1. The £22 billion Test and Trace system had a ‘relatively small’ effect on the R-number, a new evaluation from the Department of Health and Social Care has found.
2. EXCLUSIVE Firm Chaired by Government Procurement Advisor Awarded £38 Million Contract –

My investing style: Buy and hold high-quality businesses

Here are 15 traits that tell me I've found a great business ⬇️

1/ Recurring Revenue

Types:

Business Services $MCO
Contracts $AMT
Consumables $MNST
Exchange $MKTX
Franchise $WINA
Membership $TDOC
Platform $ETSY
Razor/blade $DXCM
Real Estate $STOR
SaaS, PaaS, IaaS $TWLO, $NOW, $FSLY
Subscription $NFLX
Tollbooth $BIP

2/ Recession-Proof Demand

Great companies sell products/services that are in-demand in good times and bad

That allows them to grow regardless of what is happening in the broader economy

3/ Organic Growth

"Organic" growth: Growing by increasing sales of internally developed products/services

"Inorganic" growth: Growing from mergers & acquisitions

Organic Growth > Inorganic Growth

4/ High & Expanding Gross Margin

Indicates that the company’s products/services create a huge amount of value for the customer

Rising gross margin also indicates pricing power

The excellent ECB Financial Stability Review, https://t.co/k8HcqpryDF illustrates well the 2 main risks I see for the EA economy next year: possible insufficient fiscal stimulus and weakening of bank credit supply. The FSR mentions “a slightly tighter fiscal stance" in 2021 1/

The FSR correct statement “fiscal tightening at a time when output gaps are still projected to be negative could exacerbate the current economic situation.”, caused some stir and many comments in social media. The same regarding the accompanying chart 2/

The FSR uses the Commission forecasts showing a slight increase of the cyclically-adjusted primary budget balance from -3.2% this year to -2.9% in 2021. 0.3% is a small change not comparable with the mistake of 2012/13 when it went from -0.6% in 2011 to +0.5 & +1.4 in 2012/13 3/

I think the primary balance will end-up higher than those forecasts because families and firms will continue to need a lot of support in the first half of the year. Moreover, growth in 2021 is dependent on public expenditure as other demand components will not be very buoyant. 4/

As the FSR says: “A premature withdrawal of policy support and a protracted pandemic could prolong the recession and have permanent scarring effects.” Besides extending income transfers to families and firms, more public investment is indispensable for a robust recovery 5/

@nivin27 Kenneth Andrade & all his interviews ever

Anyone have any opinions on how self-insured employers consider innovative healthcare offerings to pass on to their employees?

As I understand it, by shouldering the financial risk, self-insured employers can curate a list of more relevant benefits ... (1/10)

... thereby avoiding paying out lofty insurance premiums for services that its employees don't use or want. There seems to be a long list of intangible benefits having to do with talent acquisition and retention, but I'd like to understand the cost equations more fully. (2/10)

In the context of multi-cancer screening, I'm skeptical that it could be cost-saving for small or medium-sized employers (<500 employees). Assuming a representative sample of the population, there are simply too few cancers and too many false positives w/ expensive ... (3/10)

... diagnostic follow-ups to bend the unit-economics in the right direction. Indeed, for larger self-insured employers, maybe on the order of thousands of employees, the dynamics may change. Each true positive is a chance to save on treatment cost and (possibly) to ... (4/10)

... extend life. However, employers won't likely be able to distinguish between true life-extension and lead-time bias without prospective, randomized studies, which are due out in the 2024-25 timeframe. Still, these likely will include interim endpoints only. (5/10)

One reason the Left hates Rush so much is that he was so effective at skewering their pretensions to moral and intellectual superiority. He made it okay to laugh at them, to judge the failure of their policies without ritually celebrating their alleged good intentions.