The Tycoon Next Door

I’m interested in how tech giant founders manage to portray themselves as innocuous rebel coffee shop couch-sitters -- those friendly guys who grew up down the road and started up in their parents’ garage. There he is in his faded jeans, sandals, a few days’ facial hair, walking his dog, sporting a white turtle neck (the dog). All this, despite being individually richer than some European nations, owning enough data to chart what each of us had for breakfast, where we ate it, how many chews per ounce, for 2/3rds of the world, every day for the past 10 years.

 

Important Stuff to Know: If we stacked US $100 bills side-by-side (skinny side up) with absolutely no space between them, and put them on the ground starting at City Hall in Prince George, and then walked roughly south, and kept walking south, squishing the bills together until we ran out of Amazon share valuation in $100 bills -- we would end up in San Fransisco. So that’s cool.

 

The market tried to see this chunky value coming in and around 2001, but got ahead of itself. Here’s a chart that shows where the giant little nerds reside now, and their relative share of… ummm… earth.

 

 

The right stuff

Global yields have been trending higher for many months, but the pace of gains has gathered steam this year, bringing with it some market jitters. But we see yields rising for the right reasons, bringing with it little threat for markets.

 

Regional developments: Canada’s breakevens push long-term yields higher; Mixed economic news in the United States; Former ECB head Draghi forms Italian government; China e-commerce benefits from travel restrictions

 

Bedtime Reading here:  Global Insight Weekly

 

Enjoy your weekend.

 

Mark