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2022-04-04 10:00:29 𝙱𝚎𝚛𝚔𝚜𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚎 𝙷𝚊𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢'𝚜 𝙻𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜𝚝 $ 𝟷𝟷.𝟼 𝚋𝚗 𝙳𝚎𝚊𝚕 𝙱𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝙳𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚜 𝚃𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝙲𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙿𝚒𝚕𝚎

This week iconic investor Warren Buffett announced that his company Berkshire Hathaway was acquiring an insurance company, Alleghany, for $11.6 billion.

That's a pretty big deal (worth more than the value of GameStop, American Airlines or Rolls-Royce for context), but for Berkshire's $146bn+ cash pile, it's something of a drop in the ocean.

Every year Warren Buffett has written a letter to shareholders of his conglomerate company Berkshire Hathaway. In 1995, already 30 years into running Berkshire, Buffett wrote that "in the early years, we needed only good ideas, but now we need good big ideas". That sentiment was true then, and it's only become more true.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-04-03 10:01:42 𝙽𝚎𝚠 𝚈𝚘𝚛𝚔 𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚎𝚛𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎𝚗'𝚝 𝙸𝚗 𝙰 𝙷𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚃𝚘 𝙶𝚎𝚝 𝙱𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚃𝚘 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙾𝚏𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚎

As America's largest economic center and its most populous city what happens in New York is often an interesting barometer for the rest of the US — and, according to the latest data from the MTA, New Yorkers aren't in a rush to get back to the office.

The latest subway ridership data shows daily subway usage in March 2022 that is still roughly 41% below what it was when compared to pre-pandemic days, a significant recovery on 2020, but still nowhere near "back to normal".

That data is interesting in the context of New York's wider economic recovery. Relative to other cities, NYC has struggled more economically since the pandemic. Its unemployment rate is 7.6% — double the national average of 3.8% — and the borough of Manhattan, by far New York's most prosperous, has been the slowest to recover.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-30 19:12:06 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) The American Kennel Club have compiled their annual list of America's most popular dog breeds. The Labrador Retriever topped the list again — for the 31st year in a row.

2) Rihanna's lingerie brand Savage x Fenty is reportedly looking at an IPO that could value the company at more than $3bn after less than 4 years in business.

3) The Eiffel Tower just got 20 feet taller.

4) Poland has now welcomed more than 1.8 million refugees from Ukraine, boosting the country's population by 5% in just a matter of weeks.

6) The Economist has analyzed the sentiment of thousands of Russian-language tweets, finding that they are significantly more glum since the invasion of Ukraine.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-29 16:02:01 𝙰𝚕𝚒𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚊'𝚜 𝙱𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙻𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝙲𝚛𝚊𝚣𝚢, 𝙱𝚞𝚝 𝙸𝚝𝚜 𝚂𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚜 𝙷𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝙱𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝙷𝚒𝚝 𝙷𝚊𝚛𝚍

China has pledged to keep its stock markets more stable and take measures to boost economic growth this morning, sending shares of tech companies Alibaba and JD.com up more than 25%. For e-commerce giant Alibaba that news couldn't have come any sooner, as the company's share price has been in a slump for much of the last 18 months, which has had little to do with the company's fundamentals.

Thanks to its ties with founder Jack Ma, Alibaba has been in the cross hairs of China's big tech crackdown. That has meant that, despite growing its revenue more than 13x from 2014 to 2021, Alibaba's share price found itself below its IPO price recently.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-29 09:40:36 𝚅𝚆 𝙶𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚙 𝙸𝚜 𝟷𝟸-𝟷𝟻 𝙼𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚑𝚜 𝙱𝚎𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚍 𝚃𝚎𝚜𝚕𝚊 𝙾𝚗 𝙴𝚅 𝙳𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜

With more than 650,000 employees, and 10 distinct brands, VW Group is a giant in global auto manufacturing. Last year the company delivered almost 9 million cars — just shy of 10x the number that electric leader Tesla shipped.

But when it comes to all-electric, Tesla is still a decent way out in front, although there are a few ways to think about the same numbers.

On one hand it's easy to argue that Tesla is miles ahead, shipping more than double the number of all-electric vehicles that VW Group managed in 2021.

On the other hand, you could argue that VW Group's 453k deliveries in 2021 is close to Tesla's 500k effort from 2020, suggesting that the German giant is only 12-15 months behind Tesla's pace, despite starting later.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-23 14:21:45 𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝙼𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚐𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗, 𝙲𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚜 𝙱𝚛𝚘𝚔𝚎𝚗 𝙾𝚞𝚝 𝙸𝚗 𝙷𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝙺𝚘𝚗𝚐

Hong Kong, and parts of mainland China, are in the midst of a significant outbreak of Covid-19.

Once a shining example of how mass-testing, strict tracing protocols and quarantining could keep a lid on cases, Hong Kong has been completely unprepared for an outbreak of this magnitude, with omicron spreading rapidly in its elderly 80+ population, of which just ~35% are double vaccinated.

Any person with a confirmed infection used to be hospitalized in Hong Kong, in an attempt to break the chain of transmission — even if that person was asymptomatic. That strict policy worked in the early pandemic, but seems to have broken down in the face of the highly transmissible omicron variant.

Since the end of February, Hong Kong has over 4,000 confirmed deaths — which relative to its population is significantly worse than the US or Europe ever experienced.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-18 10:00:01 𝙼𝙾𝚁𝙴 𝙳𝙰𝚃𝙰

1) An AI voice start-up has developed a synthetic voice that can express subtleties like anger, fear, sadness, happiness, and, with its latest update, even flirtation.

2) Shopify shares are down more than 20% this week as revenue growth slows down and the company begins to compete more directly with Amazon's logistic prowess by investing into warehouse hubs.

3) 7.1% of American adults now self-identify as LGBT, more than double the proportion that identified that way a decade ago.

4) An influential Apple shareholder is urging shareholders to vote against Tim Cook's $99m compensation package for last year.

5) Getting someone onto the Supreme Court takes a lot longer than it used to.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-17 10:00:02 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚝𝚐𝚊𝚐𝚎 𝚁𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙳𝚘𝚠𝚗𝚠𝚊𝚛𝚍 𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚞𝚛𝚎

If you're a prospective first-time house buyer you've had to deal with the fact that your dream home is now likely to be 15-20% more expensive than it was last year. Now your mortgage rate is likely to be higher too as average 30-year fixed mortgage rates are getting close to touching 4% in the US, the highest reading for almost 3 years.

Higher mortgage rates might curb demand for houses which - in theory - might cool the red hot housing market a touch. But other data shows that there was a record low supply of houses for sale, with just 860,000 previously owned homes on the market last month. Demand might fall in the future, supply already has.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-16 10:00:02 𝚀𝚁 𝙲𝚘𝚍𝚎𝚜: 𝙰 𝚅𝚒𝚛𝚊𝚕 𝚃𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚢 𝟸𝟾 𝚈𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝙸𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚊𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐

QR codes have thrived in the pandemic, evidenced by Coinbase's Super Bowl ad recently, which featured just a bouncing QR code. That crashed the app because it was so popular.

The small square barcodes have seen a surge in usage around the world for travel documents, COVID tracking or just to open up the menu at a now paperless restaurant. One Irish man even got a QR code inked on his arm - a personal link to whatever he wants it to be. But QR codes are hardly a new technology.

QR codes are almost 28 years old, invented by Japanese automotive company Denso Wave back in 1994 to streamline their manufacturing process.

Their adoption was slow in the West before the pandemic, but they've long been used in Asia. In China, there's a QR code for just about everything. More than 90% of mobile payments in China are made on WeChat or AliPay, both of which rely on QR codes.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment

2022-03-15 10:00:06 𝙼𝚘𝚟𝚎 𝙵𝚊𝚜𝚝 𝙰𝚗𝚍 𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝙴𝚟𝚎𝚗: 𝙳𝚎𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎𝚛𝚢 𝙴𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚜 𝙰𝚛𝚎 𝚃𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑

US delivery behemoth DoorDash reported their full year 2021 results, shaking off some doubts that food delivery demand would slow amidst re-opening with 369 million orders coming through the platform.

That number was ahead of expectations, and sent DoorDash's share price higher, but it still wasn't enough to make a net profit, instead notching a $155m loss.

That's not a surprise to anyone familiar with the industry. Research from McKinsey suggests the economics of food delivery are still challenging for everyone involved – delivery companies, drivers and restaurants.

Many of the restaurants on aggregator platforms may actually be losing money (70c) on an average order. Drivers are making ~$9 per order including tip before considering their own expenses, and the platforms are squeezing out just a 3-4% margin.

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 Open / Comment