š ASB Partners Nuggets 7.11.25
This is a short weekly email that covers a few things Iāve found interesting during the week.
Interesting Links/Reads
Many links are sourced from Marginal Revolution (bold and italics are my own to highlight what I found particularly interesting)
Analysts at Bespoke Investment Group note that the 858 money-losing companies in the Russell 3000 Index rallied by 36% on average through Friday. By contrast the 500 stocks in that broad index with the lowest price-to-earnings ratios were up by 16% on average.
Is that necessarily bad? When markets hit big inflection points, such as President Trumpās April decision to postpone many tariffs, thereās normally an exaggerated, worst-to-first trend.
A similar pattern after the short, sharp Covid-19 bear market defied predictions with its staying power. A basket of unprofitable tech companies tracked by Goldman Sachs jumped fivefold in less than a year. U.S. stocks overall kept rising until the Fed began lifting rates from zero in March 2022, two years after the market trough. Millions of mostly younger investors opened brokerage accounts to join the fun.
It may not last nearly as long this time. Note the differences: There hasnāt been a wave of fiscal and monetary stimulusājust the avoidance of a bad thing. The post-April 9 tariff relief rally already assumes three rate cuts this year and the continuation, in some form, of the 2017 tax rules.
PETER THIEL: "One question we can frame is just how big a thing do I think AI is. And my stupid answer is itās more than a nothing burger, and itās less than the total transformation of our society. So my placeholder is that itās roughly on the scale of the internet in the late 90s, which is, Iām not sure itās enough to really end the stagnation. It might be enough to create some great companies. And the internet added maybe a few percentage points to the GDP, maybe 1 percent to GDP growth every year for 10, 15 years. It added some to productivity. And so thatās roughly my placeholder for AI. Itās the only thing we have. Itās a little bit unhealthy that itās so unbalanced. This is the only thing we have. Iād like to have more multi-dimensional progress. Iād like us to be going to Mars. Iād like us to be having cures for dementia. If all we have is AI, weāll take it. There are risks with it. Obviously, there are dangers with this technology." The New York Times - June 26, 2025
Podcast/Videos
Show notes from Peter Attia Podcast āThe Driveā
Suzan takes it a step further and tells patients to use mineral sunscreens as opposed to chemical sunscreens because sheās not convinced of the safety of avobenzone, oxybenzone, as hormone disruptors
Peter uses EltaMD in SPF 30 or SPF 50, and you have to work to pot it on
Elta makes some mineral and some chemical ones, so just double check
For ultraviolet, we know thereās UVA and UVB
UVA is the longer wavelength between the two ultraviolet rays that reach the earth
Thatās A for aging
UVB is the one that causes a lot of the redness and the sunburns and leaves behind a lot of the atypia in the cells
Thatās B for burns
UVB probably causes more skin cancers than UVA, but theyāre both implicated
ā We have high energy visible light, we have visible light, we have infrared light, all coming from the sun; so we have 5 different rays, and they all play a role in how we age
We worry about UVB with regards to skin cancer
High energy visible light, visible light, and infrared light also play a role in terms of hyperpigmentation
Now thereās some evidence maybe suggesting that because infrared light can reach deeper into the skin, it may have a role on fat atrophy and bone remodeling
What causes acne to scar?
It depends on how inflammatory your acne is
There are different types of acne
1 ā Thereās comedonal acne, which are just your run-of-the-mill, small pimples, whiteheads, blackheads
Those donāt typically scar unless someone picks at them
#1 rule for patients, donāt pick at your skin
2 ā A little bit more inflammatory acne
Those tend to be the red ones that come up and there may be pustular on the s
Most people who leave Wall Street after twenty years either retire or find another way to make a lot of money. Chris Arnade chose to walk through cities most travelers never truly see. What emerged from this approach is a unique form of street-level sociology that has attracted a devoted following on Substack. Arnadeās work suggests that our most sophisticated methods of understanding the world might be missing something essential that can only be discovered by moving slowly through space and letting strangers tell you, their stories.
ARNADE: What do you think ultimately is driving them though? What is their goal here?
COWEN: When you say them, if you mean theāā
ARNADE: The CCP.
COWEN: The inner committee of the CCPāāāI think it is to make China āa great nation again,ā to drive the United States out of Asia, to have much of the world kowtow to China, to have China be rich, never democratic, and stable. Now, all that together is probably impossible, but itās not a crazy set of goals. Theyāre not my goals.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Adam