Like it or lump it (2024)

11/04/2022

German automaker Porsche is investing about $24 million in the development of “e-fuels,” which officials say is a climate-neutral fuel to replace gasoline in nonelectric vehicles.
Production of such a fuel would allow the company and potentially other automakers a way to continue producing vehicles such as Porsche’s iconic 911 sports car with a traditional engine alongside, or rather than, a new electric model. While electric vehicles can offer outstanding performance, the driving dynamics of the vehicles are different than traditional engines.
“We would like and love cars like the 911 with high-rev combustion engines or turbocharged engines still as cars you could drive in the future without having the burden of a CO2 footprint, an unnecessary CO2 footprint,” Michael Steiner, Porsche’s director of research and development, said Wednesday during a virtual media event.
Officials said e-fuels can act like gasoline, allowing owners of current and classic vehicles a more environmentally friendly way to drive. It also could use the same fueling infrastructure as current fuels rather than billions in investments for new infrastructure for electric vehicles.
The announcement does not change Porsche’s target to have half of Porsche models sold by 2025 to be electrified, including all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

10/04/2022

secret of youth Add Some Cinnamon to Your Food. Adding cinnamon to your coffee or your favorite baked goods can make a big difference when it comes to how your brain ages. According to the study, animals given cinnamon supplements experienced lower rates of cognitive decline than animals given a placebo.

09/04/2022

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been accused of “misleading the public” in a disastrous radio interview defending a proposed hate speech law, which could see offenders jailed for three years for offensive words.
Under proposed legislative changes unveiled last week, hate speech could become a criminal offense in New Zealand. Anyone who “intentionally stirs up, maintains or normalizes hatred against a protected group” by being “threatening, abusive or insulting, including by inciting violence” would break the law, and hence could face up to three years’ imprisonment or a fine of up to NZ$50,000 (US$35,182).

08/04/2022

We know that hedge funds generate strong, risk-adjusted returns over the long run, therefore imitating the picks that they are collectively bullish on can be a profitable strategy for retail investors. With billions of dollars in assets, smart money investors have to conduct complex analyses, spend many resources and use tools that are not always available for the general crowd. This doesn't mean that they don't have occasional colossal losses; they do (like Melvin Capital's recent GameStop losses). However, it is still a good idea to keep an eye on hedge fund activity. With this in mind, as the current round of 13F filings has just ended, let’s examine the smart money sentiment towards Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H).
Is Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H) a good investment today? Investors who are in the know were betting on the stock. The number of long hedge fund positions improved by 2 recently. Banco de Chile (NYSE:B*H) was in 5 hedge funds' portfolios at the end of March. The all time high for this statistic is 10. Our calculations also showed that B*H isn't among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q1 rankings). There were 3 hedge funds in our database with B*H positions at the end of the fourth quarter.
Hedge funds' reputation as shrewd investors has been tarnished in the last decade as their hedged returns couldn't keep up with the unhedged returns of the market indices. Hedge funds have more than $3.5 trillion in assets under management, so you can't expect their entire portfolios to beat the market by large margins. Our research was able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by more than 115 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). So you can still find a lot of gems by following hedge funds' moves today.

07/04/2022

The recipe for a quick and effective mask for healthy, beautiful and well-groomed hair. A home-made mask with honey is used for all hair types. Preparation is quick and easy. Mix half a cup of honey with 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Put the mask on your hair and wrap it with a towel. After half an hour, rinse with warm water. Honey is the main ingredient for all masks for damaged hair. Mix one tablespoon of honey with one egg, avocado and 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Whisk the ingredients to obtain a homogeneous mixture. Apply the mask from the roots of the head to the tips of the hair. Hold for 2 hours after which wash your hair. Each of these ingredients has a beneficial effect on hair. Honey hydrates the hair, egg nourishes the hair with proteins, avocado deeply cleanses and olive oil gives shine and a well-groomed look to the hair.

06/04/2022

Shares of copper mining company Antofagasta look set to deflate because of a political lurch to the left in Chile, raising the possibility of higher taxes on resource companies. Recent drops in the price of copper aren’t helping either.
As a result, investors might want to reduce their positions in the stock (ticker: ANTO: United Kingdom).
The major issue for U.K.-incorporated Antofagasta is Chile, where the company’s mines are based. In May, Chile’s lower house approved a bill that would impose a new royalty fee on producers operating in the top copper-producing nation.
“The left-wing is on the ascension in Chile, and that doesn’t bode well for where the taxes come out in the end,” says Tyler Broda, head of EU mining research at Canadian financial company RBC Capital Markets in London. “We think it is going to be hard for the shares to hold in where they are.”

05/04/2022

Nigerians have been justifiably confused by conflicting poverty data presented by the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the World Bank. According to Buhari, his administration has lifted 10.5 million Nigerians out of poverty within the past two years. But no sooner had he made the statement than the World Bank asserted that inflation has plunged seven million Nigerians into poverty.
These statements might seem to be contradictory to non-economists. But closer analysis suggests that Buhari and the World Bank are right - depending on how poverty is measured.
The first is income or monetary measure of poverty, what economists refer to as the 'headcount index'. It measures the proportion of the population that is poor based on a minimum personal income - for example $1.90 per day. This minimum amount is deemed adequate to maintain an acceptable living standard, given the cost of living in a given country.
Based on this measure, Buhari is right to claim that - by transferring cash to 12 million households during the past five years - a majority of these Nigerians have exceeded the income threshold. Therefore, they have escaped poverty.
The other measure is known as the multidimensional poverty measure. It measures poverty by income, and by the access people have to health, education and living standard indicators. These include sanitation, drinking water, electricity, and housing. It is therefore possible for someone to be regarded as non-poor under Buhari's calculations, but poor when this measure is used.
This is the measure the World Bank appears to be applying. By this measure 47.3% Nigerians, or 98 million people, live in multidimensional poverty. Most of them are located in northern Nigeria. This poverty rate does not include Borno State, where insurgency has prevented data collection.
Aware of this, the Buhari administration has set the very ambitious goal of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty by 2030. This is a tall order, considering that another five million more Nigerians are expected to become poor as a result of COVID-19 in 2020.
The administration's cash transfer programme is commendable. But Buhari should turn his focus more on promoting structural transformation. This would move millions of poor Nigerians from low-productivity agricultural and informal-sector activities to high-productivity sectors such as manufacturing, agro-processing, as well as information and communication technologies.

04/04/2022

Digital payments
As well as offering passengers more information through mobile phone applications, operators are also looking to make payments more efficient and COVID-safe through contactless options. Some Latin American cities already offer the option to pay using debit and credit cards, like Rio de Janeiro and Guatemala City, and others like Panama City and San José, Costa Rica are working to implement pilots. Cashless payments aim to simplify and streamline the experience for users by reducing the purchase and entry queues at transport hubs, minimising crowds at peak hours and increasing customer satisfaction using ‘tap and go’.
“The future is new Mobility-as-a-Service applications and there will be more integration in travel within the city and metropolitan regions without the need for interruptions to buy a new ticket,” said Fernanda Caraballo, Director of Business Development for Latin America at Mastercard. “This is a benefit for the frequent, infrequent and tourist travellers because they save time by paying with a debit or credit card and, in the case of tourists, the language barrier and doubts are eliminated, if they are in an unknown city.”
Caraballo says Mastercard’s aim is to transform the collection schemes for transportation systems to generate savings and efficiency for the city and for transportation operators, and to improve the quality of life for citizens.
“Mastercard seeks to offer the best solution that suits the specific needs of each city,” she added.

01/04/2022

A party thrown in Chile to celebrate a cat's birthday has resulted in a local coronavirus outbreak, with some 15 people contracting the disease, a health official has confirmed. The celebratory feline, however, was fine.
The bizarre incident was confirmed by Francisco Alvarez, an official with the Ministry of Health for Chile's Valparaiso region. Speaking to Radio Bio-Bio on Saturday, Alvarez said that a coronavirus outbreak in the small seaside town of Santo Domingo, reported by local media a while ago, was indeed sparked by a birthday party thrown for a cat.
'Even though it sounds unbelievable and almost fiction, these things happen in our country,' Alvarez stated.
Health officials have doubted the cat's birthday was the true motive behind the gathering, suspecting there was something more to it, but the revelers have insisted that was the genuine reason for the get-together.
'When I knew about this, I said… it's a joke. Probably they said that to conceal something else, but it was exactly that,' the official added.

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