Second Wave

Working Capital Review

Second Wave

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Second Wave

Jun 11, 2020

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Working Capital Conversations: Myron Scholes, Nobel Laureate in Economics

Issue: Nobel Laureate in Economics Myron Scholes is the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance, Emeritus, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-originator of the Black-Scholes options pricing model.

Scholes argues that focusing on diversifying risk over time has a greater impact than cross-sectional diversification and can keep risk closer to target — and it should command more of our attention than it does.

The World

U.S. initial unemployment claims fell to 1.5 million last week, as the total drawing unemployment benefits declined slightly to 20.9 million. (Wall Street Journal)

Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said that shutting down the economy for a second time to slow Covid-19 isn’t a viable option, as Wall Street concerns grew and the U.S. could reach 200,000 coronavirus deaths in September, according Harvard’s Global Health Institute. Oil dropped more than 6% over second wave fears, but air travel is up 400 percent from its record-low. (CNBC, Reuters, CNBC, Washington Post)

Mnuchin called for additional fiscal stimulus -- particularly for businesses struggling to reopen. And despite Republican misgivings about extending an additional $600 a week in unemployment benefits, Mnuchin said, “We’re going to need to look at doing something there.” (Bloomberg, Finance 202)

Federal Reserve officials signaled plans to keep interest rates near zero for years and said they were studying how to provide more support to the economy. The Fed now projects the economy will shrink by 6.5 percent this year and close out with 9.3 percent joblessness, falling to 5.5 percent by the end of 2022. (Wall Street Journal, Finance 202)

Japan and France confirmed close cooperation through the G-7 in responding to China's Hong Kong policies, and the E.U. accused China of waging a pandemic disinformation campaign. (Nippon, Washington Post)

Twenty-two Republicans have rebelled against President Trump’s plans to withdraw 9,500 American troops from Germany. Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russia agreed to begin talks on replacing the only remaining nuclear arms control treaty between them. (The Times, The Times)

The top U.S. military official apologized for taking part in President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square for a photo op. “I should not have been there,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said. Meanwhile, Pentagon leaders outlined the military’s role in the recent unrest in a letter to Congress. (New York Times, Washington Post)

In the last two weeks, American voters’ support for the Black Lives Matter movement increased almost as much as it had in the preceding two years. (New York Times)

Economy & Finance

Investors are rushing back into the U.S. subprime bond market as lenders say borrowers with weak credit scores are weathering the Covid-19 storm better than in previous downturns. The gap between yields on subprime-backed securities and US Treasuries has dropped sharply. (Financial Times)

Goldman Sachs’ commodities unit generated more than $1 billion in revenue this year through May, pouncing on wild swings for its best start in a decade. Much of the boost came from oil traders, who correctly positioned their desks for the collapse in prices. (Bloomberg)

American shoppers started spending at closer to normal levels again last month. Retail sales, including online and in-person transactions, fell 5.6% from a year ago, an improvement from the 14.1% drop the previous month. (Bloomberg)

The EU plans to file formal antitrust charges against Amazon as early as next week. The formal charges would be latest step in a nearly two-year probe into Amazon’s alleged mistreatment of sellers that use its platform. (Wall Street Journal)

Technology

A campaign to expand U.S. semiconductor manufacturing gained traction with the introduction of legislation to allocate tens of billions of federal dollars to domestic chip-making and research programs. (Wall Street Journal)

IBM said a networking failure involving a third party caused a serious cloud outage widely felt by customers who lost access to their environments, status screens and consoles, and had “no sense of what was happening.” (CRN)

Facebook has been hiring seasoned tech investors to help lead a new "multimillion dollar" investment fund within its experimental apps team. (Axios)

Amazon said it will stop providing its facial recognition technology to police for one year. But the moratorium has “major loopholes” as Amazon hasn’t said if the move applies to federal law enforcement agencies. (TechCrunch)

Zoom closed the account of a group of prominent U.S.-based Chinese activists after they held a Zoom event commemorating the 31st anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Apple pulled podcast apps in China after government pressure. (Axios, The Verge)