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☆ Women, children trek miles in summer heat to get water near Mumbai
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Francis Mascarenhas | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"All the water is sent to Mumbai, we are left with nothing," said Ashok Shinde, whose village is home to about 700 people rearing poultry and livestock. The Vaitarna dam, which supplies water to Mumbai, is just 50 km (31 miles) from Telamwadi, but is not linked to it. [1/5] Women walk back home balancing pots of water on their head as other women walk towards a well to fill their pots in Telamwadi, near Mumbai, India, May 17, 2023. "Until the permanent solution is in place, we are providing water tankers to ensure residents do not face issues," state water supply officials told Reuters. One of the women usually makes the precarious journey, relying on numerous cracks in the walls to provide support.

☆ 'It can't get much worse than this': A trail of portfolio managers have resigned or been liquidated as the once lush index-rebalance strategy dries up
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Alex Morrell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Heavyweight multi-strategy hedge funds aren't known for their patience. It seems their patience has run out on the index-rebalance strategy, one of the most popular and sought-after hedge fund moneymakers in recent years. Representatives for the hedge funds declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. While hedge funds are allocating their capital elsewhere, they haven't given up on index-rebalance trading. Do you know more about the index-rebalance trade?

☆ Why CEOs are changing directions faster than ever
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Rebecca Knight | Tim Paradis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

CEOs are changing their corporate strategies more frequently for many reasons. Some CEOs didn't do the necessary medium- and long-term planning when they made their original decisions, and now they're being forced to backtrack. A new, lightning-fast pace of businessThe rapidly changing business environment makes one thing clear: For CEOs, the day-to-day marathon of running a company feels much more like a sprint. The average compensation in 2021 for CEOs of the top US companies was 399 times that of the average worker. Changing a strategy is one thing, but how a CEO communicates that change is another — particularly because these pivots are likely to happen more frequently.

☆ Napoli’s Serie A title win: From Maradona and financial bankruptcy to Scudetto
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Ben Morse | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +14 min

Diego Maradona battles dribbles against Ruud Gullit of AC Milan in the Serie A in 1988. With Maradona’s arrival came a level of success Napoli had previously never seen, culminating in a 1987 title victory; the club’s first ever Scudetto. When Napoli won its first Serie A title in 1987, the Gentleman Ultra website notes: “In the city, mock funerals were held for Juventus. The dark yearsA year after the 1990 title success, the Napoli team began to unwind with players departing, leading to a drop in performances. Napoli fans celebrate the team's Serie A title victory on the streets of Naples.

☆ Analysis: Napoli revive memories of Maradona with Serie A title win
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Tommy Lund | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

May 4 (Reuters) - Napoli clinched the Serie A title on Thursday with five games to spare as they ended a 33-year drought stretching back to when Diego Maradona led them to the Scudetto in 1990. At the start of the season it would have been difficult to envisage Napoli becoming champions ahead of heavyweights such as Juventus and the two Milan clubs not to mention AS Roma. But after an exceptional transfer window and with Luciano Spalletti at the helm, Napoli dominated the title race while their main rivals all suffered slumps during the season. CONTENDERS FALTERAs Napoli surged ahead, suffering just one loss by the end of February, the other title contenders withered away as injuries plagued their squads. But Maurizio Sarri's side could only watch as Napoli became the fourth different team to win Serie A in as many years.

☆ I'm a tech exec who starts every day with a 3-minute cold plunge. My mind has never been sharper.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-30 | by ( Robin Madell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

I'm one of those people who starts each day with a cold plunge for productivity and stress reduction. My morning cold plunge is usually the most challenging part of my day, so everything after that is much easier. I decided to convert a chest freezer into a full cold plungeMargist building his cold plunge. Now when I sit down at my desk after my cold plunge, I'm wide awake, focused, and ready to dive into deep work. Cold plunging has helped me manage my fight-or-flight response in stressful work or life situationsI find myself feeling less emotional during tough conversations after taking a cold plunge.

☆ Bank reserves could fall by $2.5 trillion as the Fed reduces its balance sheet, Fitch Ratings says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Filip De Mott | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Bank reserves could fall between $900 billion to $2.5 trillion by year's end, Fitch Ratings said. That's as the Fed's quantitative tightening dries up liquidity in the banking system. "System-wide banking liquidity indicators are still robust, but our baseline projection is for reserves to fall significantly by USD900 billion to USD2.5 trillion by year-end," the ratings agency said. When it began trimming its balance sheet in June, the Fed held almost $9 trillion in such assets. "QT will also put downward pressure on bank deposits, boosting the system-wide loans-to-deposits ratio," Fitch said.

☆ Russian outlets are exaggerating that Ukrainian troops are stuck in the mud to cheer up Putin's soldiers, UK intel says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Russian media is exaggerating the mud's impact on Ukrainian forces, UK intel reports. Their goal is "aimed at raising Russian morale" and "undermining Ukraine's supporters," intel says. One commander told RIA Novosti that Russian forces "drowned" a German Leopard tank in a swamp. Russian outlets, however, appear to be "exaggerating the overall impact of mud on Ukrainian forces," UK intel said. Intelligence suggests the outlets are trying to cheer up Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops and raise their flagging morale while "undermining Ukraine's supporters" ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

☆ Premarket stocks: The earnings recession is here. There could be worse to come
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

New York CNN —Earnings reports are coming thick and fast, showing how companies fared in the first few months of the year. But even as earnings are forecast to slump to their lowest level in three years, investors fear the worst is yet to come. This left significant gaps in the forensic search for Nazi-linked records, the Senate Committee stated. AlixPartners, according to the Senate committee, has indicated it will conduct a “supplementary review” of Credit Suisse’s connections to ratlines amongst other allegations. Credit Suisse is Switzerland’s second-largest bank by assets and has spent the past few years plagued by scandals and large losses.

☆ Laid-Off Tech Workers Launch ‘Revenge Startups’ Just as Money Dries Up
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Yuliya Chernova | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Venture-capital investors, as recently as last year, used to seek out founders who were quitting their tech jobs to launch their own businesses. Now that mass layoffs are pushing many people down the entrepreneurial path, venture investors have grown stingier. More than 330,000 people have lost their jobs at tech companies since early 2022, with some 168,000 job losses this year, according to data tracker Layoffs.fyi.

Stepan, 28, who has increasingly driven Chinese cars when using carsharing services, is among those that need convincing. If you want my honest opinion, the difference (with Chinese cars) is massive," he told Reuters at Moscow's Favorit Motors dealership. When buying his new Chinese car, Alexander, 74, looked for one which encompassed Swedish technology. While Chinese cars are increasingly filling the gap, the lack of reputation remains an issue, said auto industry expert Sergey Aslanyan. Chinese brands' market share reached 37.15% in January-February, up from 9.48% a year earlier, Autostat and PPK data showed.

☆ Corporate leaders should be more honest with workers when job cuts are about performance, rather than the economy, a Harvard professor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Josée Rose | Tim Paradis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Layoffs shouldn't be used as a way to cut low-performing workers, Harvard's Sandra Sucher said. That's because layoffs are often the result of a slumping economy or missteps by management. But sometimes, leaders who are eager to sweep away lackluster workers can be tempted to clean house under the guise of layoffs. That's a bad idea, according to Sandra Sucher, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School who's studied layoffs. Even broad job cuts that purport to target only the lowest-ranked workers can harm a company, Sucher said.

☆ Snakes, rats and reptilian squatters: single family rental investors get a rude awakening as landlords
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Single-family-rental landlords are like most other homeowners, just at scale. Indeed, rising interest rates have drastically reduced access to capital for everyone, including single-family landlords who've borrowed heavily to finance their purchases. Here are a few stories of the wild world of institutional single-family-rental property management. An iguana stuck inside a Divvy Homes property in Florida. Single-family-rental landlords face the twin challenges of customer service and homeownership, often at the same time.

☆ Analysis: As worries over banks swirl, investors seek protection against market crash
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Saqib Iqbal Ahmed | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The S&P 500 is down 5% from its early February high though it remains up 3% year to date. ... Now the downside tail has a lot more risk priced into it," said Chris Murphy, co-head of derivatives strategy at Susquehanna. Volatility in the Cboe Volatility Index (.VIX), which reflects expectations of stock volatility, has been muted by comparison, though the index hit a five-month high earlier this week. "That is something worth monitoring closely to gauge the expansion of risk within the system," he said. Reporting by Saqib Iqbal Ahmed; Editing by Ira Iosebashvili and Mark PorterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Farming and tourism under threat as winter drought dries up France's Lake Montbel
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Manuel Ausloos | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

PARIS, March 17 (Reuters) - Set at foot of the Pyrenees mountains, Lake Montbel is famous in south-west France for its turquoise waters, massive size and thriving aquatic life. For the month of February, the Ariege region, where Lake Montbel is located, has suffered from a rainfall shortage of 80%. Lake Montbel is an artificial lake, which extends over 570 hectares and was created in 1985 by flooding what used to be a forested area. "Lake Montbel, in fact, is the guarantee of income ... Mascarenc uses water from the nearby Ariege river and not from Montbel Lake.

☆ Inside the opaque tech market where startup employees and early investors are trying to get rich now IPOs have collapsed and the VC party is over
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Startup employees and early investors tended to get rich at IPO or acquisition. That's the tough reality for startup employees and early investors as IPOs drop off and venture capital funding dries up. There's a glut of highly valued, late-stage private companies that should be debuting on stock exchanges in the next 12 to 36 months. Share options held by employees and investors can also come with an array of terms and conditions that make them harder to liquidate. "Investors are defending valuations that hurt employees – and companies long term – but help them raise their new funds.

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine—Exhausted by winter combat that has resulted in heavy casualties but few significant changes to the front line, Ukraine and Russia are preparing for spring offensives that both sides hope will shift the course of the war. As the muddy ground dries up, unpaved roads and fields will become passable again in the coming weeks, first in Ukraine’s south and then in the east, enabling both countries’ militaries to attempt breakthroughs with mobile mechanized units.

☆ Venture Capital Investors Are Trying to Take Over Pandemic Response
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +19 min

Private capital has been eyeing public health for years. Several founders and investors told me that the failure of Kleiner's fund made Silicon Valley wary of investing in pandemic preparedness. Venture investors love that kind of thing. Public health and private industryWhen COVID hit, Charity Dean was the assistant director of the California Department of Public Health. In the end, almost every pandemic-related product created by Silicon Valley will ultimately require the government as a primary customer.

☆ Bank run fear: SVB plunges again, leading to calls for a bailout
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Shares of SVB (SIVB) were halted Friday morning after falling more than 60% in premarket trading. SVB, a relatively unknown bank outside of Silicon Valley, lends to higher-risk tech startups that are struggling as interest rates rise and venture capital money dries up. Essentially dealing with a bank run, SVB told investors it had to sell a portfolio of US Treasuries and $1.75 billion in shares at a loss to cover rapidly declining customer deposits. Widespread contagion fears may have calmed slightly Friday: Although SVB brought down mainstream bank stocks right along with it Thursday, most other bank stocks stabilized. When interest rates were near zero, large banks scooped up Treasuries and bonds.

☆ Ukraine says Bakhmut battle is grinding down Russia's best units
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Olena Harmash | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

[1/8] Ukrainian servicemen walk along a muddy road near the frontline town of Bakhmut amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, Donetsk region, Ukraine March 8, 2023. "It has converged on Bakhmut with a large part of its trained military personnel, the remnants of its professional army, as well as the private companies." Russia has made Bakhmut the main target of a winter push involving hundreds of thousands of reservists and mercenaries. But apart from around Bakhmut, the Russian winter offensive has largely failed. Kyiv and the West also saw signs of exhaustion in Russia's latest mass salvo of missile strikes on Ukrainian targets.

☆ Women's Day in Italy hit by drought as flower supply dries up
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( Federico Maccioni | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

MILAN, March 7 (Reuters) - Italy's celebrations of International Women's Day on Wednesday risk being spoiled by a drought that has slashed production of the yellow mimosa flowers that are traditionally gifted for the occasion. The depleted supply of mimosas has pushed up prices, Coldiretti said, with large bunches selling for more than 20 euros ($21.20). Mimosas, first introduced to Italy in the 19th century, were chosen as the country's symbol of International Women's Day in 1946, the year after the end of World War Two. The choice was made by two members of an anti-fascist organization to embody women's strength, energy and perseverance. The first recorded celebration of the International Women’s Day was in 1911 in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland when over a million people rallied to support women's rights.

☆ Ukraine vows not to give up on Bakhmut amid constant Russian attacks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Oleksandr Kozhukhar | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

After Russian gains in recent weeks, at the culmination of a winter offensive, Ukrainian troops have been reinforcing positions west of Bakhmut in apparent preparation for a possible retreat. "I told the commander in chief to find the appropriate forces to help our guys in Bakhmut." "If everyone is coordinated, without ambition, screw-ups and tantrums, and carries out this work, then we will block the armed forces of Ukraine. [1/7] A Ukrainian serviceman carries a shell for a 2S5 Giatsint-S self-propelled howitzer before firing towards Russian troops outside the frontline town of Bakhmut, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine March 5, 2023. Ukraine and the West describe Russia's actions as an unprovoked war of aggression aimed at expanding territory.

☆ Stripe, Instacart, and Reddit valuations fare better in Fidelity's latest filings, but it's still a sobering reminder of how far the tech market has tumbled
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Stephanie Palazzolo | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Stripe, Instacart, and Reddit fared better month-over-month in Fidelity's latest holdings report. The valuations of Stripe, Instacart, and Reddit all fared better in Fidelity's latest monthly holdings report, with Stripe seeing an over 20% bump from the previous month, according to recent filings. Although promising, the new valuations still serve as a sobering reminder of how far the tech industry has fallen from its 2021 highs. Faced with a muted welcome from the private markets, Stripe might not be the only company looking to the public markets for liquidity. But the public markets may prove more pain.

☆ France's longest river dries up amid winter drought
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Jeremy Schultz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Back in the day, the water levels were high, the water was murky and we caught fish. Right now, it's no good, we can't fish anymore at least for now," said pensioner Michel Lanos, who fishes as a hobby. "The water is just...more"There's no fishing left. Back in the day, the water levels were high, the water was murky and we caught fish. Right now, it's no good, we can't fish anymore at least for now," said pensioner Michel Lanos, who fishes as a hobby.

☆ NHL roundup: Connor McDavid's 49th, 50th goals can't stop Bruins
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Edmonton's Connor McDavid scored twice for the first 50-goal season of his NHL career. Rantanen has goals in five straight games and MacKinnon recorded at least a point in his eighth consecutive game. Andrei Kuzmenko scored the winner 48 seconds into the overtime for the Canucks, who are 3-1-1 in their past five games. Isac Lundestrom, Jakob Silfverberg and Troy Terry also scored goals for the Ducks, with Silfverberg recording his 150th in an Anaheim uniform. Tyler Johnson and Andreas Athanasiou each scored goals for the Blackhawks, who saw their season-best five-game winning streak come to an end.

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