This is a weekly market update (I post daily to TikTok). I publish these once a week (beta phase), as well as single stock pieces (1-3x a month) and macro deep-dives. I also publish on TikTok, Youtube, and Twitter!
YouTube Linked HERE
The Market
Things go up.
Zoom Forever? ARK has been doing a lot of work on $ZM- “thinking about video conferencing tools as a temporary alternative seems to overlook what many think the future of work will be. And we’re not even considering (in this thread) the consumer opportunity (creators/freelancers, live entertainment.).”
The future is likely to be online, even as we reopen and go back to work. Companies that support WFH have to spend more on IT - and a lot of that $$ will float over to $ZM.
Dollar stores are very profitable: charging a premium on small quantities. As Morgan Housel highlights - “they are the opposite of Costco - the opposite of a good business model can also be a good business model.”
Lots of S1s released this week: Krispy Kreme, Robinhood, and Duolingo
Robinhood makes most of their money (~65%) from options and crypto. And a lot of their money came from Doge (34% of their crypto revenue) - they highlight in the S1 that the *lack* of market mania could be very bad for their business model. As Matt Levine said, “everything is just so dumb”.
Also Robinhood had to pay a very big fine for essentially lying to everyone and misleading investors. Yet, the market still welcomes them with open arms - which shows where froth levels are at, imo.
Also with regards to the whole PFOF argument: “PFOF encourages trading but its 0dte options that cause reflexive boom cycles when combined w massively leveraged hedge fund shorts. PFOF is shady but probably doesn’t hit financial stability same way short dated equity options do” - Alex Good (of course). It’s not really about PFOF, but rather the option structure and market environment.
Duolingo - big highlight: “$200mm revenue run rate (100% YoY) w. 73% gross margins…off a *total* of $42m of performance marketing”. Their CEO letter was also *chef’s kiss* in terms of mission and brevity.
Krispy Kreme: "Our strategy is built on our belief that almost all consumers desire an occasional indulgence, and that when they indulge, they want a high quality, emotionally differentiated experience." - they truly believe in the power of the donut.
Strike: A Bowling Alley (Bowlero) is going public via a SPAC at a $2.6bn valuation because of course that makes sense considering REOPENING DEMAND
Copyapp: Facebook’s Instagram is becoming TikTok because TikTok is the best app to replicate because it doesn’t pay creators and commands immense influence as a platform with the fear it manifests with its algorithm
The ETFs are here: “Top 25 U.S. asset managers (which manage a collective $52T) and their ETF status and % aum in ETFs. Note: 5yrs ago about half of the firms were "none" today down to four”
Updated chart of the Top 25 U.S. asset managers (which manage a collective $52T) and their ETF status and % aum in ETFs. Note: 5yrs ago about half of the firms were "none" today down to four. via @tpsarofagis
The Economy
Jobs report was okay but could have been better: 850K new jobs added in June. That's a beat However, the unemployment rate rose to 5.9% from 5.8%. Note, jobs were in a very bad spot - and we are nearing recovery, but the bottoming out was really, really bad.
The most important thing to note about all this conversation is that a lot of times, it doesn’t matter to the everyday consumer. “For the typical U.S. household, inflation expectations are going to be very highly correlated with the price of gasoline, also the price of food. People don’t pay attention to what the Fed is doing”. A lot of people don’t even know who the Fed is.
But measurement is still an odd thing.
It’s so weird how there’s always a new way to measure inflation to show it doesn’t exist.PCE inflation jumped to 3.9% in May. But median PCE inflation, which excludes outlier components and focuses on the middle of the distribution, was steady at 2% for the third month in a row. https://t.co/f7jlGUntOF https://t.co/gJsWszeq8NClevelandFedResearch @ClevFedResearch
RRP continues to hit record highs.
*90 COUNTERPARTIES TAKE $991.9B AT FED'S FIXED-RATE REVERSE REPO74 COUNTERPARTIES TAKE $841.2B AT FED'S FIXED-RATE REVERSE REPO https://t.co/DI886dGerQ https://t.co/4vTH4iIcSERishi Mishra @aRishisaysTrucking is stressed out: “Total volume absolutely soaring. And operators are rejecting jobs at the highest level in years.”
Lumber has collapsed.
And US Home prices are at ATHs
Crypto
I am working on a big piece around DAOs! This will be out by July 8th (if all goes well!)
Smart contracts have outperformed
Grayscale added Cardano
USDT < USDC: USDC is quickly emerging as the dominant stablecoin on Ethereum in large part due to its growing role in DeFi.
Fed (or at least Quarles) supported USDCs
ARK: the biggest risk to the bitcoin ETF is bitcoin
The Week Ahead
Shorter week - next week will have some really interesting earnings!
Economic Data
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice or recommendation for any investment. The Content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or other material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.