With the markets firing on all cylinders – as predicted – it’s a little harder to cook up salient tidbits.*
So perhaps it is an excellent moment to review with you the power of sleep. Last year I read Matthew Walker’s “Why We Sleep.” It was a rather terrible feeling to be up in the middle of the night, insomniatically reading a book about the importance of uninterrupted sleep. But I got through it.
We’d all like to think we are in that amazing group who don’t need much sleep. It turns out true “short sleepers” probably make up about 0.5% of the population. Scientists refer to short sleepers as those who consistently get less than six hours of sleep per night - without any impairment.
It is likely a genetic mutation that allows short sleepers to enter a deep and restorative sleep in just four to six hours - when the rest of us need between seven and nine to get the same effects.
True short sleepers are usually thinner than average, are characterized by upbeat moods and seem to have higher than average tolerances for pain and psychological setbacks.
However, according to one study, short sleepers are “high in behavioral activation and reward drive, often with hypomanic characteristics (e.g., high activity, distractibility, inflated self-esteem or grandiosity...).”
Hmm, maybe on this one, the Donald is telling the truth.
Weekly Update, Week ending April 5, 2019 The S&P 500 was up 2.16% even as the Dow Jones added 1.95%, the Russell 2000 increased 2.80% and the Nasdaq added 2.73%.
As for US bonds, they lost -30bps.
Globally, the MSCI World Index added 2.05% and the Barclays Global Aggregate Bond Index decreased -48bps.
The Euro Stoxx 50 added 2.86% in local-currency (Euro) and 2.80% in USD. Meanwhile, the Topix was up 2.14% in local-currency (Yen) and 1.27% in USD.
*I’m pretty sure April is metaphor month.
