* * * * * MONDAY, JANUARY 25, 2021 ~ VOL. CCLXXVII NO. 19 WSJ.com HHHH $4 .00

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HONG KONG—WhatsAppusers around the world whoare worried about the com-pany’s shifting policy on dataprivacy are flocking to rivalmessaging apps such as Signaland Telegram.

In Hong Kong, some arechoosing an alternative thatreminds them of their child-hood—before algorithms, Big

Tech and viral misinformation.ICQ was a pioneering

mid-1990s internet messagingservice then used on bulky PCson dial-up. It was a precursorto AOL Instant Messenger, andwas last in vogue when the TVshow “Friends” was in itsprime and PalmPilots werecutting edge.

It’s been modernized overthe years, and now is an appfor smartphones. Lately it has

PleaseturntopageA10

BY NEWLEY PURNELLAND JOYU WANG

Wariness of WhatsApp SendsUsers on a Nostalgia Trip

i i i

Some in Hong Kong revert to ICQ, aclunky service from the dial-up PC era

Facebook

Amazon

Comcast

LockheedMartin

Boeing

Northrop Grumman

Unilever U.S.

AT&T

Amgen

Charter Communications

$19.68million

17.86

14.28

12.86

12.63

11.75

11.46

11.37

11.15

11.01

Lobbying spending in 2020

Source: U.S. SenateNote: Doesn't include some subsidiaries

SPORTSBrady’s Buccaneers willface the defending

champion Chiefs in theSuper Bowl. A14

WORLD NEWSSouth Africa’sundertakers

fight to keep up withpandemic. A8

A promising sign of abounceback in the pandemic-ravaged economy has stalled:Fewer borrowers are resumingmortgage payments.

The proportion of home-owners postponing mortgagepayments had been fallingsteadily from June to Novem-ber, an indication that peoplewere returning to work andthe economy was beginning torecover. But the decrease haslargely flattened since Novem-ber, when the current wave ofcoronavirus cases surged.

For roughly the past twomonths, that group of home-owners has flatlined at about5.5%, according to the Mort-gage Bankers Association.Though that is down from apeak of 8.55% in June, someeconomists are concernedabout the stalling forbearancerate—and worry that it couldeven start climbing if theeconomy further sheds jobs.

Other data indicate a slow-ing U.S. economy this winter,and greater pressure onhousehold finances. Employerscut jobs last month for thefirst time since the spring. Thenumber of job openings hasdeclined, and claims for unem-ployment insurance remain el-evated. Retail sales have fallenfor three consecutive months.

“With the waning recovery,and more applications for un-

PleaseturntopageA2

College town’s prosperitywidens divide............................. A3

BY PAUL HANNONAND EUN-YOUNG JEONG

ChinaTops U.S.In LuringForeignBusinessCountry’s resilience inface of pandemic paysoff as other nations’economies struggled

INSIDE

OVER THE EAST CHINA SEA—“Go back,”the Chinese air controller warned. “You arenow approaching Chinese airspace. Turnaround immediately or you will be inter-cepted.”

The crew of the B-52 lumbering 100 milesoff China’s coast rebuffed the warning thatcrackled through the radio, and the 60-year-old aircraft stayed its course.

This was a bomber presence mission, ataxing flight designed to demonstrate theU.S. military’s long reach and uphold theright of international passage in disputedairspace.

It was also a window into the Pentagon’splan to rely on aircraft from the earliestdays of the Cold War to prepare for the warsof the future.

The February mission began at dawn at

Andersen Air Force Base in Guam when theaircrew donned oxygen masks and “poopysuits,” puffy outer garments to keep out thecold in case the plane was forced to ditch inthe ocean.

Then the bomber, far older than the crewflying it, rumbled down the runway, relyingon analog dials and aging radar to zigzagover the Pacific and maneuver inside the“air defense identification zone” that Chinahas declared but the U.S. refuses to acknowl-edge.

After nearly two decades of waging coun-terinsurgency warfare in the Middle Eastand Afghanistan, the Defense Departmenthas turned its focus to “great power compe-tition,” its buzz phrase for a major shift inspending and programs to counter China

PleaseturntopageA10

BY MICHAEL R. GORDON

Tech LobbyingClout ShowsTechnology giants led inlobbying spending in 2020. B1

BY ORLA MCCAFFREY

ProgressSlows onMortgagePayments

ForWars of Future, U.S.Looks to Past: The B-52

Strategy shift, hiccups with new planes give a boost to one from ’60s

WASHINGTON—PresidentBiden’s push for a sweepingcoronavirus-relief bill is emerg-ing as the first test of hispledge to return bipartisanshipto Washington, a task mademore difficult as partisan linesare hardening in the Senateover the impeachment trial ofhis predecessor.

In a Sunday call with BrianDeese, head of the WhiteHouse’s National Economic

Council, and two other admin-istration officials, Republicansand some Democrats signaledconcerns over the size and costof Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion bill.Some lawmakers discussed try-ing to pass a smaller, more tar-geted aid package focused onvaccine funding before the be-ginning of former PresidentDonald Trump’s impeachmenttrial the week of Feb. 8.

Mr. Biden rolled out a planearlier this month that wouldprovide an additional $1,400 indirect payments per person,

topping off the $600 checks ap-proved in December. The planalso includes money for rentalassistance and food stamps, toextend federal unemploymentassistance through Septemberand increase the weekly federalsubsidy to $400 from $300.

“It seems premature to beconsidering a package of thissize and scope. That concern,which I had prior to the brief-ing, remains a concern ofmine,” Sen. Susan Collins (R.,Maine), a leader of the biparti-san group, along with Sen. Joe

Manchin (D., W.Va.), said afterthe call, which aides said lastedabout an hour and 15 minutes.Other Republicans echoed thatconcern, noting that Congresshad passed a roughly $900 bil-lion relief bill in December, fol-lowing other aid earlier in2020.

Mr. Manchin mentioned res-ervations over the bill’s cost inhis closing remarks, saying the

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BY KRISTINA PETERSONAND ANDREW DUEHREN

Virus-Relief Bill Meets Resistance

Biden’s immigration packagefaces steep odds..................... A4

Outlook: U.S. switches focusin trade policy............................ A2

China overtook the U.S. asthe world’s top destination fornew foreign direct investmentlast year, as the Covid-19 pan-demic amplifies an eastwardshift in the center of gravity ofthe global economy.

New investments by over-seas businesses into the U.S.,which for decades held the No.1 spot, fell 49% in 2020, ac-cording to United Nations fig-ures released Sunday, as thecountry struggled to curb thespread of the new coronavirusand economic output slumped.

China, long ranked No. 2,saw direct investments by for-eign companies climb 4%, theU.N. Conference on Trade andDevelopment said. Beijing usedstrict lockdowns to largelycontain Covid-19 after the dis-ease first emerged in a centralChinese city, and China’s grossdomestic product grew asmost other major economiescontracted last year.

The 2020 investment num-PleaseturntopageA7

China shows force in skies over Taiwan........ A18

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CONTENTSArts in Review... A13Business News....... B3Crossword.............. A14Heard on Street..... B9Markets...................... B8Opinion.............. A15-17

Outlook....................... A2Personal Journal A11-12Sports....................... A14Technology............... B4U.S. News............. A2-7Weather................... A14World News...... A8,18

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What’sNews

Biden’s push for a sweep-ing coronavirus relief bill isemerging as the first test ofhis pledge to bring a return ofbipartisanship toWashington,a promisemademore difficultas partisan lines harden in theSenate over the impeachmentfate of his predecessor. A1Trump in his last weeks inoffice consideredmoving toreplace the acting attorneygeneralwith an official readyto pursue unsubstantiatedclaims of election fraud.A6 Biden is expected to fulfilla campaign pledge by detail-ing his “Buy American” plan,an initiative other countrieswill be watching closely. A4 The White House is ex-pected to lift restrictionson transgender servicemembers in the U.S. mili-tary as soon as Monday. A5 The emergence of newvariants of the virus thatcauses Covid-19 signals afuture in which health au-thorities are locked in a cat-and-mouse battle with ashape-shifting pathogen. A8 Chinese warplanes flewsorties near Taiwan over theweekend in Beijing’s latestshow of aerial force towardthe island democracy. A18 Died: Larry King, 87,longtime talk-show host. A3

China overtook theU.S. astheworld’s top destination

for new foreign direct invest-ment last year, as the Covid-19pandemic amplifies an east-ward shift in the global econ-omy’s center of gravity. A1 Fewer borrowers areresuming mortgage pay-ments after a decline in theforbearance rate that hadbeen seen as a sign of aneconomic bounceback. A1 Facebook and Amazontopped all other U.S. com-panies in federal lobbyingexpenditures last year, ac-cording to an analysis of themost-recent disclosures. B1 Options activity is con-tinuing at a breakneck pace,building on 2020’s record vol-umes in the latest sign of op-timism cresting inmarkets.B1 China’s Kuaishou, avideo-clip and live-stream-ing group, is seeking toraise about $5 billion froma Hong Kong-listed IPO. B1 NCR is nearing a deal tobuy Cardronics after out-bidding a pair of investmentfirms that had earlier agreedto buy the ATM operator. B3Microsoft, Apple andTesla will be among compa-nies headlining a busy earn-ings week in which Star-bucks will also report. B3

Business&Finance

World-Wide

Over 3,500 Arrested in Russia at Rallies for Navalny

SEIZED: Russian police officers detained a protester on Sunday in Moscow for his support of jailed opposition leaderAlexei Navalny and his protest against the mass arrests at rallies across the country over the weekend. A18

GEO

RGEMARK

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OCIAT

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JOURNAL REPORTWealth Management:Personal-finance lessonsfrom the pandemic. R1-8

P2JW025000-5-A00100-17FFFF5178F

A2 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

U.S. NEWS

the opportunity to postponepayments on federally backedmortgages for up to 12 months.About 75% of U.S. mortgagesare guaranteed or insured by

the U.S. government, accordingto mortgage-data firm BlackKnight Inc.

Many homeowners mightnot be able to start payingagain when the oldest plansstart to expire in late March,said Andy Walden, director ofmarket research at BlackKnight. “That’s a huge un-known in terms of what shareof those homeowners…couldget back on track and whatshare need additional assis-tance,” Mr. Walden said.

Just 35% of homeownerswith forbearance plans that ex-pired near the end of Decemberwere removed from forbear-ance in the first week of Janu-ary, according to Black Knight.That was down from an averageof 60% in the previous threemonths. That means more bor-rowers got extensions on theirforbearance plans in January.

Some of the borrowers whoexited forbearance no longerneeded the relief plans, andothers were able to work outlonger-term repayment op-tions, like a modified loan witha lower interest rate. Otherswith recently expired forbear-

ance plans have already fallenbehind on their payments, ac-cording to the MBA. Of thoseborrowers, some likely neededan extension and simply forgotto ask for one—or didn’t knowthey needed to ask.

Homeowners with Federal

Housing Administration loansare more likely to be in forbear-ance than those with mortgagesbacked by Freddie Mac or Fan-nie Mae, according to MBAdata. Just 3.13% of Fannie andFreddie mortgages were in for-bearance in early January, com-

pared with 7.67% of FHA loans.The current deadline to sign

up for forbearance on manyfederally backed home loans isthe end of February. PresidentBiden has asked agencies toextend the deadline until atleast the end of March.

Source: Mortgage Bankers Association

Forbearance exits by loan status Mortgages by stage of forbearance

Initialforbearance

Extension

Re-entry

June 2020 Dec.

%

0

20

40

60

80

100

Share ofmortgages in forbearance

April 2020 '21

0

2

4

6

8

10%

0

20

40

60

80

100%

Other

Expiration orcancellation;borrowernot current

Lump sumpayment

Paymentsmoved toend of loan

Borrowerstayedcurrent

June 2020 Aug. Oct. Dec.

weekly

In some editions Thursday,two positions were omittedfrom a list of President Bi-den’s cabinet picks in a U.S.News article. They were DebHaaland, for secretary of theinterior, and Katherine Tai, forU.S. trade representative.

Barry Bonds hit his 756thhome run on Aug. 7, 2007,breaking Hank Aaron’s major-league record. A Sports articleSaturday about Mr. Aaron’s

death incorrectly said Mr.Bonds hit his 762nd homerthat day.

Notice to readersWall Street Journal staff

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tax revenue, he said in an in-terview.

Those views are reflectedin Mr. Biden’s tax proposals,which are intended to prodU.S. companies to keep jobsat home rather than easinginvestment overseas. Expand-ing facilities in the U.S. wouldearn a tax credit; shifting pro-duction abroad, especially totax havens, would be penal-ized by higher taxes.

A Biden trade transitiontask force member, Brad Set-ser, has provided much of theintellectual firepower behindthe proposed shift.

Although U.S. negotiatorspush to open markets forpharmaceutical companies,Mr. Setser argued at theCouncil on Foreign Relations,the firms do much of theirproduction in low-tax coun-tries like Ireland, leading to abig U.S. trade deficit in the

sector. Boosting U.S. finan-cial-service firms’ business inChina is another priority, butthe sector’s exports to Chinaare dwarfed by sales to taxdodges in the Cayman Is-lands.

Mr. Setser urges that tradeand tax policy promote U.S.exports of manufacturedgoods, a call picked up by Mr.Sullivan and incoming U.S.Trade Representative Kather-ine Tai.

Ms. Tai says the new ad-ministration wants a “worker-centered trade policy,” notone focused on corporatecompetitiveness or bargainprices. “People are not justconsumers, they are alsoworkers and wage earners,”she told a big business grouprecently.

The Biden plans have pro-duced a lot of eye-rollingamong skeptical trade policy

THE OUTLOOK | By Bob Davis

U.S. Switches Focus in Trade PolicyLeading

members ofthe Biden ad-ministrationare promisinga very differ-

ent approach to interna-tional trade. No longerwould American negotiatorsfocus on opening markets forfinancial-service firms, phar-maceutical companies andother companies whose in-vestments abroad don’t di-rectly boost exports or jobsat home.

Those making the case in-clude President Biden’s na-tional security adviser, JakeSullivan, and members of histransition team who arelikely to get senior tradejobs. The new thinking is be-coming mainstream amongDemocrats.

T rade policy should “in-volve a laser focus onwhat improves wages

and creates high-paying jobsin the United States, ratherthan making the world safefor corporate investment,”Mr. Sullivan wrote with a for-mer Obama administrationofficial, Jennifer Harris, in anarticle early in the presiden-tial campaign. “Why, for ex-ample, should it be a U.S. ne-gotiating priority to openChina’s financial system forGoldman Sachs?”

Clinton administrationTreasury Secretary LawrenceSummers goes even further,arguing against prioritizinggains for Hollywood, invest-ment banks and inventorswho want intellectual prop-erty protection. Their “eliteconcerns” don’t contributemuch to U.S. employment or

veterans. Administrationsdating back to at least theClinton years have promisedsomething similar. The Trumpadministration’s trade repre-sentative, Robert Lighthizer,asserts he already created aworker-centered policy.

Mr. Lighthizer used tariffsto try to drive manufacturingback home, although growthin factory jobs stalled oncethe administration resorted tolevies that drove up costs formany factories. He alsopushed for and won greateraccess to Chinese markets forU.S. financial-services firms,which wouldn’t be a Bidenpriority.

“We have made inroads onfinancial services,” said Mr.Lighthizer in an interview. “Iwant them to do well.” But hesaid U.S. car makers andother manufacturers also ben-efited from the Trump admin-istration’s China trade pact.

T rade economists saythat market openingsfor financial services,

pharmaceuticals and otherbig investors abroad do bene-fit middle-class Americans, ifindirectly. The revenuestrengthens big companies sothey can do research at home,spin out new products forAmerican consumers and paygood wages to Americanworkers.

The drug industry’s mer-chandise trade deficit doesn’treflect the value of the re-search and development andother work done in the U.S.,said a representative for thePharmaceutical Research andManufacturers of America.

The industries that the Bi-den team would de-empha-

size also have the lobbyingmuscle to fight back. The fi-nancial-services industry con-tributed about $200 millionto the effort to elect Mr. Bi-den, according to the Centerfor Responsive Politics. Thatis roughly four times as muchas the industry chipped in tothe effort to re-elect DonaldTrump.

The industries also havepowerful allies in Congress,which plays a large role insetting the U.S. trade agenda.The pharmaceutical industryhas been able to hold uptrade deals until it got what itwanted, although that couldbe changing. The industryfailed to get the protectionfrom competition from near-copies that it sought in theU.S.-Mexico-Canada deal ne-gotiated by Mr. Lighthizerwith an assist from Ms. Tai,who was then a House staffer.

Essentially, the Biden teamis betting that politicalchanges on Capitol Hill and inthe public will be sufficient tohelp it pursue a revampedtrade policy. In the past, Re-publican lawmakers havebeen reliable free traders whosought to help companiesclear away barriers to invest-ment overseas. But during thepast four years, as formerPresident Donald Trumppushed a protectionist tradepolicy, that has changed.

The deepening competitionwith China has acceleratedthe embrace of industrial pol-icies favoring manufacturingas has the global pandemic inwhich the U.S. found itselfshort of health gear itneeded.

—Anthony DeBarroscontributed to this article.

Since late 2019, the U.S. has run amerchandise trade deficit inpharmaceuticals whose size exceeds that of its trade surplus inaircraft and associated parts.

Trade balance, 12-month rolling sum, absolute value

Source: Census BureauNote: Aircraft includes helicopters, gliders, balloons, parts and equipment

$80

0

20

40

60

billion

’10 ’202003 ’05 ’15

Aircraft surplus

Pharmaceuticals deficit

ECONOMICCALENDAR

Wednesday: China’s indus-trial profit growth is expectedto register modest gains for thefull year, compared with a 3.3%annual fall in 2019. China’s in-dustrial sector led its economicrecovery from Covid-19 shocksand was buoyed by global de-mand for protective gear andwork-from-home electronic de-vices.

U.S. durable goods orderslikely rose for the eighth consec-utive month in December. Themanufacturing sector has beenresilient through much of thepandemic as businesses makemodest investments and con-sumers shift spending awayfrom services and toward goods.

The Federal Reserve is ex-pected to leave policy un-changed. Chairman Jerome Pow-ell is likely to underscore thecentral bank’s commitment tosupporting the economy withlow rates and continued bondpurchases for the foreseeablefuture.

Thursday: U.S. gross domes-tic product advanced at thefastest pace on record in thethird quarter as the economy re-opened from lockdowns andconsumers regained confidence.The fourth quarter won’t benearly as strong after the virusreasserted itself, fiscal supportfaded and the labor market lostmomentum. While economistsexpect a quarter of growth, theeconomy will end the yearsmaller than it was in 2019.

U.S. jobless claims have beenelevated in recent weeks, a signthat layoffs remain high asCovid-19 cases increase, govern-ments impose restrictions andconsumers show caution.

Friday: U.S. consumer spend-ing is expected to have declinedfor the second straight month, aworrisome sign the economylost momentum at year-end.

employment claims, we’relikely going to see increaseddemand for forbearance,” saidRalph McLaughlin, chief econ-omist at Haus, a home-financestartup. “One of the safe-guards people have, if theyown a home, is to apply forforbearance.”

The roughly 5.5% of borrow-ers in forbearance representabout 2.7 million homeowners,according to the MBA. (Therate did slip to 5.37% in earlyJanuary.) At the peak in June,about 4.3 million homeownerswere in forbearance plans, ac-cording to the MBA.

The federal Cares Act passedlast March afforded borrowers

ContinuedfromPageOne

Pace StallsIn LoanForbearance

About 5.5% of borrowers are in forbearance, lower than in the pandemic’s early days, but this figure could rise if the economic recovery weakens. Homes in Las Vegas.

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. * * * * Monday, January 25, 2021 | A3

powerful second wave of infec-tions in the country.

Mr. Trump had sought toroll back the bans imposed lastspring starting Tuesday. Hislast-minute effort was criti-cized at the time by WhiteHouse press secretary JenPsaki, who tweeted: “With thepandemic worsening, and morecontagious variants emergingaround the world, this is notthe time to be lifting restric-tions on international travel.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who isserving as Mr. Biden’s chiefmedical adviser for theCovid-19 pandemic, on Sundayreiterated warnings that thenew coronavirus variant firstidentified in Britain could bemore deadly. The British vari-ant could become the dominantstrain in America by March, ac-cording to the U.S. Centers forDisease Control and Prevention.

argue the requirements are un-necessarily burdensome.

Nationally, 55.6% of lastyear’s high-school seniors com-pleted the Free Application forFederal Student Aid, a formlong criticized as overly com-plicated that unlocks access tofederal grants and loans and isoften required for state and in-stitutional aid as well. Aid ex-perts say students who mostneed the assistance are leastlikely to apply for it.

Bills in more than a dozenstates pushing Fafsa comple-tion—sponsored by both Re-publicans and Democrats—stalled last year whenlawmakers’ attention turned tothe pandemic, or because ofother objections. Now, legisla-tures in Michigan, New York,Hawaii, Indiana and elsewhereare taking up the issue. Okla-homa lawmakers are expectedto consider a task force to

study the possibility of institut-ing a mandate. California’sDemocratic Gov. Gavin Newsomincluded the requirement in hisproposed 2021-22 budget.

The number of Fafsa appli-cations completed by studentsin the class of 2021 is trailingmore than 10% behind where itwas at this point last year, ac-cording to the National CollegeAttainment Network, a non-profit. Analyzing Education De-partment data, NCAN reportedeven sharper drops at highschools with large concentra-tions of low-income studentsand students of color. Thatadds urgency to the mandatediscussion, advocates say.

“Families are hurting, stu-dents are struggling and finan-cial hardships are all too com-mon nowadays. Access toeducation is such an essentialyet sensitive issue that needsto be addressed right now,”

said Maryland State Sen. Ar-thur Ellis, a Democrat.

Louisiana was the first stateto make Fafsa submission apublic-high-school graduationrequirement, beginning in2017-18. More than 77% of pub-lic- and private-school seniorscompleted the Fafsa in the firstyear of the mandate, up from57.2% the year before, accord-ing to NCAN.

The mandates generally in-clude opt-outs for undocu-mented students or parents,students over 18 and certainother populations.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts,a Republican, vetoed a bill lastsummer that would have madeFafsa completion compulsoryfor public-school students. Hesaid the bill “is not related tothe core education mission”and voiced concern about re-quiring families to share sensi-tive financial information.

Lawmakers in at least eightstates are pushing legislationthis year that would requirehigh-school seniors to completefederal or state financial-aidapplications before they cangraduate, part of a broad effortto guide more high-school stu-dents toward college.

Supporters say the mandateswould bring postsecondary ed-ucation within reach for mil-lions more students by helpingthem claim billions of dollars ingrants for which they are al-ready eligible, and ultimatelyhelp improve the economy bycreating a more educated work-force. They also hope that re-quiring the forms—or evencompelling students who wantexemptions to meet with guid-ance counselors—would pro-vide an opening for discussionsabout college plans. Opponents

BY MELISSA KORN

States Mandating Student-Aid Forms

President Biden on Mondayplans to impose travel restric-tions aimed at limiting thespread of a new variant of thecoronavirus, a White House of-ficial said.

The president plans to banmost non-U.S. citizens fromtraveling into the country ifthey have recently been inSouth Africa. He will also re-store a ban on most travel intothe U.S. from Europe, the U.K.and Brazil, reversing an effortby former President DonaldTrump to lift those restrictionsin his closing days in office.Reuters earlier reported on theplans.

The addition of South Africato the list of restricted coun-tries comes as a new variant ofthe coronavirus is driving a

BY CATHERINE LUCEYAND ALEXA CORSE

Biden Plans Travel CurbsTo Stop Spread of Variant

the map by making newsthrough the art of dialogue.May he Rest In Peace,” long-time CBS News anchor DanRather wrote on Twitter.

CNN founder Ted Turnercalled Mr. King “a true leg-end.”

“If anyone asked me whatare my greatest careerachievements in life, one is thecreation of CNN, and the otheris hiring Larry King,” he said.

Mr. King was born Law-rence Zeiger in Brooklyn, N.Y.,on Nov. 19, 1933, to Orthodox

Jewish parents from EasternEurope. He took King as hisstage name in 1957 from anadvertisement for King’sWholesale Liquor that he sawwhen he landed his first radiogig at WAHR in Miami Beach,Fla.

He later established himselfas a local television personal-ity and became a color com-mentator for Miami Dolphinsgames on a talk radio station.

His late-night radio broad-cast, “The Larry King Show,”would eventually become na-

tionally syndicated and, in1982, Mr. King began writing aregular column for USA Today,which ran until 2001.

In 1985, “Larry King Live”premiered on CNN, then afledgling cable-news channel.

After ending his run onCNN in 2010, Mr. King contin-ued his show on Ora TV, anon-demand digital channel hecreated with Mexican billion-aire Carlos Slim. The showwas later broadcast on theKremlin-financed, English-lan-guage news channel RT.

than any other county in thestate.

Four years ago, Mr. Trumpwon the county by 10 points.The swing away from the then-president in 2020—which fol-lowed trends in other areas withmore affluent and educated vot-ers—was larger than in any

other West Virginia county andone of the largest voter swingsin the nation.

The county’s population grewby 10% from 2010 to 2019, andemployment grew by 16%, cen-sus data show. By contrast, allfour neighboring counties lostjobs and residents over that pe-

riod, and the statewide popula-tion fell by more than 3% as thestate shed 3% of its jobs.

But the growth, and uptick inprosperity, has helped widen apolitical divide.

Dave Laurie, 73 years old, aretired coal miner in Morgan-town who was hospitalized with

Covid-19 this fall, said he wor-ries about this divide. “I’vepicked my brain apart thinking,how can we bring this countryback together?” he said. “I can’tsee it happening.”

As a 50-year member of theUnited Mine Workers of Amer-ica, he said he has always voted

U.S. NEWS

Democratic. But this year, forthe first time, he didn’t cast aballot for either presidentialcandidate.

“How can I vote for Biden ifhe’s going to shut the rest of thecoal mines down?” Mr. Laurieasked. “I can’t do it.” Joe Bidencampaigned on a promise tomove away from fossil fuels likecoal and oil and to more renew-able energy sources. But he alsohas said that transitionshouldn’t happen so quickly thatit risks further decimating aworkforce now in the middle ofa pandemic-fueled slump.

In Morgantown, politicalchange has followed economicchange, said Greg Thomas, a po-litical consultant for conserva-tive candidates, based in SouthCharleston, W.Va.

“It’s what’s happening in therest of the country,” said Mr.Thomas, referring to the generalpolitical split between urbanand rural areas. But it “didn’thappen in West Virginia untilthe last decade.”

While many urban, white-col-lar workers in Morgantown havegrowing economic prospects,those tied to the declining coaland gas extraction industriesfear for their futures, said Mr.Thomas.

Danielle Walker, 44, moved tothe city in 2010 from Louisiana,partly because she felt her son,who has autism, could get goodcare in Morgantown.

This fall, she won a secondterm as a state House delegateas a progressive Democrat. Shesaid that after she attended aBlack Lives Matter protest inSeptember that led to a confron-tation with counterprotesters,she has gotten death threats.

Ms. Walker, who wears a bul-letproof vest when she leaveshome, said she is hoping Mr. Bi-den will help unify the country.But she said she doesn’t plan tobecome less vocal on behalf ofconstituents.

“I wanted to take a stand forthe single parents, the workingpoor, the working person, theretired person, the disabled,those facing addiction and re-covery,” she said.

MORGANTOWN,W.Va.—Atopa hill just west of this universitytown stands a gleaming 400-acre entertainment and recre-ation complex, converted in re-cent years from a former coalmine.

To Morgantown residents,Mylan Park, which last yearadded a $48 million state-of-the-art aquatic center, serves asa sign of the city’s recent abilityto thrive, even as much of thestate and region have struggledfrom job losses and a shrinkingpopulation.

Yet as the city of 30,000 onthe Monongahela River, home tohospitals andWest Virginia Uni-versity, has grown more pros-perous and shed some of itsblue-collar roots, it also has be-come more politically polarized,at least compared to surround-ing rural counties that havetilted toward Republicans.

Now as many residents lookahead to a Biden administration,they are split between hope andtrepidation.

Some 46% of jobs in Morgan-town and surrounding Monon-galia County are now in man-agement, education, law andother white-collar fields—thehighest share of any West Vir-ginia county, according to ananalysis by the Economic Inno-vation Group, a bipartisan publicpolicy organization.

Blue-collar jobs in construc-tion, transportation, energy ex-traction and other fields accountfor 16% of county employment,the lowest share in the state.

Politically, MonongaliaCounty is the least Republicancounty in West Virginia, the na-tion’s second-reddest state afterWyoming. Former PresidentDonald Trump won the countyin November by one percentagepoint—49% to 48%—far closer

BY KRIS MAHERAND AARON ZITNER

College Town’s Prosperity Widens DivideMorgantown, W.Va.,gets more politicallypolarized as it growsmore white collar

In Morgantown, retired coal miner Dave Laurie doesn’t think the country can be unified politically. Danielle Walker, a state House delegatewho has received death threats and wears a bulletproof vest when she leaves home, is hoping President Biden can unify the country.

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times to seven women and hadfive children.

Known for his rolled-upshirt sleeves, suspenders andpompadour hairstyle, Mr. Kinghad a gravelly baritone thatgave off an authoritative, no-nonsense air. But his reputationfor gentle questioning made hisshow, “Larry King Live,” thego-to destination for anyoneembroiled in controversy.

“On many of these shows,the guest is a prop for thehost, and that’s not my kind ofbroadcasting,” Mr. King toldCNN in an interview when heended his program in 2010 af-ter 25 years on the cable-newschannel. “I hope it comes backto information rather than yell-ing, and the guests are given achance to finish a thought.”

In a career that spannedover 50 years—with decadesspent in radio before helanded at CNN in 1985—Mr.King estimated he conductedover 30,000 interviews, in-cluding with seven sitting U.S.presidents. Mr. King won twoPeabody Awards and an Emmyfor lifetime achievement.

Over the years, Mr. King’s

show was the scene of somenotable moments in contem-porary history. In 1992, RossPerot announced his third-party bid for president live onthe show. Mr. King also pro-vided running commentary forCNN’s coverage of the famedtelevised police chase of O.J.Simpson’s white Ford Broncoin 1994.

A 2007 interview withJerry Seinfeld nearly went offthe rails after Mr. King askedwhether the comedian’s run-away smash sitcom had beencanceled. “I went off the air. Iwas the No. 1 show in televi-sion, Larry! Do you know whoI am?” Mr. Seinfeld shot back.

With news of his passing,social-media networks wereflooded with clips of Mr.King’s best-known interviews.Tributes also poured in fromcelebrities including rapper 50Cent, “Star Trek” star WilliamShatner and pro wrestler-turned-politician Jesse “TheBody” Ventura.

“Larry King was a friendthrough thick and thin. A mas-terful interviewer and story-teller. He helped put CNN on

Larry King, a longtime CNNtalk-show host whose casualstyle of questioning landed himhigh-profile interviews withworld leaders, celebrities and

star athletesfor decades,died on Satur-day. He was 87.

Mr. Kingdied at Cedars-Sinai MedicalCenter in Los Angeles, accord-ing to his production company,Ora Media. No cause of deathwas given, but CNN, where heworked until 2010, reportedearlier this month that he hadbeen hospitalized withCovid-19.

Mr. King weathered numer-ous health problems over theyears. He suffered severalheart attacks, including a ma-jor one in 1987 that requiredquintuple bypass surgery andled him to create the LarryKing Cardiac Foundation. Oncea heavy smoker, King was diag-nosed with lung cancer in 2017,underwent an angioplasty andsuffered a stroke in 2019.

Mr. King was married eight

BY LUKAS I. ALPERT

Talk-Show Legend HostedCelebrities, World Leaders

Larry King’s career spanned over 50 years. His talk show was a mainstay on CNN for 25 years.

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Shipping containers in Staten Island, N.Y. The plan would boost demand for U.S. products through $400 billion in government procurements.

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targeted package.The White House has sig-

naled it is prepared to negoti-ate. Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s chiefof staff, said on NBC that hesaw signs of bipartisanship inconsidering the new adminis-tration’s agenda, citing the Sen-ate’s quick confirmation of Mr.Biden’s choices for defense sec-retary and director of nationalintelligence with broad GOPsupport.

Such quick action shouldalso apply to combating thecoronavirus, he said, adding,“Americans, both Democratsand Republicans are dying.”

Negotiations over the pack-

age, however, are at risk of be-ing derailed by the second im-peachment trial of Mr. Trump,a Republican.

On Monday, Rep. JamieRaskin (D., Md.), the lead im-peachment manager, is sched-uled to walk over the article al-leging incitement ofinsurrection along with hiseight fellow managers, readingthe article on the Senate floor.Senators will be sworn in as ju-rors on Tuesday for the trial.

The beginning of the likelytime-consuming trial will com-plicate efforts to negotiate andpass a major relief package.

Beyond impeachment, sena-

sures of increased security ordeterrence at the border thatRepublicans have asked for inexchange for legalization.

Some Democrats say theycan rally around an immigra-tion-reform package thatmakes no concessions. But theapproach is likely to quicklyrun into opposition from Sen-

ate Republicans, at least 10 ofwhom would need to supporta measure for it to clear theSenate’s 60-vote hurdle formost legislation.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D.,N.J.), the bill’s Senate sponsor,told a conference of the Ameri-can Business ImmigrationCouncil on Thursday that en-

acting the bill would be a “her-culean task,” and could proveimpossible without Republicancooperation. But, he said, Mr.Biden and Vice President Ka-mala Harris are strongly sup-portive of the effort.

“They want to get it done,and we will get it done,” hesaid.

ecutive order is a real test,”Mr.Hufbauer said.

A European Union spokes-man in Washington declined tocomment before the release ofthe executive order. Officialsfor the Japanese Embassydidn’t respond to a request forcomment.

In their report analyzing Mr.Biden’s trade policy towardAsia, analysts at Dentsu PublicRelations Inc., a Tokyo lobbyingfirm, urged Japanese compa-nies to pay close attention tothe Buy American pledge be-cause it could have a powerfulimpact on supply chains linkingthe two countries.

Trade and manufacturing ex-perts said the coming executive

order will likely include techni-cal fixes to the existing govern-ment-procurement rules. Theserules will then be applied toMr. Biden’s ambitious invest-ment programs for infrastruc-ture and clean energy, and pos-sibly pandemic-relatedspending. Such spending wouldrequire congressional approval.

“A big piece of this is, if youare to invest trillions of dollarseither in infrastructure or infederal procurement, that willobviously have a big impact,”said Scott Paul, president of theAlliance for American Manufac-turing. “Coupled together withBuy American domestic prefer-ence, that can spur factory-jobcreation and investment.”

The Government Account-ability Office said federal agen-cies spent $586 billion on di-rect procurement contracts forgoods and services in fiscalyear 2019, with the Defense De-partment spending nearly two-thirds of that amount.

The GAO said foreign prod-ucts accounted for less than 5%of direct federal procurementbut has warned that the actualamount might be larger owingto system errors and limita-tions.

Mr. Biden has a model forhow to address foreign tradingpartners’ concerns. FormerPresident Barack Obama’s $800billion stimulus package in2009 had a “Buy American”

provision requiring the use ofU.S.-made iron and steel andmanufactured goods in publicworks projects. The package,however, excluded procurementcovered by the WTO agree-ment.

Jean Heilman Grier, tradeconsultant at Djaghe LLC and aformer Office of the U.S. TradeRepresentative official whohelped to negotiate WTO pro-curement rules, said Mr. Bi-den’s Buy American policycould look similar.

“The assumption with theBiden administration is thatthey are going to do things thatare consistent with trade rulesand trade-agreement obliga-tions,” Ms. Grier said.

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American” program, which waspart of his “America First” pol-icy that fueled tensions withtrading partners through tariffwars and confrontations withthe World Trade Organization.

The Buy American plan Mr.Biden espoused during thecampaign called for tighteningexisting rules on governmentprocurement by raising domes-tic content requirements andclosing loopholes available forpurchases of foreign products.He also called for spending$400 billion in governmentprocurements, which wouldboost demand for Americanproducts and services togetherwith his clean-energy and infra-structure-investment projects.

Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s chiefof staff, said in a memo thatthe coming executive order will“fulfill his promises tostrengthen Buy American pro-visions,” without elaborating.

Trading partners will beclosely watching whether theexecutive order will includelanguage that ensures foreignaccess to U.S. government pro-curement in compliance withan existing WTO agreement,said Gary Hufbauer, a nonresi-dent senior fellow at PetersonInstitute for International Eco-nomics.

“For Biden coming into of-fice with a tone that he wantsto cooperate with allies and doaway with these frictions, howhe writes the Buy American ex-

WASHINGTON—PresidentBiden is expected to fulfill acampaign pledge Monday bydetailing his “Buy American”plan, an initiative that will bewatched closely by other coun-tries mindful of another of hispromises—to mend fences withtrading partners.

Domestic-purchase plans putother governments on alert,causing concern that their com-panies would be excluded fromthe U.S.’s huge government-procurement market whenWashington is making massiveinvestments to fight the falloutof the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It’s particularly relevant toCanada and the U.S. because ofour deeply integrated econo-mies,” said Colin Robertson, aformer Canadian diplomat whois now a vice president at theCanadian Global Affairs Insti-tute. “Once the thing goes intoeffect, there will be Canadiancompanies who will say, ‘Oh,we are excluded.’ Then, theywill begin to squawk.”

Although there are differ-ences in the details, Mr. Biden’sinitiative echoes former Presi-dent Donald Trump’s own “Buy

BY YUKA HAYASHI

Trade AlliesPonder ‘BuyAmerican’Countries watch Bidenproposal for signs oftheir being excludedfrom U.S. contracts

Some Republicans whomight be open to working withthe Biden administration onimmigration policy say thatMr. Biden has started off onthe wrong foot.

“There’s common ground,”said Sen. James Lankford (R.,Okla.). “The toxic area is whenwe get into an immigrationconversation and suddenly it’s,‘We’re going to begin with ev-ery person that’s entered thecountry…suddenly becomes alegal citizen here, no matterhow they came.’ … That’s abad starting point to say theleast.”

White House officials haveprivately told associates thatthey view the bill as primarilya starting point to unite Dem-ocrats, according to three peo-ple briefed on their thinking,and are determined to seewhat, if anything, they canachieve on immigration intheir first six months in office.That window would ensurethat any legislation wouldn’tbleed into the 2022 midtermcampaign, when historicallythe president’s political partyis at a disadvantage and maybe wary of tackling controver-sial topics.

“While we’re pushing for le-galization for the 11 million,we want to be pragmatic,”said Kerri Talbot, deputy di-

rector of The ImmigrationHub, an advocacy group whosedirector, Tyler Moran, recentlyleft to become Mr. Biden’s spe-cial assistant on immigrationpolicy.

Mr. Biden’s effort followsfailures by his three immedi-ate predecessors. PresidentDonald Trump was unable tostrike several immigrationdeals involving money for hisborder wall and rules limitingaccess to the asylum system inexchange for citizenship forDreamers. President BarackObama was stymied by theGOP-controlled House, whichrejected a Senate-passed im-migration deal in 2013. Presi-dent George W. Bush’s attemptto combine a temporaryworker program with bordersecurity and enforcementfailed when the plan inflamedgrass-roots conservatives andliberals.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.),who as the incoming SenateJudiciary Committee chairmanis taking the lead on Mr. Bi-den’s immigration legislation,said that he aims to pass acomprehensive measure butmay have to settle for narrowlegislation aimed at providinga pathway to citizenship foryoung immigrants previouslyin the U.S. without legal au-thorization.

WASHINGTON—PresidentBiden is making an early betthat after years of stalemate,the moment for comprehen-sive immigration reform hasarrived. But lawmakers in bothparties caution that Mr. Bi-den’s effort is likely to facesome of the same headwindsthe plans of the last threepresidents did.

On his first day in office, Mr.Biden proposed a broad immi-gration bill that would createan eight-year path to citizen-ship for the 11 million immi-grants living in the countrywithout a permanent legal sta-tus. It would have an expeditedpathway for farmworkers andthe young immigrants known asDreamers, along with changesto the legal immigration, refu-gee and asylum systems.

It proposes adding moretechnology to monitor peopleand drugs at the border—though no new barriers—alongwith $4 billion in aid to Cen-tral American countries tohelp stem the extreme povertyand gang violence that hasprompted so many migrants toleave.

Unlike previous compro-mise bills, Mr. Biden’s pro-posal lacks the countermea-

BY MICHELLE HACKMANAND SIOBHAN HUGHES

Immigration Package Faces Steep Odds on Capitol Hill

President Biden’s proposal includes adding technology to monitor the border but no new barriers.

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ing rural hospitals for the costof administering the vaccine.

“That was raised as part of aconcern of the timing that wehave because obviously wehave an impeachment trialcoming up,” Sen. Jeanne Sha-heen (D., N.H.) said of focusinga bill on vaccine funding. “Wedon’t have a lot of time tomove things, and in terms ofwhat could be most helpful,”vaccine funding received widesupport on the call, Ms. Sha-heen said.

Lawmakers also expressed ahope that a third round of di-rect payments to people bemore targeted to make surethose most in need are receiv-ing the checks.

The administration officialssaid they would provide moredata about how they arrived attheir policy provisions, includ-ing on education funding.

“The additional stimuluschecks that the president isproposing are not well tar-geted,” Ms. Collins said. “Thatwas echoed by several othersenators and I hope the admin-istration will take a second lookat that.”

Lawmakers said they ex-pected the bipartisan group,which includes lawmakers fromboth chambers, would continueto meet to try and fashion a

tors have yet to hammer out anagreement on operating thechamber, which is divided50-50 between the parties. VicePresident Kamala Harris cancast a tiebreaker vote, whichgives Democrats the majorityby the slightest of margins.

Negotiations stalled afterRepublicans insisted Democratspledge not to eliminate the leg-islative filibuster, which re-quires 60 votes to bring pro-posals to the floor. Because it israre for one party to hold 60 ormore seats, proponents of theprocedural hurdle said it forcescompromise by giving the mi-nority party a voice and somepower in negotiations.

But the filibuster also canlead to gridlock, and there ismomentum among some Demo-cratic lawmakers and activiststo lower or eliminate the 60-vote threshold so that theirnarrow Senate majority canpass bills more quickly and ad-vance Mr. Biden’s agenda.

Mr. Durbin, the Senate’s sec-ond highest ranking Democrat,said on NBC on Sunday that thedemand by Sen. Mitch McCon-nell, the chamber’s GOP leader,for absolute protection of thelegislative filibuster is a non-starter. On Friday, Sen. JohnCornyn (R., Texas) said “there’snot going to be an organizing

resolution as long as the elimi-nation of the legislative filibusteris hanging over the Congress.”

Some Democrats, skeptical abipartisan deal can be reached,already are calling on the Dem-ocratic president to pass his re-lief plan on a party-line vote.

Because most bills take 60votes to clear procedural hur-dles in the Senate, Mr. Bidenwould need to round up 10 Re-publican votes if all the 50 sen-ators who caucus with Demo-crats voted as a bloc. Using aprocess known as reconcilia-tion, however, certain legisla-tion tied to the budget wouldrequire only 50 votes.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.)defended the use of reconcilia-tion. “What we cannot do iswait weeks and weeks, andmonths and months, to go for-ward,” he said Sunday on CNN.

Mr. Klain wouldn’t saywhether the White Housewould drop certain provisionsin the bill, like a push for ahigher federal minimum wage,to win GOP support. “What wewant to do is work with theCongress, reach out to mem-bers in both parties, see whatwe can get done as quickly aspossible,” Mr. Klain said.

—Bob Davisand Catherine Lucey

contributed to this article.

proposal was too large andneeded to be able to garner thesupport of fiscally responsiblelawmakers, according to aides.

Democratic supporters ofMr. Biden’s plan said the pack-age’s size meets the twin publichealth and economic crises cre-ated by the Covid-19 pandemic,which has killed more than400,000 people in the U.S.

“President Biden’s plan isneeded to get the virus undercontrol and prevent lastingdamage to our economy,” Sen.Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said in astatement after the meeting.“The Senate must come to-gether on a bipartisan basisand provide the resources theAmerican people need to sur-vive this pandemic and thislengthy financial hardship.”

Lawmakers said they did co-alesce around the need toquickly pass additional fundingfor vaccine distribution and re-lated issues, such as compensat-

ContinuedfromPageOne

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President Biden waved as he left church in Washington.

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The Pentagon restrictions,put in place after Mr. Trumpannounced his decision bytweet in July 2017, were ex-pected to be an early target ofMr. Biden’s order.

Mr. Biden wanted to waituntil his pick to be defensesecretary, Lloyd Austin, wasinstalled, one person familiarwith the matter said. Mr. Aus-tin’s first full day at work willbe Monday, after his Senateconfirmation on Friday.

During testimony at hisconfirmation hearing lastweek, Mr. Austin indicated hewould support Mr. Biden’splan to lift restrictions ontransgender service in re-sponse to a question from Sen.Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.).

“I truly believe…that ifyou’re fit and you’re qualifiedto serve and you can maintainthe standards, you should beallowed to serve,” Mr. Austinsaid. “And, you can expect thatI will support that throughout.”

Shortly after Mr. Austin’stestimony, advocacy groupssaid they expected the restric-tions to be lifted quickly.

“It’s heartening that LloydAustin fully understands theurgency of ending the mili-tary’s harmful transgenderban,” said Aaron Belkin, execu-tive director of the Palm Cen-ter, a research institute and ad-vocacy organization that workson military diversity policy.

The White House declinedto comment.

Mr. Trump’s ban caught hisdefense secretary at the time,Jim Mattis, by surprise. Rulesconcerning transgender servicemembers had been eased theyear before by the Obama ad-ministration in a move thatalso provided for military med-ical care for gender dysphoria.

Gender dysphoria is a con-dition that many professionalassociations have said requiresmedical treatment. For in-stance, gender dysphoria isrecognized by the AmericanPsychiatric Association as amedical issue. When the con-dition is diagnosed by a medi-cal professional, transitiontherapy and reassignment sur-gery is considered by some in-surers and states as a medi-

cally necessary treatment.Opponents to transgender

service members, includingsome conservative congressio-nal Republicans, have saidtheir presence disrupts mili-tary readiness and imposesheavy medical costs on themilitary’s health-care system.They also have questionedwhether transgender servicemembers are as capable asothers in the military of de-ploying whenever and wher-ever needed, a contention re-butted by advocacy groups.

The decision by the Trumpadministration led to a seriesof lawsuits, in some casesleaving commanders unsure ofhow to proceed. In 2019, theSupreme Court issued brief

written orders that temporar-ily blocked the effect of multi-ple lower court rulings thathad prevented Mr. Trump andthe Pentagon from implement-ing restrictions on transgen-der service members.

A 2016 study for the Penta-gon by the Rand Corporationcalculated medical costs borneby the military for includingtransgender service membersat between $2.4 million and$8.4 million annually. That is afraction of a percent of the mil-itary’s health-care expenditures.

According to the Pentagon,there are approximately 9,000service members who identifyas transgender, with 1,000 orfewer who have been diag-nosed with gender dysphoria.

WASHINGTON—The WhiteHouse is expected to lift re-strictions on transgender ser-vice members in the U.S. mili-tary as soon as Monday,according to people familiarwith the matter, reversing adirective by former PresidentDonald Trump.

The move was expected afterPresident Biden on his first dayin office signed an executive or-der aimed at preventing dis-crimination based on the basisof sexual orientation or genderidentity. He directed all agen-cies to address any policies inplace that discriminated againstindividuals on either basis.

BY NANCY A. YOUSSEFAND GORDON LUBOLD

Restrictions on Transgender Service Members to End

U.S.WATCH

CHICAGO

Teachers RejectOrder to Return

The Chicago Teachers Unionsaid Sunday that its membersvoted to defy an order to returnto the classroom over concernsabout Covid-19, setting up ashowdown with district officialswho have said that refusing toreturn when ordered wouldamount to an illegal strike.

Chicago Public Schools, whichis the nation’s third-largest dis-trict, wanted roughly 10,000 kin-dergarten through eighth-gradeteachers and other staffers toreturn to school Monday to getready to welcome back roughly70,000 students for part-timein-school classes starting Feb. 1.No return date has been set forhigh-school students.

The teachers union said thedistrict’s safety plan falls shortand that before teachers can re-turn safely to schools, vaccina-tions would have to be morewidespread and different metricsto measure infections wouldneed to be in place.

Chicago Public Schools offi-cials said Sunday that they hadagreed to delay the teachers’ re-turn for two days to give thesides more time to negotiate.But they said K-8 teacherswould still be expected to re-sume in-person instruction onFeb. 1.

School officials have arguedthat remote learning isn’t work-ing for all students. The district’ssafety plan includes thousandsof air purifiers, more cleaningand a voluntary testing program.

—Associated Press

CALIFORNIA

Snow, Rains HelpRelieve Drought

Up to a foot of snow fell inSouthern California’s mountainsas the first in a series of stormsmove through California, bringingreal winter weather after weeksof sporadic rain that has donelittle to ease drought.

Authorities urged drivers onSunday to bring their tire chainsto the San Gabriel and San Ber-nardino mountains east of LosAngeles after 10 inches of snowfell in Mount Baldy and up to 18inches were recorded at theMountain High ski resort inWrightwood.

Periods of rain and snow andmuch cooler temperatures wereexpected Monday before a sec-ond and significantly strongerstorm moves into the state, theNational Weather Service said.Forecasters at the Sacramento-area weather office anticipatedan abundance of snow in the Si-erra Nevada between late Tues-day and Friday.

More than 95% of Californiahas been experiencing droughtconditions and the remainder isabnormally dry, according to theU.S. Drought Monitor.

—Associated Press

OREGON

Body of WomanFound After Storm

Sheriff’s deputies and fire-fighters on Saturday recoveredthe body of an Oregon womanwhose vehicle was swept awayin a deep mudslide during a win-ter storm earlier this month, au-thorities said.

Jennifer Camus Moore, a reg-istered nurse from Warrendale,Ore., was driving in the ColumbiaRiver Gorge near the small com-munity of Dodson when herSUV was buried under about 15feet of mud, rock and trees.

A private contractor, ConcreteGPR, helped verify the locationof her vehicle on Saturday morn-ing by using a high-poweredmetal detector.

—Associated Press

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Jacob Fracker is a memberof the Virginia National Guardand a police officer in the smalltown of Rocky Mount, Va. OnJan. 6, he joined the mob thatbroke into the U.S. Capitol and

posted a photo of himself nextto a fellow off-duty officer withhis middle finger raised infront of a statue of a Revolu-tionary War commander, ac-cording to court documents.

Mr. Fracker and the otherofficer, Thomas Robertson,were arrested this month oncharges of knowingly enteringa restricted building and vio-lent entry or disorderly con-duct on Capitol grounds. Apublic defender representingMr. Fracker declined to com-ment. On Facebook, the MarineCorps veteran said he did noth-ing illegal. “I can protest forwhat I believe in and still sup-port your protest for what youbelieve in. I fought for yourright to do it,” he wrote in aFacebook post after the riot,according to the complaint.

Mr. Robertson couldn’t bereached for comment. He

By DeepaSeetharaman,Zusha Elinsonand Ben Kesling

A view of the pro-Trump mob that marched from a rally to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, breaching security and rioting inside the complex.

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posted the photo on Instagramand said he was proud of it, ac-cording to a federal complaint.

A spokesman for the Vir-ginia National Guard, which de-ployed to Washington, D.C., onJan. 7, said it would investigatethe matter. Rocky Mount’stown manager said Saturdaythat Messrs. Fracker and Rob-ertson have been suspendedwithout pay as officials con-tinue to review the case.

As total federal arrests inthe Capitol riot grow past 100,Mr. Fracker is one of at least 18current and former police offi-cers, firefighters and militarymembers who had beencharged as of Friday, accordingto a Wall Street Journal tally.They include a retired Pennsyl-vania firefighter accused ofthrowing a fire extinguisher atCapitol police and a Navy vet-eran who calls himself theQAnon Shaman. In addition,Air Force veteran Ashli Babbittwas shot and killed by CapitolPolice as she tried to climbthrough a window on a doorinside the building.

The Defense Department’sOffice of Inspector General haslaunched an investigation intoextremism in the military.

Rep. Jason Crow (D., Colo.),a former Army Ranger who

serves on the House ArmedServices Committee, said re-cent events will lead tochanges in the way recruits arevetted and focus attention onrooting out extreme ideologiesin the services.

“One of the silver linings ofthis otherwise very difficultand challenging time is I thinkit is going to allow us to makesome change, changes that mayhave been stalled for a verylong time,” he said in an inter-view.

While extremism isn’t newto the military, Mr. Crow saidhe thinks growing efforts byfar-right groups to target ser-vice members online are onereason for what appears to bea recent uptick in radicalism.

Lloyd Austin, President Bi-den’s new defense secretary,said during his confirmationhearing Tuesday that heplanned to stamp out extrem-

ism in the military. “The job ofthe Department of Defense isto keep America safe from ourenemies,” he said. “But wecan’t do that if some of thoseenemies lie within our ownranks.”

Law-enforcement and mili-tary leaders say they are stillworking to find the reasonssome of their personnel weredrawn to the Capitol riots andhow best to combat extremistideologies in their ranks.

Law-enforcement officialssay police officers and militaryveterans may have been drawnto Washington on Jan. 6 be-cause of popularity in theirranks of former President Don-ald Trump, who frequently pro-moted the false idea that thepresidential election was beingstolen from him and repeatedthe claim when he spoke to alarge gathering of his support-ers just before the Capitol riot.

Some of the people chargedin the riot were members ofthe Oath Keepers, a private mi-litia group that tries to recruitcurrent and former militaryand law-enforcement personnelas well as first responders topersuade them to stay true tothe constitution, according tofounder Stewart Rhodes.

The group believes that the

“federal government has beenco-opted by a shadowy con-spiracy that is trying to stripAmerican citizens of theirrights,” according to the Jus-tice Department.

Other arrested veterans saidthey believe conspiracy theo-ries touted by QAnon, a farright-wing, loosely organizednetwork of people who em-brace a range of unsubstanti-ated beliefs, including that agroup of blood-drinking pedo-philes control the governmentthrough the so-called deepstate.

Military and police leadersare also investigating active-duty personnel who attendedthe Jan. 6 “stop the steal” rallybut may not have entered theCapitol.

Police officers are allowedto engage in political protestswhile off duty as part of theirFirst Amendment rights, ac-cording to William Johnson,executive director of the Na-tional Association of Police Or-ganizations, which represents241,000 officers.

Defense Department regula-tions allow members of themilitary to participate in legalprotests so long as they don’tappear to be doing so in an of-ficial capacity.

Military, Police ProbeMembers Charged in Riot

Some arrestedveterans believeconspiracy theoriestouted by QAnon,

PHOENIX—The rift betweenthe Arizona Republican Party’sestablishment and pro-Trumpwing widened as committeemembers censured RepublicanGov. Doug Ducey; Cindy Mc-Cain, the widow of Sen. JohnMcCain, the party’s presidentialnominee in 2008; and formerGOP Sen. Jeff Flake.

Republicans also re-electedKelli Ward, a key Donald Trumpbacker, as chairwoman. En-dorsed by Mr. Trump, she hadtraded barbs with Mr. Duceyand other establishment figuresand urged passage of the cen-sures. “This election cycle ex-posed we have too much crony-ism in our party from top tobottom,” she said.

Arizona’s Republican divi-sions are mirrored in otherstates in the wake of Mr.Trump’s election loss and theJan. 6 Capitol riot. Ten HouseRepublican members who votedto impeach Mr. Trump for urg-ing supporters to protest at theCapitol are being targeted forprimary challenges.

In Kentucky on Saturday,Sen. Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.)fended off a small group ofTrump loyalists who oppose hisremarks that he is keeping anopen mind about convicting Mr.Trump in his Senate trial.

The Arizona resolutions,which have no formal conse-quences, come as the ArizonaGOP has continued to fracturebetween establishment andconservative factions after Mr.Trump’s loss in the state.

The censures were overwhat some Republicans believeis executive overreach in Mr.Ducey’s response to the pan-demic; Mrs. McCain’s supportfor same-sex marriage; andMrs. McCain’s and Mr. Flake’sendorsements of President Bi-den in the 2020 election,among other things.

“These resolutions are of noconsequence whatsoever andthe people behind them havelost whatever little moral au-thority they may have oncehad,” said Sara Mueller, Mr.Ducey’s political director.

In tweet late Saturday, Mrs.McCain called it “a high honorto be included in a group of Ar-izonans who have served ourstate and our nation sowell…and who, like my latehusband John, have been cen-sured by the AZGOP.”

Mr. Flake didn’t respond to arequest for comment.

WASHINGTON—In his lastweeks in office, former Presi-dent Donald Trump consideredmoving to replace the actingattorney general with anotherofficial ready to pursue unsub-stantiated claims of electionfraud, and he pushed the Jus-tice Department to ask the Su-preme Court to invalidate Pres-ident Biden’s victory, peoplefamiliar with the matter said.

Those efforts failed due topushback from his own appoin-tees in the Justice Department,who refused to file what theyviewed as a legally baselesslawsuit in the Supreme Court.Later, other senior departmentofficials threatened to resignen masse should Mr. Trumpfire then-acting Attorney Gen-eral Jeffrey Rosen, accordingto several people familiar withthe discussions.

Senior department officials,including Mr. Rosen, formerAttorney General William Barrand former acting SolicitorGeneral Jeffrey Wall, refusedto file the Supreme Court case,concluding that there was nobasis to challenge the electionoutcome and that the federalgovernment had no legal inter-est in whether Mr. Trump orMr. Biden won the presidency,some of these people said.White House counsel Pat Cipol-lone and his deputy, PatrickPhilbin, also opposed Mr.Trump’s idea, which was pro-moted by his outside attorneys,these people said.

“He wanted us, the UnitedStates, to sue one or more ofthe states directly in the Su-preme Court,” a former admin-

results went nowhere in multi-ple state and federal courts,Mr. Trump and his alliesplaced their hopes in a lawsuitthat Republican Texas AttorneyGeneral Ken Paxton planned tofile directly in the SupremeCourt against four states thatvoted for Mr. Biden. The suitalleged that Texans’ rightswere violated because Georgia,Michigan, Pennsylvania andWisconsin failed to follow theirown election laws in the No-vember vote.

Before the Texas suit wasfiled, a group of Republicanstate attorneys general spokewith Mr. Barr about getting theJustice Department to back theclaim, particularly if the Su-preme Court asked for the de-partment’s views on the case,people familiar with the dis-cussions said.

Mr. Barr consulted with Mr.Wall, who is the government’sadvocate before the Supreme

Court. Mr. Wall told Mr. Barrthat Texas’ lawsuit was likelyto fail because the state lackedlegal standing to challengeother states’ administration oftheir own laws, the peoplesaid, accurately anticipatingthe grounds the SupremeCourt ultimately cited in dis-missing the case.

Mr. Barr told the Republicanofficials that the departmentcouldn't be counted on to sup-port their legal claim if the Su-preme Court sought its opin-ion, these people said.

Representatives of Mr. Pax-ton and the Republican Attor-neys General Associationcouldn’t be reached.

After the Texas case wasdismissed on Dec. 11, Mr.Trump began pushing for theJustice Department to file itsown lawsuit against the statesdirectly in the Supreme Court,the people said. Frustratedthat his wishes weren’t being

istration official said. “Thepressure got really intense” af-ter a lawsuit Texas filed in theSupreme Court against fourstates Mr. Biden won was dis-missed on Dec. 11, the officialsaid. An outside lawyer work-ing for Mr. Trump drafted abrief the then-president wantedthe Justice Department to file,people familiar with the mattersaid, but officials refused.

After his Supreme Courtplan got nowhere, Mr. Trumpexplored another plan—replac-ing Mr. Rosen as acting attor-ney general with Jeffrey Clark,a Trump ally in the depart-ment who had expressed awillingness to use the depart-ment’s power to help the for-mer president continue his un-successful legal battlescontesting the election results,these people said.

Mr. Trump backed off thatplan after senior Justice De-partment leadership threat-ened to resign en masse if thepresident removed Mr. Rosen,people familiar with the dis-cussions said.

Weeks before the Nov. 3presidential election, Mr.Trump had predicted the out-come could be determined bythe Supreme Court; that possi-bility was a reason he gave forrapid confirmation of his thirdappointee to the court, JusticeAmy Coney Barrett, followingJustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’sdeath in September.

“I think this [election] willend up in the Supreme Court.And I think it’s very importantthat we have nine justices,” Mr.Trump told reporters on Sept.23. “Having a 4-4 situation isnot a good situation.”

As challenges to the election

implemented, Mr. Trump atone point planned to bypassthe attorney general and tele-phone Mr. Wall directly, thesepeople said.

Mr. Trump didn’t followthrough with a phone call, butone of his outside lawyers sentover a draft legal brief hewished the department to filewith the Supreme Court, theseofficials said.

After Mr. Barr resignedshortly before Christmas, Mr.Trump pushed Mr. Rosen toauthorize the lawsuit. At Mr.Rosen’s request, the solicitorgeneral’s office prepared abrief memo with talking pointshe could use in an effort to ex-plain to Mr. Trump why thelawsuit wasn’t legally viable,the people said.

Mr. Clark denied involve-ment in a plan to oust Mr.Rosen, which was earlier re-ported by the New York Times.Mr. Rosen couldn’t be reachedfor comment.

“My practice is to rely onsworn testimony to assess dis-puted factual claims,” Mr. Clarksaid in a statement sent to TheWall Street Journal after thepublication of the story in theTimes. “There were no ‘maneu-ver[s].’ There was a candid dis-cussion of options and prosand cons with the president. Itis unfortunate that those whowere part of a privileged legalconversation would commentin public about such internaldeliberations, while also dis-torting any discussions.…Ob-serving legal privileges, whichI will adhere to even if otherswill not, prevents me from di-vulging specifics regarding theconversation.”

Mr. Trump has defended his

efforts to change the electionresults by alleging, without ev-idence, that there was wide-spread fraud as an attempt to“honor” the votes of those whosupported him and ensureAmericans “can have faith” inthe electoral process.

Mr. Rosen became acting at-torney general after Mr. Barrresigned Dec. 23. Mr. Trumpand Mr. Barr’s relationship hadbecome strained after Mr.Barr’s public assertion that theJustice Department hadn’tfound evidence of widespreadvoter fraud that could reverseMr. Biden’s victory, includingclaims of fraud, ballot destruc-tion and voting-machine ma-nipulation.

Even before Mr. Barr’s de-parture, Mr. Trump had calledMr. Rosen to the White Houseto pressure him to appoint aspecial counsel to investigateunfounded claims of wide-spread voter fraud and voting-machine manufacturer Domin-ion, the people said, a moveMr. Barr had concluded wasunnecessary.

Mr. Trump and his attor-neys had lost dozens of casesin courts at all levels, includingthe U.S. Supreme Court. In thefive weeks after Election Day,the Trump campaign and otherRepublicans lost at least 40times in six pivotal states: Ari-zona, Georgia, Michigan, Ne-vada, Pennsylvania and Wis-consin. In several other cases,the campaign or allies with-drew claims after filing them.

Mr. Rosen refused, reiterat-ing Mr. Barr’s conclusion thatthere was no widespread fraud.

—Timothy Pukoand Byron Tau

contributed to this article.

BY JESS BRAVINAND SADIE GURMAN

TrumpLeaned onDOJOver Vote-Fraud Claims

Jeffrey Clark was a Justice Department ally of former PresidentDonald Trump. Jeffrey Rosen, right, was acting attorney general.

YURI

GRIPA

S/PR

ESSPO

OL

BY ELIZA COLLINS

CensuresIn ArizonaHighlightGOP Rift

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | A7

U.S. NEWS

a stark divide between Eastand West in the global econ-omy. In 2020, East Asia at-tracted a third of all foreigninvestment globally, its largestshare since records began inthe 1980s. India saw a 13% in-crease, driven largely by risingdemand for digital services.

In the West, the EuropeanUnion suffered a 71% drop. TheU.K. and Italy, which have suf-fered high mortality rates anddeep economic contractions, at-tracted no new investment. Ger-many, which has fared better onboth counts, saw a 61% drop.

When the pandemic firststruck at the beginning of lastyear, Unctad expected China toexperience a large drop in for-eign investment and the U.S. tobe largely unscathed. ButChina’s economy reopened inApril just as the U.S. and Eu-rope started a series of continu-ing lockdowns and disruptions.

Beijing’s ability to quicklycontrol the coronavirus withinits borders helped its economyrebound relatively quickly andreinforced China’s appeal—evenbefore President Biden’s inau-guration, which some investorshope could usher in less tem-pestuous U.S.-China ties.

After FDI into China plungedin the first few months of 2020,Chinese officials scrambled toreassure foreign investors andaccommodate any concernsthey might have. Some foreigncompanies put their China ex-pansion plans on hold and insome cases began withdrawingtheir investments. But asChina’s recovery gained steamand the rest of the world beganto look increasingly rocky, for-eign companies moved to pourmore money into China.

—Yuka Hayashicontributed to this article.

or check results, they added.In the majority of urban

testing desert counties, theproportion of people of coloris higher than the national av-erage, according to the SurgoVentures data.

“To control the pandemicwe must ensure that everyone,but in particular those atgreatest risk of infection, haseasy access to testing, treat-

ment and resources so that ifinfected or exposed, they cansafely isolate or quarantine,”said Richard Besser, presidentand chief executive officer ofthe Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation and former actingdirector at the Centers for Dis-ease Control and Prevention.

A separate Wall StreetJournal analysis of data fromhealth-benefits company Cast-

light Health Inc. found thatsites administering rapid tests,which don’t need to be sent toa lab for processing and de-liver results in minutes, arealso largely concentrated inmore affluent parts of severalmajor cities.

Without adequate access,people who suspect they havebeen infected, or exposed tothe virus, must decide on theirown whether they can affordto quarantine or continue re-porting to work where theymay infect others. As vaccinesbegin a slow national rollout,public-health officials fear thesame access disparities mayoccur when it comes to receiv-ing doses.

“This is a chain,” said Ale-jandro Diaz, community liaisoncoordinator at Healthy LittleHavana, a community healthgroup in Miami. Everyone paysthe price when some peoplelack easy access to testing anddon’t have the ability to iso-late, he said, and infection “re-verberates not just in onecommunity but in every com-munity across the country.”

The number of U.S. testingsites has grown in the pastseveral months, and testingaccess has improved in manyareas, said Dr. Sema Sgaier,chief executive of Surgo Ven-tures, “however, we still dosee some gaps.”

Tests Still Hard to Get in Poorer Areas

%

Urban countiesRural counties

March 2020 Dec.

0

25

50

75

100

SinceMarch, the number ofcounties lacking Covid-19testing sites has decreased,but rural counties still makeup the greater share oftesting deserts.

Percentage of countiesthat are Covid-19testing deserts

In counties housing somemajor U.S. cities, sitesthat offer rapid tests are often located in ZIPCodeswhere residents' incomes are above thecounty'smedian.

Rapid test locations, in selected counties

200-20 40-40 60-60 80-80-100%

Percentage bywhich themedian income of the ZIP Code isabove or below the county’s median income

100+

Access to RapidTesting

NewYork CityHarris County, Texas

Houston

NEWJERSEY

TEXAS

NEWYORK

10miles 10miles

AtlanticOcean

60% 51.6%

LosAngeles County, Calif.

CALIFORNIA

10miles

Los Angeles(city)

PacIficOcean

Wayne County,Mich.

MICHIGAN

CANADA

Detroit

Rapid testsites

64.4%76.5% of areaswith rapid test sites are in areasabove the county’smedian income

10miles

Sources: Castlight Health (rapid test locations); Census Bureau (median income)Notes: Rapid test locations are based on information available and compiled as of Dec. 21, 2020.

Jessica Wang/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

acquisitions of local companies.In China, the flow of invest-

ments by multinational compa-nies continued despite the up-heavals of the pandemic, withcompanies from U.S. industrialgiant Honeywell InternationalInc. and German sportswearmaker Adidas AG expandingtheir operations there.

Unctad doesn’t expect tosee a significant revival of for-eign direct investment thisyear, globally or in countriesthat saw falls in 2020.

“Investors are likely to re-main cautious in committingcapital,” said James Zhan,Unctad’s director of invest-

ment and enterprise. Hedoesn’t expect a real reboundto come until 2022. Even then,he said, “the road to full FDIrecovery will be bumpy.”

While the sharp drop in for-eign investment in the U.S.was because of the pandemic,it also is making companies re-think future investments, saidJoseph Joyce, professor of in-ternational relations and eco-nomics at Wellesley College.

“Companies are reassessingtheir policies about globalsupply chains, about foreignmarkets, about their own useof technology,” Mr. Joyce said.“The pandemic is making allthese companies rethink themost basic assumption aboutwhere they are located.”

The Unctad numbers show

In China, the flow offoreign investmentcontinued despitethe pandemic.

bers underline China’s move to-ward the center of a globaleconomy long dominated by theU.S.—a shift accelerated duringthe pandemic as China has ce-mented its position as theworld’s factory floor and ex-panded its share of global trade.

While China attracted morenew inflows last year, the totalstock of foreign investment inthe U.S. remains much larger,reflecting the decades it hasspent as the most attractivelocation for foreign businesseslooking to expand outsidetheir home markets.

Foreign investment in theU.S. peaked in 2016 at $472billion, when foreign invest-ment in China was $134 bil-lion. Since then, investment inChina has continued to rise,while in the U.S. it has falleneach year since 2017.

The Trump administrationencouraged U.S. companies toleave China and re-establishoperations in the U.S. It alsoput Chinese investors on no-tice that acquisitions in theU.S. would face new scrutinyon national-security grounds.

The sharper drop in foreigninvestment in the U.S. lastyear reflects the broader eco-nomic downturn because ofthe effects of the coronaviruspandemic, said Daniel Rosen,founding partner of RhodiumGroup, an independent re-search firm in New York, whohas long analyzed the U.S.-China economic relationship.

It is natural that foreign in-vestment would declinesharply in the U.S. under thecircumstances because it hasan open, market economy,while China doesn’t, Mr. Rosensaid. Looking ahead, he said,“There is no reason to be con-cerned about the outlook forthe FDI in the United Statesproviding that the U.S. issticking with its basic open-market competitive system.”

Foreign direct investmentcaptures things like foreigncompanies’ building new facto-ries or expanding existing op-erations in a country or their

ContinuedfromPageOne

China TopsIn ForeignInvestment

China’s GDP grew as most other major economies contracted lastyear. Above, people take selfies of the Pudong skyline in Shanghai.

ASS

OCIAT

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ESS

Access to Covid-19 testingremains limited in manylower-income areas of the U.S.nearly a year into the pan-demic, complicating efforts tocontain the spreading virus.

Nearly 20% of U.S. counties,or more than seven millionpeople, lack a single site thatadministers Covid-19 tests, ac-cording to estimates by non-profit data-analytics groupSurgo Ventures. Areas withouttesting sites tend to be in lessaffluent urban and rural coun-ties, the data show.

Although these so-calledtesting deserts are home to arelatively small portion of theU.S. population, health expertssay their existence hinders thebroad national effort to slowthe virus’s spread, becausemany people in these areashold public-facing front-linejobs that put them at risk ofinfection and unwittinglyspreading the virus.

The physical access issue ispart of a larger problem, ex-perts said. Beyond that, “thereis also the functional access,or the barriers to access,” thatare much more widespreadand further limit people’s abil-ity to get tested, said JorgeCaballero, co-founder andmedical director of CodersAgainst Covid, a volunteergroup that collects and veri-fies testing data through offi-cial sources like testing sites,clinics and public-health de-partments. The Surgo analysisis based on Coders AgainstCovid’s data, in collaborationwith nonprofit Urban and Re-gional Information SystemsAssociation’s GISCorps.

Some testing sites are onlyaccessible by car, charge fortests, or don’t test children,Dr. Caballero said, and “that’snot even touching on the othercomponent of what happens ifsomeone tests positive. Howdo they pay their bills and putfood on the table?”

In many lower-income com-

munities, people live in multi-generational homes with theirfamilies and lack the flexibilityto stay home from work, iso-late or work from home, pub-lic-health officials say. Otherchallenges, particularly forolder people, include havingreliable internet access andcomfort with mobile technol-ogy, which are typically re-quired to book appointments

California authorities are in-vestigating the case of a personwho died several hours afterreceiving a Covid-19 vaccinelast week.

The Placer County Sheriff’sOffice and Placer County PublicHealth department were re-cently notified of the vaccina-tion and death, which happenedThursday, according to a state-ment posted to Facebook by thesheriff’s office.

It isn’t clear which vaccinethe person received or whetherthe vaccine played a role intheir death.

“We aren’t making any linksto the vaccine,” a spokeswomanrepresenting the Placer CountySheriff’s Office and Coroner’sOffice said, adding that an au-topsy had been planned. “Weask the public to remain patientwith us as this investigationcontinues so we can hopefullyget more clarity.”

Representatives of the sher-iff’s office, the coroner andPlacer County Public Healthsaid they were unable to re-lease more details.

The person had tested posi-tive for the virus in late Decem-ber, the spokespeople said.Multiple local, state and federalagencies were actively investi-gating the case, they said.

Earlier this month, a 56-year-old physician in Floridadied two weeks after receivinga Covid-19 vaccine. His wifesaid on Facebook that he diedfrom a condition known asthrombocytopenia, marked by ashortage of the blood plateletsthat help stop bleeding, afterhe received the Pfizer Inc. andBioNTech SE vaccine. Throm-bocytopenia wasn’t identifiedas a potential side effect in theclinical-trial testing of the vac-cine, and it hadn’t surfaced asan issue since health regulatorspermitted widespread use lastmonth, Pfizer said.

BY SARAH TOY

Death ofVaccineRecipientIs Probed

By Sarah Krouse,Brianna Abbottand DanielaHernandez

We remember Jack H. Nusbaum—wise counselor,

trusted friend, and Independent Director on

Cowen’s Board of Directors. During his 11 years

on the board, Jack’s sage advice, intuitive insights

and strong moral compass made us a better

organization. Most of all, Jack was not only a

trusted advisor and a good friend to all of us at

Cowen, he was a member of our family. We will

miss his positivity, candor, and larger-than-life

presence. Our thoughts and deepest sympathies

are with his beloved wife, Nora Ann Wallace, and

all his family, friends, and colleagues.

JACK H. NUSBAUMREMEMBERING

P2JW025000-0-A00700-1--------XA

A8 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

SOSHANGUVE, South Af-rica—Dressed in white protec-tive suits, face masks andplastic goggles, the undertak-ers pulled up to the one-storyhome, in which the body of aman in his 80s lay in bed, stillin his pajamas.

What they suspected, buthadn’t confirmed, is that theman died of Covid-19, rippedfrom his family as a new,much more contagious strainof the coronavirus is surgingacross South Africa and driv-ing daily infections and deathsto record highs.

“Two days ago, this personwas coughing,” said ChristinaBroodie, the funeral parlor’sowner. “Now they’re dead.”

A brutal second wave ofCovid-19 infections is pound-ing South Africa, powered inpart by a new variant that sci-entists here say is much moretransmissible than previousversions. The new strain isnow by far the most commonvirus found in positive testsamples in the country.

In laboratory experiments,the new variant also managedto escape antibodies generatedduring a previous bout ofCovid-19. Those findings,which still need to be con-firmed by additional research,have heightened concerns thatthe new strain could infectpeople a second time andmake vaccines less effective.

South Africa’s variant hasbeen detected in at least26 other countries, includingGermany, China and Canada.In the U.K. and Belgium—along with Zambia and Bot-swana—researchers say theyhave found the variant in peo-ple with no travel history, in-dicating it is spreadingthrough communities.

In South Africa, the rise ininfections has overwhelmedhospitals and testinglabs. Doctors in some of thehardest-hit cities said theyhad to ration oxygen andlacked the staff to providestandard Covid-19 care, suchas turning patients on ventila-

mortality data during the pan-demic, in March turned to thecountry’s unofficial death-noticewebsite, RIP.ie, which it foundto be useful for fast informa-tion.

Death-reporting channelstend to be complex and slow,potentially involving healthauthorities, law enforcementand civic administrations be-fore national numbers are ag-gregated in statistics offices.Hospitals in much of the worldregularly report deaths tohealth authorities, but deathsoccurring outside medical in-stitutions may get officiallyregistered long after they oc-cur, or never.

“There are a lot of bottle-necks to getting useful statis-tics, and in a timely fashion,”said Patrick Gerland, chief ofpopulation estimates and pro-jections in the United Nations’population division.

—Margherita Stancatiand Jon Kamp

contributed to this article.

Denmark’s national institutefor infectious disease and coor-dinator of the European Mor-tality Monitoring Project, orEuroMOMO, a network orga-nized in 2008 to track excessdeaths across the continent.

But amassing sufficientdata to make accurate conclu-sions—and doing it amid in-fection fears and lockdowns—was a daunting task. The CDCstarted its work late last Janu-ary, months before publishingnumbers.

Robert Anderson, chief ofthe mortality-statistics branchat the CDC’s National Centerfor Health Statistics, said cur-rent real-time analysis of excessdeaths during the health emer-gency is exceptional. “It’s al-ways been done after the fact.”

In principle, few census datapoints are more clear-cut than adeath: People are either alive ornot. But until last year, mortal-ity data was rarely needed ur-gently. Ireland’s Central Statisti-cal Office, wanting quick

as by age and gender, andpoint epidemiologists towardareas for investigation. It canalso show how many moredeaths than usual occur duringan event like a natural disasteror pandemic, especially whentesting is sparse, as it was inCovid-19’s early days. Tracking

surging fatalities, known asexcess deaths, was a motiva-tion for the CDC to start pub-lishing weekly numbers.

“It’s really useful to do thiskind of very simple public-health monitoring—it informseverybody,” said Lasse S.Vestergaard, a senior medicalofficer and epidemiologist in

cities faster than ever before. InMay, it revealed what people atthe front lines had suspected: a39% jump in nationwide deathsbetween Feb. 21 and March 31compared with previous years.

“Normally, they [the data]would have arrived six monthslater,” said Istat President GianCarlo Blangiardo in May. “Wemade an extraordinary effort.”

Authorities across Europeand the U.S. soon followed It-aly’s race for information ondeaths. Eurostat, the EuropeanUnion’s statistical agency, inApril for the first time col-lected and published weeklydeath data for 31 countries, itsaid, “to support the policyand research efforts related toCovid-19.” The same month,the U.S. Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention for thefirst time began publishingweekly national death data.

Public-health experts sayprocessing death data quicklycan help spotlight mortalityrisks across a population, such

People world-wide are dy-ing at the fastest pace in yearsbecause of the coronavirus. Inresponse, deaths are now get-ting counted faster than ever,potentially giving public-health experts and policy mak-ers a clearer picture to makedecisions.

Weeks after the virus hit It-aly last year, doctors, funeralhomes and officials realizedthat government Covid-19death tolls were too low andmany victims weren’t gettingincluded. Informal talliesquickly revealed that thousandsof deaths most likely caused bythe virus had been omitted.Limited testing left the numberof infections unknown, andmany people had died outsidehospitals, which were the ini-tial source of fatality figures.

Italy’s statistical agency,Istat, scrambled to assemblemore reliable information, col-lecting data from towns and

BY DANIEL MICHAELS

Pandemic Forces Revamp of Way Deaths Are Tallied

infections in 2021.Officially, 40,574 South Af-

ricans have died of Covid-19,but excess deaths since infec-tions started surging in Mayare more than 112,000, by farthe highest on the continent.

This large gap between the

Deaths in SouthAfrica

Source: South African Medical Research Council

16,000

–2,000

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

2020 ’21

Excess deathsReportedCovid-19 deaths

addition to the 12 permanentones—and is training moremorticians, drivers and funeralplanners in preparation for anincrease in deaths in the com-ing weeks and months. “Weare thinking of opening 24/7,”she said.

The second wave of infec-tions caught many South Afri-can funeral operators by sur-prise. Some have run out ofrefrigerated storage space tokeep bodies. Many struggledto source coffins, as manufac-turers shut over the holidays.And increasingly, undertakersare testing positive and dyingfrom the virus.

Lawrence Konyana, the vicepresident of the National Fu-neral Directors Association,said the union is still compil-ing the total number of under-takers who have contractedCovid-19 and died, with manyparlors too busy to respond torequests. “We’re starting tobury our own,” he said.

number of known Covid-19deaths and the actual tollof the virus means undertakerslike Ms. Broodie, a formerteacher who specializes inburials in South Africa’s poortownships, are serving as in-formal public-health workers.They are often the ones whofirst tell a family that theirloved one probably died ofCovid-19, warning relativesthat they, too, may have beenexposed and need to get tested.

They also have to ensurethat mourners wear masks andkeep to a maximum of 50guests at funerals, whichSouth African President CyrilRamaphosa recently said“have become death traps formany of our people.”

In the first 10 days of theyear, Broodie Funeral Parlourdid 24 Covid-19 burials, com-pared with at most 12 regularfunerals a week before thepandemic. Ms. Broodie hashired 40 temporary staff—in

tors onto their bellies to helpthem breathe.

Although the number of newdaily infections nationwide hasdropped somewhat over thepast week, in some provincesone in three coronavirus testsis coming back positive. TheSouth African Medical Re-search Council said the twoweeks of Christmas and NewYear’s were the deadliest in thehistory of the country, whichwas at the center of the HIVand AIDS crisis of the 1990s.

With a battered economyand little hope of securingenough vaccines to inoculatethe majority of its 60 millionpeople anytime soon, SouthAfrica is struggling to re-spond. The government hasbanned large gatherings andthe sale of alcohol, but restau-rants, gyms and stores remainopen. Health experts warnthat South Africa and otherAfrican nations are likely to behit by several more waves of

ers have emerged in South Af-rica and Brazil.

Anthony Fauci, PresidentBiden’s chief medical adviserfor the Covid-19 pandemic,said on CBS on Sunday thatU.S. authorities need to ex-pand genomic surveillance toidentify variants of the virus.

Dr. Fauci said current vac-cines remain effective. “Whatwe will do and are doing al-

ready is making preparationsfor the possibility that downthe pipe, down the line, wemay need to modify and up-grade the vaccines. We don’tneed to do that right now,” hesaid. “The best way to preventthe further evolution of thesemutants is to vaccinate asmany people as possible withthe vaccines that we have cur-rently available to us.”

WORLD NEWS

variants that pop up,” AnthonyHarnden, a physician who ad-vises the U.K. government,told Sky News. “We may wellbe in a situation where we endup having to have an annualcoronavirus vaccine” to copewith emerging strains.

As the new variant in theU.K. has spread across thecountry, hospitals have beenunder more strain than theywere in the first wave of thepandemic in the spring, andthe national Covid-19 deathtoll is expected to surpass100,000 in coming days. But inthe week ended Sunday, newdaily cases were down 22%from the previous seven days.

Matt Hancock, the U.K.’shealth secretary, said that wasbecause of national restrictionsin place since the start of theyear. But in a television inter-view, Mr. Hancock warned, “Weare a long, long, long way” be-fore cases would be low enoughfor restrictions to be lifted.

The U.K. variant is one ofseveral that have emerged inrecent months to cause con-cern among researchers. Oth-

Jeffrey Barrett, director ofthe Covid-19 Genomics Initia-tive at the Wellcome SangerInstitute, said the huge numberof cases around the world hasgiven the virus a lot of oppor-tunities to evolve in ways notseen earlier in the pandemic.

“We’re going to have to re-ally contend with these newvariants in the virus in thenext phase of the pandemic,”he told an online seminar lastweek. “Something happenedthat basically allowed a newconstellation of mutations toarise,” presenting scientistswith new challenges.

The variants likely delaythe day when life can get backcloser to normal thanks tovaccines and raise the pros-pect of outbreaks of infectionsperiodically even after largenumbers of people are inocu-lated. And their emergencealso suggests that interna-tional travel restrictions—where governments imposebans on people coming fromplaces where more troublingversions of the virus are prev-alent—could be in place inter-

mittently for years.The likelihood that many

people in poorer countrieswon’t have access to vaccinesfor some time suggests thatmore new variants will be incu-bating around the world evenif levels of immunity in the de-veloped world are high enoughto curb the virus’s spread.

The U.K. announcement onFriday that the British variantthat now dominates infectionsacross the country could bemore deadly than earlier ver-sions of the virus is preliminaryand could be unduly pessimis-tic. It is based on the assess-ment of an expert advisorypanel to the government that inturn used four academic studiesof raw data to decide that therewas a “realistic possibility” thatthe variant was deadlier.

The studies suggested agreater proportion of peoplewith this variant were endingup in the hospital or dying. Itdidn’t suggest that once in thehospital a patient was morelikely to die than if he or shehad been hospitalized with anearlier variant.

The emergence of new vari-ants of the virus that causesCovid-19—including one in theU.K. that British officials saycould be more deadly thanearlier versions—signals a fu-ture in which health authori-ties are locked in a cat-and-mouse battle with a shape-shifting pathogen.

Faster-spreading coronavi-rus strains that researchersfear could also make peoplesicker or render vaccines lesseffective threaten to extendlockdowns and lead to morehospitalizations and deaths,epidemiologists caution. But,they said, it doesn’t mean thecontagion can’t be contained.

“We’re living in a worldwhere coronavirus is so preva-lent and rapidly mutating thatthere are going to be new

BY STEPHEN FIDLER

U.K. Struggles as Virus Variant SpreadsHealth authorities tryto cope with versionthat spreads faster;tighter curbs loom

BY GABRIELE STEINHAUSER

Contagion Strains South Africa Undertakers

Relatives of a man who succumbed to Covid-19 mourned at the Garsfontein cemetery in Pretoria, South Africa, on Wednesday.

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MexicanPresidentSays HeIs Ill WithCovid-19

Processing deathdata quickly canhelp spotlightmortality risks.

A sign in London cautions people to stay socially distanced tostem Covid-19 as a variant sparks concern that deaths could surge.

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MEXICO CITY—MexicanPresident Andrés Manuel Ló-pez Obrador said Sunday hetested positive for Covid-19and was receiving medicaltreatment for what he calledmild symptoms.

Mr. López Obrador, 67 yearsold, has continued travelingaround the country and at-tending public events even af-ter a second wave of Covid-19infections hit the country overthe past month. Mexico hassuffered close to 150,000 con-firmed Covid-19 deaths.

“As always, I’m optimistic,”he said in a tweet. “We’ll allget through this.”

Mr. López Obrador said thathe still intends to have a tele-phone call Monday morningwith Russian President Vladi-mir Putin, to discuss Mexico’spossible acquisition of Russia’sSputnik V Covid-19 vaccines.

Mr. López Obrador said hewould be keeping an eye on

government matters from theNational Palace in Mexico City,where he lives. Interior Minis-ter Olga Sánchez Cordero willpreside over his morning newsconferences in the meantime.Mexico doesn’t have a vicepresident who would take overduties if the president falls ill.

Mr. López Obrador hassometimes played down thepandemic. Last year, he con-tinued to hold rallies and hugsupporters as Covid-19 spreadacross the country. But heeventually began following theadvice of Hugo López-Gatell,the top health official handlingMexico’s pandemic response.

The president has alsofaced criticism because Mexicoconducts just 15 to 20 dailytests per 100,000 people—thelowest rate in the WesternHemisphere, according to OurWorld in Data, a nonprofit re-search project based at theUniversity of Oxford.

About 1.8 million people inMexico have tested positivefor Covid-19, but epidemiolo-gists say the country’s infec-tions and death toll aresharply higher than official es-timates suggest. Mexico hasone of the highest excessdeath rates in the world, be-hind only Peru and Ecuador.

Public and private hospitalsare grappling with a wave thathas overwhelmed capacity andis now sparking a shortage ofmedical oxygen canisters,which are crucial for thou-sands of people who rely onoxygen tanks to battle the in-fection at home.

Andrés ManuelLópez Obrador,who had playeddown thepandemic, saidhis symptomsare mild.

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named “Chrome Dome.”Nonnuclear conflicts gave

the B-52 a combat role. De-signed to carry two nuclearbombs, it was refurbished tohold 60,000 pounds of conven-tional bombs in Vietnam.

The development of air-launched cruise missiles gaveB-52s what the Pentagon calls“standoff” capability, a meansof launching weapons from asafe distance. The B-52 tookon that role at the start of the1991 Persian Gulf War, and itbecame a platform for drop-ping satellite-guided bombs onmilitants in Afghanistan, Syriaand Iraq.

While it adapted, otherbomber programs faced head-winds. The first replacementwas supposed to be the B-70,which would fly very fast andhigh, but was scratched afterthe Soviet Union oriented itsair defenses on that threat.

The Air Force developedB-1B “Lancer” bombers, whichwere designed to fly low withtheir adjustable wings sweptback. They took on unantici-pated stress when used inhigh-altitude missions in Af-ghanistan and the Mideastwith their wings forward.

Stealthy B-2 “Spirit” bomb-ers the Air Force developedused cutting-edge technology,but the program was slashedto 21 aircraft from an original132 when tensions with Mos-cow eased and budgets tight-ened, pushing the cost of eachcopy above $2 billion.

Pentagon disputes, mean-while, delayed development ofa Next Generation Bomber.Concerned about spiralingcosts, Defense Secretary Rob-ert Gates sent it back to thedrawing board in 2009 andtold the Air Force to stick toproven technology.

In 2018, growing frictionwith a rising China and re-newed tensions with Russiachanged Pentagon thinkingand led Jim Mattis, by thenthe defense secretary, to iden-tify the two as the U.S.’s mainthreats for decades to come.

The strategic shift gave aboost to the development ofan array of air war systems. Italso was the beginning of anew golden age for long-rangebombers.

Air Force generals last yearcalled for the service to have

to travel 1,000 miles.Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC,

General Electric Co.’s GE Avia-tion and the Pratt & Whitneyunit of Raytheon TechnologiesCorp. are competing for thecontract to sell new enginesfor the B-52, which would costbillions but save on fuel.

So by the late 2030s, theU.S. bomber fleet will be madeup of opposites: The sleekB-21, designed to slip past airdefenses, and the ungainlyB-52, which presents a hugecross section to radar but canlob ordnance from afar.

The strategy faces an arrayof challenges, including a po-tential flare-up with Iran thatwould distract the Pentagonfrom its “great power” mis-sion. For now, however, theB-52, which stood alert in theCuban missile crisis andproved its utility in conflictsfrom Vietnam to Afghanistan,appears poised to survive thetoughest confrontation of all:the Pentagon budget wars.

“We are a bomb truck,” saidLt. Col. Dennis Zabka, thesquadron commander and thesenior officer on the Guamflight. “We carry the widestvariety of munitions of anyaircraft.”

In late August, a B-52 hitturbulence over the Black Sea,a fault line between the Westand Russia, when a RussianSu-27 fighter flew within 100feet. A week later, two B-52smade a statement of their ownby circling over the Ukrainiancoast, not far from the Rus-sian-held Crimean peninsula.

On Jan. 17 a pair of B-52sflew from the U.S. to the Per-sian Gulf and back in a non-stop flight intended to deterIran—a mission the bombershave carried out five times inrecent months.

And in the western Pacific,B-52s have been a key part ofthe jostling as Beijing seeks toexpand its sphere of influenceand Washington aims to pre-serve its role as the region’spre-eminent military power.

China has tried to driveAmerican forces from near itsshores, shadowing Navy shipsin the South China Sea and de-manding that U.S. military air-craft avoid a Chinese self-de-clared air identification zoneextending 200 miles into theEast China Sea.

Guam is a crucial U.S. out-post in this contest. The AirForce is adding fortified bun-kers to Munitions StorageArea One at Andersen. TheU.S. Indo-Pacific Command isproposing to build a $1.6 bil-lion air defense network onthe island to supplement theThaad antimissile system de-ployed there in 2014.

Some of the defenses aremore rudimentary: Trapsbaited with mice safeguardAndersen’s runways to keepbrown tree snakes from slith-ering on to the airfield.

To East China SeaIt was from there that the

69th Bomb Squadron, whosehome base is Minot, N.D., setout on a mission to flythrough what China considersits air zone.

After climbing into an un-armed B-52 named “Chris-tine,” crew members strappedtheir legs, waist and chest intotheir seats, fastened their hel-mets and connected their oxy-gen supply.

They pulled out pins with ared lanyard from each arm ofthe seat, removing the safetyso they could eject if they hadto. As the plane flew north to-ward Japan, the crew used itsdecades-old radio to check inwith air traffic controllers inSan Francisco and Japan be-fore pivoting southwest to-ward China.

The crew was ready with ascripted reply when a Chineseair controller warned the B-52it would be intercepted: “I ama United States military air-craft conducting lawful mili-tary activities in internationalairspace.” No intercept oc-curred.

At the end of the 12-hourflight, the crew’s first stopwas to the maintenancesquadron, which workedthrough the night to get theold plane ready for its nextmission.

The adaptability of theB-52 has surprised former De-fense Secretary Gates, who asa boy used to watch theplanes from a nearby Boeingfactory fly over his family’shouse in Wichita, Kan. “Whoknew that 60 years later, thedamn thing would still be fly-ing?” he said.

and Russia.The retooling is a costly

reckoning for a military thatwas stretched by fighting mili-tant groups and focusing onlesser dangers posed by roguestates in northeast Asia andthe Middle East. The strategyhas been broadly embraced byLloyd Austin, President Biden’sdefense secretary, who mustnow find a way to resource it.

The Marines are getting ridof their tanks and instead aredeveloping the ability to oper-ate from western Pacific is-lands to bottle up China’sfleet. The Army recently con-ducted tests of its ability toharness artificial intelligenceand a network of sensors totake the fight to its foes. TheNavy is pursuing the develop-ment of unmanned ships.

The strategic pivot, how-ever, has been a particularboon for long-range bombers,which the U.S. is using to sig-nal that it can project poweraround the globe as Covid-19hobbles the home front.

To sneak through sophisti-cated enemy air defenses, theservice is developing the fu-turistic B-21 “Raider” bomber:a stealthy flying wing. To fillout its fleet, it is also countingon the B-52 Stratofortress, anaircraft designed in 1948 witha slide rule.

“It is like an old truck thatwas built when they actuallybuilt them tough,” said Gen.Charles Q. Brown, the AirForce’s chief of staff and a for-mer commander of its forcesin the Pacific. “The challenge...with a platform like that nowis how to bring in new tech-nology and capability.”

Modernizing itLike an old house getting

an extreme makeover, theplane’s durable air frame willbe preserved while its fuel-guzzling engines, vintage ra-dios, analog instrument dialsand internal weapons bay arereplaced with the most mod-ern systems.

So essential is the B-52 tothe Air Force’s plans that 76 ofthem will fly until at least2050. By then, the youngestwill be nearly 90 years old.

How the Air Force has cometo rely on such an unorthodoxsolution for the coming de-cades is the product of deci-sions made years ago whenthe Pentagon assumed theCold War was over and thenspent years fighting militantsin the Middle East.

Its reliance on the vintagebomber also reflects thelengths the Pentagon has goneto reorient itself for a world ofgreat-power conflict, as itstruggles to maintain its in-ventory while simultaneouslypursuing cutting-edge technol-ogy in the face of a mountingfederal deficit.

Conceived at the dawn ofthe nuclear age, the B-52 hadan original role of deterring,and if need be fighting, a nu-clear war. The eight-engineplane, with a wingspan almosttwo-thirds the length of afootball field, was nicknamedthe BUFF, which in polite com-pany stands for the “Big UglyFat Fellow.”

In the 1960s, a dozen B-52sloaded with nuclear weaponswere kept on continuous air-borne alert, their belliespainted glossy white to reflectthe heat of a potential nuclearblast, under a mission code-

ContinuedfromPageOne

skyrocketed up Hong Kong’sapp charts, with downloadsjumping 35-fold in the weekended Jan. 12.

“It recalls my childhoodmemories,” said 30-year-oldrisk consultant Anthony Wong,who used ICQ when he was ingrade school. He has sinceconnected with more than twodozen friends on the platformafter some bristled this monthat a privacy policy update byWhatsApp that would allowsome data to be stored on par-ent Facebook Inc.’s servers.

Some users were also exas-

ContinuedfromPageOne

perated by what they saw asFacebook’s efforts to curry fa-vor with China. WhatsAppsays it doesn’t have access tothe contents of personal mes-sages and says its planned pri-vacy-policy changes are re-lated to business users.

The ICQ app doesn’t neces-sarily address users’ privacyconcerns. Its messages are en-crypted, but it is owned by acompany in Russia—where thegovernment holds technologyfirms by a tight leash.

An ICQ spokeswoman saiduser messages are “nevershared with anyone,” exceptby court order.

For the revived Hong Kongusers, a change driven by pri-vacy concerns was mostlyovertaken by nostalgia for thedays when technology was afun thing for kids in the know.

Long before texting, ICQ—ahomonym of “I seek you”—letusers on PCs communicate

with friends across the streetor around the world. With itsgreen flower logo, goofy mes-sage alert sounds and numeri-cal user IDs, it provided a wayfor instantaneous communica-tion before smartphones andsocial-media apps.

Although “instantaneous”in those days was relative: Mr.Wong remembers how slow itwas to share music files withfriends. “It took forever todownload a song,” he said.

Earlier this month, AlvisSio and her friends werebrainstorming a replacementfor WhatsApp. “Why don’t wego back to ICQ?” one said.

“Back in the days with ICQ,you needed both people to beready at their computers inorder to send messages,” saidthe 30-year-old postgraduatestudent. She said the elaboratesequence of logging on, con-necting to the internet, findingfriends and starting a chat

was like a ritual.Tel Aviv-based Mirabilis

Ltd. launched ICQ in 1996. Itwas one of the first instant-messaging programs to gainglobal popularity. America On-line Inc. later acquired it for$287 million. Near the turn ofthe millennium it had about100 million users.

The Russian internet firmnow called Mail.Ru Group Ltd.bought ICQ from AOL in 2010and has expanded its offeringsbeyond desktop service to in-clude a smartphone app withgroup video calling, audiomessages and more. The ICQspokeswoman declined to sayhow many users it has butsaid it is most popular incountries such as Russia, Nige-ria and Germany. Mail.RuGroup runs VK, also known asVKontakte, Russia’s most pop-ular social network.

The spokeswoman saiddownloads in Hong Kong dur-

ing one week in January sur-passed those in last year’s fullfourth quarter. In the weekended Jan. 12, they soared to7,000, vs. 200 the previousweek, according to app analyt-ics firm Sensor Tower. Googlesearches for “ICQ” are at alevel not seen in a decade,Google Trends data shows.

Vicky Choi and her hus-band, Jay Pang, both 38, usedICQ as teens, though theyweren’t dating then. “Hello,”Ms. Choi wrote to her husbandin recent days on the platform,her first message in more thantwo decades. “Hi,” Mr. Pangreplied. “After so many years.”

Mr. Pang, an airline groundcrew worker, said his contactlist of friends had been frozenin time, with status updatesfrom 20 years ago. One read:“I’ll find my way,” a crypticphrase invoking the aestheticof angst-ridden “emo” rockmusic popular at the time.

Some of ICQ’s original ele-ments remain, such as its clas-sic “uh-oh” notification sound.

One feature now dropped:“random chats,” in which auser was randomly assigned achat partner somewhere.

Ms. Choi misses anothereliminated feature, invisiblemode, which allowed users to“lurk” without anyone know-ing they were online. “Whenmy boss texts me and I don’tfeel like getting back to himright away, I wish I could goon invisible,” she said.

Joyce Lai, a 30-year-old ex-ercise instructor, tried to taketo ICQ again recently. She hadcommitted her ICQ user num-ber to memory in fourth gradebut can’t log in because sheforgot her password.

“I’ve tried so many combi-nations of my ex-boyfriends’birthdays and phone numbers,but none of them worked,” Ms.Lai said.

250

0

50

100

150

200

bombers

FY2020 ’30 ’35’25 ’40

Note: Total number of bombers assigned tooperational units, used in training, tests or inmaintenance. Mitchell Institute projectionsbased on Air Force data, the Fiscal 2021 budgetand projections about the rate of B-21procurement. Fiscal year ends Sept. 30.Source: Mark Gunzinger, Mitchell InstituteKara Dapena/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Projection of theU.S. AirForce’s total active bomberinventory, by type of aircraft

By the early 2030s, theU.S. bomber forcewill bemadeup of the newest and oldestbombers in the Air Force’sinventory as the U.S. expandsits fleet.

Future Force

B-21

Currentinventory

Air Force’s statedminimum requirement

B-52

B-1B

B-2

U.S. ReliesOn B-52Until 2050

MessagingNostalgia:Back to ICQ

FROM PAGE ONE

at least 220 bombers for con-ventional missions, while sus-taining the nuclear triad thatincludes long-range bombersplus land- and submarine-based missiles. The bombergoal meant a big jump fromthe current 158 planes.

The Air Force moved aheadwith a new bomber called theB-21, expected to begin enter-ing the service’s inventory inthe middle to late 2020s. It ishoping to field at least 100. Tosustain its bomber fleet, theservice decided to extend thelife of its B-52s while savingfunds by gradually phasing outits tiny fleet of B-2s and bat-tle-weary B-1Bs.

“Part of the reason the AirForce is so dependent on B-52modernization is that otherproposed successors did notwork out along the way,” saidJeremiah Gertler, the militaryaviation analyst for the Con-gressional Research Service.

The B-52 is a plane with nohope of evading stiff antiair-craft defenses. And its fuel-guzzling engines were no lon-

ger made, requiring the AirForce to rely on a dwindlingreserve of engines and parts.

But the plane could firelong-range missiles and carrysatellite-guided bombs andmines. And alone among cur-rent Air Force bombers, itcould be equipped with nu-clear-tipped cruise missiles.

B-52s had another advan-tage: They had been boughtand paid for, at an originalcost of a little over $6 millionapiece. “You can’t even buy aLearjet for that these days,”said Alan Williams, a formerB-52 radar navigator who nowis the B-52 deputy programmanager at the Air Force’sGlobal Strike Command.

By overhauling the bombbay, the Air Force saw ways toboost the B-52s’ firepower fur-ther. That would enable themto carry eight precision-guidedweapons internally plus the 12they can lug on their wings.With new pylons, they couldalso carry superfast hyper-sonic missiles the service isdeveloping that are projected

*Uninhabited islands controlled by Japan, which calls them Senkaku, and claimed by China andTaiwan, which call them Diaoyu.Sources: U.S. Air Force (flight path); Chinese Ministry of National Defense via Federation ofAmerican Scientists (China’s ADIZ)

AB-52 flew into China’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)in February to show the U.S. doesn’t recognize Beijing’s claim tothe air space. The Chinese-claimed zone covers a group ofdisputed islands.

FlightMission

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Kara Dapena/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Top, a B-52 long-range bomber in flight; above left, the pilot of a B-52 that flew from Guam into Chinese-claimed airspace in the EastChina Sea last year; above right, the plane’s analog dials, which are set to be replaced by modern electronics.

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. * * Monday, January 25, 2021 | A10A

older are eligible to receivethe vaccine.

Officials in all three statessaid the problems stem from alack of vaccine supplies. NewJersey Gov. Phil Murphy hassaid the state moved forwardwith its plans to expand thevaccine eligibility pool be-cause the Trump administra-tion had promised that moredoses were on the way. Thenew Biden administration hassaid it would use the DefenseProduction Act to increasevaccine distributions.

As of Friday, New York hasadministered 1.3 million vac-

cine doses, while New Jerseyhas done more than 500,000,according to the states. Con-necticut said it has given258,000 doses as of Thursday.

“We completely understandthe anxiety of so many resi-dents who are waiting to bevaccinated,” Mr. Murphy saidat a news conference Friday. “Icannot be any clearer: Webuilt a vaccine infrastructurethat can handle this job. Weneed the doses.”

New Jersey health officialshave said a new hotline willopen this week with liveagents who will walk people

through the process or makean appointment for them.

Debra DeWitt, 58, for aweek tried unsuccessfully tobook an appointment at sev-eral vaccination sites for her82-year-old mother, who livesin Stirling, N.J. But Ms. DeWittfound a workaround: She wasable to book an appointmentfor herself through her ownhealth provider’s website, eventhough she isn’t 65 years old.She brought her mother to theappointment Friday and con-vinced the site to vaccinateher instead, she said.

“Not everybody has kids

GREATER NEW YORK

that can advocate for themand have the time to go do allof this research to find theins,” Ms. DeWitt said. “Itmakes me sad for other peo-ple.”

Yonkers, N.Y., residentChuck Hyman, 71, said he wasoverwhelmed by the numberof websites in New York avail-able to check for a vaccine.

“The confusing part forolder people about going on-line is there are a million dif-ferent websites,” Mr. Hymansaid. “So I did it the old-fash-ioned way and got on thephone.”

He called hotlines inWestchester, Rockland andSullivan counties for an ap-pointment for him and his 76-year-old wife Judith Liebman,who has pancreatic cancer. Af-ter several days he got themappointments in April, butthat wasn’t soon enough, hesaid. He then called a Covidtesting hotline and was con-nected with someone whobooked him and his wife a Jan.30 appointment at the JavitsCenter in Manhattan, he said.

“It’s the Wild West outthere for these systems,” saidBeth Finkel, state director forAARP New York. New York hasimproved its vaccine hotline,which was experiencing waittimes of several hours when itfirst launched, Ms. Finkel said.

Westchester County Execu-tive George Latimer said at anews conference Thursday

that he understands the irrita-tion residents feel, but thecounty has to juggle makingappointments available andmatching those up with theamount of doses it has.

“It would be worse to makean appointment and find outthat we can’t honor that ap-pointment because of a lack ofproduct,” Mr. Latimer said.

Nora Duncan, the state di-rector of AARP Connecticut,said the process there doesseem easier for seniors whoare computer savvy than inother parts of the region, butvaccine distribution is still a“mixed bag.” Getting vaccina-tions for the state’s home-bound population, those with-out email addresses and thosewithout transportation re-mains a challenge, she said.

Hartford HealthCare, whichruns 15 vaccination sitesacross Connecticut, still hasappointments open, saidJames Cardon, its chief clinicalintegration officer. The ap-pointments may not be at theclosest location to a residentand the time may not be con-venient, but there are appoint-ments available for qualifiedresidents, Dr. Cardon said.

On Friday, Hartford Health-Care launched a mobile vac-cine clinic for people living incongregate settings. It is alsoworking on a joint programwith a home-care company tobegin vaccinating homeboundresidents, he said.

Frustration is boiling overfor many seniors in the tri-state region after the rolloutof the Covid-19 vaccine hasbeen hampered by cumber-some online appointment sys-tems and a limited supply ofshots.

Neither New York, New Jer-sey nor Connecticut has a sin-gle website where people canfind all vaccine providers andcheck for appointment open-ings. As a result, many resi-dents say they are spendingdays clicking from one websiteto another in a hunt for an ap-pointment.

“It’s consuming me,” saidAnn Maria Flynn, 65 years old,who lives in Beach Haven, N.J.“I tried at midnight to get onsome of these sites. I’ve gonethrough the whole state ofNew Jersey, every single link.And every link is full.”

Advocates for seniors saythe rollout has been a bitsmoother in Connecticut,where vaccines are now opento those 75 and older, but it isstill challenging for those whoare homebound or aren’t com-puter-savvy. In New York andNew Jersey, residents 65 and

BY JOSEPH DE AVILA

Vaccine Sign-Ups ConfoundMany SeniorsNavigatingmultipleonline systems proveschallenging; ‘It’s theWildWest out there’

A man seeking a Covid-19 shot in Brooklyn last week found the vaccination site was closed.

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STATE STREET | By Jimmy Vielkind

Cuomo, State Legislators Head for Clash Over Tax IncreaseThe debate

about raisingtaxes as partof New York’sbudget isshaping up to

be a test of how far Demo-crats in the state Legislaturewill go to take on their partymate Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

After last year’s elections,Democrats have a two-thirdsmajority in both the state As-sembly and Senate—enoughto override a gubernatorialveto. Advocates of raisingtaxes are pushing rank-and-file lawmakers to flex theirmuscles during the budgetprocess, which will dominatethe Capitol until the next fis-cal year begins April 1.

Mr. Cuomo proposed a$193 billion spending planthat includes $1.5 billionfrom raising taxes on peoplereporting $5 million or morein annual income. But onebreath after describing the

plan, he fretted about its po-tentially negative conse-quences if wealthy peopleleave the state. Mr. Cuomosaid the plan can be avoidedif the U.S. Congress approvesmore aid for the state.

Senate Majority Leader An-drea Stewart-Cousins, a Dem-ocrat from Yonkers, said lastweek that she would push fora tax increase regardless ofthe amount of federal fund-ing. Assembly Speaker CarlHeastie, a Democrat from theBronx, has previously votedto approve tax increases andfruitlessly pushed to boostrates in December.

If neither side budges, theresult could be the first bi-cameral veto override duringMr. Cuomo’s three terms.

“We’re going to assert our-selves and see where thattakes us,” said Deputy SenateMajority Leader Mike Gia-naris, a Democrat fromQueens. “We have some tools

at our disposal, and we intendto take advantage of them.”

Many legislators havegroused about feeling dimin-ished since the Covid-19 pan-demic forced them to makemost of their operations vir-tual. They approved a law inMarch that gave Mr. Cuomounilateral power to issue di-rectives related to the pan-demic emergency that hadthe force of law.

Mr. Heastie insists that hehasn’t ceded power, explain-ing that his chamber passeda law in the last week of2020 to extend eviction pro-tections not just becausethey believed it was soundpolicy but also because “leg-islators want to show thatthey want to do their jobs.”

A group of unions and ac-tivist groups has beensteadily pushing for highertaxes to fund schools andother social programs, andsay New York lawmakers

should impose new levies onfinancial transactions andwealth in addition to the in-come-tax surcharge Mr.Cuomo has proposed.

“You cannot be afraid ofthis governor. The governoris one man!” said JamellHenderson, an organizer withthe activist group New York

Communities for Change,which supports tax hikes. “Ifhe’s trying to stop the prog-ress, then you all and we thepeople come together to col-lectively make the change.”

Mr. Cuomo said last weekthat raising taxes shouldn’t

be “a political statement,”and Mr. Cuomo’s senior ad-viser Rich Azzopardi calledMr. Henderson’s statementderanged. Just over half ofNew York’s income taxes aregenerated by the highest-earning 2% of filers, and Mr.Cuomo and state Budget Di-rector Robert Mujica saidthey are afraid higher rateswill prompt the wealthy toleave. Tax advocates say thisfear is overblown.

After the budget proposalwas introduced Tuesday, Mr.Mujica said: “Some in theLegislature take the positionthat you shouldn’t do anyspending cuts unless you do atax increase. So, this is an at-tempt to deal with that, andto start a dialogue about it.”

The governor has spentmonths postponing the con-versation on raising taxes,and instead smoothed outthe state’s cash flow by hold-ing back payments to munic-

ipalities, social-service pro-viders and school districts aswell as postponing raises forpublic employees.

Reframing the tax debatewith federal funding allowsMr. Cuomo to channel the ireof groups seeking more gov-ernment spending from Al-bany to Washington. He canalso disclaim responsibility iftaxes eventually do rise.

Andrew Rein, president ofthe Citizens Budget Commis-sion, a nonpartisan watch-dog, said Mr. Cuomo couldhave plugged his budget holewithout increasing taxes by,for example, reducing eco-nomic-development spendingand trimming state aid towealthy school districts.

Mr. Cuomo is counting on$1.5 billion from the tax in-crease to help bridge the$10.2 billion deficit in thecoming fiscal year.

jimmy.vielkind@wsj.com

‘We’re going toassert ourselves andsee where that takesus,’ said a lawmaker.

A village in the Hamptonshas found a way to tackle theempty storefronts blighting itsstreets: transforming theminto mini art galleries.

Southampton, the glitzy va-cation destination on the east-ern end of New York’s Long Is-land, now requires landlordsof storefronts that have beenvacant at least a month to joinwith local artists to liven upthese typically dreary eyesoreswith art installations.

Local artists supply the workat no cost, but the new law ap-proved by village trustees inJuly provides them a chance toshowcase their talents—andpotentially profit from the ar-rangement by selling their artto window shoppers.

“I think it’s an amazing wayto activate and reclaimspace—especially in townswhere there’s an offseason,”said artist Alice Hope, whoseilluminated “Priceless” instal-lation of chromed coat hang-ers, strung can tabs and shop-ping tags became the firstpiece to be featured throughthe program in July, brighten-ing the front of a formerwomen’s clothing store.

Towns and cities aroundthe U.S. have struggled to dealwith commercial vacancies,which have accelerated duringthe Covid-19 pandemic asmany consumers shifted toshopping online, away from

bricks-and-mortar retailers.Southampton’s law has

some caveats: The artworkcan’t make political state-ments or potentially offendchildren. Window displaysmust be approved by the vil-lage administrator unlesslandlords partner with eitherthe Southampton Arts Centeror Southampton Artists Asso-ciation. A section of windowscan also be set aside to in-clude “For Rent” signs.

Landlords who don’t obeythe law face fines rangingfrom $1,000 to $2,500, but of-ficials said no fines have yetbeen issued because the vil-lage is providing a grace pe-riod that is expected to endnext month.

The idea is the brainchild ofSouthampton Mayor JesseWarren, who made resolvingthe village’s longtime problemof empty storefronts duringthe colder months a part ofhis 2019 campaign, when thethen-36-year-old became theyoungest person ever electedto the post.

Mr. Warren, a Democratwho also owns and operatesthe retail store Tenet inSouthampton, said the villagecurrently lacks sewage infra-structure needed to attractmore restaurants, theaters andother big attractions, so hepitched his “Storefront ArtProject” as a temporary wayto breathe life into commercialcorridors.

Mr. Warren also said theinitiative is in response tosome Southampton landlordsrefusing to rent their spacebecause they have unrealisticrent expectations or becausethey believe they could finan-cially benefit from keepingstores closed.

So far the community’s re-sponse, including that of land-lords, has been predominantlypositive, he said. He said healso believes the rules couldwork in other municipalities—even one as large as New YorkCity.

“We have a lot of residentswith homes in New York City,and we’ve had a lot of themsay, ‘I wish we can do this

there,’ ” he said.Southampton is typically

flooded with heavy foot trafficduring the summer season,but empty storefronts havelong plagued the village dur-ing the winter, even before theCovid-19 crisis.

As of this past week, 16—or23.5%—of the 68 storefrontsalong Jobs Lane were vacant,while seven—or 10.6%—ofMain Street’s storefronts wereempty, according to a count bythe mayor’s office. Both stripsare about a quarter-mile longand are Southampton’s biggestshopping areas.

Besides Ms. Hope’s work, asecond installation by artistKerry Sharkey-Miller went up

two weeks ago at a formerJ.Crew retail store. The illumi-nated photo-based installation,called “Wild Things,” uses ani-mals, botanicals and other fea-tures of nature as its subjects.

A third installation, called“Quality Bakery,” will soon bemade public. It uses cupcakesand cakes made from porce-lain as a “series of domesticmonuments to life’s enchant-ments and perils,” accordingto its artist Monica Banks.

Other installations are inthe works and expected to berevealed soon, said Amy Kir-win, artistic director of South-ampton Arts Center.

New York City CouncilmanMark Gjonaj, a Bronx Demo-

crat who chairs the committeeon small business, said helikes the concept of South-ampton’s law and wants topropose legislation to create asimilar New York City programconnecting landlords with artgroups and community organi-zations.

However, he said he be-lieves the program shouldn’tbe mandatory.

“While I support the objec-tive, most New York City com-mercial properties are held bymom-and-pop owners, and Ido not support any effort thatwould place additional and un-necessary fines onto any smallbusiness during the pan-demic,” he said.

BY RICH CALDER

Village RequiresVacant StoresTo Display Art

Alice Hope’s ‘Priceless’ installation is showcased in Southampton, where empty storefronts have long been a problem during winters.

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GREATERNEW YORKWATCH

HUNTS POINT

Deal Ends StrikeAt Produce Market

Produce handlers and deliverydrivers at Hunts Point ProduceMarket in the Bronx approved anew contract with owners, afterprevious disagreements led to astrike last weekend.

About 1,400 members ofTeamsters Local 202 are coveredby the new, three-year agree-ment, according to the union’spresident, Danny Kane.

A union spokesman said theworkers will receive a 70-centhourly wage increase plus an ad-ditional 40 cents an hour tocover higher health-care costs.Hunts Point supplies 25% ofNew York City’s fresh produce,Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office said.

Mr. Kane said a raise wasoverdue to workers who havefaced greater risks during thecoronavirus pandemic.

Stephen Katzman, owner ofS. Katzman Produce and co-pres-ident of the Hunts Point’s coop-erative board, said the agree-ment gives workers an increaseof more than 10% in wages andbenefits over the course of thecontract. He called it “a very fairand equitable deal.”

The contract was ratified bymembers of the Teamsters onSaturday and took effect imme-diately.

—Ben Chapman

BRONX

Four Who StolePolice Car Sought

Police are seeking four peoplewho stole an unmarked policecar in the Bronx, drove it to anearby parking lot and stripped itfor parts, authorities said Sunday.

It isn’t clear how the banditsstole the parked police car ataround 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, policesaid. The thieves drove the carto a parking lot near CrotonaPark, where they stripped itdown, police said.

Surveillance images releasedSunday show three of the fourpeople who are being sought inthe heist. One, a woman, is car-rying a bag and a drill.

—Associated Press

crowdfunding platform. In2018, the company raisedmore than $2 million throughthe same platform.

Death & Co is among ahandful of bars in New Yorkthat have looked beyond thefive boroughs. EmployeesOnly, a drinking spot in Man-hattan’s West Village neigh-borhood, has branches acrossthe globe. Bathtub Gin, aspeakeasy-style bar in Chelsea,is planning to open in Los An-geles this year.

Popular bars in New Yorkhave a certain cachet that res-onates well beyond the city,industry professionals said. Inturn, that affords these busi-nesses opportunities forgrowth.

“You say ‘New York’ andpeople feel something,” saidSteve Schneider, a veteran barprofessional who is a partnerin an Employees Only locationin Singapore.

The timing could be good

for Gin & Luck to expand onthe bar side, given that thepandemic has brought com-mercial rents down in somemarkets, said industry profes-sionals, because of the vastnumber of retail establish-ments that have been forced

to close in recent months.Landlords “don’t want

empty spaces,” said Jeff Isaac-son, a New York-based hospi-tality consultant.

But with Gin & Luck’s moveinto hotels, the company is po-tentially looking at buying anddeveloping properties fromthe ground up or renovatingexisting ones. Ryan Diggins,owner of Gravitas, the devel-oper that is partnering withGin & Luck, said deals mightstill be had, though he hasn’tseen “killer” opportunities.

Nevertheless, Mr. Digginssaid he thought that there wasa strong market for the kindof properties his company andGin & Luck want to create to-gether, describing them as“lifestyle hotels with cocktail-centric hospitality.” He addedthat the properties wouldn’tlikely be called Death & Co,but might be named the Ram-ble Hotel, after his Denverproperty, and could incorpo-

rate a Death & Co bar.While it isn’t entirely un-

usual for a bar or restaurantcompany to go into the lodg-ing business, some industryprofessionals warned that thebar and hotel industries arevery different businesses, evenif hotels incorporate food andbeverage options.

“When you’re selling rooms,you’re selling a different mar-ket,” said Stephen Zagor, anadjunct professor at ColumbiaBusiness School who teachesabout the hospitality industry.

Mr. Kaplan said he consid-ered the businesses similar inthat they both emphasize ser-vice at their core. He also saidthat since bars have becomeincreasingly integral to hotelbranding, it was only logicalfor a bar operator to become ahotel owner and share in thepotential larger profit.

Otherwise, he said, “we’recreating this value that we’renot capturing.”

I F Y O U S M O K E D ,

G E T S C A N N E D .

Thanks to a new scan, lung cancer can now be

detected early when it’s more curable.

Talk to your doctor or visit SavedByTheScan.org

GREATER NEW YORK

Ever since it opened 14years ago, Death & Co has be-come one of New York City’smost heralded bars, a placethat helped usher in the craftcocktail movement with itscreative drink offerings andspeakeasy-style environment.

Now, Death & Co is settingits sights well beyond its orig-inal location in Manhattan’sEast Village neighborhood.

The bar, which is under theumbrella of hospitality com-pany Gin & Luck Inc., has al-ready established outposts inDenver and Los Angeles since2018. Gin & Luck’s future planscall for opening Death & Cobars or other newly createdbar brands at locations acrossthe country by the end of2022, said Gin & Luck founderand Chief Executive OfficerDavid Kaplan, who has alsobeen with Death & Co since itsinception.

Cities being considered in-clude Boston, Nashville, Tenn.,and Miami. Mr. Kaplan said hewouldn’t rule out a secondDeath & Co location in NewYork, either.

In addition, Gin & Luck ispartnering with Gravitas De-velopment Group, a Denver-based real-estate company, tocreate hotels, with high-profilefood and beverage programs,in U.S. cities in the comingyears. Gin & Luck’s DenverDeath & Co location is insidethe Ramble Hotel, a boutiquelodging owned by Gravitas.

Mr. Kaplan said that someof the company’s plans were inmotion before the coronaviruspandemic. But he said the pan-demic has accelerated thepush for expansion beyond theflagship New York Death & Cobar, which has been forced toclose for in-person service be-cause of health and safetymandates and is currently lim-ited to takeout and delivery.

“We’ve seen the need to di-versify,” Mr. Kaplan said.

To aid expansion, Mr. Kap-lan said his company hopes toraise between $4 million and$6 million this year from in-vestors through SeedInvest, a

BY CHARLES PASSY

Bar Looks to Expand Beyond City

The pandemic accelerated the push for the East Village’s Death & Co, known for its speakeasy style and craft cocktails, to branch out.

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PERSONAL JOURNAL.CAREERS & LEADERSHIP

racking and isolating.“You’re holding your breath the

entire time,” says MartyMcDonald, who gave birth to herdaughter, Elle Olivia, on Jan. 18.The CEO of Boss Women MediaGroup, an online community forwomen, she lives in Dallas, hoursaway from family in Tennessee.She’s only seen them once in overa year—for a funeral.

“I didn’t even hug my mom,”she says.

Still, she says some moments ofthe past year have injected extrahope into her experience of pre-paring to welcome a new life.

“We’re bringing our daughterinto the world when there’s thefirst Black woman vice presidentof the United States,” Ms.McDonald told her husband, KevinMcDonald. “She’s going to be ableto see possibilities.”

The journey to conceive duringCovid for Valerie Wernet and herwife, Emilie Wapnick, kicked offwith a road trip from their home

on British Columbia’sCortes Island. Theyhopped three ferries andtraveled 3,000 miles toCharlotte, Vt., wipingdown hotel rooms withLysol as they went andheating cans of soupthey’d packed in the car.

“We will go homewhen we’re pregnant orwhen we give up,” Ms.Wernet told me in De-

cember from the tiny cabin she andMs. Wapnick rented upon arrivingin the States. The 35-year-old ishoping to become pregnant with asperm donation from a friend ofMs. Wapnick who lives nearby.

“Everyone is waiting for life togo back to normal, and for us, ifwe’re lucky, life will never go backto normal,” Ms. Wernet says.

Chelsea Powers, a 31-year-oldmother of one in Carrollton, Texas,decided to try for a second baby de-spite being furloughed in May fromher job at a real estate company.

“We just decided that our livescouldn’t just stop,” says Ms. Pow-ers, who found out she was preg-nant in June. In November, she wasformally laid off. “As things pro-gressed and got worse, I definitelyfelt like, ‘What were we thinking?Why did we do this? This is in-sane,’” Ms. Powers says.

But she also feels a sense ofpeace. “The closer I get to meetinghim, it just doesn’t matter any-more.”

Marty McDonald, left,with her husband, KevinMcDonald. The Faulknerfamily, below left.

self and younger workers who aremore tech savvy and champing atthe bit to get their turn.

Mr. Foley, now a Boston-areaexecutive career-transition coach,tells clients to retire when theirskills are no longer in vogue. AtPyramid, he was against texting—he thought it too unprofessional.He didn’t think customer servicecould ever be entrusted to an au-tomated chatbot. When youngeremployees suggested replacing anobsolete HR system that he’d cre-ated, “Boy, did I say no to that,” hesays. He finally realized “theseguys are smarter than I am. I fi-nally got out of my way.” At 61, hewas ready to leave.

Retirement doesn’t just happen.“The heavens don’t open up, theworld isn’t at your feet when youretire,” says Mr. Laura. “Retirementis a made-up phase of life. It’s noth-ing until you put things into it.”

He asks clients to write downhow they’d spend one day in re-tirement; then how they’d spend aweek. Often they only make it half-way through. Once people figureout retirement could last 30 years,they realize that’s a long time toplay golf, knit or help register vot-ers. They want to find somethingto throw themselves into, saysChip Conley, who founded ModernElder Academy, a school in BajaCalifornia Sur, Mexico, where mid-lifers and retirees can problem-

solve a career transition.The transition is often painful

and messy, says Mr. Conley, 60,who founded the boutique hotelbusiness Joie de Vivre Hospitalityat age 26, sold it 24 years later,and then for a time was a strategyexecutive at Airbnb. “I had to endthe idea that I was a CEO. I had toright-size my ego and let go of allmy hotel knowledge,” he says.

He has clients create dreamboards, asking themselves, do youwant to be an angel investor, author,social worker, entrepreneur? Hehelps them figure out what skillsand experience they can apply in anew venue.

Stepping down works bestwhen you follow a plan, expertssay. Don’t expect execution to beperfect. Though Ms. Mulcahy knewshe wanted to be in nonprofits,“the need to fill your calendar isso strong that you say yes tothings you shouldn’t,” she says.“You worry about your shelf lifeand staying relevant.”

She settled into a seven-yearchapter chairing the board of Savethe Children, a nonprofit organiza-tion that took her all over theworld. She is now focused on help-ing younger career women navigatethe corporate world, specifically anetwork of 25 who meet in herapartment every quarter. “We sitaround and drink wine and solveeach other’s problems,” she says.

WORK& LIFERACHELFEINTZEIG

Career Conundrum:Knowing WhenIt’s Time to QuitMany baby boomers—especially those at the topof their game—strugglewith the decision toleave the workplace

Older workers have aproblem. They don’tknow when to quit.

As baby boom-eraCEOs, professors, law-yers, engineers and

others get older and keep theirjobs longer, it is raising uncom-fortable questions.

Is there an art to stepping downgracefully? “I’m not sure there’s anart. I think it requires will,” saysAnne Mulcahy, who was 56 whenshe voluntarily gave up the CEO jobat Xerox to make way for her suc-cessor, Ursula Burns. She is now 68.“It’s hard. It’s not something thathappens naturally if you like whatyou do and you’re good at it. Youhave to set time limits for yourself.”You also have to know what yourpurpose is after you retire or “yougo into this void that’s really verytough,” she adds. Leaving the C-suite was one of the hardest thingsshe’s ever done, says Ms. Mulcahy,who lives in Connecticut and is nowactively involved with nonprofits.

Mandatory retirement at 65ended for most jobs in themid-1980s, giving some people theimpression they could work for-ever. Since life expectancy has in-creased—from 70 years old in 1959to about 83 for today’s 65-year-olds—many people want to worklonger, for both personal and fi-nancial reasons.

At their peak, boomers, thoseborn between 1946 and 1964, num-bered almost 79 million, and theirranks include the first generationof career women and lots of peo-ple who remained single or got di-vorced. For many, work has takenon an outsize role. It provides pur-pose, fulfillment and community. Itcreates structure and routine.

Since many work at desks or inthe service industry—not manuallabor—boomers also have fewerphysical limitations that could cuta career short. “Retiring at 65makes no sense. Many people arestill at the height of their game,”says Gillian Leithman, a Montreal-based retirement coach who con-ducts seminars and corporate

BY BETSY MORRIS

n How long is it optimal to be inmy role? Is it time for a freshperspective?

n Do I want more control ofmy life?

n Can I afford a change?

n For Type A personalities, howwill I meet my need to achieve?

n What would I rather do?

n How will I reinvent my socialnetwork to make up for col-leagues I won’t see daily?

READY TO STEP DOWN? ASK YOURSELF THIS

needed to slow down and focus onlife at home. Or the pandemicbrought the silver lining of flexi-bility—remote work, canceledbusiness travel—that made havinga baby possible.

“Everything was kind of home-centered, with work and school,”says Landon Faulkner, whosewife, Kyra Faulkner, is due in Feb-ruary. “In some ways, it seemedeven easier.”

Mr. Faulkner, a dad of three inVineyard, Utah, had a vasectomyreversed in April after he and hiswife felt called to have anotherchild. Ms. Faulkner got pregnantby May, but the experience hasn’tcome without itsbumps: The whole fam-ily contracted Covid inNovember. Everyonerecovered well and thebaby is doing fine, Mr.Faulkner says.

A November surveyof nearly 4,000 users byModern Fertility, amaker of at-home hor-mone tests, found that70% weren’t changingtheir family planningdecisions as a result ofthe pandemic. Of the30% who were, most de-cided to delay having kids, or re-thought the proposition altogether.But a quarter of that 30% acceler-ated their plans.

“There’s some kinds of existen-tial crises that make people kindof re-evaluate priorities,” saysSarah Hayford, a sociology profes-sor at Ohio State University whostudies family formation and re-productive health. “You can imag-ine that someone might respond to

a very threatening crisis by saying,‘I want to strengthen my family.’”

Unintended births may also goup during this time, Dr. Hayfordnotes. It’s been harder for womento access birth control and abor-tions in some places, amid lock-downs and a slowdown in somemedical appointments.

No matter the circumstances ofthe pregnancy, expecting a babyduring a pandemic can be nerve-

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IT’S A STRANGE moment to bringa baby into the world.

The pandemic has changed muchof what it once meant to be expect-ing: a partner holding your handthrough an ultrasound appointment,crowded baby showers and unsolic-ited advice from hovering strangersin the supermarket, family flying into meet a new grandchild in thehospital.

The constant threat of the virushas made our health feel precari-ous, and pregnant women are athigher risk for severe disease ifthey become infected. Much of thecountry is either struggling finan-cially or bracing for economic im-pact. A Brookings Institution reportprojected there will be about300,000 fewer births in 2021, an 8%drop from 2019.

And yet, about a year into thepandemic, many would-be parentssay they’ve grown tired of waiting.Some paused fertility treatmentsin the spring only to realize Covidwasn’t going to disappear in amatter of months. For others,Covid was the push: the sign they

TheyOptedFor aBabyDuring thePandemic

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workshops. Nonetheless, 65 is stillthe line of demarcation at whicheverybody else thinks you shouldbe ready to retire, regardless ofwhether you agree. Another careercoach says it’s like having an expi-ration date on your forehead.

“People are turning traditionalretirement age and the gas tankisn’t empty,” says Robert Laura, aBrighton, Mich.-based retirementcoach and financial planner. “Theycan easily work til 75.”

That’s why so many peopleavoid planning for it. Until thepandemic, boomers were retiringat a rate of about 2 million a year.By last September, 40% of boom-ers in the U.S. had retired, accord-ing to a recent report by the PewResearch Center.

Dr. Leithman finds that mostpeople, even high-powered execu-tives, put off thinking about it un-til the 11th hour. When she asksthem what will get them out of

bed in the morning in retirement,most have no idea, she says.“They’re terrified.”

The transition is so difficultthat it has spawned a new indus-try of coaching and consultingfirms that focus solely on retire-ment. Many are run by former cor-porate executives who know thedifficulties first hand, like Bob Fo-ley, former CEO of Travelodge ho-tels and the former human re-sources chief of Pyramid HotelGroup. Mr. Foley says he wascalled in one day by the CEO atPyramid, who asked out of theblue if he had a plan to identifyand train his successor. “I thought,‘What, are you out of yourmind?’ ” he recalls. He was 53, andthe company was growing fast.“You go through that fear stage.”

He spent eight years hiring andtraining his much younger succes-sor, learning to appreciate the gen-erational differences between him-

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her family and discussing the fu-ture, she decided the time wasright to launch her business. “Ijust had nothing to lose. I hadsaved enough money to get it go-ing,” she says. “The whole industryis getting laid off. It was like, ‘I’mgoing to use my energy here. Ihave a company ready to go.’ ”

She ordered 50 pairs of bootsfrom her manufacturer andlaunched City Boots, hosting trunkshows in her hometown and set-ting up a booth at holiday marketsand Junior League events.

“The first year was very slow.Nobody’s heard of me. I don’tknow what I’m doing. I don’t haveany retail experience,” she says.“People were liking the product,though. It wasn’t really a hard sell,it was just getting comfortablewith selling something, for me.”

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Lizzy Chesnut Bentley, above, and below, holding the reins at age 7, with her two younger siblings, all in boots.

A former oil-industryexecutive turns toselling cowboy boots

PERSONAL JOURNAL. | CAREERS & LEADERSHIP

REBOOT | CAREER REINVENTION

buy her boots as gifts for mile-stone events. “What I love somuch is seeing how far the cow-boy boot can go,” she says, “andtaking my love for Western heri-tage and traditions, and helpingother people experience that.”

But businesspicked up. City Bootshas a showroom inFort Worth, a repre-sentative who doesfittings in Houston,and otherwise oper-ates online. As a re-sult, the company hasbeen well-positionedto survive the pan-demic, selling moreboots in the fourthquarter of 2020 thanin all of 2019. CityBoots range fromroughly $850 to $1,350 a pair.

Ms. Bentley says her customersinclude cowgirls, TV broadcastersand women who run billion-dollarcompanies. Brides like her heartboot— a traditional spin on a vin-tage pattern—and many customers

A performance review is anopportunity to showcaseyour contributions to your

employer. In most cases, thesemeetings are held annually, butsome companies hold more fre-quent, informal check-ins, oftenquarterly. Preparation is vital toarm yourself with evidence of yourperformance and how it has bene-fited your employer, which willhelp you to enter the meeting withconfidence. Here are eight tips tohelp you prepare:

1. Understand the purpose of yourperformance review.

It is natural to be nervousabout your review. “For many peo-ple, especially earlier in their ca-reer, it can be really intimidating. Iwish they felt more empowered,”says Allison Bertsch, head of talentacquisition and development atAegon UK. You should understandthe purpose is to help you do yourbest work and understand betterhow your contributions havehelped or hurt your employer.

The review is meant to be atwo-way conversation, in whichyou can identify areas for im-provement, not simply a sessionwhere you are being passivelyand directly evaluated. “Peopleshouldn’t feel like, going in, thatsomeone is going to, akin toschool, read me a report card andtell me all the ways I failed at allthese different things,” says Ms.Bertsch. “We’re so used to our

she doesn’t understand clearlyenough what your progress is onprojects, suggest providing morefrequent status updates.

Different managers have differ-ent styles and some prefer more orfewer details. Over time you shouldbe able to better gauge these andmake adjustments along the way.These reviews can be good milemarkers to ensure you are meetingyour boss’s expectations.

7. Think about areas of improve-ment for your next review.

Part of your review may includesetting goals for the months andyear ahead. You should have someideas in mind for what you wantto accomplish, which you can dis-cuss with your supervisor. “Proac-tively draft goals for next year toposition yourself as forward-think-ing with a growth mindset,” saysMrs. Cohen. “Show you’re alreadyplanning to capitalize on thisyear’s efforts by contributing onan even larger scale next year.”She says that you can then fine-tune these goals in your perfor-mance evaluation by discussinghow these may align with yourboss’s plans.

8. Track your progress regularly toprepare for your next performanceevaluation.

If you would like more feedbackor support from your manager, youcould also ask for more frequentcheck-ins. These sessions may helpyou to gain a better understandingof what is expected of you andgive you more confidence doingyour job. Your employer shouldaim to support you so you canmake solid contributions in yourrole. Use this feedback and put itinto action so you can achievegreat results that can be shared inyour next review.IL

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view, now is a good time to reviewthem. If you are a new employee,you might not have goals, but youshould have a clear understandingof your responsibilities and whatyou are expected to do to achievethem. During your review, youshould hit on those items, includinghow you went about achieving themand, if possible, specific data pointsas evidence.

4. Show how you have tried toimprove yourself.

Some companies offer access totraining programs and other ways

to learn new skills. You shouldmention any training you have un-dertaken and explain how it helpedyou improve your performance.Your new skills may qualify youfor new opportunities. You coulduse the review to discuss taking onnew responsibilities. You couldalso initiate a conversation aboutyour career goals and how you andyour manager can work togetherto achieve them. This might be aninitial conversation about an inter-

nal role change or promotion, or itcould be a check-in about yourprogress toward achieving thosegoals, depending on what careerstage you are in.

5. Show how you have adjusted toa challenging situation.

“If you began working re-motely in 2020, use this opportu-nity to highlight your virtual ac-complishments to show you didn’tskip a beat despite a change inyour work environment,” says Mrs.Cohen. You can bring up some ofthe ways you adjusted to remote

work and managedto remain produc-tive. “Demonstratehow you collabo-rated effectivelyacross global bor-ders—and videoscreens—to get thejob done,” saysMrs. Cohen.

6. Whatever yourperformance rating,don’t play defense.

When you meetwith your manager,don’t approach themeeting feeling likeyou need to defendyourself or makeexcuses. You shouldbe listening and

taking in feedback that might seemnegative at times. Explain that youunderstand these are things you canimprove upon. If possible, come upwith specific examples of how youwould set out to achieve these im-provements. If, for example, onecriticism was that you often seemoverwhelmed or disorganized, comeup with a strategy to better manageyour time and suggest some toolsyou plan to use to better track yourwork. If your manager says he or

education system, and our perfor-mance reviews shouldn’t feel likethat.”

“Keep in mind that it’s your 45minutes or hour with your man-ager to talk about where you thinkyou’re doing things well, whereyou think you have some thingsyou’d still like tolearn and whereyou can improve,”she says.

2. Leverage co-worker feedback.

Regardless ofwhether your em-ployer uses apeer—or 360-de-gree—performanceevaluation system,the people youwork with dailycan be a great re-source to help youunderstand yourcontributions. Theycan give you asense of what im-pact you’ve hadand where you might be able to im-prove. “Your case is always strongerwhen it’s delivered or reinforced bythose with whom you’ve worked,”says Carol Cohen, senior vice presi-dent and global head of talent andtransformation at professional-ser-vices company Cognizant.

3. Ask yourself what was expectedof you

If you set specific goals toachieve in your last performance re-

Eight Ways to Prep forPerformance ReviewsBY ANTHONY DEROSA

G rowing up in Amarillo, Texas,Lizzy Chesnut Bentley wasrarely without her cowboy

boots—a pink pair from her grand-father when she was 4 years old.

At Southern Methodist Uni-versity in Dallas, where Ms. Bent-ley was president of the studentOil and Gas Club, she developed areputation for helping studentsfrom out of state find their firstpair of Texas cowboy boots andwearing her own favorite pair—vintage men’s two-tone ostrichboots she bought for $30—at so-rority formals. By the time shewas 24, she had amassed a bootcollection 50 pairs deep, many ofthem vintage finds.

The footwear is both “func-tional and a fashion statement,”Ms. Bentley says. “You can wearthem all day. You can put on jeans,and a white T-shirt, and a red pairof cowboy boots, and you haveyour outfit right there.”

After graduating in 2012 shemoved to Houston to work at Hal-liburton as a financial analyst. Theoil business was booming and sheloved the city, where everyone shemet seemed to be professionallydriven. One element of corporateculture irked her, though: Shecouldn’t find a pair of cowboyboots that worked with her but-toned-up office wardrobe. “I’mwearing heels every day. I’m look-ing around, all the men are wear-ing cowboy boots, and I was justjealous,” she says.

Finally, she designed herown—of black buffalo leatherwith a single strip of white pipingup the side—that she tucked into

BY KATHRYN DILL

skinny black pants and wore witha blouse and a blazer.

Ms. Bentley always has had anentrepreneurial streak. When herhigh school boyfriend began alawn-care business one summer,she launched a competing venture.She explored boot-making as asideline, studying the industry andsaving between $500 and $1,000 amonth for the business she hopedto found. At the beginning of 2015she sold her first boots, a brownpair similar to the ones she haddesigned to wear to work, throughher Facebook page.

But she struggled to find theright manufacturer and she wasstill focused on her career in theenergy industry. In the fall of2014, Ms. Bentley moved to Dallasto handle investor relations for aTurkish exploration and produc-tion company. During her firstthree months, the price of oil wentto $65 a barrel from $110. “Every-

body knows whatthat means,” shesays. “People are go-ing to be losing theirjobs.”

While the oilmarket was in free-fall, she got a callfrom a representa-tive at a factory inMexico she had vis-ited nine monthsearlier searching fora manufacturer.Samples of her bootdesigns they prom-ised to send monthsago—an agreementshe assumed hadbeen forgotten atthat point—wereheaded her way. Theboots, had arrivedin December 2015,were perfect. Aweek later, she waslaid off.

After spendingthe holidays with

Name: Lizzy Chesnut Bentley

Age: 30

Location: Fort Worth

Education: Bachelor ofBusiness Administration,Southern Methodist University

Former job: Energy industryfinancial analyst

New job: Founder, City Boots

A-ha moment: Being laid offin 2015.

Most important piece ofadvice for changing jobs:“You can make excuses allday for not doing something,but at the end of the day, youneed to just go do it.”

UPDATE

Ms. Bentley at work this month on a design.

P2JW025000-0-A01200-1--------XA

THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | A13

ARTS IN REVIEW

the natural ruin of the tree seenthrough it. For Eva LeWitt—daughter of Conceptualist Sol Le-Witt—three thin “Resin Towers” oflayered colored discs seem to bub-ble up like thermometers in red,orange and blue. On the day I sawit, the diaphanous forms got lostin the late fall light. But since“Ground/Work” will be on viewthrough all four seasons, there willbe ample opportunities for themto come alive again.

“Knee and Elbow” by NairyBaghramian is the exhibitionstandout. This work of Carrara

of the cows’ presence on this ac-tive pasture by refashioning aworking cattle fence into a visualtutorial for several theories ofcomposition. It’s a conceptualjoke, with forms built into thefence meant to represent the ruleof thirds, the golden ratio, andtwo-point perspective. Havinggrazed on this last mealy offeringof Stone Hill, I felt all-the-moreready to feast on the collectioninside the museum.

Mr. Panero is the executive editorof the New Criterion.

marble and polished stainless steeldances up the hillside in expres-sive skeletal form. Arching shapesmime the mountains beyond whiletwo-toned stone refers to thewhite and pink facades of thebuildings below. The boundingsculpture speaks for itself, nonotes required. Now, if only itwere bigger. This impressive work,just five feet tall, calls out forgreater scale.

Returning to the Clark campus,we see a final sculpture. AnaliaSaban’s “Teaching a Cow How toDraw” is supposed to remind us

you to put “Atlantis” at the top ofyour don’t-watch list. If that’s thecase, please reconsider. (The filmis currently streaming on metro-graph.com/live-screenings/atlantis/, and will expand to virtual cine-mas on Friday.) Mr. Vasyanovych’sapproach is literally and figura-tively visionary. One aspect of thevision is its treatment of machin-ery. Not since Jennifer Baichwal’sseminal 2006 documentary “Manu-factured Landscapes” has therebeen a motion picture in whichenormous encrusted things—trucks, freight trains, a steel fac-tory in terminal fever—possessmore vitality than some of thetired souls who run them.

That has the indirect effect ofexpressing the devastation of theRusso-Ukraine war. But anotherpart of the vision is the spectacleof hope rising, uncertainly butpersistently, from the vast ashes.World-weary though he may be,Sergiy is attracted to one of themembers of the recovery team,Katya (Liudmyla Bileka), an ar-chaeologist before the war. He’scandid with her about his attach-ment to this shattered place. Hecan no longer live among normalpeople, he tells her. But she un-derstands. Normal isn’t the issue.Living is.

T aking the waters takes onnew meaning in “Atlantis,” afearfully powerful feature by

Valentyn Vasyanovych andUkraine’s Oscar entry for interna-tional features. In 2025, just onedystopian year after the supposedend of the Russo-Ukraine war, anarmy vet, Sergiy (Andriy Ry-maruk), ekes out a living truckingwater to polluted areas of his na-tive Eastern Ukraine. When he de-cides to take a long-needed bath,he pumps some of the preciousstuff from his truck into the ampu-tated bucket of a vanished excava-tor, lights a wood fire under thehuge clawed thing and absorbs theall-too-fleeting warmth.

Warmth is hard to come by inSergiy’s life. He spends long min-utes ironing a pair of frozen pantsthat he’s retrieved from a clothes-line outside his scruffy apartment.Long, slow rituals are the hallmarkof this film, none of them longer,slower, more meticulous or rivet-ing, in their grisly way, than thework of a volunteer team that re-covers and autopsies corpsesstrewn all across the ravaged land.Most of the bodies are partiallymummified, a fit condition for apartially mummified country (and,as befits its title, a sunken land).

By now I may have convinced

FILM REVIEW | JOE MORGENSTERN

‘Atlantis’: Sunken Souls

Andriy Rymaruk and Liudmyla Bileka in a scene from Valentyn Vasyanovych’s new movie

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Williamstown, Mass.

As the pandemic com-pels us to take our cul-ture al fresco, outdoorsculpture is having itsday in the sun. Thenext day, however,

might be partly cloudy. And thenext might bring a frost with thechance of freezing rain. In otherwords the outdoors, unlike thewhite cube of a gallery, can chal-lenge sculpture itself as much asthe scenery compels us as viewers.

When the Clark Art Institutelooked to bring art into the wilds ofits own backyard in Williamstown,Mass., the muddy, icy, windsweptchallenges of a New England hillsidecalled Stone Hill suggested an op-portunity to do something differentwith sculpture than just display artplopped in a plaza, as we often en-

counter such outdoor work. An exhi-bition called “Ground/Work,” orga-nized by guest curators MollyEpstein and Abigail Ross Goodmanand on view through Oct. 17, nowpresents six commissioned pieces bysix contemporary artists (all createdlast year) scattered around a 140-acre woodland pasture. This land-scape with trails that rise severalhundred feet and connect with alarger conservation area means visi-tors should be prepared for morethan a walk in the sculpture park.

As an institution best known forits collection of 19th-century Euro-pean and American art, the Clark iswise to use this outdoor space tobring contemporary voices and itsnatural assets into the mix. Througha language of reserved modernistform, each of these new works is

designed to engage with theweather and the vistas, the birdsand cows, all in “active dialogue,”according to exhibition literature,with this specific environment. It’sjust too bad we need a field guide tosome of the works in order to un-derstand the overwrought conceptsbehind their creation.

You could easily miss the firstwork on view, which is embedded inthe museum architecture itself. Jen-nie C. Jones has attached a 16-footsculpture of powder-coated alumi-num, wood and harp strings to theend of a free-standing wall. Called“These (Mournful) Shores,” thework is an Aeolian harp, meant tobe strummed by the wind, that, ac-cording to the label, refers to theMiddle Passage. It’s an elegiac ideabut with layers of conceptual mean-ing that muddy the effect. Its darkgray palette, meant to recall that oftwo seascapes by Winslow Homerin the Clark collection, furthermutes what should be a more reso-nant work.

Head up Stone Hill for a three-part work by Haegue Yang. “Migra-tory DMZ Birds on AsymmetricLens” focuses on three speciesfound in the borderlands betweenNorth and South Korea. A lentil-shaped base of soapstone supportslife-size clear resin models of thesebirds horizontally split in two. Thebottom half of each model is an in-verted form meant to serve as abirdbath for local species. If youmissed all that, you are not alone.When it comes to innovative manu-facturing, Ms. Yang cuts no corners.The Fresnel-lens-like striations ofher soapstone are enigmatic andtactile. But derived as they are fromspecimen scans taken around theDMZ, her resin models are tooclever by half and never take flight.

In a far corner of the grounds,Kelly Akashi’s “A Device to See theWorld Twice” trains an acryliclens, over 6 feet tall, on an old ashtree that happens to have fallenafter the sculpture was designed.Here an attempt at a rusticatedframe holding up the lens detractsfrom the invitation to meditate on

ART REVIEW

AnOutdoor ExhibitionOf Cloudy ConceptsBY JAMES PANERO

At the Clark, six newoutdoor works engagewith the museum’s140­acre campus

Clockwise from above: Eva LeWitt’s ‘Resin Towers,’ Nairy Baghramian’s ‘Knee and Elbow‘ and Kelly Akashi’s ‘ADevice to See the World Twice’ (all 2020), included in the Clark Art Institute’s ‘Ground/Work’

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A14 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

Tom Brady is back in the SuperBowl.

So is Patrick Mahomes.Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers

upset the Green Bay Packers 31-26in the NFC Championship beforeMahomes and the Kansas CityChiefs dispatched the Buffalo Bills38-24 in the AFC Championship.

It sets up a matchup between thelast two quarterbacks to win theSuper Bowl. One is the greatestquarterback of his generation, with10 Super Bowl appearances. Theother is the greatest quarterback ofthe next one.

It was just two years ago thatBrady and Mahomes met in the AFC

BY JARED DIAMOND

Hall Vote Becomes Test of CharacterAlmost every good candidate on this year’s ballot falls short in the integrity and sportsmanship department

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Tom Brady is back in the Super Bowl.

Barry Bonds has hit more home runs than anybody in major-league history. He is in his ninth year on the Hall ballot.

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WeatherShown are today’s noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.

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Today Tomorrow

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CABINETMEMBERS |By BenjaminMcAvoy-Bickford

Across1 As clear as ___6 Bank offerings,for short

9 “That’spoppycock!”

14 “Argo,” “Fargo”or “Key Largo”

15 Tennis serve thatnicks the net

16 Make amends17 Word with

ballerina ordonna

18 It’s between Can.and Mex.

19 Puts in the mail20 What a truck

driver might useto eat?

23 Manor setting24 Not well

25 ___ avis29 Cruller’s cousin31 Lacking in vitality33 Lawyer’s job36 What a scientist

might use to eat?38 Prez from Illinois39 Massive Brit.

lexicon41 Guitarist’s

accessory42 “Wow!”43 What a

quarterbackmight use to eat?

46 Swindles47 Cheese that tops

some bagels48 Concrete-

strengtheningrod

51 Scorch

52 League for theWarriors andWizards

54 Self-centeredsort

58 What an alienmight use to eat?

61 “Germinal”author Zola

64 Grp. whosemembers mayshoot eagles

65 Skyscraper unit66 Spanish snacks67 Majestic tree68 Medley makeup69 Change with the

times70 Ruby in the

AmericanTheater Hall ofFame

TheWSJ Daily Crossword | Edited by Mike Shenk

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40 41 42

43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69 70 71

s

Solve this puzzle online and discuss it atWSJ.com/Puzzles.

71 Alaska, on somemaps

Down1 Plentiful2 British primeminister Johnson

3 Kick out4 Tart beverage5 Crude shed6 These words, forexample

7 Regardless of8 Play for time9 Tense with -edendings

10 Turned right, say11 Term of

endearment12 Common

conjunction13 “Isle of Dogs”

directorAnderson

21 One of 100 in theCapitol Bldg.

22 Frighten26 Puerto Rican pal27 Out of bed28 Is sore30 High hairstyle32 Sharp bite

33 Houses, inHonduras

34 Mistreat35 Color for some

old photos37 Chronicle39 Domain name

suffix for manynonprofits

40 Magazine namedfor a “fine blackwood”

44 Hat hang-down45 Dispute46 Salad cube49 Would-___

(aspirants)50 Tennis great

Andre53 Human, e.g.55 App signifiers56 Suit fabric57 Secret meeting59 For fear that60 Mousetrap or

Monopoly61 Seventh Greek

letter62 Steaming63 Light-colored

brew, for short

Previous Puzzle’s Solution

The contest answer isMELODY. The last letters ofthewords in the six longest Across answers spellmusical notes (like RE from CRATER LAKE). The cluefor KEY suggests finding the equivalent letter notesfor each (RE=D,MI=E, SOL=G, TI=B, LA=A, DO=C).Those letters are each a separate letter at the end ofone of the clues (like “Codewith a dot for E”), and,keepingwith the theme of ends, the last letters ofthe answers to those clues spell the contest answer.

P S U C H A F F M A I LH I L L C A C A O A W R YA L I T C R A T E R L A K ES A M R A I M I S A L KA T E A M T E E U PT E D O W E A S S N S A

B R I N G S T O H E E LO N C E C O O K E A D D SF A I T A C C O M P L IL I N H A H E S E R I BA L E V E I C O M E

R E A S C O R A L S E AG R A N D P I A N O A C A DM E M O A D R E M R O S SA D A M M O R S E K E Y

The National Baseball Hall ofFame suffered unprecedentedlosses over the past year, withseven members dying in 2020 andthree more already passing in2021. And with the results of themost recent election arriving thisweek, there’s a good chance thatno new players will be inducted toreplenish the ranks in Cooper-stown.

The reason: The best candidatesare failing the Hall’s character test,signaling a new era in how voterstreat the most nebulous—and con-troversial—barrier to entry forbaseball’s highest honor.

Eligible members of the Base-ball Writers’ Association of Amer-ica receive Hall-of-Fame ballots ev-ery autumn instructing them tochoose candidates not only basedon their performance on the field,but also on their integrity, sports-manship and character. Some vari-ation of those words have beenpart of the criteria for 75 yearsand have caused confusion andfierce debate ever since.

This year has put the meaningof the “character clause” to the ul-timate test. Virtually all of theplayers on the ballot with themost obvious Hall-worthy statis-tics have something on their résu-més that, depending on one’s in-terpretation of the characterclause, could disqualify them frominduction into Cooperstown.

When vote totals are unveiledTuesday, the result could well bethat no players reach the neces-sary 75% for enshrinement. Thatwould be just the fourth time since1960 that the BBWAA failed tovote anybody into the Hall.

What’s left is a bunch of hold-overs with mantles crowded withMVP trophies, Cy Young awards,Gold Gloves—and questions be-yond the numbers that have left

voters contemplating the power ofthe character clause.

“You’re supposed to be doing afun thing, voting for the Hall ofFame,” said Ryan Thibodaux, anOakland Athletics fan who trackspublicly available ballots. “Insteadyou’re trying to weigh varioustransgressions and indiscretionsand it just doesn’t seem like it’s alot of fun.”

One group of players’ extraordi-

nary accomplishments have beenshrouded in accusations that theyused performance-enhancing drugsduring their careers, an issue thathas polarized voters for years.Leading this class are Barry Bondsand Roger Clemens.

Bonds has hit more home runsthan anybody in major-league his-tory. Clemens won a record sevenCy Young awards. The specter ofPEDs has kept them out, with

enough voters concluding thattheir alleged use violates the char-acter clause.

Bonds and Clemens are in theirninth year on the ballot, meaningthey have just one more year of el-igibility left. Their vote total hasrisen steadily, from the mid-30%range in 2013 to just over 60% lastyear. But Thibodaux said that judg-ing from the available data, voters’opinions on how to handle PEDs is

largely “set in stone,” and there’sno indication that there are anymore minds to change. Other slug-gers who have been linked toPEDs—like Manny Ramírez, GarySheffield and Sammy Sosa—havealso failed to generate much sup-port.

Recently, the character clausehas risen to the forefront for rea-sons that extend far beyond base-ball, inspired by the larger culturalturmoil around issues that pastvoters dismissed. In some cases,these off-field actions could makethe difference between beingelected to Cooperstown and fallingshort.

Consider Curt Schilling, thegreat right-handed pitcher perhapsbest known for his “bloody sockgame” against the New York Yan-kees as a member of the BostonRed Sox during the 2004 postsea-son.

He was on a clear trajectory forCooperstown, receiving 52.3% ofthe vote in 2016. Later that year,he posted a tweet with a photo-graph of a T-shirt endorsing thelynching of journalists. His vote to-tal dropped to 45% in 2017. Morerecently, he tweeted in support ofthe Capitol rioters earlier thismonth. After that, one voter wentas far as to ask the Hall of Fame torescind his vote for Schilling afterit was cast, a person familiar withthe matter said, but was denied.

The support for Schilling, nowin his ninth year on the ballot,climbed back to 70% in 2020, put-ting him within just 20 votes ofenshrinement. He still could get in,either this year or next. Had it notbeen for voters invoking the char-acter clause, it wouldn’t be a de-bate.

“Without a Twitter account,Schilling probably would either bein the Hall of Fame or would be inthe Hall of Fame this year,” Thi-bodaux said.

touchdown drives to make it 28-23.Brady, at one point, threw intercep-tions on three straight drives.

With just over two minutes left,Rodgers took the Packers to the 8-yard-line. But he threw threestraight incompletions, and thePackers faced fourth-and-goal. Theykicked the field goal, hoping to getthe ball back again and put thegame in Rodgers’s hands. Rodgersnever got the ball back.

Brady, 43 years old, left the NewEngland Patriots last off-season af-ter spending two decades there andwinning six Super Bowls. Now he’sone game away from winning hisseventh NFL title. And Mahomes isone game away from winning hissecond since Brady’s sixth.

the first team in NFL history to playthe Super Bowl on its home field,with the game taking place at Ray-mond James Stadium on Feb. 7. TheChiefs, meanwhile, now have achance to be the NFL’s first back-to-back champions in 16 years—sinceBrady’s Patriots.

Brady’s triumph was particularlydramatic. There were bombs, shock-ing interceptions, and two criticalfourth-down decisions that swungthe balances. There was an electri-fying duel featuring the most suc-cessful quarterback of all-time,Brady, and the one who was thebest in the NFL this year, AaronRodgers. The finish was a frenzy.

Tampa Bay raced out to a 28-10lead but Rodgers led consecutive

Championship, but that was a life-time in NFL years. Brady was lead-ing the New England Patriots backthen, and Mahomes was in his firstseason as a starting quarterback.The Patriots won that thriller inovertime on their way to their sixthSuper Bowl title.

Everything changed over thenext year—and quickly. Mahomesand the Chiefs won it all the nextyear. Brady and the Patriots bowedout quickly and quietly. Brady, aftertwo decades in New England, de-cided to go to Tampa Bay.

Their wins set up a spectacularlyjuicy Super Bowl, and not simplybecause of the Brady-Mahomesshowdown. Tampa Bay’s win onSunday will make the Buccaneers

BY ANDREW BEATON

Buccaneers vs. Chiefs—Super Bowl LV Is Set

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How Labor GotIts HorsepowerMidnight in Vehicle CityBy Edward McClelland(Beacon, 221 pages, $27.95)

BOOKSHELF | By Roger Lowenstein

H ere’s a remarkable fact: In 1980 the median incomefor young workers in Flint, Mich., was higher thanin San Francisco. Flint was a company town, and as

Edward McClelland says in “Midnight in Vehicle City”:“There was never a better time to work for General Motors.”

Who could disagree? Employees at GM and the otherbig auto makers had cost-of-living adjustments, two carsin their driveways, lifetime health care and a pension. InMichigan, they had summer cottages and deer huntingtrips Up North.

It all arose, so Mr. McClelland posits, from a 1936-37sit-down strike when auto workers in Flint struck GM anddemanded bargaining recognition for the fledgling UnitedAuto Workers of America.

The strike lasted 44 days. It was violent on both sidesbut turned into a standoff in which the UAW refused to callan end until it won exclusive bargaining rights, and GMrefused to talk until the workers left its premises.

Mr. McClelland tells thestory of those tension-filleddays, when strikers armedwith car-door hinges andhomemade blackjacks fendedoff tear gas and the Flintpolice. According to thebook’s subtitle, Flint was“the strike that created themiddle class.” The author, ajournalist and historian fromLansing, barely bothers tosubstantiate that claim, buthis chronicle of the strike iscompelling.

The workers, who riskeddismissal for union organizing,had plenty of grievances: piece-

work wages, undependable hours, grueling “speed-ups,”capricious foremen, intolerable heat and lack of ventilation,risk of injury—all without health insurance.

The UAW, energized by the up-and-coming Reutherbrothers, probably represented only a minority of theworkers. John L. Lewis, the head of the umbrella Congressof Industrial Organizations and the union’s patron saint,refused to sanction a vote on representation. The union’sdemand to be the workers’ exclusive representative struckAlfred P. Sloan, president of GM, as outrageous.

He wasn’t the only one. Many employees expressed supportfor a company-friendly labor organization hostile to the strike(some surely felt pressured to do so), and even the AmericanFederation of Labor, a rival labor umbrella, took issue withLewis’s demand for exclusive bargaining. But Lewis, acharismatic labor leader who spoke in biblical allusions, wasa shrewd tactician. Striking workers occupied the GM plantsthat manufactured the dies and engines on which the entireGM universe depended. Workers in other plants also struck.Ultimately, 125,000 workers in 25 cities were idled.

Sloan was one of the first modern CEOs, but he was nomatch for Lewis in public relations. An anti-New Dealfinance guy who worked in New York, not Detroit, Sloandidn’t have a feeling for conditions on the line. His $201,000salary and high starched collars made him easy to satirize.

Sloan had the law on his side, procuring an injunctionordering the strikers to vacate the factories. Lewis gambledthat Frank Murphy, Michigan’s labor-friendly governor,who had dreams of higher office, wouldn’t enforce it atthe risk of violence. And indeed, Murphy employed theMichigan National Guard only as a peacekeeper, installingthem as a buffer to prevent further violence.

Sloan tried turning off the heat in the buildings (thestrike began in frigid weather on Dec. 30) and barring fooddeliveries. But he couldn’t risk a public-health disaster andsoon relented. Meanwhile, the workers played poker.

It was left to officials, especially in Washington, toresolve the strike, which they were eager to do—this beingthe eighth year of the Great Depression. The secretary oflabor, Frances Perkins, a progressive social reformer andthe first woman to serve in a cabinet, struggled to getSloan and Lewis in the same room. She pleaded with herboss, Franklin D. Roosevelt, to help. The patrician FDR(rounding out Mr. McClelland’s very good cast) washorrified by the union’s seizure of property, but he wasn’tabout to anger labor, which had supported his 1936 re-election. He kept his distance.

Ultimately, Sloan had to make a deal. Within months,the UAW was recognized in 17 plants and soon became theexclusive agent in the industry. As the years went by, theauto company earned a new corporate sobriquet: “GenerousMotors.”

“The communists boasted of creating a workers’ paradisein the Soviet Union,” Mr. McClelland chortles, “butMichiganders lived in the real thing.” Paradise is nice, butwas the UAW truly a success? Flint is now famous not forits middle class but for violent crime and a contaminatedwater supply. The author says its poverty rate is the highestin the nation. As for UAW membership, it has collapsed.Today librarians are more likely to belong to a union thanauto workers.

The UAW’s slump has now endured for as long as itsglory days. This fact casts a shadow over “Midnight inVehicle City.” Mr. McClelland gets around to the union’sdecline in the epilogue, where he pointedly asks: “Werethe victories of the sit-down strike ephemeral?”

The author clearly thinks they weren’t. Far from beingobsolete, Mr. McClelland says, the UAW model, sit-downstrikes and all, could be recycled today. If workers were tooccupy Amazon’s fulfillment and delivery centers, he says,they could “shut down American commerce” and revive the“middle class.”

The other possibility is that the UAW reached its zenithat a singular historical moment, when Europe and Japanwere recovering from war and developing nations had yetto emerge as industrial competitors. Management signedlabor contracts that turned out to be devil’s bargains—unsustainable in any world in which global competition wasrestored. It’s not that labor can’t, or shouldn’t, reorganize.But they would be wise not to ignore the unhappy coda tothe story that Mr. McClelland has set forth.

Mr. Lowenstein is the author of “America’s Bank: The EpicStruggle to Create the Federal Reserve.”

A sit-down strike at General Motors outragedAlfred Sloan, the company’s president. As daysturned into weeks, he decided to make a deal.

Henry Aaron Was Admirable in Anonymity

W e were in the fetch-your-own-coffee areaof the Embassy Suites

airport hotel in Columbus,Ohio. We had never met, but Iwas almost certain who hewas. And I was surprised thathe had attracted not a singleglance from anyone else in theplace.

This was five or six yearsago. Henry Aaron—he alwayspreferred Henry to Hank—hadpassed his 80th birthday, andin a business suit at the tablenext to mine he read thenewspaper and passed thetime alone.

There seemed to be a stirin the lobby, and I asked ayoung hotel employee whatwas going on. She told methat Tony Hawk, a renownedskateboarder whose likeness

has been featured on a seriesof videogames, was on thepremises.

Henry Aaron had heard myquestion and her answer. As ifreading my mind—why washe, one of the greatest base-ball players who ever lived,

sitting here seemingly unrec-ognized?—he said, with asmile:

“It’s been many years sinceI wore a uniform.”

Meaning: At his age, he wasnot unaccustomed to momentsof anonymity. Especially if peo-

ple were encountering him outof context, in a place there wasno obvious reason for him tobe, with no announcement.

As a boy I had been thrilledevery time I opened the waxywrapper of a pack of Toppsbaseball cards to find, coatedwith pink dust from the hardslab of gum, the earnestyoung face of Henry Aaron ofthe Milwaukee Braves. Whenyou’re a kid it never occurs toyou that the day may comewhen you are talking withsuch a man as if you aresomehow inhabitants of thesame solar system.

He told me that he servedon the board of a retailer thatowned shoe stores around thecountry, and that he was ex-pected to make a certain num-ber of trips each year in ful-fillment of his duties. Thatwas why he was on the road

today. He said travel was nolonger easy for him, and thathe would soon give up theboard seat.

I wish I had been more elo-quent that day; I wish I hadbeen able to express to himmore fully the admiration Ifelt for the grace with whichhe had lived his life. I did mybest but I’m sure I came upshort.

Coming up short is some-thing he never did. After hisdeath at 86 Friday, as Iwatched the television clips ofhim swinging a wooden batwhile long-ago crowds roared,I could see the gentleman withthe newspaper at the table forone, so comfortable in thequiet.

Mr. Greene’s books include“Chevrolet Summers, DairyQueen Nights.”

By Bob Greene

‘It’s been many years,’the baseball great toldme over coffee, ‘sinceI wore a uniform.’

OPINION

Ding dong,he’s gone, butD o n a l dTrump’s bansfrom Face-book, Twitter,Google, Red-dit, Snapchat,Grindr (wait,what?), Pin-terest, TikTokand others

mostly persist. Don’t bans onMr. Trump and others violatethe First Amendment? Actu-ally, it’s private companies in-voking their own First Amend-ment right to bar things theydon’t like. But even TwitterCEO Jack Dorsey called it “afailure.” That’s also true ofParler’s decapitation. Nevermind that these actions seempartisan and hypocritical; thebans will continue until moraleimproves. Democrats maycheer but the precedent isscary—soon they’ll be silenc-ing their own. Vive la guillo-tine electronique.

Expect the siren calls forregulation to become deafen-ing—mostly focused on “up-dating” Section 230 of the1996 Communications DecencyAct, the provision that limitssocial-media companies’ liabil-ity for things users say. A yearago Joe Biden said it should be“revoked, immediately.” Thelaw states that except for ille-gal materials like child pornog-raphy, companies can host ev-erything and employ their owncommunity standards to takedown what they consider of-fensive.

This mess was all predictedby a comic strip (really!) in2004, when only Harvard dorm

Online SpeechWars Are Here to Stayresidents knew about TheFace-book—and Twitter was twoyears away. John “Gabe” Ga-briel—the alter ego of one ofthe creators of Penny Arcade, aweb comic—came up with theGreater Internet [Jerkwad]Theory (obscenity deleted).The theory is spelled out on agreen chalkboard: “NormalPerson + Anonymity + Audi-ence = Total [Jerkwad]” whileinterpreters note that “normal,well-adjusted people may dis-play psychopathic or antisocialbehaviors when given both an-onymity and a captive audienceon the Internet.” It’s no longera theory, is it?

In our new slushy, snow-flake-soaked society, somefolks are offended by justabout anything, and are quickto deploy torches and pitch-forks to silence and cancelanything not currently consid-ered politically correct. It’sworth reiterating: social mediaand all its benefits (ask smallbusinesses) wouldn’t existwithout Section 230. Insteadof hiring hundreds of thou-sands of coders, Facebook andTwitter would instead be giantlaw firms forever fighting law-suits.

Still, Facebook ran ads allfall practically begging for reg-ulation. But any attempt to“fix” Section 230 would surelykill it. Legislation would be abicameral camel—a horse de-signed by committee—tryingto define community stan-dards, hate speech, what “in-cites” riots, what constitutes“systemic” racism and on andon, with the inevitable loop-holes for certain politiciansand favored groups.

Lost in the hysteria of Sec-tion 230 is the fact that itdoesn’t currently stop anyonefrom suing social media users.But that can be hard since somany are anonymous or al-most impossible to identify.Just who is @barronjohn1946?Big Tech has all the money, soit would be easier to suethem—but you can’t.

Twitter tried to quash the

unmasking of an anonymoususer, @whysprtech, who in2016 had released forged FBIdocuments concerning thedeath of Democratic NationalCommittee staffer Seth Rich.Last fall, courts ruled thatTwitter had to release that in-formation when Rich’s brotherwanted to sue for defamation.

In many ways, that’s the so-lution—end anonymity. OnWall Street it’s called “Knowyour customer”: Citigroup CEOMichael Corbat talks about thebank’s KYC rule all the time.Goldman Sachs forgot aboutKYC when it did deals with theswindlers at 1MDB. Know yourcustomer is mandated to stopmoney laundering. Maybe itcan work for rhetoric launder-ing and put an end to Gabe’stheory.

Sure, there’s value to spon-taneous users speaking freelyabout everything, but no onereally knows how many fake

accounts spewing fake newsexist. Truth is elusive. So whynot impose know-your-cus-tomer on social-media compa-nies. Facebook and Twitterdon’t want to know their cus-tomers simply because itwould be expensive. Too bad.Yes, it would be hard and theiruser counts would drop, maybehalve, but advertisers wouldrejoice. It might be cheaperthan today’s band-aid of hiringtens of thousands of contentmoderators.

How to do it? Require acredit card, like Apple does touse its app store? Maybe. Adriver’s license? Passport? Atrip to the post office or DMV(yikes!) to be identified? Re-quire showing your voter ID?Oh that’s right, there is novoter ID. Any way you choose,identify posters.

Let’s face it, Twitter can bea cesspool of snark. Of course,that’s what attracts many of us.Will that change? Maybe. But Ilike a world in which someonecan be sued when he poststhreatening language. If some-one and libels you, you can suehim. Post about buying zip tiesand invading the Capitol, andthe FBI knocks on your door.This would put an immediatedamper on today’s worst of-fenders.

Every social-media com-pany would complain but se-cretly agree with a know-your-customer mandate. Thealternative is mindless legisla-tors fatally rewriting Section230 and vengeful swamperscontinuing their gung-ho questto break up everything insight.

Write to kessler@wsj.com.

Both left and rightwant to regulate socialmedia, but their ‘fixes’would break the web.

INSIDEVIEWBy AndyKessler

Some 8,000H o n d u r a nasylum seek-ers tried toget up a wel-coming partyof sorts forPresident JoeBiden thismonth. Theireffort to reachthe U.S.

southern border in at leasttwo caravans was repelledthanks to agreements thatPresident Trump made withMexico and Guatemala to useforce to intercept illegal

aliens. But Central America re-mains a simmering cauldronof would-be migrants desper-ate to work in the U.S.

Mr. Biden now has to comeup with his own strategy.More resources at the borderto process applicants couldhelp. But without new incen-tives for migrants to followthe law, the U.S. will remainheavily dependent on the mili-tarization of immigration pol-icy in Guatemala and Mexicoto contain the inevitable flowsof illegal aliens.

The Hondurans seem tohave concluded logically thatwith the Democrats in poweragain, Trump-era restrictionson asylum were sure to belifted. Yet on Jan. 17 NBCNews reported that a seniorBiden transition official saidits message to the migrantswas that this “is not the time

Biden’s Chance to End Border Chaosto make the journey.” Thatsame official also said they“need to understand they’renot going to be able to comeinto the United States immedi-ately.”

Nice words of warning didnothing to discourage the mi-grants who had set out on Jan.15. By Jan. 18 they were en-gaged in violent confronta-tions with Guatemalan Na-tional Guard and nationalpolice. Mothers in tears sat onthe ground holding their chil-dren while young men blockedroads, threw stones, and triedto push their way past law en-forcement.

Reports from the front saythat thousands were turnedback. My sources say the resthave broken into smallergroups that continue to movenorth. The White House saidover the weekend that Mexi-can President Andrés ManuelLópez Obrador—known asAMLO—has agreed to keepingworking to “curb the flow” ofillegal aliens from CentralAmerica in Mexico. If theymake it to the U.S. border theBiden administration haswarned that processing prior-ity will go to those alreadywaiting in the asylum queue.

When Americans think backon the southern border chaosduring the Trump years, theymay remember best the familyseparations, which resultedfrom the April 2018 decisionby U.S. Attorney General JeffSessions to arrest any adultcrossing the border illegally.Family separations occurred in2017 as well, but Mr. Sessions’“zero tolerance” policy madethe situation acute.

Yet the family-separationpolicy, lasting less than threemonths, didn’t reduce migra-tion flows. The numbers began

to recede in 2019 when thetransactional Mr. Trump gotassistance from AMLO andGuatemalan Presidents JimmyMorales and Alejandro Giam-mattei. Both governmentscommitted to help the U.S. de-ter the cavalcades. The Trumpadministration ruled that mi-grants had to claim asylum inthe first foreign country theyentered on their way north.AMLO further agreed to a De-partment of Homeland Secu-rity innovation known as theMigrant Protection Protocols.Asylum seekers had to “re-main in Mexico” while theyawaited the processing oftheir applications.

Covid-19 restrictions put inplace last year at the U.S. bor-der remain, allowing for theimmediate expulsion of illegalcrossers. But last week Mr. Bi-den signed an executive orderto end remain-in-Mexico pro-tocols—as he promised duringthe campaign. The signal sentis one of a more liberal policytoward weary, destitute mi-grants claiming asylum.

This isn’t a good solutioneven if Mr. Biden’s heart is inthe right place. Let’s remem-ber that President Obama also

faced chaos caused by asylumseekers in 2014, which led tothe construction of chain-linked pens to detain migrantsin groups: mothers with chil-dren, teenage boys, etc. Thosepens were later dubbed“cages” when the Trump ad-ministration used them tohold children separated fromguardians under “zero toler-ance.”

Mr. Biden wants a more hu-mane approach to immigra-tion than either of his prede-cessors. Yet he avoided borderbedlam this month only be-cause Mexico and Guatemaladid the dirty work. Unless heplans to rely on those tacticsin the long term, he needs aplan to deal, in an orderlyfashion, with the large num-bers of Central Americans whoare fleeing violence and pov-erty in search of a better life.

The only answer to thisquandary is to open more le-gal pathways. Alex Nowrasteh,an immigration analyst at theCato Institute, recommends anincrease in the number of H-2guest-worker visas for CentralAmericans since many asylumclaimants are really migrantslooking for work. When thiswas done for Mexico, Mr.Nowrasteh noted in July 2019,there was a correspondingdrop in illegal immigration.

Greater opportunity towork legally would break thevicious circle behind thechaos, and calm the fears thatarise from what looks like athreat to U.S. national secu-rity. As Mr. Nowrasteh told melast week, “You can only openif there is public confidencethat things are under control.But you can only get thingsunder control by opening.”

Your move, Mr. Biden.Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.

Step one is to increasethe number of H-2guest-worker visas forCentral Americans.

AMERICASBy MaryAnastasiaO’Grady

ESTE

BANBIBA

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A16 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

Sen. Scott and Readers Weigh the Biden PlanYour editorial “Biden’s First

Spending Blowout” (Jan. 16) is abso-lutely right. I agree that more mustbe done to support those whose live-lihoods have been ripped apart dueto the pandemic, but President Bi-den’s proposal goes far beyond that.His plan is filled with progressivepipe dreams and wasteful spending.We ought to be working on solutionsthat provide targeted relief and dealdirectly with the horrific economicand health impact of Covid-19. Un-fortunately, his plan is more focusedon using the pandemic to pushharmful liberal priorities.

The most egregious example is theDemocrats’ proposal to spend $350billion in taxpayer money to bail outstates like New York and Illinois.This is an insult to taxpayers in fis-cally responsible states. The Demo-crats are prioritizing bailouts forfailed politicians in mismanagedstates over helping small businessesor speeding up vaccine distribution.

Congress has already allocatedmore than $4.5 trillion to addressthis crisis, including $900 billionfour weeks ago. The states have re-ceived an enormous amount of relieffunding in the last 30 days alone andwe still don’t know how much moneyremains unspent. Let’s give thestates time to use these dollars andsee if they actually have unmetneeds.

Since the beginning, I’ve said Con-gress’s efforts should be strategic,focusing on families and small busi-nesses in need.

If President Biden wants to workwith Congress to pass legislationthat actually helps Americans, he’sbetter off going back to the drawingboard and ditching his liberaldreams for real solutions that keepbusinesses open, the economy grow-ing and families healthy.

SEN. RICK SCOTTNaples, Fla.

The new administration dismissesas quaint memories fiscal policiesassociated with the classical eco-nomics that used to be taught inschools (incentives matter; supply-demand relationships are meaning-ful; the Austrians had a useful pointor two). Those dated notions will be

replaced immediately with “ModernMonetary Theory,” neo-Marxist pub-lic policy and a constant flow ofneo-Keynesian stimulating “multipli-ers.” The Federal Reserve seemsfully on board and a Janet Yellen-ledTreasury is already talking up sup-port. Can negative interest rates befar behind?

TIM O’TOOLEFort Collins, Colo.

What isn’t mentioned is theequally devastating impact the uni-form national minimum wage willhave on small nonprofits that are al-ready struggling due to reduced con-tributions, strained finances and in-creased demand for services. Thesesmall nonprofits are a lifeline pro-viding meals, clothing, housing assis-tance, job placement, assistance toformerly incarcerated persons, reha-bilitation and much more. Will asmall nonprofit in a small rural townbe able to maintain its current staff-ing level and services? With risinglabor costs and the inevitable infla-tion that will accompany the higherminimum wage, the answer is a re-sounding “No!” An unintended con-sequence of the $15 minimum wageis that it will reduce help to peoplewho need it the most.

JOHN BOWLESSpartanburg. S.C.

Your editorial says: “Nearly all ofthe money is for income redistribu-tion.” That would be correct if thenew spending were offset by spend-ing cuts or tax hikes. Since the addi-tional $2 trillion, on top of the pre-vious installments of $2.9 trillionand $900 billion, would be financedtotally by new Treasury debt, the re-sult is “intergenerational redistribu-tion,” i.e., our children and grand-children will pay the bill.

JIM O’CONNELLBethesda, Md.

This plan reduces the incentive toseek a job or hire someone, artifi-cially keeping unemployment higherthan it should be, which will resultin more radical calls for additionalso-called stimulus. Crazy.

JEFF FELMANCleveland

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

“Does it say anything about caffeine?”

THEWALL STREET JOURNAL

Letters intended for publication shouldbe emailed to wsj.ltrs@wsj.com. Pleaseinclude your city, state and telephonenumber. All letters are subject toediting, and unpublished letters cannotbe acknowledged.

Pepper ...And Salt

Albany and New York Must Confront FinanceMark E. Kingdon’s comments in

“New York, I Love You, but WeCan’t Go On Like This” (CrossCountry, Jan. 16) should be heededbecause they are sound and touchevery citizen, young or old, whiteor black. The state and city havedone all that they can to driveaway entrepreneurs, business own-ers and the wealthy. No city in theworld can long survive withoutthose vital citizens.

The real problem is New Yorkpolitics and the lack of a viable Re-publican presence to compete forpower. With no opposition to chal-lenge them, New York Democrats atall levels run rampant in creatingan environment where only theirideas are implemented. That leadsto ridiculous budget imbalancesand king-making. New York doesn’tneed kings, it needs good policiesand, especially, good schools. WhenI was a kid in Brooklyn, cityschools were among the best any-where. No longer.

The travails of the city, includingcrime and high taxes, may ultimatelydrive Mr. Kingdon to leave for sunnyclimes, as have dozens of other WallStreeters. Despite wanting to remain,the costs are simply too tough andthe crime too threatening to remain.I know. I left the city 30 years ago.

RICHARD KLITZBERGBoca Raton, Fla.

Mark Kingdon draws faulty andlamentable logic by connectingneeded, overdue criminal-justice re-form to the increase in shootings in2020 in New York City. He cites thewarning made by NYPD Commis-sioner Dermot Shea and his prede-cessor James O’Neill that such re-form, including planned efforts atreducing the population at Rikers Is-land for more humane and just alter-natives, would, in Mr. Kingdon’swords, “degrade the quality of life inthe city, particularly in poor neigh-borhoods” and points to said spike inshootings as evidence.

This cherry-picking of evidencenot only betrays a narrow-mindedunderstanding of the nature of crime,and the historical underpinnings ofinstitutionalized racism; it also failsto adequately take into account apandemic, which Mr. Kingdon hardlyacknowledges, that has only exacer-bated existing inequities across raceand class. Yes, he lauds the elimina-tion of discriminatory policies suchas cash bail and stop-and-frisk, butthen tacitly advocates for keeping“hardened criminals” locked up andforgotten, so that a select, privilegedfew can go on loving their city.

CHARLES THOMAS LAI FITZGIBBONSomerville, Mass.

Mr. Kingdon decries the Trumpadministration’s push to limit stateand local tax deductions. This deduc-tion allowed the fortunate few inDemocratic states to fully fund thebenefits they enjoy, instead of bur-dening residents of Florida or Texaswith higher taxes to make up for thelost revenue. Maybe he should con-sider using his resources to elect anew team in Albany or Manhattanthat can manage on less, as we do inTexas and Florida.

GEORGE PAPILARISArlington, Texas

‘With Malice Toward None’Worked Badly for Blacks

Jim LeMunyon calls on the Lin-coln Project to heed Lincoln’s mag-nanimity toward defeated foes (Let-ters, Jan. 20). It might be better torecall, however, that allowing thelikes of Robert E. Lee to return, un-molested, to their estates followingthe Civil War’s end, instead of hav-ing had them hanged for treason,meant that the South remained un-reconciled to its defeat. The resultwas the premature ending of Recon-struction in 1876 and the onset ofmurder and mayhem directedagainst blacks, followed by the es-tablishment of the system of JimCrow segregation, which hasscarred our contemporary historyto this day.

An essential precondition forhealing is first to cleanse thewound.

EM. PROF. ALBION M. URDANKU.C.L.A.

State Lessons in Vaccine Rollouts

P resident Biden is vowing to meet a goalof 100 million Covid-19 vaccines in 100days, and if anything that is toomodest

given the pace of production.One way to do better is toheed lessons in flexibility fromthe states with the most suc-cessful vaccine rollouts.

Some six weeks after thefirst shipments, the U.S. hasadministered some 53% of distributed vaccines.The gap continues to grow between states thatare getting shots into arms, and those arguingover who gets what and when. North Dakotahad administered some 84% of its supply as ofJan. 23, andWest Virginia about 83%—far bet-ter than states like California (45%) or Alabama(47%). Federalism is showing what works—andwhat doesn’t.

The federal government’s main role is theproduction and distribution of vaccine doses,and the Biden Administration is fortunate to in-herit Operation Warp Speed. Mr. Biden sayshe’ll trigger the Defense Production Act to ex-pand vaccine production, albeit without detailson how he’d build on the existing plan.

One step forward would be to approve theAstraZeneca vaccine on an emergency basis, asthe U.K. did last month. It may not prove as ef-fective as themRNA shots from Pfizer andMod-erna, but it would add to supply, is easier totransport, and would be a particularly goodcandidate for younger, healthy Americans.

The risk is that Team Biden tries to micro-manage state administration of the vaccine, es-pecially now that the media, Democrats andsome public-health officials are blaming slowstate rollouts on a “vacuum” of federal leader-ship. But vaccine administration was always in-tended to be state-led, and too many jurisdic-tions squandered the ample time they had forpreparation.

This criticism is also wrong because the big-gest state mistakes so far have been adheringtoo much to the federal government’s initialguidance to limit the first batches to health-care workers and long-term care residents, fol-lowed by front-line employees and those overage 75. States couldn’t find enough takers, andprecious doses ended up in the trash.

The most successful state rollouts have de-parted from overly prescriptive federal rules.North Dakota stuck with the initial recommen-dations on health-care workers and nursing-care residents, but then threw open its programto anyone age 65 and up, as well as to adults

with underlying health risks. South Dakotaadded law enforcement and corrections staff toits initial tiers, and then also moved quickly to

inoculate 65-and-older adultsand school workers. Thestates with the highest percapita vaccination rates are allrule-breakers—Alaska (12,885per 100,000), West Virginia(11,321), and North Dakota

(9,602) as of Jan. 23.Top performers also thought creatively

about how best to distribute and administer thevaccine, even if that meant departing from fed-eral advice. North Dakota began planning itsvaccine rollout last summer and chose to dis-tribute vaccine supplies to health-care provid-ers statewide—not only to hospitals or public-health systems.

West Virginia opted out of a federal programthat puts CVS andWalgreens in charge of vacci-nating most nursing homes, an initiative thatis moving at a turtle’s pace. The state used anetwork of 250 local pharmacies—most ofwhich had existing relationships with patients,which sped up scheduling and paperwork. Italso enlisted its National Guard to lead on logis-tics, with the Guard delivering vaccines to thestate’s long-term care facilities and hosting vac-cination clinics that are now becoming commonelsewhere.

The most successful states also rolled outtechnology to ease appointments, many withonline dashboards to allow residents to fill outeligibility questionnaires and locate vaccineproviders. Some states, like South Dakota, areusing electronic medical records to figure outwho qualifies for the vaccine.

These states have smaller populations. Butthey are also rural with more logistical chal-lenges to get vaccines to less-populated towns.(Alaska used bush planes and snowmachines.)Some denser states like Connecticut have alsohad strong rollouts, thanks to large clinics,planning and communication between stategovernment and hospitals. The federal govern-ment’s Jan. 12 decision to follow states andthrow open eligibility to anyone over 65 is anadmission that the feds were wrong.

Mr. Biden is under pressure from the left toinfuse the vaccine rollout with “equity” politics.As California (5,568 per 100,000) and New York(5,816 per 100,000) show, such bickering is arecipe for fewer vaccines and more deaths.States are proving again that they can show abetter way than orders from Washington.

Federalism is againproving its value in

getting shots in arms.

Arizona Republican Meltdown

R epublicans lost Arizona in theNovemberpresidential race for the first time since1996, and they have lost three U.S. Sen-

ate races in a row. How to re-spond? Naturally, Arizona’sRepublican Party decided onthe weekend to censure threeof its most prominent . . . fel-low Republicans.

The state party’s committeemembers, led by chairwomanKelliWard, passedresolutions rebuking CindyMcCain, the widowof former Sen. John McCain; former Sen. JeffFlake; and even current Gov. Doug Ducey. Thefirst two offended the members by endorsingJoe Biden over Donald Trump for President.Mr.Ducey’s offense is that he introduced pandemiclockdowns—though theywere relativelymodestcompared to those in much of the country.

The resolutions have little practical effect,but they symbolize the party divisions thatcould doom the GOP tominority status nation-wide for years.Ms.Ward, who has run twice forSenate and lost, was endorsed for party chairthis past week by Donald Trump. Mr. Trump,nowdecamped toMar-a-Lago, is contemplatingrevenge against everyone in the GOP he blamesfor his defeat.

Sensible parties that lose elections try to re-unite in opposition evenwhile they debate pol-icy differences and examinewhy they lost. Theydon’t excommunicate peoplewho could help re-build a majority. Mr. Flake and Ms. McCainfoundMr. Trump’s behavior as President unac-ceptable, but theywere hardly alone.Mr. Trumpdidn’t lose because Republicans betrayed him.He lost because he alienated toomany voters inWisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania,Michigan and

Arizona who liked his policies but disliked histumultuous leadership.

The attack on Mr. Ducey is simply bizarre.The Governor has a strongconservative record and willfinish his second term in 2022.Senate Republicans have beenhoping to recruit him to runagainst newly elected Demo-cratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who

must run again in 2022 because he is filling for-mer Sen. McCain’s uncompleted term.

The GOP needs towin seats like this to regainthemajority inwhatwill be a tough 2022 Senatemap. But why would Mr. Ducey run if his ownpartymembers are attacking him? Sure enough,he said this weekend he has no interest in run-ning for the Senate. Chalk one up for MajorityLeader Chuck Schumer.

The Arizona meltdown illustrates Mr.Trump’s potential as a former President to dam-age the GOP for years. He blamesMr. Ducey fornot challenging Arizona’s electoral votes for JoeBiden, though the Governor had no legalgrounds for doing so. The Trump campaign’sballot complaints lacked significant evidence,and a challenge lost in court.

If Mr. Trump seeks revenge against anyonewho voted to impeach him, or anyone who ac-ceptsMr. Biden’s victory, he will split the partyeven if he doesn’t run for office again himself.If he forms a third party, he won’t win. But hewould all but guarantee that Democrats keep theHouse and Senate in 2022 and theWhite Housein 2024.

If Republicanswant to keep losing elections,they’ll keep fighting over 2020 and DonaldTrump instead of looking to the future.

The state party revealsthe divisions that coulddoom the GOP for years.

Unmasking Samantha Power

Presidentsdeserve theadvisers theychooseabsent significant cause. In the caseof JoeBiden’s choice to lead theU.S. Agency for

InternationalDevelopment, SamanthaPower, onequestion to ask is howhonest shewas about herrole in snooping on Michael Flynn.

In late 2016Mr. Flynn was the incoming na-tional security adviser for Donald Trump. Mr.Flynn’s conversationwith Russia’s ambassadorto the U.S. was recorded by U.S. spooks, and hisname leaked after being “unmasked” by severalfigures in the Obama Administration. Who didthe leaking—a felony—has never been solved.But the leak fed the media fires over Mr.Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russians,and Mr. Flynn was unjustly prosecuted.

At the timeMs. Power was U.S. Ambassadorto the U.N. Shewas a political appointee and notan intelligence professional. Yet Congresslooked into it and found that over her last yearin office Ms. Power had unmasked nearly 300people, without any concrete explanation ofwhyshe needed this information.

During an Oct. 13, 2017, appearance before

the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. AdamSchiff (D., Calif.) asked her directly about theunmasking and leaking of Gen. Flynn’s name. “Idid want to get you on the record,” he told her.Ms. Power categorically denied she leaked hisname—or any classified information.

Shewas fuzzier about unmasking. “I have norecollection ofmaking a request related to Gen-eral Flynn,” she replied. Then again, maybe shehad reason to be fuzzy.

Three years later, in May 2020, RepublicanSenators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson re-leased a declassified list of Obama Administra-tion officials who had “unmasked” Mr. Flynn.The list showed that betweenNov. 30, 2016, andJan. 17, 2017, 39 separate officialsmade unmask-ing demands for that information. Ms. Powermade seven requests.

Ms. Power did this in her last days in office.Before the Senate confirms her for a job thatMr.Biden says will include a seat on the NationalSecurity Council, she owes the American peoplea full explanation ofwhat she did during the lastpresidential transition.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

OPINION

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | A17

T he year 2020 likely saw thelargest percentage increasein homicides in Americanhistory. Murder was upnearly 37% in a sample of

57 large and medium-size cities.Based on preliminary estimates, atleast 2,000 more Americans, most ofthem black, were killed in 2020 thanin 2019. Mainstream media and manypoliticians claim the pandemiccaused this bloodbath, but the chro-nology doesn’t support that asser-tion. And now the criminal-justicepolicies supported by President Bidenpromise to exacerbate the currentcrime wave, while ignoring its actualcauses.

The local murder increases in2020 were startling: 95% in Milwau-kee, 78% in Louisville, Ky., 74% in Se-attle, 72% in Minneapolis, 62% in NewOrleans, and 58% in Atlanta, accord-ing to data compiled by crime analystJeff Asher. Dozens of children, over-whelmingly black, were killed indrive-by shootings. They were slainin their beds, living rooms and stroll-ers. They were struck down at barbe-cues, in their yards, in malls, in theirparents’ cars, and at birthday parties.Fifty-five children were killed in Chi-cago in 2020, 17 in St. Louis, and 11 inPhiladelphia. In South Los Angelesalone, 40 children were shot, somenon-lethally, through September.

Why this mayhem? The St. LouisPost-Dispatch expresses the conven-tional wisdom: because of the “eco-

Some blamed the mayhemon the pandemic, butpersistent cop-bashingemboldened criminals.

Send Out the Search Party for New Covid Strains

M any are expecting vaccina-tions, rising levels of im-munity and warmer

weather to help control theCovid-19 pandemic and make springand summer more bearable. Butnew viral variants threaten theseprospects. The U.S. is struggling toestimate how prevalent thesestrains are and how fast they’respreading. The infrastructure fordealing with a pandemic is still in-complete a year into the crisis.

At issue are mutated strains: oneidentified in the U.K., another firstspotted in South Africa, and a thirdstrain in Brazil that is similar to theSouth African one. The mutationsspeckling these new strains appearto make the virus spread more eas-ily. New waves have swamped placeswhere these variants have becomeprevalent across Europe, Africa andLatin America.

There is new research that theU.K. variant may also cause more se-rious illness. The strain found inSouth Africa may have mutatedparts of its protein structure to helpit defeat some antibody drugs andcould render vaccines less effective.A lot is unknown, but the variantspose a serious threat.

Americans are wondering: Arethese new variants spreadingaround my city? The U.K. variant,known as B.1.1.7, has been discov-ered in as many as 20 U.S. cities, al-though many of the cases are local-ized in Florida and San Diego. Thevariant circulating in South Africaand Brazil hasn’t been detected inthe U.S., but the search only startedrecently. It is almost certainly circu-lating somewhere.

Until recently, there wasn’t a sys-tematic effort to look for these vari-ants. Such an effort involves sam-pling positive Covid cases todetermine their genetic makeup.Much of the sequencing in the U.S.

is academic work and not devoted topublic-health surveillance.

The U.K. has put substantial re-sources behind such an effort andwas able to detect the new variantrelatively early. The U.S. is late tothis game, and is only now organiz-ing a nascent effort. The Centers forDisease Control and Prevention has

focused much of its relatively smallsequencing operation on other pri-orities and is only now starting toaim more of it at Covid.

One of us serves on the board ofIllumina, a company that manufac-tures machines used in such se-quencing work. Illumina has been

working with the Helix genetic-test-ing company and the CDC to developa more organized effort at routinesurveillance for troubling new muta-tions. Illumina estimates that de-tecting a new variant when it repre-sents about 0.1% to 1.0% of all cases—when containing spread is stillmanageable—requires sequencingabout 5% of positive Covid cases.Right now, the U.S. is sequencingless than 0.3% of cases. Yet there areenough sequencing machines andother infrastructure in the U.S. toreach the 5% goal.

It’s also important to invest in re-search that examines the behaviorof new variants, and the outcomesin patients who contract it. Con-gress can dedicate more funding tothe National Institutes of Health forthis purpose.

The experience so far with thesenew variants is that when they gaina foothold, they quickly become thedominant strain. In cities such asSan Diego or Miami, where preva-

lence may already be 1% or 2%,these new strains could represent30% of all infections in six weeks.Cities such as New York or Boston,where they may only represent 0.1%or 0.2% of infections, have moretime.

With Covid continuing to spread,it was inevitable that new strainswould emerge. The country willneed more-efficient drug regulationthat makes it easier to update anti-body drugs and vaccines to targetthese mutations. But America can dobetter at stopping the spread of thenew variants—if it first focuses onuncovering them.

Dr. Gottlieb is a resident fellow atthe American Enterprise Instituteand was commissioner of the Foodand Drug Administration, 2017-19.He serves on the boards of Pfizerand Illumina. Ms. Rivers, an epide-miologist, is a senior scholar at theJohns Hopkins Center for HealthSecurity.

By Scott GottliebAnd Caitlin Rivers

Variants of the virus can bestopped if uncovered early—but that will requiremore genetic sequencing.

Taking Stock of a Most Violent Yearnomic, civic and interpersonalstress” from the coronavirus pan-demic. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfootblamed pandemic-related “frustra-tion, anger . . . trauma and mentalhealth challenges.” But crime fellduring the first months of the pan-demic shutdowns, both in the U.S.and globally. Only at the end of Maydid that trend reverse itself, and onlyin the U.S., thanks to a surge indrive-by shootings.

Eighteen people were murdered inChicago on May 31—the city’s mostviolent day in six decades, accordingto University of Utah law professorPaul Cassell. Other American citiessaw similar spikes in mayhem, alltied to the street violence unleashedby the death of George Floyd in Min-neapolis on May 25. The political andmedia response to Floyd’s death am-plified the existing narrative that po-licing was lethally racist. The ensuingriots received little condemnationfrom Democratic leaders and a weakresponse from the criminal-justicesystem.

Cops now face a poisonous envi-ronment. Since the summer, theyhave been shot in the head, fire-bombed and assaulted with lethalprojectiles. An officer providing firstaid at a crime scene may be met witha hail of rocks and bottles. Resistanceis now the norm. Officers believethey face a political and legal envi-ronment that is eager to sacrificethem in the name of racial justice.

As a result, the calculus for en-gagement has changed. An Oakland,Calif., officer who has arrested doz-ens of known murderers and gangmembers over his career tells me heis scared for the first time, “not be-cause the criminals are necessarilymore violent, even though they are.”But if he has to use force on a resist-ing suspect, he could lose his career,his life, or his liberty, he says. A “sim-ple cost-benefit analysis” recom-

mends simply responding to calls forservice and collecting a paycheck.“All cops now understand this.”

“Every day you have to decidewhether to get out of your patrol carand do something or do nothing,” aveteran Chicago detective reports. Ifyou opt for real police work, you mayend up in jail or without a job if aninteraction goes off script.

“Proactive police work is dead,”says Lt. Bob Kroll of the MinneapolisPolice Department. The data bearhim out. In Minneapolis, police stopsfell more than 50% over the summer.The number of police-civilian con-tacts plummeted in Philadelphia,Oakland, Chicago, New York, Los An-geles and elsewhere. Across the coun-try, specialized police units that gotguns off the street were disbanded,since they were said to have a dispa-rate impact on African-Americans.Police chiefs and prosecutors have re-fused to enforce low-level quality-of-life laws for the same reason.

The consequence: More gangmembers are carrying guns, sincetheir chances of being stopped areslim. They are enthusiastically killing

each other and innocent bystandersout of opportunism, not economic de-privation or existential angst.

The anarchy of 2020 has contin-ued into 2021. Shootings in South LosAngeles rose 742% in the first twoweeks of the year. In Oakland, homi-cides were up 500% and shootings up126% through Jan. 17. In New York,murders were up 42% and shootingvictims up 15% through Jan. 17. Car-jackings, already up 135% in Chicagoin 2020, are spilling into the city’ssuburbs. On Jan. 16, a woman waspulled from her car in Aurora, Ill.,and shot in the back by carjackerswho had already stolen two vehiclesearlier that day. Four other Chicagosuburbs were hit that weekend. InChicago proper, there have been 144carjackings through Jan. 21, with 166guns recovered.

Mr. Biden’s presidency augurs noturnaround. During the campaign, heclaimed without justification thatAfrican-Americans rightly fearedthat their loved ones could be killedby a cop every time they steppedoutside. His criminal-justice blue-print promises to eliminate racial

disparities in law enforcement.Given vast racial disparities in thecommission of crimes, that can bedone only by eliminating law en-forcement itself.

Nevertheless, the Biden JusticeDepartment will treat disparate stopor arrest rates as evidence of policebias and seek to put as many policedepartments as possible under costlyconsent decrees. It will even try toextend its oversight authority to localprosecutors’ offices, should districtattorneys generate racially disparatecharging data (an inevitability, inlight of the reality of crime).

The Biden policing agenda isbased on a false conceit, however. In2020 the police killed 15 unarmedAfrican-Americans and 21 unarmedwhites, according to the WashingtonPost’s database of fatal police shoot-ings. The Post defines “unarmed” toinclude suspects fleeing the cops instolen cars who attempted furthercarjackings en route, who then ap-peared to threaten the pursuing offi-cer with a gun, and who violently re-sisted arrest. Those 15 “unarmed”blacks will represent 0.17% of allblack homicide deaths in 2020, as-suming a black murder toll of about8,600 victims in 2020, as seemsprobable.

The police aren’t the problem inthe black community, criminals are.The many law-abiding residents oftroubled areas know this and beg forvigorous law enforcement. High-pro-file homicide trials of police officerswill take place this year in Minneapo-lis, Atlanta, Louisville and Rochester,N.Y. If there are acquittals, more ri-ots—followed by an even greatershooting surge—seem likely. It is ur-gent that public officials stop demon-izing the police.

Ms. Mac Donald is a fellow at theManhattan Institute and author of“The War on Cops.”

By Heather Mac Donald

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At a march against gun violence Dec. 31.

OPINION

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Who Gets to Make the Rules? Washington May Finally Get It Right

P resident Biden’s team is under-standably skeptical of “mid-night” executive actions issued

during President Trump’s finalweeks, but one order, issued Jan. 18,is as valuable in reinforcing demo-cratic accountability as it is consti-tutionally necessary. It is in Mr. Bi-den’s interest to strengthen it, notreflexively withdraw it.

The Executive Order on EnsuringDemocratic Accountability in AgencyRulemaking provides that only dem-ocratically accountable agency offi-cials may issue regulations. Thismeans that new regulations willhave to conform to the new presi-dent’s priorities and not simplythose of career employees. Revers-ing this order could be very costlyand destabilizing to Mr. Biden’sagenda, including in ways thataren’t obvious.

The order does more than theusual moratorium on agency rulemaking that new presidents imposeuntil their own appointees can re-view pending rules. It would also in-sulate all Biden administration regu-lations from a potent constitutionalchallenge. That’s because rule mak-ing by agency employees flatly vio-lates the Constitution’s Appoint-ments Clause.

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), theSupreme Court held that rule mak-ing is a significant governmentpower that may be exercised only byofficers appointed in accordancewith that clause. More recent courtdecisions such as Edmond v. UnitedStates (1997) support the conclusionthat only principal agency officers(like department heads and assis-tant secretaries confirmed by theSenate) may issue regulations thathave the force of law and can’t beamended without another rule-mak-ing procedure.

Compliance with constitutionalrule-making requirements has beeninconsistent, undermining both dem-ocratic accountability and—becauseimproperly issued rules are subjectto legal challenge—agencies’ ownagendas. This is no small problem.We broke the news on these pagesnearly three years ago that hundredsof Food and Drug Administrationrules were illegal because they hadbeen issued by career staff. Subse-quent Pacific Legal Foundation re-search on the Health and HumanServices Department’s rule-makingpractices from 2001 to 2017 revealedthat 1,860 FDA final rules (98% ofthe total) had been issued illegallyand that other HHS agencies hadsimilar problems.

Since Pacific Legal Foundationsued the FDA in 2018 over an em-ployee-issued rule involving vaping,the agency has tried several fixes.One was a belated “ratification” ofthe rule by a Senate-confirmed offi-

cer. Even if such ratification was ef-fective, which we dispute, it didnothing to address the agency’sbroader problem.

Last September, a few days beforea federal appellate-court panel heardour challenge, HHS withdrew all au-thorizations for agency employees to

issue regulations. Although thischange doesn’t fix previously issuedunconstitutional rules, it solves thedepartment’s problem going for-ward—if it is kept in place.

But what about every other de-partment and agency? Since mostdon’t publicize their delegations of

rule-making power, no one knowshow common illegal employee rulemaking is across the government.But it clearly isn’t limited to HHS.For example, the career employeesat the U.S. Forest Service issue for-est plans, notice-and-comment rulesthat can restrict use of natural re-sources, increase wildfire risk andcurb economic growth significantlyfor affected communities. A federalcourt ruling in 2017 suggests theCommerce Department is anotheroffender.

The new executive order is a goodfirst step. But it is incomplete. Likelybecause the Trump administrationused non-Senate confirmed actingofficials to run some agencies, theorder falls somewhat short of theAppointments Clause’s requirements.The problem can be fixed by amend-ing the order to ensure that Senate-confirmed officers alone—not lower-level presidential appointees—exercise final regulatory authority.Until then, departments implement-ing the existing order should seethat Senate-confirmed officials signall rules. Only by doing so can theBiden administration remove legaldoubt regarding its regulations.

Important regulatory decisionsmust be made by democratically ac-countable government officials. Thatisn’t a partisan position. Just asmobs can’t overturn certified stateelection results because the people’svotes control the outcome, only offi-cers appointed by the president andSenate may subject Americans tofederal regulations with the force oflaw. Any reform supporting thoseprinciples is worth keeping.

Mr. Gaziano is director of PacificLegal Foundation’s Center for theSeparation of Powers and one of theattorneys challenging the FDA rule.Ms. Erickson is PLF’s director ofstrategic research and the lead au-thor of the HHS rule-making study.

By Todd GazianoAnd Angela C. Erickson

Biden should keep Trump’slast-minute executiveorder making regulationmore accountable.

From Tunku Varadarajan’s reviewof CNN’s “Larry King Live” in theJournal, Oct. 25, 2002. King died Sat-urday at 87:

It would be easy to accuse Mr.King of flacking for every scoundrelwho provides the crowd-pleasing hu-miliation that keeps ratings healthy—or for every worthy who’s written abook and wants to clear his throat onair about it. Some might believe thathis program is morally questionable,but entertaining. . . . In fact, it’s oftenquite the opposite: hugely dull, butmorally sound, in that it offers aworthy democratic service, givingthe popularly reviled members of so-ciety—shoplifting actresses, allegedlyhomicidal pols and even nonwealthy,nonpowerful criminal suspects—an

opportunity to face their accusers, asit were, with equal viewership. . . .

True, the very wealthy and privi-leged are held to a higher standard ofsocial comportment, as they shouldbe. But often Mr. King—by serving asa blank slate, like a good psychia-trist—gives them a valuable opportu-nity to make a full confession withtheir own ill-chosen words. Andsometimes the benefit of a “LarryKing Live” appearance is ambiguous(as with the parents of JonBenetRamsey, or Susan McDougal). Theimportant point is that the famousand notorious alike are given thechance, with America tuned in, to de-fend a life’s reputation, or to lessenthe damage of their 15 minutes offame.

Can this be such a bad thing?

Notable& Quotable: Larry King

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A18 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

WORLD NEWS

BY GEORGI KANTCHEV

Protesters turned out en masse in more than 100 Russian cities, including St. Petersburg, above, in support of jailed opposition leaderAlexei Navalny, below, whose detention is putting pressure on Vladimir Putin’s government before parliamentary elections this year.

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PORTUGAL

President Leads,Exit Polls Show

Portugal’s president appearedpoised to win a second term inoffice Sunday, in an election heldamid a devastating Covid-19surge that has made the Euro-pean country among the worstin terms of cases and deaths.

An exit poll suggested thatcenter-right incumbent MarceloRebelo de Sousa captured 57%to 62% of the vote, which wouldgive him a final five-year term.

Socialist candidate AnaGomes came second with be-tween 13% and 16%, the poll bythe Portuguese Catholic Univer-sity’s Polling Center for publicbroadcaster RTP suggested. In asurprise, right-wing populist An-dré Ventura came third with 9%to 12%, the poll indicated.

The head of state in Portugalpossesses no legislative powers,which are held by parliamentand the government, but is aninfluential voice. The poll esti-mated turnout at 45% to 50%—lower than recent elections andapparently confirming concernsthat some people stayed awayfor fear of becoming infectedwith Covid-19.

—Associated Press

ISRAEL

Police Clash WithUltra-Orthodox Jews

Prime Minister Benjamin Ne-tanyahu said Israel will close itsinternational airport to mostflights, while police clashed withultra-Orthodox protesters in sev-eral major cities and the govern-ment raced to bring a coronavirusoutbreak under control.

The entry of highly contagiousvariants of the virus, coupled withpoor enforcement of safety rulesin ultra-Orthodox communities,has contributed to one of theworld’s highest rates of infection.It also has threatened to undercutIsrael’s successful campaign tovaccinate its population. Israel’spermitted air travel, while limited,appears to have allowed highlycontagious variants from the U.K.and other places to enter.

Late Sunday, the Israeli Cabi-net approved a tight closure,starting Tuesday, on nearly all in-coming and outgoing air traffic.

Experts say a lack of compli-ance with safety regulations in Is-rael’s ultra-Orthodox sector hasbeen a major factor in the spreadof the virus.

On Sunday, police clashed withlarge crowds of ultra-Orthodoxprotesters in several cities. The

worst unrest occurred in BneiBrak, where young men clashedwith police and threatened jour-nalists. In Jerusalem, police firedtear gas and putrid-smelling wa-ter to disperse hundreds of ultra-Orthodox residents outside a re-opened school. In Ashdod, policescuffled with dozens of protestersoutside an ultra-Orthodox school.

Many major ultra-Orthodoxsects have flouted regulations,opening schools, praying in syna-gogues and holding mass wed-dings and funerals despite lock-down orders. This has contributedto their disproportionate infectionrate of one-third of Israel’s coro-navirus cases, despite making upjust over 10% of the population.

—Associated Press

THE NETHERLANDS

Suspected KingpinHeld in Amsterdam

A suspected Canadian drugbaron has been arrested in theNetherlands on an Interpol war-rant, according to Dutch andAustralian police.

The 57-year-old was detainedFriday and is of “significant in-terest” to Australian and otherlaw-enforcement agencies, ac-cording to a statement Sundayfrom Australian federal police.

It says he was targeted aspart of an operation that dis-mantled a global crime syndicatein 2019 that was accused oftrading large amounts of illegaldrugs and laundering the profits.The Australian police plan toseek his extradition.

Interpol didn’t comment onthe arrest.

The suspect’s name wasn’treleased by Dutch authorities, inline with the country’s privacyrules.

—Associated Press

ARGENTINA

Historic AbortionLaw Takes Effect

Argentina’s groundbreakingabortion law went into forceSunday under the watchful eyesof women’s groups and govern-ment officials, who hope to en-sure its full implementation de-spite opposition from someconservative and church groups.

Argentina became the largestnation in Latin America to legal-ize elective abortion on Dec. 30with a law guaranteeing the pro-cedure up to the 14th week ofpregnancy and beyond that incases of rape or when awoman’s health is at risk.

—Associated Press

Eleven workers trapped fortwo weeks inside a Chinese goldmine were brought safely to thesurface on Sunday, a landmarkachievement for an industry longblighted by disasters.

State broadcaster CCTVshowed workers being hauled upone by one in baskets, their eyesshielded to protect them afterso many days in darkness. Somebrought their hands together ingratitude and many appeared al-most too weak to stand as theywere brought up from the minein Qixia, in the eastern coastalprovince of Shandong.

One worker was reported tohave died from a head woundfollowing an explosion in theshaft on Jan. 10. The fate of 10others who were underground atthe time is unknown. Authoritieshave detained mine managersfor delaying reporting the acci-dent.

—Associated Press CNS/AGEN

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testers in Moscow on Saturdayfound around 40% were outdemonstrating for the firsttime and that most partici-pants were in their 20s or 30s.

“This means that Alexei Na-valny’s protest message hasreached very, very many,” Al-exandra Arkhipova, an anthro-pologist at the Russian StateUniversity for the Humanitieswho conducted one of the sur-veys, wrote on social media.

But Russia’s opposition haspreviously shown signs offracturing and infighting,while the Kremlin has longworked to marginalize its ri-vals and install oppositiongroups and political partiestolerated by the government.

Mr. Gallyamov said the suc-cess of Saturday’s protestposes a risk to Mr. Navalny’smovement as it sets the barhigh. “They can’t let the pro-test deflate and they need tostay united until the Septem-ber election,” he said.

“This was a victory for theopposition, but a victory in asingle battle,” Mr. Gallyamovsaid. “There is a long warahead for them.”

where.“Letting him out will mobi-

lize smart-voting tactics andthat’s a big risk for the Krem-lin,” said Mr. Gallyamov.

The protests, coupled withthe international outcry afterhis poisoning in August, alsomuddle the Kremlin’s longtimetactic of dismissing Mr. Na-valny and his movement.

Early signs suggest Mr. Na-valny’s allies may be able tokeep up the protest energy.Two snap surveys among pro-

Coming legislative electionsin September complicate theKremlin’s handling of Mr. Na-valny. The opposition leaderhas promoted a strategy calledsmart voting, which identifiescandidates best suited to winagainst a given candidate fromthe ruling United Russia partyand pools resources behindthem. In Moscow’s city councilelections in 2019, this strategycut the number of United Rus-sia’s seats by a third, althoughthe results were mixed else-

been released, health authori-ties said on Sunday.

According to OVD-Info, de-tainees could face fines up to300,000 rubles, equivalent to$3,986, and up to 30 days be-hind bars. The head of theKremlin’s human-rights council,Valery Fadeyev, said most de-tainees would be released witha fine. But late Saturday, Rus-sia’s Investigative Committee,which probes major crimes,said it launched criminal inqui-ries in Moscow over the use ofviolence against police, hooli-ganism and property damage.

The challenge to Mr. Putincomes after a year in which hetook moves to cement hispower through constitutionalchanges, greater restrictionson the internet and bills tocurtail dissenting voices. Theprotests follow other recentmass displays of discontent inwhich everyday issues haveescalated into opportunities toair broader grievances.

Mr. Putin’s approval ratinghas fallen to 65% in Novemberfrom close to 90% in 2015, ac-cording to independent poll-ster Levada Center.

MOSCOW—The proteststhat swept Russia this weekendin support of jailed oppositionleader Alexei Navalny show thechallenge President VladimirPutin faces in managing socialdiscontent ahead of parliamen-tary elections this year.

Saturday’s unsanctionedrallies were among the largestin recent years and saw tensof thousands of people bravefreezing temperatures, thepandemic and the possibilityof incarceration. Securityforces detained more than3,500 people—the largestnumber in at least nine years,independent monitors said.

The protests have left theKremlin facing a dilemma: ei-ther bow to the pressure fromthe street and undermine itsown authority by releasing Mr.Navalny or risk inciting morebacklash and unifying the op-position by keeping him be-hind bars.

“There are few good op-tions for Putin,” said AbbasGallyamov, a Moscow-basedpolitical consultant and for-mer speechwriter for Mr. Pu-tin. “It seems like Navalny isattacking and the Kremlin isdefending.”

Mr. Putin’s approval ratingshave swooned in recent yearsamid a sluggish economy andprotest activity. Observers saythe Navalny demonstrations, ifsustained, could pose a threatto Mr. Putin’s dominance de-spite constitutional changesapproved last year that could

Beijing sent warplanes on 37sorties near the island overtwo days during a senior U.S.State Department official’svisit to Taipei.

China’s military has made aroutine of sending warplanesinto Taiwan’s southwesternair-defense identification zoneover recent months, includingnear-daily flights over someperiods, though on many daysthese maneuvers featured onlyone or two turboprop aircraft.

The Chinese Embassy inWashington didn’t immedi-ately respond to queries.

Hours after the Saturdaysorties, U.S. State Departmentspokesman Ned Price voicedconcern over what it calledcontinuing Chinese attempts“to intimidate its neighbors,including Taiwan,” and saidWashington will deepen tieswith Taipei and continue tohelp it maintain “a sufficientself-defense capability.”

“We urge Beijing to cease

its military, diplomatic, andeconomic pressure againstTaiwan and instead engage inmeaningful dialogue with Tai-wan’s democratically electedrepresentatives,” Mr. Pricesaid. “Our commitment to Tai-wan is rock-solid and contrib-utes to the maintenance ofpeace and stability across theTaiwan Strait and within theregion.”

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Com-mand on Saturday said a navalstrike group led by the aircraftcarrier USS Theodore Roose-velt entered the South ChinaSea to conduct routine mari-time-security operations andtraining exercises.

The command didn’t referto Taiwan, though the strikegroup’s commander, RearAdm. Doug Verissimo, wasquoted as saying his forces are“promoting freedom of theseas and reassuring allies andpartners.”

Chinese warplanes flew morethan two dozen sorties nearTaiwan over the weekend, asBeijing staged its largest showof aerial force toward the islanddemocracy in four months, justdays after President Biden tookover the White House.

Flown over two days offsouthwestern Taiwan, theflights appear to deliver awarning to the Biden adminis-tration of the stakes involvedin supporting the self-ruled is-land that Beijing claims as itsterritory and has vowed to as-similate. Hours after the U.S.issued a statement on Satur-day evening in Washingtoncalling on China to cease in-timidation, Taipei reportedthat Beijing sent more flightson Sunday.

The Chinese military flightscoincided with U.S. naval ma-neuvers in the nearby SouthChina Sea, which an Americanaircraft-carrier strike groupentered on Saturday to con-duct security operations andcombat drills.

China sent strategic bomb-ers, jet fighters and a turbo-prop on 13 sorties into Tai-wan’s southwestern air-defense identification zone onSaturday and followed up with15 fighter and turboprop sor-ties into roughly the samearea the next day, Taiwan’sDefense Ministry said. On bothdays, the Taiwanese militaryresponded by deploying air-craft, issuing radio warningsand tracking the Chineseplanes with air-defense missilesystems, the ministry said.

Earlier last week, Mr. Bi-den’s nominee for secretary ofstate, Antony Blinken, saidWashington would continue toensure Taiwan could defend it-self, as required by a U.S. lawgoverning unofficial relationswith the island, while Taiwan’sde facto envoy attended Mr.Biden’s inauguration after aformal invitation. Beijing re-gards U.S. interactions withthe island as one of the mostsensitive issues in bilateral re-lations with Washington.

The weekend sortiesmarked the largest Chineseaerial maneuvers near Taiwansince mid-September, when

BY CHUN HAN WONG

China Shows ForceIn Skies Over Taiwan

allow him to stay in power un-til 2036.

The protests could “becomethe most prominent challengefor the authorities for all the20 years of Putin’s reign,” saidTatiana Stanovaya, founder ofR.Politik, an independent po-litical-analysis firm.

But while some analysts saythe scale of the rallies, whichtook place in more than 100cities from Moscow to Vladi-vostok in Russia’s Far East,provided a boost to Mr. Na-valny, the key question iswhether his movement cankeep up the momentum.

Mr. Navalny’s allies praisedthe demonstrators and calledfor a sequel next weekend.

“We can say that a newpage in the history of Russianprotests was opened yester-day,” Ivan Zhdanov, the head ofMr. Navalny’s Anti-CorruptionFoundation, wrote on Facebookon Sunday. “And there is a lotmore work to come.”

The Kremlin dismissed theprotests as inconsequentialand illegal.

“Few people took to thestreets; many people vote forPutin,” Kremlin spokesmanDmitry Peskov told state tele-vision on Sunday. “And manyvoted for the constitutionalamendments. If you comparethe numbers, you will under-stand how few people” therewere on Saturday.

The exact size of the protestswas unclear. Organizers in Mos-cow said at least 40,000 peoplewere out in the city, while au-thorities reported 4,000.

OVD-Info, a group thatmonitors police arrests, said3,592 people were detainednationwide—a record since thegroup was founded in 2011. InMoscow, 29 people were takento hospitals but have since

Big ProtestsPut KremlinOn DefensiveRallies in support ofjailed opposition leaderAlexei Navalny testPutin before elections

Eleven Miners Rescued TwoWeeks After Blast; Others Still Missing

China’s military hasroutinely sentwarplanes intoTaiwan’s airspace.

P2JW025000-2-A01800-1--------XA

© 2021 Dow Jones & Company. All Rights Reserved. * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | B1

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY: A GUIDE TO THE BEST NOISE-CANCELING HEADPHONES B4

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BUSINESS&FINANCE

EARNINGSMore than a fifth ofthe S&P 500 willprovide results

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months. The interest hasstemmed in part from inves-tors looking to magnify gainsin the stock market, since op-tions allow them to put downa relatively small sum for thechance at an outsize return.

Many of these investorshave flocked to online broker-

give investors the right to buy(a call option) or sell (a putoption) shares, at specificprices, later. They are typicallyused to bet on stocks’ direc-tion or hedge portfolios. Al-though they can be risky totrade for amateur investors,activity has exploded in recent

bets were those tied to TeslaInc., Amazon.com Inc., AppleInc. and Nvidia Corp. Bullishcall-options trading surged toa high on Jan. 14, with about32 million contracts changinghands, according to data pro-vider Trade Alert.

Options are contracts that

ages that have made it easierthan ever to trade. Smaller op-tions trades of just one con-tract—typically thought tostem from individual inves-tors—recently made up almosta 10th of activity, up from 2%three years ago, according toTrade Alert data.

The robust trading comesas U.S. stocks have jumped tofresh highs. Earnings resultshave poured in over the pastweek, with companies such asNetflix Inc. and GoldmanSachs Inc. posting strong re-sults. In the coming week,traders will be monitoring aslate of releases from big techcompanies, with MicrosoftCorp., Apple, Facebook Inc.and Tesla on deck.

Investors have also lookedahead to fresh stimulus thatwould help the struggling eco-nomic recovery. In January,stocks have built on their big,and perhaps unexpected, gainsof 2020: The S&P 500 has

PleaseturntopageB2

Investors are piling intobets that will profit if stockscontinue their record run.

Options activity is continu-ing at a breakneck pace inJanuary, building on 2020’srecord volumes. It is the latestsign of optimism crestingthrough markets as individualand institutional investorspick up bullish options toprofit from stock gains andabandon bearish wagers.

More than half a trilliondollars worth of options on in-dividual stocks traded on Jan.8 alone, the highest single-daylevel on record, according toGoldman Sachs Group Inc. an-alysts in a Jan. 13 note.

Among the most popular

BY GUNJAN BANERJI

Investors Bet on Extended RallySome of the mostpopular wagers aretied to shares such asApple, Tesla and Nvidia

Source: Trade Alert

30

30

20

10

0

10

20

million contracts

million contracts

’17 ’18 ’19 ’20 ’212016

Call volume

Put volume

Daily options volume

practices comply with all regu-lations and are tailored to theneeds and interests of clients.“The longevity of our successis, we believe, directly con-nected to our consistent em-phasis on serving the best in-terests of our customers, andwe continuously review ourpolicies and practices to en-sure all regulatory require-ments are addressed,” saidMassMutual spokeswomanPaula Tremblay.

Agents can sell a variety ofMassMutual products to meettheir annual minimum andqualify for health and medicalbenefits, including differenttypes of life insurance and an-nuities.

Last year, MassMutual cutthe credit its agents and advis-ers receive for selling the com-pany’s investment products,including variable annuitiesand variable life insurance.MassMutual said it made the

PleaseturntopageB2

consumer,” said David Certner,legislative counsel at AARP,the nonprofit advocacy groupfor people 50 years and older.

Some financial advisers atMassachusetts Mutual LifeInsurance Co. have also com-plained. In internal online fo-rums that allow agents and ad-visers to opine on thecompany’s benefits policies, atleast six agents wrote thatlinking the cost of their healthbenefits to how much they sellof certain products creates adifficult conflict for them, ac-cording to copies of the postsreviewed by The Wall StreetJournal.

“Tying benefits to…produc-tion is an inherent conflict ofinterest,” one financial adviserwrote last year. “Please recon-sider this decision not just be-cause of the pandemic but be-cause it is a better businessmodel going forward.”

MassMutual, based inSpringfield, Mass., said its

cause the parts maker couldn’tobtain enough steel, and thatwhich the company is able tobuy costs twice as much as sixmonths ago.

He said on some productshe is opting to make lessprofit for now, rather thanpass along higher prices to hiscustomers. For other productswhere margins were alreadythin, Mr. Verhein said he hasno choice but to raise Church’sprices to avoid losing money.

Some manufacturers havestockpiled materials to guardagainst a lack of availability inthe future. They are countingon being able to quickly re-cover the added cost of hold-ing more inventory than usualwith increased sales.

PleaseturntopageB2

has risen 60% since November,aided by increased overseasdemand.

Turkey has sought out U.S.exports, and lately so too hasChina, which is importingscrap for the first time innearly a decade.

“We can sell everything wehave,” said Brad Serlin, presi-dent of United Scrap MetalInc., near Chicago. “Steel millsthat were out of the market allof a sudden are doing big or-ders.”

Domestic steel mills in needof scrap started acceptingshipments on Saturdays in lateOctober for the first time inyears, Mr. Serlin said.

Mr. Verhein of ChurchMetal said he had to delay de-liveries of some orders be-

what was expected to be aslow recovery for manufactur-ing in a U.S. economy that hadentered into a recession inFebruary.

But demand for durablegoods such as automobiles andappliances picked up in latesummer and gained momen-tum during fall even asCovid-19 infections soared torecord levels.

U.S. commodity producershave benefited as well fromstrengthening global pricesand increasing demand, par-ticularly for aluminum.

Its cash price on the Lon-don Metal Exchange is up 39%from its April low, accordingto S&P Global Platts. The do-mestic price for prime steelscrap used to make new steel

Facebook,AmazonLead inLobbying

WASHINGTON—Big technol-ogy companies are bracing fora new administration and newscrutiny of their businesseswith a time-tested strategy:opening their pocketbooks.

Facebook Inc. and Ama-zon.com Inc. topped all otherU.S. companies in federal lob-bying expenditures last year,according to a Wall StreetJournal analysis of the most re-cent disclosures. It was the sec-ond straight year they outspentall other companies, includingstalwarts such as AT&T Inc.and Boeing Co.

Facebook, facing federal andstate antitrust lawsuits as wellas a series of hearings sum-moning CEO Mark Zuckerbergto Washington, spent nearly$20 million in 2020, up nearly18% from the previous year.

Amazon, which saw CEO JeffBezos testify before Congress

PleaseturntopageB4

By Ryan Tracy,Chad Day

and Anthony DeBarros

Jan. 2019 ’20 ’21

200

250

300

350

400

450

$500per ton permonth

Prime industrial scrap price,Chicago region

Source: United Scrap Metal, Argus Media

A quicker-than-expected re-covery in U.S. manufacturingis resulting in supply disrup-tions and higher costs for ma-terials used in everything fromkitchen cabinets to washingmachines to automobiles.

Consumers unable to spendon vacations, dining out andconcerts instead have openedtheir wallets for appliancesand other improvements totheir current or new homes.Car sales also reboundedfaster than expected in thesecond half of 2020. As a re-sult, prices for some industrialcommodities used in thoseproducts, such as steel andcopper, have climbed to theirhighest levels in years.

The increased demand forthese materials is showing upin manufacturers’ supplychains, which are clogged withorders, causing some produc-ers to add weekend hours andovertime for employees. Or-ders that took a week or twoto fill during the summer nowrequire six to eight weeks, ac-cording to manufacturers cop-ing with extended wait timesfor essential supplies.

“The lack of availability iswhat kills you,” said Mark Ver-hein, president of ChurchMetal Spinning Co., a Milwau-kee-based manufacturer ofsteel parts for large industrialengines. “If you can’t get thematerial, that’s vexing.”

When many factories shutdown for more than a monthlast spring to contain thespread of the coronavirus, pro-duction of industrial commod-ities dropped off as well. In-ventories evaporated, andsuppliers were wary aboutramping up production during

BY BOB TITA

Suppliers Struggle to Keep Up With Output

Optimas OE Solutions recently accumulated $2 million of steel wire at its Wood Dale, Ill., plant, giving it an edge.

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lators craft rules and laws cov-ering cryptocurrencies. It alsohighlights a broader truthabout most digital currencies:Beyond the two largest, bitcoinand ether, most of the hun-dreds of others have struggledto find a utilitarian value be-yond speculation.

At the heart of the SEC’s suitis a debate about XRP, a bit-coinlike digital asset created byRipple’s founders that wouldgrow to become the world’sthird-largest cryptocurrency. Itwas designed to be part of anetwork that would help bankscut expenses in cross-bordertransfers. The related software,however, never gained traction,the SEC alleges, leaving XRPwithout a clear purpose, otherthan to funnel sales to Ripple.

Unlike bitcoin, which oper-ates across an open networkthat isn’t controlled by any oneparty, XRP is an asset whosevalue and viability depends al-most wholly on the efforts ofRipple, the SEC alleges in its

PleaseturntopageB2

Brad Garlinghouse, chief ex-ecutive of Ripple, was last yearpublicly contemplating at theWorld Economic Forum in Da-vos, Switzerland, an initial pub-lic offering for the San Fran-cisco startup.

The company had just raisedabout $200 million in a roundof venture funding led by Tet-ragon Financial Group, with a$10 billion valuation. The valueof its signature product, a cryp-tocurrency called XRP, hadfallen over the previous year.But Ripple was poised to re-build the infrastructure forcross-border trades, Mr. Gar-linghouse said, promising thatits future was bright.

A year later, an IPO is off thetable. Instead, Ripple’s futurehinges on a judge’s ruling in acivil lawsuit filed in Decemberby the Securities and ExchangeCommission.

Regardless of the outcome,the case is expected to becomea precedent for how U.S. regu-

BY PAUL VIGNA

SEC CryptocurrencySuit Key to Startup

Next time someone tries tosell you an insurance policy orannuity, ask if their own healthinsurance depends on it.

It is widely known that in-surance agents and other fi-nancial advisers are rewardedwith cash commissions or bo-nuses when they sell theircompany’s products. In addi-tion, though, agents of severalmutual life insurance compa-nies—those owned by theirpolicyholders, not sharehold-ers—must generate a minimumamount of sales to qualify forsubsidized health insuranceand other medical benefits.

People selling financialproducts can be expected toconsider the link between salesand the cost of their benefitswhen they make recommenda-tions, consumer advocates say.

“These types of arrange-ments at their core presentconflicts that are bad for the

BY DAVE MICHAELS

Link Between Agents’ Sales,Health Insurance Criticized

Kuaishou Technology hasits eyes on the world’s biggestinitial public offering in morethan a year, seeking to raiseabout $5 billion from a HongKong share sale as short-videoand live-streaming apps surgein popularity in China.

Kuaishou, which competeswith ByteDance Ltd., the rivalChinese company behind Tik-Tok and its sister app Douyin,started taking investor ordersMonday. With the offering,which could value it at morethan $60 billion, Kuaishou isjoining a string of tech compa-nies from China that havelisted in Hong Kong.

Kuaishou, which means“fast hand” in Chinese, isbacked by Tencent HoldingsLtd. It was co-founded by SuHua and Cheng Yixiao, soft-ware engineers who previouslyworked for Google China andHewlett Packard, respectively.

Both Kuaishou and Byte-Dance have capitalized ongrowing demand from youngerChinese people to watch andrecord short videos on their

PleaseturntopageB8

BY JOANNE CHIU

ChineseVideo FirmTo Raise$5 Billion

P2JW025000-4-B00100-2--------XA

B2 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

INDEX TO BUSINESSESThese indexes cite notable references to most parent companies and businesspeoplein today’s edition. Articles on regional page inserts aren’t cited in these indexes.

AAdvanced Micro DevicesB2,B3

Alibaba Group.............B4Alphabet ................B1,B4Amazon.com.........B1, B4American Express.......B2Anderson Kill ..............B2Apollo GlobalManagement.............B3

Apple...........B1,B3,B4,B8Aronson Mayefsky &Sloan.........................R6

AT&T............................B3

BBaker Hughes .............B9BioNTech.....................A7Boeing..................A10,B3

CCardtronics..................B3Caterpillar ...................B3China Evergrande NewEnergy Vehicle GroupB8

Church Metal SpinningCo ..............................B1

Citigroup......................B2Comcast.......................B3

DDebevoise & PlimptonLLP............................B2

Deltec AssetManagement.............B8

DoorDash.....................B3

FFacebook 1,B3,B4,B8,B9Fields and Dennis.......R6

Fiverr International....B3Ford Motor..................B8Fundstrat GlobalAdvisors....................B8

GGeneral Electric...A10,B3General Motors...........B8Goldman Sachs GroupB1Guardian Life Insuranceof America................B2

HHalliburton..................B9Hudson ExecutiveCapital.......................B3

Hyundai.......................B8

JJohnson & Johnson....B3JPMorgan Chase ........B8

KKik Interactive............B2

MMassachusetts MutualLife Insurance...........B1

Mastercard..................B3McDonald's..................B3Microsoft ...............B1,B3

NNCR..............................B3Netflix .........................B1New York Life InsuranceB2

Northwest HardwoodsB2

Nvidia..........................B1

OOptimas OE SolutionsB2

PPentagon.....................A1Pfizer...........................A7Pinterest .....................B9Plug Power..................B2

QQuantumScape............B8

RRipple Labs .................B1Roku ............................B2

SSamsung .....................B4Schlumberger..............B9Scotts Miracle-Gro.....B3Signal Advance...........B8Snap.............................B9Sodoma Law...............R6Starbucks....................B3

TTelegram Group ..........B2Tesla .................B1,B3,B8Tetragon FinancialGroup.........................B1

3M...............................B3Twitter ........................B9

UUnited Scrap Metal ....B1

VVerizon CommunicationsB3

ViacomCBS..................B3Visa..............................B3

ZZoom Technologies.....B8Zoom VideoCommunications.......B8

INDEX TO PEOPLE

BUSINESS & FINANCE

SEC SuitThreatensStartup

*2021 is through Jan. 20 †Data are through Jan. 19Sources: Options Clearing (options annually); IHS Markit (shares)

Shorted shares as a percentageof shares available for trading onthe SPDRS&P500ETFTrust†26

14

16

18

20

22

24

%

’21April 2020

Average daily optionsvolume, annually*

40

0

10

20

30

million contracts

1980 ’90 2000 ’10 ’20

Feb. 2018 '19 '20 '21

0

200

400

600

$800 billion

Sources: Kraken (XRP price); CoinMarketCap (market value)

XRP

Bitcoin

Market value of XRP and bitcoinXRP price

April 2018 '19 '20 '21

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

$0.8

Inc., orders for lumber used inkitchen cabinets, flooring andthe trim around doors andwindows are up about 15%from a year ago on increasingconstruction of new homes.But the company said the cost

of obtaining and processingmaple and oak logs has beenrising more than the prices itcan charge for finished boards.Output at sawmills also is con-strained by labor shortages.

“It’s not great on our mar-

gins,” Chief Executive NathanJeppson said. “I don’t know ofanybody who is making a lotof money.”

Since November, the Ta-coma, Wash., company hasbeen operating under bank-

ruptcy protection that it attri-buted to collapsing ordersfrom the pandemic last springand falling exports to Chinabecause of retaliatory tariffson U.S. lumber imposed in2018.

Inc. and Apple.The S&P 500 has soared

36% since May, while the ARKfund has jumped 179%.

To some, the current envi-ronment is reminiscent of Au-gust, when stocks such asTesla and Apple soared aftertheir stock splits and a seem-ingly insatiable enthusiasm forstocks and options sweptthrough the market, helpingdrive stocks to highs. Thesummer euphoria was fol-lowed by a 7.2% drop in theNasdaq Composite in Septem-ber.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. ana-lysts said in a Jan. 8 note thatcall-option buying was promi-nent among individual inves-tors, based on an analysis oftrading activity made up offewer than 10 options con-tracts. This call buying couldlead to a rise in volatility,driven by options hedging,they said.

Options traders appear tobe positioning for bigger gainsfor some of the sector’s starperformers ahead of theirearnings reports this week. Anoptions measure called skew,which measures the cost ofbullish options relative tobearish ones, is near the low-est levels of the past year onstocks such as Apple, Ad-vanced Micro Devices andFacebook, Trade Alert datashow.

soaring, he said.Hayden Cole, 22, a student

at the College of the Canyonsin California, waded intostocks and options after helost his job during the corona-virus pandemic. He startedchatting with his father aboutthe stock market.

“He told me the stock mar-ket always recovers. It’ll al-ways go back up,” Mr. Colesaid.

He said he bought shares offuel-cell company Plug PowerInc., an exchange-traded fundtied to the S&P 500 and theARK Innovation Exchange-Traded Fund, which tracksshares of companies such asTesla and Roku Inc., in May.Lately, he has placed bullishoptions trades on companieslike Advanced Micro Devices

to the gauge recently fell tothe lowest level in at leastfour years, Trade Alert datashow.

“This is the most popularI’ve seen call buying in my ca-reer,” said Jon Cherry, globalhead of options at NorthernTrust Capital Markets who hasbeen in the industry for morethan two decades. “Where Ithink that is really drivingfrom is kind of the melt-upthat we’ve seen in broadermarkets.”

Mr. Cherry said he has no-ticed interest in bullish posi-tions as well as a desire to sellbearish options to juice in-come. Investors don’t want tomiss out on any potentialstock-market gains to comeand want to stay in positionsthat will profit if stocks keep

thrill to the more risk aspectof it,” Mr. Austin said. “There’sway more potential for highergains in a shorter amount oftime.”

As stocks have continuedtheir ascent and bullish posi-tions have flourished, manyhave ditched bearish bets onthe market.

Short interest in one of thebiggest exchange-traded fundstied to the S&P 500 recentlyhit the lowest level sinceMarch 2020, according to datafrom IHS Markit. Investorsthat short shares typicallyborrow stocks and sell them,in the hope of buying themback later at a lower price be-fore returning them to thelender. These positions profitwhen stocks tumble. Bearishput options outstanding tied

gained 2.3%, setting four clos-ing highs, after rallying 16%last year. The stock-marketrally has also broadened, lift-ing laggard sectors like finan-cials and energy.

Ben Austin, a 21-year-oldstudent at Syracuse University,said he has increased his posi-tions in stocks such as Ameri-can Express Co. and Citi-group Inc., in part because ofthe chance for more fiscalstimulus, which he thinkscould boost spending.

“For the next couplemonths, I’m still kind of bull-ish on the market,” Mr. Austinsaid. “I think we’re going tosee another giant stimuluspackage.”

He started trading optionsin November and primarilytrades calls to position for bigevents that have the potentialto lift stocks, shying awayfrom put options. He acknowl-edges that options can be risk-ier than stocks but relishestrading.

“There’s somewhat of a

ContinuedfrompageB1

InvestorsBet RallyContinues

Optimas OE Solutions LLC,a manufacturer of bolts andfasteners, recently accumu-lated $2 million worth of steelwire at its Wood Dale, Ill.,plant, up from $250,000 be-fore the pandemic erupted inthe U.S. last March.

“That’s going to give us anedge,” Chief Executive MarcStrandquist said. “The supplychains everywhere are runningragged right now. We cansmother our customers withservice.”

Mr. Strandquist said ordersfor fasteners from the com-mercial truck industry andfarm machinery manufacturershave been strong lately, as de-mand for such equipment re-covers from a slump thatstarted before the pandemic.

Even as demand improvesthough, some manufacturerssay they haven’t been able torecover all their higher costsfor materials.

At Northwest Hardwoods

ContinuedfrompageB1

Prevailing against the SECwill be daunting for Ripple,outsiders said.

The complaint shows a pat-tern of Ripple managing XRPlike a security, selling it basedon proprietary information,said Stephen Palley, a partnerat the law firm Anderson Kill,who has a background in secu-rities laws and cryptocurren-cies.

The complaint, he said, ap-pears to “walk up close to theline of securities fraud.” RecentSEC cases against Kik Interac-tive Inc. and Telegram GroupInc. will create a headwind forRipple, he said. Both companieswere sued by the SEC for alleg-edly creating unregistered se-curities. Kik lost; Telegram set-tled.

Phil Liu, the chief legal offi-cer at Arca, a crypto-focusedasset-management firm thatdoesn’t hold XRP, said that theSEC’s case is compelling.

Ripple appears to have nostable revenue streams outsideof selling XRP, he said, addingthat the products the companyhas developed “are wholly in-adequate to support the opera-tion.”

revealed that the suit was im-minent. Since then, it has fallenabout 45%, most recently trad-ing at around 28 cents. Themarket value of the XRP in cir-culation has dropped to about$12 billion from an intradaypeak of $148.8 billion in Janu-ary 2018, according to Coin-MarketCap.

Meanwhile, at least a half-dozen cryptocurrency ex-changes—including Coinbase,one of the biggest—have de-listed XRP since the SEC’s suit

was filed. A number of marketmakers and asset managershave decided to stop handlingXRP trades. Tetragon, the firmthat led Ripple’s 2019 capital-raising round, has sued thecompany, demanding its invest-ment back. Tetragon couldn’tbe reached for comment.

any securities, including XRP.That could be a crippling blowto the company and an assetwhose market value was nearly$150 billion at its intradaypeak.

Such an outcome would bethe highest-profile failure everfor the cryptocurrency sector,which has been marked by nu-merous token projects thathave failed to deliver returnsfor investors. Hundreds ofstartups raised billions of dol-lars in 2017 and 2018 by sellinginitial-coin-offering tokens; vir-tually all of those projectsfailed, and several companieswere charged with fraud.

Even as investors have piledback into bitcoin and ether inrecent months, some describethe cryptocurrency sector as anarena rife with manipulation onunregulated exchanges andsolely a momentum trade. Evenbitcoin, skeptics say, hasn’t de-livered on its initial promise ofbecoming a digital version ofcash.

Investors holding XRP havewatched the price plummetsince the SEC case became pub-lic. It was trading at about 51cents on Dec. 21, when Ripple

complaint. That makes it a se-curity, and it should have beenregistered as such by Rippleyears ago, according to theSEC.

Ripple said XRP is a cur-rency that shouldn’t be subjectto securities laws. If the com-pany is forced to register XRPas a security in the U.S., its po-tential value as a cross-borderinstrument would be dimin-ished.

XRP doesn’t fit several ofthe criteria of what is calledthe “Howey Test,” which theSEC uses to determine whetheran asset is a security, said An-drew Ceresney, a partner atDebevoise & Plimpton LLP, thelaw firm representing Ripple inthe SEC case.

XRP trades in a wide marketagainst a range of other curren-cies, none of which Ripple con-trols, he said. Moreover, Ripplemakes no promises in the saleof XRP, and the sale isn’t an in-vestment contract, he added.

“To us, this is the SEC tryingto stretch Howey beyond itsbreaking point,” Mr. Ceresneysaid.

The agency sees it differ-ently. Ripple has earned morethan $700 million from sellingXRP to the public since itsfounding in 2012, according tothe SEC, which said the com-pany had generated only $23million in revenue from sales ofsoftware through 2019. Bankshaven’t adopted it at any scale,and the few that have used ithave been directly subsidizedby Ripple, the SEC alleges.

If the SEC wins its case, itmight bar Ripple from selling

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Demand for durable goods such as automobiles and appliances picked up in late summer and gained momentum during the fall.

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DemandPressesSuppliers

change to comply with newconflict-of-interest rules issuedby the Securities and ExchangeCommission, according to amemo MassMutual distributedexplaining the move to itssales force.

The change made it harderfor some MassMutual agentsto meet the annual minimum,according to several posts onthe internal message board.

In the internal forums,agents said the coronaviruspandemic also had made itharder to meet with clientsand sell new products.

Agents who didn’t meet thesales targets last year would,as a consequence, lose theiraccess to subsidized health in-surance in 2021, according tothe memos MassMutual sentto agents. An agent whosespouse and children were cov-ered by the company’s healthplan paid $1,268 a month in2020. Without the subsidy, themonthly premiums would benearly twice as much—$2,506,according to rates reviewed bythe Journal.

MassMutual discloses in aregulatory brochure given toclients that tying health andretirement benefits to sales“creates an incentive for ourfinancial professionals to rec-ommend more products, in-crease investment advisory ac-count assets and sell thoseproducts or services that paythem more.”

Other mutual insurancecompanies, including NewYork Life Insurance Co. andGuardian Life Insurance Co.,also disclose that agents’health benefits can be tied toproduct sales.

A Guardian spokesman said“any potential conflicts associ-ated with these subsidies onthe investments side are miti-gated through a number ofmeasures which meet all Finraand SEC requirements.” Finra,or the Financial Industry Regu-latory Authority, is a privateregulator of securities firms inthe U.S. and is overseen by theSEC.

NYLIFE Securities LLC, thebrokerage arm of New YorkLife Insurance, says in a bro-chure given to clients that“purchases of all products of-fered by us and our affiliatesdetermine compensation andbenefits to our financial pro-fessionals, including eligibilityto receive retirement, medicaland life insurance benefits.”

ContinuedfrompageB1

Sales LinkTo BenefitCriticized

At the heart of thesuit is a debateabout XRP, abitcoinlike asset

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quarter results Wednesday, isexpected to show strongiPhone sales after the delayedlaunch of the iPhone 12weighed on its fourth-quarterrevenue. The company isamong the top vendors of per-sonal computers, which in

2020 saw their best growth ina decade. In Apple’s fourthquarter, sales of iPads and lap-tops boosted its results.

Shares of Apple have alsobeen resilient during the pan-demic, rising 75% during thepast 12 months. Microsoft

start doing that?”DoorDash joins a handful of

other brands that did well in2020 and are buying SuperBowl ads for the first time, in-cluding freelancer marketplaceFiverr International Ltd. andlawn- and garden-care special-ists Scotts Miracle-Gro Co.

Super Bowl advertisingcomes at a high price. Via-comCBS Inc., which willbroadcast the Super Bowl onCBS on Feb. 7, has been seek-ing $5.5 million for 30-secondspots during the game.

But Fiverr, which offers amarketplace that connectsfreelancers to buyers of theirservices, saw its business ex-pand rapidly during the pan-demic. Revenue in the thirdquarter of 2020 was $52.3million, up 88% year over year,the company reported.

Scotts Miracle-Gro saw rev-enue for its U.S. consumersegment, which handles all ofits lawn- and garden-carebusiness, grow 24% to $2.82billion in its fiscal year endedin September, as more peopletook up gardening, lawn careand sprucing up their homeswith indoor plants.

Scotts Miracle-Gro endedup spending 20% to 25% moreon advertising last year than itoriginally expected, Mr. Peo-ples said.

DoorDash Inc. will adver-tise in the Super Bowl for thefirst time next month as itkicks off a larger marketingcampaign promoting its op-tions beyond food delivery.The move follows a year inwhich the company went pub-lic and experienced growthduring the lockdowns of thecoronavirus pandemic.

Its minutelong Super Bowlcommercial, set to air duringthe first quarter of the game,stars actor and rapper DaveedDiggs and Muppets includingBig Bird, Cookie Monster andGrover. It reimagines the “Peo-ple in Your Neighborhood”song from “Sesame Street” tohighlight different items peo-ple can get from stores intheir communities, and onDoorDash, to emphasize thatthe service delivers more thanfood after its expansion intoother areas, including phar-macy items and pet supplies.

The ad was created withthe Martin Agency and SesameWorkshop, and directed byMichel Gondry.

“We want to reshape howpeople think about DoorDash,”said Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, vicepresident of marketing for thecompany. “What’s a biggerstage than the Super Bowl to

BY SAHIL PATEL

DoorDash Heads toSuper Bowl With Ad

The delivery company’s first spot in the big game stars the Muppets.

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strong results are expected tocontinue in the holiday quar-ter. For the first time ever intheir respective histories, Ap-ple’s quarterly sales are ex-pected to cross $100 billionand Microsoft is projected topass $40 billion.

Microsoft, which reports itssecond-quarter results onTuesday, has benefited fromrises at its cloud and gamingbusinesses. The company re-cently released two new Xboxgaming consoles—the Series Sand Series X—for which it wasexpecting strong demand.

Still, other parts of Micro-soft’s business have facedchallenges in the pandemic,such as its on-premise serverbusiness and its LinkedIn so-cial network, said GreggMoskowitz, Mizuho senior en-terprise software analyst.

“There are puts and takes,”Mr. Moskowitz said.

Apple, which reports first-

shares have gained 36%.Tesla’s shares have rallied

more than sevenfold duringthe past year. Elon Musk’scompany will report itsfourth-quarter results onWednesday. Analysts are ex-pecting the electric-vehiclemaker to post a profit, accord-ing to FactSet, which would bethe sixth quarter in a row thecompany has done so. Ana-lysts are expecting revenue tosurpass $10 billion, FactSetsaid.

In addition to the techheavyweights, major telecom-munications and food compa-nies are also releasing theirresults. Starbucks Corp. isslated to report on Tuesday,and McDonald’s Corp. will fol-low on Thursday. VerizonCommunications Inc. is re-porting results Tuesday, fol-lowed by AT&T Inc. onWednesday and ComcastCorp. on Thursday. 3M Co.—a

big maker of N95 masks—isreporting its results Tuesday.

Other notables scheduled toreport include General Elec-tric Co., Johnson & Johnsonand Advanced Micro DevicesInc. on Tuesday; Boeing Co.and Facebook Inc. on Wednes-day; MasterCard Inc. and VisaInc. on Thursday; and Cater-pillar Inc. on Friday.

Only 13% of the S&P 500 in-dex have reported earnings re-sults so far this period, accord-ing to FactSet. Earnings are ontrack to fall 4.7% year-over-year for the quarter, based onactual results and estimatesfor companies that have yet toreport, FactSet said. Such adrop would mark the fourthstraight quarter in which theindex has reported a year-over-year decline in earnings.

Revenue for 2020’s finalquarter is on pace to increase0.7% year-over-year, FactSetsaid.

Tech giants MicrosoftCorp., Apple Inc. and TeslaInc. will be among the compa-nies headlining a busy earn-ings week, shedding morelight on how businesses per-formed at the end of 2020 asCovid-19 cases rose.

Overall, more than a fifth ofthe S&P 500 and a third of theDow Jones Industrial Averageare expected to provide theirquarterly updates startingMonday, according to FactSet.In addition to tech, the sched-ule includes some of the big-gest names in manufacturing,restaurants and telecommuni-cations.

Many tech companies haveseen their sales jump duringthe coronavirus pandemic, aspeople leaned more on theirproducts and services whileworking, schooling and enter-taining from home. And the

BY ALLISON PRANG

Company Earnings Get Covid-19 ScrutinyThe best- andworst-performing S&P 500 sectors in Q4 2020,change froma year earlier*

Source: FactSet

–50% -25 –250–100% –75 –50 –25 0 25

*Based on companies that had reported as of Friday, plus estimates for those yet to report.

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Cardtronics had a marketvalue of about $1.8 billion Fri-day afternoon, while NCR’s was$4.3 billion.

Cardtronics shares closedFriday at $40.86, indicating themarket was hoping for a pro-longed bidding war.

NCR made the unsolicitedbid after Houston-basedCardtronics on Dec. 15 an-nounced a deal to be sold toApollo and Hudson Executive.Cardtronics disclosed the bidand entered into discussionswith NCR earlier this month.

Once the NCR offer wasdeemed superior last week,Apollo and Hudson Executivehad five days to increasetheirs. They opted to walkaway instead and receive abreakup fee of more than $30million as the merger agree-ment stipulates, the peoplesaid.

NCR, formerly known as Na-tional Cash Register and onceowned by AT&T, has been piv-oting its business toward soft-ware sales and other recurringservices, which a deal withCardtronics could accelerate.

NCR Corp. is nearing adeal to buy Cardtronics PLCafter outbidding a pair of in-vestment firms that had ear-lier agreed to buy the ATMoperator.

NCR is finalizing a takeoverthat would value Cardtronics at$39 a share, or around $1.7 bil-lion, according to people famil-iar with the matter. As always,the talks could fall apart beforea deal is reached.

The investment firms—pri-vate-equity giant Apollo GlobalManagement Inc. and HudsonExecutive Capital LP—de-clined to raise their prior offerof $35 a share, paving the wayfor the impending deal.

Cardtronics, with 285,000ATMs in 10 countries, is one ofthe largest cash-machine oper-ators in the world. A dealwould pair the company withAtlanta-based NCR, whichmakes ATMs as well as point-of-sale systems and self-servicekiosks for businesses such asretailers and restaurants.

BY CARA LOMBARDOAND MIRIAM GOTTFRIED

NCR Close to a DealFor Cash-MachineProvider Cardtronics

NY

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B4 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech

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mison, director of the digital-markets initiative at the Uni-versity of Florida and a visitingscholar at the conservativeAmerican Enterprise Institute.

“You’re trying to turn thesecompanies into utilities,” Mr.Jamison said. “In the case ofelectricity, maybe that’s great.But in the case of digital plat-forms, that’s the opposite ofhow these markets work.”

China’s involvement in whathas been a largely Europe-ledpush for tech regulation is anew twist. Chinese internetcompanies had been mostlyspared antitrust scrutiny be-cause of an overriding nationalpolicy to groom domestic tech-nology champions. Instead,regulators often used antitrustrules as a tool to stem the mar-ket influence of foreign compa-nies in the country.

The aura of invincibility forChinese tech businesses disap-peared after an October speechfrom Alibaba founder Jack Ma,who lashed out at the govern-ment’s tight financial regula-tion, prompting a crackdownon his internet juggernaut.

While Mr. Ma’s speechmight have been the triggerfor heightened digital-compe-tition scrutiny, some said thenew stance likely reflectedbroader worries about thegrowing influence of techbusinesses.

China has one of the short-est histories of antitrust regu-lation among the major globaleconomies, having only ad-opted an antimonopoly law in

2008. This has let lawmakersdraft rules more tailored tothe industry and targeted atwin-at-all-costs strategiesused by internet platforms,said Kevin Xu, a venture capi-talist who runs the tech blogInterconnected.

This month the head of theChinese antitrust regulator re-iterated in an interview onstate media that strengtheningantitrust and unfair competi-tion rules is a priority. Themoves bolster a governmentstrategy of relying more onChina’s domestic economy andconsumption for growth, hesaid.

Companies including Alpha-bet Inc.’s Google are facing in-creasing pressure in areas fromcompetition to privacy andtaxes. Antitrust regulators arepursuing cases in the U.S. andin Europe, and EU privacy reg-ulators are expected to an-nounce some of their first big-tech decisions this year. Policymakers in the U.K. and EU haveproposed new content-modera-tion obligations for social-me-dia companies.

Facebook has said it is opento the new competition pro-posals. “We support rules thathelp foster innovation, enablecompetition and protect con-sumer welfare, and we ac-knowledge that these rulesmust apply to us,” a spokes-man said.

An Amazon spokesmanpointed to a blog post in whichthe company said the blocshould ensure that “the same

rules apply to all companies.”Alibaba and Google declined

to comment. When Alibaba wassingled out for antitrust inves-tigation, it said then that itsbusinesses are operating asusual. Google has previouslysaid the EU proposals would“appear to specifically target ahandful of companies and makeit harder to develop new prod-ucts to support small busi-nesses in Europe.”

In the U.S., where Googleand Facebook face antitrustlawsuits, bipartisan momentumis growing for tech regulation.

Last year, Democrats on theHouse Judiciary Committee re-leased a report calling forchanges to antitrust laws, in-cluding the creation of nondis-crimination requirements andrules prohibiting dominantplatforms from engaging inself-preferencing. House Re-publicans, in their own report,endorsed a narrower set ofchanges, including require-ments that tech giants maketheir services interoperableand let clients export their datafrom one company to another.

A global overhaul of digitalcompetition faces obstacles. InChina, any meaningful enforce-ment of antitrust rules wouldmean cracking down on state-owned enterprises, monopoliesthat dominate industries suchas telecom and finance. It couldtake years for the EU to debateand enact its proposed law.Partisan divisions in the U.S.could complicate passage ofnew tech regulations.

for the first time and continuedpressing to expand its businessas a government contractor,spent about $18 million lastyear, up about 11% from 2019spending.

“We’ve been clear that theinternet needs updated regula-tions, which is why we’ll con-tinue voicing our support fornew rules that address today’srealities online,” a Facebookspokesman said.

“Amazon provides a widerange of products and servicesfor our customers, and we’realways looking for ways to in-novate on their behalf. OurWashington, D.C., team is fo-cused on ensuring we are advo-cating on issues that are im-portant to policymakers, ouremployees and our customers,”an Amazon spokeswoman said.

The Journal analyzed re-ports filed by U.S. companieswith Congress under the Lob-bying Disclosure Act. The re-ports cover the full year.

Apple Inc. disclosed $6.7million in lobbying spendingfor 2020, down from a record$7.4 million in 2019.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google alsoreported a drop in lobbyingbudget for the second year run-ning, spending $7.5 million.

Apple and Google declinedto comment on the lobbyingspending.

Such expenditures, whichare required to be disclosed un-der federal law, represent onlypart of an array of efforts thefour tech giants are using tocounter their critics and buildgoodwill in Washington at atime when they are under abrighter spotlight than ever.

ContinuedfrompageB1

feature is the Max’s easily re-movable earcups (as long asyou’re willing to fork over$69 for replacements).

Cons: That price! For $200more than the competition,it’s hard to recommend buy-ing the AirPods Max just forslightly better audio quality.

There are other draw-backs. While you can techni-cally use the AirPods Maxwith Android devices orWindows PCs, it isn’t a goodexperience.

And there’s no wired cableincluded—it’s sold separatelyfor $35 and you can’t storethe cable inside the Max’scase. When the battery runsout, the headphones won’t

work even with the cableplugged in.

Then, there’s the includedcase. It’s terrible. It doesn’tprotect the most vulnerablepart, the headband’s mesh.There’s no power button, soyou have to use the case toturn them off immediately. (Ifyou put the headphonesdown, they will go into a low-power mode after five min-utes.) And it looks like a bra.

Currently, AirPods Max areback-ordered by about amonth.

Sony WH-1000XM4($350)

Pros: These headphoneswith the clunky name (clas-

sic Sony) are among the top-selling models in the cate-gory, and it’s easy to seewhy. The noise-canceling isfantastic, and the soundquality is good.

The XM4s can be con-nected to two devices atonce, and a nifty featurecalled Speak-to-Chat recog-nizes when you’re speaking tolet in ambient sound.

The headphone’s hinge al-lows for compact storage inits case, which has all the ac-cessories you need for planetravel, including a dual plugadapter and 3.5mm head-phone cable.

Cons: The microphone oc-casionally makes you soundwarbled, especially if youhave a deep voice. The touchpanel that allows play/pauseand volume control oftentakes a few tries to register.

Bose 700 ($380)Pros: The noise-canceling

capabilities on the 700s aresimilar to what I’ve experi-enced on the company’solder QC 35 II model. But themicrophone on these head-phones is much improved. Innoisy environments, the700’s microphone outper-formed other over-ear head-

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY | By Nicole Nguyen

There’sMore to Noise-Canceling Than NoiseA leaf

blower isblaring acrossthe street.The dish-washer is run-

ning. My husband is typingharder than a toddler bang-ing on a piano.

My recipe for suppressingthat din? Noise-cancelingheadphones and Spotify tunedto the Rain Sounds playlist.Press play and repeat.

To be clear, even the bestnoise-canceling headphonescan’t offer total silence. Butthey can reduce the impact ofwhatever pandemonium ishappening around you. And anumber of new offerings re-cently hit the market, includ-ing Apple’s extravagant over-the-ear AirPods Max andSamsung’s fully wireless Gal-axy Buds Pro earbuds. I spenthours testing the top mod-els—and by testing, I meantaking a lot of Zoom calls andlistening to The Highwomenon repeat.

Before you make the deci-sion about which ones to buy,you need to decide whichtype to buy.

No matter which kind youpick, it’s important to find agood fit. Head size, ear shapeand whether you wearglasses, hearing aids or ear-rings can affect the wayheadphones feel and sound.

A good fit complements aheadphone’s noise-cancelingabilities by physically limitingthe amount of noise that canget in, says Nilo Casimiro, di-rector of product manage-ment at Dirac, an audio-soft-ware company.

“The bottom line is that notwo people hear identically,”said Mark Steinberg, seniortechnologist at B&H Photo, aprofessional media equipmentretailer. Age and past expo-sure to loud environments

have a significant impact onyour hearing, he said.

I suggest, if you have thetime and willingness, tryingmultiple brands. Most compa-nies offer generous returnwindows for online pur-chases. Just remember, ifyou’re shopping online, take alook at the return policy be-fore you buy.

Whatever suits your needsbest, here’s how the top con-tenders compare.

AirPods Max ($549)Pros: The AirPods Max

sound really great. No mat-ter the genre, audio deliveryis balanced, detailed andspacious.

The Max’s Transparencymode, which lets in outsidesounds, is the most naturalof the headphones I’vetested. Critically, this featureprevents shouting on callsand lets you hear what theother end is hearing. (Pro tipfor those with loud childrenor pets: Use this featurewhile on calls. The noisecancellation is a little toogood at blocking noise—andjust because you can’t hearyour surroundings, doesn’tmean the people you’re talk-ing to can’t.)

The dial and button con-trols on the right earcup aremuch easier to use thantouch controls found on oth-ers.

Despite the extra weight ofthe Max’s metal hardware(most headphones are plas-tic), they are comfortable—even while wearing a faceshield and KN95 mask on an11-hour flight.

And, of course, the Maxsupports Apple-exclusive fea-tures like easy pairing withother Apple devices, auto-matic device switching andsurround-sound 3-D audio forsupported apps. One unique

sets, minimizing the reverbof an echo-y space and iso-lating my voice from loudbackground noises.

If you don’t mind a blem-ish or two, Bose sells a refur-bished version for $280.

Cons: They aren’t as com-pact as Sony’s or Bose’solder QC 35 model; the head-phones don’t fold in theircase. While the Bose 700supports multi-device con-nection, I found that my re-view unit made a crackingnoise when connected to mylaptop and phone simultane-ously. A spokeswoman saidthe company is working withother customers who haveexperienced the problem tolearn more.

The Best BudsI’ve already covered how

to choose wireless earbuds,but a few new models withnoise-canceling have arrivedon the scene since then. TheAirPods Pro ($209 at Wal-mart) are still the bestchoice for Apple users butdue for an update.

For Samsung users, theGalaxy Buds Pro ($200) are asignificant improvement in fitand noise cancellation overthe company’s previous ear-buds. Samsung-specific fea-tures like auto-switching andquick pairing make the budsan ideal choice for those withGalaxy devices. The low-pro-file design doesn’t get caughton stuff and the software im-pressively blocks out windnoise on calls.

For other Android devices,the Elite 85t ($200) are mypick. They deliver full sound,and the noise-canceling is onpar with the AirPods Pro.Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds($280) offer the best trulywireless noise-canceling expe-rience, but the bulky designisn’t for everyone.

Beijing is adding new mo-mentum to efforts in Brusselsand Washington to curb thepower of technology compa-nies.

China recently joined thechorus of governments advanc-ing plans to impose new com-petition obligations on largetechnology companies, includ-ing Amazon.com Inc., Face-book Inc. and Alibaba GroupHolding Ltd.

In November, China unveiledits first draft guidelines over-seeing competitive behavior bydigital giants. The proposals in-clude blocking companies fromcrunching consumer data to setdiscriminatory prices, or sell-ing products at prices belowcost to gain market share. Thismonth, it heightened scrutinyof electronic-payment compa-nies, warning that nonbankpayment firms, if found to bedominating the market, couldface antitrust investigations.

China’s moves come as theEuropean Union and the U.K.pursue similar efforts. In De-cember, an EU bill was pro-posed to oblige major digitalplatforms to refrain frommany potentially anticompeti-tive actions, such as promot-ing their products over thoseof rivals. The U.K. plans legis-lation empowering a new digi-tal-competition unit to enforcecodes of conduct for compa-nies that dominate strategicdigital markets.

Driving the proposals are anumber of policy makers, com-petition specialists and smallertech rivals in Europe, Asia andthe U.S. who say fresh laws areneeded to ensure that newtech rivals can emerge to chal-lenge the digital giants.

“With each passing year, it’sincreasingly clear that the plat-forms are very entrenched andthat absent a policy changethat’s unlikely to change,” saidJason Furman, a Harvard Uni-versity economist who led apanel that provided the roadmap for the U.K.’s digital-com-petition proposals.

Some free-market propo-nents argue that proposed digi-tal-competition rules go toofar. They are likely to hobbledigital markets or empower bigcompanies that can exploit therules, leaving consumers worseoff either way, said Mark A. Ja-

China Joins Push to Rein In Tech

The aura of invincibility for Chinese tech firms disappeared after a speech from Alibaba founder Jack Ma.

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Bose's QuietComfort Earbuds,Samsung's Galaxy Buds Proand Jabra's Elite 85t. Left, theAirPods Max were comfortableenough for an 11-hour flight.

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Google and Facebook facemultiple antitrust lawsuits, andAmazon and Apple have beenthe subject of preliminary in-quiries that could advance fur-ther under the Biden adminis-tration.

While President Biden hasn’tspelled out a tech agenda ormade key personnel choicesoverseeing the sector, Demo-crats in Congress are pushinghim to be more aggressive intackling Big Tech’s marketpower. They are planning theirown legislation and oversighton issues such as antitrust, pri-vacy, liability for user-generatedcontent and misinformation.

Social media’s role in theJan. 6 Capitol riot gave new ur-gency to those plans—and ledFacebook, Amazon and othersto suspend political donations,curtailing a source of influence.

Part of the companies’ play-book is funding groups thatagree with their agenda.

In a separate disclosure ofits political activity, Google saidin December that it is a mem-ber or a substantial contributorto nearly 200 trade associationsand political advocacy groups,including several that work onantitrust issues. Some of thegroups have criticized Google.

When a Colorado-led coali-tion of state attorneys generalfiled an antitrust suit againstGoogle in mid-December overits dominance in online search,the president of the ConnectedCommerce Council—one of theGoogle-funded groups—issued astatement blasting the action. Itwas emailed to reporters beforedetails of the suit were public.

The council’s members aresmall businesses that benefitfrom tech companies’ products,said its president, JakeWard. Hesaid he has used funds fromFacebook, Google and Amazonto fund research and staffing,but the companies don’t have asay on the positions the grouptakes.

—John D. McKinnoncontributed to this article.

Facebook,AmazonPress Cases

Amazon’s market dominance is under scrutiny in Washington.

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B6 | Monday, January 25, 2021 THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

New to the Market Continued on page B8

Commodities andCurrencies

LastWeek YTDClose Net chg %Chg % chg

DJCommodity 750.18 -12.19 -1.60 2.54

Refinitiv/CCCRB Index 172.85 -2.40 -1.37 3.01

Crude oil,$per barrel 52.27 -0.15 -0.29 7.73

Natural gas,$/MMBtu 2.446 -0.291 -10.63 -3.66

Gold,$per troy oz. 1855.70 26.40 1.44 -1.98

U.S. Dollar Index 90.21 -0.56 -0.62 0.31

WSJDollar Index 85.21 -0.30 -0.35 0.25

Euro, per dollar 0.8214 -0.0065 -0.78 0.34

Yen, per dollar 103.76 -0.11 -0.11 0.43

U.K. pound, in dollars 1.37 0.01 0.74 0.15

52-WeekLow Close(l) High %Chg

DJCommodity 433.70 l 770.54 22.51

Refinitiv/CCCMD 106.29 l 176.77 -1.65

Crude oil,$per barrel -37.63 l 54.19 -3.54

Natural gas,$/MMBtu 1.482 l 3.354 29.21

Gold,$per troy oz. 1477.30 l 2051.50 18.11

U.S. Dollar Index 89.44 l 102.82 -7.81

WSJDollar Index 84.56 l 97.02 -6.01

Euro, per dollar 0.8112 l 0.9352 -9.44

Yen, per dollar 102.37 l 112.11 -5.05

U.K. pound, in dollars 1.15 l 1.37 4.67

Treasury yield curveYield to maturity of current bills,notes and bonds

0.00

0.50

1.00

1.50

2.00

2.50%

1

month(s)3 6 1

years2 3 5 7 10 20 30

maturity

t

Tradeweb ICEFriday Close

t

One year ago

Forex RaceYen, euro vs. dollar; dollar vs.major U.S. trading partners

–10

–5

0

5

10%

2020 2021

Euro

s

Yens

WSJ Dollar Indexs

Sources: Tradeweb ICEU.S. Treasury Close; Tullett Prebon; DowJonesMarketData

CorporateBorrowingRatesandYieldsSpread+/- Treasurys,

Yield (%) in basis pts, 52-wkRange Total ReturnBond total return index Last Wkago Last Low High 52-wk 3-yr

U.S. Treasury, Barclays 0.650 0.670 5.89 5.24U.S. TreasuryLong, Barclays 1.720 1.720 10.11 9.61Aggregate, Barclays 1.180 1.180 36 35 127 5.75 5.44Fixed-RateMBS, Barclays 1.220 1.210 21 19 132 3.50 4.04HighYield 100, ICEBofA n.a. 3.539 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.MuniMaster, ICEBofA n.a. 0.869 n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a. n.a.EMBIGlobal, J.P.Morgan 4.496 4.519 327 286 662 3.427 4.561

Sources: J.P.Morgan; S&PDowJones Indices; BloombergBarclays; ICEDataServices

ConsumerRates andReturns to InvestorU.S. consumer ratesA consumer rate against itsbenchmark over the past year

0.00

0.40

0.80

1.20

1.60%

2020F M A M J J A S O N D J

t

Money marketaccount yields

t Federal-fundstarget rate

Selected ratesMoneyMarket/SavingsAccts

Bankrate.comavg†: 0.10%ColoradoFederal SavingsBank 0.45%GreenwoodVillage, CO 877-484-2372

DollarSavingsDirect 0.45%NewYork, NY 866-395-8693

VirtualBank 0.45%Miami, FL 877-998-2265

CFGCommunityBank 0.58%Baltimore,MD 888-205-8388

BankDirect 0.60%Richardson, TX 877-839-2737

Yield/Rate (%) 52-WeekRange (%) 3-yr chgInterest rate Last (l)Week ago Low 0 2 4 6 8 High (pct pts)

Federal-funds rate target 0.00-0.25 0.00-0.25 0.00 l 1.75 -1.25Prime rate* 3.25 3.25 3.25 l 4.75 -1.25Libor, 3-month 0.22 0.22 0.20 l 1.80 -1.53Moneymarket, annual yield 0.10 0.10 0.10 l 0.50 -0.25Five-year CD, annual yield 0.48 0.57 0.48 l 1.40 -1.0530-yearmortgage, fixed† 2.89 2.92 2.83 l 4.22 -1.2215-yearmortgage, fixed† 2.35 2.40 2.32 l 3.43 -1.22Jumbomortgages, $548,250-plus† 2.93 2.95 2.85 l 4.36 -1.53Five-year adjmortgage (ARM)† 3.16 3.06 2.85 l 3.69 -1.16New-car loan, 48-month 4.02 4.02 4.02 l 4.50 0.77Bankrate.com rates based on survey of over 4,800 online banks. *Base rate posted by 70% of the nation's largestbanks.† Excludes closing costs.

Sources: FactSet; Dow JonesMarket Data; Bankrate.com

S&P 500 Index3841.47 s73.22, or 1.94% last weekHigh, low, open and close for each ofthe past 52 weeks

Year agoLast

Trailing P/E ratio *P/E estimate *Dividend yield *All-time high

41.74 25.94

23.42 19.25

1.55 1.79

3853.07, 01/21/21

2000

2250

2500

2750

3000

3250

3500

3750

J F M A M J J A S O N D J

65-day moving average

200-day moving average

Nasdaq Composite

s 544.56, or 4.19%last week

13650

13350

13050

1275015January

18 19 20 21 22

DJ US TSM

s 760.90, or 1.92%last week

40500

40000

39500

3900015January

18 19 20 21 22

InternationalStock IndexesLatestWeek 52-WeekRange YTD

Region/Country Index Close %chg Low Close High %chg

World MSCIACWI 666.69 1.65 384.04 • 669.62 3.2MSCIACWIex-USA 339.90 1.22 200.33 • 342.14 4.1MSCIWorld 2755.66 1.50 1602.11 • 2765.57 2.4MSCIEmergingMarkets 1392.85 2.56 758.20 • 1406.07 7.9

Americas MSCIACAmericas 1502.13 1.76 850.77 • 1507.88 2.3Canada S&P/TSXComp 17845.91 –0.35 11228.49 • 18042.07 2.4LatinAmer. MSCIEMLatinAmerica 2368.10 –4.56 1382.94 • 2893.62 –3.4Brazil SaoPauloBovespa 117380.49 –2.47 63569.62 • 125076.63 –1.4Chile Santiago IPSA 3065.29 –1.99 2045.49 • 3347.78 7.27Mexico S&P/BMVIPC 44683.55 –2.63 32964.22 • 46729.30 1.4

EMEA StoxxEurope600 408.54 0.17 279.66 • 433.90 2.4StoxxEurope50 3188.77 0.10 2383.14 • 3539.12 2.6

Eurozone EuroStoxx 404.17 0.09 261.53 • 421.34 1.7EuroStoxx50 3602.41 0.08 2385.82 • 3865.18 1.4

Austria ATX 3002.26 1.84 1630.84 • 3212.48 8.0Belgium Bel-20 3743.25 0.74 2528.77 • 4198.31 3.4France CAC40 5559.57 –0.93 3754.84 • 6111.24 0.1Germany DAX 13873.97 0.63 8441.71 • 14049.53 1.1Greece AthexComposite 778.98 –1.41 484.40 • 948.64 –3.7Israel TelAviv 1613.29 1.23 1171.21 • 1751.79 7.6Italy FTSEMIB 22088.36 –1.31 14894 • 25478 –0.7Netherlands AEX 660.53 1.35 404.10 • 663.88 5.8Portugal PSI20 5040.63 0.05 3596.08 • 5435.85 2.9Russia RTSIndex 1418.29 –3.80 832.26 • 1599.82 2.2SouthAfrica FTSE/JSEAll-Share 63987.92 0.69 37963.01 • 64174.88 7.7Spain IBEX35 8036.40 –2.36 6107.2 • 10083.6 –0.5Sweden OMXStockholm 803.20 1.65 478.95 • 804.55 4.5Switzerland SwissMarket 10930.81 0.49 8160.79 • 11263.01 2.1U.K. FTSE100 6695.07 –0.60 4993.89 • 7585.98 3.6

Asia-Pacific MSCIACAsiaPacific 213.10 2.15 121.5 • 214.6 6.6Australia S&P/ASX200 6800.40 1.27 4546.0 • 7162.5 3.2China ShanghaiComposite 3606.75 1.13 2660.17 • 3621.26 3.8HongKong HangSeng 29447.85 3.06 21696.13 • 29962.47 8.1India S&PBSESensex 48878.54 –0.32 25981.24 • 49792.12 2.4Japan NikkeiStockAvg 28631.45 0.39 16552.83 • 28756.86 4.3Malaysia FTSEBursaMalaysiaKLCI 1596.74 –1.86 1219.72 • 1684.58 –1.9Singapore StraitsTimes 2991.53 –0.44 2233.48 • 3240.02 5.2SouthKorea Kospi 3140.63 1.77 1457.64 • 3160.84 9.3Taiwan TAIEX 16019.03 2.58 8681.34 • 16153.77 8.7

Source:FactSet;DowJonesMarketData

MajorU.S. Stock-Market IndexesLatestWeek 52-Week % chg

High Low Close Net chg % chg Low Close (l) High %chg YTD 3-yr. ann.DowJones

Industrial Average 31272.22 30865.03 30996.98 182.72 0.59 18591.93 l 31188.38 6.9 1.3 5.7TransportationAvg 13140.12 12729.58 12856.54 -89.74 -0.69 6703.63 l 13126 16.2 2.8 4.2UtilityAverage 867.48 851.17 857.94 -3.15 -0.37 610.89 l 960.89 -7.9 -0.8 7.8Total StockMarket 40634.55 39852.21 40458.32 760.90 1.92 22462.76 l 40551.83 20.2 3.2 11.4Barron's 400 909.82 897.16 909.04 15.48 1.73 455.11 l 909.04 24.1 6.7 6.4

NasdaqStockMarket

NasdaqComposite 13567.14 13078.70 13543.06 544.56 4.19 6860.67 l 13543.06 45.4 5.1 22.3Nasdaq-100 13433.69 12861.30 13366.40 562.46 4.39 6994.29 l 13404.99 46.2 3.7 24.6

S&P

500 Index 3861.45 3780.37 3841.47 73.22 1.94 2237.40 l 3853.07 16.6 2.3 10.7MidCap400 2476.98 2431.68 2462.53 38.50 1.59 1218.55 l 2469.01 19.2 6.8 7.4SmallCap600 1237.20 1202.01 1231.70 19.79 1.63 595.67 l 1232.7 21.2 10.1 8.0

Other Indexes

Russell 2000 2173.73 2118.77 2168.76 45.56 2.15 991.16 l 2168.76 30.5 9.8 10.6NYSEComposite 15114.11 14881.38 14951.84 57.68 0.39 8777.38 l 15097.28 7.0 2.9 3.5Value Line 607.86 593.37 603.54 5.31 0.89 305.71 l 606.75 9.9 6.1 0.9NYSEArcaBiotech 6197.84 6055.42 6161.23 139.21 2.31 3855.67 l 6161.23 24.4 7.4 8.8NYSEArcaPharma 720.40 709.33 717.17 8.19 1.15 494.36 l 718.22 9.4 4.0 7.7KBWBank 108.75 102.86 103.78 -3.14 -2.94 56.19 l 110.43 -3.6 6.0 -3.4PHLX§Gold/Silver 144.04 136.66 140.15 2.64 1.92 70.12 l 161.14 33.7 -2.8 16.6PHLX§Oil Service 53.01 47.08 49.80 -2.272 -4.36 21.47 l 68.4 -27.2 12.3 -33.0PHLX§Semiconductor 3141.02 3034.99 3074.40 81.64 2.73 1286.84 l 3132.17 59.8 10.0 30.5CboeVolatility 25.80 21.09 21.91 -2.43 -9.98 13.68 l 82.69 50.5 -3.7 25.7

§NasdaqPHLX Sources: FactSet; DowJonesMarketData

Real-time U.S. stockquotes are available onWSJ.com. Track most-active stocks, newhighs/lows, mutualfunds and ETFs.

All are available free atWSJMarkets.com

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BenchmarkYields andRatesBenchmarkYields andRates

MARKETS DIGEST

Dow Jones Industrial Average

30996.98 s182.72, or 0.59% last weekHigh, low, open and close for each ofthe past 52 weeks

Year agoLast

Trailing P/E ratioP/E estimate *Dividend yieldAll-time high

29.53 21.2023.55 19.161.96 2.20

31188.38, 01/20/21

16000

18000

20000

22000

24000

26000

28000

30000

J F M A M J J A S O N D J

Current divisor 0.15198707565833

Bars measure the point change from Monday's open

tt

Week's high

Week's low

Monday's open

Friday's close Monday's open

Friday's closeDOWN UP

Primarymarket t

t Composite

65-day moving average

200-day moving average

NYSE weekly volume, in billions of shares

0122436

J F M A M J J A S O N D J

*Weekly P/E data based on as-reported earnings from Birinyi Associates Inc.; †Based on Nasdaq-100 Index

Track the MarketsCompare the performance of selectedglobal stock indexes, bond ETFs,currencies and commodities atwsj.com/graphics/track-the-markets

CurrenciesU.S.-dollar foreign-exchange rates in lateNewYork trading

US$vs,Fri YTD chg

Country/currency inUS$ perUS$ (%)

AmericasArgentina peso .0116 86.4870 2.8Brazil real .1829 5.4670 5.3Canada dollar .7851 1.2737 0.01Chile peso .001374 727.60 2.4Colombiapeso .000283 3527.71 3.1EcuadorUSdollar 1 1 unchMexico peso .0501 19.9714 0.5Uruguay peso .02371 42.1850 –0.4Asia-PacificAustralian dollar .7717 1.2958 –0.3China yuan .1543 6.4819 –0.8HongKong dollar .1290 7.7522 –0.01India rupee .01370 72.999 –0.1Indonesia rupiah .0000713 14035 –0.1Japan yen .009638 103.76 0.4Kazakhstan tenge .002376 420.96 –0.1Macau pataca .1252 7.9890 –0.03Malaysia ringgit .2473 4.0430 0.5NewZealand dollar .7182 1.3924 0.03Pakistan rupee .00622 160.675 0.2Philippines peso .0208 48.084 0.1Singapore dollar .7527 1.3285 0.5SouthKoreawon .0009045 1105.54 1.8Sri Lanka rupee .0050546 197.84 6.8Taiwan dollar .03576 27.967 –0.4Thailand baht .03337 29.970 –0.2

US$vs,Fri YTD chg

Country/currency inUS$ perUS$ (%)

Vietnam dong .00004334 23072 –0.04EuropeCzechRep. koruna .04660 21.458 –0.1Denmark krone .1636 6.1123 0.3Euro area euro 1.2175 .8214 0.3Hungary forint .003402 293.95 –1.0Iceland krona .007752 129.00 0.9Norway krone .1177 8.4976 –0.9Poland zloty .2681 3.7294 –0.1Russia ruble .01329 75.265 1.7Sweden krona .1205 8.2957 0.8Switzerland franc 1.1297 .8852 0.03Turkey lira .1349 7.4145 –0.3Ukraine hryvnia .0354 28.2500 –0.4UK pound 1.3685 .7307 –0.1Middle East/AfricaBahrain dinar 2.6524 .3770 –0.01Egypt pound .0636 15.7293 –0.1Israel shekel .3057 3.2714 1.8Kuwait dinar 3.3047 .3026 –0.5Oman sul rial 2.5974 .3850 ...Qatar rial .2747 3.641 –0.01SaudiArabia riyal .2666 3.7513 –0.01SouthAfrica rand .0660 15.1527 3.1

Close Net Chg %Chg YTD%Chg

WSJDollar Index 85.21 0.24 0.3 0.25

Sources: Tullett Prebon, DowJonesMarketData

PublicOfferings of Stock

IPOs in theU.S.MarketInitial public offerings of stock expected thisweek;might include someofferings, U.S. and foreign, open to institutional investors only via theRule 144amarket; deal amounts are for theU.S.market only

Symbol/ PricingExpected primary Shares Range($)pricing date Filed Issuer/business exchange (mil.) Low/High Bookrunner(s)

1/27 1/4 OrthoClinical DiagnosticsHoldings plc OCDX 70.0 20.00/ JPM, BofASecurities, GS, Barclays,Pharmaceutical providerwith reliable diagnostictesting solutions to theclinical laboratory andtransfusionmedicinecommunities.

Nq 23.00 MS, Citi, CreditSuisse, UBS,Evercore Inc, PiperSandler

1/27 12/28 Qualtrics International Inc XM 49.22 22.00/ MS, JPM, BofASecurities, Barclays,2020 Software-Computer,

Traditional &Other.Provider of CRM, ERP,HCM, Customer Service,andMarketingAutomation systems.

Nq 26.00 DB,GS, HSBC, Citi,BMOCptlMkts,Truist FinancialCorp

1/27 12/30 Shoals TechnologiesGroup Inc SHLS 50.0 19.00/ GS, JPM,GuggenheimPartners,2020 Manufacturer for

renewable energy.Nq 21.00 UBS

1/28 10/19 SoutheasternGrocers Inc SEGR 8.9 14.00/ BofASecurities, GS, DB,2020 Holding company for

supermarket chains.N 16.00 BMOCptlMkts,

WFS, TruistFinancial Corp

1/27 1/4 Vinci Partners Investments Ltd VINP 13.87 16.00/ JPM,GS, BTGPactual, ItauBBA,Investment companywithbusinesses in privateequity, infrastructure, realestate and creditinvestment.

Nq 18.00 BofASecurities,Credit Suisse,UBS

1/27 12/30 Zim IntegratedShippingServices Ltd ZIM 17.5 16.00/ Citi, GS, Barclays, Jefferies,2020 Container shipping

company. Also offersservices such as shippingagencies, storage anddistribution, forwarding,and land transportation.

N 19.00 ClarksonPlatouSecuritiesAS

LockupExpirationsBelow, companieswhose officers and other insiderswill becomeeligibleto sell shares in their newly public companies for the first time. Suchsales canmove the stock’s price.

Lockup Offer Offer amt Through Lockupexpiration Issue date Issuer Symbol price($) ($mil.) Friday (%) provision

Jan. 25 July 29, ’20 Vertex VERX 19.00 462.1 75.4 180 days

Jan. 26 July 30, ’20 FathomHoldings FTHM 10.00 34.3 318.0 180 days

July 30, ’20 1847Goedeker GOED 9.00 10.0 9.4 180 days

July 30, ’20 Allovir ALVR 17.00 317.7 151.1 180 days

Jan. 27 July 31, ’20 VastaPlatform VSTA 19.00 352.9 –27.9 180 days

July 31, ’20 Vital Farms VITL 22.00 235.4 19.7 180 days

Sources: Dealogic; DowJonesMarketData

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DEA

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COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATEBUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | B7

Insider-TradingSpotlightTrading by ‘insiders’ of a corporation, such as a company’s CEO, vice president or director, potentially conveysnew information about the prospects of a company. Insiders are required to report large trades to theSECwithin twobusiness days. Here’s a look at the biggest individual trades by insiders, based on data received byRefinitiv on January 22, and year-to-date stock performance of the companyKEY: B: beneficial owner ofmore than 10%of a security class CB: chairman CEO: chief executive officer CFO: chief financial officerCO: chief operating officer D: director DO: director and beneficial owner GC: general counsel H: officer, director and beneficial ownerI: indirect transaction filed through a trust, insider spouse,minor child or other O: officer OD: officer and director P: presidentUT:unknown VP: vice president Excludes pure options transactions

Biggestweekly individual tradesBased on reports filedwith regulators this pastweek

No. of shrs in Price range ($) $ValueDate(s) Company Symbol Insider Title trans (000s) in transaction (000s) Close ($) Ytd (%)

BuyersJan. 12-14 Steel PartnersHoldings SPLP G.Walker OI 70 11.00-11.32 780 13.73 27.7

Jan. 15 VectorGroup VGR R. Lampen CO 15 12.10 182 12.16 4.4

Jan. 13-14 REVGroup REVG M.Skonieczny CFO 15 9.07-9.10 136 11.31 28.4Jan. 14 C. Daniels O 6 9.08 50Jan. 15 Heico HEI.A L.Mendelson CEO 1 118.63 125 113.65 -2.9

Jan. 15 AdverumBiotechnologies ADVM P.Machado D 10 11.52 115 13.39 23.5Jan. 15 L. Fischer CEO 9 11.53 99Jan. 14-15 DestinationXLGroup DXLG W.Mesdag DOI 300 .37 112 0.52 93.6Jan. 15 J. Boyle D 76 .37 28Jan. 19 Landec LNDC A. Bolles CEO 10 10.98 110 11.32 4.3

Jan. 11-12 TexasPacific Land TPL M.Stahl D n.a.* 869.50-880.89 107 822.30 13.1Jan. 13-14 M. Stahl D n.a.* 834.20-853.97 103Jan. 15 Zedge ZDGE P. Packer DI 12 7.03 82 7.95 31.6

Jan. 20 Phillips 66Partners PSXP P. Bairrington D 1 30.06 43 28.55 8.1Jan. 20 M.Haney D 1 30.05 43Jan. 20 Oil-Dri Corporation ofAmerica ODC A. Selig D 1 33.73 34 34.04 -0.1

Jan. 15 Owens Minor OMI R.Henkel D 1 27.11 27 27.57 1.9

Jan. 19 Bankof SouthCarolina BKSC F. Hassell PI 2 16.25 24 16.40 2.3

SellersJan. 12 TradeDesk TTD J. Green CEOI 102 783.34-813.36 81,795 812.96 1.5Jan. 13 J. Green CEOI 71 784.08-814.45 56,441Jan. 14 J. Green CEOI 47 777.93-798.41 36,977Jan. 19-21 GuardantHealth GH H. Eltoukhy CEO 489* 158.22-167.81 79,369 159.92 24.1Jan. 15 H. Eltoukhy CEOI 150 156.09-160.83 23,759Jan. 19 Square SQ J.Mckelvey D 200 224.13-227.05 45,144 222.88 2.4Jan. 19 J. Dorsey CEOI 100 225.06-230.96 22,788Jan. 19 PlugPower PLUG A.Marsh CEO 573 62.65-68.31 37,731 66.87 97.2

Jan. 14 TeladocHealth TDOC G. Tullman D 165 225.12 37,129 263.00 31.5

Jan. 15 CommunityHealth Systems CYH T. Chen BI 3,557 8.51 30,272 10.11 36.1

Jan. 19 Twilio TWLO J. Lawson CEOI 50 380.85-390.00 19,029 392.01 15.8

Jan. 14 Carvana CVNA E. Garcia B 60 290.30-302.25 17,878 273.47 14.2Jan. 13 E. Garcia B 50 287.61-294.32 14,503Jan. 15 E. Garcia B 50 283.06-294.61 14,405Jan. 12-13 GameStop GME K.Wolf DI 810 19.99-31.08 17,190 65.01 245.1

Jan. 12-13 DexCom DXCM K. Sayer CEO 47 350.95-362.12 16,966 370.12 0.1

Jan. 19 CoupaSoftware COUP R. Bernshteyn CEO 50 327.16-334.10 16,502 341.90 0.9

Jan. 15 HorizonTherapeutics HZNP T.Walbert CEO 211 77.26-79.10 16,450 77.73 6.3

* Half the transactionswere indirect **Twoday transactionp - Pink Sheets

Buying and selling by sectorBased on actual transaction dates in reports received this pastweek

Sector Buying Selling Sector Buying Selling

Basic Industries 33,730 8,691,437 Finance 127,469 34,472,560Business services 30,399 4,883,773 Health care 27,110 75,024,790Capital goods 0 0 Industrial 125,031 6,890,265Consumer durables 0 7,063,510 Media 0 1,310,557Consumer nondurables 295,907 2,452,354 Technology 5,088 34,538,043Consumer services 140,452 57,141,566 Transportation 0 103,760Energy 0 64,148,917 Utilities 39,030 1,775,723

Sources: Refinitiv; DowJonesMarketData

Friday

EnergyCoal,C.Aplc.,12500Btu,1.2SO2-r,w 55.100Coal,PwdrRvrBsn,8800Btu,0.8SO2-r,w 11.400

MetalsGold, per troy ozEngelhard industrial 1843.00Handy&Harmanbase 1852.70Handy&Harman fabricated 2056.50LBMAGold PriceAM *1867.65LBMAGold Price PM *1862.10Krugerrand,wholesale-e 1931.80Maple Leaf-e 1950.38AmericanEagle-e 1950.38Mexican peso-e 2247.59Austria crown-e 1823.72Austria phil-e 1950.38Silver, troy oz.Engelhard industrial 25.3000Handy&Harmanbase 25.5000Handy&Harman fabricated 31.8750LBMAspot price *£18.8500(U.S.$ equivalent) *25.8650Coins,wholesale $1,000 face-a 18898OthermetalsLBMAPlatinumPrice PM *1129.0Platinum,Engelhard industrial 1097.0Palladium,Engelhard industrial 2375.0

Friday

Aluminum, LME, $ permetric ton *1992.5Copper,Comex spot 3.6355IronOre, 62%FeCFRChina-s 168.6ShreddedScrap, USMidwest-s,m 460Steel, HRCUSA, FOBMidwestMill-s 1091

Fibers andTextilesBurlap,10-oz,40-inchNYyd-n,w 0.6500Cotton,1 1/16 std lw-mdMphs-u 0.7956Cotlook 'A' Index-t *88.10Hides,hvy native steers piece fob-u n.a.Wool,64s,staple,Terr del-u,w n.a.

Grains andFeedsBarley,top-qualityMnpls-u n.a.Bran,wheatmiddlings, KC-u 164Corn,No. 2 yellow,Cent IL-bp,u 4.8850Corn gluten feed,Midwest-u,w 168.0Corn glutenmeal,Midwest-u,w 601.9Cottonseedmeal-u,w 445Hominy feed,Cent IL-u,w 112Meat-bonemeal,50%proMnpls-u,w 330Oats,No.2milling,Mnpls-u 3.5475Rice, LongGrainMilled, No. 2AR-u,w n.a.Sorghum,(Milo)No.2Gulf-u 7.1050SoybeanMeal,Cent IL,rail,ton48%-u 420.10Soybeans,No.1 yllw IL-bp,u 13.0250Wheat,Spring14%-proMnpls-u 7.3750Wheat,No.2 soft red,St.Louis-u 6.7200

Friday

Wheat -Hard - KC (USDA) $ per bu-u 6.3825Wheat,No.1softwhite,Portld,OR-u 6.8400

FoodBeef,carcass equiv. indexchoice 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 186.62select 1-3,600-900 lbs.-u 175.85Broilers, National compwtd. avg.-u,w 0.8284Butter,AAChicago 1.4025Cheddar cheese,bbl,Chicago 139.25Cheddar cheese,blk,Chicago 161.00Milk,Nonfat dry,Chicago lb. 117.25Coffee,Brazilian,Comp 1.1826Coffee,Colombian, NY 1.7486Eggs,largewhite,Chicago-u 0.8250Flour,hardwinter KC 16.50Hams,17-20 lbs,Mid-US fob-u 0.63Hogs,Iowa-So.Minnesota-u 65.63Pork bellies,12-14 lbMidUS-u n.a.Pork loins,13-19 lbMidUS-u 0.9498Steers,Tex.-Okla. Choice-u 110.81Steers,feeder,Okla. City-u,w 151.38

Fats andOilsCorn oil,crudewet/drymill wtd. avg.-u,w n.a.Grease,choicewhite,Chicago-h 0.3800Lard,Chicago-u n.a.Soybean oil,crude;Centl IL-u 0.4365Tallow,bleach;Chicago-h 0.4125Tallow,edible,Chicago-u 0.4688

KEY TO CODES: A=ask; B=bid; BP=country elevator bids to producers; C=corrected; E=Manfra,Tordella & Brookes; H=American Commodities Brokerage Co;M=monthly; N=nominal; n.a.=not quoted or not available; R=SNL Energy; S=Platts-TSI; T=Cotlook Limited; U=USDA;W=weekly; Z=not quoted. *Data as of 1/21

Source: Dow JonesMarket Data

CashPrices Friday, January 22, 2021These prices reflect buying and selling of a variety of actual or “physical” commodities in themarketplace—separate from the futures price on an exchange,which reflectswhat the commoditymight beworth in futuremonths.

| wsj.com/market-data/commodities

Borrowing Benchmarks | wsj.com/market-data/bonds/benchmarks

MoneyRates January 22, 2021

Key annual interest rates paid to borrowor lendmoney inU.S. and internationalmarkets. Rates beloware aguide to general levels but don’t always represent actual transactions.

InflationDec. index ChgFrom (%)

level Nov. '20 Dec. '19

U.S. consumer price indexAll items 260.474 0.09 1.4Core 269.226 –0.09 1.6

International rates

Week 52-WeekLatest ago High Low

Prime ratesU.S. 3.25 3.25 4.75 3.25Canada 2.45 2.45 3.95 2.45Japan 1.475 1.475 1.475 1.475

PolicyRatesEuro zone 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00Switzerland 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.00Britain 0.10 0.10 0.75 0.10Australia 0.10 0.10 0.75 0.10

Overnight repurchaseU.S. 0.08 0.08 1.65 -0.07

U.S. government rates

Discount0.25 0.25 2.25 0.25

Federal fundsEffective rate 0.0800 0.0900 1.6200 0.0600High 0.1200 0.1200 1.6500 0.1000

Notes ondata:U.S. prime rate is the base rate on corporate loans posted by at least 70%of the 10 largestU.S. banks,and is effectiveMarch 16, 2020. Other prime rates aren’t directly comparable; lending practices varywidely by location; Discount rate is effectiveMarch 16, 2020.SecuredOvernight FinancingRate isas of January 21, 2021. DTCCGCFRepo Index is Depository Trust&Clearing Corp.'sweightedaverage for overnight trades in applicable CUSIPs. Value traded is in billions ofU.S. dollars.Federal-funds rates are Tullett Prebon rates as of 5:30 p.m. ET.

Sources: Federal Reserve; Bureau of Labor Statistics; DTCC; FactSet;Tullett Prebon Information, Ltd.

Low 0.0400 0.0400 1.5800 0.0100Bid 0.0800 0.0800 1.6000 0.0100Offer 0.1100 0.1000 1.6300 0.0500

Treasury bill auction4weeks 0.070 0.075 1.575 0.00013weeks 0.085 0.090 1.550 0.00026weeks 0.095 0.090 1.535 0.080

Secondarymarket

FannieMae30-yearmortgage yields

30days 1.979 2.029 3.032 1.75160days 2.005 2.062 3.081 1.804

Other short-term rates

Week 52-WeekLatest ago high low

Callmoney2.00 2.00 3.50 2.00

Week —52-WEEK—Latest ago High Low

Commercial paper (AA financial)90days 0.13 0.15 2.53 0.04

LiborOnemonth 0.12475 0.12950 1.67088 0.12475Threemonth 0.21525 0.22338 1.79538 0.20488Sixmonth 0.23600 0.24813 1.80525 0.23375One year 0.31225 0.32263 1.87988 0.31225

Euro LiborOnemonth -0.577 -0.588 -0.360 -0.621Threemonth -0.545 -0.556 -0.142 -0.574Sixmonth -0.532 -0.537 -0.052 -0.540One year -0.500 -0.498 0.008 -0.502

SecuredOvernight FinancingRate0.04 0.08 1.64 0.01

Value 52-WeekLatest Traded High Low

DTCCGCFRepo IndexTreasury 0.076 67.574 1.720 0.002MBS 0.095 37.350 1.703 0.011

Week —52-WEEK—Latest ago High Low

General Equity FundsAdamsDiversified Equity ADX 20.53 17.70 -13.8 16.5BoulderGrowth& Income BIF 13.79 11.27 -18.3 0.0Central Secs CET 41.47 34.18 -17.6 7.4CohenStrsCEOppFd FOF 13.01 12.98 -0.2 3.9EVTxAdvDivIncm EVT 25.22 24.11 -4.4 1.2GabelliDiv&IncTr GDV 25.67 22.38 -12.8 9.1Gabelli Equity Tr GAB 6.00 6.30 +5.0 17.7GeneralAmer GAM 44.96 38.02 -15.4 7.3JHancockTaxAdvDiv HTD 22.80 21.08 -7.5 -17.3LibertyAll-Star Equity USA 7.33 7.06 -3.7 14.5LibertyAll-StarGrowth ASG 8.20 8.90 +8.5 44.0RoyceMicro-CapTr RMT 13.00 11.14 -14.3 38.4RoyceValue Trust RVT 19.94 17.38 -12.8 25.9Source Capital SOR 46.40 41.34 -10.9 9.95Tri-Continental TY 34.40 30.52 -11.3 12.4SpecializedEquity FundsAberdeenGlb PremProp AWP 5.94 5.50 -7.4 -8.4AdamsNatural Resources PEO 14.93 12.61 -15.5 -14.8

Listed are the 300 largest closed-end funds asmeasured by assets. Closed-end funds sell a limitednumber of shares and invest the proceeds in securities.Unlike open-end funds, closed-ends generally do notbuy their shares back from investors who wish to cashin their holdings. Instead, fund shares trade on a stockexchange. NA signifies that the information is notavailable or not applicable. NS signifies funds not inexistence for the entire period. 12 month yield iscomputed by dividing income dividends paid (duringthe previous 12 months for periods ending at month-end or during the previous 52 weeks for periodsending at any time other than month-end) by thelatest month-end market price adjusted for capitalgains distributions. Depending on the fund category,either 12-month yield or total return is listed.

Source: Lipper

Friday, January 22, 202152wk

Prem TtlFund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret

AllianzGIAI &TechOpps AIO 29.18 28.92 -0.9 57.1GIDivInt&PremStr NFJ 15.66 13.68 -12.6 11.4ASAGold&PrecMet Ltd ASA 25.20 21.49 -14.7 54.1BREnhC&I CII NA 17.92 NA 10.4BlackRock Energy&Res BGR NA 7.78 NA -28.9BlackRock EqEnhDiv BDJ NA 8.55 NA -3.2BlackRock EnhGlbl Div BOE NA 11.10 NA 8.0BlackRock Enh Intl Div BGY NA 6.02 NA 10.5BlackRockHlth Sci Tr II BMEZ NA 30.25 NA NSBlackRockHlth Sciences BME NA 49.84 NA 24.8BlackRockRes&Comm BCX 8.96 8.23 -8.1 12.5BlackRockSci&TechTr II BSTZ NA 36.88 NA 82.3BlackRockSci&TechTrust BST NA 54.33 NA 65.2BlackRockUtl Inf &Pwr BUI NA 25.85 NA 20.9CBREClrnGlbRlEst IGR 8.07 6.93 -14.1 -6.1CLEARBRIDGEENGYMDSOPP EMO NA 15.36 NA -59.0ClearBridgeMLP&Midstm CEM NA 18.95 NA -61.6ChnStrInfr UTF 24.68 26.54 +7.5 5.9Cohen&SteersQualInc RQI 13.10 12.34 -5.8 -5.7Cohen&Steers TotRet RFI 13.02 13.52 +3.8 -1.8CohenStrsREITPrefInc RNP 23.51 22.20 -5.6 -1.8Columbia Sel PrmTechGr STK 30.21 29.41 -2.6 28.8DNPSelect Income DNP 9.01 10.37 +15.1 -12.5Duff&PhUti&Infra Inc Fd DPG 13.53 13.04 -3.6 -6.1EtnVncEqtyInc EOI 17.18 16.46 -4.2 10.4EtnVncEqtyIncoII EOS 21.65 21.59 -0.3 25.4EVRskMnDvsEqInc ETJ 10.20 10.45 +2.5 21.3ETnVncTxMgdBuyWrtInc ETB 14.68 14.83 +1.0 -0.8EtnVncTxMgdBuyWrtOpp ETV 14.60 15.12 +3.6 10.5EvTxMnDvsEqInc ETY 12.95 12.44 -3.9 8.1EtnVncTxMgdGlbB ETW 10.42 9.73 -6.6 3.6EVTxMnGblDvEqInc EXG 9.49 8.88 -6.4 9.3First Trust Energy IncG FEN 12.99 11.54 -11.2 -38.5

52wkPrem Ttl

Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret BaringsGlb SDHYBd BGH 16.96 15.18 -10.5 9.1BRCorporateHY HYT 12.05 11.24 -6.7 8.1BlackRock LtdDur Inc BLW 17.10 15.98 -6.5 7.3BNYMellonHi Yield Str DHF 3.30 2.98 -9.7 8.6Brookfield Real Asst Inc RA 19.92 18.53 -7.0 13.3CrSuisHighYld DHY 2.54 2.29 -9.8 8.6DoubleLine Inc Sol DSL NA 16.60 NA 10.6DoubleLineYldOpps DLY 20.39 19.03 -6.7 NSFirst TrHi Inc Lng/Shrt FSD 16.55 14.88 -10.1 8.9First TrustHYOpp:2027 FTHY 21.49 19.67 -8.5 NSIVYHIGH INCOMEOPP IVH 14.76 13.16 -10.8 8.6NeubHgYldStrt NHS 12.70 11.81 -7.0 9.2NewAmerHi Inc HYB 9.89 8.78 -11.2 6.4NexPointStratOppty NHF 18.60 11.84 -36.3 11.8NuveenCINov 2021 Tgt JHB 9.47 9.28 -2.0 4.1NuveenCrdtOpps 2022TT JCO 8.31 8.22 -1.1 7.0NuveenGlobal High Inc JGH 16.94 15.25 -10.0 7.1PGIMGlobal HighYield GHY NA 14.56 NA 8.6PGIMHighYield Bond ISD NA 15.15 NA 8.4PGIMShDurHi YldOpp SDHY 20.05 NA NA NSPioneerHilncmTr PHT 9.52 9.15 -3.9 8.4Wells Fargo IncomeOppty EAD 9.09 8.14 -10.5 8.5WstAstHIF II HIX NA 6.87 NA 8.5WesternAssetHi IncOpp HIO NA 4.91 NA 7.8WesternAssetHi YldDO HYI NA 15.41 NA 7.3OtherDomestic TaxableBondFundsApollo Tactical Income AIF NA 14.38 NA 7.3AresDynamic CrdtAlloc ARDC NA 14.48 NA 8.4BlackRockMlt-Sctr Inc BIT 18.42 17.42 -5.4 8.4BlackRock TaxMuni Bd BBN 25.39 26.22 +3.3 5.0DoubleLine:Oppor Crdt Fd DBL NA 19.84 NA 8.6Duff&PhUtil Cor DUC 9.51 9.85 +3.6 5.9EVLmtDurIncm EVV 13.76 12.51 -9.1 9.5Franklin LtdDur Income FTF 9.52 9.35 -1.8 9.9JHan Investors JHI 18.59 17.59 -5.4 7.9KKR IncomeOpportunities KIO NA 14.66 NA 10.1MFSCharter MCR 8.86 8.69 -1.9 7.9NuveenTaxableMuni Inc NBB 22.90 23.83 +4.1 4.6PIMCOCorp& IncOppty PTY NA 17.94 NA 8.7PIMCOCorp& Inc Strat PCN NA 17.06 NA 7.8PIMCOHilnco PHK NA 6.11 NA 10.6PIMCO IncmStrFd PFL NA 11.41 NA 9.4PIMCO IncmStrFd II PFN NA 9.95 NA 9.6PutnamMas Int PIM 4.50 4.21 -6.4 8.3PutnamPrem Inc PPT 4.97 4.70 -5.4 8.8Wells FargoMulti-Sector ERC 13.04 12.18 -6.6 9.5World IncomeFundsAbrdnAP IncFd FAX 4.87 4.40 -9.7 7.4BrndywnGLBGlb IncOppts BWG NA 12.40 NA 7.4EtnVncStDivInc EVG 13.86 13.10 -5.5 6.6MSEmMktDomDebt EDD 7.19 6.17 -14.2 6.9PIMCODynCrd&Mrt Inc PCI NA 21.23 NA 9.8PIMCODynamic Income PDI NA 26.22 NA 10.0PIMCO IncomeOpportunity PKO NA 24.82 NA 9.0PIMCOStratg Inc RCS NA 6.92 NA 9.5TempletonEm Inc TEI 8.71 7.69 -11.7 7.3TempltnGlbl Inc GIM 6.06 5.61 -7.4 4.0WstAstEmergDebt EMD NA 13.71 NA 8.4WesternAssetGl CrDOp GDO NA 17.89 NA 6.7NationalMuni BondFundsAllBerNatlMunInc AFB 15.48 14.14 -8.7 4.1BlckRk InvQMun BKN 16.77 16.92 +0.9 4.3BlackRockMuni 2030Tgt BTT 26.94 25.67 -4.7 2.9BlackRockMuni BFK 14.81 15.09 +1.9 4.3BlackRockMuni II BLE 15.22 15.44 +1.4 4.6BlckRkMuni IncQly BYM 15.96 15.21 -4.7 3.9BRMuniAssets Fd MUA 14.65 15.14 +3.3 4.3BRMuniEnhanced MEN 12.52 12.14 -3.0 4.2BRMuniHoldingsQly MFL 15.24 14.34 -5.9 3.9BRMHQly 2 MUE 14.33 13.35 -6.8 4.2BRMuniHoldngs MHD 17.43 16.32 -6.4 4.4BRMuniVest Fd MVF 9.96 9.19 -7.7 4.3BRMuniVest 2 MVT 15.65 15.32 -2.1 4.5BRMuniYield Fd MYD 15.33 14.36 -6.3 4.6BRMuniYieldQlty MQY 16.67 17.05 +2.3 4.2BRMuniYldQlty2 MQT 14.64 14.20 -3.0 4.1BRMuniYldQly 3 MYI 15.37 14.16 -7.9 3.8BNYMellonMuni Bd Infra DMB 14.64 14.46 -1.2 4.5BNYMellonStrMuni Bond DSM 8.39 7.82 -6.8 4.5BNYMellonStratMuni LEO 8.74 8.41 -3.8 4.9DWSMuni Inc KTF 12.78 11.57 -9.5 4.0EVMuniBd EIM 14.28 13.30 -6.9 4.2EVMuniIncm EVN 14.33 13.59 -5.2 4.2EVNatMuniOpp EOT 21.98 20.71 -5.8 3.8InvAdvMuIncTrII VKI 12.26 11.46 -6.5 4.7InvescoMuniOp OIA 7.78 7.86 +1.0 4.8InvescoMuOppTr VMO 13.71 12.96 -5.5 4.6InvescoMuTr VKQ 13.74 12.95 -5.7 4.6InvescoQual Inc IQI 13.87 12.89 -7.1 4.6InvTrInvGrMu VGM 14.15 13.15 -7.1 4.6InvescoValMunInc IIM 16.84 15.59 -7.4 4.4MAINSTAY:MKDEFTRMUNOP MMD NA 22.03 NA 4.6NeubrgrBrm NBH 15.41 15.39 -0.1 4.9NuveenAMT-FrMuVal NUW 17.42 16.45 -5.6 2.8NuveenAMT-FrQltyMun I NEA 16.03 15.01 -6.4 4.4NuveenAMT-FrMuCI NVG NA 16.73 NA 4.6NuveenEnhMuni Val NEV NA 16.20 NA 4.3Nuveen IntDurMunTerm NID NA 14.14 NA 3.7NuveenMuCrdtOpps NMCO NA 13.74 NA 5.5NuvMuni Credit Income NZF NA 16.02 NA 4.7

Prem12MoFund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld

First Tr EnhancedEq FFA 18.78 17.58 -6.4 10.7FirstTrMLPEner&Inc FEI 7.24 6.24 -13.8 -38.4Gabelli Healthcare GRX 14.34 12.30 -14.2 13.0GabUtility GUT 4.13 8.04 +94.7 17.0GAMCOGlGold&NatRes GGN 4.03 3.53 -12.4 -7.2JHanFinl Opptys BTO 31.18 32.97 +5.7 4.5Neuberger BrmnMLP&EI NML 4.96 3.73 -24.8 -40.5NuvDow30DynOverwrite DIAX 16.84 15.07 -10.5 -8.4NuvCorEqAlpha JCE 15.66 14.35 -8.4 4.0NuveenNasdaq 100DynOv QQQX 27.42 26.77 -2.4 17.6NuvReal Est JRS NA 8.54 NA -13.5NuveenRl Asst Inc&Gro JRI NA 13.47 NA -21.7NuvS&P500DynOvFd SPXX NA 15.29 NA 0.4NuvSP500BuyIncFd BXMX 13.93 12.66 -9.1 0.3ReavesUtilityIncome UTG 32.46 32.90 +1.4 -8.8Tortoise Enrgy Infra Crp TYG NA 22.41 NA -66.9Income&PreferredStockFundsCalamosStratTot CSQ 16.27 16.02 -1.5 26.1CohenStrsLtdDurPref&Inc LDP 25.96 25.81 -0.6 4.3CohenStrsSelPref&Income PSF 26.74 26.68 -0.2 -9.5CohenStrsTaxAvPreSecs&I PTA 25.58 25.28 -1.2 NSFirstTrIntDurPref&Inc FPF 24.44 23.60 -3.4 4.9JHanPrefInc HPI 19.89 18.82 -5.4 -12.8JHPrefIncII HPF 19.58 18.60 -5.0 -9.7HnckJPfdInco III HPS 17.51 16.84 -3.8 -6.6JHanPrm PDT 13.69 13.96 +2.0 -16.8LMPCapInco SCD NA 11.84 NA -11.9NuveenPref & IncOpp JPC 9.68 9.20 -5.0 -5.1NuveenFd JPS 9.73 9.35 -3.9 -1.8NuveenPref & Inc Term JPI 24.64 24.10 -2.2 0.3NuveenTxAdvDivGr JTD 16.30 14.25 -12.6 -12.8Convertible Sec's. FundsAdvntCnvrtbl&IncFd AVK 19.82 17.00 -14.2 19.4GI Conv& Inc NCV 6.53 5.77 -11.6 9.4AGI Conv& Inc II NCZ 5.86 5.07 -13.5 8.8AGIDvs Inc&Conv ACV 36.67 34.10 -7.0 46.5AGI Eqty&Conv Inc NIE 32.02 29.36 -8.3 31.8CalamosConvHi CHY 16.45 15.01 -8.8 39.5CalmosConvOp CHI 15.58 14.08 -9.6 36.6WorldEquity FundsAberdeenEmgMkts Eq Inc AEF 10.14 8.68 -14.4 14.7AberdeenTotDynDiv AOD 10.59 9.10 -14.1 10.1BlackRock Capital Alloc BCAT NA 21.79 NA NSCalamosGloDynInc CHW 10.13 9.87 -2.6 26.3China CHN 36.19 32.68 -9.7 68.5EVTxAdvGlbDivInc ETG 20.04 18.13 -9.5 6.7EtnVncTxAdvOpp ETO 27.54 25.63 -6.9 6.6FirstTrDynEuro Eq Inc FDEU 14.04 12.11 -13.7 -13.8GabelliMultimedia GGT 8.51 8.24 -3.2 16.9India Fund IFN 23.40 20.64 -11.8 13.6JapanSmaller Cap JOF 10.34 9.15 -11.5 7.6LazardGlbTotRetInc LGI 19.94 18.73 -6.1 21.4Mexico MXF NA 13.84 NA -1.8MSChinaShrFd CAF 26.37 22.21 -15.8 16.6MS India IIF 26.31 22.26 -15.4 7.5NewGermany GF 23.04 20.18 -12.4 44.9TempletonDragon TDF 27.97 25.28 -9.6 67.4TempletonEmMkt EMF 21.99 20.36 -7.4 33.3Wells FargoGl DivOppty EOD 5.71 5.03 -11.9 0.6

U.S.MortgageBondFundsBlckRk Income BKT 6.20 6.10 -1.6 6.8InvescoHI 2023Tgt Term IHIT 8.98 8.91 -0.8 7.1InvestmentGradeBondFundsBlRck CoreBond BHK 16.30 16.21 -0.6 5.0BRCredit Alloc Inc BTZ 15.67 14.93 -4.7 6.8Insight Select Income INSI 21.77 21.70 -0.3 3.6InvescoBond VBF 21.07 20.17 -4.3 3.3JHan Income JHS 16.33 15.33 -6.1 5.0MFS Intmdt MIN 3.91 3.76 -3.8 8.9WesternAsset Inf-Lk Inc WIA NA 12.91 NA 5.7WesternAsset Inf-LkO&I WIW NA 12.52 NA 3.2WestnAsst IGDefOppTr IGI NA 21.80 NA 3.7LoanParticipationFundsApollo Senior Floating AFT NA 14.58 NA 7.0BRDebt Strategy DSU 11.71 10.65 -9.1 7.9BRF/R Inc Str FRA 14.04 12.74 -9.3 7.6BlackRock FloatngRt Inc BGT 13.62 12.29 -9.8 7.5BlackstoneStrat Cr BGB 14.52 13.07 -10.0 8.7Eagle Point Credit ECC NA 11.30 NA 13.0EtnVncFltRteInc EFT 14.62 13.77 -5.8 5.4EVSenFlRtTr EFR 14.39 13.36 -7.2 5.8EVSnrIncm EVF 6.90 6.56 -4.9 5.6FT/Sr FltgRte Inc 2 FCT 12.94 11.68 -9.7 9.8FT/Sr FltgRte 2022TgTr FIV 9.61 9.19 -4.4 2.5Highland Income HFRO 13.20 10.25 -22.3 8.9InvDYCrOpp VTA 11.97 10.97 -8.4 8.3InvSnrIncTr VVR 4.55 4.15 -8.8 6.7NuveenCredit Strat Inc JQC NA 6.45 NA 16.1NuvFloatRateIncFd JFR NA 9.26 NA 7.1NuvFloatRteIncOppty JRO NA 9.16 NA 7.1NuveenSenior Income NSL NA 5.41 NA 7.5PionrFltRate Tr PHD 11.65 10.78 -7.5 6.6HighYieldBondFundsAllianceBernGlHiIncm AWF 12.96 11.65 -10.1 6.6Angel Oak FS Inc Trm FINS NA 17.28 NA 7.4

52wkPrem Ttl

Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret

Prem12MoFund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld

52wkPrem Ttl

Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret

CPGCooper Square IEA NA NA NA NSCPGCooper Square IE I NA NA NA NSPrimark Priv Eq Inv:I 11.55 NA NA NSVirtusTotalRetFd ZTR 9.29 8.73 -6.0 -3.9

LoanParticipationFunds1WSCredit Income NA NA NA 5.9AlphCntrc PrimeMerid In 9.70 NA NA 11.1Angel OakStr Crdt:Inst NA NA NA 8.0AxonicAlternative Inc 22.12 NA NA 3.3Blackstone/GSOFREID 24.13 NA NA 5.5Blackstone/GSOFREI I 24.10 NA NA 5.8Blackstone/GSOFREI T 24.06 NA NA 5.3Blackstone/GSOFREI T-I 24.65 NA NA 5.3Blackstone/GSOFREIU 25.12 NA NA 5.3Blstn CommntyDev 10.04 NA NA 3.3BNYMAlcntr GlbMSCr Fd 103.21 NA NA 6.9CLIFFWATERCLFD;I 10.41 NA NA 6.8CNRStrategic Credit 10.51 NA NA 7.9FedProj&TrFinanceTendr 9.94 NA NA 2.7FSGlobal CrdtOpptysD NA NA NA 8.4SchrdrsOpp Inc;A 25.86 NA NA 1.9SchrdrsOpp Inc;A2 NA NA NA NSSchrdrsOpp Inc;I 25.86 NA NA 1.9SchrdrsOpp Inc;SDR 25.90 NA NA 2.0InvescoSr LoanA 6.39 NA NA 4.2InvescoSr LoanC 6.40 NA NA 3.5InvescoSr Loan IB 6.39 NA NA 4.4InvescoSr Loan IC 6.39 NA NA 4.3InvescoSr LoanY 6.39 NA NA 4.4Pioneer Sec Inc 9.78 NA NA 4.5HighYieldBondFundsGriffin InstAccess Cd:A NA NA NA 6.0Griffin InstAccess Cd:C NA NA NA 6.0Griffin InstAccess Cd:F NA NA NA 6.0Griffin InstAccess Cd:I NA NA NA 6.0Griffin InstAccess Cd:L NA NA NA 6.0PIMCOFlexible Cr I;A-2 9.34 NA NA 7.3PIMCOFlexible Cr I;A-3 9.33 NA NA NSPIMCOFlexible Cr I;A-4 9.34 NA NA 7.6PIMCOFlexible Cr I;Inst 9.34 NA NA 8.4PionrILSBridge 10.00 NA NA 0.0WAMiddleMkt Inc 621.77 NA NA 7.4OtherDomestic TaxableBondFundsAlternative Credit Inc:A 10.52 NA NA 6.7Alternative Credit Inc:C 10.64 NA NA 6.0Alternative Credit Inc:I 10.54 NA NA 7.0Alternative Credit Inc:L 10.52 NA NA 6.5Alternative Credit Inc:W 10.52 NA NA 6.7AmBeaconApollo TR:T 10.23 NA NA 2.2AmBeaconApollo TR:Y 10.30 NA NA 3.0AmBeaconSPEnh Inc:T 9.60 NA NA 4.0AmBeaconSPEnh Inc:Y 9.69 NA NA 4.7BRCredit Strat;A 10.47 NA NA NSBRCredit Strat;Inst 10.46 NA NA 5.2BlackRockMlt-SctrOppty 88.46 NA NA 8.1BlackRockMlt-SecOpp II 91.37 NA NA 7.9Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:A NA NA NA 6.6Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:I NA NA NA 7.3Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:L NA NA NA 6.9Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:M NA NA NA NSCarlyle Tact Pvt Cred:N NA NA NA 7.3Carlyle Tact Pvt Cred:Y NA NA NA 7.0CIONAresDvsfd Crdt;A NA NA NA 5.5CIONAresDvsfd Crdt;C NA NA NA 5.5CIONAresDvsfd Crdt;I NA NA NA 5.5CIONAresDvsfd Crdt;L NA NA NA 5.5CIONAresDvsfd Crdt;U NA NA NA 5.5CIONAresDvsfd Crdt:U2 NA NA NA NSCIONAresDvsfd Crdt;W NA NA NA 5.5CNRSelect Strategies 11.60 NA NA 0.0First Eagle CrdtOppsA 25.74 NA NA NSFirst Eagle CrdtOpps I 25.74 NA NA NSFSCredit Income;A NA NA NA 5.4FSCredit Income;I NA NA NA 5.7FSCredit Income;T NA NA NA 5.2FSCredit Income;U NA NA NA 5.2FSCredit Income;U-2 NA NA NA NSGLBeyond Income 0.61 NA NA NEKKRCREDITOPPTY;D NA NA NA NSKKRCREDITOPPTY;I NA NA NA NSKKRCREDITOPPTY;T NA NA NA NSKKRCREDITOPPTY;U NA NA NA NSLordAbbett CredOpps Fd 10.65 NA NA 6.8LordAbbett CredOpps Fd 10.66 NA NA 7.4LordAbbett CrdOp:U 10.65 NA NA NSPalmer SquareOpp Inc 18.63 NA NA 5.8Thrivent Church Ln&Inc:S 10.84 NA NA 2.6World IncomeFundsDestra Int&Evt-DvnCrd:A 26.73 NA NA 2.5Destra Int&Evt-DvnCrd:I 26.73 NA NA 2.7Destra Int&Evt-DvnCrd:L 26.70 NA NA 2.4Destra Int&Evt-DvnCrd:T 26.67 NA NA 2.2NationalMuni BondFundsPIMCOFlexMun Inc;A-3 11.59 NA NA 2.1PIMCOFlexMun Inc:A1 11.59 NA NA NSPIMCOFlexMun Inc;A2 11.59 NA NA NSPIMCOFlexMun Inc;Inst 11.59 NA NA 2.8Tortoise Tax-AdvSoc Inf 9.52 NA NA 4.7

Prem12MoFund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld

AWeek in the Life of theDJIAA look at how the Dow Jones Industrial Average component stocksdid in the past week and howmuch each moved the index. The DJIAgained 182.72 points, or 0.59%, on the week. A $1 change in the priceof any DJIA stock = 6.58-point change in the average. To date, a$1,000 investment on Dec. 31 in each current DJIA stock componentwould have returned $30,539, or a gain of 1.80%, on the $30,000investment, including reinvested dividends.

TheWeek’sActionPct Stock price Point chg $1,000 Invested(year-end '20)chg (%) change in average* Company Symbol Close $1,000

9.38 11.93 78.49 Apple AAPL $139.07 $1,0486.25 13.30 87.51 Microsoft MSFT 225.95 1,0165.93 12.63 83.10 salesforce.com CRM 225.77 1,0153.27 3.99 26.25 AmericanExpress AXP 126.14 1,0473.26 8.01 52.70 Amgen AMGN 253.50 1,103

3.05 8.41 55.33 HomeDepot HD 284.00 1,0692.11 3.49 22.96 3M MMM 169.04 9672.03 3.25 21.38 Johnson&Johnson JNJ 163.55 1,0391.82 2.60 17.11 Travelers TRV 145.84 1,0391.65 3.47 22.83 McDonald’s MCD 213.38 994

1.17 1.69 11.12 Walmart WMT 146.33 1,0150.78 1.34 8.82 WaltDisney DIS 172.78 9540.74 1.52 10.00 Boeing BA 205.84 9620.33 0.19 1.25 Dow DOW 57.50 1,0360.21 0.43 2.83 Visa V 202.02 924

0.16 0.09 0.59 Verizon VZ 57.47 989–0.39 –0.36 –2.37 Chevron CVX 91.73 1,086–0.43 –0.21 –1.38 Coca-Cola KO 48.49 884–0.97 –1.37 –9.01 Nike NKE 139.35 985–1.07 –3.75 –24.67 UnitedHealthGroup UNH 347.55 991

–1.38 –2.68 –17.63 Caterpillar CAT 191.94 1,060–1.45 –0.66 –4.34 Cisco CSCO 44.77 1,009–1.60 –0.92 –6.05 Intel INTC 56.66 1,137–1.81 –3.72 –24.48 Honeywell HON 202.25 951–2.88 –2.40 –15.79 Merck MRK 80.98 990

–3.00 –1.47 –9.67 Walgreens WBA 47.45 1,190–3.50 –4.85 –31.91 JPMorganChase JPM 133.79 1,060–3.55 –4.78 –31.45 Procter&Gamble PG 130.00 940–3.86 –11.62 –76.45 GoldmanSachs GS 289.39 1,097–7.62 –9.78 –64.35 IBM IBM 118.61 942

*Based onComposite price. DJIA is calculated on primary-market price.Source: DowJonesMarketData; FactSet.

CLOSED‑END FUNDS

NuvMuniHiIncOpp NMZ NA 14.31 NA 5.0NuveenMuni Val NUV 10.76 10.98 +2.0 3.3NuveenQualityMuni Inc NAD 16.37 15.15 -7.5 4.4NuveenSel TF NXP NA 17.13 NA 3.0NuveenSel TF 2 NXQ NA 15.80 NA 3.1PIMCOMuniInc PMF 13.30 14.19 +6.7 4.6PIMCOMuniIncII PML 12.48 14.51 +16.3 4.9PimcoMuni III PMX 11.43 12.20 +6.7 4.6PioneerHilncAdv MAV 12.35 11.69 -5.3 4.4PioneerMunHiIcmT MHI 13.22 12.49 -5.5 4.4PutnamMgd Inc PMM 8.26 8.15 -1.3 4.7PutnamMuniOpp PMO 13.95 13.71 -1.7 4.8RiverNorthMgdDurMun I RMM 19.70 18.51 -6.0 6.1WesternAssetMgdMuni MMU NA 12.95 NA 4.2WestnAsstMuDefOppTr MTT NA 21.20 NA 3.1Single StateMuni BondBlackRock CAMun BFZ 16.09 14.07 -12.6 3.2BRMHCAQly Fd Inc MUC 16.04 14.91 -7.0 3.9BRMHNJQly MUJ 16.20 14.45 -10.8 4.7BRMHNYQly MHN 15.24 14.06 -7.7 4.2BRMuniYld CA MYC 16.45 14.67 -10.8 3.4BRMuniYld CAQly MCA 16.26 14.95 -8.1 4.0BRMuniYldMIQly MIY 15.89 14.62 -8.0 4.2BRMuniYldNJ MYJ 16.25 14.42 -11.3 5.0BRMuniYldNYQly MYN 14.60 13.34 -8.6 4.1EVCAMuniBd EVM 12.77 11.50 -9.9 4.0EatonVanceNYMuni Bd ENX 13.56 12.15 -10.4 4.0InvCaValMuIncTr VCV 13.73 13.21 -3.8 4.0InvPAValMuIncTr VPV 14.32 12.75 -11.0 4.6InvTrInvGrNYMu VTN 14.48 13.30 -8.1 4.2NuveenCAAMT-FQualMI NKX 16.93 15.44 -8.8 4.0NuveenCAVal NCA 10.86 10.95 +0.8 2.9NuveenCAQtyMuInc NAC 16.32 14.88 -8.8 4.1NuveenMDQualMuni Inc NMY 15.39 14.05 -8.7 4.0NuveenMIQualMuni Inc NUM 16.22 15.02 -7.4 3.8NuvNJQualMuni Inc NXJ 16.82 14.34 -14.7 4.5NuveenNYAMT/FrQualMI NRK 15.11 13.50 -10.7 4.1NuveenNYQualMuni Inc NAN 15.64 14.34 -8.3 4.3NuveenOHQualMuni Inc NUO NA 15.64 NA 3.4NuveenPAQualMuni Inc NQP NA 14.22 NA 4.3NuveenVAQltyMun Inc NPV 15.38 15.70 +2.1 3.4PIMCOCA PCQ 14.30 18.00 +25.9 4.3PIMCOCAMuniII PCK 9.16 9.07 -1.0 4.2PimcoCAMuni III PZC 10.31 10.39 +0.8 4.4

Prem12MoFund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Yld

General Equity FundsAlternative Strategies:I 5.62 NA NA -12.5BOWRIVERCAPTLEVGN;I NA NA NA NSpecializedEquity FundsBluerock Total Inc+RE:A 29.41 NA NA 1.5Bluerock Total Inc+RE:C 27.96 NA NA 0.7Bluerock Total Inc+RE:I 29.98 NA NA 1.7Bluerock Total Inc+RE:L 29.14 NA NA 1.2CIMRA&CA 25.53 NA NA NSCIMRA&CC 25.39 NA NA NSCIMRA&C I 25.58 NA NA NSCIMRA&CL 25.48 NA NA NSGSReal EstDiv Inc:A 9.76 NA NA -2.1GSReal EstDiv Inc:C 9.75 NA NA -2.9GSReal EstDiv Inc:I 10.19 NA NA -1.9GSReal EstDiv Inc:L 9.77 NA NA -2.3GSReal EstDiv Inc:W 9.91 NA NA -2.1NexPointRlEstStrat;A 16.21 NA NA -12.4NexPointRlEstStrat;C 16.38 NA NA -12.9NexPointRlEstStrat;Z 16.38 NA NA -12.2PREDEX;I 25.26 NA NA 0.5PREDEX;T 25.37 NA NA 0.5PREDEX;W 25.37 NA NA 0.5Principal DvsSel RAA 26.20 NA NA 1.9Principal DvsSel RA Ins 26.25 NA NA 2.1Principal DvsSel RAY 26.33 NA NA 2.3SharesPost 100;A 37.26 NA NA 26.3SharesPost 100:I 37.55 NA NA 26.6SharesPost 100:L 36.98 NA NA 26.0USQCoreReal Estate:I 24.75 NA NA 0.2USQCoreReal Estate:IS 24.76 NA NA 0.2Versus CapMMgrRE Inc:I 27.12 NA NA NEVersus Capital Real Asst 25.49 NA NA 1.3WildermuthEndwmnt:A 13.54 NA NA -5.1WildermuthEndwmnt:C 13.03 NA NA -5.9WildermuthEndowment:I 13.62 NA NA -5.4Income&PreferredStockFundsA3Alternative Cr 10.19 NA NA 1.1Calamos L/SEqty andDI CPZ 20.28 18.02 -11.1 8.8DestraMulti-Altrntv;A 11.98 NA NA -5.9DestraMulti-Altrntv;C 11.45 NA NA -6.6DestraMulti-Altrntv;I 12.23 NA NA -5.6DestraMulti-Altrntv;T 11.63 NA NA -6.3Flat RockOpportunity 20.55 NA NA 17.4VariantAltrntv Inc:Inst 26.65 NA NA 5.6VariantAltrntv Inc:Inv 26.66 NA NA 5.4Convertible Sec's. FundsCalmosDynConv and Inc CCD 32.07 29.98 -6.5 60.9WorldEquity FundsACAPStrategic:A 27.75 NA NA 47.8ACAPStrategic:W 20.47 NA NA 48.9BMOLGMFrontME;I 6.00 NA NA -29.1CalamosGlbTotRet CGO 15.46 15.60 +0.9 39.3

52wkPrem Ttl

Fund (SYM) NAV Close /Disc Ret

P2JW025000-0-B00700-1--------XA

B8 | Monday, January 25, 2021 * * * * THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

IPOScorecardPerformance of IPOs,most-recent listed first

%ChgFrom %ChgFromCompany SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-day Company SYMBOL Friday3s Offer 1st-dayIPOdate/Offer price close ($) price close IPOdate/Offer price close ($) price close

Huadi Intl Grp 7.13 –10.9 ... Patria Investments 19.90 17.1 ...HUDI Jan. 22/$8.00 PAX Jan. 22/$17.00

Jack Creek Investment 10.44 4.4 ... Primavera Capital Acquisition 10.87 8.7 ...JCICU Jan. 22/$10.00 PV.UT Jan. 22/$10.00

LibertyMediaAcquisition 12.75 27.5 ... SCP& HealthcareAcquisition 10.49 4.9 ...LMACU Jan. 22/$10.00 SHACU Jan. 22/$10.00

MontaukRenewables 11.73 38.0 ... VirtuosoAcquisition 10.30 3.0 ...MNTK Jan. 22/$8.50 VOSOU Jan. 22/$10.00

NorthAtlantic Acquisition 10.42 4.2 ... OneEqty PtnrsOpenWater I 10.29 2.9 ...NAACU Jan. 22/$10.00 OEPWU Jan. 22/$10.00

Sources: DowJonesMarketData; FactSet

Other StockOfferingsSecondaries and follow-ons expected thisweek in theU.S.marketNone expected thisweek

Off theShelf“Shelf registrations” allowa company to prepare a stock or bond forsale,without selling thewhole issue at once. Corporations sell asconditions become favorable. Here are the shelf sales, or takedowns,over the lastweek:

Takedowndate/ Deal valueIssuer/Industry Registration date ($mil.) Bookrunner(s)

ProPhase Labs Inc Jan. 18 $37.5 FordhamFinancialManagement IncHealthcare June 25,318

TCR2Therapeutics Inc Jan. 19 $140.0 GS, Jefferies, Piper Sandler,Healthcare March 6,320 BMOCptlMkts

FulcrumTherapeutics Inc Jan. 19 $50.6 SVBLeerink, Piper Sandler,Healthcare Aug. 11,320 Credit Suisse

SyrosPharmaceuticals Inc Jan. 19 $75.6 Cowen&Company LLC, Piper SandlerHealthcare June 12,320

BioLineRxLtd Jan. 19 $30.0 HCWainwright&Co LLCHealthcare Dec. 31,320

EditasMedicine Inc Jan. 20 $231.0 JPM,MS, Cowen&Company LLC,Healthcare March 12,318 Credit Suisse

Aclaris Therapeutics Inc Jan. 20 $96.0 Cantor Fitzgerald&Co,Healthcare March 13,320 W.Blair LLC

AcelRxPharmaceuticals Inc Jan. 20 $27.6 Cantor Fitzgerald&CoHealthcare June 12,320

PerionNetwork Ltd Jan. 20 $57.4 Oppenheimer Inc, StifelComputers&Electronics May6,320

LithiumAmericasCorp Jan. 20 $350.0 CanaccordGenuity, DB,Mining Sept. 25,320 Evercore Inc, Stifel

CareDx Inc Jan. 20 $175.0 GS, JefferiesHealthcare June 9,320

Chimerix Inc Jan. 20 $100.0 Jefferies, Cowen&Company LLCHealthcare Aug. 10,320

BioNanoGenomics Inc Jan. 20 $200.0 Oppenheimer IncHealthcare Jan. 19,321

CytomXTherapeutics Inc Jan. 20 $100.0 JPM, Cowen&Company LLC,Healthcare Nov. 6,318 Piper Sandler

CryoPort Inc Jan. 20 $287.5 MS, Jefferies, SVBLeerink, UBSTransportation Dec. 15,320

Orchid IslandCapital Inc Jan. 20 $40.3 JPMReal Estate/Property Jan. 29,320

InovioPharmaceuticals Inc Jan. 20 $173.0 BofASecurities, Jefferies,Healthcare Jan. 20,321 Cantor Fitzgerald&Co

MerusNV Jan. 21 $138.0 Jefferies, SVBLeerinkHealthcare Aug. 20,319

InvitaeCorp Jan. 21 $400.0 JPM,MS, Cowen&Company LLC,Healthcare March 4,319 SVBLeerink

SilvergateCapital Corp Jan. 21 $250.0 GS, Stifel, CanaccordGenuityFinance Jan. 20,321

SenseonicsHoldings Inc Jan. 21 $100.0 HCWainwright&Co LLCHealthcare Nov. 27,319

Docebo Inc Jan. 22 $100.0 MS,GS, CanaccordGenuityComputers&Electronics Dec. 1,320

Public andPrivateBorrowingTreasurysMonday, January 25 Tuesday, January 26

Auction of 13 and 26week bills; Auction of 52week bill;announced on January 21; settles on January 28announced on January 21; settles on January 28

Auction of 2 year note; Auction of 5 year note;

announced on January 21; settles on February 1 announced on January 21; settles on February 1

Wednesday, January 27 Thursday, January 28

Auction of 2 year FRN; Auction of 4 and8week bills;announced on January 21; settles on February 1 announced on January 26; settles on February 2

Auction of 7 year note;

announced on January 21; settles on February 1

MondayEarnings expected*

Estimate/YearAgo

AGNC Investment0.65/0.57

Brown&Brown0.29/0.28

Equity LifeStyleProperties 0.33/0.30Graco 0.51/0.48Kimberly-Clark

1.62/1.71Steel Dynamics

0.76/0.62

TuesdayConsumer ConfidenceDec., previous 88.6Jan., expected 87.5

Earnings expected*Estimate/YearAgo

Johnson& Johnson1.82/1.88

Microsoft 1.64/1.51NextEra Energy

0.38/0.36Starbucks 0.55/0.79Texas Instruments

1.34/1.12Verizon Comm.

1.17/1.13

WednesdayShort-selling reportsRatio, days of trading volumeof current position, atDec 31

NYSE 3.4Nasdaq 1.9

EIA status reportPrevious change in stocks inmillions of barrels

Crude-oilstocks up4.4Gasoline stocks

down0.3Distillates up 0.5

Mort. bankers indexesPurch., prev. up 3%Refinan., prev. down 5%

Earnings expected*Estimate/YearAgo

Abbott Laboratories

1.35/0.95Apple 1.41/1.25AT&T 0.73/0.89Boeing (1.60)/(2.33)Facebook 3.18/2.56Tesla 1.04/0.43

Thursday

EIA report: natural gasPrevious change in stocks inbillions of cubic feet

down 187

GDPDeflator3rd qtr., final up 3.5%4th qtr. adv. est. up 2.1%

Grossdomesticproduct:Percentagechange,annualrate

3rd qtr., final up 33.4%4th qtr. adv. est. up 4.6%

Initial jobless claimsPrevious 900,000Expected 875,000

Leading indicatorsNov., previous up 0.6%Dec., expected up 0.3%

New-home salesNov., previous 841,000Dec., expected 874,000

Earnings expected*Estimate/YearAgo

Comcast 0.49/0.79Danaher 1.87/1.28Mastercard 1.53/1.96McDonald’s 1.78/1.97Mondelez 0.66/0.61Visa 1.28/1.46

FridayEmploymentcost index3rd qtr., previous

up 0.5%4th qtr., expected

up 0.6%

MARKETS

selling a lot is still one of thelargest shareholders. He isconcerned about the wild de-mand for IPOs and SPACs inanything connected to batter-ies, solar and electric vehi-cles. “Is it rational? I don’treally think so,” he said.

David Older, head of equi-ties at French fund managerCarmignac, has sold Chineseelectric-car stocks that soaredin favor of established carmakers he thinks will succeedin the electric-car business.

“There does seem to besome irrational exuberance,especially with companiesthat have no products today,”he said.

Even if you agree that to-day’s glamour stocks areoverly frothy, there is still aquestion about whether thatextends to the broader mar-ket. There’s a good reason tothink not, at least not as a

true bubble:

The Federal Reserve has themarket’s back

Treasury yields are super-low, and the Fed has prom-ised not to raise interestrates. That justifies higherprices for stocks with reliablelong-term cash flows, includ-ing technology giants’ stockssuch as Apple or Facebook.Compared with a 10-yearbond, U.S. stocks don’t lookexpensive.

Of course, investors mightbe wrong either about futurecash flows (antitrust, people!)or about the outlook for bondyields. Either could lead tothe stocks going down, per-haps by a lot. But falling be-cause fundamentals changedisn’t the same as falling be-cause a bubble burst, whichtypically leads prices to plum-met further and faster.

Personal spendingNov., previous

down0.4%Dec., expected

down0.3%

Personal incomeNov., previous

down 1.1%Dec., expected up 0.1%

Chicago PMIDec., previous 59.5Jan., expected 58.7

U.Mich. consumerindexJan., prelim 79.2Jan., final 79.2

Earnings expected*Estimate/YearAgo

Caterpillar 1.48/2.63Charter Comm.

4.83/3.28Chevron 0.09/1.24Colgate-Palmolive

0.76/0.73Eli Lilly 2.37/1.73Honeywell Intl

2.00/2.06

* FactSet Estimates earn-ings-per-share estimatesdon’t include extraordinaryitems (Losses in parenthe-ses) u Adjusted for stocksplit

Note: Forecasts are fromDow Jones weekly survey of

economistsCaterpillar is expected to post a profit of $1.48 a share, down from $2.63, a year earlier.

LUKE

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is right twice a day. And it istrue that his research oftencomes to the same conclusion:Markets go up. But in the midstof a market that has regularlydefied skeptics, Mr. Lee’s sunnyforecasts have often provenprescient.

Mr. Lee’s call in Marchwasn’t his only big decision lastyear; he also changed his ownbusiness thanks to the pan-demic. Instead of focusingsolely on markets, he shiftedhis regular markets newsletterto a nightly research projectthat examined the latest coro-navirus data. This was possiblein large part thanks to the ef-forts of his firm’s quantitativeanalyst Ken Xuan, who is affec-tionately known by readers as“tireless Ken.”

The decision to pivot provedfruitful. Mr. Lee’s nightly read-ership of institutional clientsnow sometimes numbers above80,000, up from fewer than5,000 at the start of the year.Working professionals and evenhealth-care workers havesigned up.

Fundstrat has over 150 cli-ents from money-managementfirms, hedge funds and otherinvestors. These firms payFundstrat tens of thousands ofdollars a year to hundreds ofthousands a year for newslet-ters, conference calls and spe-cial bespoke projects.

Thomas Lee has been dis-missed and derided for being apermabull. The Wall Street ana-lyst has also been right.

On the morning of March 24,Mr. Lee, co-founder of researchfirm Fundstrat Global Advi-sors, told more than 1,000 cli-ents on his firm’s conferencecall that the market would hitnew highs by the end of thesummer.

Mr. Lee’s prediction was im-probable. At that exact mo-ment, the Covid-19 pandemichad brought New York to astandstill and several marketswere breaking down. But byAugust, the market had re-turned to new highs.

“We saved a lot of folks fromdisaster,” said Mr. Lee, whoprovides stock research andmarket forecasts with his 17-person team. “Sometimes youhave to put your hat on theground and say: ‘This is thebottom.’”

Over the past 30 years, theMichigan-raised Mr. Lee hasgarnered a reputation as one ofWall Street’s most aggressivemarket optimists, working atKidder, Peabody & Co., SalomonSmith Barney, JPMorganChase & Co. and now his ownresearch firm.

Critics of Mr. Lee’s optimismwould say that a broken clock

BY GEOFFREY ROGOW

Analyst Said ‘Buy’As Stocks PlungedOn the Pandemic

Thomas Lee outside of his home in New Canaan, Conn.

EVANANGEL

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RTH

EWALL

STRE

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THE TICKER |MARKET EVENTS COMING THIS WEEK

biotech stock Signal Advance(ticker: SIGL) leaping from 60cents a share to $38.70. It hasplunged since but is still at$6.25, bafflingly.

These sort of mistakesmade headlines in the dot-com bubble, too, as droves ofnewcomers rushed to tradestocks based on message-board rumors.

Old-economy stocks soaringas they tap into the populartheme

Detroit stalwarts GeneralMotors and Ford have bothmanaged to sprinkle themagic dust of electric motorsover themselves this year,along with South Korea’sHyundai.

Shares in the three havegained about a third this year,and GM and Ford are amongthe best performers in theS&P 500.

In 1998 and 1999 simplyadding “.com” to a company’sname led to gains averaging74% in the next 10 days, ac-cording to research from Pur-due University academics in2001. Aside from a few tinystocks trying to cash in onbitcoin mania, the only nota-ble example of this so far isthe Hong Kong-listed healthdivision of one of China’s big-gest property developers,which changed its name toChina Evergrande New En-ergy Vehicle Group last sum-mer. Its shares soared, and itplans to launch electric carsthis year. I mean, GM used tomake fridges, and Toyotastarted out making looms, sosure, build apartments andelectric cars.

Early investors who rodethe stocks up selling out

Many of those who wereearly investors in renewablepower or electric cars havecashed in some or all of theirgains to shift to other,cheaper, areas offeringgrowth, even as they continueto believe in the underlyingtheme.

James Anderson, partnerand investment manager atEdinburgh fund manager Bail-lie Gifford, was an early in-vestor in Tesla and even after

STREETWISE | By James Mackintosh

If It Looks Like a BubbleAnd Floats Like a Bubble...

I have beenresisting thecomparisonbetween thedot-com bub-ble and to-day’s stock

market, but the similaritieshave grown too strong to ig-nore. Here are five areaswhere the parallels arestrong, along with one cau-tion about applying the bub-ble label to the broadermarket.

Exponential growth in theprice of story stocks

Anything connected toelectric vehicles or clean en-ergy has gone ballistic in thepast few months.

Electric-car maker Tesla isthe most obvious example,becoming the fifth-largestU.S. company by value afterrising eightfold last year. Thisyear so far, it has added $134billion to its market capital-ization, far more than the $78billion it was worth at thestart of 2020.

A flood of early-stage IPOstapping into the popularthemes

Initial public offerings andthe cash shells of special-pur-pose acquisition companies,or SPACs, now used as an al-ternative have been booming,attracting celebrity backersand allowing companies with-out any revenue, let aloneprofit, to join the market. TheRenaissance IPO index, whichtracks new listings, morethan doubled last year, by farthe best performance since itstarted in 2009.

Perhaps most extreme wasQuantumScape, part-ownedby Volkswagen, which hopesto commercialize its experi-mental solid-state batteries. Ittripled in value to more than$25 billion during December,according to Refinitiv, beforefalling by more than half.

New investors who don’tknow what they are doing

Don’t get me wrong, thereare plenty of smart and well-informed small investors. Butstocks are again being swungabout by the sort of amateurmistakes made by a beginnerhoping to win big. One Iwrote about recently is tobuy a stock purely because itsshare price is low, whichshould be all but irrelevantbut which drove performancein the first couple of weeks ofthis year.

Even more excruciating isto buy the wrong stock, ashappened with last year’srush into Zoom Technolo-gies, owner of the tickerZOOM and not a lot else,rather than the better-knownZoom Video Communica-tions (ticker ZM). This monthElon Musk’s call to use Signal,an alternative to Facebook’sWhatsApp messaging soft-ware, led to the unrelated

2020 '21

0

250

500

750

1,000

1,250%

Share-price change since start of 2020

Source: Refinitiv (IPO index); FactSet (share price)*Weekly data

2010 '15 '20

0

200

400

600

800

Renaissance IPO index*

Tesla

QuantumScape

Invesco Solar ETF

smartphones. Its namesakeshort-video platform is theworld’s second largest, accord-ing to data cited in its pro-spectus, with 305 million aver-age daily active users inSeptember.

With a minimum deal sizeof $4.95 billion, the IPO wouldbe the largest in the worldsince late 2019, when state-controlled Saudi Arabian OilCo., commonly known asAramco, raised $29.4 billion,Dealogic figures show.

At the top of the range, the

ContinuedfrompageB1

deal implies a market capital-ization of $60.9 billion, show-ing how Kuaishou’s valuationhas risen rapidly.

It was valued at $28.6 bil-lion last February after obtain-ing $3 billion in funding froma Tencent-led consortium, ac-cording to PitchBook, a dataprovider.

In total, the company hasraised more than $4 billion inmultiple funding rounds,PitchBook data shows.

The company is selling365.2 million new shares at anindicative range of 105 to 115Hong Kong dollars, accordingto a term sheet seen by TheWall Street Journal.

It plans to fix the offerprice on Jan. 29.

The offering size could in-crease to up to $6.2 billion af-ter underwriting banks exer-cise an option to sell 15% moreshares.

ChineseIPO Seeks$5 Billion

P2JW025000-4-B00800-2--------XA

THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | B9

If you still think of Snapchat asa niche platform for the world’syouth to send one another fleetingselfies of their nether regions,think again. Snap Inc. is expandingin promising new directions.

Social-media stocks have allsoared over the past year as theCovid-19 pandemic forced theworld to communicate virtually,but Snap’s performance standsout. Its shares more than doubledover the past four months, bestingboth Twitter and Facebook duringthe news-heavy election seasonand even outshining Pinterest,which has blossomed into an e-commerce destination with nearlyperfect timing.

Snap’s extraordinary run sug-gests investors are valuing futurepotential over current perfor-mance. Wall Street expects Snap tohave boosted revenue at roughlythe same rate as Pinterest in 2020and its monthly users at roughlyhalf the rate. Snap is now tradingat a sizable premium to Pinterestat 22 times forward sales—a levelit hasn’t seen since its initial pub-lic offering back in 2017.

Snap is working to enhance itsappeal to businesses beyond tradi-tional social-media advertising.That potential seems to be cominginto focus now with analysts in-creasingly eyeing the company’sinnovation pipeline, which MKMPartners’ Rohit Kulkarni calls thebest in social media.

Snap said it launched 15 prod-ucts and functionalities using aug-mented reality for businesses inthe first nine months of last year.

A new marketing video released bySnap in December shows howSnapchatters can now virtually tryon products such as shoes or nailpolish. It shows how users canphysically scan a product’s logo toview information about it, includ-ing a tutorial on how to use it.

Deutsche Bank’s Lloyd Walmsleypegs the revenue opportunity forAR lens and filter ads at $4 billionover the next few years—morethan double the company’s totalrevenue in 2019. These virtual try-before-you-buy products are par-ticularly timely right now withmany physical stores closed, butthey could continue to be valuablefor consumers who live far awayfrom their favorite shops.

Outside of AR, Snap is workingto put businesses on the map—lit-erally. The company launched SnapMap in 2017, an attempt to person-alize maps by showing Snapchat-ters where they are relative totheir friends and to businesses.Roughly a third of Snapchat usersare now using Map, according to aJefferies estimate. That should in-crease following Snap’s Januaryacquisition of StreetCred, whichcrowdsources business data bycompensating users who contrib-ute.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill es-timates that Snap Map could add$1.5 billion in incremental annualad revenue by 2023, adding that it

might be the company’s most un-dervalued asset. In a recent note,Mr. Thill described a patent pub-lished by Snap in January that, hesaid, could enable businesses to le-verage event invites within theSnap Map both organically andthrough paid advertising.

Snap is also investing heavily inuser-generated content, a lucrativebut crowded field pitting it againstTikTok, YouTube and InstagramReels. As of mid-November, Snaphas been offering more than $1million a day to creators who sub-mit the best videos for its newuser-generated content offering,Spotlight. For now, the incentivesare intended to boost user engage-ment, luring users away fromother platforms to make Snapmore attractive to advertisers.Goldman Sachs’s Heath Terry hassaid Spotlight itself could open upunique ad opportunities over time.

Snap is set to report fourth-quarter results Feb. 4, but inves-tors might have to wait for thecompany’s annual investor daylater that month for an unfilteredupdate on its pipeline. Wall Streetis expecting a stellar performancefrom the company to close out theyear, including fourth-quartersales growth nearly on par withthe impressive 52% the companyput up in the third quarter.

Snap is ready for its close-up.—Laura Forman

Snap TurnsVirtual

Reality IntoReal MoneyCompany works to raiseappeal to businesses

Halliburton’s annualcapital expenditures

Source: FactSet*Projection

$3.5

0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

billion

2013 ’15 ’17 ’19 ’21*

HEARD ONTHESTREET

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Oil Servicers’ WoesAre an Opportunity

Discipline has been the mantraof U.S. energy companies for awhile. Judging from oil-field ser-vices companies’ results recently,they are walking the walk, not justtalking the talk.

Given the recent rally in oilprices, a lingering question iswhether drillers will keep up theirpromise of spending discipline. Bythe fourth quarter, the U.S. landrig count recovered sharply fromits August 2020 nadir. Hallibur-ton, Baker Hughes and Schlum-berger all experienced improve-ments in North American revenuein the quarter. Notably, Halliburtonhad a 26% increase in North Amer-ican revenue in the fourth quartercompared with the third quarter. Ayear-over-year comparison, makesit clear just how steep the road torecovery will be: Revenue in theregion was down 47% comparedwith a year earlier. Its interna-tional segment’s revenue declinedby 30% over the same period.

The service companies’ recoverymight not signal a quick uptick inU.S. fracking. All three indicatedthey expect customers to add rigsgradually. Halliburton mentioned itwas private and small operatorsthat added the most rigs, with largeexploration and production compa-nies and major oil companies mov-ing more slowly. Those larger com-panies will most likely start addingback rigs in the first half of theyear, according to Baker Hughes.

The servicers’ actions speaklouder than words: None of themplan on meaningfully increasingtheir capital expenditures in 2021.That is quite remarkable given thefact they slashed them so dramati-cally last year after making sizablecuts in 2019. Halliburton andSchlumberger reduced capital ex-penditures by 50% and 35%, re-spectively, last year.

The caution seems prudent. Oilproducers will try to get by withfewer services and consolidation is

under way in the oil patch. The Bi-den administration cast a shadowon the industry Thursday when itannounced a temporary ban onnew oil and gas leasing and per-mitting on federal lands.

While the move could result inhigher costs for drillers with heavyfederal land exposure, they willmost likely just move their activityelsewhere. The advantage of beingan oil-field services company isthat you can move your equipmentto where it is needed. And there ispotential upside for these compa-nies when oil demand does recover:Their collective cost-cutting meansthey should be able to commandbetter pricing for their services,boosting their already strong freecash flow and improving margins.

Despite upbeat results, oil-fieldservices companies’ shares took abeating after Thursday’s newsabout federal leasing limits, alongwith those of many producers.Halliburton, which has higher ex-posure to the U.S., was down morethan 10% last week. If anything,the sentiment-driven selloff couldbe a good opportunity to pick uptheir shares at a bargain.

—Jinjoo Lee

Snap Map lets users know where they are relative to friends and businesses.

SNAP

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JOURNAL REPORT

WEALTH MANAGEMENT

past year. It was a year, no doubt, thatmany people would prefer to forget. Butbefore we try to wipe those memoriesclean, here are some of the things thatinvestors, savers and spenders would dowell to remember.

Emergencies Do HappenOne clear lesson from the past tumultu-ous year is that more Americans shouldwork to build an emergency fund of atleast one month of spending. An accessi-ble emergency fund (kept in an easy-to-access form like a savings or checking ac-count) can help alleviate the need fordrastic cuts in spending when facingtemporary shocks to your income.While an emergency fund cannot makeup for losing your job and facing long-

PleaseturntopageR4

Among them: You really do haveto plan for emergencies, and

your personal-finance decisionsdon’t exist in a vacuum

15Personal-Finance Lessons

We Can AllLearn From a

Pandemic Year

With 2020 in therearview mirror, andthe end of the pan-demic (fingerscrossed) in sight,there’s a lot of eco-nomic damage to be

assessed. But there are also a lot ofpersonal-finance lessons we can learn—lessons that will put us in good stead,whatever the economic future holds.Lessons about the importance of

emergency funds and having differentincome streams. Lessons about howthis time really isn’t different (no mat-ter how much it feels different). Les-sons about how personal finance istruly personal. And much more.These are some of the lessons we

heard about when we asked financialadvisers and others to reflect on the

For all the love andcompanionship thatdogs provide—think ofall the locked-downpeople who have ad-opted them during thepandemic—they comewith a less-adorablecharacteristic: bills.Expenses often are

the last thing manypeople think aboutwhen they order theirpup from the breederor choose one fromthe local animal shel-ter. Some 58% of own-ers don’t budget fortheir dogs, says KateJaffe, a trend expert atRover.com, an onlineservice that connectspet owners with sit-ters and walkers. Andthat can lead to somenasty surprises.Ms. Jaffe says that

when she does herfamily budget eachmonth, she factors inexpenses for Oso, herborder collie and Huskymix—typically about$70 to $90. “But in amore normal year, we’dalso budget for petcare as part of the costof vacations,” she says.Of course, how

much you end upspending depends onwhere you live, whatbreed of dog you have,how healthy it is andhow much you pamperyour pet, among otherthings. The annualcost of a dog’s basicneeds ranges from$610 to $2,115, Roverestimates. But a 2020survey of dog ownersconducted by Roverfound that 47% spendfar more than that—about $3,400 a year.So whether it’s your

aging pooch or pan-demic puppy, howmuch can you expectto spend—and howcan you reasonably re-duce those expenses?Here are some thingsto consider.

FoodFood is usually thelargest single annualexpense for dog own-ers, says Steve King,the chief executive ofthe American PetProducts Association.The average annualfood bill for a dogowner is $259, accord-ing to the tradegroup’s 2019 survey.

There are severalways to reduce foodcosts but still look outfor your dog’s well-be-ing. Mr. King suggestsusing pet-food sub-scription services thatautomatically sendthe food to yourhome monthly at areduced rate.Tori Mistick, who

does podcasts on dogownership, lives inPittsburgh with hertwo 8-year-old choco-PleaseturntopageR7

BY BRUCE HOROVITZ

WHATADOGWILLCOST YOUMany Covidadopters may bein for a shock

Lisa Radosta and heryellow Labradorretriever, Maverick

Taxes

Filing SeasonReaders askabout deduc-tions for cashdonations, localand state taxesandmore. R8

MarketTiming

Moving inand out ofstocks not onlylowers returns.It also addsvolatility. R7

InsideAsk Encore

Travelingsolo doesn’tnecessarilymean thatyou have togo it alone.R2

JustInCaseFor a growingnumber ofmillennials,prenups arejust a part ofmarriage. R6

WREN MCDONALD

LISA

RADOST

A

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R2 | Monday, January 25, 2021 THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

JOURNAL REPORT | WEALTH MANAGEMENT

solo route. Among their observa-tions:

• Solo doesn’t mean solitary.Many solo travelers in retirementjoin, and take trips with, smallgroups that have a particular fo-cus—such as photography or scubadiving. You might not have a spouseor partner traveling with you, butyou immediately have something incommon with other members of thegroup. A good example: Boston-based Road Scholar, a leader in edu-cational travel, where nearly one infour of the nonprofit’s participantsflies solo.

• It isn’t just for singles. Severalyears ago, I was interviewing anewly retired couple in Virginia. Thehusband mentioned that, before re-tiring, he had come up with a num-ber of destinations and sites that he

and his wife might want to visit afterleaving the office.“About one-half of the ideas she

was enthusiastic about, and aboutone-half she wasn’t enthusiastic atall,” he told me. Their solution: sepa-rate vacations, at least on occasion. Infact, just before our interview, thehusband had returned from a trip toPeru, a country he had alwayswanted to see. His wife took a passand spent the same time vacationingwith her sister in the U.S.So if a spouse or partner has al-

ways wanted to visit, say, Antarc-tica—and if penguins’ charms are loston you—think about giving him or herthat trip as a gift.

• Worth the risks. Traveling solocertainly has its challenges, includingconcerns about safety, added costs(the surcharges that some tour oper-ators and others tack on for singleguests) and, yes, bouts of loneliness.But most of the retirees or near-retir-ees I have spoken with who havetried vacationing on their own saidthe benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

As one traveler told me: “I foundthat there were some real pleasuresto being by myself. You make yourown time; you get up when you like,you go to bed when you like. If youfind something you’re interested in—ashop you like, a museum you want toexplore fully—you have the time to do

•I’m single and approaching re-tirement, and I would like toknow more about solo travel.What can you tell me about re-tirees who travel on their own?Can you recommend any re-sources? I trust that people willstart traveling again in 2021.

Solo travelers these days have lots ofcompany.Several studies in recent years have

found that solo vacationing is becominga big part of the travel business. In 2019,solo travelers accounted for 18% of on-line travel agencies’ global bookings, ac-cording to Travelport, a U.K.-based traveltechnology company. That figure was up7% from a year earlier.Yes, many of these go-it-aloners are

on the younger side (read: millennials).But I have spoken with a number of re-tirees who have tried, and enjoyed, the

Ask Encore • Glenn Ruffenach

The Ins and Outs ofTraveling Solo

Also: We answer a reader’squestion about Medicare costs

The Game Plan

Her Husband Died of Covid. Now She Needs a New Financial Plan.

BY LISAWARD

Barbara Kelly’s husband, MartinKelly, died of Covid in July. Nowthe 53-year-old from Phoenixneeds a financial road map to getthrough the next few years and,ultimately, plan for retirement.Ms. Kelly currently lives with

her three sons, ages 22, 20 and17. For 16 years, she stayed hometo care for them. In 2013, she be-gan working at a real-estate in-vestment trust and now earns$66,000 annually.Ms. Kelly has three separate

individual retirement accounts:$12,000 in her own IRA, and$94,000 and $48,000 in two thatused to belong to her husband.She has $45,000 in a 401(k) as

well as a tax-deferred annuityworth $52,000. In addition, shehas $77,000 in an investment ac-count and $200,000 in cash.A significant expense she faces

right now is her sons’ college bills.Her late husband’s friends raised$15,000 via a GoFundMe cam-paign to help with the costs. Inaddition, she has two UGMA col-lege-savings accounts.

The account for her youngestson—who graduates from highschool in 2022—has $25,000. Theone for her middle son, a studentat the University of Arizona, has$15,000. Her oldest son currentlyattends community college andworks 25 hours a week. But hehopes to return to the Universityof Arizona next year, and Ms.Kelly is considering paying part ofthe tuition.Ms. Kelly pays $300 monthly

for health insurance through heremployer. She has $1,500 in ahealth-savings account and a life-insurance policy worth one year’ssalary. She purchased a supple-mental life-insurance plan for$50,000 in coverage.Ms. Kelly says the family’s

home is worth about $610,000and has a $467,650 mortgagewith a 2.99% interest rate. Shehas no other debt. Monthly ex-penses include $2,471 for themortgage, $1,200 for groceries,$589 for car insurance and more.Ms. Kelly’s youngest son re-

ceives a monthly survivor’s bene-fit of $1,963 from Social Security(Ms. Kelly uses $1,200 of thatmoney to help pay the mortgage

and the remainder for groceries).He will get that benefit until hegraduates from high school.

Advice from a pro: Stacy Francis,a certified financial planner atFrancis Financial in New York City,

says Ms. Kelly needs to make afew big changes. First, Ms. Fran-cis suggests Ms. Kelly buy a 10-year term life insurance policyworth $500,000. She also shouldupdate her will to specify the pro-ceeds from the policy should be

held in a trust for her three sons.As for college expenses, Ms.

Francis urges Ms. Kelly to haveher boys fill out the Free Applica-tion for Federal Student Aid(Fafsa). Since the boys will be incollege at the same time, they arelikely to qualify for a significantamount of money, she says.Since most of Ms. Kelly’s in-

come is going to the mortgage,Ms. Francis suggests that sheconsider downsizing to a smallerhome once her youngest boygoes to college.She also advises that Ms. Kelly

combine her IRA accounts into asingle account to streamline herfinances, and set aside about sixmonths of expenses from hercash reserve as an emergencyfund. Then she suggests that Ms.Kelly invest her remaining cash inmutual funds.Perhaps more important, Ms.

Francis urges Ms. Kelly to thinkabout professional development,such as another financial designa-tion to help boost her earnings.

Ms. Ward is a writer in Vermont.She can be reached atreports@wsj.com.Barbara Kelly’s financial plan includes college costs for her three sons.

that. You aren’t worried about hold-ing somebody else up. And if youdon’t like something, you leave.”As for resources, start with Solo

Traveler, which publishes a wealth ofinformation about the topic. SoloTrekker 4 U is a good tool for plan-ning trips. Several tour companies—among them, Exodus Travels, IntrepidTravel and Overseas AdventureTravel—have long catered to solotravelers. And check out Smarter-Travel, which has a terrific collectionof articles about traveling on yourown. (Example: “The 27 Best Appsfor Solo Travelers.”)

•I received my annual notice ofSocial Security benefits for2021 and in it, for the firsttime, is a mandatory paymentfor Medicare Part D. I collectMedicare and have a supple-ment from my former em-ployer, which includes phar-macy benefits. Why am Ipaying extra for Part D?

There are two possibilities. First,Medicare beneficiaries who exceedcertain income levels on their tax re-turns pay a surcharge, an amountabove and beyond the usual premi-ums for Medicare Parts B and D. Thisis known as the “Income RelatedMonthly Adjustment Amount,” or IR-MAA. You can find the income levelsand added premiums at medicare.gov.Search (separately) for: Part B costsand Part D costs.The federal government uses a

two-year “look back” to determinewhether you should pay the addi-tional fees. In other words, your 2021premiums are based on your tax re-turn for 2019. The surcharge, saysNeil Brown, a Medicare insuranceconsultant in Las Vegas, must bepaid by the Medicare enrollee even ifhis or her drug coverage is paid forby a third party, such as an employeror retirement system.That said, you can ask the Social

Security Administration, which runsMedicare billing, to consider usingyour 2020 income—or even an esti-mate of 2021 income—if either islower than the figure for 2019. UseSocial Security Form SSA-44 to learnabout this option and to file an appeal.Second, Medicare enrollees who go

without drug coverage more than 63days, and then get drug coverage,may face a “Late Enrollment Penalty.”It’s possible, Mr. Brown says, thatMedicare didn’t know about your em-ployer-provided drug benefit—thendid learn of it—and is viewing this as“new” coverage, coverage you ob-tained “late.”The solution: Present a “Letter of

Creditable Drug Coverage” from theinsurer, showing that drug coveragehas been in effect.

Mr. Ruffenach is a former reporterand editor for The Wall StreetJournal. The Ask Encore columnexamines financial issues for thosethinking about, planning and livingtheir retirement. Send questions andcomments to askencore@wsj.com.

Write to usabout yourexperienceswith solotravel andanyresourcesyou think weshouldhighlight.Yourthoughtsmay be usedin a futurecolumn.

Topreasons fortraveling solo

61%Being ableto enjoy apeacefulvacation

59%Prefer notto wait forsomeone else

54%To challengemyself

52%Avoidingroutine

45%Learningabout othercultures

45%Happy withfreedom oftravelingalone

Source: The Wandering RV

FROM

TOP:

MART

INTO

GNOLA

;BARB

ARA

KELLY

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THEWALL STREET JOURNAL. Monday, January 25, 2021 | R3

If you are not completely satisfied for any reason, at your request Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. (“Schwab”), Charles Schwab Bank (“Schwab Bank”), or another Schwab affiliate, as applicable, will refund any eligible fee related to your concernwithin the required time frames. Schwab reserves the right to change or terminate the guarantee at any time. Go to schwab.com/satisfaction to learn what’s included and how it works.

From Investor's Business Daily, October 12, 2020, ©2020 Investor's Business Daily, Inc. All rights reserved.

©2020 Charles Schwab & Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Member SIPC. (0920-0ZDU) ADP112281-00

At other firms satisfaction is uncertain.At Schwab it’s guaranteed.

At Schwab, we offer a Satisfaction Guarantee because we believethat accountability is just a word if we don’t stand by it. It’s time tochange to a modern approach to wealth management.

Learn more at Schwab.com

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R4 | Monday, January 25, 2021 THEWALL STREET JOURNAL.

JOURNAL REPORT | WEALTH MANAGEMENT

The pandemic has inspired a waveof charitable giving—some throughtraditional methods, some by moreinnovative means.“We have seen an incredible gen-

erosity for Covid-related giving sincethe beginning of the pandemic,” saysUna Osili, associate dean for re-search and international programs atthe Indiana University Lilly FamilySchool of Philanthropy.Fidelity Charitable reports its cli-

ents made donations of more than$8.1 billion last year through Dec.15.—a figure that is expected to in-crease significantly, since 40% to 50%of annual contributions tend to bemade in December. By comparison,donations in 2019 totaled $7.3 billion.Pam Norley, president of Fidelity

Charitable, attributes much of the in-crease to the pandemic. In an August

survey of almost 500 Fidelity Chari-table clients, 46% said they hadgiven more in 2020 because of theCovid crisis. Food banks and home-less shelters are among the mostpopular recipients, Ms. Norley says.Charities that help victims of do-

mestic violence, struggling restau-rant and health-care workers, andmental-health-support groups alsohave been frequent recipients, phi-lanthropy professionals say.Experts on charitable giving say

many donors have removed re-strictions they might have put ondonations in the past, so that re-cipient organizations have moreflexibility to spend the moneywhere it is most needed. Also,since the pandemic hit last March,many moved up their normal year-end giving to deliver help fasterand provide needed stability.One family inspired to do more

is the Youngers in Northern Cali-fornia, led by Bill Younger, retiredmanaging director of venture-capital firm Sutter Hill Ventures.When the pandemic hit in March,the family decided to pull forwardits normal annual donations—which support 60 organizationsin education, health care, eco-nomic opportunity and social jus-tice—to March 31 from Dec. 31.“We wanted to provide some se-

curity” for these organizations inlight of Covid, says Julie Aleman,Mr. Younger’s daughter, who man-ages the family’s giving. “We antici-pated they could use cash soonerduring so much uncertainty.”In reaction to the pandemic, the

family also decided to donate$500,000 in March beyond its an-nual gifts. The additional moneywent to 10 organizations in the SanFrancisco Bay Area, including a food

bank, two groups that help thehomeless, a group that supports vic-tims of domestic violence and askilled-nursing-and-rehabilitationcenter. Money also went to GiveDi-rectly, a nonprofit that transfers do-nations directly to needy individuals.Liz Kramer Lefkofsky and her

husband, Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder of Groupon, also increaseddonations last year to their twocharitable programs. One of thoseprograms, Ving (from “giving”),which seeks to get young peoplemore involved in philanthropy, allo-cates $1,000 to needy peoplenominated by teenagers. TheLefkofskys have provided morethan $500,000 for the programsince the pandemic began—twiceas much as the program’s totalfunding in the prior five years.One recipient of $1,000 was

nominated because she took in a

girl who had to move out of herown house because of the pan-demic to protect her mother, whohas autoimmune issues. The recipi-ent, a single mother who servesschool lunches, was out of workdue to the pandemic.In March, the Lefkofskys rushed

out an additional program to giveschool principals in disadvantagedChicago-area communities $12,500each to distribute to families withchildren in the schools. So far, theprogram has allocated more than$250,000 to about 20 principals,says Ms. Lefkofsky. The principalsdistribute $300 gift cards that peo-ple have used for groceries, heatingbills, funeral costs and other needs.“There’s a need to put food on

the table at a level no one hasseen before,” says Ms. Lefkofsky.The couple plans to double theprogram this year.

FinanceLessonsFrom aYear ofCovid

term unemployment, it can help toreduce the impact of shorter-termeconomic disruptions. For instance,last year many households had mem-bers who were furloughed for severalweeks while governments had man-dated closures of their employers.In addition, those facing longer-

term unemployment often had towait weeks for benefit checks to startto flow in. In such cases, having sev-eral weeks or more of accessible sav-ings can reduce the need to under-take painful spending cuts or borrowat high interest rates to make re-quired payments.

—Scott Baker, associate professorof finance at Kellogg School ofManagement at NorthwesternUniversity in Evanston, Ill.

Buy When OthersAre ScaredThe best time to invest is when othersare fearful. In 2020, we faced risks un-like any we’ve dealt with in our life-times. Being told you’re in danger trig-gers all your evolutionary defensemechanisms intended to keep yousafe. Unfortunately, none of these in-stinctive reactions are useful in thearena of long-term investing. In March,investors’ fears extended well beyondtheir portfolios and into their personalwell-being.It’s common to hear “this time is

different,” but there are two thingsthat tend to remain true of all bearmarkets. First, buying when the mar-ket is down at least 30% has histori-cally been an excellent entry point forstocks. Buying stocks in March re-quired you to embrace fear and uncer-tainty in exchange for the higher ex-pected returns.Second, while all bear markets are

inherently different, the commonthread is that they always end. Inves-tors must be willing to lose money onoccasion—sometimes a lot ofmoney—to earn the average long-

ContinuedfrompageR1

The New Face of Charitable Giving During the Pandemic: More Money, New Causes

1 in 5Americans

have enoughemergencysavings to

cover three tofive months of

expensesSource: Bankrate.com

term return that attracts most peo-ple to stocks in the first place. And ifyou can be a buyer in times of fear,your chances of earning above-aver-age returns improve.

—Peter Lazaroff, chief investmentofficer at Plancorp, St. Louis

We Can BeFinanciallyDisciplinedThe pandemic has taught us that fi-nancial discipline is possible. The re-strictions on life’s pleasures, liketravel and eating out, caused all ofus to rethink how much we spendon these activities. We reflected onour excess indulges and realized thevalue of spending moderately andsaving intentionally.Building cash reserves from un-

spent money on niceties sparkedgreater confidence in handling life’sshocks. Many of us appreciated theextra money to weather job loss, re-duced income due to cutbacks orcaregiving responsibilities, andmounting medical bills.We also start thinking more

about how we should spend ourmoney, whether it was because ofsheer boredom or a greater appre-ciation of life in the midst of con-stant Covid-related casualties. Life’sexperiences often serve as the cat-alyst for changing financial habitsand mind-sets.

—Lazetta Rainey Braxton, co-CEOof 2050 Wealth Partners, New York

You Need a WillThere has never been a better time toput front and center the need for ev-ery adult to have a will. No one ex-pected the level of tragedy that oc-curred world-wide last year. Andpeople don’t want to think about the

idea of dying one day—a reason whythey often kick this can down theroad. But a big lesson of 2020 is thatyou should always be prepared forthe worst.Whether you’ve built a net

worth like Tony Hsieh, former CEOof Zappos (who had no will) or youare worth $10,000, it’s importantfor the family you leave behind tounderstand the wishes you havefor your assets and belongings.It’s also important to check your

beneficiary designations. If youhave life insurance, a 401(k) or anindividual retirement account, theyare a contract of law and will go tothat named beneficiary, whether ornot you have a will. People oftenforget to update or change thosebeneficiaries.

—Ted Jenkin, the co-CEO andfounder of oXYGen Financial inAlpharetta, Ga.

Manage YourRisksThe biggest personal-finance lessonfrom 2020 is the importance of com-prehending and managing risk. Unfor-tunately, this is one of the conceptsof personal finance where knowledgeis lowest, according to the TIAA Insti-tute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index.While risk is a constant in our life, weoften do not insure enough againstthe risks we face.

We should ask ourselves: Does myfamily have the proper coverage incase of health problems, including theones created by the virus? And incase we have a high-deductible healthplan, do we have enough to cover thedeductible? And are we covered incase someone becomes disabled?Should we change or increase ourlong-term disability insurance? Andimportantly, do we have life insuranceto protect our family in case of thedeath of the income earner(s)?These are difficult questions to

confront and ask, but the pandemic

is a good reminder that it is better tobe safe than sorry.

—Annamaria Lusardi, universityprofessor at George WashingtonUniversity in Washington, D.C.

Your PersonalFinances ReflectYour ValuesThe events of 2020 reminded peopleof the foundational reasons behindtheir financial life—their “why.” Manypeople have reconnected personal fi-nances with the things most impor-tant to them: how they use theirtime, how their money fuels theirfamily and home life, what their in-vestments support and fund, andhow their careers enrich their lives.Personal finance does not exist in avacuum; it exists in light of what wevalue most.Last year has reminded people of

what they value and has also helpedidentify what is not important. Formany people, it’s that all the detailsaround finance and money shouldcome back to a core purpose—facili-tating the lives that we all want tolive. That has real-world impact onthe decisions we make about how wederive income, how we spend our re-sources and how we invest.

—Jared B. Snider, partner andsenior wealth adviser at ExencialWealth Advisors in Oklahoma City

Retirement PlansNeed FlexibilityThe Covid-19 pandemic has left moreAmericans feeling the need to delaytheir retirement as both a short-termand long-term financial fix. And thatis a wake-up call for many would-beretirees about the importance of nothaving retirement plans and expecta-tions set in stone.

BY DANWEIL

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Dr. Osili says that based on theLilly School’s research, charitable giv-ing of many different kinds has in-creased during the pandemic, includ-ing random acts of kindness.Mark Smith, owner of five Midas

auto repair shops in the Richmond,Va., area, set up a promotion forpeople to cite acts of kindness theyperformed each day in June. Peoplewho emailed their lists to him re-ceived four free oil changes (a year’sworth), which would normally cost$42.99 each. Mr. Smith says he re-ceived about 200 responses.Mark Rapp, a trumpet player in

Columbia, S.C, has used music tohelp others. “Within 48 hours afterCovid hit in March, my entire calen-dar was wiped out of gigs,” he says.All the fellow jazz musicians hespoke to were in the same boat.“I thought how do we keep the

community engaged and musiciansworking?” Mr. Rapp says. “That

Wednesday, we did our first stream-ing benefit concert.” He and his jazzcolleagues have played over 40weekly concerts so far, raising morethan $16,500 to pay out-of-work mu-sicians. “The community has givenfantastic support,” Mr. Rapp says.Next, when a four-day summer

jazz camp Mr. Rapp has organizedfor the past three years was can-celed, he created an online versionwith 40 courses, including jazz his-tory and music lessons. Thanks tosome sponsors, including the SouthCarolina Arts Commission, each one-hour course cost only $15. In 2019,by comparison, camp attendeeswere charged an all-in-one fee of$285. More than 100 people “at-tended” the camp, Mr. Rapp says.“And all the musicians got paid.”Two friends, Jesse Kay, 20, of Up-

per Saddle River, N.J., and Alex Shei-nman, 24, of New York City, startedan online fundraising operation back

in March to rally college studentsand other young people to raisecharitable donations through spon-sored runs and other activities.Makin’ Lemonade started out as a

fundraiser on GoFundMe at the endof March, says Mr. Kay. To date, ithas raised about $125,000, with atleast half coming from college stu-dents. Groups supported by Makin’Lemonade include Feeding America;the CDC Foundation, a nonprofit thatassists the work of the Centers forDisease Control and Prevention; andDirect Relief, a nonprofit focused ondisaster relief, poverty and health.Makin’ Lemonade Fund has ap-

plied for nonprofit status, Mr. Kaysays. While it waits for approval, ithas formed a “charitable partner-ship” with the nonprofit 143 Collec-tive, a 501(c)3 organization.

Mr. Weil is a writer in West PalmBeach, Fla. Email: reports@wsj.com.

JOURNAL REPORT | WEALTH MANAGEMENT

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51%Consumerssomewhatlikely to nowsave moremonthlySource: CIT Bank survey

A whopping 81 million Americansreported that their retirement timinghas been impacted by the pandemic,with most believing that they willneed to work longer than they hadpreviously planned, according to asurvey on work and retirement atti-tudes and expectations that myfirm, Age Wave, has just conductedin partnership with Edward Jones.Most are putting off retirement foran average of about three years, ac-cording to the survey.For many Americans, a few extra

years of work can offer a financialbuffer. It also can provide continuingsocial connections, mental stimula-tion and contribute to a sense ofpurpose—which, for many people,can be a silver lining after this diffi-cult year.

—Maddy Dychtwald, co-founder ofAge Wave, a think tank andconsultancy in the San FranciscoBay Area

Things Won’tStay Bad—orGood—ForeverExtrapolating the recent past too farinto the future is a big mistake. Thisis known as recency bias, and it isone of our biggest downfalls as hu-mans. Last year taught us a power-ful lesson, in both directions.Optimism was the order of the

day early in 2020 with the marketat all-time highs. Compare that withMarch, when things looked like theywould never recover. In both cases,investors would havebeen well-served notto assume the recentpast was going tocontinue forever.Many investors wespoke with in Marchwanted to make dra-matic changes totheir investments be-cause they were as-suming things wouldcontinue to worsen.This is why a di-

versified portfoliothat you can stickwith regardless of themarket environmentshould be the corner-stone of almost ev-eryone’s investmentstrategy.

—Jeff Mills, chief investment officerof Bryn Mawr Trust, Berwyn, Pa.

This Time IsDifferent. Not.It is always nerve-racking to watchthe market go through a sizable cor-rection as investors find it increas-ingly hard to differentiate the eco-nomic ramifications versus theresults created by the media. Whenthe downturn is caused by a pan-demic, it adds another layer of com-plexity to the confusion. The brainsays, “This time is different.”The truth is that each recession

is different, but the discipline whichinvestors adopt to manage theirportfolios should remain intact. In-vestors with proper asset-allocationdiscipline that incorporates liquiditystrategy should refrain from givingorders to their advisers when thenoise grows to become overwhelm-ing. Selling orders out of despairled to liquidating at the bottom in

March and missing the unpredict-able quick rebound in April and be-yond. The unprecedented globalpandemic sweep was met with theunprecedented speed of monetaryand fiscal policy adjustments andthe fastest vaccine developmentwitnessed. It was evident that themarket worked itself out.This time is no different from

any other time. It’s time in the mar-ket rather than timing the marketthat matters in the long run.

—Jessica Guo, financial adviserand senior portfolio manager/international wealth managementadviser at UBS and founder of GuoGroup in Wellesley, Mass.

MarketsAlways Fool UsIt was the year of Covid-19, skyrock-eting unemployment, a shrinkingeconomy, a $3.3 trillion ballooning ofthe U.S. budget deficit, racial riots,heated political discourse. Yet,rather than plunging, the U.S. stockmarket responded by surging about20%, as measured by the total re-turn of the Wilshire 5000 TotalMarket Index. What gives?In the 33 days between Feb. 19

and March 23, when the pandemicgained its foothold in the U.S., do-mestic stocks plunged nearly 35%.Many people told me stocks wouldnot recover until we had a vaccine.Even some people who realized thephrase “this time is different” wasthe costliest phrase in investing told

me, “This time really is different.”(Admittedly, if going into the year Ihad known what was going to hitus, I’d have bailed on stocks.)Why did stocks recover and soar

in the wake of such horrible eco-nomic news? The weaker explana-tion is that the decline in future cor-porate cash flows was less than thereduction in the discount rate usedto value those stocks. This wascaused by plunging and now near-zero interest rates. The much stron-ger explanation is simply that thestock market continues to fool us.Lesson learned: If we can’t even

explain the past, just think how fu-tile it is to try to predict the mar-ket’s future.

—Allan Roth, founder of WealthLogic in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Have a Three-Bucket StrategyThe Covid-19 recession has provedonce again that every investorshould always have an investment

plan and strategy that can weatherevents such as what we have expe-rienced.A three-bucket strategy is a

wise approach as investors rethinkhow they should invest theirmoney. A short-term bucket shouldhave one to two years of expensesin short-term instruments such ascash or short duration bonds. Anintermediate-term bucket shouldbe for monies not needed for twoto five years, such as core bondfunds. A long-term bucket shouldconsist of money not needed for atleast five years and can be in-vested in equities. This approachwill prepare investors for anyshort-term risks that arise, such ascoronavirus-related recessions,without sacrificing the integrity oftheir portfolio.

—Brian Walsh Jr., senior financialadviser at Walsh & NicholsonFinancial Group in Wayne, Pa.

RebalancingPays OffRebalance your portfolio when mar-ket movements cause your equitymix to stray from your target per-centage. Doing this—buying moreequities when under target or sell-ing when they are above—is a goodway to buy low or sell high.In most years, rebalancing helps

your portfolio’s return by a percent-age point or two. Once in a while, itcan double or triple this when equitymarkets decline steeply and recover,

like during the 2007-09 recession.There hasn’t been such an outsizerebalancing opportunity until lastwinter when the pandemic hit.However, you won’t realize these

benefits unless you actually do therebalancing. Otherwise, all you willrealize is your fear of missing outwhen markets do eventually turn.

—Jonathan Guyton, principal atCornerstone Wealth Advisors Inc.in Minneapolis

Have a Side GigJust as investment advisers recom-mend having a mix of investmentsin your 401(k) to minimize stock-market risk, it’s critical to have amix of income sources. Many globalcitizens took the pandemic as a callto action and used technology tocreate new income streams throughblogging, selling courses, writing e-books, posting video content, coach-ing or consulting, setting up an on-line shop, investing and so muchmore. In the 21st century when the

majority of transactions occur digi-tally via the web, technological liter-acy is as critical as financial literacy.

—Yanely Espinal, director ofeducation outreach at Next GenPersonal Finance in New York

Stay InvestedLast year’s tumultuous market rein-forced the importance of staying in-vested. It looked like financial mar-kets were doomed near the end ofthe first quarter. We saw days wheremarkets went down over 10%. Manyinvestors panicked and went cashfearing the worst. Since then, themarkets have rallied and anyone whotried to time the market and go moreconservative is probably feeling a bitof regret.

—David Blanchett, head ofretirement research at MorningstarInvestment Management inLexington, Ky.

Yes, Bonds AreStill ImportantMany investors are quick to dismissbonds given their historically lowyields. However, the events of thepast year have reinforced the impor-tance of including fixed incomewithin one’s portfolio.When Covid-19 first hit, from mid-

February to the end of March, theS&P 500 plummeted 34%. A diversi-fied portfolio of equities and fixed in-

come outperformed the broad stockmarket during the scariest times ofthe year. The stabilizing bond expo-sure helped many investors stay thecourse and minimize emotional sell-ing during this time.Having bond exposure in early

March also provided investors with awonderful rebalancing opportunity.As investment-grade bonds signifi-cantly outperformed the market, in-vestors could use proceeds from sell-ing bonds that stayed flat orappreciated in value to buy stocksthat were trading at a discount fromjust a few weeks earlier.Additionally, bond exposure

helped the many Americans whohad to liquidate investment assetsto meet their cash-flow needs asemployees were laid off or fur-loughed from their jobs during theyear’s quarantine. Selling theirbonds provided a more stable cush-ion for many investors. Being forcedto sell stocks at rock-bottom pricesinstead could have had a devastat-ing impact on their finances.

—Jonathan I. Shenkman, afinancial adviser at Oppenheimer &Co. in New York

Donors have given to food banks to help families impacted by Covid-19.

We reflectedon our excessindulges andrealized thevalue ofspendingmoderatelyand savingintentionally.

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Millennials areoften known tobuck convention.That seems tobe true evenwhen it comesto prenuptial

agreements.In the past, prenups were most

common among young adultsfrom wealthy families or couplesentering second or third mar-riages. Today, younger adults of allincome levels are drafting them,not only to protect assets accumu-lated before and during marriagebut to address societal realitiesthat weren’t necessarily present orcommon years ago, such as a de-sire to keep finances separate, stu-dent debt, social-media use, em-bryo ownership and even pet care.Experts point to the fact that

many millennials are children of di-vorced parents and have had an in-timate look at what can happen fi-nancially when a marriage dissolves.At the same time, the stigma or ta-boo that used to be associated withdiscussing money before marriageis slowly disappearing.“You’re effectively negotiating

your divorce agreement in ad-vance in a way that’s more egali-tarian than before,” says Jacque-line Harounian, a partner with thelaw firm Wisselman, Harounian &Associates in Great Neck, N.Y.

Financial separationSome millennial couples who wantto maintain a clear separation oftheir finances during marriage areusing prenups as a workaround forstate laws that would otherwisetreat certain assets as marital prop-erty.“They don’t want to co-mingle

their money; they want to live like fi-nancial roommates,” says Steven M.Resnick, a family law attorney withZiegler, Resnick and Epstein in Liv-ingston, N.J., who practices in NewYork and New Jersey.This mind-set change is even true

for clients who don’t have significantassets to protect going into themarriage, lawyers say. Some millen-nials want to keep their finances—current and future—separate andbusinesslike, which would allowthem to leave a marriage, if neces-sary, without many strings attached.Of course, marriage often re-

quires the need for joint purchasessuch as a family home or car, and

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The Game Plan

A Restaurant Owner, Hurt by the Pandemic, Looks to Find His Financial Footing

BY CHRIS KORNELIS

Cary Kemp was running abusy pizzeria in Seattle and hada restaurant consulting gig onthe side before the pandemichit. Now, receipts at Pizzeria 22are down 70%, the consultingfirm evaporated and he hastaken a second job in construc-tion to keep things together.The divorced father of two is

looking to find his financial foot-ing, form a plan to save for re-tirement.Mr. Kemp, 52, pays himself

$647 a week at the pizzeria, butcashes the checks only whenthe business can cover them. Hehas only been bringing homebetween $1,000 and $1,800 amonth lately. He also makesabout $3,200 a month workingconstruction.Mr. Kemp has no savings or

money socked away in a retire-ment account. He calls his di-vorce, about six years ago, a “fi-nancial reset.”He paid off his roughly

$12,000 in credit-card debt lastyear. But he has $50,000 left to

repay on a business loan with a6% interest rate. He’s currently indeferment for up to a year, afterwhich he has about two yearsleft to pay at $6,000 a month.He has about $140,000 left inhis business’s disaster-reliefloan—which he can pay back at3% interest, over 30 years—butsays he is hesitant to touch it.Mr. Kemp pays $2,200 a

month on the mortgage for hishome, in which he estimates hehas $150,000 to $200,000 in eq-uity. Other monthly expenses in-clude: $1,000 in child supportand $300 on utilities. He pays$150 to $200 a week on grocer-ies and dining out.He just sold his Mercedes to

buy a van for a mobile-cateringbusiness he plans to start thisspring. He hopes the businesswill be lucrative after the pan-demic. He also owns a paid-for2013 Kia Soul.

Advice from a pro: MichaelKimmel, a certified financial plan-ner at Wealthstream AdvisorsInc. in New York, says Mr. Kemp

is clearly a hard worker who hasdone a good job getting out ofcredit-card debt.“It’s not that he’s doing any-

thing wrong,” Mr. Kimmel says.“But there are some modifica-tions that could help.” If money is

still tight after the deferment pe-riod of his business loan, for ex-ample, and Mr. Kemp pays it offfrom the disaster-relief loan, hecan save about $1,800 a month,considering the lower interestrate paid off over 30 years.

Mr. Kemp needs three to sixmonths of expenses in an emer-gency fund and should putmoney aside regularly to reachthat goal—even $100 every twoweeks. To get there sooner, hemight consider moving to asmaller home and putting someof his equity in the bank.Once the emergency fund is

built up, Mr. Kemp should startputting money into a retirementaccount. The simplest way to dothat, the adviser says, is to opena Roth or traditional IRA and in-vest in a broad-based, low-cost,diversified mutual fund.Mr. Kimmel cautions that we

don’t know when the pandemicwill end, so Mr. Kemp might bebetter off making sure his res-taurant is self-sustaining againbefore investing in a new busi-ness. “Right now, he’s trying toget out of a hole, not dig himselfinto a deeper one,” he says. “AndI think that’s putting the cart be-fore the horse a little bit.”

Mr. Kornelis is a writer inSeattle. He can be reached atreports@wsj.com.

Cary Kemp has taken on a second job workingconstruction to help with bills.

Frozen embryosAs more couples decide to delayhaving children until later in life,more prenuptial agreements are in-cluding directions for dealing withgenetic material in the event of di-vorce.Ms. Sodoma offers the example

of clients who wanted to have chil-dren, but not right away, so theydecided to undergo in vitro fertil-ization and freeze the resulting em-bryos. In their prenuptial agree-ment, the couple agreed that in theevent of a divorce, their embryoswould be donated to stem-cell re-search through a local stem-cellbank. Neither party could use theembryos without the consent ofthe other party, Ms. Sodoma says.

Pet issuesPet provisions also are becomingmore commonplace in today’s pre-nups, says Ms. Clemens, especiallyamong couples with no childrenwho view their pets as their defacto families.She says two of her clients—a

couple in their 30s—wanted toaddress what would happen totheir two dogs in the event theydivorced. In their prenup, theycrafted a visitation schedule, aplan to split vet bills and pet in-surance costs and addressedwhat would happen if one of thepartners moved far away fromthe other.

Social mediaJonathan Fields, a family-law at-torney and divorce mediator withFields and Dennis LLP in Welles-ley, Mass., says he also is gettingrequests from younger clients toaddress social media in prenupsto ensure that one spouse can’twrite nasty things about theother in the event they break up.He says he tries to discouragesuch clauses because he’s con-cerned it could run into FirstAmendment issues, but if clientsinsist, he includes it using broadlanguage related to not discuss-ing each other negatively, or totheir children, for example.A typical clause, he says, would

prohibit the dissemination—with-out prior written and/or electronicconsent—of information that coulddisparage or harm the other or theother’s public image. This couldcover all media, including photo-graphs, video, blogging, texting,tweeting, tagging, and posting onany social-media site, service orplatform, he says.

Ms. Winokur Munk is a writer inWest Orange, N.J. She can bereached at reports@wsj.com.

“You’re effectivelynegotiating yourdivorce agreementin advance in away that’smoreegalitarian thanbefore.”

certain shared expenses, such as achild’s bar or bat mitzvah, collegeeducation or wedding. While a pre-nup cannot address child support,couples who want to keep their fi-nances separate can use prenupsto lay out how they will pay forsome of these big-ticket items,says Nicole Sodoma, founder andmanaging principal of SodomaLaw in Charlotte, N.C.

Alimony provisionsFor young couples who haven’t

been married before and don’thave children, prenups need to an-ticipate all sorts of questions re-lated to potential alimony pay-ments, such as: Will one of youstay home with children or doyou both plan to continue work-ing? What might each of your

potential incomes be? Will youneed job training?It’s hard to plan ahead, “but

you plan as best as possible tomake sure that each party is pro-tected in the event of a divorce,”Mr. Resnick says.The trick with prenups and

younger people is to allow for asmuch flexibility as possible, hesays. This could mean, for in-stance, if the couple decides todivorce some time in the firstfive years of marriage, nobodypays alimony. But if the marriage

lasts five to 10 years, the higher-earning spouse would pay 20% ofthe difference in their incomes asalimony for a time period equalto half the years of their mar-riage. There also could be a sun-set provision after, say, 25 years,Mr. Resnick says.Many younger professionals

might think to waive alimonycompletely, especially if they bothhave their own careers and leadseparate financial lives. However,Karen Robarge, a partner withNew York-based Aronson Mayef-sky & Sloan, cautions againstthis, especially if there is achance that one spouse could be

out of the workforce for a consid-erable time, beyond a standardmaternity or paternity leave, toraise children.

“A prolonged absence forchild-rearing could impact yourfuture employability and yourearnings capacity,” she says.

Debt issuesMany millennials are going into amarriage with significant studentand credit-card debt, which also isa change from the past. A recentFidelity Investments report, for ex-ample, found that millennials in2020 had an average loan balanceof $52,000.As a result, these issues, too,

are making their way into prenup-tial agreements.Gabrielle Clemens, managing di-

rector of Clemens Private Wealth

Management Group in Boston,says she worked with a couplewhere a wife-to-be had $75,000in student-loan and credit-carddebt. The couple added a provi-sion to their prenup that said anymarital assets used to pay off herdebt had to be reimbursed in theevent of the divorce.Another couple used a prenup

to address how any future studentdebt taken on during the marriagewould be handled. They agreedthat this type of debt would beconsidered the borrowing party’spersonal debt, not a marital debt,says Ms. Clemens, a former di-vorce attorney.

19%Of peoplewho divorced wouldadvise their youngerselves to get a prenupSource: Harris Poll/TD Ameritrade

BY CHERYL WINOKUR MUNK

For Millennials, PrenupsAre Just Part of MarriageTheir agreements coverthe new economic andsocial landscape—including rising studentdebt, social-media useand embryo ownership

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for Pets, an online discounter thatoffers coupons that lower the priceto $60 a month.There are generic versions of

some pet medications, and forthose you can sometimes savemoney by filling prescriptions at aregular pharmacy instead ofthrough your veterinarian, Ms. Mis-tick says. The best way to save onmeds is to ask your vet or pharma-cist if there’s any way to get alower price, she says.Preventive care can also save a

lot. To keep medical costs down forher long-eared dog, whose ears areprone to infections, Amy Shojai, acertified animal-behavior consultantand author of pet-care books, buysear wash and checks his ears daily.If she sees any redness or he everstarts shaking his head, she washesout his ears. She figures this savesher potentially hundreds of dollarsannually in vet fees.

GroomingOn average, groomers who can behired on Rover.com charge $60 to$90, depending on location, for afull groom, which includes a cut,bath, brush-out, ear cleaning, nailtrimming and gland expression. Toavoid extra costs, get your dog usedto being touched all over, includingears and paws, since groomers of-ten charge extra for dogs that arehard to handle, says Ms. Shojai.Sometimes you can cut costs by

declining certain services you cando yourself. For instance, many pro-fessional groomers have releasedvideos on how to trim nails your-self, which could save you about$15, says Ms. Mistick. She does allher dogs’ grooming herself, savinghundreds of dollars a year.

BoardingNationwide, the average cost ofboarding a dog is about $35 a day,

according to Rover’s 2020 survey,but costs vary widely. And they canshoot up for larger dogs or thoseneeding special care, according toMs. Shojai.Owners may be able to save

money by sticking to the basics—aplace for your dog to sleep, eatand get some exercise—and de-clining extra services. For instance,if the boarding facility offers toprovide food, bringing the dog’sfood from home may bring downthe cost, Ms. Shojai says. Also,boarding facilities often offer agrooming service prior to pickup,which may be an added cost thatcould be declined, she says.Or you may be able to save by

avoiding boarding facilities alto-gether. Health and wellness coachLori Aul lives in St. Louis with herhusband and their five-year-oldLabradoodle, Sophie. When theytravel, they hire a pet sitter/walkerfrom an online service to stay attheir house, to save on boardingcosts and avoid stress for the dog.Instead of paying up to $75 anight to board her dog at a kennel,Ms. Aul says, the pet-sitters typi-cally cost $35 to $55.

Mr. Horovitz is a writer in FallsChurch, Va. You can email him atreports@wsj.com.

late Labrador retrievers, Burt andLucy. She saves on their food byjoining dog-food rewards and loy-alty programs. For instance, whenshe receives a 20%-off coupon, shepurchases five bags of food at once.Lisa Radosta, a board-certified

veterinary behaviorist in WestPalm Beach, Fla., says no to pre-mium dog foods for Maverick, herLabrador retriever, and advises herclients to do the same. “Buying su-per expensive dog food does notguarantee better health,” she says.She recommends economy dogfoods, but only from major brandsthat invest heavily in pet-food re-search. Costs for those foods gen-erally are about $1 a pound.Some dog owners opt for

home-cooked meals for theirpooches—either because of medi-cal restrictions or because theowners simply believe it’s betterfor the dog. But the costs canquickly add up. Chris Ann God-dard and her husband, Craig Da-vis, cook chicken and green beansfor their one-year-old Lab, Jolie,which they mix with premium dogfood, and they plan to transitiontheir new Lab puppy, Aimee, tothe same diet. Ms. Goddard, presi-dent of a public-relations firm inMarblehead, Mass., says theyspend about $2,000 annually onfood for Jolie.

Pet insuranceDr. Radosta says the best way tosave money as a dog owner is topurchase pet insurance the dayyou buy the dog. “You never wantto put yourself in a position ofchoosing to pay your rent or payfor your dog’s surgery,” says thevet, who has insurance coveragefor her own dog.Typically, accident-only plans are

less expensive than comprehensiveplans that also cover illnesses.Plans can cost from about $500 to$1,000 a year. For those who canafford it, Dr. Radosta recommendscomprehensive plans. While theyare expensive in the short run,these plans can save thousands ofdollars in the long run, she says.Of course, many people choose

to avoid pet insurance. Ms. Mistick,for one, says it’s expensive and forher two big dogs, who are prone toarthritis, there would be too manyexclusions.

Health care and medsDiscounts on prescription dogmedications are available from sev-eral sites online, so it pays to shoparound and see which one has thebest price for the medication youneed. One of Ms. Mistick’s dogs isepileptic, and his medication wouldnormally cost about $300 a month.But she buys his epilepsy meds tocontrol seizures through GoodRx

ContinuedfrompageR1

What ThatPandemic DogWill Cost You

ToriMistick withher Labradorretrievers,Burt andLucy

Chris AnnGoddard andCraig Daviswith theirLabradors,Aimee andJolie

Lori Aulwith herLabradoodle,Sophie

Researchers have amassedplenty of persuasive evidencein recent years showing thatmarket timing—or moving inand out of stocks based onwhere you think the market isheaded—often leads to lowerreturns.But if that isn’t enough to

convince you, perhaps thiswill: A new study finds thatactive trading also signifi-cantly increases the volatilityof a portfolio. That is, markettimers actually assume muchmore risk to get those lowerreturns, compared with inves-tors who simply buy and holdinvestments.These findings are timely,

following a year in which thestock market took investorson a wild ride, plunging into abear market early on andthen surging to record highsat year’s end. Over the sametime, digital apps that en-courage Americans to engagein active trading strategiesalso experienced explosivegrowth as new investors—some likely stuck at home be-cause of the pandemic andseeking new thrills—crowdedinto the market.So as we enter a new year,

and investors are forced todeal with a future full of un-certainty, it is worth lookingat this new study from Ilia Di-chev of Emory University andXin Zheng of University ofBritish Columbia that exploresthe connection between ac-tive trading and risk.Although active investors

tend to “chase stability”—theyare trying to minimize volatil-ity by market timing—theyend up doing the exact oppo-site, according to the research,as they invest in stocks afterpast volatility is low and be-fore future volatility is high.The end result is high capitalexposure when volatility is in-creasing. In particular, Drs. Di-chev and Zheng find that “thevolatility of the actual investorexperience is nearly 50%higher than the correspondingvolatility of stock returns.”The professors also find

that the increase in volatilitygrows over time. For exam-ple, a typical investor with a30-year investment horizonexperiences a 71% increase involatility, at least relative tothose who just buy and holdinvestments.The link between market

timing and increased risk ap-pears to be a global phenome-non. Drs. Dichev and Zhengfind a similar pattern in a vari-ety of international markets,including Canada, Germany,Japan and the U.K.Their findings reveal the full

cost of active trading. Such in-vestors are chasing safe win-ners, but they’re actually get-ting risky losers. This meansthat active investors, on aver-age, assume much more risk toget lower returns.So why do so many individ-

ual investors continue to en-gage in active trading andmarket timing despite evi-dence showing it is oftencounterproductive? Research-ers who have explored thisquestion suggest that someinvestors—particularly men—are convinced the results don’tapply to them. Others simplyenjoy playing the market; try-ing to pick winners is morefun than sticking with long-term investments, probablyfor the same reason thatmany people enjoy blackjackand slot machines.That became apparent over

the past year as individuals,many of them new to invest-ing, flocked to online tradingplatforms to try their hand attrading stocks. How big have

BY SHLOMO BENARTZI

these platforms become? Bystudying service outages, BradBarber of the University of Cali-fornia, Davis, and colleaguesconclude that activity on Robin-hood Markets Inc.’s platform,which allows users to trade se-curities like stocks for free, nowaccounts for roughly one-thirdof all retail trading volume inthe stocks that are most popu-lar among Robinhood users.Critics have suggested one

reason these apps might be sopopular, and generate so muchactive trading, is that they gam-ify the investment experience,appealing to sensation-seekinginvestors. For instance, Robin-hood updates stock valueswithin the app every few sec-onds—the changing numberseven spin like a slot machine.When investors take certainfirst actions, confetti falls acrossthe screen in celebration.Alas, the evidence suggests

that more trading often leads toworse results, both in terms ofvolatility and returns. Dr. Barberand colleagues, for instance,show that Robinhood investorsare more likely to engage in herd-ing, which leads to short-termprice spikes and longer-term pricedeclines. Within a month, themost popular stocks on Robin-hood tend to decline between 5%and 9%. One likely reason is thatshort-sellers often bet againstthose same stocks.In response to such criticism,

Robinhood says its platform,which was built for mobile-firstcustomers, has expanded accessto the financial system and en-abled millions of people to learnand invest responsibly.“We see evidence that most

Robinhood customers use abuy-and-hold strategy, and re-search published by the Na-tional Bureau of Economic Re-search found that Robinhoodcustomers acted as a marketstabilizing force through marketvolatility in 2020,” a spokesper-son for the company says.Still, research from Dr. Dichev

and others suggests that mak-ing trading easier and more ex-citing is likely to backfire formost investors. Instead of cele-

brating the activity, we shouldbe encouraging investors to stayfocused on the long-term. Weshould show them confetti fornot trading.We’re living through a period

of high volatility, both for theworld and the financial markets.However, one proven way tomake your investments less vol-atile in the new year is to do aslittle as possible with them.

Dr. Benartzi (@shlomobenartzi),is a professor and co-head ofthe behavioral decision-makinggroup at UCLA Anderson Schoolof Management and a frequentcontributor to Journal Reports.Email him at reports@wsj.com.

A New ReasonNot to Try toTime the Market

Risky BusinessResearch shows that investorswho actively trade stocks assumemuchmore risk, on average, thanbuy-and-hold investors becausethey tend to add capital to stocksafter past volatility is low andbefore future volatility is high.

30-year horizon

*Active returns are dollar-weighted, meaning theytake into account the impact of capital flows on aninvestment's performance.†As measured by standard deviationSource: Ilia Dichev, Emory University and XinZheng, University of British Columbia

10 stocks 100 stocks

0

0.01

0.02

0.03

0.04

0.05

RISK†

PassiveActive*

Portfolios

30 stocks

Moving in and outof stocks not onlylowers returns. Italso adds volatility,a new study finds.

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Repealing or altering this limitation is “ahigh priority for a number of Democrats,”says Hank Gutman, a former chief of staff ofCongress’s Joint Committee on Taxation andnow of counsel to the law firm Ivins, Phillips& Barker. Even so, the outlook remainsblurry. But if lawmakers do take action, hesays, “I can’t imagine [any changes] wouldbe retroactive” to last year.The $10,000 cap ($5,000 if married and

filing separately) is per tax return, not per

$2,500Average refund on federaltax returns last year

don’t qualify. This is an “above theline” deduction, which means it re-duces your adjusted gross income.Another reader asked whether the

new law changed the requirements fordocumenting such gifts. Answer: No.See IRS Publication 526 for details.But lawmakers recently did modify

this provision for returns for 2021,says Mark Luscombe, principal fed-eral tax analyst at Wolters KluwerTax & Accounting. The deduction willrise to $600 for joint filers and $300for singles, he says. Another change:The deduction for 2021 will be “belowthe line,” meaning it won’t reduce ad-justed gross income but still will re-duce taxable income, says the IRS’sMr. Smith.

•I have capital gains which willresult in having to pay the ad-ditional 3.8% tax imposed bythe Affordable Care Act. Am Icorrect that the threshold forsingles kicks in at $200,000 ofmodified adjusted gross in-come? Can you give an exam-ple of how to calculate the tax?

“You are correct that, for a single filer,$200,000 is the threshold for the netinvestment income tax,” says Mr. Mar-tin of H&R Block. For married couplesfiling jointly, the threshold is $250,000(or $125,000 if you’re married and fil-ing separately).Net investment income typically in-

cludes such items as interest, dividends,capital gains, and rental and royalty in-come, the IRS says on its website.Here is an IRS example: Suppose a

single taxpayer’s AGI is $270,000, con-sisting of $180,000 of wages and$90,000 of net investment income.That’s $70,000 above the threshold.The taxpayer would owe a net invest-ment income tax of $2,660 ($70,000 X3.8%), the IRS says. The reason: Thetax is based on the amount that thetaxpayer’s income exceeded thethreshold ($70,000 in this case), or thetaxpayer’s net investment income($90,000), whichever is smaller.

Mr. Herman is a writer in California.He was formerly The Wall StreetJournal’s Tax Report columnist. Sendcomments and tax questions totaxquestions@wsj.com.

person. This limitation is an especiallyimportant issue for many upper-in-come residents of high-tax areas, suchas New York City, California, New Jer-sey and Connecticut. Hopes for repealhave grown now that the Democratscontrol the presidency, House and Sen-ate (where the Majority Leader now isSen. Chuck Schumer of New York). It’spossible lawmakers might remove oralter the cap, but only for taxpayerswith income below certain thresholds.

•What is the basic standard de-duction for the 2020 tax yearand the extra amount for peo-ple who were 65 or older atthe end of last year?

The basic standard deduction for sin-gles typically is $12,400. That’s also theamount if you’re married and filing sep-arately. It’s $24,800 for joint filers andqualifying widows/widowers.

There are higher amounts forthose born before Jan. 2, 1956, or blind.For example, the standard deductionfor a single taxpayer who was 65 orolder at the end of last year typicallyis $14,050 ($12,400 + $1,650). A mar-ried couple filing jointly, where onespouse was 65 or older, gets $26,100($24,800 + $1,300). If both spouseswere 65 or older, the total would be$27,400. For more details, see IRSPublication 17.

•You recently wrote about a lawenacted early last year allow-ing taxpayers who claim thestandard deduction for 2020 todeduct as much $300 of dona-tions to charities. Is that $300for singles and $600 for mar-ried couples filing jointly?

No. “This dollar limit applies per returnfor 2020, so whether you’re single ormarried (and filing jointly), you can onlyclaim up to $300 as a deduction,” saysKevin Martin, principal tax researcher atthe Tax Institute at H&R Block. If you’remarried and filing separately, the limit is$150, Mr. Martin says.This new break applies to cash do-

nations (not stock or other noncashgifts) made last year to eligible chari-ties. Donations to donor-advised funds

What’s going to happen to the $10,000limit on state and local tax deductions?

Taxes • Tom Herman

JOURNAL REPORT | WEALTH MANAGEMENT

With the April 15 tax deadline lessthan three months away, here are an-swers to a few reader questions.The Internal Revenue Service will be-

gin accepting and processing federal taxreturns on Feb. 12. But if you’re readybefore then, file electronically, says EricSmith, an IRS spokesman. “Our e-file and

Free File partners will hold any returns they receive and thentransmit them to us on Feb. 12,” he says.

•What are the chances that Congress will repeal ormodify the $10,000 limit on state and local tax de-ductions and make changes retroactive to last year?

It’s too soon to know whether Congress will approve anychanges for this year or future years, but don’t expect any re-lief to apply to last year.

Answering ReaderQuestions on 2020 Taxes

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