The Big Picture

Interview: Mark Gertler
Biggest Sunspot of the Last Two Solar Cycles
10 Thursday PM Reads
Foreign fighters flow to Syria
US Metropolitan Economies Compared to Equivalent Nations
10 Thursday AM Reads
Walmart: King of Solar Power Adoption

Posted: 24 Oct 2014 02:00 AM PDT

Biggest Sunspot of the Last Two Solar Cycles

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 06:00 PM PDT

From The Sun Today:

The sunspot measures a whopping 2700 microhemispheres (MH or millionths of a visible solar hemisphere). Now it has surpassed AR10486 (2610 MH) of the famous 2003 Halloween storms. It is the largest sunspot since AR6368, which measured 3080 MH on November 18, 1990.

AR12192 is the largest in almost 24 years!

A reminder for scale, the surface area of Earth is 169 MH.

10 Thursday PM Reads

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 02:30 PM PDT

My afternoon train reads:

• Panic Defused in Stocks With Sharpest VIX Drop Since 2009 (Bloomberg) see also Clouds Darken for America’€™s Blue-Chip Stocks (WSJ)
• Are 401(k) Plans Setting Up Millennials for Pain? (Fiscal Times)
• Why would the ECB buy corporate bonds? (FT Alphaville)
• Why Rising Rents Haven't Pumped Up Inflation (Real Time Economics)
• Apple Strengthens Pull of Its Orbit With Each Device (NY Times)
• Joe Wiesenthal: Why Covering The Markets Is So Fun (Business Insider) see also Bloomberg Drops Huge Cash, Poaches Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal To Host New TV Show (Business Insider)
• Vegas prosecutors used 'super seal' to hide fortune seized from gamblers (Las Vegas Review Journal)
• A Guide To Co-Leadership: Why It's Hard, Why It's Good, And How To Make It Work (TechCrunch)
• LOL How to Ease the Burden of the 1 Percent (The Baffler) see also All The Wealth The Middle Class Accumulated After 1940 Is Gone (HuffPo)
• How to Tell the Temperature Using Crickets (Priceonomics)

What are you reading?

No Picket Fence: Younger Adults Opting to Rent

Source: NY Times

Foreign fighters flow to Syria

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 11:30 AM PDT

Source: Washington Post

US Metropolitan Economies Compared to Equivalent Nations

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 08:00 AM PDT

click for larger graphic

Source: McKinsey h/t Know More

About 1.5 billion people, or 22 percent of the world’s population, lives in 600 cities. They account for an outsized portion of global wealth.

According to a new report by McKinsey & Co.:

Half of global GDP in 2007 came from 380 cities in developed-regions, with more than 20 percent of global GDP coming from 190 North American cities alone.

These urban areas are, in McKinsey's words, “economic giants.”

To put the scale of urban economies into context, consider the largest cities in the U.S. The New York metropolitan area (which includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania) is the economic equivalent of Australia.

Economically, Chicago’s metro area is roughly the size of Sweden and the Washington metro area is equivalent to Argentina.

10 Thursday AM Reads

Posted: 23 Oct 2014 06:30 AM PDT

My morning train reads:

• How to become an equity fund manager (Banker’s Umbrella)
• That was nuts, what's next? Goldman edition (FT Alphaville) see also Goldman Sachs Shows Investors Path Out of Economic 'Wonderland' (Bloomberg)
• China's slowdown is secular, not cyclical (FT)
• Lies Investors Tell Themselves (Wealth of Common Sense) see also Financial Market Cognitive Dissonance (PIMCO)
• Eisinger: Pity the poor banks, hounded by regulators (Dealbook)