What I Read This Week...
Investors are pulling money out of risk assets, Micron receives a multi-billion dollar grant from the U.S. government, and a new House bill makes a TikTok ban more likely
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Caught My Eye…
Money is being pulled out of equities and junk bonds at the fastest rate in more than a year. Investors are becoming more conservative in their allocations, citing elevated geopolitical risk and potential upside risk to commodity prices and inflation as reasons to be risk-off after a high-flying bull market in 2024. With equities close to all time highs, many investors view high-yielding short-term paper as an increasingly attractive alternative, and are pulling billions of dollars out of risk assets like equities and junk bonds.
Micron, a leading global producer of computer memory and data storage, will receive a $6.1Bn grant from the Biden administration to help build semiconductor plants in New York and Idaho. Today, only ~10% of the world’s semiconductors are made in America. The investment, which stems from the CHIPS act, is intended to strengthen the domestic supply chain of semiconductors - in this case a type of memory called ‘DRAM’, which Micron produces as the only remaining U.S. supplier.
The U.S. House passed new legislation on Saturday that would ban TikTok in the U.S. if the popular social media platform’s parent ByteDance doesn’t sell its stake within a year. The bill was included as part of a broader foreign aid package that includes support for both Ukraine and Israel. While a standalone bill with a shorter six month selling deadline also passed the house in March, by attaching the bill to broader aid funding, House Republicans expect that there will be more pressure on Senate lawmakers to vote for the package as a whole.
Other Reading…
Conversation with Groq CEO Jonathan Ross (Social Capital)
The Secret Art of Chip Graffiti (IEEE Spectrum)
Microsoft's OpenAI Partnership Could Face EU Antitrust Probe, Sources Say (Reuters)
New York’s Rich Get Creative to Flee State Taxes. Auditors Are On to Them (Bloomberg)
Google Workers Arrested After Nine-Hour Protest in Cloud Chief’s Office (CNBC)
Too Many Models (TechCrunch)
Drake Takes Aim at Kendrick Lamar With AI Tupac & Snoop Dogg Vocals on ‘Taylor Made Freestyle’ Diss Track (Billboard)
Honestly the part about ppl talking mongoDB sounds compelling to *move to* the bay area. Beats overhearing about mundane shit like how the dog ate the petunias