Going to Congress? Visiting a Regulator? 🏛️

Good morning Autonomous friends 🌞

Here's what's on our 🧠 this morning:

◦ Real Estate markets are behaving oddly

◦ SPACs are getting spanked

◦ Tik-Tok goes to Congress

◦ Fed raised the Fed Funds Rate .25% reasserting that fighting inflation is the priority

Let's jump in 🤾‍♀️ 🕳️

👇

REAL ESTATE 🏠

Office Rents are coming down

Remote work is hurting corporate space prices.

We are noticing that storage properties are on-fire, though. Extra-Space, the personal storage company is looking for an acquisition target, considering making an offer for Life Storage.

The residential market is also getting hit by price discounts but demand remains strong especially as mortgage prices have cooled.

MARKETS 💹

SPACs are back on the chopping block.

Investment vehicles designed to give public investors exposure to speculative acquisitions are catching renewed heat from regulators. SPACs are allowed to raise funds to buy a target company (to then take public) within a pre-determined time period.

If the SPAC does not target and complete a deal within the declared time frame it must dissolve.

One such dissolved SPAC is being sued over legal and formation fees.

GME: The MEME Stock King is back

GameStop reported its first profit in 2 years sending shares up 41% this morning.

Somehow this thing lives on.

TRENDS ✨

Inventory Retail Problem

Nike and Adidas are both struggling with investory gluts. Adidas, in particular, has leftover merchandise from the Ye (Kanye) West fallout.

Inventory Solutions

IKEA is keeping on top of it with 100 autonomous drones that count its stock.

Snack Time

Sales of snacks rose 12% last year as Americans enjoy an explosion of new offerings in the snack market.

ECONOMY / BANKING CRISIS DAY 15 📊

Yesterday, the Federal Reserve raised the Fed Funds Rate by .25% betraying market expectations of a lower rate raise with indication that rates would come down by year end.

Risk-assets (stocks, crypto) entered red territory at the market close, following the announcement.

Autonomous Note 🧿: The Fed did the right thing by prioritizing inflation over babying the banking system by easing conditions for them. On a psychological level if Powell had announced a pause on rates or even a rate cut it would have undermined the Fed's credibility and exacerbated worries about US banks. Once again, Powell keeps our civilization afloat and navigates us through a panic.

CITIBANK Suddenly Realizes Fintech is a Thing, worried 🤣

Citi’s Jane Fraser said apps and consumers’ ability to move millions of dollars with a few clicks are a game changer for how bankers manage and regulators respond to the risk of bank runs.

I'd suggest that Jane read our post on the future of bank deposit and retail banking on our Substack.

DIGITAL ASSETS ⚡️

The SEC sent a Wells Notice to Coinbase indicating that the regulator plans to sue Coinbase for its crypto offerings likely indicating that all or some of the offerings constitute the sale of securities (aka regulated financial products).

CHART(S) DU JOUR 👨🏻‍🍳

MEME DIGESTIF ☕️

Share Autonomy:

Go Deeper: