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2022-01-30 10:00:02 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) Ford is doubling its planned production of its electric F-150, expecting to now make 150,000 vehicles per year by 2023. Ford shares hit a 19-year-high on the news.

2) Nice visualization of 24 hours of flight data between the US and Europe.

3) Borrowing rates on mortgages have hit their highest level since May 2020, with the rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage — the most common home loan for homebuyers — jumping to 3.22%.

4) The US Supreme Court is set to rule on federal vaccine mandates. As of November roughly 18% of American businesses required COVID-19 vaccination.

5) A 4-year-old video is doing the rounds on social media about what shopping might look like in the metaverse... and everyone hates it.

6) Scientists from Northwestern University and UC Berkeley have captured the end of a red supergiant star's life for the first time.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-29 10:00:01 𝙲𝚑𝚒𝚙𝚘𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚗 𝙶𝚛𝚒𝚕𝚕 𝚆𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚃𝚘 𝙴𝚊𝚝 𝚃𝚊𝚌𝚘 𝙱𝚎𝚕𝚕'𝚜 𝙻𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚑

Fast Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food is a really hot market — and Chipotle is catching up to Taco Bell, the biggest Mexican-based fast food chain in the US. Last year Taco Bell's sales were flat YoY, but Chipotle grew 7%.

So it's interesting that recently Taco Bell announced its latest innovation to re-invigorate growth: the Taco Lover's Pass subscription, which gives you one taco a day for a whole month for $10.

The idea is that you might stop by Taco Bell for your free taco, and decide that actually you were hungry and thirsty after all, and end up adding to your order.

Taco Bell isn't the first to experiment with subscriptions. Panera has one for drinks, and Sweetgreen just launched a loyalty subscription for its salads.

So far the jury's out on whether these subscriptions actually work, or if they're more of a short-term gimmick.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-28 10:00:01 𝚁𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚕𝚢 𝙷𝚊𝚕𝚏 𝙾𝚏 𝚄𝚜 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝙽𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝙶𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚜 𝙱𝚢 𝟸𝟶𝟻𝟶

Myopia, or short-sightedness, is on the rise.

Data from the BHVI predicts that by 2050 almost half of the global population could be affected by Myopia — more than a doubling of the rate from the year 2000.

Has the pandemic made it worse?

With increased amounts of screen-time, it feels intuitive that our eyes might have been put under more strain in the last two years — and there's a decent amount of scientific evidence to back that up, as myopia has long been associated with spending more time indoors.

Although there haven't been any conclusive studies in adults since the pandemic, a study of children in Hong Kong from 2021 found that "the rate of nearsightedness that developed during the pandemic more than doubled what was found in a pre-pandemic study of children the same age". Good time to be a glasses maker.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-27 10:00:01 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙽𝚈𝚃𝚒𝚖𝚎𝚜 𝙸𝚜 𝚂𝚎𝚝 𝚃𝚘 𝙰𝚌𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚛𝚝-𝚄𝚙 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚝𝚑𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚒𝚌

The New York Times has a new year's resolution — to get in shape. It plans to do so by splashing $550m in cash on acquiring The Athletic, the sports media start-up founded in 2016.

The idea that millions of people would be willing to pay $5 or even $10 a month for coverage of their favorite sports was a fairly wild one back in 2016. After all, there were already plenty of free opinions to read on the internet. But, The Athletic didn't listen to any of that conventional wisdom, building a 1.2 million subscriber base.

To get there The Athletic took a leaf out of the early Facebook growth model, targeting specific sports city by city, as Facebook did with colleges.

From the NYTimes perspective this deal is a big step towards achieving the company's target of 10 million paid subscribers by 2025 and strengthens their sports coverage.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-26 10:00:02 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) The great resignation continues — a record 4.5 million Americans quit their jobs in November, according to the latest data, edging out the record of 4.4 million from September.

2) Test results in American schools dropped substantially during the pandemic, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, with a correlation between the amount of in-person schooling in a given school district and pass rates.

3) After 90 years at the top, General Motors is no longer the #1 automaker in the US. The crown now belongs to Toyota, which outsold GM, selling 2.33 million cars last year.

4) According to Chinese state media, China's fusion reactor (often dubbed "China's artificial sun") ran at a temperature five times hotter than our sun for almost 20 minutes in its latest experiment to hopefully one day produce clean energy.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-25 10:00:01 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚜 𝙶𝚊𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚍 𝙰𝚗𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟿% 𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛: 𝙷𝚘𝚠 𝙻𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝙲𝚊𝚗 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝙻𝚊𝚜𝚝?

US stock markets closed out 2021 with a total return of 29%. That means that for the last 3 years US stock markets have gained 26% a year on average, and two of those years were during a global pandemic. It is the best 3-year stretch since 1997-1999.

The gains made last year were spurred on by supportive monetary policy, fiscal stimulus and the relentless upward march of big tech. Indeed, just a few of the FAATMAN group of stocks — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, Alphabet and Nvidia (sorry Netflix) — now account for 25-30% of the entire S&P 500 index, depending on the day. Apple alone is almost 7%.

The worrying indicator that could stop the music is inflation — which has returned in pretty much every market now. To combat inflation central banks will raise interest rates. Will stocks hold onto their gains if interest rates raise?

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-24 10:00:01 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙾𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚗 𝚆𝚊𝚟𝚎: 𝙴𝚊𝚛𝚕𝚢 𝙴𝚟𝚒𝚍𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚄𝙺

Recently US has reported 1 million new daily confirmed cases of COVID-19, blowing past the records from previous peaks.

The surge means that more than 1% of Americans have now tested positive in the last 7 days, with the Omicron variant responsible for 95% of those infections, according to the latest data from the CDC.

The silver lining (if there is one) is in the early evidence from the UK.

Benchmarking cases, hospitalizations and deaths to their respective peaks from last winter shows that the more serious COVID metrics are still way down on where they were last winter.

There is of course a lag between cases and the more serious outcomes, which is why watching the UK data over the next few weeks will be a crucial indicator for how the US Omicron wave might play out.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-23 10:00:01 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚎 & 𝙵𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝙾𝚏 𝙱𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚔𝙱𝚎𝚛𝚛𝚢

Classic BlackBerry phones, once an aspirational product and the very height of mobile technology, are officially joining the growing list of defunct smartphones. BlackBerry will no longer run support for any phones running BlackBerry 10, 7.1 OS and earlier.

BlackBerry's fall from grace is remarkable, considering its grip on the higher-end of the cellphone market was at its tightest in 2011 — a year when the company brought in more than $20bn in revenue.

Even as the iPhone and other touchscreen models began to drive out the clickity-clack of BlackBerry's tiny keyboards, some power users - including former President Obama - clung dearly to their BlackBerry's, refusing to switch despite their increasing obsolescence.

But even with a few die-hard fans, BlackBerry's life as a smartphone maker looked tenuous and by 2016 — just a few short years from the heyday of 2011 — revenues fell by ~90%.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-20 10:00:02 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟷 𝚅𝚊𝚌𝚌𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝚁𝚊𝚌𝚎: 𝚁𝚒𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝟼-𝟷𝟸 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚜 𝙰𝚑𝚎𝚊𝚍

At the start of 2021 the thing on everyone’s mind (other than the Jan 6th Capitol attack) was vaccines. The global rollout had begun in earnest in late 2020 and come January 2021 a number of countries were starting to ramp up their programme.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, richer countries were able to get vaccines ahead of others. Before the end of June the United States, and other countries, had administered 1 dose per person on average.

Upper-middle income countries caught up quickly, and lower-middle income countries were able to make substantial progress towards the end of the year. Sadly, low income countries are still way behind, with only around 10 doses administered per 100 people. Vaccine inequality will likely persist into 2022, and maybe beyond.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-01-19 10:00:01 𝚅𝚒𝚜𝚞𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍 𝙾𝚏 𝙲𝚛𝚢𝚙𝚝𝚘𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚎𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝚃𝚘𝚙 𝟷𝟶𝟶𝟶

In 2021 cryptocurrencies continued their march into the mainstream, with the total market cap. of cryptocurrencies hitting almost $3 trillion in November.

The biggest remains the original — Bitcoin, which is bigger than the next 10 cryptocurrencies combined. However, Bitcoin’s dominance has waned this year as others like Ethereum have gained traction. At the start of 2021 Bitcoin accounted for ~70% of all crypto market cap. Today it is closer to 40%.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment