* Biden orders inquiry into origins of coronavirus
* More investors betting on further gains for Eurozone stocks
* Will Biden reappoint or replace Fed Chairman Powell (his term expires in Feb)?
* Supply Shortages loom for world as China’s factories are squeezed
* Top Biden official in Asia: era of US engagement with China has ended
* Hedge fund assets reach a record $4.1 trillion in assets
* Chinese currency at strongest level since 2016 vs. basket of trading partners
* Activist investor ousts Exxon directors in historic win pro-climate campaign
* Royal Dutch Shell ordered by Dutch court to deepen carbon emissions cuts
* Amazon announces deal to acquire MGM and its large film, TV-show library
* Treasury market inflation forecasts remain below recent peaks:

Emerging markets are on the radar for global asset allocation strategies these days on the assumption that these countries will be the main beneficiaries of the vaccine-led global economic recovery. It’s an intriguing narrative and not without merit, but so far the results are mixed, based on looking at a broad-brush proxy for EM stocks.

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After rebounding sharply from pandemic lows, the 10-year Treasury yield is nearly back to levels that prevailed before Covid-19 began to roil the global economy in early 2020. But the 10-year rate has been in a holding pattern for the past two months, raising questions about what happens next.

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* GOP senators set to propose $1 trillion infrastructure counteroffer to Biden
* Exxon faces challenge on climate from an activist investor
* Is money supply the key factor driving the price of gold?
* US Consumer Confidence Index fell for first time in six months in May
* New US home sales fell more than expected in April
* Year-over-year change for US house prices reached 15-year high in March:

Earlier this month, I reviewed a model that estimates a theoretical level for the world’s most-important interest rate: the 10-year Treasury yield. In today’s follow-up, let’s consider a second model for additional context.

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* EU and US impose new sanctions on Belarus after forced landing of jet
* CNN’s Back-To-Normal Index shows US economy close to full recovery
* Vaccinated Americans remain muted force for powering economic rebound
* Amazon reportedly close to acquiring Hollywood studio MGM
* China’s currency rises to 3-year high against US dollar
* Is market’s inflation focus obscuring risk of flare-up in US-China tension?
* German economy fell more than expected in the first quarter
* Germany businesses are more optimistic in May about economic outlook
* US growth cooled in April after March surge via Chicago Fed Nat’l Activity Index:

Foreign and US property shares rallied last week, posting the strongest gains for the major asset classes, based on a set of exchange traded funds through Friday, May 21.
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* Belarus forces airliner to land, arrests opposition journalist
* Bipartisan group of Senators reach agreement on infrastructure spending
* Biden presidency faces crucial phase with its ambitious agenda
* Will consumers continue to spend as economies reopen?
* New US daily coronavirus cases fall to one-year low
* US existing home sales declined for a third straight month in April
* US economic growth continues to accelerate in May:

Global markets posted a mixed but mostly serene week of results through Friday, May 21. The tranquility spilled over to our proprietary strategies, which were essentially unchanged last week.

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● Tarzan Economics: Eight Principles for Pivoting Through Disruption
Will Page
Review via The Financial Times
Tarzan Economics borrows its title from technologist Jim Griffin’s 2009 speech reflecting on the music industry’s response to the file-sharer Napster. Griffin described how successful companies need always to swing forwards, Tarzan-like, by reaching “for the next vine”. Page has done time in the jungle himself, as a civil servant turned chief economist at PRS, the UK music rights collecting society, and Spotify.
He applies his “rockonomist” eye well beyond the music business, which he argues just happened to be the first industry to suffer significant digital disruption, and therefore the first to “grab a new vine” of streaming services and recover. “The customer rarely buys what the company thinks it is selling,” management thinker Peter Drucker said. “That’s why you need this book,” Page writes. “It makes you look afresh at what you think you know.”

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