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16 Lessons Learned (Among Many!)

  
Analysis, Education
-People are complicated and flawed. Root for their better angels.-The best way to get a busy person’s attention: Help them.-Keep it simple and move fast when conceiving strategies and making decisions.-Every weakness has a corresponding strength.-The values that actually shape a culture have both upside and downside.-Understand someone’s “alpha” tendencies and how that drives them.-Self-deception watch: even those who say they don’t need or want flattery, sometimes still need it.-Be clear on your specific level of engagement on a project.-Sketch three possible outcomes for a project: the likely upside, likely ‘regular’, and likely downside scenarios.-A key to making good partnerships great: Identify and emphasize any misaligned incentives.-Reason is the steering wheel. Emotion is the gas pedal.-Trade up on trust even if it means you trade down on competency.-Tell the truth. Don’t reflexively kiss ass to powerful people.-Respect the shadow power.-Make people genuine partners and they’ll work harder.-Final: The people around you change you in myriad unconscious ways

What I Learned (How to Succeed and have a Long and Happy Life)

  
Analysis, Education
Stay in the game. That’s often all you need to do – don’t quit. Stick around! Don’t be a quitter!Stay informed/KEEP LEARNING!Study — Stay Educated. Do Your Home Work!! Keep learning!Cultivate friends of all ages – especially youngerTurn Problems into Opportunities. Very often it can be done. Problems create opportunities for change — people willing to consider change when there are problems.Be on the side of the Angels. Wear the White Hat.Have a fall-back position. Heir and the spare. Don’t leave all your money in one place. Learn a foreign language.Don’t criticize someone in front of others.Don’t forget to praise a job well done (but don’t praise a poor job)Keep your standards high in all you do.

PBOC kept its key MLF policy interest rate unchanged on Friday

  
  Analysis

The People’s Bank of China injected 150 billion yuan of liquidity via its medium-term lending facility, rate unchanged at 2.85%.

  • 150 bn of MLF matured today so its a net neutral
  • also injected CNY10 billion through seven-day reverse repurchase agreements with a borrowing cost of 2.1%, also an unchanged rate.

Analysts are anticipating the PBOC will lower its key policy rates. China’s benchmark lending rate, the loan prime rate, is priced based on the MLF interest rate. The next setting for the 1 and 5 year LPRs is scheduled for the 20th April.

US major indices close lower on the day

  
Analysis, US Market

The major US  indices  are all closing lower as trading comes to a close for the day and the week. As a reminder, major indices will be closed tomorrow in observance of the Good Friday holiday. A snapshot of the market closes shows

  • Dow industrial average down -113.38 points or -0.33% at 34451.24. Last week the index closed at 34721.13. For the week the index fell -0.78%
  • S&P -54.00 index down -292.5 points or -1.21% at 4392.60. Last week the index closed at 4488.27. For the week the index is down -2.13%.
  • NASDAQ index down -292.5 points or -2.14% at 13351.09. Last week the index closed at 13711.00 for the week the index is down -2.67%
  • Russell 2000 down -20.12 points or -0.99% of 2004.98. Last week the index closed at 1994.56. For the week the index was up 0.57%

The big news at the start of the day was Elon Musk’s buyout offer of Twitter at $54.20. After initial spike higher, the price started to move back to the downside. It is closing down $0.77 or -1.68% at $45.08. The Twitter board is mulling the possibility of inserting a poison pill to prevent Musk from significantly upping stakes in the companies shares.

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