* * * * * MONDAY, MARCH 4, 2024 ~ VOL. CCLXXXIII NO. 52
00
Last week: DJIA 39087.38 g 44.15 0.1%
What’s
News
Business & Finance
 An investor group composed
of Arkhouse Management and
Brigade Capital raised its offer
to buy Macy’s by nearly $1 bil-
lion after the beleaguered de-
partment-store chain rebuffed
its prior proposal as too low. A1
 A debate is building
among economists over
whether some industries are
becoming too dependent on
foreign labor as migration hits
record levels worldwide. A1
 The rapid surge in Nvidia’s
stock price has some Wall
Street professionals wonder-
ing whether the enthusiasm
for AI-related shares is becom-
ing a classic stock bubble. B1
 Chinese electric-vehicle
makers have eclipsed for-
eign rivals to develop cars
faster, push the boundaries
of smart tech and swamp
consumers with choice. B1
 Conflict in the Middle East
is threatening the integrity of
important undersea internet
cables that pass through the
narrow strait at the south-
ern end of the Red Sea. B1
 “Dune: Part Two” sold $81.5
million worth of tickets in the
U.S. and Canada, after a de-
layed release that fulfilled Hol-
lywood’s hopes for a hit. B3
 Japan’s Nikkei 225 Stock
Average traded above
40000 for the first time, in
early trading Monday, lifted
by strong earnings and
semiconductor stocks. B10
 Chinese gangs are using
cryptocurrencies to launder
billions of dollars, including
money raised from helping
supply drugs to the U.S. B11
World-Wide
 Voters are shedding some
of their pessimism about the
economy, a new Wall Street
Journal poll found, but the
more upbeat mood is produc-
ing only a marginal improve-
ment in views of Biden. A1
 Hamas officials are in Cairo
for negotiations on a potential
deal that would see the re-
lease of hostages in exchange
for a temporary cease-fire in
Gaza, Egyptian officials said,
in a push to stop the fight-
ing before the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan. A8
 A plurality of American vot-
ers thinks Israel has gone too
far in responding to the Octo-
ber attacks by Hamas, and a
growing share believes the U.S.
isn’t doing enough to help the
Palestinian people, a new Wall
Street Journal poll found. A4
 A British-owned ship struck
on Feb. 18 by Yemen’s Iran-
backed Houthi forces sank in
the Red Sea, U.K. and Yemen of-
ficials said, threatening to cause
an environmental disaster. A18
 Oregon is on the cusp of
ending a three-year experi-
ment as the only state in the
nation to allow people to
freely use drugs from heroin
to cocaine to fentanyl. A3
 Russian spies recorded Ger-
many’s air-force commander
and his top officers discuss-
ing the possible delivery of
Berlin’s most powerful guided
missiles to Ukraine. A18
 Gov. Newsom is staking
his political capital on a mul-
tibillion-dollar ballot measure
aimed at addressing mental
illness, drug abuse and home-
lessness in California. A3
JOURNAL REPORT
Investing Monthly:
Where to find 5%-plus
yields. B5-6
CONTENTS
Arts in Review ..... A13
Business News......... B3
Crossword................... A14
Heard on Street..... B12
Markets.......................... B11
Markets Digest..........B8
s 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
NASDAQ 16274.94 À 1.7%
California Snowin’: Blizzard Hits Sierra Nevada
BROOKE HESS-HOMEIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
DIGGING OUT: More snow is headed to Northern California this week, after a powerful blizzard dumped more than 60 inches
over parts of the Sierra Nevada. The blizzard began on Thursday and grew in intensity until Sunday. A3
Voters’ Views of Economy Warm,
Benefiting Biden Just Marginally
BY AARON ZITNER
WASHINGTON—Voters are
shedding some of their pessi-
mism about the economy, a
new Wall Street Journal poll
finds, but the more upbeat
mood is producing only a mar-
ginal improvement in views of
President Biden.
Some 31% of voters in the
survey said the economy had
gotten better over the past two
years, during the majority of
Biden’s tenure, a rise of 10 per-
centage points from a Journal
poll in December. And 43% said
their personal finances are
BlackRock
Retreats
From ESG
Following
Pushback
BY JACK PITCHER
AND AMRITH RAMKUMAR
Climate investing is boom-
ing at BlackRock. Just don’t
call it ESG.
After crusading for years
for investment funds and
companies to take into ac-
count environmental, social
and governance factors, Larry
Fink has purged the letters
from his vocabulary.
He attempted to use Black-
Rock’s clout as the steward for
millions of investors to prod
companies toward climate-
friendly policies and press
them to disclose the social ef-
fects of their businesses. He
long argued that the world’s
largest asset manager and its
peers could simultaneously
make money and make the
world a better place.
Fast forward to 2024, and
the chief executive has
stopped mentioning the ab-
breviation in public letters
and comments. He retreated
after a conservative backlash
against “woke capitalism”
made the term politically
toxic. Furthermore, he faced
criticism, even in the finance
industry, that he was moraliz-
ing, playing God and stepping
Mutual Funds..............B9 beyond BlackRock’s fiduciary
Opinion................... A15-17
Sports.............................. A14
duty to maximize financial re-
Outlook................................A2 turns for clients.
Personal Journal A11-12 BlackRock is still wagering
U.S. News................. A2-6 that fighting climate change
World News. A8-9, 18
will be a generational invest-
ment opportunity—but is no
> longer pushing for changes in
corporate behavior, talking
about hard-to-quantify social
issues or actively promoting
ESG investing criteria. Instead,
Please turn to page A6
WSJ.com HHHH $5.
STOXX 600 497.58 À 0.1% 10-YR. TREASURY À 20/32 , yield 4.180% OIL $79.97 À $3.48 EURO $1.0841 YEN 150.13
Macy’s
Suitors
Boost Bid
By Nearly
$1 Billion
Arkhouse, Brigade
lift their proposal to
$24 a share after $21
offer was rebuffed
BY LAUREN THOMAS
An investor group seeking
to buy Macy’s is raising its of-
fer by nearly $1 billion after
the beleaguered department-
store chain rebuffed its prior
proposal as too low.
Arkhouse Management, a
real-estate-focused investing
firm, and Brigade Capital
Management, a global asset
manager, revealed Sunday that
they are now offering to ac-
quire the Macy’s stock they
don’t already own for $24 a
share, or $6.6 billion.
That is up from the pro-
posal of $21 a share the group
submitted on Dec. 1. The new
offer represents a roughly 33%
premium to where Macy’s
shares closed on Friday. The
investors bumped the price up
after the company recently de-
livered quarterly results that
gave them the confidence to
do so.
headed in the right direction, a to one of the most pressing matchup, with 47% backing Macy’s confirmed it re-
9-point increase from the prior questions in the 2024 presiden- Trump and 45% picking Biden, ceived the new proposal and
survey. tial campaign: whether an im- a difference within the survey’s said its board would take it
But the recent spate of ris- proving economy will lift Bi- margin of error of plus or mi- under review. Macy’s manage-
ing consumer prices still den’s re-election prospects nus 2.5 percentage points. ment said in January that the
weighs heavily on the public. against former President Don- In December, Trump led by prior bid failed to “provide
More than two-thirds of voters ald Trump. The answer so far four points. Some 37% now ap- compelling value” to share-
say inflation is headed in the appears to be that it is helping prove of Biden’s handling of in- holders.
wrong direction, despite ample Biden just a bit—but also that flation, up 7 points from the The investors already have
data showing that it has mod- more voters are turning their December survey, and 40% ap- a big position in Macy’s
erated. Nearly three-quarters attention instead to immigra- prove of his handling of the through funds managed by
say price increases are out- tion, a perilous issue for the economy overall, a 4-point in- Arkhouse, which recently nom-
stripping gains in household president. crease that is within the poll’s inated nine candidates to the
income. Only one-quarter see Trump, the front-runner for margin of error. company’s board ahead of its
an improvement in the ability the GOP nomination, holds a Those findings, while sug- annual shareholder meeting
of the average person to get narrow lead over Biden, a Dem- gesting improvement for the set for May 17 in an effort to
ahead. ocrat, in a head-to-head test of president, still show voters pressure the board and poten-
The new survey gives clues the expected 2024 presidential Please turn to page A4 Please turn to page A4
INSIDE Unsolved Deaths
Befall Russians
HECTOR RETAMAL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Pilot who defected adds to growing list
On a Tuesday afternoon copter pilot. The killer had
last month, Maksim Kuzmi- vanished, driving out over
nov drove up to his new the 28-year-old victim’s bul-
CLIFF JETTE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
condo overlooking a palm- let-ridden body. A medic who
sliced through his shirt with
By Drew Hinshaw, bandage shears noted the ac-
Joe Parkinson and curacy of the five small-cali-
Matthew Luxmoore ber shots, one directly pierc-
ing his heart.
lined Spanish beach, un- Six months earlier, Kuzmi-
aware that an assassin was nov, a native of a town near
SPORTS AUTOS waiting for him by the park- Russia’s North Korean border,
Caitlin Clark is going Once laggards, Chinese ing garage. had defected to Ukraine, his
Local police stationed less Mi-8 attack helicopter taking
pro despite having automakers have than 500 feet away needed small-arms fire as he flew
another year’s NCAA raced to the front in only minutes to respond, but barely 20 feet above the
eligibility. A14 EV production. B1 witnesses said it was too late ground. After turning over
for the former Russian heli- Please turn to page A10
The ‘Most Annoying Thing Rich Countries Depend
In Computer History’ Hangs On
i i i More on Migrant Labor
Clippy, Microsoft’s once-reviled animated
BY TOM FAIRLESS within a week.”
virtual assistant, continues popping up To some economists, how-
A debate is building among ever, dependence on imported
economists over whether workers is approaching un-
BY ROBERT MCMILLAN at a Las Vegas esports tourna- some industries are becoming healthy levels in some places,
ment; in September he was sto- too dependent on foreign la- stifling productivity growth
Clippy, Microsoft’s un- len from a New York bar. bor as migration hits record and helping businesses delay
wanted, unloved Office assis- And in June, a software de- levels worldwide. the search for more sustainable
tant, once listed as one of veloper named Ayushmaan Many business owners have solutions to labor shortages.
Time’s 50 Worst Inventions, is Bordoloi rebooted him as an AI said bringing in low-skilled for- Those solutions could in-
experiencing a renaissance. chatbot. Thousands of people eign workers has become es- clude bigger investments in au-
You remember Clippy. He downloaded his Clippy app, sential, as local populations age tomation, or more radical re-
was the animated paper which looked like the origi- and labor forces shrink. In rural structurings such as business
clip who would pop up, nal, but had its chatting Wisconsin, John Rosenow said closures, which are painful but
uninvited, in Microsoft capabilities provided by it is impossible to find locals to might be necessary long-term,
Office to state the obvi- OpenAI’s GPT software. work on his 1,000-acre dairy these economists said.
ous and offer unwanted That AI incursion was a farm. He relies on 13 Mexican “Once industry is organized
advice: “It looks like step too far for Microsoft, immigrants, up from eight to 10 in a certain way and the struc-
you’re writing a letter. which has a longstanding a decade ago. That has enabled ture encourages employers to
Would you like help?” love-hate relationship with him to avoid making costly in- recruit migrants, it can be very
Some found that annoy- Would you the sad-eyed paper clip. vestments in robots that can hard to turn back,” said Martin
ing. He was later forced like help? A few months after he help milk cows, as some other Ruhs, a professor of migration
into retirement. released his code, Bor- dairy farmers have. studies in Florence, Italy. “In
But today, ugly Christmas doloi received an email from “We get really good peo- some cases, policymakers
sweaters featuring Clippy are Microsoft’s Trademarks Team, ple,” Rosenow said. With im- should ask, does it make
listed for hundreds of dollars asking him to confirm his soft- migrant labor, “I’m pretty sense?” said Ruhs, who is also
on eBay. In December, he ware was “properly autho- sure if I wanted to double em- a former member of the U.K.
showed up on a handmade sign Please turn to page A10 ployment, I could get it done Please turn to page A9
A2 | Monday, March 4, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS
THE OUTLOOK | By Jason Douglas

New China Export Boom Cuts Two Ways

I
n the late 1990s and
early 2000s, the U.S.
and the global econ-
omy experienced a
“China shock,” a boom
in imports of cheap Chinese-
made goods that helped keep
inflation low but at the cost
of local manufacturing jobs.
A sequel might be in the
making as Beijing doubles
down on exports to revive
the country’s growth. Its fac-
tories are churning out more
cars, machinery and con-
sumer electronics than its
domestic economy can ab-
sorb. Propped up by cheap,
Two decades earlier China’s
share of manufacturing was
less than 10% and of exports
less than 5%.
In the early 2000s, over-
production mainly came
from China, while factories
elsewhere shut down. Now,
the U.S. and other countries
are investing heavily in and
protecting their own indus-
tries as geopolitical tensions
rise. Chinese firms such as
the battery maker Contem-
porary Amperex Technology
are building plants overseas
to soothe opposition to im-
ports, though they already
U.S. import prices, change from a year earlier share grabbed by Chinese producer prices have been
imports, with the biggest falling for 16 months, led by
10%
benefits felt by people on consumer and durable
low and middle incomes. goods, food products, metals
8 But the China shock also and electrical machinery.
piled pressure on domestic That disinflationary im-
6 manufacturers. In 2016, Au- pulse is showing up around
tor and other economists es- the world. The price of U.S.
4 timated that the U.S. lost imports from China fell 2.9%
more than two million jobs in January from a year ear-
Mexico between 1999 and 2011 as a lier, while the price of im-
2 E.U.
result of Chinese imports, as ports from the European
Japan makers of furniture, toys Union, Japan and Mexico all
0 and clothes buckled under rose.
the competition and workers Unlike in the early 2000s,
–2 in hollowed-out communities however, the Western world
China
struggled to find new roles. now sees China as its chief
–4 economic rival and geopoliti-

state-directed loans, Chinese
companies are glutting for-
eign markets with products
they can’t sell at home.
Some economists see this
China shock pushing infla-
tion down even more than
the first. China’s economy is
now slowing, whereas, in the
previous era, it was boom-
ing. As a result, the disinfla-
tionary effect of cheap Chi-
nese-manufactured goods
won’t be offset by Chinese
demand for iron ore, coal
and other commodities.
produce much of what the
world needs at home.
The result could be a
world swimming in manu-
factured goods, and short of
the spending power to buy
them—a classic recipe for
falling prices.
“The balance of China’s
impact on global prices is
tilting even more clearly in a
disinflationary direction,”
said Thomas Gatley, China
strategist at Gavekal Drag-
onomics.
2017 ’18 ’19
Source: CEIC
billions of dollars in support
to industries deemed strate-
gic, and imposed or threat-
ened to impose tariffs on
Chinese imports. Aging pop-
ulations and persistent labor
shortages in the developed
world could further offset
some disinflationary pres-
sure China exerts this time.
“It won’t be the same
China shock,” said David Au-
’20 ’21 ’22 ’23
Autor said, because China is
competing with advanced
economies in cars, computer
chips and complex machin-
ery—higher-value industries
that are viewed as more cen-
tral to technological leader-
ship.
The first China shock
came after a series of liber-
alizing reforms in China in
the 1990s and its accession
A
’24 sequel of sorts ap- cal adversary. The EU is con-
pears to be under sidering whether Chinese-
way. made electric vehicles are
China’s economy ex- unfairly subsidized and
panded 5.2% last year, a sub- should be subject to tariffs or
dued rate by its standards, other import restrictions.
and is expected to slow fur- Former President Donald
ther as a drawn-out real-es- Trump, who is seeking the
tate crunch crushes invest- Republican nomination for
ment and consumers rein in November’s presidential elec-
spending. Capital Economics, tion, has floated the idea of
a consulting firm, thinks an- hitting imports from China
nual growth will slow to with tariffs of 60% or higher.
around 2% by 2030. Beijing Such protectionism might
is seeking to engineer an shift some of the deflation-
economic turnaround by ary impact to other parts of

China is also a much
larger economy than it was,
accounting for more of the
world’s manufacturing. It
had 31% of global manufac-
turing output in 2022, and
14% of all goods exports, ac-
cording to World Bank data.
T
here are some counter-
vailing forces. The U.S.,
Europe and Japan
don’t want a rerun of the
early 2000s, when cheap
Chinese goods put many of
their factories out of busi-
ness. So they have extended
tor, a professor of economics to the World Trade Organi- plowing money into facto- the world, as Chinese ex-
at the Massachusetts Insti- zation in 2001. For U.S. con- ries, especially for semicon- porters look for new markets
tute of Technology and one sumers, this brought consid- ductors, aerospace, cars and in poorer countries. Those
of the authors of a 2016 pa- erable benefits. One 2019 renewable-energy equip- economies could see their
per that described the origi- paper found that consumer ment, and selling the result- own fledgling industries
nal China shock. prices in the U.S. for goods ing surplus abroad. shrivel in the teeth of Chi-
Even so, “the concerns fell 2% for every extra per- But weak demand and nese competition, much as
are more fundamental” now, centage point of market overcapacity means Chinese the U.S. did in an earlier era.

Loss in Trade-Secrets Case Reveals Broader Problems

BY ARUNA VISWANATHA
AND HEATHER SOMERVILLE
U.S. officials across the po-
litical spectrum have de-
scribed Chinese corporate
theft as a defining threat of
our times. A Justice Depart-
ment loss last week under-
scores the challenges in ad-
dressing it.
When senior engineers and
managers at the Taiwan fac-
tory of the U.S. chip maker
Micron Technology left
abruptly with hundreds of in-
ternal files nearly a decade
ago for a rival teaming up
with a Chinese government-
owned company, it looked to
prosecutors like an open-and-
shut case of state-sponsored
corporate theft.
A federal judge in San Fran-
cisco disagreed, acquitting
Chinese state-owned company
Fujian Jinhua Integrated Cir-
cuit last week of charges of
economic espionage and con-
spiracy. It was a crushing de-
feat in a case the Justice De-
partment had made the
centerpiece of a yearslong
push dating to the Trump Ad-
ministration to protect domes-
tic companies from Chinese
efforts to steal American cor-
porate secrets.
“There are limits to prose-
cuting cross-border trade-se-
crets cases involving China
given it is nearly impossible to
produce evidence or wit-
nesses,” said Jimmy Goodrich,
a China and semiconductor ex-
pert advising the Rand Corp.
Other tools in the U.S. arse-
nal, such as sanctions or re-
stricting Chinese access to
U.S. technology, can impose
greater costs on China, but
they also come with risks of
unintended consequences, in-
cluding backlash for U.S. com-
panies.
Micron’s shifting posture
since the Justice Department
brought the case in 2018 illus-
trates the point. The company investment in China. In 2016, the Chinese gov- In 2020, UMC pleaded
had urged U.S. authorities to Micron Chief Executive ernment identified memory- guilty to trade-secrets theft,
pursue the criminal case and Sanjay Mehrotra met with chip technology as a national and agreed to pay a fine and
limit access to U.S. technology China’s commerce minister in economic priority because cooperate in the prosecution
for Jinhua, and it filed its own November and later pledged to Chinese companies hadn’t yet of Jinhua, but said it never
civil lawsuit. In 2022, it lob- investors a strong commit- developed their own capabili- gave Jinhua information about
bied for Commerce Depart- ment to be a major chip sup- ties. The provincial govern- Micron’s technology. At trial,
ment restrictions on exporting plier for smartphones in ment in Fujian funded its own that became a problem for the
advanced chips to China, and China. multibillion-dollar effort and Justice Department. Prosecu-
the blocking of exports to an- Mehrotra has been asked to made a deal with United Mi- tors didn’t call any UMC engi-
other Chinese rival, Yangtze testify about Micron’s China croelectronics Corp., a Tai- neers to testify on the nature
Memory Technologies, people concerns before the House Se- wanese semiconductor com- of their collaboration with
familiar with the matter said. lect Committee on the Chinese pany that trades on the New Jinhua.
But in May, Chinese offi- Communist Party, but has York Stock Exchange, to pro- Last Tuesday, U.S. District
cials banned major Chinese been reluctant to do so, for vide the research while Jinhua Judge Maxine Chesney acquit-
companies from buying from fear of further inflaming ten- would make the chips. ted Jinhua, saying the govern-
Micron, in what was widely sions, people familiar with the In 2018, Micron’s lawyers ment hadn’t provided suffi-
viewed as a retaliatory re- matter said. Micron declined went to prosecutors with a cient evidence to convince her
sponse. to answer questions from The laptop that had belonged to a that the former Micron em-
Micron had gotten about a Wall Street Journal. former Micron engineer who ployees had acted at Jinhua’s
quarter of its revenue from Idaho-based Micron is the left for UMC. The engineer ap- direction to commit theft.
China, half of which risked be- U.S.’s only company that peared to have downloaded A spokesman for the U.S.
ing wiped out. makes a type of memory chip Micron trade secrets to his attorney’s office in San Fran-
It moved to reach a confi- used to store data in every- Google account and then cisco declined to comment.
dential settlement in its six- thing from cellphones to lap- searched for how to wipe data Jinhua said it welcomed the
year lawsuit against Jinhua, tops. The chip technology at from the laptop. U.S. prosecu- verdict and “has always oper-
made a series of high-profile issue in the criminal case is tors ultimately charged Jin- ated in accordance with the
diplomatic visits and an- now generations old, but few hua, UMC and three managers law and respected intellectual-
nounced a new $600 million other companies possess it. in the case. property rights.”

U.S.WATCH
TEXAS
Man Held Over Girl Freedoms Under
Who Was Missing Attack, Harris Says
Police in Texas have ar-
rested a man suspected in the
disappearance of a girl who
was missing for eight days
before she was safely located.
The 27-year-old Houston
man was charged with evad-
ing authorities after he at-
tempted to flee from officers
Friday, the Columbus Police
Department said Saturday.
The police learned around
12:40 p.m. Friday that a 12-
year-old girl who was the
subject of an Amber Alert
search was in Columbus,
some 90 miles west of Hous-
ton. The girl’s identity was
confirmed and she was trans-
ported to Texas Children’s
Hospital in Houston for evalu-
ation, police said.
The Houston Police Depart-
ment issued the alert notify-
ing the public about the miss-
ALABAMA
Vice President Kamala
Harris told thousands gath-
ered for the 59th anniversary
of the Bloody Sunday attacks
on civil-rights marchers in
Selma, Ala., that fundamental
freedoms are under attack in
America even today.
Harris joined those gath-
ered at the foot of the Ed-
mund Pettus Bridge, where
voting-rights activists were
beaten back by law enforce-
ment officers in 1965. The
vice president praised the
marchers’ bravery as they en-
gaged in a defining moment
of the civil-rights struggle.
“Today, we know our fight
for freedom is not over, be-
cause in this moment we are
witnessing a full-on attack on
hard-fought, hard-won free-
doms, starting with the free-
dom that unlocks all others, the
SAUL LOEB/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

ing girl after she was last
seen on Feb. 22 getting into a
pickup truck in the city, news
reports said. The suspect was
being held in the Colorado
County jail with additional
charges possible, pending an
investigation by the FBI, the
Columbus police said.
The arrest came shortly
after another abduction case
involving a girl in the Hous-
ton area. A memorial service
was held Saturday for 11-
year-old Audrii Cunningham,
who was allegedly killed by a
family friend.
—Associated Press
freedom to vote,” Harris said.
She criticized attempts to
restrict voting, including lim-
its on early voting, and said
the nation is again at a cross-
road. She said other funda-
mental freedoms under at-
tack include “the freedom of Vice President Kamala Harris joined a march across Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 59th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Ala.
a woman to make decisions
about her own body.”
Harris paid tribute to the THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
California
Fights Over
Helping the
Mentally Ill
BY CHRISTINE MAI-DUC
As Californians grow in-
creasingly frustrated with the
mental illness, drug abuse and
homelessness evident on
streets from San Francisco to
San Diego, Gov. Gavin Newsom
is staking his political capital
on a multibillion-dollar ballot
measure meant to address all
three problems.
But some likely supporters,
among them advocates for the
mentally ill, aren’t on the
Democrat’s side, complicating
his sales pitch to voters.
Proposition 1 on Tuesday’s
ballot would raise about $6.4
billion in bonds to build hous-
ing and mental-health treat-
ment facilities. It would also
take billions of dollars from a
tax that voters approved in
2004 to fund mental-health
services and divert it to hous-
ing for those receiving mental-
health and addiction treat-
ment—and that has sparked
much of the opposition. Service
providers and patient advo-
cates say the money is desper-
ately needed in an overbur-
dened mental-health system.
Prop 1 supporters say cities
need to get people off the
streets to provide them with
effective mental-health and
addiction services.
“What we see a lot are re-
peat offenders. Because of the
untreated mental illness, they
keep on encountering law en-
forcement and then coming
back to our facilities,” said Los
Angeles County Sheriff Robert
Luna, who supports Prop 1.
Voters up and down the
West Coast are demanding
new approaches to the persis-
tent problems of people who
are sick and visibly struggling
on sidewalks.
The Oregon House of Repre-
sentatives on Friday passed a
bill reversing a 2020 measure
decriminalizing hard drugs. In
San Francisco, polls show vot-
ers are likely to pass a mea-
sure Tuesday mandating drug
screening for recipients of
county cash welfare benefits.
Voters’ “frustration is pal-
pable,” Newsom said last year
as he signed bills that put
Prop 1 on the ballot. He stars
in numerous ads for the mea-
sure and has toured the state
campaigning for it.
A poll released Friday by
the Institute of Governmental
Studies at the University of
California, Berkeley, found
that 50% of likely voters sup-
port Prop 1, 34% are opposed
and 16% remain undecided.
The institute said historically
most people undecided about
bond measures close to elec-
tion day end up voting no.
Opponents say mental-
health problems will worsen if
money from the tax approved
in 2004—1% on incomes over
$1 million—is diverted.
“If the state wanted to fund
expanded substance-use ser-
vices, they didn’t have to steal
services money from the seri-
ously mentally ill to do that,”
said Clare Cortright, policy di-
rector for Cal Voices, a men-
tal-health service provider and
advocacy group.
Anthony York, a spokesman
for the yes campaign, said the
state’s infrastructure and
funding for mental health has
grown vastly since the origi-
nal measure was passed.
The California State Associ-
ation of Counties said in a
memo to its board that Prop 1
could result in up to $1 billion
less for core mental-health
and prevention services ad-
ministered by its members
and risk the state’s federal
matching funds for a number
of Medicaid programs. But the
group hasn’t taken a public
position on the measure.
Opponents have raised just
$1,000, while groups support-
ing Prop 1 have raised $17.1
million, most of it from indi-
vidual and corporate donors
and labor unions that are
longtime Newsom allies.
According to the state’s
nonpartisan Legislative Ana-
lyst’s Office, the $2 billion in
bond money earmarked for
housing would produce up to
4,350 units, about half reserved
for homeless veterans. The rest
of the bond funds would go to-
ward mental-health or drug-
treatment infrastructure.
California’s homeless popu-
lation is estimated at 181,000,
nearly 30% of the U.S. total.
* *
Destruction From Texas Panhandle Fires Comes Into View
CHARRED: A destroyed car sat in a burned landscape on Sunday in the aftermath of the Smokehouse Creek fire in Stinnett, Texas.
New Pilotless Jet Fighters on Horizon
BY DOUG CAMERON
Pilotless jet fighters that
can fly 30 feet above the
ground to their targets or
straight toward a barrage of
enemy missiles are being de-
veloped by the U.S. Air Force
to help deter China.
The soaring cost of existing
military aircraft and advances
in flying software have the Air
Force pivoting toward a new
generation of pilotless jets to
bolster a fleet that its leaders
say is the smallest and oldest
since it became a separate
service in 1947.
The Air Force wants at
least 1,000 of the mini-fight-
ers now being developed, in-
cluding hundreds within five
years. They would escort and
protect crewed aircraft such
as the F-35 fighter and the
new B-21 bomber, carry their
own weapons to attack other
planes and targets on the
ground and act as scouts and
communications hubs.
The “Collaborative Combat
Aircraft,” or CCAs, are part of
a $6 billion program being
pursued by Boeing, Lockheed
Martin, Northrop Grumman,
General Atomics and new-
comer Anduril Industries. The
Pentagon plans by the sum-
mer to choose two of the com-
panies to start building the
jets.
The Air Force has had big
drones for years. General
A blizzard covered a highway sign in Truckee, Calif., on
Sunday, with more snow expected over the next few days.
Oregon Poised to Reverse Drug Decriminalization
BY JIM CARLTON
As a firefighter-paramedic
in suburban Portland, Dacia
Grayber has seen the ravages
of Oregon’s drug epidemic:
fentanyl addicts stumbling
around like zombies or col-
lapsed in fetal positions. Last
year she watched a young ad-
dict pass away with his 2-
year-old daughter curled up
on his chest.
Like many people in the
state, Grayber thinks the prob-
lem has gotten worse since
voters in 2020 passed a ballot
measure decriminalizing the
possession of all drugs.
Oregon’s political leaders
have reached the same conclu-
sion and are on the cusp of
ending a three-year experi-
ment as the first and only
state in the nation to allow
people to freely use drugs
from heroin to cocaine to fen-
tanyl.
U.S. NEWS
Atomics’ Reapers and Preda- MQ-28 Ghost Bat
tors have been extensively
The Australia-developed Ghost Bat provides a test bed for the
used to fire missiles in the
autonomous flying sought by the U.S. Air Force. Designed to fly
Middle East, piloted remotely.
with crewed jets and on preprogrammed missions, it has a nose
Black Hawk helicopters and
cone that can be swapped out with different equipment.
F-16 fighters also have been
flown autonomously. Maximum speed Subsonic
Small drones have trans- Range 2,300 miles
formed the battlefields over First flight 2021
Ukraine and parts of the Mid- Manufacturer Boeing
dle East, but larger jet-pow-
ered versions are viewed as
crucial to tackle the vast dis-
tances in the western Pacific.
“They offer a lot of things that
traditional crewed fighter
planes just aren’t designed to
do,” Air Force Secretary Frank
Kendall said. ground has been superseded
Only one of the five con- by software allowing planes to
tenders—Boeing’s MQ-28 fly autonomously and adapt to
Ghost Bat—has flown publicly, changing conditions.
and the Royal Australian Air San Diego-based Shield AI
Force has ordered the plane. developed software that
Anduril has released photos of helped an uncrewed F-16 pro-
its Fury, while General Atom- grammed with AI to regularly
ics has published renderings beat some of the best Air
of its Gambit series. Lockheed Force and Navy pilots in simu-
Martin and Northrop Grum- lated dogfights as part of a
man have kept their jets under Pentagon-backed test.
wraps. The Air Force wants to tap
The Ghost Bat and the Fury into the technology, allowing
are between 20 feet and 30 pilots to control the new
feet in length—half the size of drones remotely from their
Lockheed Martin’s ubiquitous cockpits. Ground controllers
F-16. also could handle as many as
The new jets reflect strides 10 of the drones, while others
made in flying software, using could be pre-programed to fly
artificial intelligence to build in swarms, overwhelming en-
programs based on thousands emy defenses or confusing
of hours of combat flying. The them to draw fire.
technology that allowed The lack of crew allows the
planes to be piloted from the drones to fly riskier maneu-
California Digs Out, Girds
For More Snow This Week
BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS
More snow is headed to
northern California this week,
BROOKE HESS-HOMEIER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
on the heels of a powerful
blizzard that dumped more
than 60 inches over parts of
the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The blizzard began on
Thursday and grew in intensity
until Sunday, when its winds
and snowfall lessened. How-
ever, a second system could
bring rain and more snowfall
by Monday night, the National
Weather Service said.
On Friday, the Oregon Sen- Her office didn’t respond to a
ate voted to make possession request for comment on the
of small amounts of hard bill.
drugs a misdemeanor punish- Backers of the 2020 ballot
able by up to six months in measure, which passed with
jail. The bill, the result of 58% support, successfully con-
months of discussions by law- vinced their fellow residents
makers in both parties, passed of the left-leaning state that
the state House on Thursday. decriminalization would mean
Grayber, who is also a Dem- fewer nonviolent drug addicts
ocratic member of the state in prison and more in treat-
House, used her experience on ment.
the streets to explain why she But while the first part of
voted yes. the prediction proved true,
“I’ve worked so many over- the second didn’t. Without the
doses,” Grayber said in a threat of imprisonment, few
speech to her fellow legisla- people have proved willing to
tors before the bill passed the take advantage of the ex-
state House. “I came into this panded addiction services the
building two weeks ago know- measure funded. Instead, pub-
ing that we had to do some- lic drug use has become ram-
thing, because the status quo pant, as people can now
of what we are doing is not smoke fentanyl and use other
working.” drugs on sidewalks with no
Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek consequences.
has previously said she is Kotek, Portland Mayor Ted
open to restoring criminal Wheeler and Jessica Vega
penalties for drug possession. Pederson, chair of Multnomah
Monday, March 4, 2024 | A3
Sources: Boeing, Royal Australian Air Force
Jemal R. Brinson/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
vers, Air Force officials and fly-
ing-software developers said.
Shield AI’s software offers the
ability for jets to skim the
ground at 600 miles an hour,
said Brandon Tseng, the com-
pany’s founder and president.
It should also make them
cheaper, the Air Force and de-
fense executives said.
The Air Force is targeting
$20 million to $30 million for
each jet, though industry ex-
ecutives expect it to eventu-
ally come down to around $10
million or less. That compares
with around $100 million for
an F-35 or more than $750
million for the new B-21
bomber.
The CCA program is a key
test of the Defense Depart-
ment’s efforts to break from
years of late and over-budget
military programs.
The storm forced the clo-
sure of a major freeway in
northern California, knocked
out power to thousands of
homes and businesses and
shut several ski resorts.
In Donner Pass, the three-
day snowfall measured
roughly 60 inches, said David
Roth, a forecaster with the
National Weather Service.
Homewood Mountain Resort,
in the Lake Tahoe area, re-
ported a total of 87 inches.
At the peak of the blizzard,
roughly 280,000 Pacific Gas &
County, declared a joint state
of emergency in January over
what they described as a pub-
lic health and public safety
crisis in the city driven by
fentanyl use.
Residents, business owners
and law-enforcement officials
have become infuriated, and a
poll last year found most peo-
ple wanted to make drug pos-
session a crime again. Advo-
cates said they would try to
put a measure on this year’s
ballot ending decriminaliza-
tion if the legislature didn’t
act.
“What we have tried to do
is give law enforcement tools
they need to intervene in the
moment and hand [addicted
people] off to the behavioral
health mental world,” said
Democratic State Rep. Jason
Kropf, co-chair of a committee
that produced the bill. “The
overarching goal is how do
you sometimes give a little bit
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES
Air Force acquisition chief
Andrew Hunter said the CCA
program takes lessons from
past programs that have
struggled to harness new
technology, notably the F-35
program. The first CCAs are
intended to be stripped-down
models, keeping costs low and
introducing new technology
when it is ready, rather than
while it is still being tested.
Companies bidding for the
CCA contract are also being
told to minimize complexity,
including only what is re-
quired for missions rather
than every eventuality. The
average Pentagon program
takes seven years from con-
tract award until service en-
try, and the F-35 took twice
that. Only five years is being
allotted for the CCA.
Air Force officials said one
obstacle to broader adoption
of uncrewed jets is starting to
erode: the pilots themselves.
The options of piloting
drones from the cockpit, re-
motely from the ground or au-
tonomously with preplanned
flight programs has reduced
resistance among seasoned fli-
ers. Newer recruits brought
up on videogames have also
tipped the balance. “We’re ea-
ger to get them because
they’re gonna save our lives,”
Air Force Secretary Kendall
said of the new drones.
—Michael R. Gordon
contributed to this article.
Electric customers were with-
out power, the utility said. Elec-
tricity was restored to all but
about 9,000 by early Sunday.
The California Department
of Transportation closed parts
of Interstate 80 during the
blizzard and mandated the use
of tire chains on other sec-
tions.
The storm moving in Mon-
day night will bring more
snow to parts of the Sierra
Nevada and then into the
Rockies on Tuesday, the Na-
tional Weather Service said.
of a push to treatment.”
Along with the bill recrimi-
nalizing drugs, Oregon legisla-
tors passed a companion mea-
sure allocating $211 million for
addiction treatment and other
support programs.
Civil-rights groups still op-
posed bringing back criminal
penalties, saying they unfairly
target people of color. They
blamed the epidemic on a lack
of funding for drug-treatment
programs, affordable housing
and other needs.
Khanh Pham, a Democratic
lawmaker who voted against
the recriminalization bill, said
having law enforcement go af-
ter drug users again is a waste
of money.
“This new misdemeanor
system will divert scarce pub-
lic dollars away from real so-
lutions like increasing access
to addiction treatment,” she
told colleagues on the House
floor.
A4 | Monday, March 4, 2024
Biden Gets
Slight Boost
In Survey
Continued from Page One
hold a dim view of his steward-
ship of the economy. Moreover,
his re-election prospects are
weighed down by concerns
about his age and sharply neg-
ative views of his leadership
overall, including his handling
of immigration and the war be-
tween Israel and Hamas.
Some 73% say Biden is too
old, at age 81, to stand for re-
election, the same share as in
an August Journal poll. By
comparison, 52% see Trump,
age 77, as too old to run for the
White House, up 5 points from
August. Biden last week re-
ceived a clean bill of health in
his annual physical, with his
doctor calling him “fit for
duty.”
The Journal poll was con-
ducted Feb. 21-28, just ahead of
primaries in 15 states on Tues-
day that will move Trump far
closer to securing the GOP
nomination. The poll inter-
viewed 1,500 registered voters
by cellphone and landline
phones, with some respondents
reached by text and invited to
take the survey online.
When third-party candidates
are added to the ballot, Biden
loses more support to those ad-
ditional options than does
Trump. Trump’s lead over Bi-
den grows from 2 points to 5
points, 40% to 35%, with inde-
pendent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
taking 9 points and 2 points or
less going to Green Party and
Libertarian candidates, and to
Cornel West, the academic and
activist running an indepen-
dent campaign.
The independent and third-
party candidates are wild cards
in the election. They are still
taking steps to gain access to
ballots in many states, and
Sympathy for Palestinians Grows as War Drags On
BY AARON ZITNER
WASHINGTON—A plurality
of American voters thinks Is-
rael has gone too far in re-
sponding to the October at-
tacks by Hamas, and a growing
share believes the U.S. isn’t
doing enough to help the Pal-
estinian people, a new Wall
Street Journal poll finds.
Some 42% of voters in the
survey said Israel has gone too
far in pursuing Hamas. A
smaller share, 19%, said Israel
hasn’t gone far enough, and
24% said Israel’s response to
Hamas has been about right.
The Palestinian militant
group killed more than 1,200
people in the Oct. 7 attacks,
according to Israel, and took
more than 240 hostages.
The poll, conducted Feb.
21-28, also found rising sympa-
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path to a Great Future.
GreatFutures.org
Over the past year has inflation moved
in the right or wrong direction?
80%
60
40
Right
20
Don’t know
0 Undecided
Aug. 2023
Sources: Wall Street Journal surveys, latest of 750 registered voters conducted Feb. 21-28, 2024 with a margin of error at +/-3.6 pct. pts. (inflation, economy, financial situation);
Wall Street Journal survey of 1,500 registered voters conducted Feb. 21-28, 2024, with a margin of error at +/- 2.5 pct. pts. (vote)
their ability to do so across the
country is unclear. The centrist
group No Labels has also been
seeking ballot access in many
states and said it would decide
Friday whether to back a so far
unspecified “unity ticket” in
November.
Moreover, Kennedy, the en-
vironmental lawyer also known
for conspiratorial views, shows
the potential to take more vot-
ers from Trump than Biden, as
his supporters favor Trump,
47% to 30%, on the ballot that
includes only the two major-
party candidates.
Another unpredictable ele-
ment: the criminal cases
against Trump. If the former
president is convicted on fed-
eral charges of illegally retain-
ing classified documents or ef-
forts to overturn the 2020
election result, voting choices
would shift so that his 2-point
lead over Biden becomes a 4-
point deficit, the poll finds.
Economists and business
owners have puzzled over why
consumer sentiment, while ris-
ing in recent months, has
shown Americans to be more
downbeat about the economy
than expected, given that un-
employment has been below
4% for about two years, the
longest such stretch since the
thy for the Palestinian people
amid Israel’s efforts to destroy
Hamas, which have displaced
tens of thousands of Gaza resi-
dents and caused a humanitar-
ian crisis.
The death toll in Gaza has
surpassed 30,000 people, Pal-
estinian health authorities say.
The figures don’t distinguish
between militants and civil-
ians.
The war has created signifi-
cant challenges for President
Biden both in domestic politics
and in diplomacy. Some senior
aides to the president have be-
come increasingly worried that
his support for Israel’s war ef-
fort will cost him votes in No-
vember.
The new poll found that
60% of voters disapprove of
Biden’s handling of the war, 8
points more than in December,
P W L C 10 11
If the 2024 election for president were held
today, for whom would you vote?
Republican Donald Trump
Wrong
Democrat Joe Biden
Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Independent Cornel West
2
Green Party candidate Jill Stein
1
Libertarian Lars Mapstead
1
'24
1960s. Inflation, at 3.1% in Jan-
uary, is far below the 9.1% of
mid-2022. The new Journal
survey suggests that views of
the economy are moving to be
more in line with those mea-
sures of economic strength.
Among other things, the di-
minished economic anxiety
could make it easier for Biden
to win economy-focused voters
and to turn voter attention to
other issues.
“It’s not like they’re saying
to us, ‘The economy is wonder-
ful; that’s why we must re-elect
Biden.’ They’re just not as con-
cerned about it,” said Michael
Bocian, a Democratic pollster
who conducted the Journal
survey with Republican Tony
Fabrizio. “So, they’re turning to
other issues, which is net good
for Biden at the end of the day.
But then he has to go win those
issues.”
A challenge for Biden is the
growing voter focus on immi-
gration, an issue on which the
president gets low marks.
Some 20% in the survey cited
immigration as most important
to their vote in the presidential
election, with 14% saying it is
the economy—a rare instance
of any issue topping the econ-
omy as most prominent on vot-
ers’ minds.
Do you think Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip in response to the
Oct. 7 attack by Hamas have gone too far, not gone far enough,
or been about right?
Gone too far
Been about right
Not gone far enough
Don’t know/refused
Source: Wall Street Journal poll of 750 registered voters conducted Feb. 21-28, 2024 with a margin
of error: +/- 3.6 pct. pts.
with 31% approving of Biden’s
actions.
Biden administration rela-
tions with the government of
Macy’s
Suitors Lift
Their Offer
Continued from Page One
tially gain another avenue to
achieve a takeover.
Macy’s had more than $23
billion in sales last year. It and
other major department-store
chains have been battered in
recent years by stiff competi-
tion and shifting shopping
patterns, leading to waves of
consolidation and bankrupt-
cies in the industry.
In 2020 alone, JCPenney,
Neiman Marcus and Lord &
Taylor all filed for bankruptcy,
to later emerge as smaller or
digital-only players. Kohl’s
was close to a deal to be sold
in 2022, but later backed out.
More recently, Saks—owned
by Hudson’s Bay—has been
trying to scoop up Neiman
Marcus.
Legacy retailers such as
Macy’s have been burdened by
archaic stores and bulky web-
sites, while younger shoppers
gravitate to digital-first
brands with nimbler opera-
tions. Coming out of the pan-
demic, more consumers are
choosing to head to local
shopping centers over subur-
ban malls traditionally an-
chored by department stores.
This year, Macy’s sees sales
falling between about 1% and
4%.
Macy’s is in the midst of a
12 H T G K R F A M 1 2 3 4 5 6
U.S. NEWS
9 40
12
Some 73% say President Biden is too old to stand for re-
election; 52% say that of Donald Trump.
“Immigration is filling that
void” in voters’ attention, “and
immigration is Biden’s worst
issue. And it actually has got-
ten a little worse,” Fabrizio
said.
Some 65% of voters disap-
prove of Biden’s handling of
border security, a high mark in
Journal polls over the past two
years, and 71% say develop-
ments in immigration and bor-
der security are headed in the
wrong direction.
Views of Biden’s handling of
the Israel-Hamas war have also
turned more negative, with
60% disapproving, up 8 points
24
19
15
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu are strained and be-
coming more so amid severe
challenges in delivering food
transformation under its new
chief executive, Tony Spring,
who ascended to the top job
Feb. 4 after serving as the
company’s president and CEO-
elect for nearly a year. Spring
previously spent more than
three decades with Bloom-
ingdale’s, the higher-end chain
of stores owned by Macy’s.
He recently unveiled his vi-
sion for modernizing the de-
partment-store operator,
which includes closing about
150 underperforming Macy’s
stores—or about 30% of its to-
tal—over the next three years.
The focus will now be on up-
grading the remaining 350
Macy’s locations and adding
Bloomingdale’s shops and
Bluemercury beauty stores.
(In January, Macy’s eliminated
13% of its corporate staff and
The retailer plans to close about 150 underperforming Macy’s stores in the next three years.
7 8 9 O I X X **
Over the past two years,
would you say the U.S.
economy has...
40%
60%
35 ...Gotten worse
...Gotten better
20
...Stayed the same
Don’t know
0 0
Aug. 2023 ’24
from December.
Some 38% approve of the
overall job Biden is doing as
president, essentially un-
changed from the 37% in De-
cember, which was the lowest
mark he has received in Jour-
nal polling dating to late 2021.
The poll presents mixed
news for Trump. Some 43%
hold a favorable view of the
former president, a high mark
in Journal polling dating to late
2021, and 48% say they ap-
prove of the job he did in the
White House, 10 points more
favorable than Biden’s job-ap-
proval rating.
and other aid to Gaza and Is-
raeli plans to invade Rafah,
where more than one million
Palestinians, many of them dis-
placed, now live.
42% “The longer this goes on,
there is a shift toward more
sympathy toward the Palestin-
ians and less toward Israel,”
said Democratic pollster Mi-
chael Bocian, who conducted
the Journal poll with Republi-
can Tony Fabrizio.
In the new survey, 33% of
voters said the U.S. was doing
too little to help Palestinians,
up from 26% in the Journal’s
December poll. About one-
quarter of voters said the U.S.
was doing too much for Pales-
tinians, with the same share
saying the U.S. was doing the
right amount.
Some 30% said the U.S. was
doing too much to help the Is-
said it would close five stores,
ahead of the latest planned
cuts.)
Macy’s shares initially
jumped on the news late last
month, but the stock has since
traded back down, closing Fri-
day at $18.01—a far cry from a
high of $70 in 2015.
Spring said on a conference
call with analysts last week
that fiscal 2024 will be a
“transition and investment”
year. “We are moving swiftly
and methodically,” he said.
UBS analyst Jay Sole said
in a research note that “We
are not yet convinced this new
plan will solve challenges,”
adding that e-commerce behe-
moth Amazon.com and off-
price retailers will continue to
eat into Macy’s market share.
A takeover is far from a
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Over the past year, do you
think your personal financial
situation has moved in
the right or wrong direction?
60%
Wrong
Right
40
20
Don’t know
Aug. 2023 ’24
But personal views of
FROM LEFT: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES, MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
Trump and many of his poli-
cies are unfavorable. Some
55% see him in a negative
light, and less than half see
him as mentally up to the job
of president.
While there is majority sup-
port for building a wall along
the border with Mexico and
for the widespread deporta-
tion of undocumented immi-
grants—two of Trump’s signa-
ture policies—other Trump
proposals fare poorly.
Some 51% oppose repealing
and replacing the Affordable
Care Act, or Obamacare, with
39% supporting Trump’s call
to do so. A majority opposes
pardoning people convicted in
the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the
U.S. Capitol.
Some 82% of voters in the
survey oppose the idea of en-
couraging Russia to invade
NATO allies if they haven’t
met the alliance’s targets for
spending money on their own
militaries, a proposition that
Trump recently made.
In a related question, voters
were evenly divided on
whether the U.S. should con-
tinue its obligation under the
NATO treaty to defend those
allies if spending targets ha-
ven’t been met.
raeli people, compared with
22% who said so in December.
The share saying the U.S. was
doing too little was unchanged,
at 25%.
An age gap in views of Israel
seems to be narrowing, with
older Democrats matching
younger Democrats in their
wariness of Israel’s actions.
Some 40% of Democrats under
age 40 said the U.S. was doing
too much to help the Israeli
people, compared with 33% of
Democrats ages 40 and older—
a 7-point difference. In Decem-
ber, that gap had been 24
points.
Among Democrats 40 and
older, 71% said Israel had gone
too far in responding to Hamas.
Some 16% of Republicans say
Israel has gone too far in re-
sponding to Hamas, versus the
70% of Democrats.
sure thing. Macy’s has ex-
pressed doubts regarding Ark-
house’s and Brigade’s ability
to finance their offer. The
company hasn’t offered up any
due-diligence information to
the investors nor has it agreed
to sign a nondisclosure agree-
ment, as they have requested.
Arkhouse Managing Part-
ners Gavriel Kahane and Jona-
thon Blackwell said they are
frustrated Macy’s has refused
to engage with them and re-
main committed to closing a
deal. Matt Perkal, a partner at
Brigade, added that the new
offer is the “best path for-
ward” for shareholders and
can be executed quickly.
“The notion that the plan
we are proposing is not ac-
tionable is simply not true,”
Kahane and Blackwell said.
JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * Monday, March 4, 2024 | A5

U.S. NEWS

Super Tuesday: What It Means, How It Will Work

BY ELIZA COLLINS
AND JOHN MCCORMICK
Super Tuesday is the pri-
mary season’s busiest day,
when voters in 15 states cast
ballots this week for their
party’s nominee for president
and down-ballot races. It could
also mark the end for Nikki
Haley’s long-shot bid to stop
Donald Trump from securing
the Republican nomination.
have been voting by mail since
mid-January.
California’s heft
Haley has been able to pick
up delegates in four states so
far despite not winning any of
them. The rules are becoming
increasingly challenging for
her, especially in a two-person
race. Trump has the opportu-
nity to start sweeping up en-
pected to elect a Democrat to
fill its open Senate seat in
November, the primary has
become expensive and unpre-
dictable, with four big-name
candidates vying for two
open spots. Democratic Rep.
Adam Schiff is leading polls
and is expected to get the
first spot, but Democratic
Rep. Katie Porter is running
neck-and-neck for second
place with Republican Steve
less of party.
Run-up to Tuesday
While Tuesday is the main
prize, several states had prima-
ries in the lead-up on the GOP
side. Michigan held its primary
Tuesday for both parties, but
Republicans didn’t allocate all
of their delegates, and the re-
maining group was distributed
to Trump Saturday via conven-

SCOTT EISEN/GETTY IMAGES

More than a third of all
GOP delegates are up for
grabs: Most of the states
Tuesday award them on a
winner-take-all basis, either
statewide or by congressional
district, if one candidate gets
a majority. Even strong sec-
ond-place finishes for Haley
could result in no delegates.
tire states’ delegate hauls. If
he is able to win a majority of
voters in California, he will
win all 169 delegates.
The state also will be
closely watched because of its
spirited primary for U.S. Sen-
ate. While California is ex-
Garvey, a former baseball
star; Rep. Barbara Lee, also a
Democrat, lags behind the top
three in polling. Under the
state’s open primary system,
the top two vote-getters
Tuesday will face each other
in a November runoff, regard-
tion. Trump also won Republi-
can contests in Idaho and Mis-
souri Saturday, while Haley
secured her lone victory so far
in the District of Columbia
Sunday. North Dakota votes on
Monday. Democrats have no Nikki Haley, seen campaigning Sunday in Maine, has vowed to
primaries until Tuesday. continue her long-shot GOP presidential bid through Tuesday.

The voting states

Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas,

THE PRATT FOUNDATION

California, Colorado, Maine,
Massachusetts, Minnesota,
North Carolina, Oklahoma,

IS HONORED TO SUPPORT
Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Ver-
mont, Virginia and American
Samoa will all hold nominating

THE AMERICAN AUSTRALIAN ALLIANCE

contests. (Alaska’s is only for
Republicans, while American
Samoa’s is just for Democrats.)

Effect on November
The only general-election
presidential battleground
state in Tuesday’s mix is
North Carolina. Analysts will
be watching how different de-
mographic groups in North
Carolina support Trump and
President Biden. The rapidly
growing state has a mix of ur-
ban, suburban and rural vot-
ers, as well as college towns.

What Haley needs

The former South Carolina
governor and United Nations
ambassador has committed to
campaigning through Super
Tuesday. She will have to as-
sess whether to keep soldiering
on, but has no campaign events
scheduled after Monday. Her
campaign says it raised $12
million in February, so she has
gas in the tank. As of Sunday,
however, her campaign didn’t
have any television ads booked
for this week or beyond.
It is hard to imagine Haley
finding enough support to
slow Trump’s march to the
nomination after she failed to
win any of the first five state
nominating contests. She
could be competitive in some
of the more moderate states in
play. In the days leading up to
Super Tuesday, she is focusing
on Minnesota, Colorado, Utah,
Virginia, North Carolina, Mas-
sachusetts, Vermont, Maine
and Texas. Some of those
states, such as Texas, aren’t
particularly moderate, but
they award some of their dele-
gates by congressional dis-
trict, which might allow Haley
to secure at least a few in ur-
ban or suburban areas.

Can Trump clinch?

Trump won’t be able to
quite claim the nomination af-
ter Super Tuesday, but he is al-
most certain to be close. By a
week or two later, following
contests from March 12
through 19, he is likely to have
the 1,215 delegates needed to
secure the nomination. The for-
mer president has increasingly
focused his attention on Biden.

Effect on Biden
The president to date has
won 206 delegates, which is all
but two awarded so far. While
he faces two primary challeng-
ers, neither has been a threat
or earned any delegates. The
two delegates he didn’t win
were associated with the “un- The Australian Ambassador to the United States and former prime minister Dr Kevin Rudd (left) and Pratt Industries Executive Chairman Anthony Pratt.
committed” vote in Michigan’s
primary last Tuesday, repre-
senting protests from those
angry over his support of Is-
rael’s military campaign
against Hamas despite the hu-
manitarian crisis in Gaza.
While Biden is expected to eas-
ily win all the states voting
Tuesday, efforts for additional
protest voting are playing out
in some of the coming states.
Organizers in Georgia, Vir-
ginia, North Carolina, Wash-
ington state and Minnesota
have tried to get voters to cast
protest ballots. However, not
all those states have an “un-
committed” option, so the pro-
tests could be lodged through
votes for other candidates.
Iowa Democrats, mean-
while, will finally report their
results after the national
party moved the state from its
traditional leadoff spot on the The Pratt Foundation is proud to sponsor work at the institutions above.
nominating calendar. They
A6 | Monday, March 4, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS

Test for McConnell Successor: Trump Is Enjoying

A Winning Streak,
How to Bring in Big Money Except Financially
WASHINGTON—Plenty of
Senate Republicans appear ea- BY ALEX LEARY ing against him. He might
ger to take over Minority have to sell parts of his real-
Leader Mitch McConnell’s job Donald Trump has been on estate empire to do so. Last
corralling their ranks when he a hot streak, racking up politi- Wednesday, a judge rejected
steps down as leader. cal and legal wins as his foes, Trump’s request to halt a $355
from Nikki Haley to Jack Smith million judgment in the case
By Kristina Peterson, to Mitch McConnell, are suf- for now.
Anthony DeBarros fering setbacks or standing The sting isn’t just financial
and Jack Gillum down. Yet one big loss—in the but symbolic, cutting to the
New York civil-fraud case— core of Trump’s business-titan
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

But a tougher task may be could cost him the most. image. He has been more emo-
maintaining the powerful po- The former president last tionally invested in the New
litical apparatus the Kentucky week got what is expected to York case than in any other.
Republican fueled with fund- be a significant delay in the Trump has also been frus-
raising—$1.7 billion through federal case against him on al- trated and hit hard by a defa-
allied groups since 2015. legations that he plotted to mation case involving the
The top Senate Republican overturn the 2020 election, writer E. Jean Carroll. A fed-
since 2007, McConnell became when the Supreme Court eral jury in January ordered
a juggernaut fundraiser who agreed to consider his immu- him to pay more than $83 mil-
helped expand the role of nity claim, a blow to special lion in damages.
money in politics. Indepen- counsel Smith’s hopes for a Last week’s Supreme Court
dent political groups aligned speedy trial. A similar Georgia move, meanwhile, wasn’t a
with him helped Republicans case has taken a hit as Fulton verdict on Trump’s immunity
win Senate races and shape County District Attorney Fani claim—indeed, many scholars
the national debate around Sen. Mitch McConnell early on recognized the importance of having a Senate-focused PAC. Willis fights disqualification expect the court to reject
the Supreme Court and policy over a romantic relationship that—but it could buy him
issues like taxes. Now his GOP boost the next GOP leader’s Since its creation in 2015, Senate Republican leader. with her top deputy. valuable time and fits with an
colleagues are evaluating fundraising but won’t immedi- the Senate Leadership Fund, a Democrats said no amount On Friday, a Florida judge overall delay-tactic strategy in
whether the contenders to ately match the longtime rela- super PAC aligned with McCon- of fundraising prowess or po- presiding over a separate case the other cases he faces. Even
succeed him can replicate his tionships McConnell had cre- nell, has pulled in more than $1 litical savviness would enable involving Trump’s handling of if a trial for election interfer-
fundraising prowess and ated with Republican donors, billion, according to FEC fil- the next GOP leader to repair classified documents appeared ence is pushed to later this
steely political nerves. said Josh Holmes, one of his ings. Additional fundraising the rift within the party over likely to push back those pro- year, it could be to Trump’s
“Without question, it’s previous chiefs of staff. from a McConnell-aligned ad- Donald Trump, the party’s for- ceedings. advantage.
been invaluable—the fundrais- “There are many people vocacy group, One Nation, mer president likely 2024 Trump is on the verge of of- “Donald Trump craves the
ing network, the political op- around the country who sup- brings the total to nearly $1.7 nominee. ficially securing the Republi- limelight and loves to strike
eration he’s assembled,” said port his efforts because they billion, according to a state- “The Republican Party’s can presidential nomination, the pose of a victim and a
Sen. Todd Young (R., Ind.). think he’s been standing in the ment by Steven Law of the splitting up. So I don’t know with a huge cache of delegates martyr. Putting him on trial a
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, breach to prevent really cha- Senate Leadership Fund. The that there’s anybody—no mat- expected to go his way on Su- month or two before the elec-
a former Senate GOP whip, otic outcomes in a chaotic po- group has invested heavily in ter how powerful or strategic per Tuesday, diminishing his tion might be playing precisely
has been the top fundraiser litical environment,” said opposition research. or thoughtful they are—that challenger Haley’s already in- into his derangement script,”
this election cycle among the Holmes. “That’s a reputation “Leader McConnell has could keep that caucus to- finitesimal hopes. New swing- said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D.,
trio of veteran Republicans that’s earned, not inherited.” changed the scale of the game gether,” said Sen. Chris Mur- state polls show him beating Md.), who managed the House
considered top contenders to Still, Holmes said McCon- by his involvement and his phy (D., Conn.). President Biden. impeachment proceedings re-
succeed McConnell. nell would work to ensure the support of our work,” Law Unlike the National Repub- If Trump’s dominance over garding Trump’s role in the
Since January 2023, Cornyn next GOP leader could access said in an interview. lican Senatorial Committee, the GOP wasn’t already clear, Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the
has brought in roughly $10.7 that network and the political No changes are expected at the Senate Leadership Fund McConnell, the longtime Sen- Capitol.
million through his campaign infrastructure he has built. the Senate Leadership Fund has long been more willing to ate Republican leader and a A Trump spokeswoman,
committee and fundraising A longtime opponent of during this election cycle, and try to boost the prospects of Trump critic, said he would Karoline Leavitt, said, “Presi-
groups, excluding transfers campaign-finance regulations, the field of Senate candidates what it viewed as more elect- give up his post in November dent Trump remains laser-fo-
from other committees, ac- McConnell early on recognized is largely set for this fall, ac- able GOP candidates. For ex- as more of his colleagues side cused on winning in November
cording to Federal Election the importance of having a cording to people familiar with ample, in 2020, the group got with the former president on to make America great again.”
Commission filings. Senate Senate-focused political-action its operations. Many Republi- involved in Kansas to support issues including aid for Haley, for her part, has
Minority Whip John Thune committee, as super PACs cans are optimistic that they now-Sen. Roger Marshall in Ukraine. tried to hold on as the former
(R., S.D.) has brought in $7.5 emerged in the wake of the might be able to win enough the primary against fellow Re- The run of good luck has president builds an over-
million, while Senate GOP 2010 Supreme Court ruling on races in November to take con- publican Kris Kobach, the for- been marred by a mortal whelming lead in their contest.
Conference Chairman John Citizens United. The decision trol of the Senate. But the cali- mer secretary of state who threat to Trump’s fortune, as “He’s been lucky on multi-
Barrasso (R., Wyo.) hauled in allowed businesses and unions ber of GOP candidates and had lost a gubernatorial race he has to come up with hun- ple things,” Haley acknowl-
roughly $3.2 million. to spend freely on ads for or their chances in future contests in 2018 and was seen as a di- dreds of millions of dollars to edged Friday to reporters in
Ascending to the role will against candidates. will be influenced by the next visive candidate. satisfy a New York fraud rul- Washington.

ESG Is Out, Flows into publicly traded

ESG funds, quarterly
$25 billion
Street Journal in October that
he backtracked from the term
ESG because it had been polit-

‘Transition 20
icized and means something
different to every person.

Draped in Dazzle Investing’ In 15

INDULGE IN THE TIMELESS PAIRING OF
Continued from Page One
LUSH SAPPHIRES AND ICY DIAMONDS it is directing billions of client
dollars toward infrastructure
projects that will help speed
the transition from fossil fuels.
“Transition investing is
specific and concrete. Clients
know what we’re talking
about,” said Mark Wiedman,
who is head of the global cli-
ent business at BlackRock and
a potential successor to Fink.
“ESG as a category is a vague
BlackRock is focused on
meeting individual client de-
mands, climate-friendly or
otherwise, he said, adding that
10 investor surveys show that
most of its clients globally
5 plan to put more money into
decarbonization investments.
0 To that end, BlackRock is
no longer aggressively push-
–5 ing companies to take action.
The asset manager voted
–10 “Yes” on about 9% of share-
2021 ’22 ’23 holder resolutions involving
Source: Morningstar environmental or social issues
in 2023, down from about 40%
same period. The funds have in 2021, according to ShareAc-
raised nearly $500 billion in tion, a climate-advocacy group.

1,395
grab bag for many clients.”
$ BlackRock is joining inves-
tors such as Brookfield Asset
Compare at $2,095 Management in betting on
clean-energy infrastructure
projects. It doubled down with
its recent $12.5 billion deal for
Global Infrastructure Partners,
a fund manager that owns and
operates energy, transporta-
tion, and waste and water
companies around the world.
Infrastructure investments
can offer steady returns and
measurable benefits for fight-
ing climate change. They are
in high demand with institu-
tional clients such as pen-
sions, especially after 2022’s
climate law introduced rich
government subsidies for
Finely crafted in sterling silver and full of eye-catching clean-energy projects.
sparkle, our fabulous 18" tennis necklace boasts The investments differ from
many bets on publicly traded
9.00 ct. t.w. round sapphires alternating with companies or ESG strategies
that avoid fossil-fuel projects
1.50 ct. t.w. round brilliant-cut diamonds. that end up being owned by
someone else. BlackRock’s in-
frastructure funds have in-
Available in 20" $1,495 vested in solar power, natural
gas made from food waste and
Also in Ruby #948934 and Emerald #951162. cow manure and removing
carbon from the atmosphere.
Another reason the ESG
movement failed to catch on
was because the funds strug-
gled to outpace the broader
market and show that they ac-
tually benefited the planet. In-
vestors pulled about $13 bil-
lion, or about 4% of assets,
from publicly traded ESG
funds last year, according to
FREE EXPRESS SHIPPING — ORDER TODAY! Morningstar. BlackRock’s of-
To receive this special offer, use code: OPULENCE2 fering of mostly index-track-
ing ESG funds posted inflows.
1.800.556.7376 or visit ross-simons.com/opulence Investors poured about $75
Item #948924 billion into private renewable-
energy and broad energy-sec-
tor investment funds over the
the past five years and
dwarfed the amount raised for
traditional fossil-fuel funds,
figures from Preqin show.
The criticism of Fink started
building in 2020, when he said
BlackRock would be disposed
to vote against management
and boards at companies not
making progress on sustain-
ability-related practices. With
its colossal index-fund busi-
ness, BlackRock wields vast
shareholder voting power.
A year later, Fink upped the
ante when he wrote that
BlackRock was “focused on ra-
cial equity and social justice
in our investment and stew-
ardship activities.”
The backlash was swift.
Even Berkshire Hathaway’s
Charlie Munger said: “I think
the world of Fink, but I am
not sure I want him to be my
emperor.” Conservative activ-
ist Leonard Leo financed an
anti-ESG campaign. Republi-
can presidential candidates
took jabs, and some red states
sought to ban BlackRock.
The rebuke had little to no
measurable impact on Black-
Rock’s business—but it marked
an embarrassment for Fink, a
legend on Wall Street who co-
founded the company in 1988.
Within BlackRock, some ex-
ecutives were uneasy about
the letters and Fink’s public
comments, according to people
familiar with the matter. Some
remarks were made on the fly,
the people said, leaving execu-
tives struggling to explain to
clients what their boss meant.
BlackRock has since made a
U-turn and is trying to smooth
things over with its political
enemies. Fink told The Wall
BlackRock cited a rise in over-
reaching proposals lacking
economic merit and compa-
nies’ progress on climate-re-
lated disclosures.
BlackRock is trying to get
back in the good graces of red
states. The company hired a
global head of corporate af-
fairs with experience working
for Republicans in Congress.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a
Republican who had been a vo-
cal critic, shared a stage with
Fink and declared him “king of
Wall Street” at a February
power-grid investment summit
in Houston. Fink told attendees
he could help Texas raise $10
billion in private capital to
strengthen its power grid.
BlackRock’s diversified in-
frastructure fund also recently
announced a $550 million in-
vestment in Occidental Petro-
leum’s first big plant captur-
ing carbon dioxide directly
from the air in Texas.
Beyond that, BlackRock
joined JPMorgan Chase and
State Street in February in
backing away from the Climate
Action 100+, a coalition of fund
managers pushing companies
to address climate issues. A
spokesman said that the
group’s new strategy raises le-
gal considerations in the U.S.
“ESG is unquestionably in a
death spiral,” said Terrence
Keeley, who ran BlackRock’s
official institutions group until
2022 and has since published
a book criticizing ESG invest-
ing. “BlackRock is logically
prioritizing decarbonization
because it is a win-win-win.
Good for the environment,
good for investors and good
for BlackRock shareholders.”
A8 | Monday, March 4, 2024 * *** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS
Negotiators Say Gaza Truce Could Be Near
Israel has agreed to Qatar from Sinwar said there
should be no rush to secure a
deal outlines, but hostage deal, said people fa-
Hamas leader has miliar with the discussions.
They said Sinwar was hoping
been out of contact that an Israeli incursion into
the southern Gaza town of Ra-
TEL AVIV—Hamas officials fah over Ramadan would push
are in Cairo for negotiations on Palestinians living in Israel
a potential deal that would see and the West Bank to rise up
the release of hostages in ex- against Israel.
change for a temporary cease- Israel now also believes that
fire in Gaza, according to Egyp- Sinwar may prefer tensions to
tian officials, in a push to stop increase over Ramadan rather
the fighting before the Muslim than achieve a pause in the
holy month of Ramadan. fighting, according to the Is-
raeli official.
By Summer Said, Israel has agreed to the
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
Israel gave Hamas a Rama-
dan deadline to return hos-
tages held in Gaza or face a
ground offensive in Rafah.
Ramadan begins this year
around March 10.
Adding to the urgency for all
sides to strike a deal is the
need to stave off famine inside
Gaza. Up to 15 children have
died from dehydration and
malnutrition in recent days in
northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan
Hospital, Gaza’s health ministry
said on Sunday.
Benny Gantz, a minister in
Israel’s war cabinet and leading
political rival to Israeli Prime

Dov Lieber and framework of a deal hammered Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,

Carrie Keller-Lynn out late last month in Paris by landed on Sunday in Washing-
U.S., Qatari, and Egyptian me- ton, where he plans to meet
Negotiators believe Hamas diators, Israeli and U.S. officials with Harris and national secu-
and Israel are making slow said. That framework includes rity adviser Jake Sullivan on
progress and could strike an a six-week pause in the fight- Monday.
agreement before Ramadan, ing and a major influx of aid Gantz will discuss the issue
Egyptian officials said. A senior into Gaza, but Hamas hasn’t of aid deliveries into Gaza as
Hamas official said that the yet provided a detailed re- well as push the U.S. adminis-
first week of Ramadan is a Palestinian children carried water containers on Sunday in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. sponse. tration to pressure Hamas to
more realistic target for a deal. Vice President Kamala Har- accept the framework for a
Israel has agreed to the out- rael made over the weekend. Is- ers it wants freed and how according to the Israeli official. ris urged Hamas to accept the hostage release and temporary
lines of a deal, according to an rael believes it is negotiating many for each hostage re- Another major challenge deal. “Given the immense scale cease-fire deal that was agreed
Israeli official and a U.S. offi- over the fate of some 40 hos- leased. remains: Hamas’s leader in of suffering in Gaza, there must to by Israel.
cial. But the Israeli official ex- tages who are sick, elderly or Israel decided on Sunday Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, hasn’t be an immediate cease-fire for The growing humanitarian
pressed concern over whether female, but it doesn’t know who not to send a senior delegation been in contact for at least a at least the next six weeks,” crisis and lack of aid has gar-
Hamas was sincere in reaching is still alive, the official said. to Cairo to participate in nego- week, raising concerns that she said on Sunday. “This will nered worldwide attention af-
an agreement after the delega- Hamas on Sunday also tiations after it was told by me- the man who can implement a get the hostages out and get a ter a deadly aid-delivery at-
tion in Cairo failed to provide a didn’t provide answers on two diators that Hamas officials deal won’t be reachable, Egyp- significant amount of aid in.” tempt on Thursday in which
list of living hostages and the key sticking points, according had arrived in the Egyptian tian and Qatari officials say. “Hamas claims it wants a Gaza health authorities say
status of their conditions—a to Egyptian and Israeli offi- capital without answers to sev- The latest message sent to cease-fire,” she added. “Well, more than 100 Palestinians
demand that mediators say Is- cials: which Palestinian prison- eral of Israel’s main demands, Hamas political leadership in there is a deal on the table.’’ were killed.

Claims Charities Are Tied to Hamas Split U.S., Israel

BY IAN TALLEY on Israel. Since then, they have
used sanctions to target Hamas
WASHINGTON—An interna- financiers, currency exchanges
tional push to disrupt Hamas and corporate networks, as
financing has hit a roadblock well as offering multimillion-
over an effort to determine dollar bounties for information
which charities are helping on financial facilitators.
the militant group and which But now, more than four
are legitimate nonprofits rais- months later, the U.S. has yet
ing funds to address the hu- to act against many nonprofit
manitarian crisis in Gaza, groups that Israel says are run
Western officials said. by Hamas, including charities
The U.S., Israel and more in the U.S. and Europe. These
than a dozen allies created a groups have directed tens of
task force on terror financing millions of dollars to Gaza
following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack since the war began, accord-
ing to current and former
Western officials.
The U.S. and others have
acted against a number of the
organizations flagged by Is-
rael, said a senior U.S. official,
but in a lot of cases “allies
have been asking for credible
evidence for a long time, but
are still waiting.”
The disagreement over the
charities comes as the U.S.
pushes for a cease-fire in Gaza
in the midst of mounting Pal-
estinian deaths and a worsen-
ing humanitarian crisis, as
well as a debate over Israeli
allegations linking United Na-
tions Relief and Works Agency
staff to Hamas. Washington
and other Western capitals
suspended aid to Unrwa after
Israel said 12 of the organiza-
tion’s staffers were involved in
the Oct. 7 Hamas assault.
The U.S. intelligence commu-
nity has found it likely that
some Unrwa workers took part
in the attack but hasn’t sub-
stantiated claims that a large
number of the agency’s workers
are tied to the militant group.
When it comes to the mul-
titude of other organizations
aiding Gaza, U.S. officials say
they distinguish between real
and fake charities, but are
cautious of overreach that
could target legitimate hu-
manitarian nonprofits and
play into Hamas propaganda.
“When we have credible ev-
idence of sham charities that
terrorists are using to raise or
move funds, we will not hesi-
tate to designate them,” the
senior U.S. official said.
Hamas collects about $100
million a year from its chief
benefactor, Iran, as well as
revenue from a global invest-
ment portfolio and donations
through nonprofit organiza-
tions abroad, Western officials
said. But Israel’s military op-
eration has deprived Hamas of
its biggest source of funding:
the roughly $600 million a
year the group collected in
taxes in Gaza.
As a result, foreign funding,
including from charities, is
now critical for the group,
Western officials said.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 4, 2024 | A9

WORLD NEWS

Migrants Share of foreign-born

in working-age population
2011 2021*
Share of U.K. National
Health Service staff
with non-U.K. nationality†
September 2022. Now, de-
mand is exploding. Von Un-
gern-Sternberg plans to bring

Drive Labor Australia 30% Nurses

All Staff
in about 140 Indian workers
this year. That number could
triple in the future, he said.

In the West Canada

Germany
25

20
From auto mechanics to con-
struction, local businesses are
clamoring for his young Indian
recruits. Chambers of handi-
Continued from Page One crafts across Germany are seek-
Migration Advisory Committee, U.K. 15 ing his help in starting similar
which advises the British gov- projects. The program also ben-
ernment on migration policy. U.S. 10 efits consumers by helping
The debate is likely to heat keep butchers’ costs low.
0% 10 20 30 2010 ’13 ’16 ’18 ’20 ’22
up further as Western societies Across the border in Swit-
teeter closer to a demographic Total factor productivity in agriculture, zerland, where Indian workers
abyss. For the first time since average annual growth rate 2001-10 2011-19 aren’t available, meat costs
World War II, the working-age nearly four times as much.
BAPTISTE SCHMITT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

population is shrinking across Australia However, Swiss business own-

advanced economies. The Euro- ers have also been experi-
pean Union’s working-age pop- Japan menting with new technolo-
ulation is expected to shrink by gies, including sausage-
one-fifth through 2050, accord- Korea vending machines known as
ing to a recent report by Ger- Wurstautomaten, which could
man insurer Allianz. U.K. reduce the need for small-
There are ways to offset scale butcher’s shops and ulti-
that trend, such as encouraging U.S. mately help bring prices down.
older workers to delay retire- –0.5% 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 Meanwhile, opposition to
ment. But importing foreign la- immigration is rising in Ger-
*2021 or most recent year available †As percentage of staff with known nationality
bor is often the easiest option, Sources: OECD (foreign-born, total factor productivity); many, which suggests the
given the supply of available Ankush Kankar is an apprentice auto mechanic in Germany. U.K. National Health Service (health service staff) butchers’ reliance on imported
workers in places such as Latin labor might not be sustainable.
America or Africa. tional Health Service’s nurses gration expert at the University selling raspberry-picking ro- Emmett, a farmer and official Support for the anti-immigrant
Immigration also provides a are from abroad, up from of Sydney, said some low-skilled bots, which stand 6 feet tall at the National Farmers’ Alternative for Germany party
rush of economic growth as around 14% in 2013. In Ger- migration is probably necessary with four plastic arms. Union, a trade group. recently hit a high of 23%.
migrants boost populations many, about 80% of slaughter- in the short term because of Yet for governments, pur- Some industries, including In Wisconsin, Rosenow, the
and spend money, even when house workers are migrants, skills shortages. Without it, suing overhauls that boost manufacturing and plantations, dairy farmer, said he is skepti-
it elicits blowback from con- unions estimated. some child-care services in Aus- productivity and allow weaker have since been allowed to hire cal of the automated milking
servative groups, as it has in Increased reliance on low- tralia would shut and vegeta- firms to die is a lot harder foreigners following appeals, machines that he said are ad-
the U.S. and Europe. skilled imported labor can bles would die in the fields. than increasing immigration, but the broader freeze on for- vertised in farm magazines.
Immigration is now running lead to weaker productivity Economic research suggests said Dan Andrews, a produc- eign workers remains in place. Some neighbors experimented
two to three times above pre- growth, which ultimately de- that an influx of high-skilled tivity expert at the with robots but went back to
pandemic levels across major termines how fast economies migrants, such as scientists OECD. “Some countries may human labor because the ro-
destination countries including can expand, some economic and engineers, can actually lift have taken the easy way out.” German debate bots constantly needed repairs,
Canada, Germany and the U.K. research suggests. firms’ produc- Hoping to The debates are also intensi- he said. Robots would also cost
In the U.S., 3.3 million more Labor-productivity growth tivity and boost accelerate auto- fying in Germany, where busi- twice as much as immigrant
migrants arrived than left last has been sluggish across ad- local workers’ mation in agri- nesses including butcher shops workers and be costly to main-
year, compared with a 2010s vanced economies in recent wages and em- Economists are culture, the in the foothills of the Black tain, he said. With immigrants,
average of around 900,000. years. In the U.S. and U.K. ployment op- divided on the U.K. govern- Forest are becoming more reli- “labor is no constraint.”
Three quarters of farmwork- farming sectors, productivity portunities. ment is pouring ant on imported labor. Onan Whitcomb, a dairy
ers and 30% of construction has flatlined for a decade or Economists economic money into Young people don’t want to farmer in Vermont, disagrees.
and mining workers in the U.S. longer. In Japan and South are more di- farm technol- train as butchers anymore, local He said that when he wanted to
today are migrants. Overall, im- Korea, which have more re- vided when it
impact of lower- ogy. It is also businesses said, because it is increase production he decided
migrants made up 18% of the strictive immigration policies, comes to lower- skilled migrants. considering unglamorous work, with low not to hire immigrant workers.
U.S. workforce in 2021, com- it increased by around 1.5% a skilled mi- abolishing rules pay. Labor shortages are one Instead, he spent $800,000 on
pared with 16% a decade ear- year, OECD data show. grants. Such that allow com- reason why the number of four Dutch-made milking ro-
lier, according to the Organiza- Finding the right balance workers are also panies to pay butcher shops has roughly bots. Milk production per cow
tion for Economic Cooperation between allowing some migra- more easily replaced, including migrant workers 20% less halved in the past two decades. has grown by 30% and the inci-
and Development, a Paris-based tion and avoiding overdepen- in industries that seem unlikely than the going rate for jobs, Three years ago, Handirk dence of mastitis, an inflamma-
club of mostly rich countries. dence is hard. In many indus- candidates for automation. prompting protests from von Ungern-Sternberg, an offi- tory disease, has declined by
tries, there is no obvious In the Czech Republic, farmers’ lobby groups. They cial at the local chamber of 80%, he said. Whitcomb said he
alternative to foreign workers. some farmers are using artifi- said farmers adopt technology handicrafts, started a pilot was able to cut 2.5 jobs, and
U.K. surge Going cold turkey would cial-intelligence-driven robots quickly if it is available, but project to recruit butchers’ the investment paid for itself in
Despite promising for de- send prices for products made to monitor and harvest straw- that robots are no good at apprentices in India, taking seven years.
cades to curb immigration, the from migrant labor higher. It berries. Israeli startup Tevel picking fruit and vegetables. advantage of a change in Ger- “We were milking 300
U.K. has seen a surge since its would also leave many people Aerobotics Technologies has “The technology that we man law that made it easier to cows and we went to 240, and
2020 exit from the EU, as in poorer countries with fewer developed fruit-picking are aiming for is five years hire low-skilled workers from we still made more” milk,
businesses seek out employ- options to pursue better lives. drones. Fieldwork Robotics, a away.…We were saying that outside the EU. The first batch Whitcomb said. “That’s hard
ees. More than 27% of the Na- Anna Boucher, a global mi- U.K. company, recently started five years ago,” said Martin of 13 young Indians arrived in to beat.”

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A10 | Monday, March 4, 2024
Unsolved
Deaths
Add Up
Continued from Page One
the gunship, he collected a
$500,000 reward and encour-
aged his countrymen to follow
his example.
“When all this opens up be-
fore you, your views will fun-
damentally change,” he said in
an interview filmed and posted
on YouTube by Ukraine’s De-
fense Ministry. “You’ll simply
discover a world of colors.”
Now Kuzminov—gunned
down in Villajoyosa, a coastal
resort that translates as “Joy-
ful Town”—has become the
latest name on a lengthening
list of unsolved deaths of Rus-
sians who soured on Vladimir
Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Spain hasn’t identified a sus-
pect, although investigators
believe the murder was or-
dered by the Kremlin, an offi-
cial involved in the investiga-
tion said.
Moscow hasn’t denied kill-
ing the pilot. “This traitor and
criminal became a moral
corpse at the very moment
when he planned his dirty and
terrible crime,” Sergey Narysh-
kin, Russia’s foreign intelli-
gence chief, told its state news
agency TASS.
Subversive ideas
Since the invasion of
Ukraine, prominent Russians
have died in unusual circum-
stances on three continents.
Some were thought to harbor
politically subversive ideas,
while others may have been
caught up in run-of-the-mill
criminal warfare. Some may
have actually died of natural
causes. But there are enough
of them that Wikipedia pub-
lishes a running list, at 51
names, entitled “Suspicious
deaths of Russian business
people (2022–2024).”
Businessmen have been
found hanged in London and
drowned in Puerto Rico. A rul-
ing-party boss fell from the
roof of an Indian hotel and a
46-year-old deputy science
minister died of an unex-
plained illness on a return
flight from Cuba.
Spanish police are still in-
vestigating the 2022 deaths of
Sergey Protosenya, the former
deputy chairman at gas pro-
ducer Novatek JSC, and his
wife and daughter in their
Clippy
Makes a
Comeback
Continued from Page One
rized.”
It wasn’t, and Bordoloi has
since rebranded his chatbot as
Paperclip, much to his chagrin.
“They’re really just doing it for
the name, which they don’t
use, and that’s basically unfair,”
he said.
“Clippy isn’t just a paper
clip, he’s a legend,” said a Mi-
crosoft spokesperson. “He may
have been retired, but he never
gave up,” adding Clippy contin-
ues to be celebrated in memes,
fan art and tattoos.
For a character whose whole
purpose is to help, Clippy has
endured a lot of controversy.
From the start, he was an
underdog, said Kevan Atte-
berry, the graphic artist who
created Clippy, while working
home near Barcelona.
Last month, Russian inde-
pendent media reported that
the 35-year old son of Igor
Sechin, Putin’s confidant and
chief executive of oil giant Ros-
neft, died at his Moscow lux-
ury apartment complex, known
as “Putin’s Friend’s House.”
There are no obvious Krem-
lin fingerprints on these
deaths. Not so for another co-
hort, murdered in spectacular
operations planned like theater
productions scripted for maxi-
mum public impact. Two
months after launching an
aborted mutiny, the rogue
commander of the Wagner
mercenary group, Yevgeny
Prigozhin, was blown up at
28,000 feet. His jet crashed
into a patch of meadow about
40 miles from Putin’s lakeside
residence.
Opposition leader Alexei Na-
valny was poisoned with the
easily detectable nerve agent
Novichok in 2020, then died
suddenly in an Arctic prison
colony last month, just as a
deal to free him was coming
together. The Kremlin has said
the cause of his death is one
for medical authorities to es-
tablish. Few in the West buy
that. “Make no mistake. Putin
is responsible for Navalny’s
death,” President Biden told
reporters last month.
New spy war
The mafia-style assassina-
tion of Kuzminov fits into an-
other hidden undercurrent of
the new spy war between Rus-
sia and the West. Since Putin’s
invasion, Ukraine and its
Western allies have ratcheted
up attempts to hollow out the
Russian state and military by
attracting a stream of defec-
tors they hope could become a
torrent.
The Kremlin, in turn, has
tried to hunt down its turn-
coats, one after the next, to
deter more losses through the
morbid power of example.
In Ukraine, military intelli-
gence set up a 24-hour “I
Want to Live” hotline for Rus-
sian soldiers who wished to
drop their arms and cross
over. More than 260 have de-
serted ranks through it, while
another 26,000 have dialed in,
and daily calls briefly shot up
some 70% after Kuzminov
went public in September, ac-
cording to Petro Yatsenko, a
spokesman for Ukraine’s pris-
oners of war department.
Those numbers couldn’t be in-
dependently verified.
The U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency has produced three
videos encouraging Russians,
as a contractor for Microsoft in
the mid-1990s.
Clippy was one of 240 char-
acters Atteberry and a group of
designers whipped up for Mi-
crosoft Bob, an attempt to
make Microsoft’s software
more human-friendly that
bombed in the mid-1990s. Mi-
crosoft’s software developers
found him condescending and
unhelpful, Atteberry said.
“They all seemed to have
this huge disdain for Clippy.”
Internally, Microsoft devel-
opers referred to him as TFC:
That F— Clown. In product ma-
terials, he was given a name al-
most nobody used: Clippit.
Microsoft brought in Stan-
ford University professors By-
ron Reeves and Clifford Nass to
help with product development
and see what regular folks
thought about the characters.
In studies, Clippy ranked
highly, Reeves said.
But they weren’t crazy
about his behavior. “Clippy was
inappropriate, impolite, not
very socially elegant,” Reeves
said. “Don’t interrupt people
while they’re writing.”
FROM PAGE ONE
especially security officers, to
collaborate with Washington;
the videos generally attract
tens of thousands of views.
The agency says it wouldn’t
keep making them if they
weren’t persuading Russians to
step forward.
“I invite them to do what
others have already done this
past 18 months and join hands
with us—our door is always
open,” British spy chief Rich-
ard Moore told a Prague audi-
ence in a rare speech last year.
“Their secrets will always be
safe with us.”
France has welcomed Maria
Dmitrieva, a doctor who
worked for the Federal Secu-
rity Services, or FSB. Gleb Kar-
akulov, an engineer on Putin’s
presidential guard, sneaked
away to an undisclosed loca-
tion via Turkey last year. In a
video interview with the Dos-
sier Centre, a London-based in-
vestigative group funded by
Russian opposition figure
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, he said
he was responsible for secur-
ing the president’s private
communications, and that he
accompanied Putin on more
than 180 trips.
Boris Bondarev was a diplo-
mat serving at Russia’s perma-
nent mission to the United Na-
Ukraine intelligence officers inspect the helicopter handed over by
Kuzminov in a screengrab from social-media video.
By 2001, Clippy was given
the pink slip. That year, Micro-
soft focused an animated ad-
vertisement for Microsoft Of-
fice XP software on a single
selling point: No Clippy. “Next
to Microsoft Bob, you are the
most annoying thing in com-
puter history,” a user tells
Clippy, who was voiced by co-
median Gilbert Gottfried.
After Clippy
bombed, Atte-
berry was em-
barrassed about Sweaters
his creation. He featuring Clippy
kept it out of
his design port- are listed for
folio. “People
did hate him.
hundreds of
The press hated dollars on eBay.
him. Every-
where you
heard these
slanderous things about Clippy,
and I didn’t want to be tied to
him.”
One day, Atteberry was at a
client’s office when Clippy
popped up on-screen. “I cre-
ated that,” he said. “Most peo-
ple don’t like it.”
“I don’t like it either,” his
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
FROM LEFT: RAFA ARJONES/INFORMACION.ES/REUTERS; MAXYM MARUSENKO/NURPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
Left, Spanish authorities
investigate the murder scene of a
former Russian helicopter pilot,
Maksim Kuzminov, above.
Kuzminov had defected to
Ukraine six months earlier.
tions in Geneva before
resigning in protest two
months after the invasion and
Spanish, European and U.S. po-
lice and intelligence officials;
and Ukrainians involved in the
Caucuses—while undercover
intelligence operatives joined
them, rebuilding ranks de-
seeking refuge in Switzerland.
“My colleagues say, ‘What
can we do? If something hap-
operation to extract him and
his gunship from Russia. Re-
porters also reviewed Kuzmi-
pleted by diplomatic expul-
sions, European officials say.
pens, it happens,’” he said on a
video call in front of a plain
background. “Russian political
nov’s social-media feeds, now
littered with angry posts casti-
gating him for betrayal.
Choking on silver
The president, a former KGB
thinking is getting simpler and The Kremlin didn’t return colonel, has long said he would
simpler: If there is a problem,
requests for comment. When hunt down Russian defectors:
let’s just eliminate him.” the state news agency asked “Whatever they got in return,
The operation to lure Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy those thirty pieces of silver,
Kuzminov was meant to be a chairman of the Security Coun- they will choke on them,” he
proof of concept, hatched by cil of Russia, about the murder, once told a hushed press con-
Ukraine’s military intelligence
he replied: “To a dog, a dog’s ference, after a reporter asked
agency, the Main Directorate of
death.” him if he’d ever signed an or-
Intelligence of the Defense While Ukraine and its West- der to liquidate traitors living
Ministry, or HUR, as Ukraine’sern backers were designing op- in exile.
counteroffensive struggled anderations to recruit officers like Now, his spy services are
the embattled country reached Kuzminov, Russia’s FSB was becoming more brazen and
for new methods. bolstering the architecture to creative in squashing dissent
Over months that followed, stop them. abroad, U.S. and European in-
the ordinary pilot, from a de- The agency’s Third Director- telligence officials say. The
populating town thousands of ate for Military Counterintelli- boundaries between Russia’s
miles from Moscow, became a gence, or DKVR—charged with three main intelligence agen-
test case of whether a high- preventing military defec- cies—the FSB, the GRU mili-
profile defector could stay tions—has swelled since the tary intelligence and SVR for-
alive in the comforts of West-war to become the largest divi- eign intelligence—are
ern Europe, surviving on the sion in the FSB, according to increasingly blurring, analysts
money and new identity security analysts. Its mission say, making it more difficult
Ukraine awarded him. involves spying on one of the to know which is responsible
To reconstruct his defection
world’s largest militaries, for an operation.
and killing, The Wall Street down to the unit level, in a “The services used to be
Journal spoke to the pilot’s country of 11 time zones. very separate but now they are
neighbors and acquaintances Even before the recent ex- exchanging personnel and as-
in Spain—including witnesses pansion, the DVKR was vast: sets,” said Andrei Soldatov,
to his murder—as well as More than 20 of its agents who has been writing about
watched over troops Russia’s security services for
at a single small air more than 20 years. “It’s just
base housing just six like Stalin’s time,” he added,
aircraft in the Kaluga when the Soviet dictator cre-
region, according to ated a new agency called
leaked FSB docu- SMERSH, or “Death to Spies.”
ments from 2012 pub- They are also increasingly
lished on the Russian using foreign nationals in op-
investigative website erations.
Agentura. Last year, British law en-
This network of forcement arrested five Bulgar-
domestic and foreign ians accused of spying for
intelligence agencies Moscow by, among other
has regained its con- things, keeping tabs on Rus-
fidence and influence sian exiles in London.
after the chaos at the In April 2023, Artem Uss, a
beginning of the businessman and son of a close
Ukraine invasion, Eu- Putin ally, escaped from house
ropean security ana- arrest in Italy with the help of
lysts say. Early on, a Serbian criminal gang and
Putin had reportedly avoided extradition to the U.S.
placed top FSB lead- He was being held on criminal
ers under house ar- charges for violating sanctions
rest for badly mis- on military technology. Uss
judging the Ukrainian said the charges were politi-
resistance. European cally motivated.
capitals ejected some Using foreign nationals is a
400 Russian diplo- return to the practices of the
mats, many of whom Stalinist era, when a Spanish
DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE OF UKRAINE/REUTERS
were believed to be assassin, Ramon Mercader,
spies. passed into Soviet spylore by
Putin later released burying an ice pick into the
the FSB bosses, opt- forehead of Leon Trotsky and
ing not to purge the sending a clear message to
ranks. He kept Rus- other enemies of the regime.
sia’s borders open, al- To this day in Russia, “send-
lowing hundreds of ing a Mercader” means dis-
thousands of Russians patching a hit man.
to escape mobilization —Marcos Garcia Rey and
by fleeing to Europe, Kate Vtorygina contributed to
Central Asia and the this article.
client said. “But it’s cool that
you created it.”
Today, Atteberry, now a chil-
appealing mix of being a bit
annoying but also alluring,” he
said. “He’s a bad boy, like
trademark its annoying-but-
lovable paper clip.
Clippy still pops up at Mi-
dren’s-book author, has reas-
sessed his twisted metal cre-
ation. At a writer’s retreat
Christian…from ‘Fifty Shades
of Grey.’ ”
He sent a warning with the
crosoft. This past week, on a
visit to Microsoft’s San Fran-
cisco offices, Clippy was spot-
recently, he was asked to bring
a 3-D model of Clippy so others
could get their picture taken
ebook: “Clippy gets up to some
pretty extreme stuff here, so
make sure you are 18+ and not
ted offering advice on a confer-
ence-room monitor on how to
get audiovisual support.
with him and the paper clip. opening this up on a work But navigating the branding
Over two decades, Clippy computer.” waters of this historic chatbot
has remained You can buy Clippy earrings, isn’t without perils.
among Micro- coffee mugs and T-shirts on Bordoloi, maker of the
soft’s most rec- Etsy. For $10, get a 3-D-printed Clippy AI program, thinks Mi-
ognizable Clippy figurine. That is a hot crosoft made a mistake last
brands. He’s item. Last fall, purchasing soft- year when it gave its latest AI
popped up in ware company Order.co had technology the name Copilot.
“The Simp- four of the figurines stolen “It just sounds kind of ge-
sons,” “Satur- during a competitive Excel neric,” he said. “Clippy would
day Night Live” match at a Manhattan brewery. be a lot better.”
and “Family Starting in 2021, Microsoft Maybe, like so many revolu-
Guy.” began campaigning in earnest tionaries, Clippy was just ahead
On Amazon, to take back Clippy. It started of his time.
he is the subject with a tweet. “If this gets 20k Stanford’s Reeves said
of an erotic ebook of fan fiction likes, we’ll replace the paper Clippy paved the way, showing
titled “Conquered by Clippy.” clip emoji in Microsoft 365 people want to interact with
Its author, a London, On- with Clippy,” the company computers in a human way, as
tario, writer who goes by the promised and threatened. The seen with Amazon’s Alexa and
pen name Leonard Delaney, tweet has 156,000 likes and Apple’s Siri. “I think the way AI
said he wrote the ebook as a Clippy is part of Microsoft 365. is being marketed now is abso-
more curvy follow to an erotic That same year, close to 25 lutely the revenge of Clippy.”
story about Tetris blocks. years after Clippy’s introduc- —Tom Dotan contributed to
“Clippy has that erotically tion, Microsoft filed papers to this article.
 PERSONAL JOURNAL.
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 4, 2024 | A11

BY JULIA CARPENTER

I
t is human nature to judge
your financial health against
your friends. Just know they
probably aren’t giving you a
full accounting.
How we measure up against
our friends and peers has an out-
size effect on our financial percep-
tion, economists and researchers
say—especially as people spend
more time scrolling social media.
These comparisons can make our
finances seem inadequate even
when things are going fairly well.
This effect is playing a part in
the disconnect leading many con-
sumers to feel dour about the
economy despite several promis-
ing factors, such as cooling infla-
tion, a strong labor market and a
U.S. economy that grew 3.1% over
the past year.
In some ways, the more down-
beat viewpoint reflects financial
realities. Millions of Americans are
paying more in rent, while food is
taking up a larger share of income
than it has in decades. But the dis-
connect is also exacerbated by our
friends and the way many of them
present only the rosiest view of
their finances and families on so-
cial media.
A recent report from Edelman
Financial Engines surveyed more
than 2,000 people regarding their
attitudes about their wealth.
Around a quarter said they feel
less satisfied with the amount of
money they have because of social
media, and a third said they have
spent more than they could afford
to “keep up with the Joneses” on
Instagram and other apps.

Feeling Broke? Blame It on

With two kids in college, Kris-
tie and Jeff Gleinig said they
couldn’t understand how people
they followed were going on glam-
orous vacations and making big-

Peer Pressure and Social Media

ticket purchases.
Kristie, a 51-year-old business
owner in Portland, Texas, said
that noticing this highlight reel
phenomenon then prompted her to
check that same impulse in her- We tend to measure our financial health based on our friends—and what they post
self. She started post-
ing less publicly on
social media and in-  As local business investors, ranking, they felt less need to fessor of marketing at the Univer-
stead kept her focus Stephanie and Trevor Bernhardt branch out and make other compar- sity of Michigan. I
on the health of their say they keep their focus on their isons, said Bernardo Candia Gonza- “There’s no objective answer to
local businesses— community and ‘tune out the noise.’ lez, a Ph.D. student at the University ‘Am I doing well? Or not?’” he
which managed to of California, Berkeley, and one of said. “On social media, it’s still
stay strong through the authors of the study. ‘birds of a feather flock together’
the pandemic—and ness. He soon found the images he “If you realize that your posi- in who we follow and who the al-
the progress she and saw overwhelmed him with feel- tion is good, then you want to gorithm presents to us. It’s very
Jeff made toward ings of inadequacy. brag about it,” Gonzalez said. “And much enforcing our worldview.”
their individual fi- “You can feel like a poor man if you realize that your position is Rather than constantly recali-
nancial goals, such as quickly,” she recalled him saying. not good, then you are ashamed.” brating their financial plan based on
financing their chil- “And I said, ‘you’re right. All those cues, Trevor said he and his
dren’s education. you’re getting is a glimpse of this ‘Tune out the noise’ wife try to treat their personal fi-
“It can give you a perfection.’ It makes you feel like Stephanie and Trevor Bernhardt, nances like they do their businesses:
narrow view,” she you’re not doing enough.” the 27-year-old owners of two fro- by analyzing a household version of
said of social media. As humans, we’re always dou- zen yogurt stores outside of India- a profit-and-loss statement.
“You have to proac- ble-checking how our own budget napolis, said they work hard to The Bernhardts joined their lo-
tively reach out and decisions and purchases match up “tune out the noise” of how the cal chamber of commerce. They
look beyond social to those we know. New research economy is doing on social media. said this helped them better bal-
media.” shows we are also always calibrat- “Maybe it sounds bad to say ance their focus on their individ-
ing how high our perceived in- that,” Trevor said. “Most people, ual businesses with the health of
FROM TOP: ALEX NABAUM; JENNA MEDJESKI

The comparison trap
Time on social media creates more
opportunities to feel bad about
ourselves and our financial pic-
ture, said Isabel Barrow, director
of financial planning at Edelman
Financial Engines. The survey
found a strong link between over-
spending and time spent on social
media, Barrow said.
“It’s not always a super con-
scious decision,” Barrow said. “We
know we can’t afford this but
we’re doing it out of this sense of
jealousy.”
Nina O’Neal, a partner and in-
vestment adviser with AIM Advi-
sors, recalls discussing this dis-
connect with a friend who was
using Instagram to build his busi-
come is relative to them, too.
The study looked at how differ-
ent groups judged their own finan-
cial well-being after learning where
they ranked within the peer group
in terms of income and debt load.
People were happier when they
thought they were doing better
than their peer group. When they
felt that they were at the top of this
when they’re talking about [the
economy], they’re really only talk-
ing about what they saw on a
Facebook post or a TikTok or an
Instagram Reel.”
Social media sometimes gives
people the false impression that
your sphere of influence is larger
and more diverse than it actually
is, said Scott Rick, associate pro-
the greater community in which
those businesses participate.
“I actually tend to be pessimis-
tic, but what we’ve seen locally, I
feel hopeful,” Stephanie said. “Ev-
erything in our little local market
is pointing to the fact that things
are growing and developing, so
we’re not scared to grow and de-
velop and build ourselves.”

New Covid Guidance

contagious.
At-home rapid tests
aren’t always reliable, ei-

Treats Virus Like Flu

ther. So if you test nega-
tive but you still have
symptoms, you should
test again in a few days.
The bottom line, says
spiratory viral] illnesses, including Parsonnet, is that you
YOUR influenza and RSV.” should try to protect your
HEALTH Plenty of Americans dropped family, friends and col-
SUMATHI Covid testing and isolation periods leagues when you are
REDDY long ago as the virus became more sick, no matter what you
routine. Many schools and work- have. Stay home if you
places hadn’t been enforcing the feel ill. If you have a

A
case of Covid no longer
means isolating for five days,
according to the latest guid-
ance from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention released Fri-
day. It’s the latest sign of the virus’s
normalization four years after it up-
ended our lives.
You should now follow the same
precautions with Covid as you take
with the flu, according to new
guidelines from the CDC. That
means staying home until you’ve
gone a day with no fever and im-
proving symptoms. Take other pre-
cautions for the next five days, in-
cluding wearing a mask and limiting
close contact with others.
Those are the same steps the
CDC recommends for other respira-
IRFAN KHAN/LOS ANGELES TIMES/GETTY IMAGES
stricter CDC guidance, and some
states have already relaxed their
Covid guidance.
Many doctors say that at this
point, common sense should guide
you. If you feel sick, stay home.
When you’re feeling well enough to
go out but still have some symp-
toms, it’s a good idea to wear a
mask indoors to protect others. Be
more cautious if you’re going to be
around more vulnerable people.
Even if you’re not worried about
health risks, there’s still the disrup-
tion of getting sick. So if you have a
big trip coming up, an important job
deadline looming or you just don’t
want to juggle work and a sniffly
kid, adjust your precautions to fit
your tolerance level.
the flu,” said Jackson. “It still causes
more serious illness and leads to
more lasting effects,” he said.
Public-health experts and physi-
cians note that Covid is still a dis-
ease that is cited as a cause of
death in more than 1,000 people a
week, according to CDC data. And
long Covid, with symptoms that can
linger months and even years,
hasn’t gone away.
What your symptoms mean
The CDC’s latest guidance under-
 If you have some symptoms of
Covid, doctors say it’s a good idea
to wear a mask indoors to
protect others.
are less likely to spread the virus,
but it is possible to spread it with-
out having symptoms, says Deepta
Bhattacharya, a professor of immu-
nobiology at the University of Ari-
zona College of Medicine in Tucson.
When you are coughing and
sneezing a lot, you tend to be more
infectious, because you are emitting
runny nose and cough,
test yourself and wear a
mask, she says.
When to go out
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an
infectious-disease specialist at the
University of California, San Fran-
cisco, says it is reasonable to follow
more relaxed isolation guidelines.
Now that so many of us have
been infected and reinfected, and
gotten vaccinated at least once, our
immune defenses against the virus
are stronger, he notes. And we have
more tools to fight it if we do get
sick, including anti-viral medications.
How often to vaccinate
Most people should get a Covid

tory viruses.
“Covid-19 is still an important
public health threat, but it is not
the emergency that it once was,”
said Dr. Brendan Jackson, who leads
the respiratory virus response for
the CDC’s National Center for Im-
munization and Respiratory Disease,
on Friday.
“And its health impacts increas-
ingly resemble those of other [re-
Just like the flu?
Covid-19 hospitalization and death
numbers are still higher than those
of the flu, but the gap has narrowed
since the early days of the pan-
demic.
However, public health officials
cautioned that Covid still isn’t the
same as the flu or other respiratory
viruses. “Let’s be clear. Covid-19 is not
scores that you’re most contagious
early in your illness.
“We want folks to recognize that
the majority of virus spread is hap-
pening when you’re sickest and as
the days go on less virus spreads,”
said CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen.
However, assessing your symptoms
isn’t a foolproof way to tell how
contagious you are.
In general, asymptomatic people
lots of viral particles into the air.
But you can still spread it simply by
breathing, without coughing or
sneezing.
Covid in general doesn’t usually
cause a lot of fever, says Dr. Julie
Parsonnet, a professor of medicine
and infectious-disease doctor at
Stanford. So the absence of fever
isn’t a dependable sign that you are
Covid-free, or that you aren’t
vaccine once a year, likely in the fall
around the same time as you get
your flu shot, to bolster your im-
mune defenses for the winter when
cases rise.
Older people should get vacci-
nated more often.
The CDC recently urged people
65 years and older to get a spring
booster at least four months after
their last dose.
A12 | Monday, March 4, 2024
BY TE-PING CHEN
T
he way we meet has
changed radically in re-
cent years: It is more
online, with more brev-
ity and many more
emojis. Is it better?
Priya Parker, author of best-
selling book “The Art of Gather-
ing: How We Meet and Why It
Matters,” has spent the past de-
cade advising corporate and non-
profit leaders on how to improve
their gatherings, both online and
off. As companies try to navigate
the world of hybrid work, with
virtual meetings that straddle
peoples’ backyards and office
conference rooms, Parker says
new tools are revolutionizing
workplaces in ways we might not
have grasped.
The Wall Street Journal talked
with Parker about how the ways
that we do—and don’t—work
alongside each other are trans-
forming workplaces, how to create
serendipity online and how lead-
ers should approach freewheeling
communication tools like Slack.
How are hybrid and
virtual meetings changing
work culture?
All organizations basically have
vibes and cultures. And a huge
part of remote and hybrid work is
that we’ve killed the vibes, and so
our perceptions of each other, our
understanding of what our work
is, our understanding of what the
workplace is, is now primarily
through mediocre meetings.
On Zoom, when everything is
muted, the signals that you get as
to whether or not a group is with
you are deleted. It becomes a
sterile environment. You can’t
hear people’s sighs, groans or
laughs. It destroys one of the core
elements of group conversation,
which is a feedback loop: call and
response.
There are legitimate concerns
from senior leaders that much of
what allows for new people to
succeed in an organization is
based on apprenticeship and in-
formal interactions—which in-per-
son work provided. The mode of
conversation that happens when
you’re not being watched by 20
people [on a video meeting] is
fundamentally different. You can
absolutely design meaningful con-
nection through remote work, but
it’s a skill.
Is it possible to create
serendipity online? Or does
the water-cooler effect only
exist in person?
In the future, serendipity will ei-
ther be designed or dead. The
great American cities were de-
signed for run-ins, for bump-ins.
In the office, we have open floor
plans, hallways and water coolers.
The digital office planners of the
21st century will equally be de-
signing for some of that spontane-
ity and serendipity.
Some of the biggest progress I
see is companies trying to help
people brainstorm digitally. Some
organizations are experimenting
with starting every meeting, par-
ticularly with large groups, in
spontaneous breakout rooms, and
Count on
Two-Factor
Codes to
Offer Online
Security
PERSONAL
TECHNOLOGY
NICOLE
NGUYEN
T
here’s a basic equation for on-
line security:
Long, unique passwords +
two-factor authentication = safer
money, work and personal data
With a password manager, that
first component is easy. The soft-
ware can create a different hard-to-
guess combination of numbers and
letters for each online account you
have. It also stores those gibberish
passwords safely, then auto-fills
them in websites and apps when
you need them. All you need to do
is remember one master password.
And that second component? You
typically see two-factor authentica-
tion—aka 2FA—as a time-sensitive
code sent to you via text or gener-
ated by an app when you’re logging
in somewhere. In many cases, it’s a
setting you need to turn on. Don’t
treat this as optional: Recent attacks
on the Securities and Exchange
Commission’s official X account and
thousands of accounts at 23andMe
might have been blocked had those
users enabled 2FA.
PERSONAL JOURNAL.
Virtual Meetings Are
Killing the Office Vibe
Author Priya Parker on saving workplace culture in the hybrid era
having appropriate icebreaker
questions at hand. Or chat rou-
lette. The important part is that
leaders also show up.
There’s not a trick to getting
people to come online or come to
work. People go to where they feel
needed, where they feel like their
participation matters, where
there’s relevancy.
So how can companies make
people want to gather in
person? Do we all do more
off-sites with cold plunges?
Make the time spent in person ex-
cellent, helping people experience
the different conversations that
can happen, getting people to
brainstorm in ways that are more
clunky online. There are ways to
use adventures like cold plunges
or shared experiences to build
trust, but it shouldn’t be a dis-
traction. What people want most
Two-factor codes are
a necessary security
layer but they are incon-
venient at best, and
hazardous at worst if
you lose access to the
device that generates
them.
Lately, I’ve discov-
ered better tools and
practices that simplify
the 2FA process.
Have a backup
Verification codes by
text message are the
least secure form of
2FA, because cell-carrier
accounts are prone to attacks, said
Trevor Hilligoss, vice president of se-
curity firm SpyCloud Labs. That said,
if it’s your only option, you should
still use it. “Any 2FA is better than
no 2FA,” he said.
A better bet is to set up an au-
thenticator app to generate the
codes you need to sign in.
Log into a website
or app, then go into
settings. Under secu-
rity, you should find Don’t treat
two-factor or “multi- two-factor
factor” authentica-
tion—and a bevy of authentication
options, including one
for authenticator or
—aka 2FA—as
code-generator apps. optional.
Typically, the next
screen will show a
QR code. In your au-
thenticator app, add an account,
then scan the code.
One caveat: If you lose your
phone—or forget to transfer your
authenticator app before trading
your old phone in for a new one—
you could risk losing access to ac-
counts. The trick is to pick an app
with a backup plan.
from their work is to feel like
they’re building their skills, their
work matters, they’re part of
something greater than them-
selves, and that they like their
team. Gathering well doesn’t need
to mean gathering lavishly. Al-
most the opposite—lavishness can
be a distraction.
Are there any ways virtual
meeting tools can actually be
more powerful?
There are conversations you can
absolutely have on Zoom that you
can’t in person. In a 1,000-person
town hall on Zoom, you can actu-
ally get a lot of data by the chat
box, which is a completely differ-
ent dynamic than when you’re
in-person.
There are absolutely meetings
everybody should not be involved
in. But in the future, leaders will
have more discernment and choice
 Authy, a free authenticator
app for iOS and Android, is my top
choice. Its key benefit is a pair of
recovery options: You can back up
an encrypted version of your codes
to Authy servers by enabling the
Backup Password option in set-
tings. Or you can download the app
on multiple devices, say your phone
and your tablet, and
the same codes will
show on both.
 Google Authen-
ticator is another free
option for iOS and
Android devices. You
can back up codes to
your Google account,
so you can set up the
app on a new device
even if you don’t
have your old one.
However, you can’t run the app si-
multaneously on multiple devices.
Another highly secure, but some-
times cumbersome, way to handle
2FA: physical dongles called security
keys. Major online services support
these keys. Most password manag-
ers do too. You can set the key up
as a backup-verification method, in
over who can be part of some-
thing, and practice more inten-
tional and chosen transparency.
In the next five to 10 years,
how will work gatherings
change?
I think we’ll see more intentional
in-person gatherings. When your
employees are saying, “Prove it to
me,” why we need to gather, you
need to start putting resources in
to prove it, with more respect
placed on facilitation skills. The
time we have together is so sacred
and so expensive, so we need to
really deeply use it well.
We’ll also see much more so-
phistication in creating meaning-
ful online connection, with more
apps and tools that will allow for
not just large-scale participation,
but circles of small groups and
more intimate connections across
the workplace.
addition to your authenticator app,
and stash it in a safe place in the
physical world where cybercriminals
can’t get to it.
Password managers, such as
1Password and Dashlane, can also
generate verification codes which are
backed up by your master password.
Relying on password managers
for everything is putting all your cy-
bersecurity eggs in one basket, said
Hilligoss. But if you protect your
password-manager app with a
strong, unique master password,
and create a long, complex pass-
code for your phone and other de-
vices, you’re well-protected.
Other devices
You’re on your laptop, trying to log
into Amazon. It asks for an authen-
tication code. You realize you left
your phone, which has your authen-
ticator app, charging in the other
room. Sigh.
Don’t get up. There’s a better way!
My favorite authentication app,
Authy, works on any newer Mac
computer with an M chip—denoting
Apple silicon. Unfortunately, Twilio,
the app’s parent company, said it’s
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
 Priya Parker advises companies
on how to improve their
gatherings, online and off.
How will we see virtual
meeting etiquette evolve?
Cameras on or off?
For me, I prefer phone calls. Zoom
is high touch, but it’s quite drain-
ing, staring at our own face, not
having exact times for mirroring
back and forth. Leaders in the fu-
ture will know that cameras on,
Zoom on, is the highest-value real
estate. The teams I work with de-
velop norms as to what’s a phone
call, what’s a Slack, and what’s a
Zoom. Zoom shouldn’t necessarily
be a default.
In the future, there will also be
more norms around Zoom back-
grounds, blurred versus not.
Whether or not your background
is a fancy living room or a shoe-
box apartment, it’s information
that does not ricochet equally. I
think we’ll look back at this time
and be shocked at the lack of care
of what we asked employees to
show or not show without actually
thinking about it.
These days, workers are
spending a lot of time
gathering in open forums like
Slack. Do you see more
leaders trying to rein in such
spaces?
Slack is the biggest Trojan horse—
it basically shifted who gets to
create groups and what conversa-
tions get to be about, forever. It
shifts power across a company to
everyone, and it increases com-
plexity. It also can increase inclu-
sion. When companies have reck-
onings, there are often private
Slack groups created by disenfran-
chised populations that have come
together.
There have been companies
that have tried to retroactively
ban specific types of conversation
and have had that deeply back-
fire. Leaders need to think in a
very deep way about the purpose
of their organization and these
tools, and the norms around how
they use them. Why are we here
on this Slack channel, and what
are the terms? It’s a conversation.
In most cases, just banning a tool
doesn’t work.
What are your biggest
meeting pet peeves?
When everybody is in their own
Zoom, but three people happen to
find each other in the hallway and
decide to take the call together.
Then you have three people on
mute having their own party in
one window and everyone else is
watching them. It’s very hard to
focus.
Also meetings that start with
FERNANDO PALAFOX FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
logistics. People are asking, “Why
am I here?,” and someone’s saying,
“Well, before we get started, I just
want to let you know there’s a car
in the parking lot with their lights
on.” Don’t miss your shot. Don’t
start with logistics, don’t end with
logistics.
And TBD calendar holds with
no agenda, no title. To me, the
biggest pet peeve is wasting peo-
ple’s time.
no longer supporting desktop apps
for Windows and older Macs start-
ing March 19.
If you use a third-party password
manager for authentication codes,
you can get them on your computer
via your manager’s desktop app or
browser extension.
If you are stuck getting codes on
your phone, remember this trick: If
you have an iPhone and a Mac, you
can copy the code on your phone
then instantly paste on the Mac. Be
sure Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are on, and
enable Handoff in settings. If you’re
using Android and a Windows PC or
Chromebook, you can use an equiva-
lent feature, called Quick Share.
Share your secrets
Another familiar scenario: Your
spouse is logging on to pay the cable
bill, but you’re the one getting the
account 2FA codes while sitting in a
meeting at work. There are secure—
and convenient—ways to share 2FA
with someone who needs access to
your accounts.
You can add any accounts you co-
manage to a shared vault in a pass-
word manager. Our three recom-
mended managers, 1Password,
Dashlane and Bitwarden, all have en-
crypted features for sharing pass-
words, plus verification codes.
If you have Apple products up-
dated to the latest software, you can
create a group to share passwords
and verification codes in the built-in
iCloud Keychain manager. Go to Set-
tings > Passwords.
If you have to text a code to
someone, make sure you do it via an
encrypted method, such as iMessage,
WhatsApp or Signal. Better yet, call
your trusted recipient, and read the
code out loud. Unless there’s a
hacker hiding behind your chair, that
ISTOCK
should be safe.
 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
EXHIBITION REVIEW
Service Through a Roman Soldier’s Eyes
The British Museum mounts an expansive show exploring the people who were part of ancient Rome’s military machine
BY DOMINIC GREEN
L
London
ife in a Roman legion was
nasty, brutish and, pro-
viding a legionary sur-
vived his 25-year enlist-
ment, a long march to
citizenship and wealth.
“Legion,” now at the British Mu-
seum, is a superb exploration of
the men, women, children and
slaves who were part of Rome’s
military machine. Curated by the
British Museum’s Richard Abdy,
“Legion” traces the life of sword
and sandal through more than 200
objects across 10 spaces, with
loans from 28 lenders. Armies are
impersonal collectives, like the le-
gionaries’ tortuga, their “turtle” of
shields. “Legion” personalizes our
understanding with wall texts and
object labels bearing excerpts
from the letters of Claudius Teren-
tianus, a citizen who volunteered
in A.D. 111.
An atrium contains a bronze
head of emperor Augustus, who
professionalized the army as the
Roman republic became an em-
pire. The second space, “Joining
the Army,” has a papyrus list of
recruits from Egypt and a purse
with 27 silver denarii, a month’s
pay; similar to a Judean farm la-
borer’s wage in Jesus’ time, but
steadier. The marching wore out
Terentianus’ shoes every two
weeks. Then, as now, soldiers re-
quested better equipment from
home; Terentianus preferred felt
socks to the regulation red wool.
On a gold coin from the third cen-
tury B.C., two soldiers take the
sacramentum (the oath of ser-
vice), touching their swords to a
sacrificial piglet as they swear al-
legiance to the emperor.
In “Ranks and Roles,” Teren-
tianus joins the marines at Alex-
andria, the Egyptian port of origin
for the grain that made Rome’s
daily bread. We see the tombstone
of Genialis the imaginifer, the
bearer of the emperor’s image,
who died in Germany, age 35, and
the skeleton of the marine who
fell face down on the beach as he
supervised the evacuation of Her-
culaneum after Vesu-
vius erupted in A.D. 79.
As in the “Sword of
Honor” trilogy (whose
author, the latter-day
marine Evelyn Waugh,
was also stationed at
Alexandria), promo-
tions and postings de-
pended on connections
and string-pulling. In
the fourth space, “Pro-
motion,” Terentianus’
father, Pausanius,
writes a papyrus re-
questing his son’s
transfer to the cavalry.
Request denied.
Like Terentianus, we
see but cannot touch
decorated bronze horse
armor, a giant cornu
horn for blasting out
marching orders, the
Clockwise from right:
an intact Roman
legionary shield (left);
the ‘Sword of Tiberius’;
and an installation view
of ‘Legion: Life in the
Roman Army.’
TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM (4); PETER NICHOLLS/GETTY IMAGES (2)
ARTS IN REVIEW
bronze masks that cav-
alrymen wore in sport-
ing competitions (an
Amazon, a Greek be-
sieging Troy, a curly-
haired Trojan youth),
and the images that
topped the sacred stan-
dard. The bronze draco,
an open-mouthed
dragon’s head, was fitted with a
windsock so that it whistled as
though alive. The silver effigy of
Galba was defaced by the legionar-
ies after his death in the civil war
of A.D. 69.
Terentianus transferred to a le-
gion and shipped out for Syria,
asking his father to send a sword,
two spears, a beaver-skin cloak,
and his trousers. Amid helmets,
swords, scabbards, armor and
leather tunics, the highlight of
“Dressing for Battle” is the world’s
only intact scutum (shield). Found
at Dura-Europos, Syria, and lent
by the Yale University Art Gallery,
it is uncannily vivid. Red-painted
leather customized with the yel-
low, green and black highlights of
Clockwise from left: gold coin
featuring soldiers taking the oath
of service; cavalry sports helmet in
the form of an Amazon; and ‘The
Meroë Head,’ a bronze of Augustus.
the unit is stretched over a
wooden frame, now curled with
age. The handle behind the bronze
boss resembles that of an old-fash-
ioned suitcase.
In “Battle,” we see a replica
portable catapult and a cataphract
(horse armor) set: a blanket of
iron scales, a leather face armor,
Monday, March 4, 2024 | A13
sieve-like eye guards, and a talis-
man of Minerva for the horse’s
forehead. “Aftermath” describes
the massacres and enslavement
that followed a Roman victory.
The papyrus sales receipt for Ab-
bas, a 7-year-old Mesopotamian
boy sold by one marine to another
in A.D. 166, is more powerful than
the stylized marble statue of a fu-
rious barbarian prisoner.
Military domesticity returns in
the eighth space, “Fort Life.” Le-
gionaries on remote frontiers
made unofficial families with local
women and slaves. We see lice
combs, children’s
shoes, cups carved
with the names of
their successive own-
ers, glass intaglio
gems, a gaming board
from the bath house,
and a list of goods,
perhaps a shopping
list, from Vindolanda
camp at Hadrian’s
Wall, where Claudia
Severa invites her
friends to celebrate
her birthday on the
barbarian fringe. In-
stead of martial glory,
the funeral monu-
ments record home-
spun cosmopolitan-
ism. Regina (“Queen”)
the freewoman dies at
Arbeia (the “place of
the Arabs”) in north-
ern England, where a
sculptor, presumably
Syrian, carves a la-
ment in the Palmy-
rene language be-
neath a Latin
inscription. Three-
year-old Vacia holds a
bunch of grapes. The
daughter of Crescens
the standard bearer
banquets in perpetu-
ity, attended by a fe-
male retainer.
In “Enforcers of
Occupation,” mer-
chants complain about being
beaten by soldiers. Britain’s only
crucified skeleton has a rusty nail
in his right ankle. Two soldiers
were probably patrolling the stra-
tegic road from Dover to London—
and probably murdered—before
their jumbled remains were
jammed into a pit at Canterbury.
In “Revolts,” we see iron neck and
wrist shackles, and the most com-
plete surviving articulated cuirass
of armor, excavated from the Teu-
toburg Forest, where German
tribes slaughtered three legions in
A.D. 9. A helmet is reconstructed
from fragments after Boudica’s
Iceni warriors destroyed the camp
at Colchester in the revolt of A.D.
60-61. “Leaving the Army,” the
10th and final zone, shows papy-
rus records of land purchases,
bronze diplomas for discharge and
citizenship, and part of Hadrian’s
legal tract on veterans’ rights.
Terentius, after campaigning in
Syria and repressing a “Jewish tu-
mult” at Alexandria, retired in
A.D. 137 as a “man of means” with
10 years’ bonus pay. Half of his
comrades did not survive.
Legion: Life in the Roman Army
British Museum, through June 23
Mr. Green is a Journal contributor
and a fellow of the Royal
Historical Society.
A14 | Monday, March 4, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

SPORTS
Caitlin Clark Is Turning Pro
BY RACHEL BACHMAN lately, according to Matt Powell, a
longtime shoe-industry analyst.

A
s Caitlin Clark approached
the end of her senior season
at Iowa, one in which she
has set the NCAA scoring record
and established herself as the big-
gest star in college basketball, she
faced an unusual decision.
Should she come back to col-
lege for another year?
Because of her unique status as
a basketball supernova who
started college during the pan-
demic, Clark had the option to re-
turn to Iowa for a fifth season, as
allowed under an NCAA exception,
or to leave college basketball be-
hind and enter the April 15 WNBA
draft.
The conventional wisdom was
that Clark should stay in college,
where she plays in front of sold-
out crowds, collects piles of money
from her name, image and likeness
deals, and sets TV viewership re-
cords.
Women’s college basketball
viewership has surged in recent
years, with the Iowa-LSU final last
year drawing nearly 10 million
viewers on ABC. The WNBA Finals’
decisive Game 4 last season, by
comparison, drew 889,000 viewers
on ESPN.
Bathing in women’s college bas-
ketball’s rapidly rising profile
made Clark a household name, and
she should extend that glow for
another year, the thinking went.
Instead, on Thursday afternoon,
Clark announced on social media
that she’s leaving college basket-
ball to go pro.
Sunday’s game against No. 2
Ohio State was Clark’s last game
for Iowa at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Although Clark’s choice might
seem surprising, the reasons for
her to go have been mounting, and
range from the financial to the
personal.
Salary
From a distance, it seems that
Clark could make more money in
college. She’s benefiting from
sponsorship deals now that college
players are allowed to make NIL
money, and she has access to
Iowa’s booster collective, which
also raises money through dona-
She could have stayed at Iowa. Instead, she is entering the WNBA draft.
Caitlin Clark had the option to return to Iowa for a fifth season but decided to enter the WNBA draft.
Yet the CEO of Iowa’s main
booster collective told The Wall
Street Journal that Clark “hasn’t
taken a dime” of its money. Brad
Heinrichs, CEO of the Swarm col-
lective, reasoned that such
amounts would be “small pota-
toes” compared with what Clark is
already making from corporate
sponsorship deals.
In the WNBA, meanwhile, the
base rookie salary is just $76,535
for a player selected in the top
marketing deals and other bonuses
for winning league awards.
Sponsors
Clark will make more from
sponsorship deals than she will
from the league. The question is
whether her college sponsors will
drop Clark when she goes to the
WNBA, which generally draws
fewer TV viewers than the top
women’s college basketball
games?
she’s certain to add sponsors when
she goes to the WNBA.
Shoes
Clark has been one of a handful
of women’s or men’s college bas-
ketball players with an individual
shoe deal—hers being with Nike.
That deal is now expiring, and
she’s in line for a big increase.
In addition to Nike, Adidas,
Puma, and Under Armour have
also been in the mix to sign her,
“She is a once-in-a-generation
player,” Powell said. “I think this is
an opportunity for brands to really
get after the women’s side of the
business, which they really con-
tinue to fail at.”
A representative of Excel Sports
Management, which represents
Clark, declined to comment on her
sponsorship deals and other de-
tails of her decision-making pro-
cess.
Powell said it makes sense for
Clark to go to the WNBA now.
She’s accomplished nearly every-
thing a college player can, includ-
ing setting the NCAA women’s ca-
reer scoring record and breaking
Pete Maravich’s NCAA men’s scor-
ing record of 3,667 set at LSU in
1967-70.
“I have a feeling that she’s go-
ing to be transformative to the
league,” Powell said. “So I think
that’s a better place for her.”
Basketball
Clark leads the nation in scor-
ing (32.2 points) and assists (8.7),
and has achieved a level of domi-
nance matched by few college
players. If she returned to Iowa
next year, her oldest friends on the
team would be gone and she would
be playing with teenagers barely
old enough to vote.
In the WNBA, meanwhile, Clark
will be teaming up with and play-
ing against some of the world’s
best players.
The Indiana Fever has the No. 1
pick in the draft and is a lock to
take Clark. In Indianapolis, she’ll
play alongside two strong inside
players: 2023 WNBA Rookie of the
Year Aliyah Boston, and NaLyssa
Smith, a member of the 2022
WNBA All-Rookie team.
Love
Normally, Clark’s romantic rela-
tionship would be irrelevant—but
not in this case. Clark is dating
Connor McCaffery, a former Iowa
guard and a son of Iowa men’s
basketball coach Fran McCaffery.
On Jan. 22, Clark’s birthday, Mc-
Caffery posted a photo of the two
of them on his Instagram page
with a message that ended: “I ad-

tions to pay athletes. Such collec-
tives have funneled millions of dol-
lars to high-profile college athletes
nationwide, sometimes in pay-
ments that approximate profes-
sional salaries.
four. But Clark is in line to make
bonuses that far exceed that
amount. She can make up to
$250,000 a year by serving as a
marketing ambassador for the
league, up to $100,000 for team
The answer appears to be a re-
sounding no. Clark’s top spon-
sors—Gatorade, Hy-Vee and State
Farm—told The Wall Street Jour-
nal they’ll maintain their partner-
ships with Clark into the pros. And
according to a person familiar with
the situation. The suggested bid
for those brands, that person said,
is $3 million a year—more than
the $1 million to $2 million that
NBA rookies have been getting
JEFFREY BECKER/REUTERS
mire you in every way and I love
you.”
As it happens, McCaffery works
as a team assistant for the Indiana
Pacers. Their ownership also owns
the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

The WSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 30 Timber wolf
32 Seizure of
Red Bull Swerves Scandal
13 14 15 power BY JOSHUA ROBINSON The clean sweep went pear to impact Red Bull’s
16 17 33 Rounds at a only some way toward offset- dominance on the track ei-
range Max Verstappen had ting the bubbling controversy ther as no other team ap-
18 19 20 spent weeks doing his best around Horner and the team, pears to have its act quite
34 Cardholder’s
to ignore the drama unfold- which has emerged as a together yet. Mercedes was
burden
21 22 23 24 25 ing within his own Red Bull greater threat to the Red Bull off the pace, as George Rus-
35 One of the team. While his boss Chris- dynasty than any of its rivals sell and Lewis Hamilton ran
26 27 woodwinds tian Horner was being inves- in Formula One cars. The 50- into overheating and reli-
tigated for inappropriate and year-old team principal was ability problems that left
28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 36 Wonkish coercive behavior toward a accused last month of con- them in fifth and seventh,
sort female employee—a case ducting himself inappropri- respectively. And despite a
38 39 40 41 37 Lumber camp that leaves Horner’s future ately, but cleared by an inter- promising display in pre-
tools on a knife edge—Verstappen nal investigation on season testing, Ferrari
42 43 44 insisted that the only thing Wednesday. Around 24 hours couldn’t keep up with the
39 Gym weight he cared about were matters later, however, a cache of defending champions. Carlos
45 46 47 41 Single out on track. messages and photos pur- Sainz took third, while
On Saturday in Bahrain, he portedly sent to the employee Charles Leclerc came fourth
48 49 50 43 Job detail, showed that Red Bull was still by Horner was emailed anon- after struggling with a brake
for short able to conduct business as ymously to hundreds of jour- issue for much of the race.
51 52 53 54 55 56 57 usual, at least in one respect. nalists and figures inside the “It was impossible to
44 Rock’s
Clapton Verstappen took the check- sport, including F1 CEO Ste- drive properly,” he said.
58 59 60 61 ered flag of the year’s first fano Domenicali, Mercedes Verstappen, for his part,
49 Egypt’s Grand Prix more than 20 sec- team principal Toto Wolff, may have forgotten how it
62 63 64 pyramids, for onds ahead of anyone else. It Verstappen, and Verstappen’s feels to drive an underper-
example was his eighth race victory in father, Jos. forming car. Red Bulls have
65 66 67 a row, dating back to last sea- It hasn’t been possible to won 75% of all races since
50 Disloyal
son, and an ominous signal to verify the authenticity of the the start of the 2021 season
51 Button the rest of the sport: barely messages. and there’s nothing to sug-
OUTSOURCING | By Mike Shenk alternative three months after wrapping That didn’t prevent gest this year will be any
Across 38 General 66 Spot for 17 Montevideo’s 52 The Bruins’ up his third consecutive Horner, who denies any different. With 24 Grands
feeling skiers nat. sch. world title, he’s already the wrongdoing, from carrying Prix on the calendar, the
1 Palm stems favorite to cruise to a fourth. out his regular race-day du- 2024 campaign will be the
used as 40 One of the 67 December 22 Eat late 53 Having no “It was just super enjoy- ties on Saturday. He took his longest in F1 history. But for
furniture Montagues holiday 23 Classic car in legal force able to drive today, we really normal seat on the pit wall anyone not driving a Red
material 41 Alpine goat Down a Beach Boys stayed out of trouble and it’s and congratulated Verstap- Bull, it may feel even longer.
54 Many a jazz
7 Regional 1 Kelly of talk song a great start to the year—it pen over the radio after he “It’s always very special
42 Headmaster group
groups of couldn’t have been better,” crossed the finish line. to have these kinds of days
at Hogwarts TV 24 Show
animal life 55 Croaky voice Verstappen said. Horner also made a point of because they don’t happen
2 Modify for a hunger, in a As if to underline how appearing in the pit lane that often, that it just all
45 Walk heavily 56 Beige
13 Half-baked different way powerful the Red Bull design alongside his wife, the for- goes perfect,” Verstappen
46 Cook’s vessel medium 57 Give out continues to be, Verstap- mer Spice Girl Geri Halli- said. “You are at one with
15 Distortion 25 Watering
from heat or 47 Marsh plants 3 River near hole, on this hands pen’s teammate Sergio Perez well. the car and everything just
dampness the Vatican side of the finished second. The situation didn’t ap- feels great.”
48 Wager 58 “So that’s
pond your sneaky
16 Retro hip beer 50 Shark feature 4 Situation that
could go 28 It’s sold plan!”
18 Orangutans 51 Outsourced, either way with a Magic 61 Make
and gorillas and what Mouse Easter eggs,
19 Distinct age happened to 5 Lawyer:
Abbr. 29 Lounge lazily say
the circled
20 Ages and ages
letters in this 6 Pen point Previous Puzzle’s Solution
21 Person living puzzle C A M A G E R E B E C C A
7 Substantially
off of family A S U N D E R E X I L I N G
58 At an earlier 8 Melber of
wealth, P A T E L L A V A L MO N T
time MSNBC O P E R A L U M E T
disparagingly
V I R T U E S R A T E
59 Wall art 9 Cheery
26 Watering S P A Y O A R S R E D I D
hole, on the 60 Like some tea 10 Tycoon E L L S A L E S T EW E D
N I L P R E D A T E A S I
other side of and coffee
the pond 11 Extreme S A U C E S A L A S R O E
62 Room on a suffering E N D OW TWO S S E N D
S T E M W H A T H U H
27 Mob squealer Clue board
12 Capitol Bldg. O H H E Y B A L S A
28 Ailing 63 Perfect group E D F R I E S C O O K I E S
CLIVE ROSE/GETTY IMAGES

happiness A U R O R A E P L A Y S A T
31 Bullfighter on 14 Staff leader? T E A S E T S L E T P R O
horseback 64 Skirmish 15 Gradually The contest answer is ALREADY. Seven
answers contain three-letter abbreviations of
35 Words before 65 October reduce the days of the week. As suggested by the
dime or roll birthstone dependency answer PREDATE and the title, the letters
preceding those abbreviations spell the
▶ Solve this puzzle online and discuss it at WSJ.com/Puzzles. contest answer. Max Verstappen, left, and Christian Horner celebrate after the F1 Grand Prix of Bahrain.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 4, 2024 | A15

OPINION
Profit Can Be Your Purpose BOOKSHELF | By Mark P. Mills

More than
half of recent
The Rise and Fall of Juul.” Em-
ployees were gleeful to work
“menu anxiety” and “decision
fatigue.” Even the Yale Jour-
to the impossible-to-ditch cell-
phone bill. Any advice?
Digging
For Minerals
college gradu- for a company whose mission nal of Biology and Medicine Help is on the way. The
ates are in is to “improve the lives of the suggests we face “a psycho- Muse, which labels itself “the
jobs that world’s one billion adult smok- logical condition of ‘systemic first values-based career plat-
don’t require ers by eliminating cigarettes.” uncertainty.’ ” But life re- form,” writes of “4 ways to
their degrees, Spoiler: It didn’t end well. Juul quires decisions. find purpose in any job.” Do
INSIDE
the Journal ended up introducing young- Last year the Harvard tell. First, “dial up the texture
VIEW
reported re- sters to nicotine and addicting Business Review said that of experience.” Very touchy-
The War Below
By Andy
cently. I think many who never smoked. Af- Generation Z is “a purpose- feely and, to me, meaningless. By Ernest Scheyder
Kessler
that’s on ter the company blew up, an driven generation” and has Next, “know what fuels you.” One Signal/Atria, 384 pages, $30
“purpose.” It employee wrote, “Looking for “disillusionment with the es- Sandwiches with the crusts

isn’t about work anymore—
work now requires meaning,
purpose. Many under 35 seem
to need their careers to pro-
vide psychic rewards for them
to get out of bed every morn-
ing. Give me a break.
A McKinsey study shows
that 70% of employees said
“their sense of purpose is de-
fined by their work” and that
“employers need to help meet
this need.” Really? Don’t em-
ployers provide paychecks? A
McKinsey partner noted that
“millennials, even more so, are
likely to see their work as
their life calling.” PwC even
has a chief purpose and inclu-
sion officer. We need a genera-
tional intervention.
Looking for work now is
about finding your passion.
My true passion was to bat
cleanup for the St. Louis Car-
dinals. Oh well. Instead I
found a job where I could
learn something and eventu-
ally contribute. I know, so
old-fashioned.
Companies today need to
be “mission oriented.” That
mission could be at cross-pur-
poses with reality, no matter
how good it sounds. Watch the
Netflix docuseries “Big Vape:
new opportunities out there
with companies that actually
care about their employees
and are truly mission focused.
The work environment here is
truly toxic.” Truly!
Then there’s the “authentic
self” and “bring your whole
self to work” thing. As op-
posed to half? Or someone
else’s self? Mike Robbins, who
wrote the book “Bring Your
Whole Self to Work,” suggests
we “allow ourselves to be
truly seen.” Truly! In Decem-
ber 2021, Roz Brewer, CEO of
Walgreens Boots Alliance, told
Harvard Business Review that
bringing her whole self to
work was a key to her success.
In August 2023, she stepped
down as CEO of the debt-
laden, overstretched firm.
Motivational speaker Tony
Robbins suggests you develop
“a life vision statement.” In a
hurry? Copy someone else’s
Pinterest vision board. Others
talk about “living intention-
ally,” which digital coaching
platform BetterUp defines as
“making choices based on
your personal values, beliefs,
and goals.” Choices? Heck, no
one can decide what to do
anymore. I often hear about
tablishment and capitalism.”
Maybe stop paying them and
see how long that lasts. A
2021 Gallup poll said that on
Why do Millennials
and Gen Zers want
their work to provide
psychic rewards?
Gen Z (those born 1997-2012)
and Millennial (1981-96) wish
lists were employers who
care about their well-being
and are ethical, open, diverse
and inclusive. Nothing about
learning or progress. I re-
cently had lunch with a suc-
cessful three-time Silicon Val-
ley CEO. She joked that “if I
had to manage Gen Zers, I
think I’d kill myself.”
I often hear Gen Zers say
“this is my journey.” Well, if
that’s your journey, you didn’t
get very far. According to the
Journal, more than half of
those under 25 live at home
and 60% of 18- to 34-year-olds
receive financial assistance
from their parents. As an
empty nester, I’ve got it down
cut off? Third, “Leave a room
better than when you found
it.” A sanitation mission? And
finally, “consider a simpler
legacy,” which I read as: For-
get all this purpose nonsense
and get a real job that pro-
vides valuable goods or ser-
vices to customers. Only half
seem to get this and will carry
the other half.
How you live your life is up
to you. If you want a purpose
or mission, by all means, go
work for a nonprofit. But for-
profit companies have scale
and a much bigger impact on
society. They end hunger, pro-
vide shelter, educate workers
and invent the future. Their
profits measure success in de-
lighting customers. Profits are
purpose, though saying that to
those who don’t understand
capitalism is like sunlight to
vampires. Providing what a
customer needs is exactly
what contributes to the
world’s well-being and creates
societal wealth. Be warned:
Things like “purpose” usually
get thrown to the curb when
layoffs accelerate into reces-
sions. In the meantime, enjoy
your journey.
Write to kessler@wsj.com.
C
ivilization would not exist were it not for miners. Every
year the world’s oldest industry supplies hundreds of
megatons of the primary metals and minerals that are
essential to all subsequent industries—from medical devices
to kitchen appliances, aircraft, toys, power plants, computers
and cars. Hence it’s consequential when the governments of
Europe and the U.S. implement policies requiring that global
mining expand, and soon, by 400% to 7,000%.
Those policies are meant to force a transition away from
the oil, natural gas and coal that supply 80% of global energy.
But it’s an unavoidable fact that building the favored transi-
tion machines—wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars—
will require astonishing quantities of minerals to produce the
same amount of energy. That reality is the “bug not a
feature” of so-called green energy.
Of course, our planet is resource-rich. The theoretical
magnitude of Earth’s mineral abundance could supply any
imaginable demand for
centuries to come. That isn’t
the challenge. Instead, it’s
timing. The last time global
mining production expanded at
this scale it took place across
eight decades—from 1940 to
the present—not the one or
two decades the transitionists
imagine.
The other challenge involves
people. Mining has always been
as much about people as it has
about geology, technology and
money. In “The War Below:
Lithium, Copper, and the Global
Battle to Power Our Lives,” Ernest
Scheyder highlights the myriad difficulties faced by the
people who build mines, as well as those hurt by or opposed
to them. As Mr. Scheyder notes, mining is “dirty work.”
That’s no invective; it’s just reality.

A CPAC Hero Threatens a Latin Democracy
Far-left con- FMLN party, formed by Marx-
gressional ist guerrillas after the 1992
Democrats, peace accords. His political ca-
like Massa- reer was launched by its high-
chusetts Sen. est leadership, and in 2015 he
Elizabeth rose to become mayor of San
AMERICAS Warren and Salvador.
Missouri Rep. Mr. Bukele was elected
By Mary
Cori Bush, president in 2019 on the
Anastasia
want to add ticket of the Grand Alliance
O’Grady
four seats to for National Unity party, or
the U.S. Su- GANA, which was founded by
preme Court so they can pack former President Tony Saca
the bench with justices who when he was kicked out of the
favor their politics. President center-right Arena party for
Biden has proclaimed a federal corruption allegations. In
bailout for student borrowers, 2021 Mr. Bukele’s New Ideas
even though the executive has party and its smaller allies
no such authority. Prosecutors, won a supermajority in con-
judges and politicians who dis- gress. On the same day that
like Donald Trump are using the new legislature was sworn
their offices to persecute him. in, it removed four of five jus-
Supporters of Mr. Trump tices of the Supreme Court’s
rightly object to the politiciza- constitutional chamber who
tion of independent institu- were less than halfway
tions. Yet at the Conservative through their nine-year
Political Action Conference in terms. The new legislature
Maryland last month, many also prematurely removed the
from the same crowd cheered independent attorney general
wildly for Nayib Bukele. He is and replaced him with a mal-
the El Salvador president who leable prosecutor.
has used his power to pack his Mr. Bukele’s handpicked
country’s high court, eliminate court gave him the green light
due process, do away with to run for re-election even
transparency in public con- though the constitution bars a
tracts, and go after political president from serving consec-
enemies. utive terms. This isn’t the only
The U.S. may be strong reason critics are snickering
enough to withstand the aspi- about his Feb. 4 victory. An
rations of Democrats who re- electoral tribunal submissive
sent checks on their power. to the president gave him 82%
But Mr. Bukele is steamrolling of the vote. Turnout was only
El Salvador’s frail democracy 48%, a fact missing from most
while many Americans who news stories.
claim to revere the rule of law Salvadorans voted for con-
egg him on. Florida Sen. gress the same day. One ex-
Marco Rubiois a big fan. tremely troubling development
The Salvadoran president is was the gerrymandering of the
a former member of the leftist districts to ensure two-thirds
control of the lawmaking body.
Congress is now expected to
rubber-stamp constitutional
reforms that will lock up the
one-party state. Celebrating
the effectiveness of the gerry-
mandering, Mr. Bukele said, “It
will be the first time in a coun-
try that just one party exists
in a completely democratic
system.”
U.S. conservatives
cheer as El Salvador’s
Nayib Bukele tramples
the rule of law.
His vice president is less
careful. “To these people who
say that democracy is being
dismantled, my answer is yes;
we are not dismantling it, we
are eliminating it, we are re-
placing it with something
new,” Félix Ulloa said ahead of
voting day.
The last two years provide
more than a hint of what Mr.
Ulloa has in mind. In March
2022 Mr. Bukele suspended
civil liberties under a state of
emergency. Two years later the
emergency remains in place.
Police and soldiers have used
extraordinary powers to round
up more than 75,000 mostly
poor young men who, because
of their economic status, fit the
stereotype of gang members.
Under a law passed last sum-
mer by the Bukele-controlled
congress, up to 900 defendants
can be convicted in a single
trial. In August the minister of
justice cited the release of
some 7,000 prisoners held in
“pretrial detention” as proof of
a fair system. Those who say
they were arbitrarily held for
months in overcrowded dun-
geons and beaten by guards
dispute that claim.
Law-and-order sweeps have
created a climate of intimida-
tion, fear and self-censorship
among government critics and
journalists, many of whom
now live outside the country.
It isn’t even clear that the re-
pression explains the reduc-
tion in the number of murders.
The Bukele high court has
been denying U.S. extradition
requests for gang leaders, add-
ing to allegations last year by
Washington that the drop in
homicide rates is part of a
government negotiation with
gang honchos.
People feel safer, which has
boosted Mr. Bukele’s popular-
ity. But he isn’t the world’s
first politician to brand ma-
joritarianism as democracy.
Nor is he the first permitted to
trample a constitution in ex-
change for promises of a bet-
ter future. Cuba’s Fidel Castro,
Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and
Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega
come to mind.
If El Salvador’s president is
exceedingly popular, as he
claims, he could use his politi-
cal capital to build indepen-
dent institutions supporting
pluralism, the market economy
and civil liberties. Instead he
is engaged in an authoritarian
crackdown designed to annihi-
late his political opposition
and secure absolute power. It
won’t end well.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
Mr. Scheyder, a journalist, travels from Arizona to
Minnesota, from Nevada to Idaho, from Washington, D.C., to
Bolivia to document the views of those who are for or
against mining. He’s sympathetic to the cultural, historical,
aesthetic and environmental constraints that are unavoidable
and often intractable when mining is at stake. He focuses on
the social and political dynamics that accompany big mining
projects because, as he writes, there’s “no way around the
fact that mines are gargantuan creations that maim the
Earth’s surface.” He makes clear that his goal isn’t to ques-
tion the need for more mines but to understand “whether
these lands should be dug up in an attempt to defuse climate
change,” especially when some lands are considered sacred
by their neighbors and inhabitants.
Mr. Scheyder guides us through the troubled history of
mining and revisits some of the conflicts associated with
mining over the centuries. The example that begins and ends
his book is a small buckwheat plant in Nevada, on the site of
a proposed mine, that leads him to ask: “What matters more,
the plant or the lithium beneath it?”
He highlights America’s schizophrenic approach to
mining—especially the current administration’s policies. He
notes the millions of dollars of federal grants that have been
offered to help some favored mines while the same adminis-
tration cancels permits that took years and millions of dol-
lars in private money to pursue.
Such political and social impediments to expanding mining
are what frame “The War Below.” This is not a book for
learning about mining technology or the feasibility of transi-
tion. Mr. Scheyder accepts the claims, however flawed, that,
for example, “personal automobiles that burn gasoline or die-
sel fuel are making the planet warmer” and that a minerals-
centric energy transition would mitigate that. Even so, one
suspects that Mr. Scheyder, along with others who subscribe
to the transition narrative, doesn’t fully appreciate the scale
of minerals production and disruption proposed.
Governments seek an expansion of global
mining as part of the transition away from
oil and coal. It’s a disruptive undertaking.
Global mining today involves excavating and moving a
quantity of rock each year equivalent to the tonnage of 7,000
Great Pyramids. Transition aspirations would require a
tonnage north of 50,000 pyramids annually. Juxtapose that
reality with Mr. Scheyder’s observation that “despite
attempts to find alternate ways to produce metals for the
green energy transition,” there is “no way around the fact
that mining is loud, dangerous, and disruptive and will
remain so for the foreseeable future.”
Count me among those who believe technology can

IRS Agents Shouldn’t Work From Home overcome many such challenges. But progress in industrial
domains takes far more time than most forecasters or gov-
ernments expect. Meanwhile, as Mr. Scheyder notes, China
By Ron Estes Internal Revenue Service, if all suggesting IRS staff were steps to increase our trend to- has become the dominant global supplier of energy minerals
IRS employees had fully re- more effective at their jobs be- ward more on-site work.” and controls roughly 80% of the world’s electric-vehicle

D
uring the pandemic,
businesses relied on
telework to continue
operations. Now that the pan-
demic is over, businesses
should be making data-driven
decisions about remote work,
and so should the federal
government.
While some companies have
flourished by allowing employ-
ees to work remotely, results
are mixed. A 2023 Stanford In-
stitute for Economic Policy Re-
search paper cited several
studies with wide-ranging
findings on remote and hybrid
work: productivity down 8% to
19% in one study, up 10% in an-
other. With such inconsistent
data, it’s incumbent on indi-
vidual businesses to determine
how best to attract workers
and meet customers’ needs.
Enter the federal govern-
ment, the largest employer in
the U.S. with nearly three mil-
lion employees. In a Feb. 15
House Ways and Means Com-
mittee hearing, I asked Daniel
Werfel, commissioner of the
turned to the office after ref-
erencing a Government Ac-
countability Office report that
found most federal agencies
are using 25% or less of build-
ing capacity at their headquar-
ters. “Everyone’s working,” he
said. “It’s 50% on-site versus
50% working in some remote
Since the pandemic,
my constituents have
reported far more
service complaints.
location.” He said this is in
line with a governmentwide
standard of 50% on-site work.
I asked because my office
staff in Wichita, Kan., regu-
larly assist constituents who
are experiencing delayed re-
sponses and challenges when
working with federal agencies.
My office opened more than
three times as many IRS-re-
lated cases in 2023 as in 2019,
fore the pandemic.
In the February hearing, I
told Mr. Werfel about a car
dealership in my district that
had tried to file electronically
its nonemployee compensation
forms through the IRS’s Infor-
mation Returns Intake System.
The portal repeatedly crashed
while the dealership’s staff
tried to upload the forms,
causing delays up to the Jan.
31 deadline. One woman tried
calling the IRIS help desk sev-
eral times but never got past
the automated voice system.
It appears that our hearing
struck a nerve with the IRS.
News outlets including the
Federal News Network re-
ported that on the day of the
hearing, Mr. Werfel emailed
Washington-based IRS em-
ployees that they would need
to return to the office for half
of their workdays in any given
month starting May 5: “Ulti-
mately, to ensure ongoing
alignment with the 50% on-
site mandate for teleworkers,
we need to take the necessary
Based on complaints my of-
fice has received, however,
50% may not be sufficient.
Taxpayers are stuck with
delayed resolutions when the
agency isn’t as effective. The
time a taxpayer spends on the
phone, chasing paperwork or
dealing with technical glitches
takes away from productivity.
Some might argue that tele-
working, with reduced over-
head, offers a tax-saving bene-
fit, but that’s realized only if
the agency is providing ade-
quate customer service. The
IRS isn’t.
There’s no alternative to
the IRS. Unlike a business with
competition and the incentive
to improve, it will likely con-
tinue to put higher priority on
employees’ comfort than on
providing Americans with
good, timely service. That
means it is up to Congress to
hold the agency accountable.
Mr. Estes, a Republican,
represents Kansas’ Fourth
Congressional District.
battery market.
Mr. Scheyder touches only briefly on a lynchpin issue: the
need for more miners in America. He writes that in 2023 a
major copper-mine expansion project in Arizona failed not
because of regulations or protests but “because the company
didn’t have enough workers.” Much of the existing workforce
is aging out. Meanwhile, the number of students pursuing
mining engineering in America has collapsed. Last year the
U.S. saw 600 such enrollments, while China had more than
one million. It’s telling, though, that Mr. Scheyder’s book
begins and ends with the story of a botanist, not an engineer.
If there was any silver lining to the global lockdowns of
2020, it was our reawakening to the importance of work
deemed “essential,” the kinds of jobs for the “work-from-
somewheres,” positions in which if people don’t show
up—notably in supply chains—cascades of essential prod-
ucts or services cease to exist. Now comes a similar
reawakening about mining, with books and articles writ-
ten by the “work-from-anywheres.”
Mr. Scheyder introduces his book by noting that he previ-
ously reported on “another energy transition—the U.S. shale
revolution,” and that his new assignment to follow the story
of minerals was a chance to cover a second “revolution.” But
this is what the news media seldom mentions: The rise in
American privately funded oil-and-gas shale production has
added 150% as much energy supply as the combined output
from all the world’s subsidized wind and solar sources.
Mr. Mills, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Founda-
tion, is a partner at Montrose Lane, an energy fund, and the
author of “The Cloud Revolution.”
A16 | Monday, March 4, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

OPINION
REVIEW & OUTLOOK LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

The Biden Family Depositions The ‘Good Germans’ and the Tragedy of War
Ian Brunskill, in his review of the which saw devastating Allied bomb-

H
ouse Republicans have released tran- merely coincidental bonding moments—doesn’t
scripts of their depositions with Hunter everyone put dad on speakerphone during busi- book “Out of the Darkness” (Book- ing of German cities, “Many Germans
shelf, Feb. 27), an engrossing study saw themselves as victims; the other
and James Biden, and we’ve read them ness meetings? He said the “big guy” email was
of the German people from 1942 to victims—their victims—could be
so you don’t have to trust what Mr. Gilliar engaging in “pie in 2022, raises a central question about overlooked.”
other papers don’t want to re- What we learned from the sky” dreams of working the complicity of people who live un- Perhaps before we get too caught
port. Far from Democratic 450 pages of testimony with a “former Vice President,” der a government engaged in evil ac- up in telling other countries how to
claims that they show nothing and that Hunter “shut it tivity. Mr. Brunskill observes that fight their own wars of survival, we
wrong, the testimony confirms with Hunter and James. down.” He explained that Joe the author, Frank Trentmann, should learn something about the his-
the story of political influence sojourning to Café Milano to “shows how so many men and tory of wars, including our own. War
peddling and family profiteer- say hi and order spaghetti was women [living in Germany during is a tragedy, no matter how justified,
ing. Even if he didn’t get a dime himself, Joe Bi- different than Joe coming “for” dinner. World War II] became perpetrators for those who are caught up in it. We
den willingly assisted his son Hunter and Hunter didn’t claim his Fifth Amendment or supporters of genocide by moral should be thoughtful before we are
brother James in schemes to cash in on the Bi- right not to answer questions, but he did reveal sleight of hand, deluding themselves judgmental of those who are forced
that they were acting ethically no to fight it.
den family name. a conveniently spotty memory. Hunter couldn’t
matter what they did.” CMDR. JAY PLAGER, USN (RET.)
i i i recall reading the famous “big guy” email, or Can the same be said of some un- Longboat Key, Fla.
Under hours of questioning, Hunter and James writing threatening texts, and he disclaimed known number of citizens caught up Mr. Plager is a senior judge of the
acknowledged unsavory facts revealed by prior knowledge of the origins of the $142,000 used in the war in Gaza? Mr. Brunskill ob- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
witnesses. Hunter finally admitted that former to buy him a luxury car. (Mr. Archer said it came serves that after World War II, Circuit.
partner James Gilliar was indeed referring to Joe from a Kazakhstan oligarch.)
when he envisioned an equity partnership that James claimed not to recall his specific inter-
included “10 held by H for the big guy” as part of actions with Mr. Bobulinski during the CEFC
a 2017 deal with Chinese energy company CEFC. deal, even as he insisted Mr. Bobulinski never What Higher Education Can Still Do for You
This is notable after years of Democratic claims met Joe—a claim contradicted by Hunter. Hunter
Higher education is grappling with room, such as through paid, full-time
that the laptop on which this email was found was blamed his faulty memory and bad behavior on
our role in helping students launch positions in industry, also known as
“Russian disinformation.” being “out of his mind” at times on alcohol and their careers (“Half of College Grads co-ops.
Hunter also confirmed former business part- drugs, yet he suggests his substance abuse never Are Underemployed,” U.S. News, Feb. Have students complete valuable
ner Tony Bobulinski’s testimony of a meeting caused him to cross ethical lines when it came 24). Good first jobs change lives, and industry credentials at the beginning
that same year in Los Angeles with Hunter, to his father. we can design colleges and universi- of their college careers, instead of af-
James, Tony and Joe—in the midst of the CEFC Joe’s involvement with CEFC and the “big guy” ties that prepare students to succeed ter graduation, so they can learn and
deal-making talks. He didn’t “contest” former email occurred shortly after he left the Vice Presi- in that first step of their careers, pav- earn.
partner Rob Walker’s testimony that Hunter in- dency. This suggests Joe thought his political ca- ing the way for lives of upward mo- Help students build the social
troduced Joe to the CEFC chairman at the Four reer might be over and was out to make money bility. Here are a few ways higher ed- capital they need to build relation-
Seasons hotel in New York. in the Beltway habit. That was his right, but then ucation can innovate to get students ships with professionals, do informa-
He conceded former partner Devon Archer’s why didn’t he say that in 2020? The facts from ready for careers: tional interviews and secure career
Turn the college curriculum up- opportunities.
testimony that Joe showed up at business din- the House investigation show he lied to the public
side-down. Let students take classes As people ask more questions
ners that Hunter hosted in Washington’s Café about the extent of his knowledge and involve- in a career-focused major in their about the value of a college educa-
Milano with Kazakhstan and Russian oligarchs, ment with the Hunter-James businesses. first year of college, instead of wait- tion, we can design our institutions
and that he put his father on speakerphone dur- The interviews verified that Hunter and ing until their third year to start a to be engines of opportunity. Stu-
ing other meetings. James made a bundle from their overseas work, major. This allows a student to get a dents are investing billions of dollars
Several witnesses have explained Hunter’s though both struggled to describe what they meaningful internship in year one in their education. We can put them
role as selling the Biden family “brand”—that is, provided in return. Both men failed to provide and potentially do six to 10 intern- in control of their futures.
his father’s influence in Washington. Mr. Archer, compelling explanations for their Escher-like fi- ships over four years. ALEX HERNANDEZ
who sat on the board of Ukrainian energy com- nancial accounts, which often involved odd pay- Give credit for career experiences President, Champlain College
pany Burisma with Hunter, told the committee: ments, wires and entities. The committee has that students gain outside the class- Burlington, Vt.
“Burisma would have gone out of business if it found more than $20 million from foreign
didn’t have the brand attached to it.” sources that went to Hunter, James and business
Mr. Bobulinski said Hunter’s speakerphone associates. An Unwanted Intrusion or a Life Lesson?
calls were engineered so Joe could impress i i i Jason Riley tells us a wonderful gratitude. I was a young college stu-
would-be clients, “enabling the transaction.” A Republicans plan to invite Hunter for a public story about Bill Walton shaving his dent in 1972. The town where I lived
recent Politico piece about James Biden’s ill- hearing, and they may move to impeach Presi- beard to play basketball in college for had a volunteer fire department, and
fated venture with a hospital operator cited ex- dent Biden. The latter won’t go anywhere in the coach John Wooden, and applies it to I had signed on. Our chief was Frank
ecutives who said James invoked Joe while Senate, and it could backfire politically by mobi- rules today for how high-school stu- C. Toste, a man short of stature but
“wooing potential business partners.” lizing Democrats in the President’s defense. dents wear their hair (“Bill Walton’s strong of heart. I had grown my hair
Yet even as the duo confirmed all this, they They’d accomplish more by educating the public Lesson for Darryl George,” Upward quite long, and the chief finally sat
want the public to believe that testimony by the about the Biden family’s influence peddling, and Mobility, Feb. 28). But college basket- me down to talk about it.
ball isn’t required or enforced by law. The bottom line was that I needed
same witnesses about influence peddling is dis- letting voters decide if they want to reward it
Attendance in high school is manda- to cut my hair if I wanted to stay in
honest. Hunter said his father’s calls were with a second term. tory and enforced by law, at least for the department. It was a safety issue
the first few years. at the time, but his main issue was

Panic Time for Democrats The state shouldn’t prohibit hair-

cuts of one type or another and sus-
pend students from school for violat-
that I wore the department uniform
and represented the organization to
the public.

T
he bedwetter caucus is back, to borrow vorably than they do Mr. Biden’s. ing the policy unless it can really He was civil but direct. I was ap-
the dismissive phrase from Barack Most important, Mr. Biden is viewed even show this is needed. Restrictions on palled, of course. I was young and
Obama strategist David Plouffe about more unfavorably than Mr. Trump in the polls mandatory education should be scru- thought that I knew it all. I was in
Democrats who fret about (59% to 57% unfavorable in the tinized more carefully than those on college, right?
President Biden’s re-election Biden is losing to Fox survey, which is Mr. Bi- basketball players. I didn’t like it, but I cut my hair.
PROF. MICHAEL J. BROYDE Being a firefighter meant more to me
odds. A spate of pre-Super Trump in every poll as den’s best showing). This is
Emory University School of Law than my hair, and in fact more than
Tuesday polls suggest that fret- hard to do considering that Atlanta going to college. I remember vividly
ting could soon turn to wailing Super Tuesday arrives. Mr. Trump never cracked 50% Chief Toste saying, “You will miss
and gnashing of teeth. approval in the Gallup poll Mr. Riley’s column brings to mind this old man when I am gone.” I
Four major polls rolled during his Presidency. In the a flood of memories and profound didn’t believe him at the time.
out in the past few days, and Mr. Biden is los- 2020 campaign, Mr. Biden never trailed Mr. I learned a lesson from him that
ing to Donald Trump in all of them. He’s down Trump in polling averages. day. He’s been gone a long time. I still
two points in a head-to-head matchup in the This is a perilous position for the incumbent Minority Voters Do Not miss him.
Wall Street Journal and Fox News surveys, this close to the election. Democrats are count- JAMES S. CHRISTIAN
Belong to the Democrats Marana, Ariz.
more if you include third- or fourth-party ing on a boffo State of the Union speech this
candidates. He’s down five points in the Si- week, the public giving him more credit for the There are two injustices at work in
Wisconsin Democrats’ new gerryman- Mr. Riley tells a story about Mr.
ena-New York Times poll, and he’s getting economy as inflation eases, the abortion issue,
dered maps. (“Wisconsin’s Progres- Walton’s beard in reference to Mr.
crushed in the swing states in the Bloomberg a friendly press, and Mr. Trump’s well-known sive Coup,” Review & Outlook, Feb. George, a young black man who got
News survey. capacity for self-destruction, perhaps including 21). The first is the blatant attempt to suspended for having long hair. Well,
Worse is the public mood. A quarter or less a felony conviction. prevent Republicans from winning a I’m a lily-white 70-year-old man. That
of Americans think the country is moving in the But collars are tightening among our friends legislative majority. The second is the young man’s hair shouldn’t even be
right direction, and they think Mr. Biden’s Pres- on the left. If the polls are this bad for Mr. Biden assumption behind the maps—that an issue. Kids have a tough enough
idency has done more harm than good. They in June or July, the pressure will rise for the identity politics is key to victory. time in school without these ridicu-
think Mr. Biden is too old to be President, and President to do what’s best for the country and Wisconsin Democrats have largely lous constraints that school adminis-
they view Mr. Trump’s Presidency far more fa- yield to a younger nominee. designed their maps to spread out ur- trations place on them. Schools need
ban voters across suburban and even to focus on teaching kids and not
rural districts. Since urban voters are worrying about the clothes they’re
Georgia Fights the Big Labor Fix more likely to be minorities, Demo-
crats’ hope is that black and brown
wearing or the length of their hair.
CHARLES DALEO
voters will swing these races their San Diego

P
resident Biden has kept his promise to for Hyundai and Rivian, both of which received way. Wisconsin Democrats believe ur-
tilt the organizing field at companies to- as much as $1.5 billion in state subsidies for ban minorities won’t vote Republican.
ward Big Labor, but states are playing electric-vehicle plants in the Peach State, and Republicans have long failed to Hamas Started This War
defense on behalf of individual may be looking to expand their sustain engagement with minority
Israel’s Daniel Hagari clearly sum-
workers. Georgia wants to pro- Employers could lose deals in coming years. communities, often accepting the
marizes Hamas’s distorted use of me-
tect its growing number of After the bill passed the Democratic assumption that minori-
auto workers by making sure
tax breaks if they deny state Senate last month, the ties belong to the left. Yet the left’s
dia to document its brutality (“The
Media-Savvy Murderers of Hamas,”
they can’t be forced into a workers a secret vote. AFL-CIO denounced the check embrace of identity politics isn’t
op-ed, Feb. 26). Kudos for printing this
about lifting them up, whereas con-
union without a secret-ballot on card check as a solution in more than four months into the war.
servative ideals reflect a deep respect
election. search of a problem. But the for minorities’ talent, ambition and
The world needs to be reminded that
Gov. Brian Kemp is backing a bill that dis- unions can’t keep a straight story about why Hamas’s inhumane deeds on Oct. 7
desire to achieve the American
courages companies from allowing card check, they want card check. Labor organizers claim were the trigger that started the war.
dream. Republicans must take that
one of the ways a union can organize a work- to have overwhelming support at every plant HARRIET WOLPOFF
message to the communities that
San Diego
place. Card check denies employees of a secret- and warehouse, but they apparently don’t think Democrats take for granted.
ballot vote on whether they want to adopt the that support will survive behind the voting- JOHN TILLMAN
union; it automatically recognizes the union if booth curtains. President, American Culture Project
a majority of employees sign cards pledging to Democrats in Congress know card check Golf, Ill. Pepper ...
join. That gives union advocates the opening gives unions a better shot at gaining new mem- And Salt
to pressure peers who won’t sign the cards into bers, and they’re pushing companies to allow it.
voting yes. Thirty-three Senators sent a letter to nonunion Try to Keep Them Straight THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Employers are free to allow card-check elec- car makers in January in which they suggested I’m glad Peggy Noonan distin-
tions, but Georgia wants to give them a reason to that the companies could lose federal green-en- guishes Presidents Biden and Trump
resist. The bill would deny state tax incentives to ergy subsidies if they express opposition to with the nicknames “Ol’ Cranky” and
any company that blesses a union without a for- unionization. “Ol’ Crazy” (“Ol’ Cranky and the State
of the Union,” Declarations, Feb. 24).
mal and secret-ballot election. Like nearly every Unions also have support from the agency
If she had used “Ol’ Whiny,” “Ol’
state these days, Georgia has showered billions that’s supposed to play referee. The National La- Braggy” or “Ol’ Fibby,” I wouldn’t
of dollars on companies that pledge to invest and bor Relations Board issued a ruling last year know which one she was referring to.
create jobs. Now lawmakers want to condition that makes card check the default if an employer MARK D. KEMP
that cash on protecting labor freedom. takes more than two weeks to request a formal Cypress, Calif.
That could shift the outlook for a pair of auto union election. The fix is in for card check, all
makers being pressured to roll over for union the way from Washington.
Letters intended for publication should
organizers. The United Auto Workers launched The Georgia bill is modeled after one enacted be emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Please
its latest campaign to organize southern plants in Tennessee last year. If unions keep up their include your city, state and telephone
last year, and it has called publicly for employers demand for unfair votes, expect more states to number. All letters are subject to
to drop their resistance to card check. But the give companies an incentive to resist the Demo- editing, and unpublished letters cannot “Looks like another crazy week for
be acknowledged.
Georgia bill could make giving in a costly move cratic-union pressure campaign. keeping your homeowners insurance.”
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
The Fed’s Latest Problem: A Strong Economy
By Mickey D. Levy
T
he economy is looking up,
and that’s a challenge for
the Federal Reserve. The
pandemic shock prompted
excessive monetary and
fiscal responses, generating infla-
tion. The Fed responded with ag-
gressive rate hikes that reduced in-
flation within reach of its 2%
longer-run target. Now that the
economy is growing and productiv-
ity is improving, the central bank’s
task is to adjust monetary policy to
reflect the higher real interest rates
that naturally accompany higher ex-
pected rates of return on capital.
Improving productivity
and better-than-expected
growth make it risky to cut
interest rates too much.
The Fed characterizes its current
monetary policy as restrictive,
meaning it will slow the economy
below its 1.8% estimate of potential
growth and reduce inflation to 2%.
Its assessment is based on its cur-
rent interest rate target of 5.25% to
5.5%, which is roughly 2.5 percent-
age points above the 2.8% core PCE
inflation excluding food and energy.
That is the highest inflation-ad-
justed rate since before the 2008-09
financial crisis and higher than Fed
researchers’ estimates of the longer-
run natural rate of interest, which
Letitia James Sacrifices the Rule of Law to Get Trump
New York isn’t
Venezuela, but its
political system is
going the way of
Caracas. Whatever
Donald Trump’s fi-
nancial transgres-
LIFE
sions, they pale in
SCIENCE
comparison with
By Allysia
Attorney General
Finley
Letitia James’s des-
ecration of the law
in service of destroying a political
opponent.
Last week, a New York appellate
court rejected Mr. Trump’s petition
to stay a legally dubious $454 mil-
lion civil fraud judgment while he
appealed the verdict. Ms. James is
threatening to seize Mr. Trump’s
properties if he doesn’t pay up by
March 25. His appeal suggests he
lacks the liquid assets to do so and
might be forced to sell or mortgage
properties.
It would be one thing if Ms.
James were seeking restitution for
victims. She isn’t because there are
none. Instead she’s seeking financial
penalties against Mr. Trump, which
Democrats in Albany will spend on
rewarding government unions and
other political allies. This is the stuff
of banana republics.
Netanyahu’s Bold, Realistic Plan for ‘the Day After Hamas’
By Daniel Pipes
P
rime Minister Benjamin Ne-
tanyahu last month presented
Israel’s security cabinet with
a short document: “The Day After
Hamas.” Its key passage states that
Jerusalem plans to work primarily
with Gazans to rebuild their terri-
tory. “Civil affairs and responsibil-
ity for public order will be based on
local actors with ‘management ex-
perience,’ ” it says, and “not identi-
fied with countries or organizations
supporting terrorism” or receiving
payments from them.
In a step toward this program of
self-rule, the Israeli military has be-
gun an informal pilot program of
what it calls “humanitarian pock-
ets” in parts of north Gaza cleared
of Hamas. These local governing
bodies consist of community lead-
ers, whose duties will include dis-
tributing humanitarian aid and re-
vising school curricula.
The concept of Israelis working
with Gazans is brave, bold and con-
tested. It faces two main criticisms.
First, the U.S. and other govern-
ments want to hand Gaza to the
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they estimate to be roughly 0.5%.
But persistent economic strength
calls into question whether current
monetary policy really is restrictive
and whether the natural rate of in-
terest is so low. Real gross domestic
product grew 3.1% over the past
year, far higher than the Fed’s 1.8%
estimate of sustainable potential
growth. The unemployment rate,
currently 3.7%, has remained well
below the Fed’s 4.1% estimate of the
longer-run natural rate of unem-
ployment, or full employment. Con-
sumer spending has been fueled by
job growth and wage gains that are
lifting disposable personal income.
Soaring household net worth is rais-
ing the propensity to spend. Stimu-
lative fiscal policies, including infra-
structure spending and an array of
tax credits, are increasing govern-
ment and business investment.
Beyond these nuts and bolts of
GDP growth are factors lifting pro-
ductivity, such as technology,
heightened labor mobility and busi-
ness formation. Generative artifi-
cial-intelligence computing and ma-
chine learning are increasing
efficiencies in healthcare, manufac-
turing, an array of service indus-
tries and social-media applications.
Microsoft, Google and Apple are
leading the AI boom, and Nvidia and
other accelerator chip manufactur-
ers are enabling it. Thousands of
smaller firms and startups are de-
veloping and implementing AI appli-
cations. The rise in software and
R&D as a share of total business
fixed investment is transforming the
U.S. economy.
Ms. James ran for office in 2018
on the promise of taking down Mr.
Trump. That she turned up evidence
of inflated assets on financial state-
ments he provided banks to obtain
loans should have come as no sur-
prise given his penchant for puffery.
But her investigation into his vast
business dealings failed to produce
evidence of fraud.
No bank claimed to have lost
money by lending to Mr. Trump, or
to have been deceived by his finan-
cial legerdemain. Nor did any wit-
nesses at trial say his alleged mis-
representations changed its loan
terms or prices. Ms. James’s 2022
lawsuit lacked any evidence that Mr.
Trump profited from any alleged
wrongdoing.
A former Deutsche Bank risk
manager testified at trial last year
that the bank’s loan decisions were
based on its own analysis, not Mr.
Trump’s word. Banks know regula-
tors can punish them for failing to
do due diligence when underwriting
loans.
Before the 2007-08 housing
meltdown, banks qualified borrow-
ers for larger loans than they could
afford, often based on inaccurate fi-
nancial records. Regulators later
dunned them for slipshod under-
Palestinian Authority, which rules
most of the West Bank and seeks
Israel’s destruction. Second, many
Israelis and Palestinians alike insist
that Jerusalem won’t find those
“local actors” to work with.
Yet Mr. Netanyahu’s plan, and
the optimism implicit in it, is cor-
rect. The proposal envisages a de-
cent Gaza run by decent Gazans.
That isn’t inconceivable. It recog-
nizes that Gazans have endured 17
years of unique hell: exploitation
by their rulers as cannon fodder
for public-relations purposes. Un-
like other dictatorial regimes,
which sacrifice soldiers for battle-
field gains, Hamas sacrifices civil-
ians for political support. The more
misery Gazans endure, the more
convincingly Hamas can accuse Is-
rael of aggression and the wider
and more vehement its global back-
ing becomes.
A trove of evidence, however,
suggests that Gazans reject being
used as pawns in the terror group’s
strategy. Two surveys taken before
Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre signal
that Gazans want to live normal
lives.
Robert Thomson
Chief Executive Officer, News Corp
Almar Latour
Chief Executive Officer and Publisher
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OPINION
Heightened labor mobility and
work-at-home flexibility are increas-
ing worker productivity and creat-
ing opportunities, while businesses
are using labor more efficiently. Ap-
plications to establish businesses
have climbed.
It’s premature to say that a sus-
tained pickup in productivity is un-
folding, but all the factors seem to
be coalescing. At the same time, the
labor force is near an all-time high
and is certain to get a sizable boost
from new immigrants. The combina-
tion points to stronger potential
economic growth. This isn’t lost on
the stock market, which is looking
beyond the tired debate about re-
cession versus soft landing and
pricing in favorable longer-run pros-
pects for the economy and profits.
writing. Yet Ms. James bizarrely ar-
gued that banks have somehow
been victimized by Mr. Trump’s al-
leged misrepresentations even
though they made money from the
loans.
Because she couldn’t demonstrate
that banks relied on Mr. Trump’s
misrepresentations—a critical ele-
Her dubious civil fraud
suit is more damaging
to the market’s integrity
than his conduct is.
ment of common-law fraud—she
rested her case on a sweeping state
civil fraud law known as Executive
Law Section 63(12). The statute sub-
stantially mirrors federal criminal
fraud statutes.
Yet in the interest of limiting
freewheeling prosecutions, federal
courts require proof of property
loss or damage to prove fraud. The
U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year
in Ciminelli v. U.S.—a case involving
New York public corruption—that
misrepresentations aren’t enough.
New York courts, on the other hand,
One, conducted by the Washing-
ton Institute for Near East Policy in
mid-2023, found that 61% wish that
more Israeli jobs were offered to
those living in Gaza and the West
Bank. Sixty-two percent want
Hamas to preserve the cease-fire
with Israel, and 67% believe that
“the Palestinians should focus on
practical matters, . . . not on big po-
litical plans or resistance options.”
Seventy-two percent say “Hamas
has been unable to improve the
lives of Palestinians in Gaza,” and
82% agree that “Palestinians should
push harder to replace their own
political leaders with more effective
and less corrupt ones.” Eighty-seven
percent find that “many people are
more preoccupied with their per-
sonal lives than with politics.”
The second survey, taken by Arab
Barometer days before the war be-
gan, found that “the vast majority
of Gazans have been frustrated with
the armed group’s ineffective gov-
ernance as they endure extreme
economic hardship.”
These findings have been borne
out on the ground. Since Oct. 7,
videos have shown crowds of Ga-
zans chanting “Down with Hamas,”
Notable & Quotable: Biden as Reagan?
From “ ‘Nightmare in America’:
How Biden’s Ad Team Should Attack
Trump” by Bill Scher for the Wash-
ington Monthly, Feb. 29:
As Reagan [in 1984] portrayed an
America of recent past marked by
inflation and declining global influ-
ence, Biden could narrate an ad over
a montage of riots from both the
summer of 2020 and the January 6
insurrection:
This was America in 2020: liter-
ally on fire. After four years of a
president spewing hatred toward
business leaders, soldiers, athletes,
CHAD CROWE
The higher expected rates of re-
turn on capital have lifted real in-
terest rates. We’ve seen this sce-
nario before. In the 1990s, economic
growth driven by a boom in produc-
tivity and strong labor-force expan-
sion was accompanied by high real
rates. Then, the federal-funds rate
averaged 3% above inflation when
real bond yields were high.
Fed researchers have estimated
that the longer-run natural rate of
interest has been in a decadeslong
decline. That’s understandable. Fol-
lowing the 1990s, real interest rates
were negative for most of the post-
financial-crisis expansion while eco-
nomic growth was lackluster and in-
flation below 2%. Following the
pandemic, the Fed’s latest research
reconfirmed low estimates of the
have given a broad sweep to the
state’s fraud law.
The state trial judge, Arthur En-
goron, ruled on Feb. 16 that Mr.
Trump’s false financial statements,
no matter whether they harmed any-
one, deserve to be punished. He re-
quired Mr. Trump to “disgorge” $355
million in “ill-gotten gains.” How did
he come up with this figure? Finan-
cial legerdemain.
Ms. James hired a financial ex-
pert, who assessed the “interest rate
savings” that Mr. Trump supposedly
netted as the difference between
what he paid and what he would
have paid on his loans had his state-
ments been accurate. The judge then
tacked on the profit Mr. Trump pu-
tatively made on properties for
which he submitted false financial
statements.
On top of that, Judge Engoron
added roughly $99 million in “pre-
judgment interest” dating back to
March 4, 2019—the day the attorney
general launched her investigation—
to punish Mr. Trump’s “corrupt in-
tent or desire for personal profit.”
Who cares that the lawsuit was mo-
tivated by Ms. James’s desire for po-
litical gain and government profit?
Ms. James last week jeered that
Mr. Trump owes an additional
cursing Hamas leaders, and pro-
claiming: “The people want to end
the war. . . . We want to live!”
Hamas’s stealing of humanitarian
aid has likewise reportedly pro-
voked local anger and tension.
The same resistance has begun
to break through in popular media.
Live interviews of Gazans on Arab
Gazans appear ready to
rebuke the terrorists and
work with Israel to create
a new governing body.
media networks often inadvertently
broadcast sentiment critical of
Hamas and its state backers. In a
Nov. 5 interview with Al Jazeera, an
elderly, wounded man said of
Hamas members: “They can go to
hell and hide there.” The journalist
cut him off.
These and other data points indi-
cate that many Gazans want to be
liberated from Hamas. However
hostile to the Jewish state, they
desperately want to move on from
immigrants, people of different
faiths, political opponents, even at
times political allies, our country
was falling apart. We were turning
on each other, and democracy itself
hung by a thread.
Then just like Reagan, Biden can
pivot. Over multicultural scenes of
cooperative workers and happy fam-
ilies, Biden could say:
But then we rediscovered the
love of democracy that binds us as
a nation. We found ways to bridge
our differences and rebuild our
economy after the pandemic. We
have more work to do, but com-
Monday, March 4, 2024 | A17
longer-run natural rate of interest.
Based on this, the Fed’s current
thinking is that it will need to cut
rates to avoid becoming inadver-
tently too tight. But the natural real
rate is unobservable, and estimates
of it are iffy. If the Fed’s assessment
is wrong and real rates have risen,
easing interest rates now would re-
sult in too-high inflation.
The Fed is wisely signaling that
cutting rates now may be prema-
ture. The central bank can’t specu-
late. It needs to gain a better under-
standing of the supply side of the
economy and how current innova-
tions are affecting it, rather than fo-
cusing primarily on how monetary
policy affects demand management.
The Fed has a poor track record
of identifying real shifts in the
economy. An exception was Chair-
man Alan Greenspan. In the
mid-1990s, he correctly diagnosed
the productivity boom and pushed
back on colleagues who argued that
raising rates was necessary because
the low unemployment rate would
push up inflation. Mr. Greenspan’s
judgment extended the economic
expansion.
High real interest rates and
strong economic growth are posi-
tive complements. Today, the Fed
needs to push back on calls to lower
rates and instead learn more about
how innovation is influencing real
economic performance.
Mr. Levy is a visiting scholar at
the Hoover Institution and a mem-
ber of the Shadow Open Market
Committee.
$114,553.04 in interest to the state
each day he doesn’t cough up the
moolah. It could be argued that the
grossly inflated penalties against Mr.
Trump constitute ill-gotten gains for
the state. Mr. Trump enjoys playing
the victim, and Ms. James is more
than enabling him.
If the judgment isn’t stayed or
sharply reduced, Mr. Trump will
have no choice but to dump his
properties in a fire sale. Yet it’s
doubtful Ms. James actually wants
to seize those assets. That would re-
quire the state to operate and main-
tain them before auctioning them
off, which it is manifestly incapable
of doing. New York City public hous-
ing, Q.E.D.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers rightly argue
that the state is trampling the rule
of law by “unwinding complex com-
mercial transactions between so-
phisticated parties” even when no-
body has been harmed. What’s to
stop the attorney general from doing
the same whenever she disagrees
with how a bank or business has val-
ued an asset?
Ms. James says punishing Mr.
Trump is necessary to preserve the
integrity of the financial market-
place. But she’s doing more damage
than Mr. Trump is.
their present squalor, even if that
means working with Jerusalem.
Israel, therefore, can reasonably
expect to find many cooperative Ga-
zans ready to establish a new gov-
erning authority capable of taking
on a range of tasks, from policing,
utilities, municipal services and ad-
ministration to communications,
teaching and urban planning.
A decent Gaza will require tough
Israeli military rule, overseeing a
tough police state along the lines of
what exists in Egypt and Jordan. In
those countries, citizens can lead
normal lives so long as they stay
out of trouble and refrain from crit-
icizing the ruler. Under such condi-
tions, Gaza could become decent
and economically viable. As others
such as Singapore and Dubai have
shown, democracy isn’t necessary
for such a project to succeed.
If the Israelis have the acumen
and stamina to make this happen,
they will have retrieved something
positive out of tragedy.
Mr. Pipes is president of the Mid-
dle East Forum and author, most
recently, of “Islamism vs. the West:
35 Years of Geopolitical Struggle.”
pared to four years ago, America
is stronger, safer, and kinder.
For a story to resonate it needs
to not just be true, but feel true.
That Trump is a divisive person who
divided America meets both criteria.
Many of Trump’s own supporters
acknowledge it, to either lament or
revel in it. Whatever divisions pres-
ently remain, after the last 37
months of calm, moral leadership,
the national temperature has indis-
putably simmered. An ad campaign
that ties Trump’s hateful approach
to politics to the 2020 unrest is not
going to fail any fact checks.
A18 | Monday, March 4, 2024
Russian Tape Reveals Berlin’s Arms Plan
In leaked recording,
German generals
discuss how Kyiv
could use missiles
BY BOJAN PANCEVSKI
BERLIN—Germany’s air-
force commander gathered his
top officers for a secret meet-
ing in February to discuss the
possible delivery of his coun-
try’s most powerful guided
missiles to Ukraine.
The long-range weapons
could be used to destroy the
Kerch Bridge, which links Rus-
sia to the occupied Ukrainian
peninsula of Crimea, the Ger-
man officers said.
What they didn’t know:
Russian spies recorded their
conversation, which revealed
classified details about West-
ern involvement in Ukraine. A
38-minute audio tape of the
discussion was posted online
late Friday by the head of Rus-
sian state-run broadcaster RT.
Senior German officials con-
firmed the authenticity of the
recording to The Wall Street
Journal and said the meeting
took place on the commercial
platform WebEx, an online
conferencing tool, which isn’t
encrypted to the armed forces’
standard for confidential com-
munication. One officer dialed
in with his cellphone from a
Singapore hotel room.
The meeting focused on
how Germany might organize
delivery and operation of Tau-
Iran Courted Sudan for Naval Base
BY NICHOLAS BARIYO
AND BENOIT FAUCON
Iran unsuccessfully pressed
Sudan to let it build a perma-
nent naval base on the African
country’s Red Sea coast, some-
thing that would have allowed
Tehran to monitor maritime
traffic to and from the Suez
Canal and Israel, a senior Suda-
nese intelligence official said.
Iran has supplied Sudan’s
military with explosive drones
to use in its fight with a rebel
warlord and offered to provide
a helicopter-carrying warship
if Sudan had granted permis-
sion for the base, said Ahmad
Hasan Mohamed, an intelli-
gence adviser to Sudan’s mili-
tary leader.
“The Iranians said they
wanted to use the base for in-
telligence gathering,” Mo-
hamed said in an interview.
“They also wanted to station
warships there.” He said Khar-
toum turned down Iran’s pro-
posal to avoid alienating the
U.S. and Israel.
A spokesman for Iran’s mis-
sion to the United Nations in
New York declined to com-
ment.
A naval base on the Red
Sea would allow Tehran to
tighten its grip on one of the
world’s busiest shipping lanes,
where it is helping Yemen-
based Houthi rebels launch at-
tacks on commercial vessels.
Iran and the Houthis say the
PAKISTAN
Sharif Confirmed
As Prime Minister
Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif
pledged to focus on the coun-
try’s debt-laden economy af-
ter he was confirmed as
prime minister on Sunday,
amid protests by opposition
lawmakers following an elec-
tion marred by allegations of
rigging.
Sharif emerged as the next
prime minister after half a
dozen parties forged a coalition
last month, when no party won
a majority of parliamentary
seats in the Feb. 8 poll, accord-
ing to official results.
Candidates associated
with former Prime Minister
Imran Khan, whose popularity
soared after his ouster from
office in 2022, won the most
seats in the election, in what
analysts described as a revolt
by voters against the influ-
ence of the country’s power-
ful army in the politics of the
nuclear-armed nation.
Political experts and politi-
cians say Khan lost the sup-
port of the army as he tried
to assert himself as the
country’s leader. The army
denies any involvement in
Khan’s ouster, and has said it
abides by Pakistan’s constitu-
tion.
—Saeed Shah
Gen. Gerhartz, shown last year, talked about how Germany could get Ukraine Taurus missiles.
rus long-range cruise missiles
should they be sent to
Ukraine. German leader Olaf
Scholz has declined to send
the Taurus despite pleas from
Kyiv and pressure within his
own government.
Also in the recording were
officials saying Britain, France
and the U.S. keep troops in
Ukraine to help operate so-
phisticated Western weapons
systems, something those
countries have denied.
The leak delivered a propa-
ganda win for the Kremlin,
sparked a furor in Germany
and could strain relationships
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, right, met with Sudan’s
acting foreign minister, Ali Al-Sadiq Ali, in Tehran last month.
attacks are aimed at punishing
Israel and its allies for the
fighting in Gaza. Iran’s re-
gional rivals, Israel, Egypt and
Saudi Arabia, all have direct
access to the waterway.
Iran has also been sending
increasingly sophisticated
weapons to its Houthi allies in
Yemen, enhancing their ability
to attack merchant vessels
and disrupt international
commerce despite weeks of
U.S.-led airstrikes. A U.S.-led
multinational force has also
been deployed to protect sea-
borne traffic.
Sudan had close ties with
Iran and its Palestinian ally
Hamas under longtime strong-
man Omar al-Bashir. After
Bashir’s ouster in a 2019 coup,
the leader of the country’s mil-
INDIA
Billionaire Hosts
Global Celebrities
What do Meta CEO Mark
Zuckerberg, Ivanka Trump,
Microsoft co-founder Bill
Gates and Rihanna have in
common? They all were in In-
dia this weekend to attend
the lavish pre-wedding festiv-
ities of Anant Ambani, the
youngest son of Asia’s richest
billionaire, Reliance Industries
chairman Mukesh Ambani,
whose net worth is esti-
mated at more than $100 bil-
lion.
Anant Ambani, 28, is mar-
rying Radhika Merchant, 29,
who is also the child of a ty-
coon. Her father, Viren Mer-
chant, heads Encore Health-
care, a pharmaceutical and
consumer healthcare com-
pany.
The normally quiet coastal
Gujarat town of Jamnagar
hosted some 1,000 VIP
guests from around the
world. The themed events in-
cluded a formal cocktail on
Friday and a private concert
performance by Rihanna.
Family members and stars
like Bollywood icon Shahrukh
Khan performed dance rou-
tines. Walt Disney CEO Bob
Iger was in town for the fes-
tivities.
—Rajesh Roy
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
WORLD NEWS
The leak now makes it less targets including ammunition
likely that Germany will de- depots and the Kerch Bridge.
liver the weapon, politicians Ukraine operates similar
and analysts said. Western missiles—the British
Following the leaks, Rus- Storm Shadow and France’s
sian officials attacked Ger- SCALP. Kyiv has used them to
many for discussing detailed hit the bridge but failed to do
attacks on Russian targets and lasting damage. Experts say
threatened with retaliation the more powerful and further-
should Berlin become part of reaching Taurus, a German-
the war effort. Swedish air-launched missile,
The leak was very serious could knock down the bridge.
and would be investigated German officers in the re-
“very meticulously, very inten- cording indicated that they had
sively and very quickly,” Scholz analyzed in great detail how to
told reporters during a visit to attack that key piece of infra-
the Vatican on Saturday. structure, and said it would
Defense Minister Boris Pis- take 10 to 20 Taurus missiles
torius on Sunday said he had to evade Russian air defenses
DANIEL REINHARDT/ZUMA PRESS
launched an investigation into and destroy the bridge.
what he called a hybrid attack “There is no real reason to
by Russia aimed at spreading say we can’t do this; it only de-
disinformation. WebEx was pends on the political red lines,”
suitable for communications Gen. Gerhartz is heard saying.
below a certain confidentiality Destroying the bridge linking
level, he said, and the investi- Russia to Crimea would be stra-
gation would establish tegically and politically impor-
whether the officers breached tant but Ukraine would likely
with Germany’s North Atlantic Last week, Scholz said Tau- that protocol. Pistorius said be unable to follow up with a
Treaty Organization allies. rus missiles can’t be given to Russian President Vladimir Pu- ground offensive, he said.
It was also the latest in a Kyiv because they would require tin’s propaganda machine was “This will not change the
string of incidents highlighting German troops to help operate using the leak to falsely claim course of the war, we must be
German vulnerability to Rus- them. Officers in the leaked call, that Germany was getting di- clear about that,” Gen. Ger-
sian spying. A senior officer in however, discussed how Ukrai- rectly involved in the war. hartz is heard saying.
Germany’s BND foreign intelli- nians could be trained to use “This is designed to divide A spokeswoman for the
gence service was recently ar- the system on their own. us and undermine our deter- Russian Foreign Ministry said
rested on allegations that he Scholz has long been under mination.…We mustn’t play Moscow had demanded imme-
was spying for Moscow. international and domestic into Putin’s hands,” he said. diate answers from Berlin.
Officials familiar with the pressure to deliver the In the recording, Germany’s “Our historic adversaries,
German investigation of the weapon. Britain at one point air-force chief, Gen. Ingo Ger- the Germans, have once again
audiotape leak said WebEx is offered to take over and de- hartz, tasked top aides with turned into our archenemies,”
widely used by the military and liver the system in order to preparing a presentation for Russia’s former President and
other sensitive departments in help the chancellor maintain the defense minister on how Prime Minister Dmitry Medve-
the German government. “This his policy that Germany must Germany could deliver the dev, now vice-chair of the
should be a wake-up call,” one not directly be drawn into Taurus to Ukraine—and how Russian Security Council,
senior official said. military operations. Kyiv could use it to destroy posted on social media.
U.K.-Owned Ship Hit
tens of thousands of people,
By Houthi Missile Sinks
displaced millions and trig-
gered one of the world’s worst BY BENOIT FAUCON vasion of Gaza, though many
humanitarian crises. of the vessels have no connec-
“Sudan bought drones from A British-owned ship struck tion to Israel.
Iran because we needed more on Feb. 18 by Yemen’s Iran- Cleaning up any damage to
accurate weapons, to reduce backed Houthi forces has sunk the Red Sea and its coastal ar-
the loss of human life and re- into the Red Sea, U.K. and Ye- eas from the Rubymar’s fertil-
spect the international hu- men officials said on Saturday, izer cargo will be complicated
IRANIAN PRESIDENCY/SHUTTERSTOCK
manitarian law,” Mohamed threatening to cause an envi- by the continued threat from
said. ronmental disaster with its the Houthis.
The explosive drones have cargo of fertilizer. “There won’t be anyone to
helped Burhan reverse losses A Houthi missile strike had help under missile threat,”
against the RSF, according to blown a hole in the cargo ves- said Ami Daniel, chief execu-
regional officials and analysts sel, Rubymar, which was ship- tive of maritime artificial-in-
following the fighting. In re- ping 22,000 metric tons of telligence provider Windward.
cent weeks, the government Saudi fertilizer to Bulgaria. Even before the Rubymar
has regained control of impor- That evening, the crew was lost, the attack on the
tant areas of Khartoum and abandoned the vessel, flagged ship had caused an 18-mile oil
Omdurman, its twin city in Belize, and it vanished into slick, according to the U.S.
itary junta, Gen. Abdel Fattah across the Nile. the sea late Friday after tak- Central Command, which is
al-Burhan, initiated a rap- The Biden administration ing on water for two weeks. responsible for U.S. military
prochement with the U.S. in an has accused both the Suda- The Houthis have carried operations in the Middle East.
effort to end international nese military and the RSF of out more than 60 attacks in Roy Khoury, chief executive of
sanctions. He also moved to committing war crimes. The the Red Sea region, upending Blue Fleet Group, the ship-
normalize relations with Israel. U.S. alleges the RSF also has the shipping industry’s ability management company operat-
Iran’s request to build a committed crimes against hu- to travel through one of the ing the ship in Beirut, said he
base highlights how regional manity, including murder, world’s busiest commercial had been struggling to bring
powers are seeking to take ad- rape and ethnic cleansing in waterways, which connects salvaging companies to tow or
vantage of Sudan’s 10-month- the Darfur region in western Asia to Europe and beyond at least repair it because they
old civil war to gain a foothold Sudan. through Egypt’s Suez Canal. were concerned about operat-
in the country, a strategic U.N. officials have criticized The U.S. and its allies have ing in a war zone.
crossroads between the Mid- Sudan for aerial bombing of sent warships to the Red Sea, Ahmed Bin Mubarak, prime
dle East and sub-Saharan Af- civilian neighborhoods and de- and the U.S. and the U.K. have minister of the internationally
rica with a 400-mile Red Sea priving Sudanese civilians of conducted airstrikes against recognized Yemeni govern-
coastline. desperately needed humani- the Houthis in Yemen to deter ment in Aden, which has been
Sudan’s military has been tarian aid. U.N. agencies have the group from more attacks engaged in a war with the
fighting the paramilitary also accused the RSF of atroc- on the shipping industry. Houthis for a decade, said on
Rapid Support Forces, led by ities, including ethnically mo- But the Houthis have X that the environmental di-
Burhan’s former second-in- tivated attacks in Darfur. proved resilient, saying they saster caused by the fertilizer
command, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Sudan’s military and the will continue to attack what cargo sinking “threatens the
Hamdan Dagalo, since mid- RSF have denied the U.S. and they say are ships connected lives of our people and gener-
April. The conflict has killed U.N. accusations. to Israel in response to its in- ations for decades.”
WORLD WATCH
ULF PALM/ZUMA PRESS
POLE POSITION: Skiers take part in Vasaloppet, an annual long distance cross-country ski race, in Salen, Sweden.
 BUSINESS & FINANCE
© 2024 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved.
Last Week: S&P 5137.08 À 0.95%
China Races to Front in EV Output Nvidia’s
Surge Stirs
Country’s carmakers
are envy of the world
through production
speed, tech offerings
China is speeding ahead in
the electric-vehicle race. Rid-
ing the nation’s EV boom, up-
start automakers have eclipsed
foreign rivals to develop cars
faster, push the boundaries of
smart tech and swamp con-
sumers with choice.
By Selina Cheng in
Hong Kong and Yoko
Kubota in Beijing
Chinese automakers are
around 30% quicker in develop-
ment than legacy manufactur-
ers, industry executives say,
largely because they have up-
ended global practices built
around decades of making com-
plex combustion-engine cars.
They work on many stages of
development at once. They are
willing to substitute traditional
suppliers for smaller, faster
ones. They run more virtual
tests instead of time-consum-
ing mechanical ones. And they
are redefining when a car is
ready to sell on the market.
Foreign carmakers openly
admit they are chasing the
game, increasingly wary of
Chinese rivals they once con-
sidered also-rans. China’s
prowess, combined with its
global ambitions, is also stok-
ing fears it could flood the
‘Dune: Part Two’ Helps Hollywood End Box-Office Dry Spell
WARNER BROS/EVERETT COLLECTION
The sci-fi sequel starring Timothée Chalamet earned $81.5 million in its opening weekend. The total box office had its first $100 million weekend since January. B3
How to Invest in a Bull Market,
According to Everyday Investors
BY HARDIKA SINGH
Exuberance is back in mar-
kets. A frenzy over artificial-
intelligence technology has
stoked a monster run in
Nvidia shares. Major stock in-
dexes are clinching repeated
records. And even bitcoin is
threatening to set a new high.
Financial advisers caution
clients not to let a fear of
missing out drive their deci-
sion-making. They encourage
them to diversify their hold-
ings and stick with dollar-
cost averaging—investing a
fixed amount of money at
regular intervals—because at-
tempts to predict a market
top or bottom rarely pay off.
Nonetheless, stock-market
records often happen in clus-
ters, they say, and this rally
appears to be missing some
of the classic ingredients of a
market bubble. That might
suggest the market has more
room to run.
We talked to four individ-
ual investors about how they
are adjusting their playbooks.
Cash can be costly
Jordan Buchanan, a 35-
year-old Navy officer sta-
* ** *
S&P FIN g 0.07% S&P IT À 2.51%
New and updated EV releases in China*
TOYOTA VOLKSWAGEN
2017 ’23 2017
Number of new passenger-car models in China, 2020-23
80 models
Gas
60
40
20
0 0
2020 ’23
*Excludes models with limited sales numbers. Data for 2023 are through September. Tesla’s count includes made-in-China launches of existing
vehicles in 2020 and 2021. †Weighted average
Sources: Automobility (new vehicles); China Passenger Car Association (new models); S&P Global Mobility via AlixPartners (years)
world with cheap cars as de- reason: It puts out cars with share will be much bigger,” makers are now looking to
mand for EVs slows.
NIO, one of China’s leading, spare chip that allows it to NIO’s product committee.
though cash-burning, electric- frequently add new features
vehicle startups, takes less through software updates.
than 36 months from the start
of a project to delivery to cus- duce a new technology to the scratch in as fast as 24 months. Volkswagen and Nissan are
tomers, compared
roughly four years for many liable technology, then the models ranging from SUVs, to be speedier.
traditional carmakers. One chance for you to gain market multipurpose vehicles, and
Jordan Buchanan
tioned in Virginia Beach, Va.,
opted not to renew his certifi-
cate of deposit when it ma-
tured in January, even though
he could have gotten a 5%
yield. Instead, he plopped
$10,000 into Nvidia, Super
Micro Computer, Ama-
zon.com and Microsoft,
among other stocks. His port-
folio is up 17% this year, out-
pacing the tech-heavy Nasdaq
Composite’s 8.4% advance.
Buchanan says he expects
growth stocks will jump even
higher once the Federal Re-
serve begins cutting interest
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
DJ TRANS g 0.56% WSJ $ IDX À 0.01%
TESLA XPENG
’23 2017 ’23 2017
Plug-in hybrids & All-
extended-range electric
2020 ’23 2020 ’23
latent technology such as a said Mark Zhou, the head of learn from Chinese rivals.
“The faster you can intro- can develop vehicles from future threats will be Chinese.
with market, provided that it’s a re- It rapidly releases different adopting some Chinese ways
rates, whereas cash will likely
start to lose its appeal. Tech-
nology and other growth
stocks are particularly sensi-
tive to changes in interest
rates because they are often
valued based on expectations
of growth far into the future.
“At the time I felt safe, but
after seeing that things were
working out a lot better in
stocks, I just decided to dump
it in there,” Buchanan says.
“While it has been good so
JORDAN BUCHANAN
far this year, I don’t think
we’ve really ignited the fire
that’s gonna take place once
they start dropping interest
rates.”
Stocks have historically
outpaced other assets over
time. The S&P 500 has re-
turned more than 10% annu-
ally, including dividends, ac-
cording to data from Ned
Davis Research going back
100 years. In comparison,
corporate bonds and Trea-
surys advanced 5.5% and 5.1%,
respectively, and gold has
added 4.7%.
Buchanan’s optimism is
shared by others. Charles
Schwab says bullishness
among everyday investors is
at the highest level since its
Please turn to page B10
2–YR. TREAS. yield 4.531%
Monday, March 4, 2024 | B1
NIKKEI 39910.82 À 2.08%
hatchbacks that all share man-
BYD
ufacturing and digital architec-
ture with other Geely brands
such as Polestar and Smart.
NIO
Backed by generous govern-
ment stimulus policies, China
now sells the most EVs in the
world. Its carmakers are heav-
ily customer-focused, empha-
sizing software and digital
’23 2017 ’23 2017 ’23
technology, from driver-assis-
tance functions to in-car en-
Average years in market† tertainment.
The slowdown in demand
5 years
for EVs—even in China—is
Non- spurring Chinese carmakers to
Chinese constantly update and release
4 brands new models. Cars launched last
year contributed to 90% of
Chinese China’s passenger-car sales
3 growth, according to the coun-
legacy
brands try’s passenger-car association.
Because Chinese buyers
2 tend to prefer new or recently
Chinese released cars, the cars have a
EV short shelf life. Domestic EV
1 brands
makers offer models for sale
for an average of 1.3 years be-
fore they are updated or re-
freshed, compared with 4.2
2015 ’20 ’23 years for foreign brands, ac-
cording to an analysis by con-
sulting firm AlixPartners.
In a reversal of industry
convention, many global car-
Tesla’s Elon Musk and Ford
Zeekr, an EV venture from chief executive Jim Farley
decades-old auto giant Geely, have both said their biggest
Please turn to page B2
INSIDE Conflict Threatens
Key Internet Cables
BY DREW FITZGERALD
Conflict in the Middle East
is drawing fresh attention to
one of the internet’s deepest
vulnerabilities: the Red Sea.
Most internet traffic be-
tween Europe and East Asia
runs through undersea cables
TECHNOLOGY that funnel into the narrow
It’s Elon Musk vs. strait at the southern end of
the Red Sea. That chokepoint
everyone else in the has long posed risks for tele-
battle over artificial com infrastructure because of
intelligence’s future. B4 its busy ship traffic, which
raises the likelihood of an ac-
cidental anchor drop striking
a cable. Attacks by Iran-
backed Houthis in Yemen have
made the area more danger-
ous.
CHRISTOPH DERNBACH/DPA/ZUMA PRESS
The latest warning sign
came Feb. 24, when three sub-
marine internet cables run-
ning through the region sud-
denly dropped service in some
of their markets. The cuts
weren’t enough to disconnect
any country but instantly
worsened web service in In-
dia, Pakistan and parts of
HEARD ON East Africa, said Doug Ma-
THE STREET dory, director of internet
analysis at network research
Apple plays a costly firm Kentik.
game of catch-up with It wasn’t immediately clear
its rivals in AI. B12 what caused the cutoffs. Some
telecom experts pointed to
See more at WSJ.com/Markets
Talk of
A Bubble
BY CHARLEY GRANT
Nvidia’s meteoric surge has
helped push the stock market
to record highs. It also has
some on Wall Street saying the
“B-word.”
Rising enthusiasm for artifi-
cial intelligence has made
Nvidia’s chips a must-have
product, and transformed
Nvidia into the market’s hottest
stock. The surge has some Wall
Street professionals wondering
whether AI mania is morphing
into a classic stock bubble.
The stock has risen more
than sevenfold since Oct. 14,
2022, and Nvidia is now the
third-most valuable U.S. com-
pany, with a market value
above $2 trillion. The chip
maker added nearly $280 bil-
lion in value in two trading ses-
sions after reporting blowout
fourth-quarter results on Feb.
21. It took 180 trading days for
Nvidia’s value to rise to $2 tril-
lion from $1 trillion; it took
more than 500 trading days for
Apple and Microsoft to reach
that milestone.
Nvidia has become one of
the most popular stocks among
everyday investors. Of the 59
Wall Street analysts who cover
the stock, 54 rate shares a buy
or outperform, according to
FactSet. Other chip stocks have
come along for the ride. The
PHLX Semiconductor Index
climbed 18% this year. Ad-
vanced Micro Devices gained
37%, while Lam Research and
Broadcom each rose 25%.
The Nasdaq Composite on
Thursday set its first new high
since 2021, while the S&P 500
has already notched 15 record
closes in 2024. Both indexes
have risen in 16 of the past 18
weeks, bringing their year-to-
date advances to 8.4% and 7.7%.
“We’re getting a lot of calls
from clients about AI stocks,”
said Emerson Ham III, senior
partner at Sound View Wealth
Advisors, who has recom-
mended chip stocks for his cli-
ents since 2018. “Whenever
anything goes too well, I get
nervous. We’re having conver-
sations with clients about tak-
ing some cream off the top.”
Others were more blunt:
“The current AI bubble is big-
ger than the 1990s tech bub-
ble,” wrote Torsten Slok, chief
economist at Apollo, in a note
to clients last week.
Bulls and bears on the
stock agree on one thing:
Nvidia’s rise is accompanied
by blowout profits. That sets
the enthusiasm over AI apart
Please turn to page B2
the cargo ship Rubymar,
which was abandoned by its
crew after it came under
Houthi attack on Feb. 18. The
disabled ship had been drift-
ing in the area for more than
a week even after it dropped
its anchor. It later sank.
Yemen’s Houthi-backed
telecom ministry in San’a is-
sued a statement denying re-
sponsibility for the subma-
rine-cable failures and
repeating that the govern-
ment is “keen to keep all sub-
marine telecom cables…away
from any possible risks.” The
ministry didn’t comment on
the Rubymar attack.
Mauritius-based cable
owner Seacom, which owns
one of the damaged lines, said
fixing it will demand “a fair
amount of logistics coordina-
tion.” Its head of marketing,
Claudia Ferro, said repairs
should start early in the sec-
ond quarter, though complica-
tions from permitting, re-
gional unrest and weather
conditions could move that
timeline.
“Our team thinks it is plau-
sible that it could have been
affected by anchor damage,
but this has not been con-
firmed yet,” Ferro said.
Please turn to page B2
B2 | Monday, March 4, 2024 * *** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSES BUSINESS & FINANCE

These indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeople in
today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

A B1 P
Chinese EVs
Race to
Adobe.....................................B5,B10 General Motors........................B3 Palantir Technologies......B10
Advanced Micro Devices..B1 Global Infrastructure Panasonic Holdings..............B3
Alibaba Group...........................B5 Partners......................................A6 PayPal..............................................B5
GSK.....................................................B5

Alphabet....................B5,B10,B12
Amazon.com..............B1,B5,B12
AMC Entertainment.........B10
Apple.....................B1,B5,B10,B12
Arbor Realty Trust.............B10
Arkhouse Management.....A1
Arm Holdings..........................B10
ASML Holding..........................B5
AstraZeneca................................B5
B
Baidu.........................................B2,B5
Barrick Gold.............................B10
Berkshire Hathaway............A6
BlackRock.......................................A1
Boeing..............................................A3
The Front
R
H Riot Platforms.......................B10
Home Depot...............................B5 Roche................................................B5
I S
Intel....................................................B3 Salesforce......................................B5 Continued from page B1
Invesco BulletShares 2024 Samsung Electronics..........B3
Corporate Bond ETF.......B5 Sanofi...............................................B5
Global automakers risk fall-
ing behind in the technology if
iShares iBonds Dec 2024 SAP.....................................................B5
Term Corporate ETF.......B5 Shopify............................................B5 they scale back investments as
iShares Preferred & Income State Street................................A6 Chinese rivals ramp up. Apple
Securities ETF.......................B5 Super Micro Computer has scrapped its EV project and
B1,B10
J Musk said that Tesla will ship
JPMorgan Chase....................A6
T its updated Roadster starting
Taiwan Semiconductor next year, after years of delay.
L

ZOEY ZHANG/REUTERS
Manufacturing......................B3
Boyd Gaming.............................B2 Lam Research............................B1 Target...............................................B5
The share of EVs among global
Brigade Capital LG Energy Solution..............B3 Tencent............................................B5 car sales is expected to reach
Management...........................A1 Lockheed Martin....................A3 as high as 40% by 2027 despite
Tesla.........................B1,B4,B5,B10
Broadcom.......................................B1 LVMH Moët Hennessy Twilio.................................................B5 the recent slowdown.
Brookfield Asset
Management..........................A6
Louis Vuitton.........................B5 U Volkswagen is now part-
L’Oréal..............................................B5
C UBS Group.................................B12 nering with Chinese compa- Zeekr creates vehicles from scratch in as little as 24 months. Its hatchback crossover Zeekr X.
M United Microelectronics...A2 nies as it looks to speed up its
CleanSpark.................................B10
Costco Wholesale..................B5
Macy’s...............................................A1 V processes. Its China business teams and 3-D printed proto- NIO’s next update will allow from important software to the
Marathon Digital.................B10 head noted it took the com- types allow engineers to go the vehicle to automatically digital vehicle operating sys-
Vimeo...............................................B5
D Meta Platforms.............B5,B12
Micron Technology...............A2
Volkswagen.................................B2 pany nearly four years to get a through loops of trial and er- start or stop the car depend- tems that executives liken to
Dropbox..........................................B5
Microsoft.......A1,B1,B4,B5,B12 W new product to the market, ror much quicker, executives ing on the traffic signal. the nerve center of smartcars.
F
N Walmart.........................................B5 compared with little more at Zeekr and NIO said. “If the minimum viable EV startup XPeng last year
Flaherty & Crumrine X than 2½ years for local manu- There is no need to wait for product will allow us to take introduced the SEPA2.0, which
Preferred & Income Netflix...............................................B5
Securities Fund....................B5 NIO.......................................................B1 XPeng...............................................B2 facturers. hardware parts to be com- the lead over other competi- combines features including
Ford Motor...................................B1 Northrop Grumman.............A3 Y Global carmakers including pleted to develop assisted tors, that’s attractive enough the operating system, driver-
Fortinet.........................................B10 Novartis..........................................B5 Yangtze Memory Ford and Nissan are now mov- driving and powertrain con- for our users,” Zhou said. assistance software and bat-
Fujian Jinhua Integrated Novo Nordisk.............................B5 Technologies...........................A2 ing to use their China facto- trol software, said Zhu Ling, a tery pack design for use
Circuit...........................................A2 Nvidia...............................B1,B5,B12 Z ries to make cars for export vice president of Zeekr. across all models. XPeng says
G O Zoom Video around the world. China sur- JiYue, an EV brand created Speedy suppliers it shortens research-and-de-
Geely Automobile Holdings Occidental Petroleum.........A6 Communications.................B5 passed Japan as the world’s by Geely and Chinese tech gi- NIO is churning out new velopment cycles by around
top auto exporter last year. ant Baidu, can finish product models even as its losses 20%.
Concerns about China-made design in six months, said CEO mount and the company laid Figuring out software on
INDEX TO PEOPLE cars are increasing. On Thurs-
day, the Biden administration
Joe Xia. He visits the design
studio almost every week,
off 10% of its staff late last
year.
cars and making them gel well
with hardware is one area
said it would investigate for- bringing employees from Global carmakers typically where traditional carmakers
A Grode, Josh..................................B3 T eign car technologies, citing sales, marketing, manufactur- won’t approve new suppliers such as Volkswagen and Toy-
Altman, Sam..............................B4 K Tomasson, Kris.........................B2 potential national security ing, product development and without a lengthy vetting pro- ota have struggled.
B Kahane, Gavriel.......................A4 Tseng, Brandon........................A3 risks from China. The Euro- software. Any design feature cess, industry executives say. XPeng’s approach is in part
Blackwell, Jonathon.............A4 Kuzminov, Maxim...................A1 U pean Union is conducting an changes can be understood by Chinese ones will rope suppli- possible because the carmaker
C L Umeda, Hirokazu....................B3 antisubsidy probe into China’s all so they can make relevant ers in early when conceiving develops software in-house
Cortright, Clare.........................A3 Leo, Leonard...............................A6 V EV makers. changes, he said. a car to avoid back and forth alongside vehicle hardware,
D M Villeneuve, Denis....................B3 German and Japanese car- later. said Brian Gu, the carmaker’s
Dergarabedian, Paul.............B3 Musk, Elon............................B1,B4 W makers have well-defined In the case of BYD, delivery co-president. For global car-
DiPofi, Vince...............................B3
P Wiedman, Mark.......................A6 Innovate and learn standards and guidelines for time from a Japanese mold makers, the software-develop-
F-G X Not all of the ways China is every step in car manufactur- supplier has been cut to ment job was traditionally
Parker, Priya.............................A12
Farley, Jim.....................................B1
Fink, Larry.....................................A1
Perkal, Matt................................A4 Xia, Joe............................................B2 moving ahead are innovations. ing and development, but around six months from at done by external suppliers.
Fung, Baron..............................B12 S Z Automakers in the country are these are barriers to moving least a year since it bought Volkswagen last year obtained
Gelfond, Rich..............................B3 Swan, Allan.................................B3 Zhu Ling.........................................B2 adopting and pushing forward quickly, said Christoph Weber, the company more than a de- a stake in XPeng to partner in
ideas from Tesla, such as fo- the China gen- cade ago. BYD vehicle development and
cusing on upgrading car fea- eral manager did so by in- technology.

Nvidia co-chief investment officer at

LVW Advisors.
Others question whether
tures through software up-
dates. Tesla has been ousted
as the world’s top EV seller by
for AutoForm,
a Swiss com-
pany that
Executives are
more willing to
volving experts
from the sup-
plier to advise Startup spirit
Stirs Talk Nvidia can maintain its torrid
pace of growth. Analysts polled
by FactSet expect $107 billion
China’s BYD.
China’s EV boom is so re-
cent that it remains to be seen
makes simula-
tion software
for car manu-
push new
products to the
on molding
from the early
stage and set
Many Chinese EV makers
operate more like startups
than legacy automakers. They

Of Bubble in revenue for the fiscal year

that ends in January, up from
$60.9 billion last year. They
whether there are any trade-
offs between faster develop-
ment and vehicle safety and
facturing.
NIO, the EV
maker that was
market sooner.
its design ear-
lier in the de-
velopment pro-
have a smaller number of em-
ployees who say they tend to
work longer hours. Executives
worry that demand for chips quality. Chinese carmakers in- once dubbed cess. are more willing to override
Continued from page B1 from large tech companies sist they make no compro- China’s Tesla When Zeekr standard processes to push
from speculative manias of might not hold up in the years mises, but some in the indus- killer, has changed when a car was designing the Zeekr X, a new products to the market
the recent past, such as block- ahead. Nvidia said one buyer try say their focus is on is deemed ready for market. It premium hatchback crossover sooner, experts in the industry
chain stocks. accounted for nearly a fifth of seeking growth first, whereas classifies its releases as “min- with an in-car fridge to keep say, even if it could be harder
In the most recent quarter, sales last year. Others fret fresh legacy carmakers foster a ro- imum viable products.” That drinks cool, it first sourced to fence in risks and costs
Nvidia earned a profit of $12.29 competition will emerge from bust system around meeting means they have more ad- the appliance from a well- when things go wrong.
billion, up from $680 million in other chip makers, resulting in safety and quality standards. vanced chips, cameras or sen- known manufacturer. But the At NIO, the next model’s
the three months that ended in fewer sales or lower margins. As Chinese carmakers have sors than its software can supplier’s quote was too ex- design emerges from various
October 2022. Gross profit mar- “I think people are forget- moved to produce software- support at the time. Engi- pensive and delivery would be pitches sent in by its car de-
gins rose to nearly 76%, from ting this is a boom-and-bust driven smart EVs, many devel- neers continue to develop too slow, said Zhu. The com- signers based in Munich and
53.6% over that same period. company,” said Fred Hickey, opment steps are taken in par- tech and later send over-the- pany picked a smaller manu- in China. CEO William Li at-
As a result, the stock has be- editor of the High-Tech Strat- allel, executives say. air updates to drivers that ex- facturer that specializes in tends weekly design meetings
come cheaper by some mea- egist. He is betting against Traditionally, making gas- ploit unused capabilities. outdoor fridges and was able with the help of identical clay
sures: Nvidia trades at 32 times Nvidia through long-dated put powered cars was a linear NIO’s ES7 SUV carried four to deliver within a year in- mock-ups in both countries
its expected earnings over the options purchased after last process—from design to engi- Nvidia Orin chips when it was stead of two. and calls the shots on the final
next 12 months, according to month’s earnings report, he neering to manufacturing, released in June 2022, but “In the age of EVs, whether design for all future models.
FactSet. The two-year price-to- said. Nvidia shares have fallen each step had to be completed only three were in use. The your car is launched six This is different from many
earnings average is 38 times. 50% or more on 14 occasions and validated before the next. fourth chip was activated last months earlier or later, the Western carmakers, where de-
The S&P 500’s multiple is 20.6. since it went public in 1999, Chinese EV companies year to boost computing market condition is totally dif- sign options are sent through
“We can’t call it a specula- according to Dow Jones Mar- heavily use simulation soft- speed, so a traffic light signal ferent,” Zhu said. different departments for re-
tive mania because it trades at ket Data. Most recently, the ware to create virtual proto- appears on the car screen China’s carmakers are in- view, a much lengthier pro-
lower P/E than it did a year stock fell 56% over a two- types and run tests in more it- with a real-time countdown. creasingly standardizing their cess, said NIO’s design chief
ago. Nvidia is talking the talk month period in 2018 and erations and in faster time. Another update means the car models to cut time. Beyond tra- Kris Tomasson, who previ-
and walking the walk,” said again over an eight-month pe- Virtual parts and mock-ups sends a notification when a ditional mechanical platforms, ously worked with Ford and
Joseph Zappia, principal and riod ending in 2022. can be worked on between traffic signal turns green. they standardize everything BMW.

Internet Submarine
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Continued from page B1 U.A.E.
U.A
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Cable ships’ lumbering
speed makes draping new Jeddah
ddah OMAN
OM
lines near contested waters a
dangerous and expensive task.
The cost to insure some cable
Founders
ships near Yemen surged ear-
lier this year to as much as
Mike Cherkasky and
M
Major internet underwater
$150,000 a day, according to SUDAN
UDAN ccables funnel through Michael Beber, CEO
people familiar with the mat- Red
ter. ERITREA
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Sea tthe Bab
Ba al-Mandeb Strait
Brandon Daniels and
Yemen’s nearly decadelong
civil war further complicates
Asmara
A ara
Asma San’a
YEMEN the entire Exiger team
matters. Houthi rebels control
much of the western portion
on the transaction with
of the country along the Red
Sea, while the country’s inter-
Gulf of Aden Arabian
Sea Carlyle and Insight Partners
nationally recognized govern- ETHIOPIA
THIOPIA DJIBOUTI D
Djibouti
Djibo
jibo
jib
jibou
oouti
uuti
ti and your next phase of
ment holds the east. Compa-
nies building cables in the continued success!
region have sought licenses Ababa
Addis Ababa
from regulators on both sides SOMALIA
of the conflict to avoid antag-
onizing either authority, other Source: TeleGeography Providing growth equity
people familiar with the mat-
ter say. tercontinental data traffic Committee, a U.K.-based in- bia, for instance, could skirt and an Approach to
The mounting cost of doing moves by sea, according to dustry group. the waters around Yemen al- Building Value (ABV) for
business also threatens tech network research firm Tele- “Having alternative paths together. But many national
giants’ efforts to expand the Geography. Submarine cables around congested areas such regulators charge high fees or technology-enabled businesses
internet. The Google-backed can be simpler and less ex- as the Red Sea has always impose other hurdles that
Blue-Raman system and Face- pensive to build than overland been important, though per- make sticking to tried-and-
book’s 2Africa cable both pass routes, but going underwater haps magnified in times of true routes more attractive.
through the region and re- comes with its own risks. Ca- conflict,” ICPC general man- “The industry, as with any
main under construction. Two ble operators report about 150 ager Ryan Wopschall said. industry, reacts to the condi-
more telecom-company- service faults a year, mostly Several internet companies tions set upon it, and routing
backed projects also are caused by accidental damage have considered ways to di- in Yemen waters is a result of
scheduled to build lines from fishing and anchor drag- versify their connections be- this,” Wopschall said.
through the Red Sea. ging, according to the Inter- tween Europe, Africa and —Benoit Faucon
Most of the internet’s in- national Cable Protection Asia. Routes across Saudi Ara- contributed to this article.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Asian Manufacturers Hit Snags in U.S.
Efforts to build
plants stateside are
disrupted by high
costs, other troubles
BY RIVER DAVIS
When Panasonic last year
raised the first steel beam on
a new $4 billion electric-vehi-
cle battery plant in Kansas,
the company might not have
realized how prophetic its
opening remarks would be.
“This first piece of steel is
so much more than simply a
piece of material,” Allan Swan,
president of Panasonic Energy
in North America, said at the
time.
He was right: The metal has
turned into a symbol of the
high costs plaguing Panasonic
and other Asian manufactur-
ers building factories in the
U.S. Steel prices have risen
more than 70% since 2020,
one reason Panasonic has
burned through a large por-
tion of its initial budget for
the plant, people involved in
the project said.
The U.S. is trying to lure
more East Asia industrial gi-
ants, even as they face chal-
lenges.
Taiwan chip maker Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufactur-
ing Co. has delayed the open-
ing of two chip plants in Ari-
zona, South Korea’s LG
Energy scrapped plans for a
battery plant in Indiana, and
Samsung Electronics is re-
portedly racking up billions of
dollars in added costs at a
semiconductor plant it is
building in Texas.
With its Inflation Reduction
Act, the Chips and Science Act
and other programs, the Biden
administration sought to lure
Asian companies to bring
their manufacturing expertise
to the U.S.
The administration suc-
ceeded in triggering a building
boom. But a year and a half
after President Biden signed
‘Dune’ Sequel
Leads to Year’s
Best Weekend
BY ROBBIE WHELAN
Hollywood was waiting for
a savior. In “Dune: Part Two,”
the latest installment of direc-
tor Denis Villeneuve’s science-
fiction epic, it may have found
one.
The “Dune” sequel, distrib-
uted by Warner Bros. and an-
chored by a glittery cast of
next-generation movie stars
including Timothée Chalamet,
Zendaya, Austin Butler and
Florence Pugh, sold $81.5 mil-
lion worth of tickets in the
U.S. and Canada. The strong
showing led the domestic box
office to its first $100 million
weekend since January, when
a musical version of “Mean
Girls” opened.
Going into the weekend,
2024’s total box-office sales
trailed those of 2023 by 20%,
according to box office tracker
Comscore. After the weekend,
tickets sales this year lag be-
hind 2023 by 13%.
“‘Dune: Part Two’ couldn’t
have come at a better time for
movie theaters,” said Paul
Dergarabedian, Comscore’s se-
nior media analyst. “The
much-talked-about box-office
momentum that has been
sorely lacking thus far in ’24
gets a jump-start.”
The movie delivered strong
results for IMAX, the large-
format theater owner that
provides filmmakers with
technology that allows them
to shoot scenes in high-resolu-
tion for the largest screens.
IMAX screens accounted
Estimated Box-Office Figures, Through Sunday
Film Distributor
1.
Dune: Part
Warner Bros.
Two
Bob Marley:
2. Paramount
One Love
Ordinary
3. Lionsgate
Angels
4. Madame Web Sony
The Chosen:
5. Season 4 Fathom Events
Episodes 7-8
*Friday, Saturday and Sunday in North American theaters
Workers assembled the framework of a $4 billion Panasonic electric-vehicle battery plant in May 2023, near DeSoto, Kan.
the IRA, difficulties have
emerged that have led compa-
nies to delay existing projects
and hold off from new ones.
“A year ago, it was, ‘Let’s
get to market,’ ” said Vince
DiPofi, chief executive of
SSOE, an Ohio-based architec-
ture and engineering firm that
designs U.S. facilities for over-
seas and domestic clients.
“Now people are taking a step
back.”
Supply chains for the parts
needed in battery and semi-
conductor plants have tradi-
tionally been centered in East
Asia. To meet the subsidy re-
quirements in the U.S. legisla-
tion, companies in Japan,
South Korea and Taiwan have
had to find U.S. suppliers for a
large portion of those materi-
als and components.
In recent months, the sud-
den influx of demand has at
times resulted in customers
for 22.7% of ticket sales for
“Dune: Part Two,” the com-
pany’s largest percentage
ever, and at $18.5 million in
box-office gross, represented
IMAX’s largest March opening
ever. In New York City, 15
morning IMAX showings of
the “Dune” sequel were sold
out.
“You can’t get a ticket until
three weeks from now,” said
Rich Gelfond, IMAX’s chief ex-
ecutive, who called the movie
a “massive cultural moment.”
Based on the 1965 novel by
Frank Herbert and set thou-
sands of years in the future
during an age of space explo-
ration and colonization,
“Dune: Part Two” focuses on
Paul Atreides, played by Cha-
lamet, the scion of a royal
family that has been deci-
mated by war and betrayal.
Atreides is stranded on the
desert planet of Arrakis, an
inhospitable landscape
plagued by sandstorms and
gigantic sandworms that de-
vour any who intrude on its
dunes. Himself a messianic
figure, Atreides must win the
trust of the Fremen, a local
population involved in a long-
standing insurgency against
the outsiders who come to ex-
tract the planet’s supply of
“spice,” a hallucinogenic pow-
der that helps facilitate space
travel.
“Dune” has for half a cen-
tury been a white whale for a
series of Hollywood directors,
including Arthur P. Jacobs,
Alejandro Jodorowsky and
Sales, In Millions
Weekend* Cumulative % Change
$81.5 $81.5
$7.4 $82.8
$3.9 $12.6
$3.2 $40.4
$3.2 $3.9
Source: Comscore
BUSINESS NEWS
having to wait more than 100
weeks to get deliveries of
components such as switch-
gear and transformers that
help regulate and transmit
electricity for factories, people
in the industry say.
Adding to the challenges
are higher costs. At the end of
last year, prices related to the
construction of new industrial
buildings were roughly one-
third higher than they were
three years earlier, according
to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics.
Asian companies aren’t the
only ones affected. Intel is de-
laying a $20 billion chip-man-
ufacturing project in Ohio ow-
ing to market challenges and a
slow rollout of U.S. govern-
ment grant money, The Wall
Street Journal reported.
“The attempt to develop
new industries in the U.S. has
upended supply chains in
WARNER BROS/EVERETT COLLECTION
The strong showing of ‘Dune: Part Two’ led the domestic box office to its first $100 million weekend since January.
Ridley Scott. In 1984, cult di-
rector David Lynch directed a
version starring Kyle Ma-
cLachlan in the lead role and
featuring music by the rock
band Toto. The movie under-
performed at the box office.
The first Villeneuve “Dune”
movie seemed destined to
meet the same fate, as it was
released in September of 2021,
near the height of a surge in
Covid-19 cases. Jason Kilar,
then-chief of WarnerMedia,
then parent of the studio that
distributed the movie, made
the controversial decision to
release “Dune,” along with the
rest of its movie slate, simul-
taneously in theaters and on
the streaming service then
known as HBO Max.
Villeneuve criticized the
decision, known internally at
WarnerMedia as “Project Pop-
corn,” and the leadership of
his talent agency sent the stu-
dio a letter calling it “the epit-
ome of a self-interested corpo-
rate maneuver intended to
benefit your company while
wreaking havoc on the indus-
try.”
The movie went on to gross
$108.9 million in domestic
theaters and $433.8 million
— worldwide.
The sequel also ran into
timing problems. Originally
-45
set to be released in Novem-
ber, while Hollywood actors
-38
were on strike and unavailable
-46 to promote the film, its pro-
ducers decided to delay the
movie’s release until March.
— The decision proved conse-
quential, said Josh Grode, CEO
of Legendary Entertainment,
ways that we hadn’t antici-
pated,” said Kenneth Simon-
son, chief economist at the
Associated General Contrac-
tors of America, a construc-
tion-industry trade group.
Simonson’s group has
flagged soaring costs in many
goods and services that facto-
ries need, such as lumber, ply-
wood and truck transporta-
tion.
Last year, LG Energy
scrapped plans for a fourth EV
battery plant it was going to
build with General Motors in
Indiana after hitting cost
overruns at three other bat-
tery facilities it was building
in the U.S. Construction and
material costs were the reason
behind Samsung’s higher out-
lays at its chip plant under
construction in Taylor, Texas,
Reuters reported. Samsung
declined to comment.
People at Panasonic say its
which produced “Dune: Part
Two,” especially because sci-
ence fiction isn’t considered
the most accessible genre to
mass audiences.
“We needed the Zendayas
and the Timothées and the
Austins and the Florences out
there,” Grode said. “They’re
going to be the ones who are
going to talk to the non-sci-fi
Jump on this
one today.
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account today at
synchronybank.com/wj
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Monday, March 4, 2024 | B3
cure more funding, some ana-
lysts and government officials
say.
“It’s true that the cost of
materials has gone up. It’s
also true that building costs
and environmental standards
are higher in the U.S. than
some other popular manufac-
turing destinations,” said Greg
LeRoy, executive director of
Good Jobs First, a nonprofit
research group that is often
critical of subsidies.
“But are companies not
getting enough money to off-
set all that? Sounds like croco-
dile tears to me,” LeRoy said.
In many cases, states have
competed with each other to
lure new projects, resulting in
substantial incentives for big-
name foreign and domestic
manufacturers. Panasonic’s
CHARLIE RIEDEL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Kansas plant is in line to re-
ceive around $1.27 billion in
state and local subsidies on
top of billions of dollars in
federal incentives, according
to data compiled by Good Jobs
First.
In Kansas, officials praised
Panasonic’s plant as the
state’s biggest-ever economic-
faster-than-expected cash development project. The bat-
burn in Kansas has made it tery facility is expected to
hard for the company to move generate $2.5 billion in eco-
forward quickly with building nomic activity and more than
another similar plant in North 20,000 jobs.
America. The problem for some for-
Panasonic had eyed Okla- eign manufacturers lured to
homa for its third EV-battery the U.S. by Biden administra-
plant in the U.S., but it said tion subsidy programs is that
late last year that the state they mapped out initial bud-
was no longer a candidate. In gets based on prices before
February, Panasonic’s chief fi- the construction boom, people
nancial officer, Hirokazu Um- with knowledge of their oper-
eda, said the company was fo- ations say.
cusing on taming costs and Simonson, from the con-
making its existing factories struction-industry trade
more efficient. group, said he believed infla-
He said it wouldn’t an- tion would prove transitory
nounce an additional EV-bat- and conditions would smooth
tery plant by this month, pre- out over the next few years.
viously the target date for a “You will see projects can-
decision. celed, paused and pushed
Others say subsidies more back. Some will lower their
than offset challenges associ- capacity and others will get
ated with building in the U.S. built according to original
Companies’ complaints may plans at a much higher cost,”
be a negotiation tactic to se- he said.
audience. When you saw them Part Two” came Paramount’s
out there promoting the “Bob Marley: One Love,” the
movie, you saw that they re- biopic of the reggae star,
ally liked being with each which added $7.4 million to its
other, you really felt the domestic total gross of $82.8
chemistry.” million. Lionsgate’s “Ordinary
Comscore estimated that all Angels,” a faith-based film
movies in theaters this week- about a Kentucky community’s
end grossed $112 million, the lifesaving efforts during a
highest domestic weekend to- 1994 snowstorm, added $3.8
tal of the year. Behind “Dune: million to a $12.6 million total.
HIGH YIELD SAVINGS
4.75
%
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B4 | Monday, March 4, 2024
Musk vs. Everyone: A New Fight in AI
T
he AI wars have
begun, and the hu-
mans are throwing
the first punches.
Elon Musk in the
past week or so has been
working to make it all about
his nascent xAI against the
Big Dogs.
The billionaire through
tweets and litigation is fram-
ing his rivals as fundamen-
tally flawed and unworthy:
Google is woke, Microsoft is
overreaching and Sam Alt-
man is two-faced.
Musk isn’t messing
around when it comes to
what he has described as the
“civilizational risk” that AI
carries if it falls into the
wrong hands—or the poten-
tial fortunes it could create
for whoever cracks the cod-
ing to breathe humanlike
reasoning into machines.
A 35-page complaint filed
in a San Francisco court late
Thursday is built on what
Musk describes as the hypoc-
risy of Altman. According to
the lawsuit, when Altman
and Musk started OpenAI
years ago they agreed it
would be a not-for-profit en-
tity to counter the greed of
Google—only to have OpenAI,
under Altman’s control, later
pivot toward moneymaking
ventures with Microsoft.
Musk parted with OpenAI in
2018 after a dispute.
T
he lawsuit claims that
OpenAI and Altman—
by doing deals with
Microsoft—have chosen to
use their AI technology “not
for the benefit of humanity,
but as proprietary technol-
ogy to maximize profits for
literally the largest company
in the world.”
No mention was made in
the lawsuit of Musk’s own AI
ambitions separate from
OpenAI, such as his founding
of xAI last year as a rival or
its launch of its own chatbot
called Grok to compete
against Altman’s ChatGPT.
Or Musk’s work at Tesla,
May 21→23, 2024
Spring Studios, NYC
© 2023 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. 3E6173
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and Sam Altman, now head of OpenAI, in 2015, before Musk parted with OpenAI in 2018.
where he is chief executive,
to develop humanoid robots.
When announcing xAI in
July, Musk said his prefer-
ence, after years of warning
about the dangers of the
technology, would have been
a pause in developing ad-
vanced versions of AI that
seek to achieve—what he
calls—digital superintelli-
gence.
He said such hope
“doesn’t seem realistic.”
Instead, Musk is offering
up xAI as an alternative to
rivals, which he has accused
of having liberal biases. He
describes his effort as seek-
ing good and being “maxi-
mally curious.”
“There’s some value to
there being multiple players
in the AI space,” Musk said
last month during a public
event on his social-media
platform, X. “You don’t want
it to be just a monopoly or
duopoly.”
Think Coke vs. Pepsi but
with robot minds at stake.
And, in the days before
Engage with global newsmakers discussing transformative
trends and opportunities — with the CEOs of Prenuvo,
Walmart, Co-Founder of Whole Foods Market and more.
Andrew Lacy
CEO
Prenuvo
TECHNOLOGY
the OpenAI lawsuit, Musk
was on X doing his best to
highlight weaknesses in both
Google and Microsoft.
He amplified criticisms
that Google’s AI chatbot,
dubbed Gemini, was giving
responses around race and
ethnicity that seemed to
some users as overly politi-
cally correct and, in some
cases, laughably wrong when
it came to history, such as
showing Nazi-era German
soldiers as being racially di-
verse.
“Given that the Gemini AI
will be at the heart of every
Google product and YouTube,
this is extremely alarming!”
Musk tweeted this past
week.
That tweet was one of
several criticisms he posted
that eventually, according to
Musk, brought a call from a
high-ranking Google execu-
tive to assure him steps were
being taken to fix things.
“My response to him was
that I doubted that Google’s
woke bureaucratic blob
John Mackey
Author, Co-Founder
Whole Foods Market
Register Now:
WSJ.COM/FUTURE
TIM HIGGINS
would *allow* him to fix it,”
Musk said. “Unless those
who caused this are exited
from Google, nothing will
change, except to make the
bias less obvious and more
pernicious.”
G
oogle Chief Executive
Sundar Pichai told his
staff the chatbot’s re-
sponses were unacceptable
and pledged to “fix it at
scale.”
All of the attention was
worse than just bad head-
lines for Google.
“Gemini is not just a PR
disaster—worse, it’s a re-
cruiting disaster,” tweeted
Lulu Cheng Meservey, a
longtime tech executive and
former chief communications
officer at Activision Blizzard.
“Imagine being a researcher
who worked long and hard
on Gemini Pro 1.5 to have the
technical accomplishment be
overshadowed by this non-
sense. Why would new top
talent accept a job offer from
a place like that?”
Kathryn McLay
President and CEO
Walmart International
Presenting Sponsors
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
WSJ.com/Tech
lions in hardware to have a
seat at the adult table rather
than the kiddies’ table and
next year it’s probably in the
tens of billions of hardware
to remain at the adults’ ta-
ble.”
T
he expense behind cre-
ating the technology is
what necessitated Ope-
nAI’s evolution as an organi-
zation beyond being a simple
not-for-profit, Altman has
said.
OpenAI concluded it
wasn’t equipped to operate
MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR VANITY FAIR
as a not-for-profit because it
was becoming too costly for
the amounts of computer
power needed to train the
software that mimics the
way humans think.
“No one wanted to fund
this in any way,” Altman told
The Wall Street Journal last
year. “It was a really hard
time.”
The solution was to create
a for-profit arm. This struc-
Around the same time, ture allowed Altman to raise
Musk was also complaining the billions of dollars he be-
in numerous tweets about lieved was needed to carry
buying a new computer only on the mission, including
to find that he was being commitments for as much as
asked to create a Microsoft $13 billion from Microsoft,
account, which, he claimed, giving the technology giant
“means giving their AI ac- effectively a 49% stake in the
cess to my account.” earnings of OpenAI’s for-
He later added that “since profit arm.
they now require that you And Musk isn’t the only
use their services just to use one claiming the moral high
your computer, @Microsoft ground. Altman has framed
can effectively shut off your his efforts in a similar way,
computer!” worrying about what could
As Musk casts aspersions happen if AI is deployed
on Google and Microsoft, his recklessly.
lawsuit reopens questions Neither man’s take, per-
about Altman’s ambitions— haps, is that surprising. The
questions OpenAI had hoped burgeoning field of AI is full
to move past. Late last year, of heady thoughts, including
Altman was briefly fired as a question that carries hues
CEO by the company’s board, of godlike hubris: Does an AI
which said it had lost confi- take on the image of its
dence in him, only to be maker?
brought back amid pressure It’s a debate Musk wel-
from Microsoft. comes.
Musk also has acknowl- “If that is true, in whose
edged the spending war to image would you want the
fund AI companies’ develop- AI to be made?” Musk asked
ment, saying recently it will last month. “People should
take “at least single digit bil- think about that.”
Vivian Tu
Founder and CEO
Your Rich BFF
Supporting Sponsor

© 2024
0 Dow
ow Jones & Company. All
ll Rights Reserved.
Rese ved.
4 Ways to Lock In Yields Above 5%
With interest rates likely to fall, now is the time to act to preserve today’s higher income
BY DEBBIE CARLSON
W
ITH SOME
money-market
mutual funds and
high-yield savings
accounts still
sporting 5% yields, it is easy to be
complacent and let cash sit. But
with the Federal Reserve likely to
begin cutting interest rates later
this year—recent hot inflation
readings notwithstanding—such
high yields are likely to come
down quickly.
To get ahead of Fed rate cuts
whenever they may come, invest-
ment managers are looking to
lock in yields for anywhere from
one to five years to preserve to-
day’s higher income. “If you park
in money-market funds, and the
Fed at some point begins to
lower policy rates, your yield is
just going to erode quickly,” says
Thomas Urano, co-chief invest-
ment officer at Sage Advisory
Services in Austin, Texas.
Depending on a person’s risk
tolerance, time horizon and fi-
nancial plan, investors have sev-
eral paths they can take. Here are
four relatively low-risk ways to
take advantage of higher yields.
1. MYGAs
Multiyear guaranteed annuities,
or MYGAs as these fixed-rate an-
nuities are commonly known, can
JON KRAUSE
be a good option for savers who
are looking for returns compara-
Once a Stock Trend
Has Been Named,
Its Best Days Are
Likely in the Past
BY DEREK HORSTMEYER
O
NCE A stock-market
trend has been identified
and named—think
FAANG or the Magnifi-
cent Seven—the headiest gains
are typically past. But riding a
trend after it has been named can
deliver market-beating returns for
another year or so before the
trade loses momentum and gives
back some of the gains.
To study the performance of
named stock-market trends, my
research assistants (Matthew
Rickard and Camila Marín Builes)
and I did a deep-dive on eight
named trends over the past 10
years that were popularized by
the mainstream media and cov-
ALEX NABAUM
ered by more than three such
organizations.
The final list of named trends
JOURNAL REPORT
NV S NG MONTHLY
INVESTING ON
ble to those on certificates of de-
posit but for longer periods. In
addition to competitive rates,
MYGA earnings aren’t taxed until
the money is taken out.
Terms range from two to 10
years, and unlike other annuity
products, buyers can invest as lit-
tle as $2,500. For example, as of
Feb. 14, ImmediateAnnuities.com
listed a $10,000 five-year MYGA
from A-minus-rated Liberty Bank-
ers Life for 5.4%, above the 4.6%
top rate for a five-year bank CD
listed on Bankrate.com.
James Sahagian, certified fi-
nancial planner and managing di-
rector of Ramapo Wealth Advi-
sors at Steward Partners in
Ramsey, N.J., says these high
rates spurred him to buy more
fixed-rate annuities in the past
year than he has in the 25 years
he has been a financial adviser.
But they aren’t for everyone
and there are risks potential buy-
ers should know about.
First, these are insurance-
company-backed products and
not covered by the Federal De-
posit Insurance Corp. Before buy-
ing these annuities, then, advis-
ers say that investors should
check the insurers’ ratings and
recommend that they stick with
insurers rated A-minus or above.
Ratings can be found on the dif-
ferent ratings firms’ websites,
such as A.M. Best, or through
many states’ insurance regula-
tors.
Second, like most annuities,
these products are illiquid and
we researched was:
• Watch—for retailers Walmart,
Amazon.com, Target, Costco
Wholesale and Home Depot.
• FANG—for tech titans Facebook
parent Meta Platforms, Amazon,
Netflix and Google parent Alpha-
bet.
• FAANG—for Facebook, Amazon,
Apple (the second A after 2017),
Netflix and Google.
• Granola—for big European com-
panies GSK, Roche, Nestlé,
L’Oréal, LVMH Moët Hennessy
Louis Vuitton, Novartis, Novo
Nordisk, ASML Holding, Astra-
Zeneca, SAP and Sanofi.
• The Magnificent Seven—for tech
giants Nvidia, Tesla, Meta, Apple,
Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft.
may have stiff early-surrender
charges that eat up anywhere
from 5% to 8% of the value. Buy-
ers should invest money they
don’t need to access immediately.
2. Defined-maturity ETFs
These investments combine the
certainty of holding an individual
bond to its maturity with the
transparency, liquidity and low
costs of an exchange-traded fund.
The funds generally pay monthly
income, and when they mature,
the ETF liquidates and the owner
is paid the net asset value on the
number of shares that are
owned.
Christine Benz, director of
personal finance and retirement
planning at Morningstar, says
she thinks these products are
good for individual investors. “It
can be really difficult to be diver-
sified as a small bondholder buy-
ing individual corporate bonds,
whereas this addresses that is-
sue,” she says of these ETFs.
Invesco and BlackRock domi-
nate the area with their Bullet-
Shares and iBond funds. Both is-
suers offer ETFs for investment-
grade corporate, high-yield and
municipal bonds, while BlackRock
also offers funds holding U.S.
Treasurys and Treasury inflation-
protected securities. The funds
hold hundreds of bonds, allocated
according to their effective matu-
rity date. The diversification re-
duces the impact of default risk.
The nuances of how the ETFs
• MT SAAS—for cloud-computing
players Microsoft, Twilio, Sales-
force, Adobe, Amazon and
Shopify.
• BAT—for Chinese tech firms
Baidu, Alibaba Group and Ten-
cent.
invest the matured-bond pro-
ceeds once the fund is close to
maturity differ slightly between
the providers and the individual
fund type. Generally, proceeds
are invested in Treasury bills
and/or cash until the fund ma-
tures at its predetermined end
date, such as 2024.
Currently, Invesco Bullet-
Shares 2024 Corporate Bond
ETF (BSCO) has a yield to matu-
rity of 5.5%, while iShares iBo-
nds Dec 2024 Term Corporate
ETF (IBDP) yields 5.6%.
Investors can purchase a sin-
gle fund, or buy several to create
a typical bond ladder. The funds’
fees range between 0.07% to
0.43% annually.
Ronnie Thompson, owner of
True North Advisors in North-
ville, Mich., also appreciates that
these are liquid, unlike individual
bonds. “You would sell it at the
coupon rate at the time, and
there’s no penalty. You may just
lose out on some of the mature
interest,” he says, if it is sold be-
fore the maturity date.
3. Preferred stocks
Preferred stocks, which are con-
sidered a hybrid between com-
mon stock and bonds, are an-
other option for investors, says
Steven Conners, founder and
president of Conners Wealth
Management in Scottsdale, Ariz.
He says preferred stocks be-
come more attractive when over-
all inflation is falling and the Fed
• Cloud—for emerging cloud-com-
puting stocks, notably PayPal,
Zoom Video Communications, Vi-
meo, Dropbox, Alphabet, Adobe
and Salesforce
Smaller named trends like
Mamaa (Meta, Apple, Microsoft,
Amazon and Alphabet) and Em-
Monday, March 4, 2024 | B5
has a neutral monetary stance.
“The interest-rate risk is dimin-
ishing over time, hence making
preferred stock more appealing
for income-oriented investors,”
he says.
Preferred stocks have a simi-
lar profile to long-term bonds as
both have a par value (typically
$25 for preferred stock) and pay
income. Preferreds also sit higher
in the capital structure if a com-
pany liquidates, behind bonds
but before common stock.
Investors interested in owning
preferred stock can buy individ-
ual company shares, Conners
says, or they can look to ETFs
and closed-end funds. ETFs and
closed-end funds offer investors
diversification and potential
price appreciation if rates fall.
Closed-end funds issue a fixed
number of shares when they
launch and no new shares are
created; they trade at a discount
or premium to their net asset
value throughout the day.
Conners says he has used Fla-
herty & Crumrine Preferred &
Income Securities Fund (FFC), a
closed-end fund with a yield of
6.9% and trading at a 11.9% dis-
count. It uses leverage to boost
its yield.
A popular ETF is iShares Pre-
ferred & Income Securities ETF
(PFF), which has a yield of 6.5%.
Although preferred shares are
less volatile than common stock,
their prices will still move, so in-
vestors should accept that prices
could fall. Omar Qureshi, manag-
ing partner with Hightower
Wealth Advisors in St. Louis,
says investors also must keep in
mind that like corporate bonds,
preferreds are subject to credit
risk and duration risk. Duration
is a measure of interest-rate risk
tied to a bond’s or bond fund’s
maturity, yield and other factors.
However, if rates fall, fund in-
vestors could benefit from price
appreciation, he says.
4. Exchange-traded debt
Companies that issue preferred
stock may also issue exchange-
traded debt, sometimes called
baby bonds because these are
smaller debt denominations and
can be more accessible to individ-
ual investors. Similar to preferred
stock, these are typically issued
in $25 denominations and can be
traded like stocks in a brokerage
account, says Damon Southward,
chief market strategist at Brief-
ing.com. He says recent deals
have come to market with fixed
but callable yields of 8% to 9%.
He likes baby bonds over pre-
ferred shares at this moment be-
cause of the higher yields and
the lower volatility versus the
preferred stocks.
Buyers can find baby bonds
on their brokerage platform by
searching for bond IPOs to see
recent issues, he says, as there
aren’t any funds specializing in
baby bonds. Southward says that
although most of the recently is-
sued debt has a five-year matu-
rity, much of it is callable in two
years, meaning the company can
redeem it before the maturity
date and pay investors the call
price, plus accrued interest.
Debbie Carlson is a writer in
Chicago. She can be reached at
reports@wsj.com.
cloud were omitted because of
overlap with other named trends,
and their inclusion wouldn’t have
changed results.
From first mention
Next, we identified the first date
Please turn to page B6
B6 | Monday, March 4, 2024
How to Avoid the ‘Survivor Trap’
Taxes often spike when a spouse dies. But there are several strategies to lessen the hit.
BY CHERYL WINOKUR MUNK
S
POUSES WHO lose a
loved one often are
blindsided when they
discover they have to
pay higher taxes—a
situation known as
the “survivor trap.”
But with careful planning, there
are ways to mitigate the
blow.
The survivor trap
arises in the years after
a spouse dies, when the
surviving spouse transi-
tions to filing as a single
taxpayer and often sees a
higher tax bill. Some-
times this occurs be-
cause the changed filing
status bumps a surviving
spouse into a higher tax
bracket even if income
remains the same. In
other cases, spouses find
themselves ensnared be-
cause filing single lowers
or eliminates certain tax
breaks that are available
to married couples.
These realities tend to
hit especially hard dur-
ing retirement when the
annual withdrawals
known as required mini-
mum distributions, or
RMDs, enter the picture.
Surviving spouses can
sidestep the trap to some
extent by planning ahead
or making strategic
moves as a widow or
widower, financial advis-
ers say. The goal isn’t to
avoid taxes completely,
says Bill Smith, national
director of tax technical
services at CBIZ’s tax ad-
visory group in Cleve-
land, but to manage
things so “a surviving
spouse isn’t crushed by
both a drop in income and an in-
crease in taxes.”
Here are six strategies to help
mitigate the survivor trap:
1. Taxable accounts
Financial professionals advise
couples to position certain in-
vestments before retirement to
increase their flexibility to miti-
gate a large tax hit after one
spouse dies.
One way to do this is to make
sure you have some investments
within taxable accounts that
aren’t going to be subject to
RMDs. You can use these invest-
ments for income as needed, but
you aren’t forced to make with-
drawals each year and can use
other strategies to minimize tax
consequences.
If you own stocks, for example,
you won’t be taxed if you don’t
sell. If you do sell, a spouse can
get a “step-up in basis,” which
eliminates the capital gain that
When a Trend
Has a Name,
Its Best Days
Are Likely to
Be Behind It
Continued from page B5
each trend was mentioned in the
popular press. Then, for each
named trend we looked at the
stock returns around this date
going back 24 months before the
zero-date (date of first mention)
and 24 months after the zero-
date.
For each named trend, we use
an equal weighting to calculate
the return of the trade. So, for
instance for FAANG, we applied a
20% weight to Meta’s return, a
20% weight to Apple’s, a 20%
weight to Amazon’s, 20% to Net-
flix and 20% to Alphabet. Finally,
we calculated the cumulative ex-
cess returns over time for each
named trend, where the excess
return is the return for the trade
minus the return on the S&P 500.
The first interesting finding:
When we look at the average of
all these eight named trends, we
see considerable price run-up be-
fore the trade being named. For
the 24 months before the zero-
date, we see the average named
trend deliver 36% in excess re-
turns. This means that if you
magically knew about a new
named trend before it happened,
you could earn 36 percentage
points above the S&P 500 for the
two years before it was named.
JOURNAL REPORT
occurred between the original
purchase and the spouse’s death.
Also, you would be taxed at long-
term capital-gains rates, which are
typically lower than the ordinary
rates paid on RMDs, Smith says.
Another strategy is to convert
traditional individual retirement
accounts to Roth IRAs. You pay
tax on the conversion, but RMDs
aren’t required with Roth IRAs
unless inherited from a non-
spouse. RMDs begin the year an
account holder reaches 73—rising
to age 75 in 2033.
There are several consider-
ations with a Roth conversion
strategy, however, includ-
ing the upfront tax bill, and when
the money could be needed, says
Duncan Campbell, private-wealth
practice leader at Chicago-based
Baker Tilly.
2. Charitable contributions
Another move to consider is con-
tributing more to charity so you
are able to itemize expenses and
bump up deductions, says Lisa
M. Mela, a certified public ac-
countant who heads the trust
and estates practices at SAX in
Parsippany, N.J. A standard de-
duction for a single person in
2024 is $14,600, so you have to
have more than that in charitable
contributions and other itemiz-
able deductions to lower your tax
Worth the ride, until…
But even if you don’t have this
magical foresight, it still doesn’t
hurt to ride a trend once it has
been coined. On average, once
the trend has been named and
looking ahead 12 months, an in-
vestor can still earn about 13 per-
centage points in excess returns.
Yet 12 months following the
naming is about the best you can
do as returns peak at this point on
average and decrease a bit subse-
quently. From the 12-month mark
to the 24-month mark after a
trend has been named, the average
named trend lags behind the S&P
500 by about 2 percentage points.
When we look at the individ-
ual named trends, it might sur-
prise people that the two best
trades from the zero-date to the
24-month mark in our sample
were the BAT and Cloud trends—
both earning more than 60% in
excess return over the two-year
period once they were coined by
the press.
On the other end, the MT
SAAS trade did the worst, drop-
ping more than 95% in excess re-
turns over the two-year period
after being named.
All in all, this means your best
option is to jump on a named
trend as soon as you first hear
about it—provided you haven’t
been too late to the party—and
ride the initial momentum, if it
happens. But if you get in past
the 12-month mark, the returns
might not be so magnificent.
Derek Horstmeyer is a professor
of finance at Costello College of
Business, George Mason Univer-
sity, in Fairfax, Va. He can be
reached at reports@wsj.com.
| INVESTING MONTHLY
burden, she says.
One way to increase charita-
ble contributions outside of sav-
ings is by employing a qualified
charitable distribution, or QCD,
directly from a traditional IRA.
Up to $100,000 of an RMD can be
donated to charity tax-free,
says Ekaterina Klimentova, a
partner in the New York office of
wealth-and-tax advisory firm
Cerity Partners. If you choose
this route, she cautions, you can’t
itemize the contribution on your
tax return and you must follow
specific rules for QCDs or you
could face a tax hit.
Another potential tax-savings
option is to compress the chari-
table contributions
you would normally
have made over two
years into one. With
this strategy, you
itemize the year you
make the larger-
than-normal contri-
bution and take the
standard deduction
the following.
3. Gifting
Another option to mitigate the
survivor trap could be to gift cer-
tain income-producing assets,
like stocks, bonds or business in-
terests, to children or grandchil-
dren who are in a lower tax
Name Game
Stock trends like the Magnificent Seven tend to notch their sharpest gains in
the two years before they are coined, but investors can still score market-
beating returns for about 12 months after a named trend's first mention.
MT SAAS Cloud
120%
100
80
Average of all
named trends
60
40
20
0
–20
–40
–24 –12 0 12 24 –24
Months relative
to date when trend
is first named*
BAT
120%
100
80
60
40
20
0
–20
–40
–24 –12 0 12 24 –24
Note: Magnificent Seven trade ends at month seven due to being coined in June 2023.
*The X-axis is the month relative to when the trade gets first mentioned/coined in the press. The Y-axis is the
cumulative excess return for each named trade (’excess return’ is return of the trade minus the S&P 500 return)
Source: Derek Horstmeyer, George Mason University
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
bracket, outright or in trust, losses to offset ordinary income.
Mela says. What’s more, the Internal Reve-
This accomplishes two things nue Service allows taxpayers to
for the gift-giver. It lowers the carry forward unused losses in
giver’s gross estate and lowers excess of $3,000 and there is no
the surviving spouse’s tax bill. limit on the amount or time
You can gift up to $18,000 in frame.
2024 without triggering the gift-
tax filing requirement. But even 5. Use an age disparity
if you exceed that, it only means Klimentova worked with a
a gift-tax reporting requirement woman in her 60s whose hus-
band was in his 80s
when he died. There
was a high RMD associ-
ated with his IRA. Had
it remained an inherited
IRA, the RMDs would
have continued based on
the age and life expec-
tancy of her deceased
husband, amounting to
about $70,000 a year of
distributions.
The surviving spouse
was able to do a spousal
rollover IRA, and be-
cause of her age she
didn’t have to take
RMDs, which eliminated
a whole piece of ordi-
nary income from her
tax return.
For a younger surviv-
ing spouse, this option
also affords the possibil-
ity of contributing to
the IRA every year to
the extent he or she has
earned income. Plus, the
RMD itself may be
smaller because of the
difference in calculation
of RMD for IRA owners
versus IRA beneficiaries.
Even if the spouses
are close in age, it may
be a good idea to do it,
as any extra year of tax-
deferred growth is valu-
able. But with spouses
who are close in age,
the benefit is less, she
says.
and no actual taxes, unless you 6. Move
exceed your lifetime exclusion A single spouse might also con-
limit of $13.61 million, Mela says. sider selling the family home and
moving to a state with lower in-
4. Capital loss harvesting come taxes, Mela says. Or maybe
Investors who have capital gains you want to live part of the year
from selling securities, or who in Florida and partially in an-
own mutual funds that distribute other state. Moving to Florida for
capital gains, can at least a majority of the year
use a capital-loss- could be a good choice because
harvesting strat- there is no state income tax
RMDs can egy within the there.
complicate taxes portfolio to offset There are caveats to changing
the gains, says Mi- your home state for tax purposes,
for widows and chael Prinzo, man- so you don’t inadvertently wind
aging principal of up getting chased after by audi-
widowers. tax at accounting tors. For example, you have to
Plan ahead. firm CliftonLarson- show—with adequate documenta-
Allen in Greenwood tion—that it is a legitimate move
Village, Colo. That and not something being done to
is, sell losers to evade higher taxes. “They can be
help offset winners—and poten- really strict about that,” Mela
KIERSTEN ESSENPREIS
tially other income. says.
To the extent a spouse has net
capital losses that exceed capital Cheryl Winokur Munk is a writer
gains from securities sales, he or in West Orange, N.J. She can be
she can use $3,000 of capital reached at reports@wsj.com.
More
Online
FAANG FANG WSJ.com/investingmonthly
• Retirement Rookies: Our
columnists share some of
their readers’ advice.
0 24 –24 0 24 –24 0 24 • Young Money: First, the
weddings. Then, the lessons
from the divorces.
• Owning a second home can
Magnificent Watch Granola be a tax trap if you’re not
Seven
careful. Here’s what to know.
PAUL BLOW; KIERSTEN ESSENPREIS
• When stock analysts share
a name with a CEO, forecasts
improve. It’s not coincidence.
0 24 –24 0 24 –24 0 24
• Monthly Monitor: A review
of February’s market action,
and a flashback to the 25th
anniversary of Dow 10000.
B8 | Monday, March 4, 2024 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

MARKETS DIGEST
New to the Market Dow Jones Industrial Average S&P 500 Index
Last Year ago Last Year ago
Public Offerings of Stock 39087.38 t 44.15, or 0.11% last week Trailing P/E ratio 27.20 22.16 5137.08 s 48.28, or 0.95% last week Trailing P/E ratio * 22.85 17.80
High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 18.74 17.32 High, low, open and close for each of P/E estimate * 20.98 18.01
IPOs in the U.S. Market the past 52 weeks Dividend yield 1.87 2.09 the past 52 weeks Dividend yield * 1.38 1.73
All-time high 39131.53, 02/23/24 All-time high 5137.08, 03/01/24
None expected this week
Lockup Expirations Current divisor 0.15265312230608
Below, companies whose officers and other insiders will become eligible 38800 5000
Week's high
to sell shares in their newly public companies for the first time. Such
DOWN UP
sales can move the stock’s price. Monday's open Friday's close

t
37400 4800
Lockup Offer Offer amt Through Lockup
expiration Issue date Symbol price($) ($ mil.) Friday (%) provision Friday's close Monday's open

t
65-day moving average
March 4 Sept. 6, ’23 Solowin Holdings SWIN 4.00 12.5 213.3 180 days 36000 4600
Week's low 65-day
Sources: Dealogic; Dow Jones Market Data moving average

IPO Scorecard 34600 4400

Performance of IPOs, most-recent listed first
% Chg From % Chg From
Friday's Offer 1st-day 33200 4200
Company SYMBOL Company SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-day
IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close IPO date/Offer price close ($) price close
SolarMax Technology 4.88 22.0 –39.0 Legato Merger III 10.09 0.9 0.3 200-day moving average
200-day moving average 31800 4000
SMXT Feb. 27/$4.00 LEGT.UT Feb. 6/$10.00
DT Cloud Acquisition 10.15 1.5 0.3 Alto Neuroscience 14.88 –7.0 –28.1
DYCQU Feb. 21/$10.00 ANRO Feb. 2/$16.00 Bars measure the point change from Monday's open
Chromocell Therapeutics 3.65 –39.2 –24.0 Fractyl Health 10.07 –32.9 –21.6 30400 3800
CHRO Feb. 16/$6.00 GUTS Feb. 2/$15.00 M A M J J A S O N D J F M M A M J J A S O N D J F M
Unusual Machines 2.61 –34.8 –13.9 Amer Sports 17.66 35.8 31.8
Primary
UMAC Feb. 14/$4.00 AS Feb. 1/$13.00 NYSE weekly volume, in billions of shares market Composite

t
t
BBB Foods 21.28 21.6 11.7 FibroBiologics 13.00 62.5 –55.3 Scan this code
TBBB Feb. 9/$17.50 FBLG Jan. 31/$8.00 36
24 Get real-time U.S. stock quotes and track
Helix Acquisition II 10.40 4.0 2.1 ArriVent Biopharma 20.94 16.3 4.7
HLXB Feb. 9/$10.00 AVBP Jan. 26/$18.00 12 most-active stocks, new highs/lows, mutual
Metagenomi 12.00 –20.0 16.4 BrightSpring Health Services 8.95 –31.2 –18.6 0 funds and ETFs..
MGX Feb. 9/$15.00 BTSG Jan. 26/$13.00 M A M J J A S O N D J F Available free at WSJMarkets.com
Telomir Pharmaceuticals 9.05 29.3 81.0 Haoxi Health Technology 7.32 83.0 38.6
* Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; † Based on Nasdaq-100 Index
TELO Feb. 9/$7.00 HAO Jan. 26/$4.00
Kyverna Therapeutics 27.75
KYTX Feb. 8/$22.00
26.1 –7.5 CG Oncology
CGON Jan. 25/$19.00
43.98 131.5 18.3
Major U.S. Stock-Market Indexes Nasdaq Composite
American Heathcare REIT 13.68 14.0 3.5 Planet Image International 2.78 –30.5 –0.4 Latest Week 52-Week % chg s 278.12, or 1.74%
AHR Feb. 7/$12.00 YIBO Jan. 25/$4.00 High Low Close Net chg % chg Low Close (l) High %chg YTD 3-yr. ann.
Dow Jones
last week
Sources: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet
Industrial Average 39245.89 38741.68 39087.38 -44.15 -0.11 31819.14 • 39131.53 17.1 3.7 7.4
Public and Private Borrowing Transportation Avg 15931.84 15666.32 15832.62 -88.40 -0.56 13444.01 • 16695.32 4.8 -0.4 5.2
16300
Utility Average 848.44 823.79 833.04 -16.01 -1.89 783.08 • 975.39 -9.1 -5.5 0.9
Treasurys Total Stock Market 51258.58 50437.76 51229.08 572.17 1.13 38697.55 • 51229.08 25.2 7.2 7.5
Monday, March 4 Thursday, March 7 Barron's 400 1129.70 1108.95 1129.59 23.79 2.15 881.58 • 1129.59 12.5 5.3 6.3 16100

Auction of 13 and 26 week bills; Auction of 4 and 8 week bills; Nasdaq Stock Market
announced on February 29; settles on March 7 announced on March 5; settles on March 12 15900
Nasdaq Composite 16302.24 15924.72 16274.94 278.12 1.74 11138.89 • 16274.94 39.2 8.4 6.2
Wednesday, March 6 Nasdaq-100 18333.26 17840.36 18302.91 365.30 2.04 11830.28 • 18302.91 48.9 8.8 11.3
Auction of 17 week bill; 15700
S&P
announced on March 5; settles on March 12 23 26 27 28 29 1
500 Index 5140.33 5057.29 5137.08 48.28 0.95 3855.76 • 5137.08 27.0 7.7 9.6 February
MidCap 400 2911.60 2847.27 2910.66 52.64 1.84 2326.82 • 2910.66 9.9 4.6 4.3 DJ US TSM
A Week in the Life of the DJIA SmallCap 600 1316.08 1291.02 1311.08 15.60 1.20 1068.80 • 1339.63 3.3 -0.5 -0.2
s 572.17, or 1.13%
A look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average component stocks Other Indexes last week
did in the past week and how much each moved the index. The DJIA Russell 2000 2077.97 2011.87 2076.39 59.71 2.96 1636.94 • 2076.39 7.7 2.4 -3.0
lost 44.15 points, or 0.11%, on the week. A $1 change in the price of NYSE Composite 17738.14 17530.60 17728.27 112.24 0.64 14599.05 • 17728.27 12.8 5.2 5.0
any DJIA stock = 6.55-point change in the average. To date, a $1,000 Value Line 598.70 589.77 598.41 8.19 1.39 498.09 • 598.74 2.5 0.8 -2.0 51200
investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock component would NYSE Arca Biotech 5339.72 5168.83 5313.63 129.70 2.50 4544.40 • 5511.46 -1.7 -1.9 -3.0
have returned $31,425, or a gain of 4.75%, on the $30,000 NYSE Arca Pharma 1027.48 1001.71 1018.92 -5.02 -0.49 791.91 • 1023.94 25.1 12.0 14.1
investment, including reinvested dividends. 50900
KBW Bank 97.23 94.78 96.38 0.50 0.52 71.71 • 109.44 -11.9 0.4 -6.3
The Week’s Action
Pct Stock price Point chg $1,000 Invested(year-end '23)
PHLX§ Gold/Silver 109.04 102.60 108.65 1.93 1.81 102.94 • 144.37 -8.6 -13.6 -5.9
chg (%) change in average* Company Symbol Close $1,000 PHLX§ Oil Service 82.70 79.44 82.12 1.464 1.82 69.29 • 98.76 -11.0 -2.1 11.7 50600
8.22 24.08 157.74 Salesforce CRM $316.88 $1,204 PHLX§ Semiconductor 4950.26 4583.82 4929.58 314.55 6.822906.29 • 4929.58 62.8 18.1 15.9
3.96 12.82 83.98 Caterpillar CAT 336.70 1,144 Cboe Volatility 14.20 13.08 13.11 -0.64 -4.65 12.07 • 26.52 -29.1 5.3 -17.5 50300
3.91 4.21 27.58 Walt Disney DIS 111.95 1,240 23 26 27 28 29 1
3.36 12.49 81.82 Home Depot HD 384.45 1,109 Nasdaq PHLX Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data February
2.38 5.10 33.41 American Express AXP 219.66 1,176
1.93 0.83 5.44 Intel INTC 43.82 875
1.85 3.23 21.16 Amazon.com AMZN 178.22 1,173 International Stock Indexes Commodities and
1.34 2.48 16.25 IBM IBM 188.20 1,161
Latest Week 52-Week Range YTD
Currencies
1.26 5.16 33.80 Microsoft MSFT 415.50 1,107 Region/Country Index Close % chg Low Close High % chg
0.71 1.30 8.52 JPMorgan Chase JPM 185.29 Last Week YTD
1,096
0.41 0.24 1.57 Walmart WMT 58.76 1,118
World MSCI ACWI 767.07 0.77 612.09 • 767.07 5.5 Close Net chg %Chg % chg

0.17 0.28 1.83 Johnson & Johnson JNJ 162.12 1,042

MSCI ACWI ex-USA 322.96 0.36 276.65 • 322.96 2.0 DJ Commodity 955.79 19.28 2.06 -0.21
–0.16 –0.44 –2.88 Visa V 283.16 1,090
MSCI World 3364.04 0.90 2638.46 • 3364.04 6.1 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 277.11 6.28 2.32 5.03
–0.41 –0.83 –5.44 Boeing BA 200.00 767
MSCI Emerging Markets 1024.68 –0.35 910.91 • 1046.91 0.1 Crude oil, $ per barrel 79.97 3.48 4.55 11.61
–0.75 –2.95 –19.32 Goldman Sachs GS 388.10 1,013 Americas MSCI AC Americas 1942.71 0.96 1465.27 • 1942.71 7.1 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.835 0.136 8.00 -27.01
–0.78 –0.72 –4.72 3M MMM 91.86 854 Canada S&P/TSX Comp 21552.35 0.65 18737.39 • 21552.35 2.8 Gold, $ per troy oz. 2086.90 47.50 2.33 1.19
–0.94 –0.46 –3.01 Cisco CSCO 48.40 965 Latin Amer. MSCI EM Latin America 2532.73 –0.09 2067.22 • 2675.33 –4.9
U.S. Dollar Index 103.89 -0.05 -0.05 2.47
–0.97 –2.14 –14.02 Travelers TRV 218.82 1,149 Brazil Bovespa 129180.37 –0.18 97926.34 • 134193.72 –3.7
WSJ Dollar Index 98.48 0.01 0.01 2.76
–0.98 –1.96 –12.84 Honeywell HON 198.67 953 Chile S&P IPSA 3617.17 4.71 3048.00 • 3629.67 4.3
Euro, per dollar 0.9225 -0.0015 -0.17 1.82
–1.10 –0.62 –4.06 Dow DOW 55.77 1,030 Mexico S&P/BMV IPC 55536.32 –1.98 48197.88 • 58711.87 –3.2
Yen, per dollar 150.13 -0.39 -0.26 6.45
–1.13 –0.46 –3.01 Verizon VZ 40.20 1,084 EMEA STOXX Europe 600 497.58 0.07 429.58 • 497.58 3.9
U.K. pound, in dollars 1.27 -0.0019 -0.15 -0.62
–1.20
–1.35
–1.85
–2.18
–12.12
–14.28
Chevron
Procter & Gamble
CVX 152.81
158.85
1,035 STOXX Europe 50 4302.61 –0.15 3731.99 • 4309.26 5.1
PG 1,091 52-Week
–1.57 –2.86 –18.74 Apple AAPL 179.66 934
Eurozone Euro STOXX 500.86 0.35 420.65 • 500.86 5.6 Low Close(l) High % Chg

–1.92 –2.49 –16.31 Merck MRK 126.96 1,165

Euro STOXX 50 4894.86 0.46 4014.36 • 4894.86 8.3
DJ Commodity 930.59 1035.63 -7.06
Austria ATX 3378.58 –0.18 3020.72 • 3557.01 –1.6 l
–2.36 –7.02 –45.99 McDonald’s MCD 290.73 986
–2.73 –1.67 –10.94 Coca-Cola KO 59.53 1,010
Belgium Bel-20 3698.82 –0.23 3290.68 • 3885.05 –0.24 Refinitiv/CC CRB Index 253.85 l 290.29 0.75

–3.06 –8.85 –57.97 Amgen AMGN 280.33 981

France CAC 40 7934.17 –0.41 6795.38 • 7966.68 5.2 Crude oil, $ per barrel 66.74 l 93.68 0.36

–3.55 –3.75 –24.57 Nike NKE 101.88 942

Germany DAX 17735.07 1.81 14687.41 • 17735.07 5.9 Natural gas, $/MMBtu 1.576 l 3.575 -39.02
–7.15 –37.71 –247.03 UnitedHealth Group UNH 489.53 930
Greece Athex Composite 1422.75 0.67 1020.19 • 1424.77 10.0 Gold, $ per troy oz. 1812.70 l2086.90 12.95
Israel Tel Aviv 1947.07 1.70 1605.20 • 1947.07 4.4
107.00 -0.61
*Based on Composite price. DJIA is calculated on primary-market price.
Source: Dow Jones Market Data; FactSet.
Italy FTSE MIB 32934.29 0.71 25495 • 32934 8.5 U.S. Dollar Index 99.77 l

Netherlands AEX 854.10 –0.10 714.05 • 858.11 8.6 WSJ Dollar Index 94.60 l 100.92 1.00
Norway Oslo Bors All-Share 1474.50 0.99 1293.45 • 1543.44 –3.0 Euro, per dollar 0.8897 l 0.9555 -1.90
Portugal PSI 20 6199.59 –0.68 5724.12 • 6609.90 –3.1 Yen, per dollar 130.71 l 151.72 10.51
South Africa FTSE/JSE All-Share 72775.49 –1.94 69451.97 • 79294.76 –5.4 U.K. pound, in dollars 1.18 l 1.31 5.07
Spain IBEX 35 10064.70 –0.65 8719.3 • 10258.1 –0.4
Sweden OMX Stockholm 929.79 1.40 753.35 • 929.79 3.0 Go to WSJMarkets.com for free
Switzerland Swiss Market 11493.92 –0.02 10323.71 • 11595.25 3.2 access to real-time market data.
U.K. FTSE 100 7682.50 –0.31 7256.94 • 7947.11 –0.7
Asia-Pacific MSCI AC Asia Pacific 174.09 0.63 150.1 • 174.1 2.8
Australia S&P/ASX 200 7745.60 1.33 6772.9 • 7745.6 2.0
China Shanghai Composite 3027.02 0.74 2702.19 • 3395.00 1.8
Hong Kong Hang Seng 16589.44 –0.82 14961.18 • 20782.45 –2.7
India S&P BSE Sensex 73745.35 0.82 57527.10 • 73745.35 2.1
Japan NIKKEI 225 39910.82 2.08 26945.67 • 39910.82 19.3
Malaysia FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI 1538.02 –0.72 1374.64 • 1558.80 5.7
Singapore Straits Times 3135.76 –1.54 3053.36 • 3373.98 –3.2
South Korea KOSPI 2642.36 –0.95 2277.99 • 2680.26 –0.5
Taiwan TAIEX 18935.93 0.25 15221.12 • 18966.77 5.6
Source: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data

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Sound U.S. consumer rates

A consumer rate against its
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Yield to maturity of current bills,
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major U.S. trading partners

Thinking
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Yen
BROWSE OUR PODCA STS 3.00
Florence, MA 800-644-8261
1.00 –14
WSJ.com/listen MAM J J A S O ND J F M Macatawa Bank 6.50% 1 3 6 1 2 3 5 7 10 20 30 2023 2024
2023 2024 Zeeland, MI 616-748-9491 month(s) years
Yield/Rate (%) 52-Week Range (%) 3-yr chg maturity
Interest rate Last (l)Week ago Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts) Sources: Tradeweb ICE U.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; Dow Jones Market Data

Federal-funds rate target 5.25-5.50 5.25-5.50 4.50 l 5.50 5.25 Corporate Borrowing Rates and Yields
Prime rate* 8.50 8.50 7.75 l 8.50 5.25 Spread +/- Treasurys,
SOFR 5.32 5.30 4.55 l 5.40 5.31 Yield (%) in basis pts, 52-wk Range Total Return
Bond total return index Last Wk ago Last Low High 52-wk 3-yr
Money market, annual yield 0.51 0.51 0.46 l 0.64 0.43
Five-year CD, annual yield 2.86 2.86 2.76 l 2.87 2.41 U.S. Treasury, Bloomberg 4.380 4.480 3.20 -3.23
30-year mortgage, fixed† 7.42 7.50 6.75 l 8.28 4.12 U.S. Treasury Long, Bloomberg 4.440 4.490 -1.18 -9.37
15-year mortgage, fixed† 6.73 6.79 6.00 l 7.42 4.18 Aggregate, Bloomberg 4.840 4.920 42 39 62 4.34 -2.98
Jumbo mortgages, $766,550-plus† 7.49 7.58 6.79 l 8.33 4.16 Fixed-Rate MBS, Bloomberg 5.060 5.140 51 44 82 3.49 -3.22
Five-year adj mortgage (ARM)† 6.50 6.48 5.64 l 7.16 3.31 High Yield 100, ICE BofA 7.339 7.279 276 264 459 10.919 2.108
New-car loan, 48-month 7.88 7.86 6.75 l 7.88 3.85 Muni Master, ICE BofA 3.235 3.211 6 -9 9 5.262 -0.169
© 2023 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 2DJ8105 Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largest EMBI Global, J.P. Morgan 7.396 7.497 309 307 421 9.613 -2.106
banks.† Excludes closing costs.
Sources: FactSet; Dow Jones Market Data; Bankrate.com Sources: J.P. Morgan; S&P Dow Jones Indices; Bloomberg Fixed Income Indices; ICE BofA
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 4, 2024 | B9

Listed are the 300 largest closed-end funds as
measured by assets. Closed-end funds sell a limited
number of shares and invest the proceeds in securities.
Unlike open-end funds, closed-ends generally do not
buy their shares back from investors who wish to cash
in their holdings. Instead, fund shares trade on a stock
exchange. NA signifies that the information is not
available or not applicable. NS signifies funds not in
existence for the entire period. 12 month yield is
computed by dividing income dividends paid (during
the previous 12 months for periods ending at month-
end or during the previous 52 weeks for periods
ending at any time other than month-end) by the
latest month-end market price adjusted for capital
gains distributions. Depending on the fund category,
either 12-month yield or total return is listed.
Source: Lipper
Friday, March 1, 2024
52 wk
Prem Ttl
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
General Equity Funds
Adams Diversified Eq Inc ADX 22.40 19.24 -14.1 33.6
Central Secs CET 49.35 39.17 -20.6 15.5
CohenStrsCEOppFd FOF 11.18 11.30 +1.1 9.1
EVTxAdvDivIncm EVT 25.17 22.80 -9.4 4.1
GabelliDiv&IncTr GDV 26.56 22.38 -15.7 10.1
Gabelli Equity Tr GAB 5.43 5.52 +1.7 4.4
GeneralAmer GAM 54.88 45.23 -17.6 24.5
JHancockTaxAdvDiv HTD 20.83 19.19 -7.9 -10.7
Liberty All-Star Equity USA 7.00 6.82 -2.6 20.0
Liberty All-Star Growth ASG 5.99 5.47 -8.7 11.6
Royce Micro-Cap Tr RMT 10.67 9.42 -11.7 8.3
Royce Value Trust RVT 16.82 14.76 -12.2 9.9
Source Capital SOR 44.74 41.58 -7.1 16.7
Sprott Focus Trust FUND 8.68 7.78 -10.4 -5.8
SRH Total Return STEW 18.72 14.82 -20.8 21.8
Tri-Continental TY 34.16 29.86 -12.6 14.9
Specialized Equity Funds
abrdn Glb Prem Prop AWP 4.08 3.76 -7.8 0.7
abrdn Global Infra Inc ASGI 20.08 17.31 -13.8 6.2
Adams Natural Resources PEO 25.72 21.52 -16.3 4.3
ASA Gold & Prec Met Ltd ASA 16.68 13.88 -16.8 -6.4
BR Enh C&I CII 20.79 19.70 -5.2 15.1
BlackRock Energy & Res BGR 14.38 12.49 -13.1 3.2
BlackRock Eq Enh Div BDJ 9.00 8.07 -10.3 -3.0
BlackRock Enh Glbl Div BOE 11.99 10.28 -14.3 9.5
BlackRock Enh Intl Div BGY 6.20 5.36 -13.5 5.9
BlackRock ESG Cap All T ECAT 18.81 17.28 -8.1 29.6
BlackRock Hlth Sci Term BMEZ 18.77 16.51 -12.0 12.2
BlackRock Hlth Sciences BME 44.35 42.47 -4.2 8.3
BlackRock Innov&Gro Term BIGZ 9.30 8.11 -12.8 15.0
BlackRock Res & Comm BCX 9.95 8.43 -15.3 -12.9
BlackRock Sci&Tech Term BSTZ 22.68 18.89 -16.7 15.6
BlackRock Sci&Tech Trust BST 37.16 37.25 +0.2 25.9
BlackRock Utl Inf & Pwr BUI 21.67 20.94 -3.4 -0.8
CLEARBRIDGEENGYMDSOPP EMO NA 37.66 NA 33.1
CLEARBRIDGEMLP&MDSTMTR CTR NA 38.86 NA 37.7
ClearBridge MLP & Midstm CEM NA 42.81 NA 31.6
ChnStrInfr UTF 22.15 22.25 +0.5 -1.4
Cohen&SteersQualInc RQI 12.75 12.01 -5.8 3.6
CohenStrs Real Est and I RLTY 15.92 14.16 -11.1 5.8
Cohen&Steers TotRet RFI 11.71 11.87 +1.4 -1.3
CohenStrsREITPrefInc RNP 20.70 20.65 -0.2 5.3
Columbia Sel Prm Tech Gr STK 30.62 33.88 +10.6 34.8
DNP Select Income DNP 7.62 8.83 +15.9 -15.2
Duff&Ph Uti&Infra Inc Fd DPG 10.36 9.16 -11.6 -26.8
EtnVncEqtyInc EOI 18.70 18.19 -2.7 24.8
EtnVncEqtyIncoII EOS 21.51 20.34 -5.4 34.3
EVRskMnDvsEqInc ETJ 9.12 8.37 -8.2 16.0
ETnVncTxMgdBuyWrtInc ETB 14.75 13.58 -7.9 10.7
EtnVncTxMgdBuyWrtOpp ETV 13.81 13.07 -5.4 8.8
EvTxMnDvsEqInc ETY 13.90 13.18 -5.2 20.1
EtnVncTxMgdGlbB ETW 9.26 8.08 -12.7 9.5
EVTxMnGblDvEqInc EXG 9.09 8.02 -11.8 12.6
Ecofin S&S Impact Term TEAF NA 11.34 NA -4.5
First Trust Energy Inc G FEN 15.95 15.42 -3.3 21.6
First Tr Enhanced Eq FFA 19.63 18.78 -4.3 19.6
FirstTrEnergyInfra FIF 17.46 16.96 -2.9 23.1
FirstTrMLPEner&Inc FEI 9.46 9.14 -3.4 22.1
Gabelli Healthcare GRX 12.23 9.96 -18.6 2.8
Gab Utility GUT 2.74 5.44 +98.5 -5.0
GAMCOGlGold&NatRes GGN 3.71 3.73 +0.5 11.3
J Han Finl Opptys BTO 28.37 28.46 +0.3 -11.3
Neuberger Brmn Enrgy I&I NML 8.22 7.01 -14.7 10.0
Neuberger Nxt Gen Conn NBXG 14.31 11.98 -16.3 32.4
NuvDow30DynOverwrite DIAX 16.56 14.60 -11.8 2.9
NuvCorEqAlpha JCE NA 13.98 NA 20.2
NuveenNasdaq100DynOv QQQX 26.38 24.21 -8.2 9.8
Nuv Real Est JRS 8.77 7.88 -10.1 2.8
NuvS&P500DynOvFd SPXX 17.19 15.57 -9.4 5.8
52 wk
Prem Ttl
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
NuvSP500BuyIncFd BXMX 14.69 13.29 -9.5 7.3
ReavesUtilityIncome UTG 25.92 26.16 +0.9 0.7
Tortoise Enrgy Infra Crp TYG NA 29.38 NA 2.5
Tortoise Midstream Enrgy NTG NA 36.40 NA 9.7
VDivInt&PremStr NFJ 14.52 12.39 -14.7 11.1
V Art Int&Tech Opps AIO NA 19.85 NA 26.2
Income & Preferred Stock Funds
Dividend and Income BXSY 19.98 NA NA NA
CalamosStratTot CSQ 16.47 15.99 -2.9 21.2
CohenStrsLtdDurPref&Inc LDP 20.93 20.08 -4.1 9.8
CohenStrsSelPref&Income PSF 20.82 19.66 -5.6 3.1
CohenStrsTaxAvPreSecs&I PTA 20.38 19.29 -5.3 9.0
FirstTrIntDurPref&Inc FPF 18.74 17.49 -6.7 7.5
JHanPrefInc HPI 15.99 16.50 +3.2 8.1
JHPrefIncII HPF 15.85 16.57 +4.5 8.0
HnckJPfdInco III HPS 14.27 15.09 +5.7 10.0
J Han Prm PDT 11.83 11.63 -1.7 -2.3
LMP CapInco SCD NA 14.28 NA 27.3
Nuveen Pref & Inc Opp JPC 7.90 7.15 -9.5 4.8
Nuveen Pref & Inc Term JPI 19.49 18.91 -3.0 2.6
Nuveen Var Rate P&I NPFD 19.87 17.46 -12.1 4.2
TCW Strat Income TSI NA 4.66 NA -1.2
Convertible Sec's. Funds
AdvntCnvrtbl&IncFd AVK 12.47 11.82 -5.2 8.5
CalamosConvHi CHY 10.68 11.90 +11.4 7.2
CalmosConvOp CHI 10.10 11.08 +9.7 3.0
V Conv & Inc NCV NA 3.24 NA -3.7
V Conv & Inc II NCZ NA 2.88 NA 0.7
V Div Inc & Conv ACV NA 22.36 NA 20.7
V Eqty & Conv Inc NIE NA 22.30 NA 23.7
World Equity Funds
abrdn Emg Mkts Eq Inc AEF NA 5.10 NA 3.1
abrdn Glbl Dyn Div AGD NA 9.49 NA 7.6
abrdn Tot Dyn Div AOD NA 8.14 NA 8.1
Allspring Gl Div Oppty EOD 5.40 4.58 -15.2 5.8
BlackRock Cap Alloc Term BCAT 17.67 15.75 -10.9 16.2
Calamos GloDynInc CHW 7.21 6.24 -13.5 11.8
EV TxAdvGlbDivInc ETG 20.42 17.96 -12.0 19.2
EtnVncTxAdvOpp ETO 27.38 24.79 -9.5 19.3
Gabelli Multimedia GGT 3.77 5.74 +52.3 19.2
GDL Fund GDL 10.16 7.87 -22.5 4.9
Highland Global Alloc HGLB NA 7.79 NA -11.5
India Fund IFN NA 20.75 NA 47.7
Japan Smaller Cap JOF 9.46 7.93 -16.2 19.2
LazardGlbTotRetInc LGI 18.36 16.01 -12.8 10.0
Mexico MXF NA 18.12 NA 10.0
Miller/Howard High Inc E HIE NA 10.66 NA 4.6
MS ChinaShrFd CAF NA 12.39 NA -14.7
MS India IIF 28.53 23.41 -17.9 32.8
MS CBRE Gl In Mg Term MEGI 13.99 12.65 -9.6 -2.4
New Germany GF NA 8.52 NA -8.3
Nuveen Multi-Asset Inc NMAI 13.94 12.17 -12.7 10.3
Nuveen Rl Asst Inc & Gro JRI 13.21 11.49 -13.0 4.3
Templeton Dragon TDF 9.33 7.86 -15.8 -27.3
Templeton Em Mkt EMF 13.55 11.58 -14.5 4.8
Prem12 Mo
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds
BlckRk Income BKT 12.34 11.85 -4.0 8.9
Investment Grade Bond Funds
Angel Oak FS Inc Trm FINS 13.77 12.27 -10.9 10.0
BlRck Core Bond BHK 10.74 10.51 -2.1 8.5
BR Credit Alloc Inc BTZ 11.40 10.67 -6.4 9.4
Insight Select Income INSI 17.47 15.76 -9.8 4.9
InvescoBond VBF NA 15.59 NA 5.1
J Han Income JHS NA 10.79 NA 3.7
MFS Intmdt MIN 2.87 2.71 -5.6 0.0
Western Asset Inf-Lk Inc WIA NA 8.06 NA 11.1
Western Asset Inf-Lk O&I WIW NA 8.52 NA 10.6
Westn Asst IG Def Opp Tr IGI NA 17.14 NA 4.7
Loan Participation Funds
Apollo Senior Floating AFT NA 14.44 NA 10.7
BR Debt Strategy DSU 10.85 11.12 +2.4 9.99
BR F/R Inc Str FRA 13.22 12.85 -2.8 11.0
BlackRock Floatng Rt Inc BGT 12.87 13.11 +1.9 10.6
BS SFR 2027 T BSL NA 14.26 NA 9.5
BS St Cr 2027 Tm BGB 12.74 11.84 -7.1 9.6
EtnVncFltRteInc EFT 13.33 13.28 -0.4 10.6
EV SenFlRtTr EFR 13.06 13.07 +0.1 10.2
FT/Sr Fltg Rte Inc 2 FCT 11.03 10.14 -8.1 11.0
Highland Oppty & Income HFRO NA 6.53 NA 13.4
InvDYCrOpp:AX VTA 11.16 NA NA NA
InvSnrIncTr VVR NA 4.15 NA 11.7
Nuveen Credit Strat Inc JQC 5.92 5.57 -5.9 11.0
CLOSED-END FUNDS
52 wk
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
NuvFloatRateIncFd JFR 9.29 8.69 -6.5 11.1
High Yield Bond Funds
abrdn Inc Credit Str ACP 7.06 6.83 -3.3 17.6
AllianceBernGlHiIncm AWF 11.15 10.52 -5.7 7.7
Allspring Income Oppty EAD 7.28 6.67 -8.4 8.8
Barings Glb SD HY Bd BGH 15.61 14.24 -8.8 10.0
BR Corporate HY HYT 9.66 9.78 +1.2 9.6
BlackRock Ltd Dur Inc BLW 14.03 14.12 +0.6 8.7
BNY Mellon Hi Yield Str DHF 2.69 2.35 -12.6 7.6
Brookfield Real Asst Inc RA NA 12.94 NA 6.3
CrSuisHighYld DHY 2.19 1.96 -10.5 9.5
DoubleLine Inc Sol DSL 12.52 12.81 +2.3 10.4
DoubleLine Yld Opps DLY 16.07 15.87 -1.2 9.2
First Tr Hi Inc Lng/Shrt FSD 12.63 11.80 -6.6 10.6
First Trust HY Opp:2027 FTHY 15.56 14.52 -6.7 10.6
Franklin Univ FT 7.40 6.49 -12.3 7.8
KKR Income Opportunities KIO NA 13.48 NA 10.8
NeubHgYldStrt NHS 8.03 8.11 +1.0 13.4
New Amer Hi Inc HYB 8.22 7.29 -11.3 6.7
Nuveen Global High Inc JGH 13.37 12.72 -4.9 9.7
PGIM Global High Yield GHY 12.96 11.69 -9.8 10.8
PGIM High Yield Bond ISD 13.86 12.94 -6.6 9.7
PGIM Sh Dur Hi Yld Opp SDHY 17.47 15.24 -12.8 8.5
PioneerHilncm PHT 8.13 NA NA NA
WstAstHIF II HIX NA 4.54 NA 13.1
Western Asset Hi Inc Opp HIO NA 3.92 NA 10.0
Western Asset Hi Yld D O HYI NA 12.10 NA 9.4
Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds
Allspring Multi-Sector ERC 10.04 9.41 -6.3 8.3
Apollo Tactical Income AIF NA 15.34 NA 9.9
Ares Dynamic Crdt Alloc ARDC NA 13.98 NA 9.97
BlackRock Mlt-Sctr Inc BIT 14.62 15.57 +6.5 9.5
BlackRock Tax Muni Bd BBN 17.78 16.48 -7.3 7.0
DoubleLine:Oppor Crdt Fd DBL 15.11 15.25 +0.9 8.6
EVLmtDurIncm EVV 10.60 9.82 -7.4 9.7
Franklin Ltd Dur Income FTF 7.14 6.28 -12.0 11.3
FS Credit Opportunities FSCO NA 5.68 NA NS
J Han Investors JHI 14.69 13.15 -10.5 6.7
MFS Charter MCR 6.86 6.34 -7.6 0.0
NuvCorePlusImpact NPCT NA 10.35 NA 9.7
Nuveen Taxable Muni Inc NBB NA 15.52 NA 5.2
PIMCO Corp & Inc Oppty PTY 11.33 14.29 +26.1 9.99
PIMCO Corp & Inc Strat PCN 11.62 13.48 +16.0 10.0
PIMCOHilnco PHK 4.65 4.96 +6.7 11.6
PIMCO IncmStrFd PFL 8.09 8.47 +4.7 11.5
PIMCO IncmStrFd II PFN 7.13 7.37 +3.4 11.6
Putnam Prem Inc PPT 3.84 3.57 -7.0 8.7
Western Asset Dvsfd Inc WDI NA 14.48 NA 10.3
World Income Funds
abrdn AP IncFd FAX 3.03 2.72 -10.2 12.2
MS EmMktDomDebt EDD 5.45 4.69 -13.9 1.8
PIMCO Access Income PAXS 15.14 15.50 +2.4 11.6
PIMCO Dynamic Inc Strat PDX 23.49 20.27 -13.7 4.3
PIMCO Dynamic Income PDI 17.28 18.98 +9.8 13.8
PIMCO Dynamic Inc Opp PDO 12.59 13.09 +4.0 11.7
PIMCO Stratg Inc RCS 4.40 6.08 +38.2 10.1
Templtn Glbl Inc SABA NA 3.71 NA 11.1
Templeton Em Inc TEI 6.02 5.24 -13.0 10.7
WstAstEmergDebt EMD NA 9.16 NA 10.1
Western Asset Gl Cr D Op GDO NA 12.61 NA 9.6
National Muni Bond Funds
AllBerNatlMunInc AFB NA 10.98 NA 3.6
BlckRk Inv Q Mun BKN 13.12 12.14 -7.5 4.3
BlackRock Muni 2030 Tgt BTT 23.94 21.04 -12.1 2.9
BlackRock Muni BFK 11.55 10.36 -10.3 4.1
BlackRock Muni II BLE 12.20 10.85 -11.1 4.2
BlckRk Muni Inc Qly BYM 12.75 11.42 -10.4 4.3
BR MuniAssets Fd MUA 11.49 11.07 -3.7 4.8
BR MH Qly 2 MUE 11.63 10.02 -13.8 3.9
BR MuniHoldngs MHD 13.67 12.01 -12.1 3.9
BR MuniVest Fd MVF 8.05 7.01 -12.9 4.0
BR MuniVest 2 MVT 12.49 10.88 -12.9 4.0
BR MuniYield Fd MYD 12.25 11.24 -8.2 4.3
BR MuniYield Qlty MQY 13.29 12.36 -7.0 4.6
BR MuniYld Qlty2 MQT 11.72 10.50 -10.4 4.4
BR MuniYld Qly 3 MYI 12.65 11.51 -9.0 4.6
BNY Mellon Muni Bd Infra DMB 12.08 10.34 -14.4 4.2
BNY Mellon Str Muni Bond DSM 6.73 5.78 -14.1 4.0
BNY Mellon Strat Muni LEO 7.00 6.03 -13.9 4.1
DWS Muni Inc KTF NA 8.95 NA 3.4
EVMuniBd EIM 11.51 10.41 -9.6 4.1
EVMuniIncm EVN 11.40 10.20 -10.5 4.7
EVNatMuniOpp EOT 18.52 16.75 -9.6 4.4
InvAdvMuIncTrII VKI 9.88 8.56 -13.4 4.5
Invesco MuniOp OIA NA 6.28 NA 5.1
Prem12 Mo
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
InvescoMuOppTr VMO 11.04 9.63 -12.8 4.4
InvescoMuTr VKQ NA 9.57 NA 4.5
InvescoQual Inc IQI 11.12 9.61 -13.6 4.6
InvTrInvGrMu VGM 11.40 9.88 -13.3 4.3
InvescoValMunInc IIM 13.59 11.83 -13.0 4.6
MAINSTAY:MKDEFTRMUNOP MMD 17.10 16.47 -3.7 4.9
NeubrgrBrm NBH NA 10.39 NA 4.3
Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu Val NUW NA 13.67 NA 3.6
Nuveen AMT-Fr Qlty Mun I NEA 12.82 11.01 -14.1 4.1
Nuveen AMT-Fr Mu CI NVG 13.88 11.87 -14.5 4.5
Nuveen Dyn Muni Opp NDMO 11.14 10.95 -1.7 6.8
Nuveen Mu Crdt Opps NMCO 11.68 10.58 -9.4 5.5
Nuv Muni Credit Income NZF 13.85 11.98 -13.5 4.6
NuvMuniHiIncOpp NMZ 11.28 10.54 -6.6 5.1
Nuveen Muni Val NUV NA 8.69 NA 3.9
Nuveen Quality Muni Inc NAD 13.23 11.31 -14.5 4.2
Nuveen Sel TF NXP NA 14.54 NA 4.0
PIMCO MuniInc PMF 9.61 9.58 -0.3 5.2
PIMCOMuniIncII PML 8.92 8.57 -3.9 5.5
Pimco Muni III PMX 8.21 7.51 -8.5 5.2
PioneerHilncAdv MAV 9.24 8.15 -11.8 4.3
PionrMuniHiIncOppty MIO 12.69 11.00 -13.3 4.6
PioneerMunHiIcm MHI 9.98 8.78 -12.0 4.1
Putnam Mgd Inc PMM 6.73 6.12 -9.1 4.7
Putnam Muni Opp PMO 11.49 10.16 -11.6 4.3
RiverNorth Flx Mu Inc II RFMZ 15.62 14.11 -9.7 7.4
RiverNorth Mgd Dur Mun I RMM 16.50 15.17 -8.1 7.2
Western Asset Mgd Muni MMU NA 10.17 NA 4.4
Single State Muni Bond
BlackRock CA Mun BFZ 13.06 11.75 -10.0 4.3
BR MH CA Qly Fd Inc MUC 12.72 11.05 -13.1 4.0
BR MH NJ Qly MUJ 13.20 11.50 -12.9 4.2
BR MH NY Qly MHN 12.19 10.66 -12.6 4.0
BR MuniYld MI Qly MIY 13.16 11.41 -13.3 3.9
BR MuniYld NY Qly MYN 11.81 10.53 -10.8 3.9
BlackRock NY Mun BNY 12.14 10.64 -12.4 3.8
EVCAMuniBd EVM 10.45 9.21 -11.9 4.0
Eaton Vance NY Muni Bd ENX 10.86 9.90 -8.8 3.8
InvCaValMuIncTr VCV 11.39 9.76 -14.3 4.1
InvPAValMuIncTr VPV NA 10.11 NA 3.6
InvTrInvGrNYMu VTN NA 10.54 NA 3.8
Nuveen CA AMT-F Qual MI NKX 13.34 11.52 -13.6 4.4
Nuveen CA Val NCA NA 8.74 NA 3.9
NuveenCAQtyMuInc NAC 12.84 11.05 -13.9 4.2
NuvNJ Qual Muni Inc NXJ NA 12.05 NA 3.2
Nuveen NY AMT/Fr Qual MI NRK NA 10.83 NA 4.0
Nuveen NY Qual Muni Inc NAN NA 10.95 NA 4.2
Nuveen PA Qual Muni Inc NQP 13.61 11.65 -14.4 3.1
Nuveen VA Qlty Mun Inc NPV NA 10.99 NA 3.8
PIMCO CA PCQ NA 9.60 NA 4.5
PIMCOCAMuniII PCK NA 5.86 NA 4.3
52 wk
Prem Ttl
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
General Equity Funds
Alternative Strategies:I 17.12 NA NA -7.9
First Trust Hdg Strat;A NA NA NA N
First Trust Hdg Str;I NA NA NA N Floating-Rate Opps;U 10.17 NA NA NS
Specialized Equity Funds
Accordant ODCE Index;A 9.68 NA NA NS
Accordant ODCE Index;I 9.69 NA NA NS
Accordant ODCE Index;Y 9.69 NA NA NS
ARK Venture 27.69 NA NA 42.1
ArrowMark Financial Corp BANX NA 18.64 NA NA
CBRE GlbRlEst IGR 5.64 5.08 -9.9 -5.3
CIM RA&C A 23.69 NA NA -1.1
CIM RA&C C 23.04 NA NA -1.8
CIM RA&C I 23.91 NA NA -0.9
CIM RA&C L 23.45 NA NA -1.4
Forum RE Income;I 9.53 NA NA 11.9
Private Opps A NA NA NA NS
Private Opps I NA NA NA NS
Private Opps SDR NA NA NA NS
NexPointRlEstStrat;A 17.06 NA NA -8.1
NexPointRlEstStrat;C 17.28 NA NA -8.7
NexPointRlEstStrat;Z 17.29 NA NA -7.8
PIMCO Flexible REI;Inst 10.44 NA NA 9.2
PREDEX;I 24.36 NA NA -14.2
PREDEX;T 24.46 NA NA -14.4
PREDEX;W 24.46 NA NA -14.4
Principal Real Asst A 25.14 NA NA 0.7
Principal Real Asst Ins 25.24 NA NA 1.0
Principal Real Asst Y 25.50 NA NA 1.2
Redwood Rl Est;I 25.05 NA NA NS
52 wk Prem12 Mo
Prem Ttl Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret
PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-1 6.97 NA NA 10.5
The Private Shares;A 39.29 NA NA -4.6 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-2 6.97 NA NA 10.5
The Private Shares;I 39.95 NA NA -4.4
PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-3 6.97 NA NA 10.2
The Private Shares;L 38.67 NA NA -4.8 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;A-4 6.97 NA NA 10.2
Thirdline Real EstateI 10.13 NA NA 6.8 PIMCO Flexible Cr I;Inst 6.97 NA NA 11.0
USQ Core Real Estate:I 23.58 NA NA -13.2 Other Domestic Taxable Bond Funds
USQ Core Real Estate:IS 23.65 NA NA -13.1 AFA Private Credit;Fndr 9.48 NA NA 7.7
Versus Cap MMgr RE Inc:I 25.11 NA NA NE AFA Private Credit;Inst 9.50 NA NA 7.7
Versus Capital Real Asst 27.55 NA NA 2.9 Alternative Credit Inc:A NA NA NA 7.2
Wildermuth:I 7.45 NA NA -37.4 Alternative Credit Inc:C NA NA NA 6.4
Income & Preferred Stock Funds Alternative Credit Inc:I NA NA NA 7.4
Alpha Alternative Assets 6.25 NA NA 2.6 Alternative Credit Inc:L NA NA NA 6.9
Calamos L/S Eqty and DI CPZ 17.46 15.08 -13.6 2.5 Alternative Credit Inc:W NA NA NA 7.2
Carlyle AlpInv Pvt Mkt:A NA NA NA NS Angel Oak Str Crdt:FI 20.90 NA NA 8.1
Flat Rock Opportunity 19.34 NA NA 14.7 Angel Oak Str Crdt:Inst 20.89 NA NA 8.1
Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:A 9.27 NA NA 13.4 BR Credit Strat;A 8.62 NA NA 8.0
Lord Abbett Spec Sit I:I 9.27 NA NA 14.2
BR Credit Strat;Inst 8.60 NA NA 8.7
Variant Altrntv Inc:Inst 28.69 NA NA 9.3 BR Credit Strat;U 8.61 NA NA 8.0
Variant Impact;Instl 28.25 NA NA 12.8
BR Credit Strat;W 8.62 NA NA 8.0
Convertible Sec's. Funds CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;A NA NA NA 8.4
Calmos Dyn Conv and Inc CCD 19.50 21.32 +9.3 8.5
CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;C NA NA NA 7.6
World Equity Funds CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;I NA NA NA 8.6
ACAP Strategic:A 21.56 NA NA 33.5 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;L NA NA NA 8.1
ACAP Strategic:W 16.19 NA NA 34.5 CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;U NA NA NA 7.9
CalamosGlbTotRet CGO 11.09 9.95 -10.3 19.7
CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt:U2 NA NA NA 7.9
Cantor Fitzgerald SI:C NA NA NA NS CION Ares Dvsfd Crdt;W NA NA NA 8.1
Cantor Fitzgerald SI:I NA NA NA NS CNR Select Strategies 14.35 NA NA 0.0
Primark Priv Eq Inv:I 12.73 NA NA 12.9 First Eagle Crdt Opps A 23.63 NA NA 10.4
Sweater Cashmere 21.01 NA NA 2.2 First Eagle Crdt Opps A2 23.54 NA NA 10.1
Thornburg Inc Bldr Opps TBLD 18.12 15.96 -11.9 12.4 First Eagle Crdt Opps I 23.49 NA NA 10.9
VirtusTotalRetFd ZTR NA 5.29 NA NA
First Trust Private Cr;A NA NA NA NS
Prem12 Mo First Trust Private Cr;I NA NA NA 8.4
Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:A 10.36 NA NA 6.7
Franklin BSP Pvt Cr:Adv 10.37 NA NA 7.2
U.S. Mortgage Bond Funds
FS Credit Income;A NA NA NA 8.5
Arca US Treasury NA NA NA NE
FS Credit Income;I NA NA NA 8.7
Ellington Inc Opp:A 9.24 NA NA NA
FS Credit Income;T NA NA NA 8.2
Ellington Inc Opp:M 9.11 NA NA NA
FS Credit Income;U NA NA NA 7.9
Loan Participation Funds
FS Credit Income;U-2 NA NA NA 8.2
1WS Credit Income;A2 NA NA NA 6.8
GL Beyond Income 0.39 NA NA NE
1WS Credit Income;Inst NA NA NA 6.7
KKR CREDIT OPPTY;D NA NA NA 8.1
Axonic Alternative Inc NA NA NA 8.8
AXONIC ALTERNATIVE INC;A NA NA NA NS KKR CREDIT OPPTY;I NA NA NA 8.3
KKR CREDIT OPPTY;T NA NA NA 7.6
Blackstone FR EI D NA NA NA 9.4
KKR CREDIT OPPTY;U NA NA NA 7.6
Blackstone FR EI I NA NA NA 9.7
NIAGARAINCOMEOPPORTNTS NA NA NA NS
Blackstone FR EI T NA NA NA 9.2
Palmer Square Opp Inc 18.07 NA NA 9.1
Blackstone FR EI T-I NA NA NA 9.2
World Income Funds
Blackstone FR EI U NA NA NA 9.2
BlueBay Destra Itl E:A 23.65 NA NA 7.1
Bluerock HI Inst Crd:A NA NA NA 12.8
BlueBay Destra Itl E:I 23.68 NA NA 7.3
Bluerock HI Inst Crd:C NA NA NA 12.8
BlueBay Destra Itl E:L 23.62 NA NA 6.8
Bluerock HI Inst Crd:F NA NA NA 12.8
BlueBay Destra Itl E:T 23.51 NA NA 6.6
Bluerock HI Inst Crd:I NA NA NA 12.8
BNYM Alcntr Glb MS Cr Fd 92.25 NA NA NA Calamos-Aksia ACI:A 10.46 NA NA NS
Calamos-Aksia ACI:C 10.45 NA NA NS
CliffwaterClFd;I 10.75 NA NA 10.7
Calamos-Aksia ACI:I 10.46 NA NA NS
CliffwaterElFd;I NA NA NA 10.4
Calamos-Aksia ACI:M 10.45 NA NA NS
CNR Strategic Credit 7.49 NA NA 21.1
Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:A NA NA NA 9.8
Floating-Rate Opps;A 10.17 NA NA NS
Floating-Rate Opps;I 10.16 NA NA NS Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:I NA NA NA 10.1
Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:L NA NA NA 9.7
FedProj&TrFinanceTendr 10.01 NA NA 5.8 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:M NA NA NA 9.5
Flat Rock Core Income 20.68 NA NA 9.0 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:N NA NA NA 10.3
Flat Rock Enhanced Inc 21.57 NA NA 8.4 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:U NA NA NA 9.6
InvDYCrOpp:A 11.16 NA NA 10.3 Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:Y NA NA NA 9.98
InvDYCrOpp:R6 11.17 NA NA 10.6 Fid MS Cr;A NA NA NA NS
InvDYCrOpp:Y 11.16 NA NA 10.5 Fid MS Cr;C NA NA NA NS
Invesco Sr Loan A 5.86 NA NA 9.6 Fid MS Cr;I NA NA NA NS
Fid MS Cr;L NA NA NA NS
Invesco Sr Loan C 5.88 NA NA 8.8
Jackson Credit Opps:I 10.23 NA NA NS
Invesco Sr Loan IB 5.86 NA NA 9.8
Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.93 NA NA 9.0
Invesco Sr Loan IC 5.86 NA NA 9.7
Invesco Sr Loan Y 5.86 NA NA 9.8 Lord Abbett Cred Opps Fd 8.94 NA NA 9.8
Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:A 10.26 NA NA 9.7 Lord Abbett Crd Op:U 8.94 NA NA 9.0
Lord Abbett FR Hi Inc:I 10.26 NA NA 10.2 Oaktree Dvsfd Income;D 9.04 NA NA 7.6
Monachil Credit Income:I 10.04 NA NA 8.6 PIMCO Flexible EM I;Inst NA NA NA 7.1
Nomura Alt Inc;I 10.01 NA NA 4.5 National Muni Bond Funds
OFS Credit Company OCCI NA 7.29 NA NA Ecofin Tax-Exempt Prv Cr 8.40 NA NA 3.9
SEI Alternative Income:F 10.13 NA NA NS Lind Cap Pt Mun Cred Inc 8.80 NA NA 6.1
SEI Alternative Income:Y 10.13 NA NA NS Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A1 7.45 NA NA 5.2
Yieldstreet Alt Inc NA NA NA 6.4 Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:A2 7.46 NA NA 5.4
High Yield Bond Funds Nuveen En HY Muni Bd:I 7.45 NA NA 5.9
Apollo Diversified Cd:A NA NA NA 9.0 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A-3 10.33 NA NA 3.5
Apollo Diversified Cd:C NA NA NA 8.3 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc:A1 10.33 NA NA 3.7
Apollo Diversified Cd:F NA NA NA 11.9 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;A2 10.33 NA NA 3.7
Apollo Diversified Cd:I NA NA NA 9.3 PIMCO Flex Mun Inc;Inst 10.33 NA NA 4.2
Apollo Diversified Cd:L NA NA NA 8.7 Single State Muni Bond
Apollo Diversified Cd:M NA NA NA 8.5 PIMCO CA FMI;A-1 10.29 NA NA 2.9
Opprtnstc Crdt Intrvl;I 11.86 NA NA 11.4 PIMCO CA FMI;Inst 10.29 NA NA 3.4

Cash Prices Friday, March 1, 2024 ADVERTISEMENT

These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical”
commodities in the marketplace—separate from the futures price on an
exchange, which reflects what the commodity might be worth in future
The Marketplace
To advertise: 800-366-3975 or WSJ.com/classifieds
months.
Friday Friday
Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w n.a. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES CLASS ACTION
Energy
Grains and Feeds
Coal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w 75.500
Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w 13.900 Bran,wheat middlings, KC-u,w 80
Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 3.9200 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
Metals Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 131.2 EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
Corn gluten meal,Midwest-u,w 416.3 RICHMOND DIVISION
Gold, per troy oz
Engelhard industrial 2053.00
Cottonseed meal-u,w 355 Case: 3:21-cv-00444-DJN
Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 125 IN RE JAMES RIVER GROUP HOLDINGS, LTD.
Handy & Harman base 2049.80 SECURITIES LITIGATION CLASS ACTION
Meat-bonemeal,50% pro Mnpls-u,w 305
Handy & Harman fabricated 2275.28
Oats,No.2 milling,Mnpls-u 4.3175
LBMA Gold Price AM *2032.80
Rice, Long Grain Milled, No. 2 AR-u,w 36.25 SUMMARY NOTICE OF (I) PENDENCY OF CLASS ACTION
LBMA Gold Price PM *2048.05
Sorghum,(Milo) No.2 Gulf-u n.a. AND PROPOSED SETTLEMENT; (II) SETTLEMENT HEARING; AND
Krugerrand,wholesale-e 2171.42
SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u,w 355.50 (III) MOTION FOR ATTORNEYS’ FEES AND LITIGATION EXPENSES
Maple Leaf-e 2192.30 Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 11.1800
American Eagle-e 2192.30 Wheat,Spring14%-pro Mnpls-u 8.2375
Mexican peso-e 2525.38 TO: All persons and entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of James River Group Holdings,
Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 5.8375 Ltd. (“James River” or the “Company”) during the period from February 22, 2019 through October 25, 2021,
Austria crown-e 2049.56 Wheat - Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 6.0850
Austria phil-e 2192.30 inclusive (the “Class Period”), and who were damaged thereby (the “Settlement Class”)1:
Wheat,No.1soft white,Portld,OR-u 5.9750
Silver, troy oz.
Engelhard industrial 22.8000 Food PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY. YOUR RIGHTS WILL BE AFFECTED BY A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
Handy & Harman base 23.1140 PENDING IN THIS COURT.
Beef,carcass equiv. index
Handy & Harman fabricated 28.8930 choice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 286.00 YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED, pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and an Order of the United
LBMA spot price *£17.6600 select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 274.46 States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (the “Court”), that the above-captioned securities class action (the “Action”)
(U.S.$ equivalent) *22.3400 Broilers, National comp wtd. avg.-u,w 1.2607 is pending in the Court.
Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a 18572 Butter,AA Chicago-d 2.7575 YOU ARE ALSO NOTIFIED that Lead Plaintiffs Employees’ Retirement Fund of the City of Fort Worth d/b/a Fort Worth
Other metals Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago-d 165.00 Employees’ Retirement Fund and The City of Miami General Employees’ & Sanitation Employees’ Retirement Trust (together,
LBMA Platinum Price PM *887.0 Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago-d 155.00 “Lead Plaintiffs”), on behalf of themselves and the Settlement Class, have reached a proposed settlement of the Action for
Platinum,Engelhard industrial 875.0 Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb.-d 119.75 $30,000,000 in cash (the “Settlement”). If approved, the Settlement will resolve all claims in the Action.
Palladium,Engelhard industrial 946.0 Coffee,Brazilian,Comp-y 1.8673
Coffee,Colombian, NY-y 2.0767 The Action involves allegations that James River and certain of its senior officers violated federal securities laws. Lead
Aluminum, LME, $ per metric ton *2163.0 Plaintiffs allege, among other things, that James River and certain of its executives made material misrepresentations and omissions
Copper,Comex spot 3.8550 Eggs,large white,Chicago-u 3.0550 about James River’s financial condition and alleged systemic policy of under-reserving for claims during the Class Period in
Iron Ore, 62% Fe CFR China-s *117.1 Flour,hard winter KC-p 17.65 violation of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”), and that the executive defendants
Steel, HRC USA, FOB Midwest Mill-s *840.0 Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u 0.85 controlled James River when the misstatements were made, in violation of Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act. Defendants2 deny
Hogs,Iowa-So. Minnesota-u 80.68 all allegations in the Action and deny any violations of the federal securities laws. Issues and defenses at issue in the Action
Battery/EV metals Pork bellies,12-14 lb MidUS-u n.a. included (i) whether Defendants made materially false statements or omissions; (ii) whether Defendants made the statements with the
BMI Lithium Carbonate, EXW China, =99.2%-v,w 13275 Pork loins,13-19 lb MidUS-u 1.0847 required state of mind; (iii) whether the alleged misstatements caused class members’ losses; and (iv) the amount of damages, if any.
BMI Lithium Hydroxide, EXW China, =56.5% -v,w 11675 Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u 183.00
BMI Cobalt sulphate, EXW China, >20.5% -v,m 4413 A hearing will be held on May 24, 2024, at 11:00 a.m., before the Honorable David J. Novak of the United States District Court
Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w 294.50 for the Eastern District of Virginia, in person in Courtroom 6300 of the Spottswood W. Robinson III and Robert R. Merhige, Jr.,
BMI Nickel Sulphate, EXW China, >22%-v,m 3920 Federal Courthouse, 701 East Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219 to determine: (i) whether the proposed Settlement should be
BMIFlakeGraphite,FOBChina,-100Mesh,94-95%-v,m 538 Fats and Oils approved as fair, reasonable, and adequate; (ii) whether, for purposes of the proposed Settlement only, the Action should be
Fibers and Textiles Degummed corn oil, crude wtd. avg.-u,w n.a. certified as a class action on behalf of the Settlement Class, Lead Plaintiffs should be certified as Class Representatives for the
0.3650 Settlement Class, and Lead Counsel should be appointed as Class Counsel for the Settlement Class; (iii) whether the Action should
Burlap,10-oz,40-inch NY yd-n,w 0.7775
Grease,choice white,Chicago-h SEEKING INVESTMENT BANK be dismissed with prejudice against Defendants, and the Releases specified and described in the Stipulation (and in the Notice)
Lard,Chicago-u n.a. UNDERWRITER Patent Pending Cargo
Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u 0.9282 should be granted; (iv) whether the proposed Plan of Allocation should be approved as fair and reasonable; and (v) whether Lead
Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u,w 0.4489 for Private Corporate Transshipment Counsel’s application for an award of attorneys’ fees and expenses should be approved.
Cotlook 'A' Index-t *107.00 Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h 0.4213 BIDBIRD® BONDS Inventions
Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u n.a. Tallow,edible,Chicago-u n.a. - - - Solves - - - If you are a member of the Settlement Class, your rights will be affected by the pending Action and the Settlement,
and you may be entitled to share in the Net Settlement Fund. If you have not yet received the Notice and the Proof of Claim
PANAMA CANAL and Release Form (“Claim Form”), you may obtain copies of these documents by contacting the Claims Administrator at: James
KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; D=CME; E=Manfra,Tordella & Drought Crisis. Locks Not Used. River Securities Litigation, c/o A.B. Data, Ltd., P.O. Box 173139, Milwaukee, WI 53217; (877) 495-0945;
Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co; info@JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com. Copies of the Notice and Claim Form can also be downloaded from the Settlement
K=bi-weekly; M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; P=Sosland Publishing; R=SNL Energy; bidbird.co/canal +1 (602) 455-1480
website, www.JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com.
S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA; V=Benchmark Mineral Intelligence; W=weekly; Y=International
Coffee Organization; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 2/29 If you are a member of the Settlement Class, in order to be eligible to receive a payment from the Settlement, you must submit
Source: Dow Jones Market Data a Claim Form postmarked (if mailed) or online by no later than June 25, 2024. If you are a Settlement Class Member and do not
submit a proper Claim Form, you will not be eligible to receive a payment from the Settlement, but you will nevertheless be bound
by any judgments or orders entered by the Court in the Action.
Currencies If you are a member of the Settlement Class and wish to exclude yourself from the Settlement Class, you must submit a request
for exclusion such that it is received no later than May 3, 2024, in accordance with the instructions set forth in the Notice. If you
U.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in late New York trading properly exclude yourself from the Settlement Class, you will not be bound by any judgments or orders entered by the Court in the
US$vs, US$vs, THE Action and you will not be eligible to receive a payment from the Settlement.

Country/currency
Fri YTDchg
in US$ per US$ (%) Country/currency
Fri YTDchg
in US$ per US$ (%) MARKETPLACE Any objections to the proposed Settlement, the proposed Plan of Allocation, or Lead Counsel’s motion for attorneys’ fees and
expenses must be filed with the Court and delivered to Lead Counsel and Defendants’ Counsel such that they are received no later
Thailand baht .02796 35.770 4.0 than May 3, 2024, in accordance with the instructions set forth in the Notice.
Americas
Argentina peso .0012843.2500 4.3
Vietnam dong .00004056 24655 1.6 ADVERTISE TODAY Please do not contact the Court, the Office of the Clerk of the Court, Defendants, or their counsel regarding this notice.
Europe All questions about this notice, the proposed Settlement, or your eligibility to participate in the Settlement should be directed
Brazil real .2018 4.9548 2.1 to the Claims Administrator or Lead Counsel.
Canada dollar .7372 1.3565 2.4 Czech Rep. koruna .04276 23.387 4.5 (800) 366-3975 Requests for the Notice and Claim Form should be made to:
Chile peso .001034 966.98 10.5 Denmark krone .1454 6.8789 1.5 For more information visit:
Colombiapeso .000254 3941.65 1.7 Euro area euro 1.0841 .9225 1.8 wsj.com/classifieds James River Securities Litigation
Hungary forint .002750 363.60 4.8 c/o A.B. Data, Ltd.
Ecuador US dollar 1 1 unch P.O. Box 173139
Iceland krona .007241 138.10 1.5 Milwaukee, WI 53217
Mexico peso .0588 17.0162 0.3
Norway krone .0949 10.5413 3.6 (877) 495-0945
Uruguay peso .02560 39.0650 0.01
Poland zloty .2510 3.9836 1.2 info@JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com
Asia-Pacific Sweden krona .0968 10.3329 2.3 www.JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com
Australiadollar .6527 1.5321 4.4 Switzerland franc 1.1328 .8828 4.9
Inquiries, other than requests for the Notice and Claim Form, should be made to Lead Counsel:
China yuan .1390 7.1968 1.2 Turkey lira .0319 31.3516 6.4
Hong Kong dollar .1277 7.8283 0.2 Ukraine hryvnia .0262 38.1500 unch Rebecca Boon David R. Kaplan
India rupee .01207 82.849 –0.4 UK pound 1.2654 .7903 0.6 Jeremy P. Robinson Saxena White P.A.
Indonesia rupiah .0000636 15725 2.2 Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP 505 Lomas Santa Fe Drive
Middle East/Africa 1251 Avenue of the Americas, 44th Floor Suite 180
Japan yen .006661 150.13 6.4 Bahrain dinar 2.6532 .3769 –0.01 New York, NY 10020 Solana Beach, CA 92075
Kazakhstan tenge .002215 451.54 –0.8 Egypt pound .0324 30.8971 –0.1 (800) 380-8496 (858) 997-0860
Macau pataca .1240 8.0675 0.2 settlements@blbglaw.com settlements@saxenawhite.com
Israel shekel .2806 3.5634 –1.1
Malaysia ringgit .2107 4.7455 3.3 Kuwait dinar 3.2486 .3078 0.2 By Order of the Court
New Zealand dollar .6106 1.6377 3.5 Oman sul rial 2.5974 .3850 0.01
Pakistan rupee .00358 279.500 –0.6 Qatar rial .2747 3.641 –0.1
1 Certain persons and entities are excluded from the Settlement Class by definition, as set forth in the full Notice of (I) Pendency
Philippines peso .0178 56.110 1.3 Saudi Arabia riyal .2666 3.7504 0.01
of Class Action and Proposed Settlement; (II) Settlement Hearing; and (III) Motion for Attorneys’ Fees and Litigation Expenses (the
Singapore dollar .7439 1.3442 1.9 South Africa rand .0523 19.1136 4.5 “Notice”), available at www.JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com.
South Korea won .0007508 1331.90 2.9
Close Net Chg % Chg YTD%Chg 2 Capitalized terms not otherwise defined herein shall have the same meaning as in the Stipulation and Agreement of Settlement
Sri Lanka rupee .0032431 308.35 –4.8 dated December 22, 2023 (“Stipulation”). The Stipulation can be viewed and/or obtained at
Taiwan dollar .03167 31.574 2.9 WSJ Dollar Index 98.48 –0.16–0.17 2.76 © 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. www.JamesRiverSecuritiesLitigation.com.
Sources: Tullett Prebon, Dow Jones Market Data All Rights Reserved.
B10 | Monday, March 4, 2024 NY * *** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

BUSINESS & FINANCE

How to greedy perspective,” Esters

says.
Esters also owns shares of
Index performance this year

7.5% Nasdaq Composite

Invest in a
Bull Market
Continued from page B1
quarterly survey launched in
2021. More than half of re-
spondents say they are bull-
ish on the U.S. stock market,
up from 32% in the fourth
quarter of last year.
Bets that the economy has
staved off a recession and the
Fed will soon pivot to cutting
rates are fueling the eupho-
ria. The S&P 500 has climbed
7.7% to start 2024 and has
notched 15 closing records in
the process. Nvidia shares
have led the way, up 66% af-
ter more than tripling last
year.
Yet neither looks particu-
larly expensive. Nvidia trades
at 31 times its expected earn-
ings over the next 12 months,
according to FactSet. Its two-
year average is 38 times. The
S&P 500’s multiple is about
21, below its recent peak of
24 hit in September 2020.
Don’t be too greedy
Zachary Esters, a 33-year-
old recording artist and real-
ity-TV cameraman in Nash-
ville, Tenn., says he put about
one-fifth of his portfolio into
stocks he considers underval-
ued when the
latest leg of the
rally began in
October. The S&P 500
Alphabet, Adobe and the
SPDR S&P 500 ETF but says
he expects to buy more value
stocks over the next year.
Value stocks are typically
considered those that trade at
a low multiple of their book
value, or net worth. They of-
ten include shares of banks,
oil companies and industrial
conglomerates.
Although Nvidia and Tesla
top the list of the most popu-
lar stocks among individual
investors, there are signs that
some are looking beyond the
“Magnificent Seven” group of
big technology stocks.
The share of Magnificent
Seven purchases as a percent-
age of total retail inflows has
declined to 28% recently, from
nearly 45% early last year,
VandaTrack data show.
Have fun
Richard Stofan, a 33-year-
old full-time day trader in
Channahon, Ill., says he is be-
ginning to dabble in more
speculative stocks.
This year, he has reallo-
cated about one-third of his
tech-stock portfolio—which
includes the SPDR S&P 500
ETF, Nvidia, Amazon.com, Ap-
ple and Alphabet.
Stofan bought shares of
the small-cap-focused iShares
Russell 2000 exchange-traded
fund, SPDR S&P Biotech ETF,
Cathie Wood’s ARK Innova-
tion ETF, along
with Arm
Holdings, Pal-
antir, Super
This time around, Speegle
has learned to cut his losses
quickly to preserve his gains.
Nikkei 225
5.0
S&P 500
Dow Jones
Industrial Average
When he is in a winning trade,
Speegle tries to add to that
position so he can capture the
Trades
2.5
maximum potential.
Of course, being in a bull
market has made it easier as
Above
0
well.
“Before, we weren’t quite in
a bull market until a couple
40000 for
–2.5 months ago,” says Speegle,
whose portfolio is up 3% this
year.
First Time
–5.0 He added: “We were get-
Jan. 2024 Feb. March ting just a lot of choppy mar- BY KOSAKU NARIOKA
ket movements, where you
Share-price performance this year would get wiped out if you Japan’s benchmark stock
weren’t proactive. It’s been a index rose above 40000 for
250% lot easier to just follow the the first time, driven by
bullish trends.” higher corporate earnings and
Super Micro Speegle expects stocks to a surge in chip-related stocks.
200
Computer keep hitting new highs. Early Monday, the Nikkei
History suggests that might 225 Stock Average was 1%
150
be possible: Since 1957, the higher at 40301.15.
S&P 500 has hit about 1,200 On Feb. 22, the index hit a
100 record highs, but almost all of record for the first time in 34
Arm Holdings those new highs took place years, closing above the previ-
50 Nvidia during three major clusters, ous record reached at the
Carson Investment Research height of the Japanese asset
Amazon.com data show. bubble in 1989. The index has
0 Marathon “Everybody loves the up- since renewed record highs
Digital Holdings side, everybody hates the several times. The Nikkei had
–50 downside, but you can’t avoid climbed 19% so far this year
Jan. 2024 Feb. one without the other,” says through Friday, having risen
March
Ayako Yoshioka, senior portfo- 28% in 2023, driven by the re-
Source: FactSet lio manager at Wealth En- turn of modest inflation, im-
hancement Group. provements in corporate gov-
curities by everyday investors Entertainment Holdings dur- Yoshioka added: “It’s really ernance and a weaker yen,
have been concentrated re- ing the meme-stock mania. about the kind of roller- which boosts the value of cor-
cently in crypto and semicon- His gains in June 2021 to- coaster ride you’re willing to porate profits earned overseas
ductor stocks, along with taled over $100,000, but he take. How smooth do you in yen terms. A surge in chip
broad-market ETFs and Mag- lost it all in a month. want the ride to be?” stocks led the latest gains.
nificent Seven stocks, Vanda-
Track data show.
Speculative stocks typi- Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks
cally outperform when rates
are low and investors are Money Rates
hungry for yield. If the Fed
March 1, 2024

Among his has climbed Micro Com- delays cutting rates or Key annual interest rates paid to borrow or lend money in U.S. and international markets. Rates below are a
recent stock puter and doesn’t reduce them as ag- guide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions.
purchases were 7.7% this year, Fortinet. gressively as investors hope, Inflation Week —52-WEEK— Week —52-WEEK—
Arbor Realty Near-record the highflying shares might
notching 15
Latest ago High Low Latest ago High Low
Jan. Index Chg From (%)
Trust and Bar- prices for bit- hit a roadblock. Stofan says level Dec. '23 Jan. '23 Britain 5.25 5.25 5.25 4.00 13 weeks 5.255 5.230 5.345 4.675
rick Gold. The closing records. coin embold- he isn’t too concerned and
U.S. consumer price index
Australia 4.35 4.35 4.35 3.35 26 weeks 5.130 5.100 5.350 4.620
real-estate ened him to would use that opportunity to Overnight repurchase Secondary market
All items 308.417 0.54 3.1
lender’s shares add to his buy the dip and scoop up U.S. 5.36 5.36 5.48 4.55
Fannie Mae
Core 313.623 0.55 3.9
have fallen 15% cryptocur- more shares.
U.S. government rates 30-year mortgage yields
this year and offer a 13% divi- rency exposure as well, and “They’re kind of like lot- International rates 30 days 6.452 6.505 7.495 5.496
dend yield, while the gold Stofan has scooped up shares tery tickets,” he says. “If we Discount 60 days 6.479 6.513 7.554 5.500
mining company’s stock has of crypto miners Riot Plat- were in a bear market, there’s Week 52-Week 5.50 5.50 5.50 4.75
Latest ago High Low Other short-term rates
dropped 15% and carries a forms, CleanSpark and Mar- no chance I’d be adding to my Federal funds
2.7% yield. athon Digital Holdings. speculative position.” Prime rates Effective rate 5.3300 5.3300 5.3500 4.5800 Week 52-Week
“To be completely 100% Bitcoin prices are hovering U.S. 8.50 8.50 8.50 7.75 High 5.6500 5.6500 5.6500 4.9000 Latest ago high low

risk-on in every portfolio is a near $62,000, a level not seen Canada 7.20 7.20 7.20 6.70 Low 5.3100 5.3100 5.3300 4.5500
Call money
bad mistake for any investor in more than two years. Protect your capital Japan 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475 Bid
Offer
5.3300
5.3500
5.3100
5.3300
5.3300
5.3700
4.5700
4.5900 7.25 7.25 7.25 6.50
because that’s the same thing Stofan isn’t the only one Chase Speegle, a 38-year- Policy Rates
Treasury bill auction Commercial paper (AA financial)
as saying that ‘I am willing to crowding into hot stocks. old full-time day trader in Lit- Euro zone 4.50 4.50 4.50 3.00
Switzerland 2.25 2.25 2.25 1.50 4 weeks 5.285 5.285 5.840 3.190 90 days 5.22 n.a. 5.54 4.74
lose everything’ and that is a The top 20 most traded se- tleton, Colo., invested in AMC
Notes on data: Secured Overnight Financing Rate
U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70% of the 10 largest U.S. banks, 5.32 5.30 5.40 4.55
and is effective July 27, 2023. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices vary
Value 52-Week
widely by location; Discount rate is effective July 27, 2023. Secured Overnight Financing Rate is as
of February 29, 2024. DTCC GCF Repo Index is Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.'s weighted average Latest Traded High Low
for overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions of U.S. dollars. Federal-funds rates
are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET. DTCC GCF Repo Index
Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet; Treasury 5.358 25.300 5.504 4.561
Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd. MBS 5.367 35.710 5.689 4.571

Insider-Trading Spotlight
Trading by ‘insiders’ of a corporation, such as a company’s CEO, vice president or director, potentially conveys
new information about the prospects of a company. Insiders are required to report large trades to the SEC
within two business days. Here’s a look at the biggest individual trades by insiders, based on data received by
Refinitiv on March 1, and year-to-date stock performance of the company
KEY: B: beneficial owner of more than 10% of a security class CB: chairman CEO: chief executive officer CFO: chief financial officer
CO: chief operating officer D: director DO: director and beneficial owner GC: general counsel H: officer, director and beneficial owner
I: indirect transaction filed through a trust, insider spouse, minor child or other O: officer OD: officer and director P: president UT:
unknown VP: vice president Excludes pure options transactions

Biggest weekly individual trades

Based on reports filed with regulators this past week
No. of shrs in Price range ($) $ Value
Date(s) Company Symbol Insider Title trans (000s) in transaction (000s) Close ($) Ytd (%)

Buyers
Feb. 20-22 Maplebear CART R. Gupta DOI 2,020 27.74-29.95 57,656 33.17 41.3
Feb. 23-26 R. Gupta DOI 137 29.93-29.96 4,115
Feb. 27 Transocean RIG F. Mohn DOI 1,000 4.89 4,890 5.09 -19.8
Feb. 26 Sphere Entertainment SPHR J. Dolan CEO 59 41.08-41.59 2,441 44.29 30.4
Feb. 26 Ondas Holdings ONDS J. Popolo BI 1,786 1.12 2,000 1.27 -17.0
Feb. 22 Allegion ALLE J. Stone CEO 10 132.41 1,324 126.80 0.1
Feb. 26 Option Care Health OPCH H. Kraemer D 35 31.55 1,104 32.12 -4.7
Feb. 28 Sunnova Energy International NOVA A. Mohamed D 152 6.92 1,055 7.24 -52.5
Feb. 27 AMN Healthcare Services AMN C. Grace CEO 18 56.39-57.06 992 56.81 -24.1
Feb. 28 J. Knudson CFO 7 57.75 401
Feb. 22 Illumina ILMN J. Thaysen CEO 7 134.91-137.18 992 140.50 0.9
Feb. 27 National Health Investors NHI C. Swafford DI 10 58.69 587 57.70 3.3
Feb. 22 Malibu Boats MBUU M. Hooks ODI 13 42.82 535 43.77 -20.2
Feb. 27 A-Mark Precious Metals AMRK J. Ravich D 20 25.63 513 27.01 -10.7
Feb. 26-27 OPENLANE KAR K. Peter CEO 34 14.87-14.98 508 15.86 7.1
Feb. 27 Enphase Energy ENPH B. KothandaramanCEO 4 120.54 482 129.66 -1.9
Feb. 26 Goosehead Insurance GSHD M. Miller P 5 73.71-74.00 369 74.85 -1.3
Feb. 26 Pinstripes Holdings PNST A. Querciagrossa CFO 100 3.43 343 3.49 -68.0

Sellers
Feb. 21-23 Walmart WMT S. Walton DOI 8,824 173.51-177.44 1,545,744 58.76 11.8
Feb. 21-23 A. Walton BI 8,824 173.51-177.44 1,545,744
Feb. 21-23 J. Walton BI 8,824 173.40-177.44 1,544,626
Feb. 27 TransDigm Group TDG R. Small DI 254 1160.50 294,639 1183.27 17.0
Feb. 22 W. Howley DI 59 1165.00-1180.01 69,503
Feb. 27 HF Sinclair DINO C. Holding DOI 4,000 57.34 229,360 55.81 0.4
Feb. 26 Symbotic SYM J. Cohen BI 5,000 39.69 198,450 40.93 -20.3
Feb. 26 R. Cohen CEOI 5,000 39.69 191,613
Feb. 26 D. Ladensohn BI 2,085 39.69 82,765
Feb. 22-23 Apollo Global Management APO L. Black B 1,550 111.32-112.16 172,838 111.01 19.1
Feb. 29 TPG TPG D. Bonderman DO 1602* 41.64 66,695 44.96 4.1
Feb. 29 J. Coulter H 1352* 41.64 56,285
Feb. 29 J. Winkelried CEO 1051* 41.64 43,757
Feb. 23-26 Medpace Holdings MEDP A. Troendle CEOI 157 400.32-402.38 62,939 404.24 31.9
Feb. 21-22 A. Troendle CEOI 136 383.44-395.98 53,406
Feb. 23 NVIDIA NVDA H. Jones DI 65 805.74-823.72 53,032 822.79 66.1
Feb. 27 Coinbase Global COIN B. Armstrong CEOI 250 201.94-209.54 51,332 205.77 18.3
Feb. 9 Meta Platforms META M. Zuckerberg CEOI 97 468.10-473.08 45,602 502.30 41.9
* Half the transactions were indirect **Two day transaction
p - Pink Sheets

Buying and selling by sector

Based on actual transaction dates in reports received this past week

Sector Buying Selling Sector Buying Selling

Basic Industries 1,174,414 63,643,835 Finance 4,141,408 496,394,462
Capital Goods 382,027 162,094,541 Health care 4,405,834 257,430,599
Consumer durables 809,885 42,714,850 Public Utilities 100,895 4,923,181
Consumer non-durables 814,291 38,202,175 Technology 4,257,723 472,101,004
Consumer services 4,320,289 259,684,822 Transportation 0 34,535,331
Energy 7,307,088 70,811,503

Sources: Refinitiv; Dow Jones Market Data

 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, March 4, 2024 | B11

THE TICKER MARKETS

Chinese Gangs Use Crypto

To Launder Billions of Dollars
Tether, other tokens
let criminal groups
linked to the country
GABRIELA BHASKAR FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

to cover their tracks

BY WEILUN SOON
AND ELAINE YU

Chinese crime syndicates are

using cryptocurrencies to laun-
der billions of dollars, including
money raised from helping sup-
ply drugs to the U.S. or scam-
ming American victims.
Department-store chain Nordstrom reports results Tuesday. These gangs are exploiting
the decentralized nature of

LAM YIK/BLOOMBERG NEWS

MARKET EVENTS COMING THIS WEEK crypto markets to evade Chi-
nese and foreign authorities.
Monday They are using crypto to laun-
Refinan., previous Freddie Mac mortgage
der the profits of drug dealing
Earnings expected down 7.0% survey
Previous weekly averages and illegal gambling, and have
Estimate/Year Ago
30-year fixed 6.94% made huge amounts from in-
ContextLogic Wholesale inventories
15-year fixed 6.26% vestment scams that promise Beijing has for years taken a hard line against cryptocurrencies, forcing exchanges to shut down.
(2.21)/(3.97) Dec., previous up 0.4%
easy returns in crypto markets.
Gitlab 0.08/(0.03) Jan., exp. down 0.1%
Int’l trade deficit in Crypto addresses linked to a being done through cryptocur- dlebury Institute of Interna- 800 cases, shut down five un-
Nektar Therapeutics
billions group of suspected chemical rencies. That is a problem for tional Studies. derground banks used to help
(0.21)/(0.32) Earnings expected
Estimate/Year Ago Dec., previous $62.2 traders based in China received investigators, but it gives them The transnational nature of process payments, and uncov-
Abercrombie & Fitch Jan., expected $63.3 more than $37.8 million worth new ways to track money flows, these syndicates adds further ered about $4 billion of funds
Tuesday 2.83/0.81 of assets since 2018 in exchange since most crypto transfers are difficulty in catching criminals based on blockchain data, the
Factory orders Brown-Forman EIA report: natural gas for shipping a key ingredient of saved on a public ledger. or helping victims recover country’s police force said in
Dec., previous up 0.2% 0.56/0.21 Previous change in stocks in fentanyl, the research firm Scammers of several victims their assets, since it requires January. It worked with block-
Jan., exp. down 3.1% Campbell Soup
billions of cubic feet Chainalysis said in a report last in China and Florida shared the cooperation between officials chain analytics firm OKLink to
down 96 year. These shipments are often same two crypto-wallet ad- in different countries, say an- track the wallets, which allow
0.77/0.80
Earnings expected Descartes Systems sent to Central America and dresses, implying they are likely tifraud advocates. the storage and transfer of
Consumer Credit Mexico, where drug cartels use parts of the same group, ac- Beijing has for years taken a cryptocurrencies.
Estimate/Year Ago 0.37/0.34
CrowdStrike Dec., prev. up $1.6 bil. them to make the drug, which cording to a joint investigation hard line against cryptocurren- In late 2022, Chinese police
Foot Locker 0.32/0.97
0.82/0.47 Jan., exp. up $10.0 bil. is shipped to the U.S. published in January by Chain- cies, forcing exchanges to shut arrested 63 suspects linked to
Thor Industries
Franco-Nevada 0.67/0.50 Earnings expected In October, the U.S.’s Office Argos, a Singapore blockchain down, banning trading and jail- a criminal group that used
0.80/0.86 Estimate/Year Ago of Foreign Assets Control data platform, and Bitrace, a ing executives who previously cryptocurrencies to launder
Nordstrom 0.88/0.74 Broadcom 10.40/10.33 sanctioned a network of indi- China-based blockchain re- worked in the industry. In Jan- the equivalent of roughly $1.7
Nuvei 0.45/0.47 Thursday Burlington Stores viduals and companies based search group. One of those wal- uary, the powerful State Council billion in an operation span-
Ross Stores 1.66/1.31 3.30/2.96 in China over the manufactur- lets processed at least $20.7 said it would submit a revised ning 17 provinces.
Initial jobless claims Costco Wholesale ing and distribution of ingre- million of tokens since early anti-money-laundering law to Chinese prosecutors charged
Target 2.41/1.89
Previous 215,000 3.62/3.30 dients used in fentanyl and 2021, the report said. The study the country’s top lawmaking well-known crypto executives.
Expected 218,000 Kroger 1.13/0.99 other drugs. Some of those in- found the stolen funds from body for review. Addressing the Zhao Dong, founder of a major
Wednesday dividuals held crypto wallets those two addresses were de- role of crypto in money laun- over-the-counter crypto plat-
Unit labor costs to send and receive funds, the posited onto two major crypto dering is the most urgent issue, form in China called RenrenBit,
EIA status report
Previous change in stocks in
3rd qtr., prev. up 0.5% Friday Treasury Department said. exchanges, OKX and Huobi, now legal experts have said. was sentenced to seven years
millions of barrels 4th qtr. prelim., exp. Nonfarm payrolls Fentanyl use has been a called HTX. “Having a blanket ban on in prison in 2022 after provid-
Crude oil up 4.2 up 0.6% Jan., previous 353,000 rare area where the world’s It is tough for victims in the cryptocurrency exchanges is ing crypto-exchange services to
Gasoline down 2.8 Feb., expected 210,000 two superpowers have ap- U.S. to recover their money be- one thing, but it doesn’t seem an illicit business involved in
Distillates down 0.5 Productivity peared to be on the same side: cause many of them lose to be working,” said Rory overseas gambling and so-
3rd qtr., prev. up 3.2% Unemployment rate Chinese and U.S. officials $10,000 or less—too small for Doyle, head of financial crime called pig-butchering scams.
Mort. bankers indexes 4th qtr. prelim., exp. Jan., previous 3.7% agreed this year to work to- organizations such as the Fed- policy at financial-software Tether, a stablecoin pegged to
Purch., prev. down 5.0% up 3.1% Feb., expected 3.7% gether to tackle the issue. eral Bureau of Investigation to provider Fenergo. the U.S. dollar, has been used
These cases highlight the consider it a priority, said Jo- Chinese law-enforcement as a way for these groups to
* FactSet Estimates earnings-per-share estimates don’t include extraordinary items (Losses in paren-
theses) u Adjusted for stock split changing nature of money laun- nelle Still, adjunct professor in agencies across the country switch between different fiat
Note: Forecasts are from Dow Jones weekly survey of economists dering, which is increasingly blockchain analytics at the Mid- have investigated more than currencies, officials said.

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B12 | Monday, March 4, 2024
Stock-Market FOMO Is Rational
History suggests that being uninvested when rates start falling is a bad idea
If you have fear of missing out—
or FOMO—when deciding whether
to invest in stocks, it is because you
might indeed miss out.
It is hard to shake the feeling
that the market might be a bit
frothy. Even as central bankers rein
in expectations for rate cuts, inves-
tors have embraced bets on genera-
tive artificial intelligence. The Nas-
daq closed at a high on Thursday,
finally rising above the previous
peak recorded on Nov. 19, 2021. The
index climbed to another record on
Friday.
Even if the technology giants
driving it higher aren’t riding a
bubble, their lofty valuations make
it likely that future rewards for in-
vesting will be lower. And the rest
of the equity market isn’t particu-
larly cheap either. So investors’
temptation to leave their cash
parked in deposits or money-market
Apple Is Playing an Expensive Game of AI Catch-Up
Apple has finally parked its ex-
pensive car dreams. The timing is
good, as its other ambitions require
a lot of gas in the tank.
Apple recently took the formal
step of telling employees on its car
project—dubbed Project Titan—that
it is shutting down the program
and redirecting its efforts toward
generative artificial intelligence.
Neither is a terribly surprising
move. The car effort has been un-
der way for at least a decade with
various starts and stops but ulti-
mately made little sense for a com-
pany with no experience in produc-
ing any form of vehicle—and
powerful reasons to avoid such a
low-margin business.
Generative AI, meanwhile, is the
hottest thing going in technology. It
is now the prime focus of Apple’s
UNDER
HIS HANDLER’S GUIDANCE,
HE WILL SCOUR THE DEBRIS
IN SEARCH OF SURVIVORS.
NE VER UNDERESTIM ATE
DOG
THE TENACITY OF A STRAY
HEARD STREET
FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY
funds is more than understandable.
But if you wait for rates to start
coming down to buy riskier assets,
you could be giving up on a lot of
gains. On Wednesday, Swiss bank
UBS published the 2024 version of
its Global Investment Returns Year-
book, a compendium of very long-
run performance data that used to
be published by Credit Suisse. One
key takeaway is that most returns
historically captured by investors
have come during times when offi-
cials were lowering borrowing costs
or leaving them unchanged after
lowering them.
In the U.S., real annualized re-
turns from equities during easing
cycles have been 9.4%, compared
with 3% during tightening cycles.
Part of the difference in stock-
market performance between eas-
ing and tightening cycles is due to
inflation being higher when central
big-tech competitors and has
turned chip maker Nvidia into the
third-most-valuable U.S. company—
behind Apple and Microsoft.
And Apple’s perceived lagging in
the AI race has been costly, contrib-
uting to a nearly 7% decline in its
stock price this year.
But even a cheaper Apple has no
shortage of resources. The company
produced nearly $107 billion in free
cash flow last year—the highest by
far among S&P 500 companies, ac-
cording to data from S&P Global
Market Intelligence. It also has
nearly $65 billion in cash on its
books, net of debt. Those resources
are what allowed Apple to chase
such an ambitious dream like build-
ing its own car without sparking an
investor revolt.
Apple, though, faces an expen-
From shelter dog to search dog, help us write the next underdog story.
Your donation helps us train dogs like Chester to strengthen
America’s disaster response system.
Donate Now. Call (888) 4K9-HERO or visit SearchDogFoundation.org.
UNDERDOGS OVERCOME.
ON
THE
banks turn hawkish, eroding nomi-
nal gains. But most of it comes
from higher nominal returns in the
first place.
For bonds, periods of rising rates
have delivered almost no returns.
This was mostly because higher in-
flation wiped them out.
A raft of other research also
shows that historically, most stock-
market gains have come during
only a few days, sometimes right
after central banks cut rates.
One caveat is that investors have
become aware of the historical
precedent. Increasingly, the bond
market is pricing in a much bigger
chunk of the expected decline in
rates before they actually happen,
research by TS Lombard shows.
This raises the possibility that
stocks, too, have already enjoyed
much of the gains from monetary
easing ahead of time.
sive game of catch-up. Components
to power generative AI services—
such as the GPU systems made by
Nvidia—are expensive and hard to
come by of late, given soaring de-
mand and production bottlenecks.
And Apple will be competing for
those chips with the same big-tech
peers that have been outspending
the company in some key ways. Ap-
ple’s total capital expenditures for
the calendar year 2023 were about
$9.6 billion—about one-third of
what Microsoft, Google parent Al-
phabet and Facebook parent Meta
Platforms spent on average on
capex over the same period, accord-
ing to S&P Global Market Intelli-
gence.
And while Apple’s total R&D out-
lay of just under $30 billion last
year was the fifth-highest in the
Most market returns happen in periods of falling interest rates
Annualized inflation-adjusted return
Equity
Bonds
Bills
0% 1 2
Equity
Bonds
Bills
Note: Data for 1914-2023 (U.S.) and 1930-2023 (U.K.)
Source: Dimson, Marsh & Staunton (UBS Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2024)
Rate-cutting may start later than
investors previously thought, but it
is still likely to happen at some
point this year. Judging by the
post-1995 period, sometimes it only
takes that initial easing to trigger a
S&P 500, it represented less than
8% of its annual revenue—among
the lowest proportion of major tech
companies on the index. R&D
spending by Microsoft, Ama-
zon.com, Alphabet and Meta last
year averaged more than 17% of
their reported revenue.
Hence, Apple simply siphoning
investment dollars from its car
project to AI might not be enough.
Particularly since many generative
AI services require the backbone of
massive computing networks that
Apple’s big tech rivals have spent
years building out, due to their fo-
cus on corporate cloud computing.
Apple has 26 data centers operating
globally compared with more than
300 each for Microsoft, Google and
Amazon, according to estimates
from IT market-research firm
Not a real disaster site.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
After rate falls After rate rises
U.S.
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
U.K.
rush of market optimism, even if
borrowing costs end up staying
high for quite a while.
Most investors may not be able
to afford to lurk on the sidelines.
—Jon Sindreu
Dell’Oro. Those three also spent
about nine times as much as Apple
on average on data center capex
last year, according to Dell’Oro ana-
lyst Baron Fung.
Of course, no one really knows
what exact form Apple’s AI efforts
are going to take. The company
might just end up following the
trend of other PC and smartphone
makers by adding AI processors to
its gadgets. In a Feb. 20 note to cli-
ents, Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein
said “even modest AI capabilities
could potentially stimulate incre-
mental iPhone upgraders,” in part
due to weak demand over the last
two cycles for Apple’s storied
smartphone.
A smarter Siri might actually be
worth buying.
—Dan Gallagher
Chester
Found as
a stray in
Burbank, CA.
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