Activity ≠ Outcome
the more you do, the less you make.
There are a lot of jokes about brokers and traders being unable to sit still and do nothing.
But somehow, fund managers are given a pass. We wrote a note about it: Winning with Market-cap ETFs.
Markets this Week
More here: country ETFs, fixed income, currencies and commodities.
Links
Research
Can trend-followers improve performance by allocating more capital to sectors where trend opportunities have recently been strongest? (Quantica)
No. We find that the profitability of a representative medium-term trend-following signal exhibits a clear horizon dependence: sectors with stronger recent trend-following performance tend to retain a relative performance advantage over subsequent months, but this effect weakens and ultimately reverses over longer horizons. Despite this predictability, reallocating capital on the basis of past trend-following performance fails to deliver a consistent improvement over a diversified trend-following portfolio.
Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved (pnas)
Do larger incomes make people happier? Yes. If you are unhappy even after making a lot of money, you have a problem.
India
The government invoked emergency powers to block Telegram in the country until June 22 amid concerns the platform was being abused to defraud candidates for a national entrance test for medical colleges (reuters).
40 lakh tonnes of coal, worth around Rs 1,600 crore, ‘disappeared’ from SCCL (deccanherald).
External shocks expose India’s slide into middle-income stagnation (economictimes). Echoes of 1990-91? (business-standard)
A new house should have an inverter, a water filter and an air purifier just like it has a TV, a fridge and a cooking stove. Over time, we start believing that this is how it is meant to be and perhaps even should be. Our acceptance means they rarely become issues for politicians or even journalists (timesofindia).
The number of Indian professionals from global technology companies actively seeking jobs has surged more than fourfold in the past month amid a wave of global tech layoffs, unleashing a flood of talent into the country’s already-strained job market (economictimes).
Indian companies have generated record cash flow since the pandemic and invested it less in domestic capacity than at any point in the last decade. Domestic capital, in surplus, is selecting destinations other than the domestic economy (livemint).
Indian hotel chains double down on resorts (livemint).
row
Cybercrime group FulcrumSec stole 1.3TB from Novo Nordisk and is shopping stolen data after the pharma giant rejected a $25M ransom demand in June 2026. The 1.3TB haul includes 24 proprietary AI models, clinical trial data on roughly 11,500 patients, drug pipeline details, and manufacturing facility files (pomegra).
Xi Jinping’s economic model is faltering but he refuses to relinquish control (telegraph).
Eager to keep capital within its borders, China is restricting the ways individuals can engage with global markets (nytimes).
Gold isn’t a good hedge for inflation or uncertainty (fisherinvestments).
Officials in Tehran got the United States to sign a document that even Americans described as degrading, mortifying, a total capitulation (theatlantic). Iran Is a Bigger Defeat Than Vietnam (foreignpolicy).
For the first time, wind and solar generated more electricity than gas worldwide in April 2026 (ember-energy).
Meme of the Week
