🍋 A Tale of Two Banks

Together With

Good Morning! Twitter is so behind on rent that the company is auctioning off its office espresso machines and kegerators. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is in court this week defending his infamous 2018 "funding secured" tweet.

China’s population fell for the first time in 6 decades, and this demographic dip could put a damper on the country's economic growth. Apple just revealed their products of 2023, including the strongest chips they've ever sold.

Gen Z is driving growth in luxury sales — everything from designer handbags and shoes, to watches, jewelry, apparel and beauty products — at age 15, 3-5 years earlier than millennials did.

Want to explain something to your colleague but don’t want to jump on a call to do it? Then check out today’s sponsor, ScreenSight that lets you create professional videos in a matter of minutes.

If you are interested in getting in front of a smart, young audience of business leaders, bankers, investment professionals, policy influencers of over 500,000 people, then fill out this form, we’ll be in touch.

1. Story of the Day: A Tale of Two Banks

Banks are starting to release their year-end financials, and it's looking like investors are over the inconsistent rollercoaster ride of investment banking revenue. As dealmaking dries up, they're opting for the comfort of steady income. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley released their year-end results yesterday, leaving investors with mixed reactions.

Morgan Stanley had investors swooning over their steady and reliable income from managing other people's money - it may not be exciting, but it's dependable. Morgan Stanley snagged up a handful of investment management firms like Eaton Vance and E*Trade over the past few years. It seems the investment-management fee game is paying off big time - it's raking in more than half of Morgan Stanley's total revenue.

Meanwhile, investors gave Goldman Sachs the cold shoulder for their focus on risky ventures in volatile trading and investment banking. While Goldman has focused on steady revenue over the past year, investors think they’re too late to the game.

When investment banking revenue across the street dropped by 50% in 2022, Morgan Stanley was able to pivot to grow its stable income. Goldman wasn’t as lucky, but it seems every major bank is chasing consistent fees in 2023.

Takeaway: Goldman’s investors have traded in their love for big wins in trading and hefty deal fees for the steady, reliable returns of repeatable revenue. Goldman has always been a top dog in the banking industry, but it might be playing catch-up with its peers in the future.

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.

The Dow and S&P 500 closed lower as earnings season picks up.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Roblox ($RBLX) +12% after December bookings increased.

• (+) Carvana ($CVNA) +4% after the company adopted a 'poison pill' plan to prevent a hostile takeover.

• (–) Goldman Sachs ($GS) -6% after the firm's worst earnings miss in a decade.

Private Dealmaking

• Belharra Therapeutics, a cancer treatment startup, raised $130 million

• Chronosphere, a data observability platform used by DoorDash and Zillow, raised $115 million

• Impel, a digital engagement platform for auto dealers, raised $104 million

• Caban Systems, an energy storage developer, raised $51 million

• Aerones, a startup that uses robots to clean wind turbines, raised $30 million

• Welcome Homes, a luxury homebuilding platform serving the New York area, raised $29 million

A Message from ScreenSight: Hello Video Messages, Goodbye Lengthy Emails

You’re inundated with emails and Zoom meetings. It takes you an hour to write one email. You want to explain something but don’t want to jump on a call to do it. You spend 10x the time making presentations as you do giving them. Ringing any bells?

Break free from the cycle with professional video messaging on ScreenSight.

With camera overlay, screen recording, group threads, comments and more, ScreenSight is here to level up your communication and save you time (and your sanity).

Presentations, pitches, proposals. Training videos. Product explainers. Or simple one-off messages to update your teammates on a project. Whatever you need, say it with video!

Try ScreenSight for free today.

3. Top Reads

• The states that have banned TikTok on government devices (YF)

• What one finance professor thinks about crypto (NYT)

• How to pick and stick to your yearly work goals (CNBC)

• Tech’s next big fights (Axios)

• How Adobe became one of America’s most valuable tech companies (WSJ)

• Goldman reports it’s biggest earnings miss in decades (YF)

• Longevity can have a greater impact on retirement money than inflation (CNBC)

• Just how common is corporate fraud? (NYT)

• How Bed Bath & Beyond stock buybacks undermined the company (YF)

4. Book of the Day: The Good Life

Brought to you by Shortform - Start your free trial & get 20% off

Shortform has the world's best guides to 1,000+ books in finance, careers, success, and many more. Get the key points in a matter of minutes and retain it all using interactive exercises. It costs ~1 book per month and you get access to an ever increasing library of thousands of books. Start getting smarter today.

What makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? According to the directors of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest scientific study of happiness ever conducted, the answer to these questions may be closer than you realize.

What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and overall healthier lives.

In fact, the Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of both our bodies and our brains as we go through life.

The invaluable insights in this book emerge from the revealing personal stories of hundreds of participants in the Harvard Study as they were followed year after year for their entire adult lives, and this wisdom is bolstered by research findings from this and many other studies.

Relationships in all their forms—friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, tennis partners, book club members, Bible study groups—all contribute to a happier, healthier life.

And as The Good Life shows us, it’s never too late to strengthen the relationships you have, and never too late to build new ones.

“If you had to make one life choice, right now, to set yourself on the path to future health and happiness, what would it be?”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• 6 meta-learning skills to become smarter

• Unconventional advice for improving your memory and concentration

• Using calendars and planners to manage your time and goals

• 12 simple decluttering tips for lazy people

• 52 things I learned in 2022

6. Daily Visual: China's Population Now Moving in Reverse

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen

"While walking is certainly not the most efficient way to see a city, it is the most pleasant, insightful, and human.

I don’t think you can know a place unless you walk it, because it isn’t about distance, but about content."

→ Why I Walk

8. Memes of the Day

 Advertise With Us / Merch Store / Private Equity Course

*****

Want more Short Squeez?

Become an Insider. You'll get access to:

1. Industry deep-dives & compelling investment ideas

2. Wall Street Insider interviews breaking down their investment portfolio, strategy & investment picks

3. Knowledge Drop - an exclusive alpha-generating newsletter covering the best weekly research & content (podcasts, articles, blogs)

4. Vault – a collection of investing & recruiting guides, modeling courses, salary / comp data, institutional research (40+ resources added / month)

See you on the Inside.

*****