Big Tail Risk: Investment engine of Magnificent Seven is crucial Robert Armstrong robert.armstrong@ft.com · 1 Aug 2024 Much has been made this year of the dominance of Magnificent Seven technology stocks as a driver of the US equity market. Even after a collective share price retracement from a peak in early July, the group of Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, Nvidia and Tesla still represents some 31 per cent of the S&P 500. The stocks are up a collective 31 per cent this year compared with 14.5 per cent for the S&P 500. There is another area where the dominance of Big Tech is just as striking and more important — investment. In their last fiscal year, the Magnificent Seven had capital expenditures of $177bn or 18 per cent of the total for the S&P, according to S&P Capital IQ data. Ten years ago, the figure was just 5 per cent. While the spending last year was down a bit, in relative terms, from the pandemic spending bonanza of 2021-22, the figure will go up si
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Israel Returns Fire on Iran and Its Proxies Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas in 2006. Photo: awad awad/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Iran swore in a new President to chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” on Tuesday. But within hours death arrived for Iran’s proxy allies, in strikes that show Israel’s enemies aren’t safe anywhere. The media is fretting about a broader war, but that war is already here and it’s as likely the strikes have a deterrent effect on Tehran, even as it responds. Israel killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top military commander, in a precision air strike on south Beirut on Tuesday. Some hours later Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top political leader, was killed by an attack on his floor of a residence in Tehran, of all places. Israel hasn’t taken responsibility for the Tehran strike, but that’s the Occam’s razor explanation. Shukr was wanted by the U.S. and Israel. The State Department had a $5 million bounty on his head for his “key role” in “planning and launc
Naivety about Trump risks all our futures Plutocrats must understand that wealth is only a source of power if it is protected by a law-governed state Martin Wolf martin.wolf@ft.com · 31 July 2024 In 1999, the late Boris Berezovsky had lunch with the editor and senior journalists of the FT. I had already met him in Moscow on several occasions. Berezovsky had just played a role in persuading those close to Boris Yeltsin to appoint Vladimir Putin, then head of the FSB, Russia’s security service (whom Berezovsky had known when Putin was deputy mayor of St Petersburg), to be prime minister and his successor as president. “Why”, I asked, “did you trust a former KGB agent with power?” I have long remembered his reply: “Russia”, he said, was “now a capitalist country. In capitalist countries, capitalists hold power.” My jaw metaphorically dropped. Berezovsky was an intelligent, ruthless and cynical man, who had lived much of his life in the Soviet Union. He was also a Russian, who knew Russi
Ganesh has grown in depth and breadth of analysis since he was at the receiving end of my tirades years ago. Although he concedes that Trump's divergent attitudes to Putin and Xi are indeed contradictory, he wisely refrains from offering a reason: after all, contradictions cannot be explained. It all comes down to stupidity, then: after all, stupidity is the ability to entertain contradictory thoughts. But does anyone think that either Trump or Vance are smart? The one is a conman and the other is a vacuous arriviste. We are decidedly out of luck with American politicians. Financial Times Europe Wed, 31 July 2024 The self-contradicting mess of Republican foreign policy https://ft.pressreader.com/article/281801404228240 The self-contradicting mess of Republican foreign policy Janan Ganesh janan.ganesh@ft.com · 31 July 2024 No one could wish for kinder or more constant friends than those Viktor Orbán has in America. It isn’t just the soft interviews he gets from them, though Tucker
Mittwoch, 31. Juli 2024 Zur Online Meinung Der Kommentar-Newsletter Irans Demütigung Die iranische Führung wird kaum umhinkommen, mit einem harten Gegenschlag auf die Tötung des politischen Hamas-Führers Ismail Hanija mitten in der Hauptstadt Teheran zu reagieren. Zu groß ist die Demütigung, die mutmaßlich Israel dem Regime zugefügt hat. Zu offensichtlich ist das Versagen des iranischen Sicherheitsapparats. Friederike Böge Politische Korrespondentin für die Türkei, Iran, Afghanistan und Pakistan mit Sitz in Ankara. Teheran wird eine harsche Vergeltung schon deshalb für nötig halten, um die Abschreckung gegenüber Israel wieder herzustellen. Eine schwache Reaktion könnte aus iranischer Sicht als Einladung an Israel verstanden werden, die Führung selbst ins Visier zu nehmen. Irans Interesse an einer Begrenzung Seine früheren Vergeltungsaktionen hat Iran so kalibriert, dass ein Flächenbrand in der Region vermieden werden konnte. Nach der Tötung des mächtigen Quds-Kommandeurs Qassem So
Gilles Kepel:«La guerra in Libano è inevitabile, Netanyahu ha tutto l’interesse ad attaccare Hezbollah» 31 luglio 2024 | 10:51 Ascolta l'articolo 5 min i Il politologo esperto di Medio Oriente: «L'uccisione di Fuad Shukr a Beirut vuole dimostrare che Israele è in grado di trucidare chiunque. Non c'è spazio per il negoziato, a Bibi serve una vittoria netta» «L’attacco di Israele nel quartiere meridionale di Beirut dove si trova lo stato maggiore di Hezbollah è il segnale della strategia perseguita da Netanyahu . Il bersaglio era il comandante dell’unità che aveva sparato il missile sulla cittadina drusa di Majdal Shams. A gennaio Israele aveva già ucciso in quello stesso quartiere Saleh al Aruri, responsabile di Hamas per la Cisgiordania. Il livello del bersaglio vuole dimostrare che Israele è in grado di trucidare chiunque nella gerarchia del partito sciita . È un avvertimento calibrato. Netanyahu ha tutto l’interesse ad attaccare Hezbollah. E lo farà di nuovo prest
The Haves and Have-Nots at the Center of America’s Inflation Fight The third year of America’s inflation fight is widening a split at the heart of the economy. The stock market is soaring, household wealth is at record levels and investment income has never been greater. At the same time, some families’ pandemic-era savings are running dry, and delinquencies on credit card and auto-loan payments have jumped. Warning signals are flashing for more low- and middle-income Americans, exposing a division between people whose gains are being whittled down by elevated inflation and borrowing costs and those who are benefiting from high asset prices and bond returns. The crosscurrents are scrambling the outlook for the U.S. consumer—a bedrock of economic growth, corporate business plans and Wall Street investments. Inflation had damaged President Biden’s re-election bid long before he dropped out of the race. Now, analysts expect Vice President Kamala Harris will broadly pitch an extensi
Rebuilding the U.S. Navy Won’t Be Easy Listen (7 min) An Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer transits the Suez Canal, Dec. 18, 2023. Photo: Agence France-Presse/Getty Image The U.S. Navy is a ship without a rudder. The longer the service is allowed to decay, the more precarious America’s strategic situation will become. Turning things around won’t be easy. The best solution would be to retain every combat ship in the current fleet and encourage allies to pitch in with their own industrial bases. This expansion will require substantial funding, particularly in the workforce. The Suez Canal is one of the world’s busiest maritime highways, connecting the Mediterranean and Red seas and creating a shortcut for ships sailing from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. This route is the center of the broader Eurasian trade system on which American power relies. It has helped the U.S. become one of the wealthiest, most powerful nations in the world. It has also enabled the constr