🍋 Bed Bath & Beyond Messy

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Another famed Wall Street alternative, crypto, is in the spotlight again. This time it's Three Arrows Capital, a crypto hedge fund, which has been ordered to liquidate by a British Virgin Islands court after creditors sued it for failing to pay back loans. Something tells us this is not the last casualty of the crypto winter, who's next?

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1. Story of the Day: Bed Bath & Beyond Messy

Bed Bath & Beyond, the company that was a one-stop for linens and things, but wasn't the company Linens & Things, is a "hot mess" right now, according to Global Data retail analyst Neil Saunders.

The stock dropped to a 26-year low Wednesday, after reporting store sales dropped 24% since last year. On top of that CEO, Mark Tritton, and Chief Merchandising Officer, Joe Hartsig, are checking out what's beyond and leaving the company.

It's not exactly shocking, as in July 2020, the company announced it would close 200 stores in the ensuing two years. They've tried releasing store-owned brands as part of a transformation plan, but no dice yet as they reported a net loss of $358 million in the latest quarter. That's 7x worse than a year ago.

The situation may be even bleaker than it seems. Bank of America analysts wrote in a note that stores were lowering air conditioning, trimming store hours, and canceling or delaying store remodels, all in an effort to cut costs.

Short Squeez Takeaway: In a world where you can get anything from the internet, retailers are bound to have a tough time. Throw an over correction to supply chain issues, and excess inventory into the mix, and you've got very few people walking in to buy a lot of pillows and plungers. Interim CEO, Sue Gove, said a potential sale of Bed Bath's buybuy Baby business wouldn't be ruled out, as a way to tide them over through another turn around plan. So it might be bye bye buybuy Baby.

2. Markets Rundown

Stocks were essentially unchanged, but alas, still lower with investors not sure what to make of yesterdays drawdown.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) General Mills ($GIS) +6% after reporting an earnings beat on both the top and bottom lines.

• (+) McDonald's ($MCD) +2% because Atlantic Equities upgraded the burger chain to overweight.

• (–) Carnival ($CCL) -14% due to Morgan Stanley cutting its price target on the stock in half, and adding it could potentially go to zero given Carnival's debt levels.

Private Dealmaking

• Entrepreneur First, a UK-based investor and startup program, raised $158 million in funding

• DataArt, software engineering firm, raised $75 million in funding

• PolySign, provider of digital asset infrastructure for institutional investors, raised $53 million in Series C funding

• Audience, automated outbound marketing platform, raised $10 million in Series A funding

• Dynamic.xyz, crypto and NFT wallet developer tool startup, raised $7.5 million in seed funding

• Bit Odd, a Finnish gaming company, raised $5 million in seed funding

3. Top Reads

• Amazon wants us to believe the robots are coming — but most people won’t find them useful (CNBC)

• America’s MBAs are the latest skeptics of capitalism (BB)

• Liquid alt funds head for record inflows as stocks and bonds drop (WSJ)

• Behind the Celsius sales pitch was a crypto firm built on risk (WSJ)

• Newsletter startup Substack cuts 14% of staff as downturn looms (BB)

• Which is safer: Rental houses or stock investments? (MM)

• Farmers cut food production as costs soar (BBC)

• Over 360 newspapers have closed since just before the start of the pandemic (NYT)

• TikTok grabs more ad dollars, as marketers look to attract Gen Z and Millennials (WSJ)

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4. Book of the Day: Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases.

Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit.

Many commentators, committed to political or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

“The first step toward wisdom is the realization that the laws of the universe don’t care about you.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• With stocks and crypto markets getting clapped, commercial real estate investing is entering the fold as an option for savvy investors looking to grow their wealth. Cadre helps diversify outside of stocks with expertly curated investment opportunities. Learn more about commercial real estate investing with Cadre here

• The best gins for a beachy vibe

• "Having your health and owning your time doesn't have to require having a lot of money"

• Is imposter syndrome costing you money?

6. Daily Visual: Cryptogeddon

Total market cap of cryptocurrencies

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: A Dollar is a Dollar

Let’s say you go to a casino with $100 and after playing a few hours of blackjack, you got up to $500. You keep playing because you’re feeling great and you’re on a roll but by the time you walk out of the casino, you end up with $200. How much did you win or lose?

Most of us would say we made $100 in profit since we came in with $100 and walked out with $200.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger would say you lost $300.

This is known as mental accounting. The way we acquire money, informs our responsibility with it.

If you ever follow people who got rich after winning a lottery, how rich are they 10 years after the fact? (Most are bankrupt)

When people are playing with “house” money at the casino, it’s easy come, easy go.

HOW we make money, informs us how responsible we are with it.

A dollar is a dollar, no matter where it came from. Make rational financial decisions with ALL your dollars.

Source: Jay Papasan

8. Crypto Corner by Bonkalytics.com

• Crypto exchange CoinFlex probably won’t resume withdrawals Thursday as planned, says CEO

• How much does it cost to create an NFT?

• It’s time to refocus on crypto infrastructure, CoinShares CSO says

• Coinbase adds support for staking Solana

• MicroStrategy scoops up 480 Bitcoin amid market slump

• Trader puts faith in crypto despite the failed first investment

For more crypto-focused content, sign-up here.

9. Memes of the Day

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