One important driver of what we’re seeing, via Global Macro Monitor: Egypt’s a nation with sustained 9+% unemployment, and around 40% of Egypt’s population of just under 80 million live on the income equivalent of roughly $2 per day (AFP). Meanwhile, food inflation in Egypt is running at about 17% […]
Outlook
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In this remarkable Q&A with Francis Ford Coppola, the esteemed filmmaker suggests another approach to making a living in the field: We have to be very clever about those things. You have to remember that it’s only a few hundred years, if that much, that artists are working with money. […]
In Davos, questioning the wine and the art – Felix Salmon and Dan Arieli World market valuation heat map – Seeking Delta Big mac inflation versus official inflation rates – The Economist’s Daily Chart Super Bowl Indicator: The Secret History – Jason Zweig, WSJ John Paulson racks up a second […]
The Fed, translated into plain English – Slate and Planet Money Want to make money in the stock market? Own it only when it’s closed – Tradestreaming and BIG The relationship between speed cameras and road deaths – The Economist [chart] Why people happily pay $71,000+ to go to Davos […]
Here’s the problem with starting an exercise regimen: You typically pay big up front for the gym membership or equipment, then try to motivate yourself to use it enough to make that payment worthwhile. But recouping a sunk cost isn’t much of a motivator, so you end up both out […]
In 1936, economist John Maynard Keynes likened investor behavior in the stock market to a beauty contest gone awry: It is not a case of choosing those [faces] that, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those that average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We […]
A new paper from the American Finance Association finds (from the abstract): An increase in SVI [Google search frequency] predicts higher stock prices in the next two weeks and an eventual price reversal within the year. It also contributes to the large first-day return and long-run underperformance of IPO stocks. […]
A common rule of thumb is that it’s better to rent a home when the cost of buying is at least 20 times higher, and it’s smarter to buy when that ratio falls to 15 or lower. Real estate search company Trulia drew upon its wealth of data to produce […]
MIT student John Kestner developed three prototype wallets that automatically connect to your bank account and physically change in response to your balance. One “un-abstracts” your digital spending based on vibration, one via resistance, and one by size. Kestner says a commercial version is in early development.
Google’s self-driving car is a way off, so imagine we start simpler. You’re stuck in traffic on the way to work, as you are every morning. Glance around and even those responsible rides with multiple passengers have one frustrated driver just like you – tapping the gas, hitting the brake, […]
Comscore numbers for December 2010 in the online finance vertical: Beet TV’s Andy Plesser published this chart comparing Bloomberg, AOL Money, MSN Money and CNN Money since last summer: And here’s an interview Plesser recently conducted with Bloomberg’s head of global Web properties, Kevin Krim, on the company’s ambitions for […]