🍋 Magic In The Hamptons Is Over

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Good Morning! Hope y'all had a nice & long weekend and didn't have to hit the gas pumps. Over Memorial Day weekend, US gasoline hit a record high of $4.619 per gallon, up 52% from last year. Also up from last year is WeWork's CFO count. They just named Andre Fernandez as the new CFO, making him the third person to hold the position in less than three years. Increasing interest rates have caused a rout in the equity markets. President Biden and Fed Chair Powell are scheduled to meet today to discuss the Fed's campaign against inflation and the risk of a recession.

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1. Story of the Day: Magic In The Hamptons Is Over

This summer is expected to be one of the busiest in a long time for trips and travel. That is to be expected given everyone has been cooped up for the past couple of years. The Hamptons rental market is facing an unexpected chill though. Apparently, New Yorkers spent the last two summers sheltered in the Hamptons and are planning more European travels this summer.

The Hamptons supply of rentals is booming, leading to lower prices for weekend getaways. Jonathan Miller, CEO of Millers Samuel said that median rental prices fell in the first quarter by 26%. Some owners are slashing even further, by 30% or more, just to have the properties not go unrented.

Enzo Morabito from Douglas Elliman said, "There is a tremendous amount of inventory and people are not renting it. And it's across all segments, from the very low to the very top of the market." One example he gave of a price cut was a waterfront rental that was asking for $70k a month, but a renter offered $45k instead. Enzo was hoping the renter would split the difference, but it's a renters market apparently.

Weaker demand may also be a result of a falling stock market especially since Hamptons market is tied closely to Wall Street fortunes. Strong home sales during the pandemic also meant those buyers removed themselves from the rental market.

The other thing to consider is how rent values were inflated in the past. Median rents for May were up 46% from pre-pandemic May 2019. Miller noted, "The assumption that rents would be sustainable at these elevated levels has been proven to be false."

Short Squeez Takeaway: The trend, or lack thereof, in the Hamptons is not representative of summer travel plans by any means. Right now, 73% of Americans are planning to travel this summer. Y'all better get ready for a tougher trip though. Thanks to supply chain issues and labor shortages, everything travel/tourism-related has a rough outlook. Gas prices are up, hotel rates are up, and airline fares are up. Maybe we should just do a staycation and check out places other than the same three bars in town?

Source: CNBC, Bloomberg

2. Markets Rundown

Equity markets were closed yesterday, but crypto got a pop thanks to improved investor sentiment in stocks last week.

Private Dealmaking

• Agriculture commodity financing startup, Stable, raised $60 million in Series B funding

• Prague based Manta raised $35 million in Series B funding led by Forestay Capital

• Joywell Foods, a sweet proteins startup, raised $25 million in Series B funding

• Carbon management platform for consumer brands, Planet FWD raised $10 million in Series A funding

• Battery Ventures offered to buy Australian auto software provider Infomedia

• Tech SPAC Mars Acquisition filed for a $75 million IPO

3. Top Reads

• Mini nuclear reactors and their outsized waste problem (BB)

• Resurrected luna token is already dying (CNBC)

• Premier League clubs are raising top ticket prices (BB)

• China facing a $1 trillion funding gap (CNBC)

• Rookie traders are having to grow up fast (WSJ)

• Hawaii is looking to the sun for energy (NYT)

• Blackstone's $5 billion goal for its Asia private credit business (BB)

• The US is back on top in the supercomputer race (NYT)

• Lumber prices down with interest rates up (WSJ)

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4. Book of the Day: So Help Me Golf: Why We Love the Game

This is the book Rick Reilly has been writing in the back of his head since he fell in love with the game of golf at eleven years old. He unpacks and explores all of the wonderful, maddening, heart-melting, heart-breaking, cool, and captivating things about golf that make the game so utterly addictive.

We meet the PGA Tour player who robbed banks by night to pay his motel bills, the golf club maker who takes weekly psychedelic trips, and the caddy who kept his loop even after an 11-year prison stint.

We learn how a man on his third heart nearly won the U.S. Open, how a Vietnam POW saved his life playing 18 holes a day in his tiny cell, and about the course that's absolutely free.

Reilly mines all of the game’s quirky traditions—from the shot of bourbon you take before you tee off at Peyton Manning’s course, to the way the starter at St. Andrews announces to your group (and the hundreds of tourists watching), “You’re on the first tee, gentlemen.”

He means that quite literally: St. Andrews has the first tee ever invented. We’ll visit the eighteen most unforgettable holes around the world (Reilly has played them all), including the hole in Indonesia where the biggest hazard is monkeys, the one in the Caribbean that's underwater, and the one in South Africa that requires a shot over a pit of alligators; not to mention Reilly’s attempt to play the most mini-golf holes in one day.

“I’d play every day if I could. It’s cheaper than a shrink.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• Sign up for free to International Intrigue, a global affairs briefing created by former diplomats to help the leaders better understand how geopolitics, business, and technology intersect

• Where women are most likely to make over $100k

• Last minute bailing is the new normal

6. Daily Visual: Domestic Population Growth

Percentage change in the population of US cities with more than 50k residents

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: B*tch-Eating-Crackers Effect

In psychology, a “trapped prior” is a perception of reality that’s colored, or trapped, by past experiences.

Trapped fears can become debilitating phobias if not treated.

Someone who was bitten as a child may have an overwhelming fear of dogs.

The way we see others can be shaped by our trapped priors as well, although not nearly as extreme.

Have you ever known someone you just couldn’t stand, but didn’t really know why?

They may have offended you in the past, and now you feel uncomfortable whenever they are around.

There’s a well-known meme for this phenomenon. It’s known as the “b*tch-eating-crackers effect.”

We treat people better or worse because of how they make us feel and our feelings are highly influenced by our priors.

Source: Nir and Far

8. Crypto Corner

• MoneyGram, Stellar, and El Salvador

• DeFi exploit on Terra went unnoticed for months

• More exploits, this time in the Mirror Protocol

• Kazakh crypto mining

• A Youtuber "once in a generation" Bitcoin bet is underwater

• Women will drive the next Bitcoin bull market

9. Memes of the Day

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What'd you think of today's email?

• 🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋 AAA Rated

• 🍋🍋🍋 Meh - was ok

• 🍋 Do better bruh

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