Short Squeez
Posts
🍋 Holiday Layoffs Szn

🍋 Holiday Layoffs Szn

Is it just a cruel coincidence that December and January are historically the two highest months for job cuts?

December 20, 2022

Together With

“The difference between average and exceptional results is what you avoid.” — Shane Parrish

Good Morning! Twitter users have decided that Elon Musk should step down as CEO of the platform, but he might have a hard time finding a replacement (podcaster Lex Fridman and Edward Snowden have thrown their hat into the ring). A poll found the youth mental health crisis isn’t getting better and may have been made worse by remote learning. The Avatar sequel opened to $134 million, just missing box office expectations. SBF was sent back to a Bahamas jail Monday in a chaotic courtroom scene, after a plan for him to waive his extradition to the US stalled.

Want to invest in wine? Today's sponsor Vint is making it possible to invest in an asset class that has historically returned 8.5% annually for the last 120 years.

1. Story of the Day: Holiday Layoffs Szn

The "most wonderful time of the year" is actually the most terrifying time for employees! It seems like every year, companies are eager to give their employees the gift of unemployment right before the holidays. Is it just a cruel coincidence that December and January are historically the two highest months for job cuts? It's hard to say, but it's clear that many companies are feeling a little Grinch-like this December.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, December is often the second-highest month for layoffs, but the real winner (or loser, depending on how you look at it) is January.

Professional and business services, finance, insurance, and real estate have consistently had above-average layoffs in January for the past decade. It's like they're trying to make a clean sweep of the old year and start fresh with a new balance sheet based on organizational performance and their predictions about the economy.

Even the retail industry gets in on the holiday firing fun, hiring temporary help in October and November only to send them packing in January once the holiday sales are over.

Takeaway: Here's to hoping your company gives you the gift of job security this year. But don't despair if not. Experts still think the job market is hot, and hopefully economic pain in 2023 is mild.

2. Markets Rundown

If you want access to Wall Street insider interviews, industry deep-dives, premium research/resources and weekly Knowledge Drop newsletter, check out our Insiders membership.

Stocks closed lower for the fourth straight day amidst recession fears.

Movers & Shakers

(+) Alibaba ($BABAF) +9% after Hong Kong eased restrictions for international investors.
(–) Disney ($DIS) -5% after Avatar underperformed in theatres.
(–) Palintir ($PLTR) -8% after a downgrade from Morgan Stanley.

Private Dealmaking

L3Harris bought rocket maker Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.7 billion
Stonepeak Partners bought a 50% stake in the Key Access Pipeline System for $482 million
Amber Group, a Singapore-based crypto trading firm, raised $300 million
Alpha-9 Theranostics, a developer of radiopharmaceuticals to treat cancer, raised $75 million
NotCo, a Bezos-backed Chilean developer of food, raised $70 million
Poppi, a prebiotic soda brand that went viral on TikTok, raised $25 million

A Message from Vint: Securitized Wine & Spirit Investing

Investing in fine wine used to be only for the super-wealthy, but that’s changing. Vint is making it possible to invest in an asset class that has historically returned 8.5% annually for the last 120 years.*

With Vint, investors get access to a historically non-correlated asset class that provides efficient diversification via SEC-qualified collections.

Try it today.

*The Price of Wine. Journal of Financial Economics.See vint.co for full investment disclaimer. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.

4. Book of the Day: The Deficit Myth

Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure.

Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country.

Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis.

MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits.

With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society.

“Government deficit = Nongovernment surplus”

5. Short Squeez Picks

Mark Cuban’s 4 rules for becoming a millionaire
The most amazing breakthroughs of 2022
The philosophical reason you’re probably working in finance
Be wary of imitating high-status people
12 cheat codes to 10x your career

A Message from Olive Invest: It Feels Good to Have Options

There are over 80 million US adults with non-retirement brokerage accounts, but what to invest in has never been a more difficult question.

With stocks, bonds and crypto getting crushed, and volatility likely to be more frequent, options can help.

Unfortunately, investing in options has been an overwhelmingly poor experience with jargon like greeks, complex math, and chains of data making it inaccessible to most investors.

Olive Invest levels the playing field and gives every investor the ability to control their financial outcomes.

Olive Invest leverages machine learning to find optimal option strategies. You can search through 150,000+ optimized option strategies.

Create a free account and see today’s top 20 strategies.

6. Daily Visual: Where Real Wages are Falling Most Sharply

Changes in real wages per employee in selected OECD countries in Q3 2022 vs Q3 2021

Source: Statista

7. Daily Acumen

Rafal Nadal on why hard is good:

"One lesson I’ve learned is that if the job I do were easy, I wouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from it. The thrill of winning is in direct proportion to the effort I put in before.

I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don’t especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best.

That is how you win championships, that is what separates the great player from the merely good player. The difference lies in how well you’ve prepared."

8. Job Board

JPMorgan Chase Bank - Corporate Finance Analytics - VP - New York, NY
opentext - Sr. Manager, Risk & Corporate Finance - Richmond Hill, ON
National Indian Health Board - Finance Director - Washington, DC - Hybrid remote
ThinkEquity - Debt Investment Banker/Placement Agent - New York, NY
Internal Revenue Service - Senior Economist - San Francisco, CA
Ethic - Software Engineering Analyst, Trading / Portfolio Management - New York, NY

9. Memes of the Day

Advertise With Us / Merch Store / Private Equity Course

*****

A SQUEEZERS REVIEW

Want more Short Squeez?

Become an Insider. You'll get access to:

Industry deep-dives & compelling investment ideas
Wall Street Insider interviews breaking down their investment portfolio, strategy & investment picks
Knowledge Drop - an exclusive alpha-generating newsletter covering the best weekly research & content (podcasts, articles, blogs)
Vault – a collection of investing & recruiting guides, modeling courses, salary / comp data, institutional research (40+ resources added / month)

See you on the Inside.