Quote of the Day
"Trust in government to do what is right, at least most of the time, is a form of wealth — call it civic capital — that breeds prosperity on many fronts. Anything that threatens that trust weakens our society and economy."
(Brooke Harrington)
Chart of the Day
Companies involved in home construction and renovation are struggling. (chart via YCharts)
Strategy
- Market high-fliers can't go up indefinitely. (awealthofcommonsense.com)
- Nobody ever said investing in the stock market was fun. (tker.co)
- Forecasting the impact of macro events isn't always straightforward. (humbledollar.com)
Finance
- The structured finance industry is back, and is set to be bigger than ever. (wsj.com)
- How carried interest calculations work in practice. (cashandcarried.substack.com)
- Did you know Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.A) owns RV manufacturer Forest River? (wsj.com)
Fund management
- The SEC has some issues with State Street ($STT). (riabiz.com)
- Why investors are willing to invest with a hedge fund manager best known for cratering their prior fund. (wsj.com)
Venture capital
- Willem Van Lancker, "Optionality is not freedom. It’s fear." (terrain.com)
- Too much capital is as big a problem as not enough. (avc.xyz)
Conflicts of interest
- Speaker of the House Mike Johnson lives in a DC townhouse owned by a major GOP donor. (propublica.org)
- The FAA is looking for ways to pay for a Starlink deal. (rollingstone.com)
- Dr. Oz is hopelessly conflicted, from a financial perspective. (nytimes.com)
DOGE
- Elon Musk has been plotting the destruction of the federal government for awhile now. (nytimes.com)
- USAID has stopped payments on already fulfilled contracts. (propublica.org)
- DOGE laid off the GSA's 18F team which works to make government systems work better. (theatlantic.com)
- Katie Gatti Tassin talks DOGE and more with Donald Cohen, co-author of "The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back." (podcast.moneywithkatie.com)
- Zoë Schlanger, "It costs the public roughly $4 per year per person to keep the National Weather Service functioning." (theatlantic.com)
- The NIH isn't being reformed, its' being gutted. (sensible-med.com)
- DOGE was never about saving money. (fastcompany.com)
Policy
- Canadian lumber tariffs will increase the cost of home construction and renovation. (axios.com)
- Some states, like West Virginia, are heavily dependent on Medicaid. (paulkrugman.substack.com)
- The USPS has a pension problem. (axios.com)
Economy
- Where manufacturing jobs are increasing. (agglomerations.substack.com)
- The economic schedule for the coming week. (calculatedriskblog.com)
Earler on Abnormal Returns
- Top clicks this week on the site. (abnormalreturns.com)
- What you missed in our Saturday links. (abnormalreturns.com)
- You can now follow us on Bluesky. (bsky.app)
- Are you signed up for daily e-mail newsletter? Well, you should. (abnormalreturns.com)
