| Good morning. We've got a special announcement today that's been in the works for, well, years. Just scroll down to the part of the email that mentions the Fantasy Investing Competition. Suppose that gives it away... | | | |  | Nasdaq | 13,632.84 | | | | | S&P | 4,201.62 | | | | | Dow | 34,548.53 | | |  | Bitcoin | $56,037.84 | | | | | 10-Year | 1.568% | | | | | Penn | $83.93 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Economy: Jobless claims keep dropping, last week to below 500,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. Plus, employers laid off the fewest people in almost 21 years in April. Get ready for a blockbuster jobs report this morning.
- Markets: The story of the markets this week has been Dow
 , tech  . Barstool owner Penn National Gaming has dropped nearly 40% from its peak, despite reporting better-than-expected earnings yesterday. | |  Francis Scialabba | Yesterday, the EU said it's "ready to discuss" waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines. Their newfound open-mindedness follows Wednesday's about-face from the Biden administration, which threw its support behind a waiver in order to boost vaccine manufacturing around the world. What this is all about: When a company takes a risk by creating a new product, a patent protects its intellectual property from copycats. In this case, a waiver would allow third parties to manufacture and sell the Covid vaccines patented by companies including Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson. With vaccine distribution concentrated in wealthier countries, South Africa and India proposed a waiver as early as October. Not everyone agrees German Chancellor Angela Merkel pushed back on the US' waiver proposal, arguing production capacity and quality assurance are the constraints, not IP. And to sum up how pharma feels about it... 
If you thought nursing a sourdough starter was difficult, try a production process that involves hundreds of components, dozens of suppliers, specialized equipment, and strict quality checks along the way. When Johnson & Johnson vetted 100 potential production partners for its vaccine, it concluded only 10 were up to snuff. And its vaccine uses pretty established technology. Pfizer's and Moderna's mRNA shots are literally the first of their kind. Moderna's CEO says he "didn't lose a minute of sleep" over Biden's announcement because there aren't enough facilities or skilled workers to replicate what his company is doing. - "There is no idle mRNA manufacturing capacity in the world. This is a new technology, you cannot go hire people who know how to make mRNA—those people don't exist," he told the FT.
Moderna already said it won't enforce patent rights on its mRNA vaccine, but is willing to license the technology. Pfizer's CEO opposes a waiver. Looking ahead…EU deliberations could take months and lead to nothing (WTO members must vote unanimously on a waiver). Or the WTO could go halfway with a partial waiver, particularly if the US and EU want to keep mRNA tech out of China's hands. | |  Francis Scialabba | GameStop mania is like a really hyperactive brood of cicadas: It emerges, loudly, once every couple months. Yesterday, Wall Street's top cop, SEC Chair Gary Gensler, discussed this winter's market mania and what his agency is going to do about it with the House Financial Services Committee. - Gamification of investing: Gensler said that features on popular investing apps that simulate a "gamelike" atmosphere could lead to lower returns for the average trader (more trades = worse outcomes, per some studies). He said his agency wants to make sure regular investors who use these apps are protected.
- Payment for order flow: Gensler is having his team look into market dominance by "wholesalers" like Citadel Securities, which pay brokers like Robinhood to handle your trades.
- Short selling: The SEC is deliberating whether it should require greater transparency from investors who hold short positions.
Bottom line: Gensler said that current regulations were created before modern social media platforms became popular. "I think...we may find that we need to freshen up our rule set," he acknowledged. | |  Yale | David Swensen, the chief of Yale's endowment fund, died Wednesday evening at 67 after a nine-year battle with cancer. Known for laying the groundwork for the modern venture capital- and private equity industries, Swensen made Yale's endowment office the hottest place on campus. He diverted Yale's money from just stocks and bonds into more alternative assets like hedge funds, real estate, and even timber (he knew). - Swensen's strategies grew Yale's endowment from $1.3 billion in 1985 → $31.2 billion in 2020. It's currently the second largest university endowment, trailing only Harvard's.
- In 2019, Yale's endowment accounted for about a third of its entire operating budget.
The "Yale model." Boasting returns better than some top hedge fund managers, Swensen could have traded it all in for a glamorous Wall Street high rise and a cartoonishly eye-popping salary, but he remained dedicated to the university. Swensen instilled the same principles in his mentees, who were scouted by private sector firms before ultimately following in his higher-ed footsteps. | |  | If you control the budget at your company, you've probably received some version of this: "Hey boss, my team got brunch with a client, could you shoot me like $300 when you get a chance?" We're here to tell you there's a platform that makes those messages a thing of the past—and also offers the credit your company needs. Divvy is an all-in-one expense management system that offers credit lines from $50,000 to $5 million. Divvy makes applying for business credit even easier than ordering the Eggs Benne. They also look at each application individually to figure out what's right for your needs. And this month, Divvy's offering a $50 gift card for any workplaces with 21+ employees who get a demo. That's at least a new toaster, just for doing a demo. Banish "hey boss," meet with Divvy, and get a gift card right here. | |  Kevin Frayer/Getty Images | Stat: China's greenhouse gas emissions exceeded those of all other developed countries combined in 2019, according to a new report by the Rhodium Group. Quote: "Just imagine traveling 10 years back in time and trying to explain this to someone; just imagine what an idiot you'd feel like. 'There's going to be this online currency that people think is a form of digital gold, and then there's going to be a different online currency that is a parody of the first one based on a meme about a talking Shiba Inu, and that one will have a market capitalization bigger than 80% of the companies in the S&P 500, and its value will fluctuate based on things like who is hosting Saturday Night Live and whether people tweet a hashtag about it on the pot-joke holiday, and Bloomberg will write articles and banks will write research notes about those sorts of catalysts, and it will remain a perfectly ridiculous content-free parody even as people properly take it completely seriously because there are billions of dollars at stake.'" Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine writing about, you guessed it, dogecoin. Read: Gen Z is bringing emo back, but it's not just a bunch of white dudes. (BuzzFeed News) | |  | Ever wanted to dump $20,000 into Tesla stock without the heart palpitations? Is it finally time to short AMC? Well, here's an opportunity to do that without putting any of your money on the table. Introducing the Morning Brew Fantasy Investing Competition, a month-long stock market tournament we're hosting with our friends at Wealthbase. How it works: - To start, you'll get $100,000 of (fake) cash to build a portfolio of your choice. Buying, selling, shorting, unlimited trades...it's all there.
- Stocks and crypto are included, so you can YOLO into doge if you're feeling frisky.
- Chatter, trash talk, and bragging about your gainz on social media is encouraged.
For example, we Brew writers and our coworkers will be playing, and we will beat you. The prize: At the end of the game (June 4), we'll send packs of our most popular Brew swag to the top three players who've built the biggest portfolios. The competition starts this Monday, and it'll be capped at 10,000 players, so... Sign up today. | |  Francis Scialabba | The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to receiving that backordered item you bought four months ago. It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. | | - French and British boats are patrolling waters near the English Channel in an escalating dispute over post-Brexit fishing rights.
- The UK economy will grow the most in 70 years in 2021, the Bank of England projected. In 2020, the economy shrunk the most in 300 years.
- New York's attorney general said that 82% of complaints filed to the FCC around the repeal of net neutrality protections in 2017 were fake, many of which were reportedly funded by the broadband industry.
- Twitter is testing out a Tip Jar. Whenever you feel like it, no rush.
- The World Video Game Hall of Fame announced its latest class of inductees: Animal Crossing, StarCraft, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
| | | 69 calories, 0.0 alcohol. That's what you get (and don't get) from Heineken 0.0. It's got all the balanced taste of Heineken, except it's alcohol-free. That means you could be having one right now, even if you're filling out TPS reports for the new boss. Try Heineken 0.0 today.* Research driven, liquid, and future focused. That's what you may want in a technology ETF—it's also what the ROBO Global Robotics & Automation ETF offers. Invest in cutting-edge robotics companies here.* Classy gift guide: Our friends at Sidekick put together a wonderful guide to help you figure out what to get the recent grad in your life. Check it out. Follow Friday: Answer all the questions you've never thought to ask with Veritasium on YouTube. And then check out oddly satisfying tiny living spaces with Never Too Small and watch Joe Jenkins play piano in public. *This is sponsored advertising content | | | Change just one letter on each line to go from the top word to the bottom word. Do not change the order of the letters. You must have a real word at each step. 1. ARM
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