Six months ago, I lost my Facebook account. It was suspended, and the reason Facebook gave when I tried to log in was:
Surprise!-- I’m not related to Do Thanh Nguyen. So, since I don’t have an Instagram account for dothanguyen697— at least not one that I’m aware of-- I can’t log into it, and the appeals I’ve sent from my own account remain unanswered. So, I haven’t had any access to Facebook for six months.
Guess I’ll have to open a new account. I’ll friend you shortly.
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Back in 2007, LinkedIn was still finding its footing, and I was running a start-up pharmaceutical development company. I became an early adopter of the new platform in my effort to expand my network in an industry to which I was still very new. I dove in head-first to explore what it might have to offer, and it turned out to be instrumental to meeting so many of the great service providers, scientists, investors and expertise-sharers that helped make that company go.
However, as time went on, LinkedIn’s luster began to fade. In many ways, it became like other social media, like a place for shameless self-promotion-- a bunch of amateurs doing their own p.r. …and, of course, pumping out their resumes.
Fast-forward to recent times. Every other social media platform has devolved into a wasteland of self-promotion and wannabee influencing, and we have a societal problem of people filming themselves instead of being in the moment. It has existed for a long time now, but it’s not just events anymore-- people document everything now. What they wear, eat and buy, where they are and who they’re with, and what’s worse, in addition to ordinary things, people now feel the need to document profoundly personal moments, too.
As the father of young girls, I think it’s important to remind my daughters that this pressure to constantly post and update is altogether new. I accept that there are new external pressures, but there is still no way for them to live their best lives while simultaneously attempting to market their experiences to the whole world.
Our daughters and sons are the first generation to feel it this intensely, but my hope is that they can free themselves from it. Too many young people are trading privacy and sometimes their own human decency for an existence designed entirely for an audience of strangers. I expect that their lives are often superficial and empty in exchange for that notoriety, and my girls don’t need to live like that.
I read newspapers and books every day. For me, what’s interesting is that I can’t recall a single thing I read in a newspaper from, say, 2020, and definitely not anything I saw on Instagram, but I can tell you in detail about a few great books I read that year and how they changed the way I think. I’ll probably remember them forever. I will keep reading newspapers and even keep perving on social media, but if I read more books, I’ll probably develop and maintain better filters and frameworks that help to make sense of that other stuff.
I still love LinkedIn, though; I confess. The platform has become a hub of real opinions, authentic content, and-- wait, get this-- professional courtesy. LinkedIn is a place where I see people showing up as their best professional selves. …And it’s a lot of people. LinkedIn has over 1 billion monthly active users (compared to 600 million for X) in more than 200 countries and territories.
Many of my connections on LinkedIn are people who were genuinely willing to share insights, exchange ideas, and support me from the outset of our relationships, and they have understandably become dear friends. I am frequently reminded that one of life’s most special moments is that instant when an acquaintance becomes a friend.
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This video has nothing to do with social media. It’s a Goldman Sachs recruiting video for their fixed income department from 1985, and I’m just sharing it because it’s fantastic:
Bond trading is usually not as exciting as depicted in this video, but inflation concerns and a schizophrenic Fed have recently spiced up life on fixed income trading desks across the globe. Yields on the 10 year Treasury are up to 4.4% from just 3.6% back in mid-September, causing massive declines in the value of bank reserves and dashing the hopes of new home buyers everywhere.
Mortgage rates are back to a national average of 6.74%. In other words, interest rates on homes are literally a half a per cent higher than they were back in September when the Fed started cutting interest rates. I’m frequently asked to explain how this could happen.
Mortgage lenders cue their rates off of the 10 year Treasury for a variety of reasons, but the biggest one is simple: the average mortgage has a ten year life before it’s paid off, refinanced or otherwise closed. We pointed out last month that interest rates on the 10 year bottomed out the same week that the odds of a Republican sweep of the House, the Senate and the Whie House bottomed (on Polymarket) and that a sweep would indeed be inflationary. We got the sweep, and now bond traders are following through, indicating the market’s supposition that the Fed will have to pivot back to rate-hiking mode to stem the coming inflation.
Don’t look now; the yields on the 2 year and 10 year Treasuries are about 10 basis points from inverting again…
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It’s still a little early, but 2025 outlooks are starting to filter out of Wall Street’s biggest firms.
Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson, a well known bear, is now bullish, and he expects the S&P 500 to end next year around 6,500, up about 11% from current levels. “A healthy mix of mid- single-digit revenue growth (in line with our economists’ nominal GDP growth expectations) and margin expansion drives our 2025 and 2026 EPS growth forecasts of 13% and 12%, respectively,” he wrote in a 59-page report. “While it’s been predominantly a cost cutting and efficiency gains story to date, more companies are participating in the earnings recovery (~60% of S&P 500 companies have positive EPS growth today versus ~50% in 1Q 2023). We expect this broadening in earnings growth to continue as the Fed cuts rates into next year and business cycle indicators continue to improve.”
You’ll notice that he expects more rate cuts from the Fed, so be careful-- Mike’s not very good at his job.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists led by Peter Oppenheimer said today that they forecast total global equity returns in dollar terms of 10% through the end of 2025. “Equity valuations have increased and leave little room for further valuation expansion,” they wrote in a separate note. “We expect index returns to be driven largely by earnings growth.”
For what it’s worth, I typically put forth some sort of outlook for the coming year, and I’m on schedule to provide it next month. However, I can certainly reveal that I don’t think returns for the S&P 500 will be anywhere close to what Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are forecasting.
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us stop talkin' falsely now
The hour's getting late.
All Along the Watchtower, Eddie Vedder
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