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Quote of the Day
"Perhaps QQQ's success is a simple story of brand value. Many see Nasdaq as the home of growth and big tech stocks. QQQ is the wrapper that encapsulates that. There’s value in that brand."
(Cinthia Murphy)
Chart of the Day

Next Era Energy ($NEE) is bigger than ExxonMobil ($XOM) as measured by market cap. (chart via @ycharts)
Markets
- Utility stocks are seeing a surge in interest. (sentimentrader.com)
- A graphical look at every company in and out of the Down since 1928. (visualcapitalist.com)
Strategy
- Seven things that matter for market moving forward including historically low interest rates and growing wealth inequality. (awealthofcommonsense.com)
- Is the Permanent Portfolio broken? (movement.capital)
- How to control the 'frustrated money manager' within. (epsilontheory.com)
Companies
- Square ($SQ) has purchased a big slug of Bitcoin. (theblockcrypto.com)
- Reports show that Airbnb burned through about a billion dollars over a one-year period. (news.crunchbase.com)
Retail
- Dollar General ($DG) is going upscale with its new Popshelf stores. (wsj.com)
- Walmart ($WMT) keeps pushing further into the business of health care, now with Medicare insurance. (barrons.com)
- Has Amazon ($AMZN) lost interest in Whole Foods already? (msn.com)
- Kroger ($KR) is moving deeper into the ghost kitchen business. (marketwatch.com)
- The retail experience post-pandemic is going to be more tech-enabled. (avc.com)
Media
- Dan Loeb wants Disney ($DIS) to double down on its streaming service Disney Plus. (nytimes.com)
- Podcasting is still highly fragmented which leaves room for Spotify ($SPOT) to grow. (ft.com)
Software
- Tomasz Tunguz, "The market isn’t pricing modern software companies well looking principally at forward multiple." (tomtunguz.com)
- For SaaS companies this could be a substitute for taking on additional venture capital. (wsj.com)
- Eight tips on how to join a software startup right out school. (media.thinknum.com)
Fund management
- Morgan Stanley ($MS) is buying asset manager Eaton Vance ($EV) for cash and stock. (wsj.com)
- Why Trian Partners is trying to force a merger between Invesco ($IVZ) and Janus Henderson ($JHG). (economist.com)
- ARK Investment Management's success is built, in part, on a big bet on Tesla ($TSLA). (forbes.com)
Economy
- Improvement in jobless claims has stalled out. (bonddad.blogspot.com)
- Continuing claims are still far above anything seen in the GFC. (calculatedriskblog.com)
Earlier on Abnormal Returns
- Longform links: complexity is a constant. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Wednesday linkfest. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Personal finance links: when bad decisions happen. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Incremental solutions in pursuit of a clear goal beat the pointless pursuit of perfection. (abnormalreturns.com)
- October ESG links: unhelpful buzzwords. (abnormalreturns.com)
- Every Friday I send out five links for advisers to help them think a little differently about the world. Sign up now! (newsletter.abnormalreturns.com)