Week InReview
Friday | Apr 17, 2020
#wfh
As people take on push-up challenges and attempt to follow workout classes from their living rooms, aches and even injuries can arise, whether they are old hands at workouts or new to classes.

The pros have advice on how to avoid the pain. Focus on form instead of trying to keep up with your virtual class. If you’ve never tried to do an exercise before, take the time to learn the mechanics before attempting 10 repetitions. Many personal trainers and physical therapists are offering one-on-one sessions virtually.

If you have questions about technique and form, invest in a session. Don’t be afraid to modify an exercise, and if you start to feel any pain, stop. Start slow and remember to take rest days.
— The Wall Street Journal
More #wfh news:
in case you missed it...
More than $1 trillion in collateral was collected from banks and swaps dealers that fell under the first phase of the initial margin rules for uncleared derivatives exchanged. According a survey from the International Securities and Derivatives Association (ISDA), initial and variation margin collected by the 20 phase one-firms, such as investment banks, for their non-cleared derivatives transactions totaled $1.07 trillion at the end of 2019. (The Trade | Apr 15)

For Americans checking their retirement accounts, the market’s swings during the first quarter were a horror show. For Wall Street’s traders, they were a windfall. Big banks’ trading desks posted their strongest results in years during the first three months of 2020 – when the deepening coronavirus crisis wreaked havoc on the markets – buying and selling trillions of dollars worth of stocks and bonds, commodities and interest-rate products. (The Wall Street Journal | Apr 15)

The Federal Reserve’s planned foray into the $4 trillion exchange-traded fund market may be over before it ever began. The U.S. central bank’s surprise announcement that it intended to purchase investment-grade ETFs as signs of a liquidity crunch mounted drove up demand from investors trying to front-run the central bank. (Bloomberg Deals | Apr 15) see also NY Fed lays out plan to pare back repo liquidity injections (The Wall Street Journal | Apr 13)

Twenty years ago, corporate risk managers had near-zero public visibility. Most were back-office staffers who focused on securing insurance for environmental and real estate problems (tornadoes, fires, earthquakes, facilities breaches). Young people didn’t aspire to be risk managers: There were just a dozen small academic programs in the U.S. focused on the career. The pandemic has catapulted the field into prominence almost overnight. (Bloomberg Businessweek | Apr 14)

All kinds of markets took a drubbing in mid-March as the depth of the economic disruption caused by the pandemic sank in. But what happened in U.S. securitized debt stood out, as the asset class was pummeled by margin calls that  forced selling  in residential- and commercial-mortgage bonds, collateralized loan obligations and even securities backed by some types of auto loans. New issuance in these markets seized up and stayed frozen for weeks even as other areas of the bond markets, like corporate bonds,  roared back to life  in response to U.S. Federal Reserve intervention. As the dust has settled, it’s become clear that hedge funds and banks had combined to create far more leverage in structured-credit markets than anyone knew was there. (Bloomberg QuickTake | Apr 15) see also CLOs, leveraged loans miss Fed bounty (Bloomberg Law | Apr 10)
the cyber cafe
Hackers have some of the best ideas to battle Covid-19.
South Korea's Lee Dong-hoon couldn’t take any more of the bloody masks. Within a day, the self-taught coder set up  Coronamap.site  to track the spread of infections. 

Beware the 'dwell time': Cyber attackers target firms’ lax defenses
Imagine an invisible person gaining access to your office. For two months, they rifle through your desk and stand in the corner during meetings, listening to everything you discuss. The online equivalent is happening on computer networks across the world. “Dwell time” is the period between an adversary accessing a network and their ultimate detection: the average dwell time is between two and three months, security consultants said.

U.S. warns North Korean cyberattacks threaten international finance

In  a 12-page joint advisory  published Wednesday, the U.S. State Department, Treasury, Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused North Korea of conducting cyberattacks targeting the financial sector to generate funds for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs, warning that the attacks pose "a significant threat to the stability and integrity of the international financial system."
binge reading disorder
From Monopoly and Scrabble to mahjong and poker, how to play classic games online with friends and family
In most cases, playing a game with people you know requires each player to create an account with the application and choose a username such as Gammy49 or Grandude48. Next, search for each other by username and select an option to connect or become “friends.” Many applications help streamline this process by letting users invite their phone or social-media contacts to participate.

This is the end of the office as we know it
Many of us will likely go back to a very different office. Upon entering your building, the doors may open automatically so you don’t have to touch the handles. Before you board your elevator, you might tell the elevator where you’d like to go, rather than pressing the many buttons within the elevator. Less noticeable in the post-coronavirus office would be more frequent cleaning policies, antimicrobial properties woven into fabrics and materials, amped-up ventilation systems, or even the addition of UV lights for more deeply disinfecting the office at night.
—  Vox

Some social distancing may be needed into 2022: Harvard researchers
People around the world might need to practice some level of social distancing intermittently through 2022 to stop Covid-19 from surging anew and overwhelming hospital systems, a group of Harvard disease researchers said. Lifting social-distancing measures all at once could risk simply delaying the epidemic’s peak and potentially making it more severe, the scientists warned in an  article  published Tuesday in the journal Science.
220 x 128 px