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China's Housing Market Is Cooling Off, And Doing So Quickly The Chinese housing market has missed the inflation memo. New data out this week showed Chinese new-home prices in the country falling roughly 1% in the last year, breaking more than 6 consecutive years of rising prices. Although a relatively small drop, the fall in new-home prices is just the latest piece of evidence that paints a concerning picture for the largest residential property market in the world. Sales of apartments by the country's largest developers have fallen for 13 months straight and hundreds of buildings that were presold have been left unfinished leading some homeowners to stop paying their mortgage, a rare show of dissent in the country. All told, the WSJ estimates that billions of square meters of residential homes have been started. Chinese officials are doing all they can with numerous policies aimed at reinvigorating the sputtering sector. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

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𝙸𝚗𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝙸𝚗 𝙽𝙵𝚃'𝚜 𝙸𝚜 𝚆𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 The latest data from aggregator nonfungible.com shows that the volume traded in NFTs has dropped steeply in recent weeks, as NFT-mania slows down. One part of the NFT market that has held up are "collectibles" — collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club, which routinely trade for more than $500k+ and double up as a membership card to the "Yacht Club". Trading volumes in Bored Apes, and other high profile projects, have stayed elevated, with ~$15m worth of Bored Apes changing hands per day in April. That's a lot in nominal terms, but in the context of traditional financial markets it's still small. We picked one of the smallest stocks in the S&P 500 index at random, Campbell Soup Company, and found that it traded more than $57m a day in April, almost 4x the Bored Ape volume. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

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More Data 1) New data from Gallup reveals the unhappiest countries in the world. 2) Shares in ride-hailing company Lyft jumped 17% yesterday after rumors circulated on social media that General Motors was contemplating another bid for the company. 3) ‘Metaverse’, ‘shrinkflation’, and ‘ICYMI’ are just some of the 370 words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary this year. 4) The NFL season is back under way and FiveThirtyEight have put their predictions together — see if you can beat them. 5) On Wednesday we wrote about the strength of USD, now the dollar is edging towards a symbolic milestone against the Chinese renminbi. 6) College grads tend to marry other grads (81% of the time), a phenomenon that holds even more strongly if the person's parents also went to college, according to a new study. 7) How sustainable is fake meat? Interesting study and research from Ars Technica. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

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Visualizing The Minimum Wage In America: State By State Fast food workers in California might be looking at a hefty pay rise after the Golden State governor signed a bill that could see minimum wage within the industry jump to $22 an hour. As charted above, California’s minimum wage is already the nation’s joint third-highest, with the base level at $14 an hour — or $15 for companies with over 25 employees. As inflation erodes the value of people's pay packets, workers are increasingly seeking out more rewarding employment opportunities in one of the tightest labor markets on record. At the same time, union support in the US has hit a 57-year-high, with the approval rating for labor unions now sitting at some 71%. High-profile unionization efforts at corporate giants like Amazon and Starbucks have sparked conversations on pay and working conditions at an increasing number of companies. In states like Texas, Georgia, and some 18 others, there isn’t a state-set minimum wage. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Tim Cook Has Squeezed A Lot Of Juice From Apple's Product Range Apple's latest iPhone reveal — complete with a full roster of supporting acts — took place on Wednesday. Millions tuned in to see the iPhone 14 and a refresh of Apple's most-popular wearables, including new AirPod Pro's and a more resilient Apple Watch. Critics will complain that, even with some cool design updates, the iPhone 14 is more of an evolution than a revolution on the product side. That's a fair critique — and one that's been levelled at Apple many times since Tim Cook took over as CEO from Steve Jobs in 2011. The strongest rebuttal to that criticism is seen in the chart above: during Cook's tenure sales have more than tripled and the company's share price is up more than tenfold. While the product line-up may not have changed dramatically, Apple's Services division is undergoing a revolution. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Longest Reigning Monarchs The sad news of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing was confirmed yesterday. The Palace announced that the 96-year-old monarch had died peacefully at Balmoral, her beloved summer residence, setting in motion a plan for her funeral known as Operation London Bridge. The Queen's passing comes just a few months after she celebrated her Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne, and just a few days after meeting the new UK PM, Liz Truss. Leaders and notable figures around the world lined up to send tributes and the Queen’s son, now King Charles III, issued a statement mourning his mother, the longest-ruling British monarch in the nation's history. All told, over her 25,782 days as monarch, Elizabeth II made 82 state visits, met with 5 popes, owned 40 Welsh Corgi dogs, met 13 US presidents (missing LBJ) and advised 15 different British prime ministers. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Air travel is back. Labor Day saw the TSA screen 8.76 million people from Friday to Monday, topping the same weekend in 2019. 2) Does the Monopoly Man really wear a monocle? This YouGov polling measures the Mandela effect. 3) Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill was the song of the summer in the US, where first time listens from Gen Z soared some 7,800% according to Spotify. 4) Russia has cut off gas supplies to Europe via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, compounding the continent's energy woes. 5) Liz Truss has become the UK’s 3rd female leader and the 15th prime minister to serve under Queen Elizabeth II. 6) Conversing with cacti: a new survey found that 48% of people talk to their houseplants. 7) Is democracy sliding backwards? A study from Our World In Data. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The US Dollar Has Gained Against Every Major Currency The dollar in your pocket might buy a little less at the grocery store thanks to inflation, but if you travel abroad you may actually find it going further than you expected, as the US dollar continues to strengthen against other major currencies. At the time of writing, one euro is worth just $0.99, a two-decade low for the European currency, while one British pound is worth just $1.15 — the lowest level for GBP since 1985. The recent moves follow a stand-out performance for the dollar in August, when it was the second best-performing global asset for the month only behind natural gas. The Federal Reserve's continuing support for steep interest rate hikes, in a bid to curb inflation, has been more aggressive than in other regions. That's been attractive to investors seeking higher rates on their cash, and is likely to continue given the Fed's firm stance on taming inflation. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Golden Age Of Cinema Attendance Was 20 Years Ago More than 8 million moviegoers were drawn in by the glow of their local silver screens last Saturday as $3 tickets were offered up at theaters across the nation, resulting in the busiest day for cinemas in 2022. Independent picture houses and national chains like AMC and Regal chipped in to celebrate America’s first National Cinema Day, offering discount deals across some 30,000 screens. Though box office revenues have risen in recent years — largely due to inflation bumping the average movie ticket price up — actual ticket sales have been dipping ever since the golden age of admissions back in 2002, when 1.6 billion movie-lovers rushed out to see films like Spider-Man and Star Wars Ep. II. National Cinema Day offered a much-needed injection of interest for the big screen, but the cinema industry at large is still struggling to recover post-pandemic. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Porsche Has been A Jewel In The Volkswagen Group Portfolio This week Volkswagen confirmed its intention to float shares in Porsche in the coming weeks — an IPO that, if it comes off, would be one of the largest in recent European history. Analysts are valuing the company at anywhere between $60bn and $85bn ahead of the proposed listing, though it's difficult to overstate how precious a jewel in VW’s crown the sports car maker is. Within the vast Volkswagen Group portfolio, Porsche and Audi are the two biggest profit engines by some distance. However, when compared to VW's passenger car division — which sold 2.7 million vehicles last year — Porsche's production is small. The iconic brand sold just ~300k cars but, thanks to an average selling price of around $100k and a lean cost base, Porsche produced roughly 2x the operating income of the mainstream VW brand. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Pakistan has already experienced 3 times as much rain as it does in an average year, these charts explore the downpour and its deadly impact. 2) Mortgage rates rose again to 5.66% this week. That has left median monthly mortgage payments now more than 40% higher than rents (WSJ chart). 3) Blue Monday? Explore how 450 people with synesthesia see days, months and numbers (through bright, colorful charts, obviously.) 4) Poland has estimated that WW2 losses caused by Germany did $1.3 trillion of damage — now the country might seek reparations. 5) An AI-generated piece of artwork has taken a top prize at the Colorado State Fair fine arts contest. 6) The first episodes of the new Lord of the Rings TV show are out. Between the rights and production costs the series has reportedly cost some $715m — making it the most expensive TV show in history (by a lot). 7) Where do your favorite memes come from? A study from Know Your Meme. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Has Hit Its Lowest Level For 38 Years America’s crude oil stockpile has fallen below 450 million barrels, marking its lowest level since 1984, as the Biden administration continues to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to alleviate the premium that Americans are paying at the pumps. First introduced by President Ford in 1975 as a means of mitigating oil supply disruptions in the states, the SPR has functioned more recently as an American price-control tool following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Washington pledged to release an average of 1 million barrels of oil a day from the SPR over 6 months, in a plan to tackle rising gas prices which reached over $5-per-gallon earlier this year. Whilst multi-million barrel drawdowns aren’t uncommon — previous presidents have used the SPR as an emergency response to the Gulf War and Hurricane Katrina. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Lululemon Has Built A Huge Direct- To- Consumer Business Since 2006 Lululemon reported another set of impressive sales numbers yesterday, as the company best known for its yoga-pants continues to successfully stretch itself into new markets — sending shares up 10% at the time of writing. The company has been reaping the rewards of a number of new ventures. Its nascent menswear division grew by some 27% in the recent quarter and their latest endeavor — getting into the shoe market — is likely to add to sales in coming months, as is the at-home fitness product, Mirror, which it acquired for $500m in 2020. With slick marketing and a sometimes cult-like customer base, Lululemon regularly squeezes out some of the best operating margins in the industry — even matching branding giant Nike in recent years. And that's not where the similarity ends. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Test Scores For 9 - Year - Old Have Dropped Across The United States The national report card isn’t looking great. Data out this week revealed that 9-year-olds’ math and reading scores took a huge hit in the last two years — a worrying early sign of the pandemic’s impact on education. Reading results are down some 5 points, the steepest decline since 1990, and math scores have declined for the first time since the National Assessment of Educational Progress began in the 1970s. When Covid-19 shut down schools and parents began to stand in as substitute teachers, many expected that education would suffer, but the full toll is only now becoming clear. For top-performing students the change in results in the last 2 years has been relatively modest, with scores falling just 2 and 3 points for reading and math, respectively. Sadly, however, it was the students who were already struggling most that suffered the worst drops following the pivot to at-home education. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Visualizing the national changes in female voting registration post-Roe. 2) French tax authorities have used Google AI to find 20,000 undeclared swimming pools. 3) America’s crude oil emergency reserve fell another 3.1 million barrels, to its lowest level since 1984. 4) How human sleep patterns compare to other animals. 5) 43% of Americans fear that a US civil war is ‘somewhat likely’ in the next decade. 6) It might be time to check your old baseball card collection: this one has just sold for a record $12.6m, nearly double the previous record. 7) Fascinating deep-dive from our friends at The Pudding who found that 77 of the first 100 episodes of The Big Bang Theory have at least one edit for their Chinese audience. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Pumpkin Spice Season Is Here Starbucks has announced the return of the PSL, or Pumpkin Spice Latte to the uninitiated, its most-popular seasonal special of all time. The creamy concoction is a signal for devotees that fall has arrived — no matter how early the drink comes in the calendar year. Despite being derided by some, the PSL has become a staple — or just a meme — of the fall season. Google searches for ‘pumpkin spice’ hit their peak around the late August period, with pumpkin heads keen to get their hands on the first PSL of the season. Further out, interest spikes again around Thanksgiving, when pie-makers presumably start looking for the ideal pumpkin spice blend ahead of the big family gathering. "Invented" by someone pouring espresso over a pumpkin pie — and deciding that the result would make a good drink — the PSL has become a genuinely substantial product for Starbucks. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Snapchat's Advertising Business Has Matured, But Losses Keep Mounting Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, is reportedly set to layoff 20% of their employees, putting 1,200+ people at risk of losing their jobs. Snap's core business — selling ads — has matured significantly in the last 7 years. In 2015 the company made just a few cents from every user, but last year they made more than $3 per quarter for each active Snapchatter. That growth took Snap to more than $4bn a year in revenue, but other projects and runaway expenses have seen the company notch a net loss in 29 of the last 30 quarters. The company's AR smartglasses, Spectacles, received heavy investment as did Pixy — the company's camera drone which was discontinued after just a few months. Both fell under Snap's grand plan to reinvent the camera — an ambition that so far has contributed to a cumulative net loss of $8.9 billion since 2015. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Buffett Indicator: where Are US Stick Market Valuations Now? The US S&P 500 Index fell some 23% in the first six months of the year, as biting inflation gave policymakers few options but to raise interest rates, and raise them quickly. Over the summer, equity markets recovered somewhat, as new evidence suggested that inflation might have peaked. However, recent investor optimism was extinguished on Friday by Fed chair Jay Powell, who poured cold water on the idea that the Fed might slow down. Powell warned that more rate rises are coming and that there will be "some pain" for households and businesses. US stocks fell more than 3% almost immediately after he finished speaking, and have continued to slide further this week. The recent stock market moves left us wondering where equity valuations were. With hundreds of different ways to value stocks, we settled on arguably the simplest: the ratio of total market cap. to GDP. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

"Quiet Quitters" and "Antiworlers" Are Having An Online Uprising One of the hottest topics on social media in the last few weeks has been "quiet quitting", with videos using just one associated hashtag racking up nearly 40 million views on TikTok. The movement — often exclusively ascribed to Gen Z and younger Millennial employees — is a pretty broad church, though all participants push a rejection of hustle culture. Quiet quitting embodies the idea that you should do your explicit job description, and your explicit job description only, in the workplace. Despite being relatively contained to social media, the idea has provoked numerous think pieces from major publications on the subject and, of course, some backlash. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Federal Student Loans: A Borrower Breakdown By Amount Owed President Biden's announcement this week that up to $10k of outstanding student debt per person will be forgiven is an historic — although divisive — moment. As our coverage back in April showed, federal student loan debt in America has ballooned in recent decades to around $1.6 trillion — more than what is owed by American consumers on car loans and credit cards. Estimates suggest that Biden's debt cancellation could cost somewhere around $300bn, equivalent to roughly 19% of all outstanding student loans. Student debt is split amongst more than 46 million Americans, with a pretty wide-range of outstanding balances. Data from the Dept. of Education (via NBC) shows that just shy of 15m people owe less than $10k, and will therefore be debt-free if they earn under the $125k threshold. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Peloton Doesn't Make Money From Selling Equipment Any More High-end fitness equipment company Peloton scored a big victory this week, announcing a deal with Amazon that sent the company's share price up some 20% on Wednesday. Unfortunately, like the day after a really long cycle, the pain soon set in for Peloton as they then released a quarterly earnings report that revealed a $1.2bn loss. Among the many alarm bells in the report, the one ringing loudest of all is that Peloton is now losing money on what used to be its core business: selling fitness equipment. The company reported that it had "cut hardware prices in order to sell inventory ... despite selling that hardware at a negative gross margin". That means the company is leaning heavily on its subscription business — where users pay monthly for access to live workouts, leader boards, advanced tracking and a library of fitness content. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) The IRS is refunding $1.2 billion in late filing fines issued to taxpayers over the pandemic period. 2) Tipping figures are up 10% from last year as Americans refuse to let inflation get in the way of their service industry appreciation. 3) Long Covid could be keeping some 2-4 million Americans out of work. 4) What to watch over the weekend? Explore this interactive chart that tracks the common genre combinations for some cinema inspiration. 5) Does spending big help new teams in the Premier League? 6) It’s time we put traditional financial media to rest. For news with sophisticated investors in mind, check out The Daily Upside – it’s crisp, easy to read, and covers stories mainstream media let slip through the cracks. Sign up here. 7) This data-viz timeline shows how smartphones left cameras for dead. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) A day after the legendary NBA star would have turned 44, here’s Kobe Bryant’s career given the data-viz breakdown treatment. 2) New estimates suggest that the cost of raising a child in the US has hit $310k on average. 3) A clean and simple visualization of annual sunshine and rainfall across mainland USA. 4) The ‘holy grail of Apple memorabilia,’ an Apple-1 Prototype used by Steve Jobs has just sold for nearly $700k. 5) Americans are reportedly holding around $21 billion in unused gift cards — time to get digging for those long-forgotten Christmas and birthday vouchers. 6) India’s sex ratio is beginning to look a little more equal as the son bias brought about 50 years ago starts to wane. 7) Struggling cycle specialists Peloton have struck a deal with Amazon to sell their fitness equipment on the site, sending the company's shares up 18% in early trading. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Zoom Was Briefly One Of The Most Valuable Communications Companies Zoom reported its slowest ever quarter of revenue growth, with sales rising just 8% in the last year for their Q2 as the company struggles to convert its user base into paying customers. Like a team member stuck on mute, Zoom has been touting its progress on both the enterprise and consumer side, but investors haven't been listening. Stricter time limits for users on the free tier haven't pushed enough new customers to Zoom's online segment, which translated into a 9% fall in revenue in that division, the second consecutive quarter of decline. The struggling online segment, combined with a deceleration in the enterprise side of the business, got investors concerned, sending Zoom's share price down another 16% yesterday. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Visualizing Life Expectancy And Income Per Capita, By State New data out this week from the CDC made for slightly sobering reading, as estimates for life expectancy at birth fell across every state in the country. At the national level, US life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years, with the pandemic and an increase in drug overdoses responsible for much of the decline. We dove into the new data, finding a pretty wide variation in life expectancy between states, which we've visualized above against per capita personal income. There's a somewhat depressing — but slightly unsurprising — correlation between higher incomes and longer life expectancy at the state-level. Although that correlation was fairly clear across the 50 states, there were a few outliers that were of particular interest. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Name Of Thrones HBO said yesterday that House of the Dragon, its hotly-anticipated, $200m Game of Thrones prequel, became the network’s most-watched premiere of all time after the best part of 10 million viewers tuned in to see the GoT universe expand. Watchers across the world were clearly keen to forgive and forget the sins of the last Thrones installment as they welcomed all things Westeros back into their lives — not least of all this impressively-synchronized apartment block in New York. Despite a lacklustre final season (cool heatmap of the show's IMDB ratings here), GoT's cultural impact is hard to overstate. Data from the SSA shows how many babies have been named after prominent characters, with the latest counts showing that almost 20,000 Aryas and 3,800 Khaleesis have been born since the show first aired in 2011. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) The drought in the west of the US is the worst for 1200 years — it’s now so bad that it can be seen from space. 2) Unwanted: Kohl's is the latest retailer to have inventory problems, with the company reporting 48% more inventory left on its books than it did this time last year. 3) A closer look at the world’s skinniest skyscraper which is 23.5x as tall as it is wide. 4) Lebron James just became the highest-paid NBA player of all time after signing a $97.1m contract extension. 5) Fancy a facetime with a somewhat strapped-for-cash celeb? Cameo is now offering 10-minute calls with some of its stars. 6)Over 4 million people start their day with our friends at Morning Brew — the free daily newsletter covering all things business from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Check it out. 7)Flying off the shelves: American Airlines has agreed to buy 20 supersonic planes from jet startup Boom Supersonic. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Rise Of Dining Out In the unlikely event that you're a teenager reading this and trying to convince your parents to eat out this weekend, we have some statistical backup for you to deploy. In the last 12 months grocery store prices have jumped 13.1% in the US, while the cost of eating away from home has *only* gone up 7.6% over the same period. These figures are particularly interesting when set against the backdrop of a mega-trend from the last few decades. Expenditure data from the USDA shows that, as recently as 1997, some 53% of food expenditure in the US was on food eaten and prepared at home. COVID closures briefly reversed this trend, but with the inflationary gap between eating in vs. out at its widest since the 1970s, people may be tempted to turn away from home-made meals in favor of letting someone else do the cheffing a little more often. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Activity On Airbnb Has Steadily Recovered From The Pandemic When it comes to parties, Airbnb has a few reservations. The home-sharing site announced a temporary party ban back in 2020, codified the move permanently in June, and are now introducing what they are calling "anti-party technology" in the US and Canada. The move comes in the wake of a solid 12 months for Airbnb, which has seen the number of stays and experiences booked on the site bounce back above pre-pandemic levels. Reservations hit the 100 million mark for the second consecutive quarter, equating to $17bn of gross booking value, which suggests the company can afford to $17bn of gross booking value, which suggests the company can afford to be a little more selective with their admissions policies. The party-preventing tech is a little less sophisticated/dystopian — depending on your perspective — than it sounds. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Checking In On Meme-Stock Mania: Where Are They Now? A college student, Jake Freeman, had made $110m trading shares in Bed Bath & Beyond. The ailing retailer first became a minor meme stock in early 2021 when traders on reddit forum r/wallstreetbets rallied against the titans of high finance. Since we first wrote about the meme-stock phenomenon, a lot has changed. Gone are the stimulus checks and loose monetary policy, replaced with inflation and an economy on the brink of a recession. Without the chart above for reference, you might have guessed that GameStop — the original meme-stock — might have completely cratered in that environment, but GME shares have held onto most of their gains surprisingly well. A theoretical $100 invested in GameStop at the start of 2021 would have turned into more than $1,800 at the stock's peak. Although the shares have drifted lower since then, they remain some 10-20x higher than where they were for most of 2020. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Retailer Target missed the mark as they unloaded unwanted inventory at a discount, sending the company's Q2 net income down some 90% on this time last year. 2) How two YouTube fraudsters ticket their way into $23m worth of music royalties. 3) Elon Musk claims the Tesla Model Y is on-track to become the best-selling car in the world by revenue in 2022, and that it could take the top spot by volume in 2023 as well. 4) The future of public trash cans is here, and they're expensive — these new designs cost $20k. 5) Interesting visualization of the male-to-female population ratio at different ages. 6) The world's 10 biggest pharma companies brought in more than $700bn in revenue last year, according to a report from Fortune. 7) Live tracking Twitter’s most-used emoji. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

China's Housing Market Is Cooling Off, And Doing So Quickly The Chinese housing market has missed the inflation memo. New data out this week showed Chinese new-home prices in the country falling roughly 1% in the last year, breaking more than 6 consecutive years of rising prices. Although a relatively small drop, the fall in new-home prices is just the latest piece of evidence that paints a concerning picture for the largest residential property market in the world. Sales of apartments by the country's largest developers have fallen for 13 months straight and hundreds of buildings that were presold have been left unfinished leading some homeowners to stop paying their mortgage, a rare show of dissent in the country. All told, the WSJ estimates that billions of square meters of residential homes have been started. Chinese officials are doing all they can with numerous policies aimed at reinvigorating the sputtering sector. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

R-Rated Movies Are Struggling To Breakthrough At The Box Office Expletive-laden scenes filled with sequences of graphic violence might be playing out between some movie producers in Hollywood this year, as our friends at Axios recently reported that R-rated movies have pulled in just 14% of the box office revenue in 2022 so far. That's the lowest count of any of the last 27 years, according to the latest data from The Numbers. Jordan Peele’s new horror Nope is the only R-rated flick to hit the $100m+ domestic milestone so far this year, while 9 PG-13 movies have already achieved the same feat. Although there have been some recent standouts like American Sniper, Deadpool, and Joker that have pulled in some very respectable numbers, distributors are increasingly looking to move their more-mature offerings away from theatres entirely and into the world of streaming. When adjusted for inflation, almost all of the highest grossing modern R-rated movies are now 10, 15 or 20 years old. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

There Are Big Companies, And Then There Is Saudi Aramco Been wondering where all that extra money you've been shelling out on gas over the last year has been going? Well, there's a decent chance at least some of it ended up in the pockets of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil firm, which this week announced a staggering $48.4bn of net income for the second quarter — an eye-watering sum even by their standards. The Saudi Arabian company, which is largely state-run, is the latest to benefit from rising oil and energy prices, as many countries attempt to wean themselves off Russian supplies. It's hard to convey how big Saudi Aramco truly is — but the best bet is to compare it against the behemoths of big tech. Incredibly, Aramco’s net income more than doubles Apple’s comparatively measly $19.4bn in their latest quarter — and it takes adding Microsoft, Meta and Tesla to get to a number that's even slightly comparable to what Aramco pulled in for Q2. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Retailer Target missed the mark as they unloaded unwanted inventory at a discount, sending the company's Q2 net income down some 90% on this time last year. 2) How two YouTube fraudsters ticket their way into $23m worth of music royalties. 3) Elon Musk claims the Tesla Model Y is on-track to become the best-selling car in the world by revenue in 2022, and that it could take the top spot by volume in 2023 as well. 4) The future of public trash cans is here, and they're expensive — these new designs cost $20k. 5) Interesting visualization of the male-to-female population ratio at different ages. 6) The world's 10 biggest pharma companies brought in more than $700bn in revenue last year, according to a report from Fortune. 7) Live tracking Twitter’s most-used emoji. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐