Good Morning! Hate your job and work for The Washington Post? It might be your lucky day - the company’s offering voluntary buyouts in an effort to cut hundreds of jobs. Caroline Ellison spilled the tea at SBF’s trial yesterday. She’s probably not happy her ex leaked her diary to the New York Times and testified he directed her to commit crimes.

The Hollywood strike is officially over. Investors feel bullish after the Fed says we’re (probably) done with rate hikes. Banks globally reaped a $280 billion profit boost in 2022 thanks to rising rates. And Birkenstock priced its IPO at $46 a share.

_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

Bond Brawl

Hopefully, bond investing wasn’t one of your Covid hobbies. Because, if it was - you might have been better off investing in crypto.

The bond market has literally never been this bad historically.

Bank of America analysts looked at returns for US Treasury Bonds all the way back to 1787 - and they still couldn’t find a worse bond selloff run than right now.

In 2022, bonds had their worst annual loss of all time - and a back-to-back-to-back slump would be the first time three consecutive years of losses have ever happened.

When interest rates rise, bond prices fall. And the inflation shock and interest-rate surge have been disasters for the bond market.

Takeaway: With investors bracing for long-term high rates, the ‘free money era’ might finally be over. And don’t think the bond brawl is just isolated to the bond market - climbing treasury yields have usually led to stock selloffs.

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Stocks closed higher because the Fed sounds dovish.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Truist ($TFC) +7% because the bank is in talks to sell its insurance business for $10B.

• (+) Block ($SQ) +5% after Bank of America maintains its buy rating.

• (–) Akero Therapeutics ($AKRO) -63% after the biotech’s drug trials failed.

Private Dealmaking

• Stoke Space, a reusable rockets maker, raised $100 million

• AustronauTx, a biotech focused on Alzheimer’s, raised $59 million

• Saronic, an autonomous ships maker, raised $55 million

• SyllaDB, a database startup, raised $43 million

• Diana Health, a women’s health practices network, raised $34 million

• Machina Labs, a robotics startup, raised $32 million

Get access to private deal flow here.

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• US investors seek edge in European soccer (CNBC)

• NYC’s Airbnb ban descending into pure chaos (Wired)

• Scotiabank, Sun Life lets rich clients invest in private credit (BB)

• Deals may be down, but NYC’s tech industry is still up (Crains)

• Generative AI will get a cold shower in 2024 (CNBC)

• Times Square goes from deserted to bustling (WSJ)

• Amazon sellers sound off on long-overdue antitrust case (CNBC)

• The companies bringing the office to remote workers (WSJ)

• Hedge funds won big on bets mergers would go through (BB)

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Number Go Up

In 2021 cryptocurrency went mainstream. Giant investment funds were buying it, celebrities like Tom Brady endorsed it, and TV ads hailed it as the future of money. Hardly anyone knew how it worked—but why bother with the particulars when everyone was making a fortune from Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, or some other bizarrely named “digital asset”?

As he observed this frenzy, investigative reporter Zeke Faux had a nagging question: Was it all just a confidence game of epic proportions? What started as curiosity—with a dash of FOMO—would morph into a two-year, globe-spanning quest to understand the wizards behind the world’s new financial machinery.

Faux’s investigation would lead him to a schlubby, frizzy-haired twenty-nine-year-old named Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF for short) and a host of other crypto scammers, utopians, and overnight billionaires.

Faux follows the trail to a luxury resort in the Bahamas, where SBF boldly declares that he will use his crypto fortune to save the world. Faux talks his way onto the yacht of a former child actor turned crypto impresario and gains access to “ApeFest,” an elite party headlined by Snoop Dogg, by purchasing a $20,000 image of a cartoon monkey.

In El Salvador, Faux learns what happens when a country wagers its treasury on Bitcoin, and in the Philippines, he stumbles upon a Pokémon knockoff mobile game touted by boosters as a cure for poverty.

“Endlessly entertaining.”

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• 3 habits of people who get promoted quickly

• What does it mean to be wealthy

• How to recover from burnout

• Productivity skills to help you gain time back

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Restaurant employment is back to pre-COVID levels

US employees in food services and bars

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_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Thank You

“Failing to acknowledge a favor or a courtesy is a triple mistake, and it’s becoming more common. ChatGPT is now promoting the idea that it can write a thank you note for you, and a text is a lot easier than a handwritten note, and yet, the level of ‘thank you’ seems to be falling.

It’s not that people don’t have the time to offer an honest ‘thank you’. It’s that they don’t want to acknowledge the obligation or connection.

Minimizing a favor is an easy way to stay focused on the noise in our own heads, as opposed to realizing that we’re surrounded by other people.

Hustle culture has discovered that ‘asking for a favor’ often triggers a positive response. This effort on the part of the other person happens because the favor-giver is seeking connection. When the recipient minimizes the favor or fails to say thank you, they create distance, not connection.

The fact that an expression of gratitude requires so little effort makes it even more striking.

To pick a tiny example, if someone lets you into the flow of traffic, a small nod or hand wave costs nothing. But sometimes it feels easier to assert that it was yours to take, as opposed to a kind gesture that you received.

Our failure to take a moment to acknowledge the favor also makes it harder for the next person. If connection isn’t on offer, why not be selfish?

Civility fades in the face of entitlement.

The magic of an honest expression of gratitude is that the person saying thank you might benefit from it as much as the recipient.”

Source: Seth Godin

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day