Juggling Dynamite

Meanwhile, regardless of who will be in the White House, Volvo Group, the world’s second-largest truckmaker, announced today that electric heavy-duty trucks with a range of up to 300km will go on sale next year and enter production in 2022.  Volvo is  aiming for half its truck sales in Europe to be battery powered by the end of the decade.  See Volvo to sell first fully- electric heavy-duty truck:

Volvo first started with electrification with a hybrid bus in 2008 and last year started production of electric medium-duty trucks up to 26 tonnes in weight, used mostly in city deliveries and refuse collection. It is now pushing into electric versions of all types of its heavy-duty trucks, which are up to 44 tonnes, and already has the first two construction battery-powered vehicles — a concrete mixer and a hooklift truck — in testing with Swedish building supplier Swerock. Much of the focus on cutting emissions in transport has centred on passenger cars, but truck manufacturers are upping their game, too. Volvo is aiming for all its trucks to be fossil-free by 2040.

A. Gary Shilling’s November Insight (subscription only) compares the recent FAANG mania with the Nifty Fifty mania of the 1970s and the last tech mania of the late 1990s.  His recent BNN article shares some of the highlights, see The Nifty Fifty Have a Message for the Tech Obsessed.  Historical perspectives are sooooo important when it comes to money and markets, and Gary has more of that than most.  Here’s a taste:

…investors’ focus on a small group of tech companies implies trouble ahead for all equities. That clearly was the case with the Nifty Fifty stocks that riveted investors’ attention in the 1960s and early 1970s. These equities represented rapidly-growing companies, some based on solid long-term growth prospects, while others were simply fads. Overconfidence became so extreme they were labeled “one decision” stocks. They had so much promise that investors only needed to make one decision—to buy them—since they would never need to be sold.

Nevertheless, disappointments began to multiply and the favored few shrank to motor homes (Winnebago), hamburger chains (McDonald’s), amusement parks (Disney) and gimmick cameras (Polaroid). They represented the limbs and outward flourishes of the economy, not the basic guts. By shunning the rest, investors should have anticipated big trouble. The 1973-1975 recession resulted in what was then the deepest since the 1930s, and what was left of the Nifty Fifty collapsed. Panicked investors lopped a zero off of Polaroid’s stock price, as it fell from $140 to $14.

Regardless of the election outcome, Gary sees the likelihood of a prolonged, deep recession continuing in 2021 with escalating global deflationary pressures, long Treasury yields retesting their lows, and the S&P 500 droping 30% to 40% as disappointing earnings combine with plummeting P/E ratios.

I happen to agree, but only time will tell.  We all decide which bets we are willing to place and odds we are willing to accept during this crazy time for the history books.

This documentary is a worthwhile watch and useful reminder about how rapidly technology transforms whole sectors of the economy with different winners and losers in each phase.  Nothing is static.  As Charles Darwin observed “It is not the strongest or most intelligent that will survive, but those who can manage change.” What will the next decade bring?

An inside look at how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos built one of the largest and most influential economic forces in the world — and the cost of Amazon’s convenience.  Here is a direct video link.