Olympics:
“In the spirit of the Olympics, we thought what better way to celebrate the world’s greatest athletes than thinking what asset classes best represent each sport.”
The Summer Olympics Guide to Investing – (RCM’s Attain Alternatives Blog)
“In other words, the city’s Olympic epicenter was to be in a neighborhood that borders Englewood and Park Manor, two areas of the city that unfortunately are grappling with frequent violent crime.”
Chicago’s lucky the Olympics ended up in Rio – (RedEye)
“Velodrome—A great-sounding word, and the name of the arena where track cycling events are held.”
15 Olympic Words You Need to Survive Rio – (Grammarly)
Significant Digit: 57. That’s the number of Olympic medals that have been stripped because of doping in the summer and winter games since 2000.
Are Rio’s Troubles Just An Extreme Version Of What Usually Happens To Olympic Hosts? – (FiveThirtyEight)
“Also approved for inclusion were karate, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing, in an effort to appeal to a younger audience.”
Baseball, softball to return to Olympics in 2020 – (LA Times)
Investing & Markets:
“To even come close these days to what is considered a reasonably strong return of 7.5%, pension funds and other large endowments are reaching ever further into riskier investments.”
Pension Funds Pile on Risk Just to Get a Reasonable Return – (Wall Street Journal)
“While the assets pour into ‘passive’ there is much alpha and opportunity in active. You have to know where to look and who to follow and build some new routines and try some new products and enjoy the process of thinking and practice the art of money management.”
There has Never Been a Better Time to Be an Active Investor… — (Howard Lindzon)
“For eighteen months from the beginning of 2015, the price correlation between crude oil and the high yield total return index was quite high”
The One Chart Everyone is Talking About – (Macro Man)
“As of the close of U.S. stock trading on Monday, the five biggest companies in the world by market value were all U.S. tech companies.”
Technology Conquers Stock Market – (Bloomberg)
Quantitative investing has been around for decades, and some of the hedge fund industry’s most profitable members are powered by computers scanning markets for patterns, rather than human traders.
Investors switch from humans to algorithms – (FT)
“This accomplishment makes Wedbush Securities Inc. the seventh largest non-bank FCM and twenty-sixth largest overall FCM based on customer segregated funds.”
Wedbush Futures Surpasses $1 Billion in Customer Segregated Funds – (Yahoo)
“I felt I was doing something, being productive, getting value and being valued too. It was exactly what I needed.”
Oil and gas workers find refuge on MBA Programmes – (FT)
“The transaction included $4bn of 10-year notes, which priced with a yield 90 basis points above the benchmark US Treasury, or roughly 2.42 per cent. New 30-year bonds priced with a yield of 3.73 per cent, 5 bps above existing debt that matures in 2045.”
Microsoft sells $20bn of debt to fund LinkedIn deal – (FT)
“Investors are much more open to $500 million to $1 billion deals arranged by direct lenders now that we’ve shown we can readily complete them,”
Investors Muscle Into Big Loans Too Risky for Banks – (Wall Street Journal)
“Going back in time, you can see that this ETF has flows going against the grain,” said Balchunas. “On occasion, an ETF, especially one that’s had a huge selloff, will see people come in and make flows inversely correlated to performance. It’s an extension of investor bottom-calling tendencies.”
Investors Yank $255 Million From Biotech ETF – (Bloomberg)
Just For Fun:
“Total admissions for the current budget year now come to about 7,900, and the vast majority of them are Sunni Muslims, records show.”
U.S. poised to hit Obama’s goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees – (PBS)
“Courts have fairly consistently been striking down those restrictions, culminating in some big wins for civil rights forces in late July and early August. Similar rulings followed in North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Dakota and South Dakota, and Texas.”
Stricter Voter ID And Other Voting Laws Rolled Back In Slew Of Court Decisions – (NPR)
At least $384 billion of improvements are needed to maintain and replace essential parts of the country’s water infrastructure through 2030,”
Bottled Water to Outsell Soda for First Time This Year – (Bloomberg)
“The denser an area is with productive people, the better it was for a nearby worker’s productivity, effectiveness, and quality of work, the research found.1
The converse also holds true for sitting near “toxic” workers, or people who break the rules at work. The researchers call this the “spillover effect”—people at nearby desks rub off on each other, in both good and bad ways.”
The Ideal Office Floor Plan, According to Science – (Bloomberg)
“The new Nielsen Social index will rank series (and separately, sports programming), by “interactions” on both platforms, which combines tweets and posts by users with retweets and likes of those posts by others. “
Nielsen to measure TV chatter on Facebook – (USA Today)