🍋 Egg-nomics 101: Mooning Egg Prices

Egg prices are starting to crack a little bit as demand for the breakfast staple starts to falter - more and more Americans say the breakfast staple is out of their budget. But despite all of the memes and public outrage, egg prices are still up nearly 60% from a year ago.

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"If you don't know who you are, the stock market is an expensive place to find out."— George Goodman

Good morning! Spotify joined the tech layoff party and announced it will be letting go 6% of its total workforce. A new court filing in the Elizabeth Holmes fraud case alleges the former Theranos founder tried making a run for the border. Holmes booked a one-way ticket to Mexico in Jan 2022, but her plans to make a quick escape were thwarted by her conviction.

More tough news for SBF, as prosecutors have swooped in and seized nearly $700 million worth of assets tied to the troubled founder of FTX. Turns out nobody believed him when he told us he only had 100k in his bank account.

It seems that even with a bustling job market, the unemployed are finding it harder to get back in the game. According to the Department of Labor, 826,000 job seekers have been sitting on the sidelines for 3½ to 6 months, an increase of 36% since April of 2022.

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1. Story of the Day: Egg-nomics 101: Mooning Egg Prices

Egg prices are starting to crack a little bit as demand for the breakfast staple starts to falter - more and more Americans say the breakfast staple is out of their budget. But despite all of the memes and public outrage, egg prices are still up nearly 60% from a year ago.

Large, Grade A eggs cost $4.25 a dozen in December, a 138% increase from $1.79 a year earlier.

The primary reason for the increase in prices is largely attributed to a historic outbreak of avian influenza which has resulted in the death of tens of millions of egg-laying hens.

The bird flu began in February 2022 and caused quite the feather ruffle in the egg industry and our wallets. 60 million birds were killed in its wake, causing egg prices to soar to record highs. And while egg farms are starting to recover, there's a 6% drop in the number of hens laying eggs from last year.

The egg shortage ultimately got so bad that prices shot up 120% over the course of 2022. And some grocery stores began limiting the number of cartons customers could buy. Hawaii took the throne for the most expensive eggs, with a dozen reaching nearly $10.

Takeaway: Eggs have always been a cheap staple in Americans’ diet, but it seems like the prices have cracked the budget. With a shortage in supply and a scramble for demand, we’ll all have to shell out a little more to make a decent omelette. But don't worry, experts predict that the prices will soon be back to normal, so you can enjoy your breakfast without breaking the bank.

2. Markets Rundown

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Stocks rallied as bullish semiconductor data lifted tech stocks.

Movers & Shakers

(+) Wayfair ($W) +27% because JPMorgan double-upgraded the furniture company's stock.
(+) Qualcomm ($QCOM) +7% after Barclays upgraded the stock and issued a bullish outlook on the semiconductor industry.
(–) Xylem ($XYL) -7% after the water tech company announced it will aquire Evoqua.

Private Dealmaking

Microsoft will invest $10 billion in OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT
Xylem will buy Evoqua, a water technology company, for $7.5 billion
PhonePe, an Indian payments and financial services firm, raised $350 million
SetPoint Medical, a biotech company that treats autoimmune diseases, raised $80 million
Zift, a provider of partner relationship software, raised $70 million
Link, a fintech startup focused on online payments, raised $30 million

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3. Top Reads

Blackstone’s record PE secondaries fund sets up another big year (Axios)
The big banks want their lucrative lending back (BB)
Here are the federal tax brackets for 2023 vs 2022 (YF)
The common misconceptions that can prevent you from a perfect credit score (CNBC)
What Gen Z wants to be when they grow up (Axios)
Charlie Munger reveals the reason why Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on $88 billion of cash (YF)
What employees need to know about benefits after a layoff (CNBC)
Payments remain the darling of the fintech space (TC)
The new tension between governments and central banks (Axios)

4. Book of the Day: The Status Game

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“This inbuilt need to achieve and maintain status gives us a thirst for rank and a fear of its loss that deforms our thinking and denies us the possibility of reliable happiness.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

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What Else to Read: Calling All Sports Fans

If you’re into (or even sort of into) sports: The GIST is a must-subscribe newsletter that provides a refreshing female voice and perspective on sports 4x a week.

If ‘do the thing and score the points’ is your baseline understanding of sports, you might enjoy this to uplevel your knowledge!

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6. Daily Visual: Rent Prices Wylin'

Average share of monthly household income going to rent in the US

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen

“For many, the goal is to be the deciding vote, the donation that gets a cause over the goal, the person who counts.

And often, we enjoy piling on. Once the cause or fashion or tech is clearly working, it’s easy and fun to say “me too.”

More rare, more vulnerable and more important is to decide to show up in the lonely zone.

When it might not work. When the originator really needs your support.

When speaking up, donating or simply showing up feels like a risk or a waste.”

Source: Seth Godin

8. Job Board

Tesla - Inside Sales Advisor - Henderson, NV
Robinhood - Senior Product Manager - New York, NY
TeamViewer - Project Engineer - Atlanta, GA
Amex - Finance Manager - New York, NY
KeyBank - Finance Analyst - Cleveland, OH
Citi - Global Finance Manager - New York, NY

9. Memes of the Day

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