🌞 GM everyone,

The US banking bug hasn’t fully worked its way out of the proverbial digestive tract.

First Republic Bank’s stock price declined 50% after their earnings report and deposit outflows. This moved markets, dragging major US indices down 1%+.

The ongoing earnings season is helping investors separate strong cash-flow businesses from the poorly managed or price inelastic. As the consumer weakens (weakest in 9 months).

Let’s ride in 🏍️

In a Post-Truth World,
verification is a hot commodity ❤️‍🔥

This company is raising funds to squash the noise of misinformation along with $300M+ in VC backed information watch-dog solutions

This is a great burgeoning vertical, but I wonder if it’s scalable given what has led us to this post-truth existence: large, centralized, censored and privately monetized businesses like Twitter and Meta. How could you protect truth on a platform that is designed for ads and regulated by a hodge-podge of A.I. and human content moderators with their own agendas.

Twitter & Meta re-think verification with paid verification and “Blue Check” programs while they explore new monetization efforts

Twitter, for example, now reserves security features like 2-factor authentication for paid users…

Monetization & Stickiness 💸

McDonalds and Pepsi Co. got to flex their pricing power and ability to drive consistent results regardless of economic expectations in their latest earnings reports.

Conclusion: Their customers are sticky and willing to spend on their product under a variety of conditions.

These are typically characteristics seen in the tobacco industry…

Social-Media and Advertising Revenue-dependent platforms, by comparison, are now mid-scramble to redefine their value proposition in a world that has grown accustomed to their services being free. We’re calling this process, The Great Monetization. Turns out social-media customers will just delete the app or switch platforms if they don’t like something.

This existential crisis has made us realize that paying customers is the real commodity, not users or virality. This doesn’t help simplify the other tsunamis hitting society such as A.I. and new-money (crypto).

While the world figures those things out, businesses like Pepsi and McDonalds will continue to print the money that’s in vogue to its loyal customer base.

Trends ✨

Ozempic

Bloomberg, WSJ and many others have published pieces on the proliferation of weight loss drug, Ozempic. There are massive banner ads on the NY Subway for DTC subscriptions of Ozempic for weight-loss.

Hot take: I think we should save diabetes medications for the people who need it most and have always struggled to get it. The growing popularity/demand for these drugs will only make their pricing and access more of a challenge for those in need by straining the supply chain or adding price pressure. In my opinion, this will proliferate the wealth and health disparity across American households that I like to call the US Health Caste System. Insulin prices have increased between 15-17% since 2012.

Trad-Fi Institutions Bullish on Crypto 🐂

Standard Chartered, Visa

BTC is back up to $29,000 on First Republic’s stock price decline of 50% yesterday…

So what’s the holding crypto back?

Regulators are in a sunken place. Crypto exchange Coinbase sued the SEC to get answers on regulation, while Fed Chair Gary Gensler continues his hard stance on cryptocurrency operators in the US. Pessimist think crypto is leaving the US (Coinbase opened up in Bermuda). Optimists think Gensler will be out of a job soon.

Chart(s) 📊

Meme Digestif

Thanks for dropping by, have a great day out there 🌻