Week InReview
Friday | Jun 19, 2020
Business travel not taking off soon.
Corporate America’s wings are clipped, and some CEOs say it is better that way.

After months of doing their jobs from home, many executives and employees say all those hours in the sky and nights away from home may not be necessary going forward. Turns out, one-meeting trips to see a client face to face can be handled just as effectively via videoconference.

Some executives plan to hold meetings with their lieutenants by video call from now on. In sales, there are professionals who say they have found that all-online meetings even give them certain advantages over face-to-face pitches of prospective clients.

in case you missed it...
Jay Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, warned Congress of “significant uncertainty” surrounding the “timing and strength” of the U.S. economic recovery, after some encouraging data stoked hopes of a swift exit from the recession triggered by the pandemic. In prepared remarks to the Senate banking committee, Powell struck a cautious tone about America’s economic prospects, in line with most Fed officials’ expectations that they will have to keep interest rates close to zero until at least the end of 2022. (Financial Times | Jun 16) see also Powell says economic gains are at risk if stimulus measures end prematurely (The Wall Street Journal | Jun 17)

Wall Street dodged the carnage of the U.S.-China trade war, but it could be among the biggest losers from the latest flashpoint between the two nations —  and it’s struggling to mount a defense. Financial firms’ angst is focused on legislation pending in Washington that threatens to kick Chinese companies out of American stock markets. The crackdown, which U.S. lawmakers say will protect investors from fraud and safeguard national security, would impact much of the financial industry. (Bloomberg Markets | Jun 17)

A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday handed another legal win to the country’s biggest stock exchanges in their fight with their regulator, blocking a proposed experiment involving trading fees. The decision was the second court loss in a fortnight for the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in recent years has toughened its scrutiny of major stock exchanges and sought to push down costs for traders. (Financial Times | Jun 16)

Data provider Bloomberg has urged users to switch the way they price U.S. dollar interest rate options — in case they are caught out by a move by the Federal Reserve to push rates below zero. In a note sent out across its terminals on Monday, the company recommended that customers review their computer models for calculating interest rate volatility — a key component in pricing options, which give holders a right to buy or sell an asset on a set date. (Financial Times | Jun 15)

Markets were once dominated by bulls who thought stocks would go up and bears who thought they would go down. These days, another animal is on the rise. It doesn’t much care what stocks do,  as long as they do something . These investors are focused on volatility, the amount of movement in prices over time. In recent years, volatility has gone from a specialty of derivatives traders to a vehicle for trading in its own right. Investors big and small are wagering hundreds of billions of dollars on volatility, including by betting directly on the moves of measures like the S&P 500, shares of individual companies or oil prices. (The Wall Street Journal | Jun 12)
the cyber cafe
I know all the cybersecurity rules. Yet I still break them.
We all know we’re supposed to follow basic cybersecurity practices like using a password manager or running antivirus software — just the way we know we’re supposed to floss every day and keep eight months of emergency savings in the bank. Being human, however, we often fall short. 

A legion of bugs puts hundreds of millions of IoT devices at risk
Israeli security firm JSOF revealed on Tuesday a collection of vulnerabilities it's calling  Ripple20 , a total of 19 hackable bugs it has identified in code sold by a little known Ohio-based software company called Treck, a provider of software used in internet-of-things devices.
—  Wired

Qbot trojan evolves with new evasion techniques
By malware standards, the banking trojan  Qbot  is long in the tooth, but it still has some bite, according to researchers who say it has added some detection and research evasion techniques to its arsenal. “It has a new packing layer that scrambles and hides the code from scanners and signature-based tools,” wrote Doron Voolf, malware analyst at  F5 Labs  (part of F5 Networks), in a recent company  blog post . “It also includes anti-virtual machine techniques, which helps it resist forensic examination.”
—  SC Media
MORE CYBER SECURITY NEWS HERE
binge reading disorder
Picking up the pieces: the great jigsaw revival
With time on our hands, jigsaws are having their moment. But what’s the appeal? And why are they so hypnotic? 
—  The Guardian

How to network when you can’t meet up with people
To make business connections in the age of Covid-19, people need to go online to form relationships and nurture them. That means throwing out the old strategies.

5 habits of people who are especially productive working from home
Effectively working from home involves these five habits:
  1. Set the stage
  2. Get rid of low-value activities
  3. Add whitespace
  4. Keep eMail to intervals
  5. Create a clocking-out ritual
—  Fast Company
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