The weekend is here! Pour yourself a mug of Danish Blend coffee, grab a seat outside, and get ready for our longer-form weekend reads:
• Why I Don’t Own Any Gold. It’s not a productive asset. It doesn’t do anything — no earnings or cash flow. If you are big on innovation, gold seems more like a relic. But I think it boils down to the historical return profile. I know stocks go through booms, busts and lost decades but gold went on such a terrible 40-year run that it makes me nervous to hold it for the long run. (A Wealth of Common Sense)
• A 6-year research project found a surprisingly simple route to happiness: Results of a study out of Cornell suggest a happiness hack that can lead you toward a life of purpose. (WaPo) see also What True Wealth Looks Like: Money can make you happier, but only if you don’t care about it. (Atlantic) but see Why aren’t smart people happier? It is a mystery. Shouldn’t those people end up with happier lives, however unfair that may be? (Seeds of Science)
• Washington May Be Missing Signs of Economic Trouble: Why Republicans and Democrats alike get fooled by the stock market. (Politico)
• CRYPTO: Realm of the Coin: In a financial system upended by cryptocurrencies and meme stocks, where value is detached from utility and the loudest voice gets richest. It’s a brave new world in Bel Air that is part Bravolebrity, part Wolf of Wall Street, and all casino… (Vanity Fair)
• Bach is a Strange Loop. Can you call yourself a mathematician if you haven’t read Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid? Can you call yourself a former math major if you haven’t given up on that and read Hofstadter’s easier follow-up I Am A Strange Loop instead? (Romanticon)
• Spit On, Sworn At, and Undeterred: What It’s Like to Own a Cybertruck: “We were the targets.” WIRED spoke to seven Tesla Cybertruck owners about their most controversial purchase and why they’re proud to drive it. (Wired)
• How The West Was Lost: China spent decades laying its rare earths trap. Then Donald Trump blundered straight into it. Now there is no way out. Some thoughts on how we got here, and what happens next. (Wealth of Nations)
• ‘I Want to Win’: Inside Gavin Newsom’s Plan for Taking On Trump: Armed with a podcast, a ballot measure and tweets, California’s governor is spoiling for a fight with the president. (Businessweek)
• The puzzle of the ‘idiot savant’ The convergence of singular talent and profound disability confounded scientists eager to place humans into neat categories. (Aeon)
• ‘I realised I’d been ChatGPT-ed into bed’: how ‘Chatfishing’ made finding love on dating apps even weirder: Where once people were duped by soft-focus photos and borrowed chat-up lines, now they have to watch out for computer-generated charm. But it’s one thing to use a witty phrase – another thing entirely to build a whole fake persona … (The Guardian)
Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview this weekend with Liz Ann Sonders, Chief Investment Strategist, Charles Schwab & Co. Named “Best Market Strategist” by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, she is also on Barron’s “100 Most Influential Women in Finance” every year since the list’s inception.
How Vanguard Stacks Up Against Its Fund Industry Peers
Source: Morningstar
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