Economics

• New unemployment claims up at 900,000 again last week. (DOL)
• US Trade Deficit reaches a 14-year high. (AP News)
• Existing home sales hit their highest level since 2006 in December. (Who is nervous?) (Yahoo Finance)
• Get to know Janet Yellen, whose nomination to Treasury Secretary should be confirmed as early as today. (Yahoo Finance)

Investing

• This Of Dollars and Data article wraps up investing in the year 2020 with ten takeaways.
• Tik Tok may be the rage right now, but it is also the source of lots of bad financial advice. (Vox)
• What do banks do when they have more cash than they need? (NYT)

Behavioral Finance

• Joe Kessler wrote an entertaining piece for Humble Dollar comparing baseball and poker to investing, but summing up with four suggestions to take your “gut” out of your decision-making.

Health Care

• Mark Cuban (Shark Tank, Dallas Mavericks) is getting into the generic drug business to bring drug costs down. (Forbes)

Retirement

• Here is another good one from Humble Dollar on Social Security with useful information. Turns out it is not a bad return on your contributions.

Pandemic News

• I have been wondering out loud if private industry (especially one with national distribution already established) might be better equipped to handle at least some elements of vaccine rollout than the government. Bezos is offering. (Forbes)
• Not exactly financial news, but Fast Company published an article that may help you figure out when you will be able to get your vaccine.
• This will make your juniors happy—the SAT is dropping the essay and subject tests during the pandemic (NYT)

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