Friday • 08-27-21

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  Daily Briefing

  Stocks Rise on Powell’s Dovish Taper Talk

  Tommy Thornton, founder of Hedge Fund Telemetry, weighs in on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the​​ virtual Jackson Hole Symposium, indicating tapering could start in 2021, but signaling there’s no rush to hike interest rates. He also revisits the inflation debate with a rise in personal income and spending.

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  CRYPTOVERSE

  How Smart Contracts Work: A Visual Walkthrough

  Learn about smart contracts inside and out. David Salem, contributor at Epsilon Theory, is joined by Anders Brownworth to discuss from technical and philosophical perspectives. Beginning by coding his own smart contract, Brownworth gives viewers a visual breakdown of the inner workings of currencies like Ethereum. Salem and Brownworth then pivot to conceptualize how smart contracts might work in the real world. How do you enforce contracts that reach beyond the digital realm? They discuss "the trilemma" and the trade-offs that come with a truly decentralized coin like Bitcoin versus coins with an organization's backing like Ethereum. This is essential content for anyone who wants to truly understand crypto. Filmed on August 16, 2021.

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  The Essential Conversation

  The Carbon Bubble: Risk Is Peaking for Fossil Fuel Companies

  Along with 25 years of asset management experience, Mark Campanale, founder and executive chair at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, is passionate about climate change. In 2011, he and his team at Carbon Tracker published the award-winning report, "Unburnable Carbon—Are the World's Financial Markets Carrying a Carbon Bubble?" At the time, Campanale found that the world had used over a third of its 50-year carbon budget, and all remaining fossil fuel reserves held by private and public companies exceeded the remainder. He believes corporations, which have taken a heavy toll on the environment in the past century, have not paid their portion of the costs; however, with the green energy transition, major risks are posed to the viability of fossil fuel companies, putting their shareholders and creditors also at risk. Time is running out—Campanale discusses why these companies will continue to come under pressure with the decarbonization movement. Interviewed by Jack Farley on August 13, 2021.