Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

A Wealth of Common Sense – Too Big To Be Simple? – Ben Carlson 6/19

“…There is no such thing as too big to be simple.”
“Problems arise when ultra-wealthy people assume the normal rules don’t apply to them.”

A Wealth of Common Sense – Is The Handmaid’s Tale Fast Approaching – Ben Carlson 6/5

Economist – In praise of ranked-choice voting 6/14

“A simple reform might fix America’s dysfunctional politics.”

Economist – China has made progress in tackling financial risks – Leaders 6/16

FT – Beauty contest to host new Amazon base reveals ugly truths – Edward Luce 6/5

“Competition for ‘HQ2’ shows how hard it is to ensure city development benefits the poor.”

FT – How millennials became the world’s most powerful consumers – John Gapper 6/5

“They are the biggest global generation – and their choices are upending business from the US to China.”

Markets / Economy

WSJ – Food Companies Can’t Figure Out What Americans Want to Eat – Aaron Back 6/5

WSJ – The Other Yield Curve Investors Should Watch as Trouble Mounts – Richard Barley 6/19

Real Estate

Financial Advisor – Nuveen, Starwood, Griffin Follow Blackstone Into NAV REIT Market – Evan Simonoff 6/4

Energy

Economist – Global Coal Consumption 6/14

Health / Medicine

FT – Gaming disorder joins the WHO panoply of diseases – Anjana Ahuja 6/19

“Official recognition of social media addiction could well be next in line.”

Britain

FT – ‘Hellish’: UK motorists hit by biggest petrol price rise in 18 years – Camilla Hodgson 6/5

“Petrol prices jumped at the fastest pace in 18 years in May, with an average increase of 6p per liter from the previous month, according to roadside assistance and insurance company RAC.”
“Unleaded petrol rose from 123.43p to 129.41p ($6.46 per gallon) over the month, taking the cost of filling up a 55-litre (14.53 gallon) family car to £71.18 ($93.79), an increase of £3.29 in just one month, according to RAC Fuel Watch data.”
“Price rises were driven by a jump in oil prices combined with the weakening of the pound against the dollar, said RAC.”

China

FT – China’s debt collectors focus in on $200bn P2P debt pile – Don Weinland 6/4

“Debt collectors in China are harnessing new technologies such as artificial intelligence in a bid to collect on an estimated Rmb1.3tn ($200bn) debt bubble that has formed in the country’s peer-to-peer lending industry.”
“An estimated Rmb1.3tn in outstanding P2P debt as of May, according to online lending intelligence firm Wdzj.com, and a rising number of defaults have opened the door to a wave of start-ups using new technologies to try to recover tardy loans.”
“’People’s usage of P2P debt is very high but the government only monitors the banking system closely,’ said Cherry Sheng, chief executive of Shanghai-based debt collection group Ziyitong and a former manager at Citigroup and ANZ Bank. ‘This has become an opportunity for start-ups with advanced technology to move into this market.’”
“Ziyitong, which has sought to recover Rmb150bn since it was set up in 2016, recently launched an AI platform to help recover delinquent loans for some 600 debt collection agencies, and more than 200 lenders including Alibaba Group and Postal Savings Bank of China, Ms. Sheng said.”
“The system scrapes the internet for information on borrowers and their friends, then contacts the borrower via phone using a dialogue robot. The conversations are recorded and analyzed by an algorithm that then determines the phrasing with the highest likelihood of pressuring the person to pay back the loan. The system also calls friends of the borrower and asks them to relay the urgency of making payments.”
“In May the AI system had a recovery rate of 41% for large clients on loans delinquent for up to one week, according to Ms. Sheng, compared with a rate of as low as 20% via traditional debt collection methods for similar loans. Ziyitong plans to expand the system to loans that have been unpaid for longer periods of time.”
“Yigou, another debt collection start-up, has launched a mobile phone application that allows collection agents to search thousands of individual debt records and choose cases, streamlining connections between lenders and collectors. The company can also provide geo-locational data on some borrowers to help the agents track them down.”

WSJ – China Tech Giants’ Costly Wars to Go Cashless – Stella Yifan Xie 6/14

Europe

WSJ – The Force Behind Europe’s Populist Tide: Frustrated Young Adults – Eric Sylvers 6/17

Perspective

howmuch.net – Hourly Wage Required to Rent a Two-Bedroom Home in Every State – Raul 5/13

Worthy Insights / Opinion Pieces / Advice

A Wealth of Common Sense – Do Long-Term Investors Need Bonds? – Ben Carlson 5/20

Economist – America must use sanctions cautiously – Leaders 5/17

“The dollar gives the Treasury extraordinary power over global finance. It should not be used lightly.”

FT – Batteries are the next frontier of industrial competition – Nick Butler 5/20

“Why the race is on to host the factories that will serve the electric vehicle market.”

FT – Tech lessons from Amazon’s battle in Seattle – Gillian Tett 5/17

Markets / Economy

FT – Ant Financial valued at $150bn in offering – Henny Sender and Louise Lucas 5/20

“The enthusiasm for Ant Financial is partly a reflection of the scale of the company’s operations in China, as well as the need among investors to deploy huge funds being raised.”
“’If you are too conservative, you lose a lot of opportunities,’ said one mainland Chinese investor, who is also involved in the transaction. ‘In the last few years, we were not gung-ho enough and left too much money on the table’.”

WSJ – Daily Shot: Moody’s – Youth Unemployment Rate – European Countries 5/21

Real Estate

FT Alphaville – Retail is not dead – Jamie Powell 5/20

This is one of the few instances when I’ve posted the article in its entirety…

“Readers may have seen a few articles about the ‘DEATH OF RETAIL’ (add exclamation marks where appropriate) recently. To say it’s been a popular meme in US economic commentary would be, well, quite an understatement. Courtesy of CBInsights, here’s a timeline of retail bankruptcies up to March 2018:”
“Bogey men blamed for the decline range from Amazon to pesky private equity to, erm, tourists. To get a feel for the distressed nature of the sector, as of March 2018, retailers make up nearly 20% of the companies which Standard & Poor’s awards a they-may-not-make-it CCC credit rating. In short, defaults are still coming.”
“Yet is it all doom and gloom for bricks and mortar retail? Adam Ozimek, of Moody’s Analytics, begs to differ — laying out his case in a blogpost yesterday. Let’s take a look at his reasoning.”
“First Mr Ozimek points to retail payrolls running at a near historical high at 15.3m jobs, only 22,000 positions short of the peak reached in 2017:”
“The hiring boom is despite physical retail having a relatively smaller share of the economy from its peak in the credit-fueled boom years under Ronald Reagan:”
“So retail is a touch less influential in the US economy, but it still a key supplier of jobs. Looking at the first chart, however, the doubling of retail jobs in absolute terms isn’t quite as impressive when you consider retail employment also came close to peaking in 2000, and since then the US economy has nearly doubled according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve:”
“As physical retail’s share of the economy has fallen, there has been a bleeding of the value which used to be captured by the sector. However a lot of this shift can be explained by employment moving to e-commerce, according to Mr Ozimek:”
- “Employment gains in e-commerce are visible in warehousing and nonstore retailers, the latter of which includes e-commerce sellers like Amazon. Over the last decade, nonstore retailers have added 157,000 jobs and warehousing has added almost 369,000, which combined more than offset the job losses of 392,000 in department stores.”
“So why are people so obsessed with the ‘Death of Retail’ meme?”
“Perhaps one reason is the vast retail space left behind in the recent consolidation in the sector. Cowan Research recently found the US has circa 49 square feet of retail space per capita, double the UK’s 22 square feet and almost four times Canada’s 13 square feet.”
“So in any retail contraction, the empty units left behind will be more noticeable to the naked eye than say in, Canada, thanks to the sheer amount of constructed retail space. This may give the impression of the death of retail, even if the facts don’t back it up.”
“Public struggles for big brand names like Sears and JC Penny, which last year closed 141 stores, may also help re-enforce the impression of decrepitude.”
“In fact, the former bastion of the mall, the department store, seems to be the only form of retail really struggling.”
“Last year research house IHL published a compelling report titled ‘Debunking the Retail Apocalypse‘ (get a copy for free here) in which they helpfully chartered store openings versus closures across different types of retailer:”
“We know this data is a little old, but department stores were the only group not to plan to open new stores in 2017, re-enforcing the idea that the collapse of famous brands, such as Radioshack, has driven the idea of bricks and mortar stores struggling.”
“Our readers may be asking – who is doing well in this environment to offset the struggles of Sears, Kmart and Radioshack?”
“The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly given trends in inequality, is any retailer shifting merchandise at bargain basement prices. Think Primark and Aldi in the UK, or aptly named Dollar General and Dollar Tree in the US. Here’s another neat chart from IWC showing store openings in 2017:”
“Not exactly a sign of a healthy US consumer, right? This trend is also repeated across restaurants, with the cheap, convenient and filling providers of processed goodness leading the way:”
“Regardless of the evident collapse in both diet and spending power, this data is not indicative of retail dying a death.”
“A month ago, we published a piece examining the pivot many online only retailers, such as Warby Parker, are making to bricks and mortars stores. The reason? Stores are a surprisingly cheap way of acquiring affluent customers and building brand familiarity, compared with internet advertising.”
“Given the data above perhaps the death of retail is more a misunderstanding of a sector adapting to demand not just from the internet, but also a lopsided societal structure. A country where affluent urbanites shop for luxury hand luggage in LCD lit stores, while the masses get by on Dunkin Donuts and Dollar General.”