Equities Rise as Jobless Claims Fall

Dow: +0.55 | Nasdaq: +1.77 | S&P: +1.06

Catch Up Quick

• The U.S. reports <30K coronavirus cases for 5 straight days while averaging 1.8M daily vaccinations

• Credit Suisse sees investment opportunity further ahead, while stating stocks globally appear poised for a “deeper correction” beforehand

• Israel and Hamas agree to cease-fire over the Gaza conflict

• Twitter is now allowing anyone to apply for a verified account

• U.S. housing starts fell 9.5% in April (worse than the 1.4% drop expected by economists)

• Building permits grew only 0.3% in April (missing expectations & down from 1.7% in March)

• Bitcoin plunged 30% to ~$30K at one point yesterday, deepening a major crypto sell-off

• Zhang Yiming, ByteDance CEO and Co-Founder, will step down as chief executive and move into a new role by year end

Thought of the Day

• Quantum computing is widely perceived as a complex topic with a fancy name yet few current real-world applications to justify the hype

  Within traditional computing, a bit, the smallest unit of data, can either be in one of two states (1 or 0) → on the quantum level, computers perform calculations based on the probability of the state of an object before it is measured (instead of just 1 or 0)

• While anything further would exceed the scope of this excerpt, what is important to know is that quantum computers can process exponentially more data than classical computers

• As they are so expensive, and the processing power of classical computers today satisfies demand, the realm tends to receive more focus from academics and researchers and less from commercial industries

• However, certain optimization problems (that involve a huge amount of simulation data with many permutations) represent an infrequent yet important quantum use case

• For example think about aviation: drones, already used by the military, will soon transform society → from insurers inspecting storm damage, eCommerce platforms delivering packages, companies displaying choreographed digital billboards in the sky, etc

• As these use cases come to life, it will be mission critical to organize the crowded air space above us by plotting flight paths to accommodate possibilities around wind, rain, birds, and fog, among many other variables

• Thus, as air traffic increases, a new dimension of traffic calculation arises (literally a new dimension → up and down movement creates a z-axis in addition to x and y)

• Thus, a hugely complex optimization problem is most likely on the short-term horizon, in which the processing power of quantum computation will be key in maintaining the safety, efficiency, and overall integrity of air traffic flow

The Bottom Line

• Sometimes it is more important to focus on applications of new innovations as opposed to trends themselves!

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