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TOGETHER WITH
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Good morning. Today
is the final day in our monthlong Fantasy Investing Competition, and
we’ve got a tight one on our hands, folks. Louis Tsui is in first place
with a 158% return but Ronald Henderson is close behind, having grown
his portfolio 147%.
Whoever
wins, we learned a valuable lesson: Picking stocks (and cryptos) is
hard. The average player is down 3.6% on their investments, compared to
the S&P’s -0.9% return.
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Nasdaq
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13,614.51
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S&P
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4,192.85
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Dow
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34,577.04
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Bitcoin
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$38,822.70
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10-Year
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1.625%
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GM
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$63.46
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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:00pm ET.
Here's what these numbers mean.
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Markets: Investors are putting on their rally caps ahead of the big May jobs report this morning. GM said it had the chip shortage under control, raised its earnings forecast, and watched its stock hit a record high.
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Economy: As he searches for compromise on his infrastructure plan, President Biden offered to replace
his proposed corporate tax increase for a 15% minimum tax on
corporations as a way to fund the plan. Talks between Biden and GOP
lawmakers will pick up today.
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Stephen Lam/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
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The latest shortage hitting the American West? Water.
And while Chick-fil-A sauce and semiconductors are important for a
functioning economy, this year's historic drought in the West could
affect—and we do mean this—literally everything.
The state of play: California
Gov. Gavin Newsom has put 41 counties under a state of emergency in an
attempt to drastically limit water use. Some scientists say the region
is facing the worst drought in centuries.
Who’s getting hit the hardest?
Anyone who eats food.
The water levels of 1,500+ reservoirs in California are 50% lower than
normal at this time of year, per Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for
Watershed Sciences at UC-Davis. This means huge cuts to the water that
farmers in the state use to produce over 25% of the country's food
supply.
- Your
morning breakfast of Blue Diamond almond milk and habanero BBQ almonds
could be impacted. California accounts for 80% of the US' almond supply,
but because of shrinking water allocations, some farmers are simply bulldozing those notoriously thirsty almond trees.
Anyone who uses electricity. Officials
are predicting the water level of Lake Oroville, the Beyoncé of
California lakes, to hit a record low in August. If that happens, they
would need to shut down a major hydroelectric power plant, putting extra
strain on the electrical grid during the hottest part of the summer.
Anyone who is a fish. In April, California officials announced
they'd be driving 146 truckloads of 15+ million young salmon to the
Pacific Ocean because the fish wouldn't be able to swim in the
dangerously shallow, warm waterways connecting the state’s Central
Valley to the ocean.
Anyone who dislikes wildfires. Five of the six
largest wildfires in modern California history happened during the 2020
wildfire season, killing 30+ people. Experts say the current conditions
are much worse.
Bottom line: This
drought could have devastating consequences for the state’s
agriculture, wildlife preservation, and tourism industries. #BoatSummer
in California is not looking good.
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Boom Supersonic
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Cicadas
aren't the only thing that return every ~17 years. The promise of
supersonic commercial flight reemerged yesterday when United Airlines
announced it's buying 15 jets from Boom Supersonic.
Supersonic = faster than the speed of sound. Boom's planes could cut flight times in half and get you from a bagel breakfast in NYC to teatime in London in 3.5 hours.
Catching a flight that quick hasn't been possible since 2003, when the iconic Concorde jet retired.
It was an expensive, gas-guzzling machine, and the loud booms it made
while breaking the sound barrier woke up enough babies that Congress
banned supersonic flights over US soil in the ’70s.
- Now, Boom and other supersonic startups are working on net-zero emissions and noise-muffling tech.
Looking ahead...supersonic
jets are largely in the development phase; Boom's never actually built a
full-scale version of its Overture aircraft, and it'll need to clear
regulatory checks before passengers hop onboard in 2029. Just last
month, one of the leading supersonic jet makers, Aerion, shut down because of financial troubles and concerns about fuel-efficiency and noise regulations.
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At long last, Twitter has released
its first subscription product, Twitter Blue. For now, only Australian
and Canadian users can pay around $3/month to access Blue features like a
30-second grace period to undo or edit a tweet before it's posted,
prioritized customer support, Reader Mode for easier viewing of threads,
and color scheme customization for the app.
Not quite
the "edit" button users have been begging for and nothing particularly
groundbreaking. So...why are we writing about it?
Investor pressure and advertising competition from the likes of Snapchat and Facebook pushed Twitter to look for new revenue streams. A subscription offering has been on the roadmap for years.
Big picture: Twitter's product team must have picked up a copy of Deep Work during the pandemic, because they've been testing and/or launching tons of new features including...
- A virtual tip jar
- "Super Follows" for individual users to charge subscriptions
- Voice-based DMs and tweets
- Features that limit the spread of misinformation and prevent harassment
- Stories (aka "Fleets")
- Spaces, a Clubhouse competitor
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Let's be
honest: There are a lot of places where you can buy and sell stocks. But
maybe you're looking for more than just a place to park your
investments. Maybe you want to connect with other investors and even the
executives behind the companies you’re curious about.
What you want is Public.com, the only investing app with a built-in community. On Public, you can have conversations about market news in the same place where you manage your portfolio and even ask questions to CEOs.
Interested
in learning more about sports betting or healthcare? DraftKings CEO
Jason Robins and Hims & Hers CEO Andrew Dudum are both hosting Town
Halls this month.
To top it off, Public also has live audio shows where knowledgeable commentators dish on the latest market news.
Join Public and use code BREW to snag a free $10 slice of stock.
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Stat: Babe Ruth's 1914 "pre-rookie" card was valued at more than $6 million,
becoming the most expensive trading card in history. And you can own
it: The investing platform Collectable is selling 20,000 shares in the
card for $3 a piece.
Quote: "We
believe that recent volatility and our current market prices reflect
market and trading dynamics unrelated to our underlying business."
In a filing, AMC acknowledged
that the 2,900% jump in its share price this year was not (shocker)
actually related to a miraculous turnaround for the movie theater
industry. This warning, plus its plan to sell more than 11 million
shares, resulted in an 18% drop for the day.
Read: America has a drinking problem. (The Atlantic)
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Pixar
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There was a
distinct theme to business news headlines yesterday: Prices across
sectors are growing at their fastest rates in years.
Housing: Global housing prices increased 7.3%
on average in the 12 months to March—the fastest pace since 2006,
according to Knight Frank's Global House Price Index. The top five
countries for price growth are 1) Turkey 2) New Zealand 3) Luxembourg 4)
Slovakia and 5) the US.
Shipping: The cost of moving a container from China to Dubai has ballooned to $5,000 from $1,000 last year, according to SCMP.
Food: A UN food price index soared 40% in May, the largest jump in a decade. Low-income countries will suffer the worst effects of this food inflation.
Consumer goods: Prices across 36 mostly wealthy countries rose at their fastest pace
in more than 12 years during April. Economists are chalking up this
eye-popping inflation to "base effects"—meaning these numbers only
appear huge because they're being compared to last spring, when prices
plummeted at the onset of the pandemic.
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Francis Scialabba
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The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to scream-singing in your car.
It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz.
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President Biden issued an executive order that prohibits investments in 59 Chinese firms that facilitate human rights abuses.
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The DOJ is now treating ransomware attacks with the same priority level as terrorism, per Reuters. A Martha's Vineyard ferry was the latest service hit by an attack.
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Facebook plans to end its special treatment of politicians, according to The Verge.
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Jobless claims hit a new pandemic low of 385,000 last week.
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Can you find the mouse among the mushrooms?
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| FEATURED EVENT
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| 1940
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| Dunkirk evacuation ended
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| FEATURED BIOGRAPHY
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| George III
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June 04
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SEE ALL BIOS ON THIS DAY
Tucker Carlson issued one big warning about the effect of the coronavirus vaccine
Ron DeSantis took Tucker Carlson by surprise with what he just admitted on Fox News
QUICK POLL: Do You Miss President Trump?
All hell broke loose after this new virus was discovered in China
Antifa just did something horrible to this Republican Congresswoman’s house
PENCE:
I’ll Likely Never See Eye-to-Eye with Trump About Jan. 6
VIDEO:
Psaki Throws Fauci Under the Bus as COVID Narrative Unravels
SPECIAL: Former Government Insider Reveals: Devastation Is Coming to
America
Robert
Mueller to Teach Class on His Russiagate Probe
LeBron
Helps Sponsor Peddle Confederate Merchandise
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Today's
Headlines...
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Anthony Fauci watches as Kennedy Center honorees speak to the media May 21. Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters
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President Trump plans to make Anthony Fauci a top
target at upcoming rallies, using increased attention to the Wuhan
lab-leak theory as a weapon against an official long viewed as more
trustworthy. - Why it matters: Trump and
conservative media have made Fauci an improbable face of the opposition,
trying to give him the cartoon-villain status once accorded to former
Sen. Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or — in Trump’s case — Hillary
Clinton.
Trump amped up his longtime Fauci rants yesterday in a statement calling for COVID reparations from China: - "The correspondence
between Dr. Fauci and China speaks too loudly for anyone to ignore.
China should pay Ten Trillion Dollars to America, and the World, for the
death and destruction they have caused!"
What we’re hearing:
Look for Trump to light into Fauci tomorrow during dinner remarks to
North Carolina annual Republican convention, in Greenville — Trump’s
second big speech, after CPAC, since leaving office. - Jason Miller, Trump’s
senior adviser, told me the base has a "visceral" reaction to Fauci:
"People see Anthony Fauci and they think of shuttered businesses, lost
school."
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Screenshot: Fox News
The big picture: Fox News' prime-time stars are amping up their Fauci rants based on new questions about COVID’s origins.
- “[A]ll the smirking morons
in the American news media changed their view completely overnight,”
Tucker Carlson said last night, 24 hours after saying Fauci should be
criminally investigated.
- "LORD FAUCI EXPOSED," said one Tucker graphic.
- Sean Hannity jumped the gun last night with a graphic calling new revelations "the FALL of FAUCI."
Reality check,
from Axios health care editor Sam Baker: The theory most experts still
believe to be most likely is that the virus was transmitted from a bat
to some other species of animal, then to humans. That’s what happened
with plenty of other viruses.
- But it hasn't been proven. A
cadre of experts — and now the Biden administration — are calling for a
more thorough investigation into the possibility that the virus
infected workers studying it at a Wuhan lab, who then infected others.
What's next: Trump plans a pair of rallies just before July 4. Look for him to try to make Fauci a punching bag.
| 1 big thing: Trump's new Hillary
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