✨ Expensive Stuff ✨

🌞Good Morning🌞

Happy President's Day here in the USA 🇺🇸

Banks and markets are closed today, but we're here with a little brunch-time edition for y'all. 🍳🥓

💾 Technology 💾

Meta will test a $12/month subscription service (RT)

🧿 Looks like Meta is copying Twitter's homework. Meta is charging users a monthly fee to showcase their accounts as "verified". Being verified helps users foster trust with new followers/customers and retain prestige as a brand. The previously opaque process to become a verified user (although unfair, unclear and unilateral) did create that sense of wonder and trust amongst followers.

As social media businesses seek to monetize their user-base more directly, investors will see users, advertisers and creators vote with their dollars in addition to their eyeballs now.

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✨ Trends ✨ 

Disinformation-as-a-Service ⚠️: This post is a bit meta, so heed our warning label. There are private, public, domestic and international organizations beginning to validate/invalidate information sources.

🧿 The source cited here, Reason, was recently marked as a source of disinformation by the very organization it writes about in this article. Consequently, take the article with a grain of salt, but I encourage everyone to look into this emerging trend that is also being backed by 300m in investor dollars rushing to fund start-ups fighting disinformation... a trend indeed. (Reason)

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Tesla recalled ~363k cars over self-driving flaws (AX)

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🌎 Macro 🌏

Food Security: 

As geopolitical tension persist the world is beginning to feel the strain beyond the energy markets. Countries are beginning to struggle with access to fertilizer which threatens their food supply as well. (BBG)

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Russia <> Ukraine 12-Month Check-In: 

As we mark a year post-invasion analysts, diplomats, and journalists worldwide are looking back at Xi Jingping's endorsement of Vladimir Putin's "special military operation." (BBG)

🧿 We were concerned with China utilizing Russia's invasion as a window of opportunity and precedent to invade Taiwan. 12 months later and it still has not happened but we remain fixated on this potential flashpoint.

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💹 Markets 💹

The US dollar hit a six-week high against the yen, euro and Australian dollar

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Egypt will start investor meetings for its debut Islamic-bond sale (BBG)

🧿 Islamic finance is f a s c i n a t i n g. In an overly simplisitic attempt to explain, Islam does not allow for interest payments on debt so financiers have designed instruments to provide Islamic businesses with capital markets access that complies with Islamic practices/principals. Islamic bonds are typically referred to as Sukuk.

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Index funds now own more of Tesla than Musk (FT)

🧿 We've been talking a lot about index funds and ETFs not always appearing as they seem. It is just as important to know who owns the biggest slices of companies you invest in (e.g. Warren Buffett's Berkshire owns 5.4% of Apple)

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⚡️Digital Assets⚡️

Bitcoin touched a six-month high yesterday

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⚠️ Stay tuned for an incoming article on our substack covering all the latest regulatory action and what this means for digital assets and what it could mean for consumers, banks and businesses.

Chart Du Jour 👨🏻‍🍳

Meme Digestif ☕️