I know I haven’t been blogging for a while. I also haven’t been tweeting. I am shut out of X-Twitter because of two factor authentication issues. As such, I am doing a post today that is Twitter-like, giving my thoughts on a variety of news articles. Here we go: President Xi’s hero, Chairman Mao said “Women hold up half of the sky.”  And, that randy guy Mao certainly “held up half the sky” with many of them.  But women in China will not “hold up half the sky” for President Xi.  Women in China increasingly do not want to marry and have children.  If present trends continue f ..read more

Image Credit: Aleph Blog || Has the return on assets for public equities permanently risen? The return on bonds has risen for now. From the last piece: “At March 31st, 2023, the S&P 500 was priced to return 2.41%/year over the next ten years. Given the rally since then, that return has shrunk to 0.49%/year. Currently the 10-year Treasury yields 3.76%. In investment grade corporates, you could earn more than 5% with considerably lower risk.” There was an error in that statement, the return had only shrunk to 1.64%/year. A similar adjustment would have to be made to the second graph, which w ..read more

Image Credit: Aleph Blog || Has the return on assets for public equities permanently risen? At March 31st, 2023, the S&P 500 was priced to return 2.41%/year over the next ten years. Given the rally since then, that return has shrunk to 0.49%/year. Currently the 10-year Treasury yields 3.76%. In investment grade corporates, you could earn more than 5% with considerably lower risk. But, maybe it’s different this time. Yes, I know the danger of the phrase. What if AI increases total productivity of assets and labor by 1%/year on net, permanently? Will companies make more money as they need fe ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from Bing Chat in Creative mode || Twitter bird is disappointed that he is short, like this post Artificial Intelligence A computer science student has figured out how to get ChatGPT to respond to prompts it would normally rebuff https://bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-08/jailbreaking-chatgpt-how-ai-chatbot-safeguards-can-be-bypassed  Where there are locks, there will be lockpicks. Apr 9 The ChatGPT King Isn’t Worried, but He Knows You Might Be https://nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html  A ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from Bing Chat in Creative mode || Twitter bird shops for groceries Market Dynamics Transcript: Matt King Sees a $1 Trillion Liquidity Drain Coming to Markets https://t.co/kr9SMaMV9b  Monetarism, with bank reserve flows driving the market for risk assets. Mar 31, 2023 Battered banks have been the most lucrative short bet in US stocks this quarter, while surging technology companies delivered the steepest losses https://t.co/2joY6G7xTn  It’s tough to make money shorting. Mar 31, 2023 Citi’s Matt King sees a $1 trillion liquidity ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from the YouImagine AI image generator || Introducing one AI to Another This is another experiment of mine. Please bear with it. ============================= David: Would it theoretically be possible for you to have a discussion with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4, which is now available to me? Bard: Yes, it is theoretically possible for me to have a discussion with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4. ChatGPT-4 is a large language model that can generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer your questions in an informative ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from the YouImagine AI image generator || Twitter bird visits China Banking Saba Capital’s Boaz Weinstein talks bank CDS; Carvana exchange falters; Evergrande reveals restructuring plan https://t.co/SFUXCBASiZ  Thinks bank sub debt is overpriced in general… Mar 24, 2023 US authorities guarantee bank deposits as high as $250,000. That could soon change https://t.co/PHS0cpK0R0  Will solve some short-term problems, and create bigger long-term problems. Mar 24, 2023 The banking precedent that matters for where we are now isn’t 2008 ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from the YouImagine AI image generator || Twitter birds run by a bank run Financial Regulation and Policy Dodd Frank Was Never Gutted – It Was Barely Touched https://t.co/sRapmRVUrx  Interesting sidelights on how little Dodd-Frank got changed Mar 18, 2023 Banks borrowed a combined $164.8 billion from two Federal Reserve backstop facilities in the most recent week, a sign of escalated funding strains after SVB’s collapse https://t.co/xq4nCKYON5  Things are that bad… Mar 18, 2023 A federal appeals court in New York is asking the S ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from the YouImagine AI image generator || Twitter bird with his best friend Market Dynamics Short sellers are betting against Cathie Wood’s flagship fund more than ever before https://t.co/Gkck6wyVws  This may give Cathie Wood a tailwind… shorts eventually have to be bought in… Mar 11, 2023 US buyback announcements are running at a record pace, with $261 billion in commitments so far this year — though much of it is spread across just five companies, according to JPMorgan strategists https://t.co/2y0XNg9jGq  Profitability, but l ..read more

Picture Credit: David Merkel, with an assist from the YouImagine AI image generator || Twitter bird happily surfs Real Estate NYC’s biggest-ever office-to-housing conversion is opening in the Financial District at prices ranging from just over $1 million for a studio to $12.75 million for a four-bedroom spread https://t.co/sXCwHGAgC3  Nice, if you can afford it. Feb 24, 2023 Home lenders are looking for ways to make 6% mortgages more appealing https://t.co/fOq3ulMZm0  Don’t do a buydown of the first-year interest rate. If you can’t afford the house on a level rate basis, d ..read more