Kong land holdings.”

Other Interesting Links

NYT – San Francisco Will Clear Thousands of Marijuana Convictions – Timothy Williams and Thomas Fuller 1/31

  • “Thousands of people with misdemeanor convictions for marijuana possession dating back 40 years will have their criminal records cleared, the San Francisco district attorney’s office said Wednesday. San Diego is also forgiving old convictions.”

February 1, 2018

Perspective

Bloomberg – Marijuana Mapped: the Price of Weed Across the U.S. – Jen Skerritt 1/30

WSJ – Daily Shot: US Real Disposable Income and Consumer Spending 1/30

Pew – Remittances from abroad are major economic assets for some developing countries – Drew Desilver 1/29

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

A Wealth of Common Sense – What To Do When Your Stocks Are Soaring – Ben Carlson 1/30

Real Estate

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – US Homeownership Rate 1/30

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – Change in Owner Occupied Housing Units 1/30

WSJ – Daily Shot: FRED – California Homeownership Rate 1/30

Energy

eia – U.S. crude oil exports increased following hurricane – related refinery disruptions – Corina Ricker 1/29

Cryptocurrency

WSJ – Bitcoin Is Having Its Worst Month in Three Years – Steven Russolillo and Eun-Young Jeong 1/31

WSJ – Daily Shot: Investing.com – Bitcoin 1/29

Bloomberg Gadfly – Crypto Trading Needs a New Model – Tim Culpan 1/28

  • “Many don’t understand how these exchanges work, and that’s why hacking is such a problem.”
  • “When someone buys cryptocurrency from a centralized exchange — I’m going to stick with Bitcoin (BTC) as an example — they swap fiat money for the nominated BTC. But that coin doesn’t get sent to the customer. If it’s bought from a non-exchange seller, then it comes into the exchange’s own wallet, and gets held there. A ledger entry is made, and the customer gets an IOU. If the seller is on the same exchange platform, no BTC even needs to be shifted, the exchange simply changes its accounts to note one less BTC for the seller, one more for the buyer.”
  • “The customer only actually holds the BTC if they then go through the process of sending it from their exchange wallet to another wallet, for example on their smartphone, and that usually incurs fees. Given the large amount of BTC held by just a few wallets — likely owned by exchanges —  it’s clear many customers don’t bother to take possession of the BTC themselves.”
  • “That’s why hacking is such a problem. Centralized exchanges are acting as custodians for a commodity that can’t be copied or double-spent, in an environment where possession is nine-tenths of the law, and using infrastructure that offers a certain amount of anonymity.”
  • “One obvious solution is to boost security protocols. The use of a cold wallet — one not connected to the internet — is now a common tactic. But clearly not all exchanges are practicing good digital hygiene.”
  • “Instead, I see decentralized exchanges becoming more popular. As with equity trading, such a platform is merely the place for a buyer and a seller to meet, and for prices to be discovered. The exchange can play a certain settlement and custodian role, but with blockchain technology, this can be simplified to the point of virtual elimination — atomic transactions could come into play here.”

Africa

NYT – Dangerously Low on Water, Cape Town Now Faces ‘Day Zero’ – Norimitsu Onishi and Somini Sengupta 1/30

  • “…after a three-year drought, considered the worst in over a century, South African officials say Cape Town is now at serious risk of becoming one of the few major cities in the world to lose piped water to homes and most businesses.”

Britain

FT – Property sales in London fall 20% in four years – James Pickford 1/30