My morning train WFH reads:
• Is $200 Million the New $100 Million in Luxury Real Estate? A surge of ultra-rich buyers has pushed asking prices to new extremes, yet many headline-grabbing megamansions languish on the market or trade for a fraction of their debut numbers. (Wall Street Journal)
• Crypto World Wipes Out $1 Trillion as Bitcoin Plunges Anew. The great crypto crash of 2025 entered a new phase on Wednesday, as Bitcoin plunged to its lowest level in seven months, extending the more than $1 trillion wipeout across the digital‑asset world. The largest cryptocurrency fell to as low as $88,522, with the latest rout hitting investors big and small — from retail dip‑buyers to digital‑asset treasury firms whose stock premiums are vanishing. (Bloomberg) see also The Crypto Trades That Amplified Gains Are Now Turbocharging Losses: Bitcoin’s steep fall highlights the growth of risky bets offered by Wall Street and crypto firms alike. (Wall Street Journal)
• Stock Markets Are Spooked by Fed Rate-Cut Doubts. It’s Too Early to Panic. How quickly things can change. Markets have swung from euphoria to fright in the space of barely a week but it’s not clear that the fundamental dynamics of the U.S. economy or corporate profits have altered all that much. (Barron’s)
• 10 Things We Can Learn From Warren Buffett That Have Nothing to Do With Money: Life lessons from the Oracle of Omaha as he retires as Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO. (Morningstar)
• Hedge Funds Call This Psychologist When Their Traders Start Losing: Dave Popple is tasked with finding who can cut it for hypercompetitive multimanager funds. (Wall Street Journal)
• Janet Yellen Says the US Is Undermining Its Economic Success: The former Treasury secretary warns that Trump’s attacks on the rule of law, the Fed and universities threaten the foundations of American prosperity. (Bloomberg)
• New York Lacked an Affordable Housing Portal. So These Teenagers Made One. Two “children of the pandemic” did something the grown-ups who run the city have never managed to do. (New York Times)
• The running industrial complex: I fell in love with the world’s simplest sport. Then the Instagram ads started flooding in. (Business Insider)
• Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show: Pair devised responses to public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his treatment by the justice system and his friendships with powerful people. (The Guardian)
• It’s the NBA’s Most Devastating Play—and It Starts With a Missed Shot: Nobody in the NBA is better at gobbling up rebounds than Steven Adams. So the Houston Rockets have turned missed shots into part of a spectacular attack. (Wall Street Journal)
Be sure to check out our special live episode of Masters in Business Live from the Economic Club of New York, with Nobel laureate Richard Thaler, and his colleague from the Booth School of Business, Alex Imas, Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics and Applied AI; we discuss the new edition of their book “The Winner’s Curse.”
This strength of higher-income household balance sheets relative to lower-income balance sheets is the reason why consumer discretionary stocks in recent months have been outperforming consumer staples
Source: Apollo
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