🍋 Growth Stocks on a Comeback Trail

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Good Morning! Younger Americans have taken a massive bite out of Apple. A new study found that Gen Z accounts for 34% of iPhone users in the U.S. Cities across the country are considering pulling their tax breaks for companies in an effort to get employees back into the office.

Restaurants like Panera and P.F. Chang’s are cashing in on the subscription craze to boost sales. A new study found that 80% of companies plan to raise workers’ base pay in 2023. And JPMorgan Chase became one of the first major companies to ban ChatGPT for employees (oof).

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1. Story of the Day: Growth Stocks Rebound

Investors are in a frenzy over growth stocks, but the question on everyone's mind is: is it sustainable? While the Russell 3000 Growth Index has been dominating the stock market in 2023, some are concerned that these shares might have reached their peak.

In 2022, growth stocks struggled because of high-interest rates, and the need for growth stocks to borrow money as they expanded. But while the Fed seems likely to keep rates high, investors are warming back up to the long-term outlook of growth stocks. 

Investors are taking a calculated risk, betting that slowing inflation will give the Federal Reserve a break and ease up on their rate increases. The result? A surge in the stock market that's got everyone buzzing.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note has seen its ups and downs, but with long-term rates on the decline, investors are once again embracing growth and technology companies that have been on the rise for the past decade.

Takeaway: This year's rally marks a sharp contrast to the previous year, where value stocks took center stage during a downturn. But if we head towards a recession in 2023, we might see a reversal, and value stocks might continue to dominate.

2. Markets Rundown

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Stocks closed lower as the Fed reiterates it will fight inflation at all costs.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) La-Z-Boy ($LZB) +15% after the furniture company beat on Q4 earnings.

• (+) Wix ($WIX) +12% after the website maker beat on revenue and earnings.

• (–) Keysight Technologies ($KEYS) -13% after the electronics testing company issued weaker guidance.

Private Dealmaking

• FreshToHome, an online fresh meat retailer, raised $104 million

• Vytalize, a senior care enabler, raised $100 million

• Quantum Motion, a quantum computing company, raised $50.5 million

• Dronamics, a cargo drone airline startup, raised $40 million

• Prokarium, an immunotherapy startup, raised $30 million

• Risilience, a British climate analytics startup, raised $26 million

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3. Top Reads

• The worker flexibility premium (Axios)

• The $100M venture round is going extinct (TC)

• Bond King says ‘here comes the hard landing’ (YF)

• How Palo Alto created capitalism as we know it (Vox)

• The new 2024 Mercedes E-Class will have TikTok built in (CNN)

• Fed minutes show members resolved to keep fighting inflation (CNBC)

• Inflation’s hitting some states harder than others (YF)

• The five-day work week is dead (Vox)

• The Wall Street firm that taught SBF about effective altruism (NYT)

• Coinbase’s earnings report comes with crypto anarchism (Axios)

4. Book of the Day: Palo Alto

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Palo Alto’s weather is temperate, its people are educated and enterprising, its corporations are spiritually and materially ambitious and demonstrably world-changing. Palo Alto is also a haunted toxic waste dump built on stolen Indian burial grounds, and an integral part of the capitalist world system.

In Palo Alto, the first comprehensive, global history of Silicon Valley, Malcolm Harris examines how and why Northern California evolved in the particular, consequential way it did, tracing the ideologies, technologies, and policies that have been engineered there over the course of 150 years of Anglo settler colonialism, from IQ tests to the "tragedy of the commons," racial genetics, and "broken windows" theory.

The Internet and computers, too. It's a story about how a small American suburb became a powerful engine for economic growth and war, and how it came to lead the world into a surprisingly disastrous 21st century. Palo Alto is an urgent and visionary history of the way we live now, one that ends with a clear-eyed, radical proposition for how we might begin to change course.

“The history of Silicon Valley, from railroads to microchips, is an “extraordinary” story of disruption and destruction, told for the first time in this comprehensive, jaw-dropping narrative.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• Financebuzz’s team of credit card experts has put together a comprehensive list of the top cards that offer extended periods of 0% interest rates. Check out the list here

• How to set achievable goals

• How to fix distractions at work

• What being filthy rich in Europe looked like 1,000 years ago

• Break the cycle of bad self-improvement advice

• Risk and regret

6. Daily Visual: Price of the Off-White Jordan 1 High “Chicago” Sneaker

_{Source: Axios}

7. Daily Acumen

Why Success Doesn’t Lead to Satisfaction:

"The insatiable goals to acquire more, succeed conspicuously, and be as attractive as possible lead us to objectify one another, and even ourselves.

When people see themselves as little more than their attractive bodies, jobs, or bank accounts, it brings great suffering…

You become a heartless taskmaster to yourself, seeing yourself as nothing more than Homo economicus.

Love and fun are sacrificed for another day of work, in search of a positive internal answer to the question Am I successful yet?

We become cardboard cutouts of real people."

_{Source: The Atlantic}

8. Job Board

• UBS - Structured Finance Trader - New York, NY

• Apple Bank for Savings - Data Analyst - Anti-Financial Crime - New York, NY

• Citi - Senior Vice President, Market Risk - New York, NY

• Amex - Senior Financial Analyst - New York, NY

• FTI Consulting, Inc. - Senior Consultant - New York, NY

• JP Morgan Chase - Executive Director - New York, NY

9. Memes of the Day

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