10 Tuesday AM Reads
My Two-for-Tuesday morning reads:
• The Mighty American Consumer Is Crashing Through Inflation and Driving Growth : Spending is rising because prices are climbing and Americans are buying more stuff, despite long-running frustrations over inflation. ( Wall Street Journal )
• New Innovation Is Required to Fund AI’s $6 Trillion Buildout : To justify the investment, AI must do more than boost productivity; it will need to unlock new sources of growth and value. ( Bain ) see also The AI Buildout and the Economy: Publicly Available Data to Assess AI’s Impact : Publicly available indicators that can help researchers and policymakers track the evolution of the generative AI buildout and its potential impact on the economy on a timely basis. We organize the indicators into three categories: capabilities and costs; firm investment and adoption; and productivity and labor. ( Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System )
• Why So Many Wealthy Retirees Hoard Their Nest Eggs . Many American retirees underspend and hoard their wealth due to fears of market downturns, healthcare costs and lifelong saving habits. A Vanguard study found that four in 10 retirees with $1 million or less don’t touch their retirement accounts until required minimum distributions. ( Barron’s )
• LeBron’s Polymarket deal may not break NBA rules, but it raises uncomfortable questions: James reportedly gets $15 million a year to endorse Polymarket — nearly four times his $3.9 million playing salary. The league just hammered the Clippers over side deals; it has no answer for the money swirling outside the cap. ( The Athletic )
• AI-conscious asset allocation: Portfolio construction in a capital investment boom : The artificial intelligence (AI) boom is moving more rapidly than any previous technology-focused capital investment surge. Asset allocators face an old challenge with a new twist: Harnessing AI’s extraordinary investment potential while maintaining appropriate levels of portfolio risk diversification. Michael Cembalest and J.P. Morgan’s Strategic Investment Advisory Group draw on past capital-spending booms to rethink what diversification means when everything correlates. ( J.P. Morgan Asset Management )
• Who Owns London? The Offshore Map : The offshore map — every overseas company on the register, by borough. Thousands of London property titles are held in open breach of the law, the largest block by a convicted scam, and nearly 5,000 belong to dissolved ghost companies, British Rail among them. Thousands of London titles are held in open breach of the law — topped by a convicted scam. Nearly 5,000 belong to dissolved ghost companies, British Rail among them. ( GaffOn )
• Michael Lewis Is Back to Take On Elon Musk. It’s a Roller Coaster . In his latest book, The Big Short and Moneyball author Michael Lewis details the catastrophe that was DOGE. ( Slate )
• How a Research Blog Took on Big Surveillance in China—and Won : Amos Zeeberg on John Honovich’s IPVM, a small trade publication that found Hikvision cameras tagging tourists by “minority” status and helped expose the Chinese camera giants’ role in Xinjiang. Digging through manuals for security cameras, a group of gearheads found sinister details and ignited a new battle in the US-China tech war. ( Wired )
• How Ukraine’s Naval Drones Are Remaking War at Sea : Nicholas Kulish: Ukrainian sea drones now carry surface-to-air missiles to shoot down warplanes and ferry attack drones closer to their targets. Ukrainian sea drones act as miniature aircraft carriers, and other countries want in. ( New York Times ) see also Ukraine Fires Hard-to-Stop Ballistic Missile for First Time : Kyiv has used its homegrown ballistic missile for the first time, and Zelensky says the priority now is scaling up production. Zelensky says the focus now is to increase production of the Ukrainian-made weapon ( Wall Street Journal )
• Patrick Mahomes Is Still the Best Quarterback in the World : Four games into his comeback, Mahomes has reasserted his superiority, a columnist for The Athletic writes. ( The Athletic )
Video of the day : The Swiss Are Panicking About “Superclone” Fake Watches
Be sure to check out our latest Masters in Business interview with Omar Aguilar, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chief Investment Officer of Schwab Asset Management, which runs more than $1 trillion across over 100 ETFs, mutual funds, and separately managed account strategies. He has held both the CEO and CIO titles since 2022
Trump’s EV Boost
Source: Bloomberg
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