Week of 4/15/2021

Most of you know that we often cite the work of Brad McMillan and the investment research team at Commonwealth. They are important partners to our firm, and we are excited to announce that Brad will join us for a webinar on Tuesday, May 11th at 4pm. He will be speaking exclusively to our clients and guests. If you have any questions for Brad, please send them our way.

April is Financial Literacy Month and this is a pretty exhaustive list of books on the subject, organized by the appropriate audience. The COVID vaccines use mRNA. Rather than try to explain how that works, we recommend you spend a few minutes reading this article about Dr. Kati Kariko, a researcher whose work helped lay the groundwork for the vaccines. She came from Hungary, worked very hard in unglamorous roles, and helped change the world. In other vaccine news, researchers see promise in a vaccine for treating HIV. Every week we publish this brief letter and include references to articles, videos, and other information that can be shared with a few quick mouse clicks. Seeing these photos reminds us how tedious it was to print a single issue of the New York Times in September of 1942, long before digital publishing. Fake check scams are still a problem, so here’s a little reminder of some of the common warning signs of a scam.

We have some videos in the works. In the meantime, an old-school Ask the Joes®: Q: I heard about a hedge fund that was using a lot of debt and hurt the markets a few weeks back. What was that all about? A: The name of the firm was Archegos Capital. It was run by a former hedge fund manager, using his own money. The issue arose when he used significant leverage (debt) to make large bets on the market. This went well beyond what normal investors could attempt and resulted in magnified losses when his trades were unsuccessful. It’s a very interesting story and Brad McMillan provides more information here.

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