Good morning. In the words of Jack Black, "Math is a really cool thing." Here's one reason why: The number of minutes in February (in non-leap years) is equivalent to 8 factorial. As Tim Urban calculated… - February has 28 days (7 x 4)
- Each day has 24 hours (8 x 3)
- Each hour has 60 minutes (6 x 5 x 2)
So, the number of minutes in February is 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1, aka 8! Neat! —Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, Jamie Wilde, Abby Rubenstein | | | |  | Nasdaq | 12,200.82 | | | | | S&P | 4,179.76 | | |  | Dow | 34,053.94 | | | | | 10-Year | 3.398% | | | | | Bitcoin | $23,620.00 | | | | | Meta | $188.77 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 3:00am ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: If you hung on to your tech stocks during the rout of 2022, you've got to be feeling good right now. After another smashing day, the tech-focused Nasdaq is off to its best start to a year since 1975. Meta played an outsized role—the company's stock posted its biggest single-day gain in almost 10 years after Mark Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the "year of efficiency."
- On tap today: the January jobs report. It'll provide crucial insight into a labor market that's giving more mixed signals than TJ's Philly Cheesesteak Bao Buns. On the one hand, jobless claims dropped to a nine-month low last week. On the other, US employers announced more than 100,000 job cuts in January, which amounts to the most monthly layoffs since 2020, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
| | | | Mint/Getty Images Just one month ago, we thought it would be impossible for someone to lose more money more quickly than FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried did. Enter Gautam Adani. In the week since the Indian mogul was targeted by a short seller, his businesses have lost a combined $108 billion in value, and his own net worth has plummeted by $52 billion. Because Adani was once the second-richest person in the world, he's still got plenty left in the bank. But, as Bloomberg notes, his downfall "defies just about every historical comparison." Given Adani's sprawling business empire and his cozy relationship with India's leadership class, this crisis has echoed across both markets and politics. Here's a rundown of what you need to know about the most important story in global business this week. Who is Adani and how did he get so rich? Adani, who grew up middle-class, dropped out of college to trade diamonds and eventually formed his own business hawking other physical products. During the '90s his ambitions expanded along with the Indian economy, and he now runs a conglomerate that encompasses energy, transportation infrastructure such as ports and airports, defense manufacturing, and media. What sparked the collapse? On Jan. 24, a US short seller named Hindenburg Research claimed Adani's empire pulled "the largest con in corporate history," accusing it of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in a 100-page report. Adani has denied the allegations, but his pushback hasn't comforted spooked investors…especially after he scrapped a $2.5 billion share sale on Wednesday. How has this infiltrated politics? Adani responded that Hindenburg's report wasn't just an attack on him, it amounted to a "calculated attack on India…and the growth story and ambition of India." Adani's business ventures have aligned closely with the priorities of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Modi's political opponents are seizing on the fiasco to highlight the relationship between India's leader and Adani. What happens next? Adani emphasized that his company's fundamentals remain "very strong" and its balance sheet "healthy." Still, experts say the accusations could leave a lasting reputational stain on India's largest corporations and hamstring their ability to grow.—NF | | TOGETHER WITH LIQUIDPISTON | | Meet the X-Engine™ from LiquidPiston: a patented, redesigned rotary engine that's up to 10x lighter than comparable piston engines of the same power. And guess what? LiquidPiston's giving you the chance to become a shareholder in the future success of their engine technology. LiquidPiston is kicking new markets into top gear, from drones that can fly 2x farther to hybrid-electric cars that can use 80% smaller batteries. Best of all, the engine is compatible with a variety of fuels, including hydrogen. This could unlock a 100% green energy solution for the combustion engine market. No wonder they've secured $30m in contracts from the US Army, the Air Force, and more. Invest in LiquidPiston today. | | ESPN via Giphy  It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a…Chinese spy balloon? US officials presumably scanning the sky for the green comet saw something else entirely: a surveillance balloon they're confident was sent by China. Pentagon authorities said they've been tracking the balloon, which was spotted floating high above Montana, but decided not to blow it up out of safety concerns. The discovery of ramped-up Chinese spy operations comes days ahead of an expected meeting between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
 Big Tech earnings were a wet blanket. Despite the euphoria over tech stocks on Wall Street, disappointing Big Tech earnings showed that companies are still facing tough economic conditions. Apple posted a rare quarterly sales decline, Alphabet is "meaningfully" slowing down its hiring, and Amazon barely scored a profit. We'll see if these underwhelming reports put the brakes on the Nasdaq's rally today.
 Artificial tears could be causing real infections. The CDC urged the public to stop using EzriCare Artificial Tears, saying the over-the-counter lubricating eye drops may be linked to an outbreak of drug-resistant infections that have caused vision loss in at least five people and at least one death. EzriCare said it stopped selling and distributing the drops, which are manufactured in India by a different company, when it learned of the CDC's investigation. But the company stated it was not aware of testing that "definitively" linked the infections to the product.
| | Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images YouTuber MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) has moved on from recreating Squid Game to going creative mode on the US healthcare system. The 24-year-old and world's most popular YouTuber uploaded a video over the weekend that revealed he funded cataract surgery for 1,000 people. The video, titled "1,000 Blind People See For The First Time," has garnered more than 77 million views on Donaldson's channel, but sparked debates around the use of philanthropy as a revenue driver and prompted some viewers to express frustration with medical expenses in the country. - The surgery costs about $3,500 per eye, according to MyVision.org, and the participants in MrBeast's video weren't able to afford medical insurance.
Criticism of the video focused primarily on the broader implications of an altruistic YouTuber funding surgeries as content, but some are more generally unsettled by the idea that the MrBeast channel—which has featured videos of people being paid to live in a windowless room and stay in a circle in the middle of nowhere for 100 days—is earning revenue off of charitable acts. To his critics, MrBeast responded:  @MrBeast via TwitterZoom out: Donaldson's main channel has 131 million subscribers and generated about $54 million in revenue in 2021. He gave away more than $3 million in prizes in 2022.—MK | | | Speak a new language for le$$. If traveling or simply learning new things is on your 2023 #goals list, Babbel can help you get started. Their fun 10-minute lessons are proven to help anyone speak a new language in just 3 weeks. For a limited time, get 55% off your subscription. | | Photo Illustration: Dianna "Mick" McDougall, Source: zlikovec/Getty Images On Wednesday, JPMorgan's wealth management arm said it acquired 250,000 acres of woodlands in the Southeastern US for $500 million. And it's not so Jamie Dimon can cosplay Snow White: Buying timberland has become trendy for long-term investors because trees are not only worth something when cut down, but also when left standing. Why? In this era of corporate sustainability pledges, companies are hungrily buying up carbon offsets—tradable certificates that represent the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere—to counteract their own carbon output. One of the most popular types of carbon offsets pays lumberjacks to lay down their chainsaws and preserve naturally CO2-absorbing forests for a period of time. That's changed the game for timberland owners (and we don't mean Drake). "Rather than waiting to get paid, they can now get paid to wait," the global head of alternative investments for JPMorgan, which plans to use its new forest for both wood production and carbon offsets, wrote in a September blog post. Zoom out: Investors are betting big—really big—on the market for carbon offsets. This past fall, a consortium led by a T. Rowe Price subsidiary paid $1.8 billion for 1.7 million acres of forest across 17 states. Only 10%–20% of the revenue from these properties is expected to come from logging.—JW | | Francis Scialabba Stat: ChatGPT is now officially the fastest-growing consumer application in history after it notched 100 million monthly active users in January, per estimates from UBS. It took OpenAI's chatbot just two months from launch to reach the milestone, compared to nine months for TikTok and 2.5 years for Instagram. So, how to capitalize on this explosion of interest? Open AI said it will soon release ChatGPT Plus, a commercial version, for $20/month. Quote: "The federal government has no business telling American families how to cook their dinner." Politicians are lining up to protect your gas stove. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin joined with GOP colleague Sen. Ted Cruz to introduce legislation that would block the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from using federal funds to ban gas stoves. Meanwhile, in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis floated a permanent tax exemption for gas stoves. Some lawmakers consider the appliances to be under attack after a top official at the CPSC hinted that new gas stoves could be banned over health concerns. Read: How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today. (The Cut) | | The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to watching your friends from different parts of your life become friends with each other. It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. | | - Republicans removed Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, citing her past comments on Israel. Democrats called it a vindictive move.
- Shell became the latest oil giant to report eye-watering profits last year. It earned nearly $40 billion in 2022, making last year its most profitable in its 115-year history.
- Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet urged Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over the national security threat posed by the Chinese-owned app.
- It's about to get extremely cold in New England.
| | It's the start of a new year, which means resolutions, fresh beginnings, and of course...tax season. We know filing your taxes can be a massive headache that takes hours (if not days) to complete. That's why Money Scoop created a 2023 Tax Guide to make filing taxes a bit easier. We break down tough topics, provide expert insights, and answer a bunch of hypothetical questions to help you out. Check out the guide. This editorial content is supported by TaxAct. | | Jigsaw: Punxsutawney Phil gets his close-up in today's Groundhog Day jigsaw puzzle. Put the pieces back together here. Friday puzzle Clear off your work schedule this morning, because today's puzzle, from Ministry of Quizzes, will require your full attention. What completes the following sequence? Important info: The same consonants are represented by numbers 0–9, and all vowels are represented by *. 7**3*6 *41*2* 03** 25**4 9*33*8 *5*42* ? | |  Our brand-new 2023 Resolutions Trackers will give you all the tools you need to hold yourself accountable this year. Shop today.
 Money Scoop will help you get smarter about your money. Subscribe for free.
 What's the secret sauce of McDonald's legendary branding? Their VP of Marketing reveals the recipe in this video from Marketing Brew.
| | | 5*1, which indicates "red." These are the colors of the rainbow in reverse order (violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red). | | |
.gif)
No comments:
Post a Comment