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Youth use of e-cigarettes has soared over the past year  $(Link)

"Youth use of e-cigarettes has soared over the past year, thanks largely to Juul, whose sales have skyrocketed since mid-2017. One out of every five high school students—more than three million teens—reported using e-cigarettes recently, according to a federal survey conducted this past spring. Some, like Mr. Kinard, have become addicted to the powerful doses of nicotine that Juuls and similar e-cigarettes pack."

How much of the internet is fake? Turns out, a lot of it, actually (Link)

"Take something as seemingly simple as how we measure web traffic. Metrics should be the most real thing on the internet: They are countable, trackable, and verifiable, and their existence undergirds the advertising business that drives our biggest social and search platforms. Yet not even Facebook, the world’s greatest data–gathering organization, seems able to produce genuine figures. In October, small advertisers filed suit against the social-media giant, accusing it of covering up, for a year, its significant overstatements of the time users spent watching videos on the platform (by 60 to 80 percent, Facebook says; by 150 to 900 percent, the plaintiffs say)."

Addiction to a language-learning app $(Link)

"Von Ahn set out with his developers to make the app as addictive as Candy Crush and other popular games—in a good way. Good or bad, Duolingo’s addiction rate is way up. Next-day retention is 55 percent, up from 13 percent in 2012. And with about 300 million users, Duolingo is the largest language-teaching company in the world, by user base. The company has tapped into the latest research from behavioral scientists such as Angela Duckworth, an expert on self-control, and cadged ideas from game makers, who, von Ahn says, “have nailed down behavioral addiction really well.” One copied technique, “appointment mechanics,” encourages users to keep returning by rewarding streaks of uninterrupted daily practice with jewels that can be traded for in-game rewards."

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How not to be stupid (Link)

"Stupidity is the cost of intelligence operating in a complex environment. It’s almost inevitable. Seven factors that lead to stupidity: being outside your normal environment or changing your routines, being in the presence of a group, being in the presence of an expert or if you, yourself, are an expert,  doing any task that requires intense focus, information overload, physical or emotional stress, fatigue. All seven factors are present in U.S. hospitals. All seven factors. This will astonish you. In the United States every year, there are roughly 30,000 fatalities from automobile accidents. That is a benchmark. How many deaths accidentally occur, accidentally, in hospitals every year? In other words, you go in with a broken arm and you don’t come out. Not, you died as a result of what you went in for. You died because of error, human error. I would tell you the current best estimate—this is deaths, mind you, not injuries—is 210,000 to 440,000 people die every year in the United States from hospital error."

Canada can and should be a leader in managing the impacts of climate change (Link)  

"Canada's responsibly produced oil and natural gas can mitigate the impact of climate change globally.  The Trans Mountain pipeline, if constructed, would transport roughly 590,000 b/d of oil, produced with leading environmental and social standards, to global markets.  If Canadian standards were recognized and applied worldwide, the amount of GHG emissions from producing a barrel of oil would fall by 23%, the equivalent of removing approximately 100 million cars from the road.  By approving and constructing the Trans Mountain pipeline, Canada will be reducing global GHG emissions."

Japan's return on equity and price to book value discount vs. world

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Joel Greenblatt on passive investing

"The shift to passive management is a powerful trend dominating the investment industry. The liquidity, lack of tracking error, and low costs associated with passive investing are clearly attractive.  However, active management is the only way to truly outperform the market as a whole over time. Gotham Asset Management founder and co-CIO Joel Greenblatt shares his thoughts on the debate and provide insights on ways to navigate the changing landscape".

What's an unusual year for the stock market? (Link)

"Very roughly, the stock market gains, on average, about 1/40th of a percent each trading day. In other words, a $40 stock gains about one penny each day. Yet the standard deviation, meaning the average daily swing, is about 1% each day. That means the daily “noise” is about 40 times the true value each day, again, on average. On average, the stock market gains about 6% to 7% each year, and the standard deviation is around 15%. So right now, we’re tracking about one standard deviation below the mean. That’s perfectly normal."

Rewards credit cards gained a fanatic following - now banks are pulling back $(Link)

"Big banks calculated that giant rewards would make consumers spend more, earning the banks more interest and boosting their returns. They calculated wrong. Consumers have figured out how to game the system, spending just enough to earn generous sign-up bonuses—then abandoning the cards in a drawer. Others pay their bills in full and avoid interest charges and late fees. This has pressured credit card profitability for banks. Once the crown jewel of their lending portfolios, credit cards are estimated to only deliver a return on assets of 3% in 2019, down from nearly 5% in 2014."

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Too busy during the week? Catch up with last week's readings:

Business

Great interview with Matt Rose (Link)

Short article discussing the decline of industrial conglomerates (Link)

Interesting read comparing China’s e-commerce revenue models to the US based e-commerce. (Link)

How Ray-Ban brought its brand back from the brink (Link)

Carbon emissions (Link)

In-N-Out Burger’s success in simplicity (Link)

Morgan Stanley’s top technology banker moonlights as a driver on his way to winning the Uber IPO mandate (Link)

The Golf Town turnaround story (Link)

Investing and markets

Jamie Dimon interview (Link)

Markets so dominated by ETFs have not been truly tested by a post-QE world (Link)

Charts

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In-N-Out Burger’s success in simplicity (Link)

This article examines In-N-Out Burger’s relentless focus on simplicity and quality which manifests itself in a variety of ways through the firm’s business and operating models.

Morgan Stanley’s top technology banker moonlights as a driver on his way to winning the Uber IPO mandate (Link)

“Some bankers have been known to go to extreme lengths to stand out from the competition. Most start with a mastery of the numbers and fluency with entrepreneurs’ vision, but some like Mr. Grimes have gone further--he rented an apartment close to one company and studied his daughter’s internet habits to get familiar with another.”

The Golf Town turnaround story (Link)

A good business comeback story – When Chad McKinnon assumed the helm of GolfTown in October 2016 he inherited a trainwreck.

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How Ray-Ban brought its brand back from the brink (Link)

This piece provides a brief case study summary of the re-emergence of Ray-Ban as a maker of premium eyewear.

Carbon emissions (Link)

The energy industry often gets a bad rap for being carbon emitting culprits. This piece discusses some of the non-obvious sources of carbon emissions and makes the case that few of us are blameless.

Market predictions

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Jamie Dimon interview (Link)

Jamie Dimon discusses the current market sell-off, the economy and trade relations.

Markets so dominated by ETFs have not been truly tested by a post-QE world (Link)

Since the GFC, global central banks — especially the Fed — have served as market liquidity providers, filling the gap as regulation-restrained big banks have retreated from their traditional market-making roles (WILTW May 24, 2018). Much of that liquidity support has already been stripped away as QT has progressed.

This is what happens in an internet minute