Review: Steven Clifford’s The CEO Pay Machine: How It Trashes America and How to Stop It highlights the damage done by excessive executive pay. (Reading the Markets)
Quote of the Day
"Engineer the people out of a process, and you may drive out some of the time and cost. But you may also engineer some of the humanity out of it."
(Daniel Gross)
Chart of the Day
Alexis Madrigal, “These companies are now dominant. And they are dominant in a way that almost no other company has been in another industry. They are the mutant giant creatures created by software eating the world.”
Markets
- There is a (big) bull market in altcoins. (wsj.com)
- This is a great example of second-order thinking. (themacrotourist.com)
Volatility
- What happens when volatility rises. (pensionpartners.com)
- How managed futures strategies perform in different volatility regimes. (mrzepczynski.blogspot.com)
Strategy
- Daniel Grioli, "Genuine active management is A LOT more capacity constrained that most investors realise." (i3-invest.com)
- You can read too much as an investor if all it does is reinforce your prior beliefs. (thereformedbroker.com)
Offers
- Buy 3 new Fire tablets and save 20% with the 'FIRE3PACK' promo code. (amazon.com)
- Buy 2 new Echo Shows and get $100 if you use the 'SHOW2PACK' promo code. (amazon.com)
- Make your life easier. Get your college kid a six-month trial to Amazon Prime Student. (amazon.com)
Companies
- Amazon ($AMZN) is considering getting into the pharmacy business. (cnbc.com)
- Do we really want future AI in the hands of the "Frightful Five"? (nytimes.com)
- Warren Buffett's notion of what an 'ideal business' looks like has changed. (intrinsicinvesting.com)
Finance
Hedge funds
- The hedge fund of funds business is....still dying. (valuewalk.com)
- Smooth transitions at hedge funds are few and far between. ValueAct is giving it a shot however. (nytimes.com)
Funds
- Justin Fox, "The investment industry keeps coming up with new products that more perfectly match customer needs, but it also invariably overdoes it. Which I guess is what most industries do, but in investing, there is a weird cyclicality to it." (bloomberg.com)
- The SEC is reconsidering its approval of 4x leveraged ETFs. (wsj.com)
Site stuff
- An annual membership helps Abnormal Returns keep on trucking. Get on board today! (abnormalreturns.com)
- Having trouble signing up for our daily e-mail missives? Go here: (abnormalreturns.com)
Global
Economy
- A June Fed rate hike is baked in. The question is how much slack the US economy still has. (economistsview.typepad.com)
- Good luck trying to call the next recession with just a single variable. (capitalspectator.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Personal finance links: unsettling and unpleasant. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Non-financial wants and the rise of ESG investing. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Tuesday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Research links: disappearing anomalies. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Our book link round-up post for May 2017. (abnormalreturns.com)
