🍋 Billions Adds to Peloton Misery

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Good morning! Hope y'all had a great weekend. An Olympic medalist, Allison Baver, is accused of stealing $10 million in PPP Covid-19 relief funds. Elsewhere, Snapchat is getting sued for 'defective design' and 'negligence' after an 11 year old committed suicide. According to her therapist, she had never seen someone so addicted to social media. White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, acknowledged that IRS is 'not what the American public deserves' and urged Congress to provide funding to the agency that is already way behind as tax szn begins.

As promised, please find the results of the Wall Street compensation survey here.

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1. Story of the Day: Billions Adds to Peloton Misery

It’s not a great time to be Peloton stock. Once the darling of the pandemic, $PTON is almost in meme stock territory with the hits it has suffered over the last year. After a 440% gain in 2020, Peloton shares tumbled 76% in 2021 and are down another 25% this year.

The latest punch comes from the hedge fund show Billions. In the season 6 premiere of the show, Mike Wagner (“Wags”) suffers a heart attack after riding a Peloton. He does recover though and says: "I’m not going out like Mr. Big," referring to the "Sex and the City" Peloton episode (aired in Dec ’21) in which Mr. Big dies after riding a Peloton bike.

After Mr. Big’s (Chris North) death went viral, Peloton backfired with its own cheeky ad featuring Chris North. That turned out to be another PR disaster after sexual assault allegations against Chris North resurfaced and Peloton pulled the ad from all its accounts.

Peloton marketing team (if anyone’s left there???) is again fuming and released a statement that it had not given Billions permission to use the brand on its show.

Peloton recently hired McKinsey to review its cost structure who seem to have told Peloton to stop making the bikes. (lmao) Peloton announced that it will temporarily stop the production of bikes and treadmills to cope with the lack of demand and reset inventory levels.

Short Squeez Takeaway: The lesson of the story is that things can always get worse, especially if you are Peloton. Peloton is also cutting up to 41% of sales and marketing staff, which probably will not be great for company morale. Is there anything that can save the iPad on a bike?

Source: CNBC

2. Markets Rundown

Tech stocks had another rough day. Nasdaq is down 11% in 2022, on track for its worst start to a year since 2008 when it tumbled 13.6% in the first 14 trading days.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Peloton ($PTON) +12% bouncing back after a major sell-off through the week.

• (–) Intuitive Surgical ($ISRG) -8% after management said procedures using its DaVinci surgical system will be down significantly in the current quarter due to Covid surges.

• (–) Netflix ($NFLX) -22% after admitting streaming competition was eating into its growth.

3. Top Reads

• Ex-Credit Suisse chief also broke Covid rules going to Euros final (BBC)

• Bars and gyms are bustling as Americans learn to live with covid (BB)

• Pfizer CEO says an annual Covid vaccine is preferable to periodic boosters (CNBC)

• Inflation – should we be worried? (MMM)

• The Fed looks increasingly determined to make a major policy error (TB)

• Inflation surge could push the Fed into more than four rate hikes this year, Goldman Sachs says (CNBC)

• Ether, Solana, memecoins get crushed in crypto market rout (BB)

• US food supply is under pressure (WSJ)

• Markets are expected to remain on edge as the Fed meets in the week ahead (CNBC)

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4. Book of the Day: The Burnout Fix: Overcome Overwhelm, Beat Busy, and Sustain Success in the New World of Work

In The Burnout Fix, the award-winning psychologist and board-certified leadership coach Dr. Jacinta M. Jiménez shows you how to harness science-backed resilience strategies to survive, and thrive, in today’s “always on, always connected” world―where a reported 60% of employees report being stressed out all or most of the time at work.

Packed with compelling, real-world stories from years of coaching and the latest research in positive, social, and motivational psychology, The Burnout Fix shows how neglecting to nurture your personal pulse can undermine all your efforts at working harder and “smarter.” You’ll learn how integrate healthy personal “PULSE” practices into all aspects of your life, from pacing for performance and leveraging leisure time to securing a support system and evaluating how to regain control of your time and priorities.

Whether you are an individual who wishes to build out a set of lasting resilience capabilities, a leader dedicated to keeping your team or organization engaged and flourishing, The Burnout Fix will reshape the way you think about success while giving you―and your people―the tools and strategies you need to thrive.

“Stress is the trash of modern life. We all generate it, but if you don’t dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake your life.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• EPO’s newsletter & video platform is a can’t-miss for tech investors. Sign up here!

• Ricky Sandler - building an investment compass Podcast

• Pink finánce dad hat

• What it’s like to make $100k+ walking dogs

6. Daily Visual: Gaming Platform M&A

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: Don’t Get Sucked In

Bull markets' relentless vacuum cleaner eventually sucks everyone in. Investors who are skeptical about the perceived overvaluation are forced to watch as their career prospects melt down and security prices melt up.

New rationalizations, disguised as rationales, enter the higher levels of discourse to justify jumping, or creeping, onto the asset-price train despite disdaining it when it was dozens of percentage points lower.

A feeling of fear and acrophobia then becomes replaced by the giddy and disorienting feeling of finally being on track to make money along with the crowd and not feeling isolated in Cranky Valueland.

8. Crypto Corner

• NFTs: Forget apes and penguins — Let’s talk diapers, hardware and museums

• NFTs and DeFi overturn a banker‘s generational curse of poverty in 2 years

• Bulgaria's finance minister says the country is exploring crypto payment options

• Crypto and NFTs meet regulation as Turkey takes on the digital future

• Blockchain and the evolution of business models in the game industry

9. Memes of the Day

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