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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

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

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How to make $2,200+ monthly in Telegram? With zero experience and no content... Guys from Telega Masters show this in their blog. Now Telegram channels are like Bitcoin back in 2011. The trend is just getting started. For example, in December they had all ads slots sold out, and had to turn down new clients. They've made $2,200 having five channels only. Now they have 40+ channels. Hurry up, and don't miss the trend, because: ▪️Annual ROI is over 14x ▪️Payback period is 1-2 months ▪️Subscriber cost is still low (~$0.10) ▪️You don't have to create content by yourself These guys are willing to share their subscribers with you for free, and they've got 40+ channels on business, finance, edutainment, and other topics. You wish to go back to 2011 to buy Bitcoin? Or you prefer to keep your life as is, and miss out on this huge trend, thanks to which you could make $2-5k monthly? Subscribe to the channel now @TelegaMasters

More Data 1) Coinbase is laying off 18% of its workforce, about 1,000 employees, citing a "crypto winter". We wrote about tech layoffs last week here. 2) Ford has recalled 2.9 million vehicles that are at risk of rolling away when parked. 3) Some good news for your wallet amidst the bad: the US dollar has hit a 20-year-high, suggesting that you should get a little more vacation for your buck if you go abroad. 4) New data shows extraordinarily fast global warming in the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean, with warming up to seven times the speed of the global average. 5) Your breakfast eggs just got a lot more boring; a shortage of spicy sauce Sriracha is coming. 6) Apple has signed a 10-year-deal with Major League Soccer to broadcast the matches on its TV+ service, its latest investment into exclusive content. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Master Of All Trades, Meet The 17 Members Of The Elite "EGOT" Club Taking home just one of the biggest awards in entertainment is a dream for many artists and performers. But some manage to receive the biggest awards in every major discipline — earning them a place in the EGOT club. This week Jennifer Hudson joined that club, winning a Tony Award as a producer for A Strange Loop. That makes Hudson the 17th person to have won a top award in television (Emmy), music (Grammy), film (Oscar) and theatre (Tony). She joins a star-studded list of actors, artists, producers and creatives including John Legend, Whoopi Goldberg, Audrey Hepburn and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Perhaps most impressive on this list is songwriter Robert Lopez, who strung together his first four wins in just 9 years, and has since gone on to become the first member of the "double EGOT" club, claiming each award at least twice for his songwriting on Frozen, The Book of Mormon, Coco and more. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

US Stock Are Officially In A Bear Market, Down 22% From Their Peak The bears are coming US stocks are officially in a bear market, with the S&P 500 Index closing down 22% below its previous peak yesterday as investors sold stocks for any number of valid concerns. As we've discussed previously, the tech-heavy NASDAQ and other market trackers had already breached the 20% decline threshold, but this is the first time the broader S&P 500 Index has done so... at least since March 2020. A 22% fall in the value of stocks in a little over 6 months isn't really good news for anyone, but sometimes it's helpful to zoom out and get some perspective. Looking back 18 months shows that the index is basically back to where it was at the start of 2021, which isn't too terrifying, and on a really long horizon this latest crash looks a lot like the crashes that have come before it, all of which eventually saw the market recover and move higher. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Once King Of Browsers, Internet Explorer Is Officially Shutting Down Internet Explorer's market share was estimated at one point to be as high as 90%, primarily because of the success of the Windows operating system, which often stipulated users use Internet Explorer — a practice that got Microsoft in trouble with the Justice Department in the late '90s. The writing has been on the wall for Internet Explorer for some time, as Microsoft has pushed users towards its latest browser — Microsoft Edge — for the last few years. Unfortunately, Edge hasn't exactly caught on. The latest data from StatCounter shows Edge with only a 4% share of the browser market, way down on Apple's Safari, which has just shy of 20% of the market, and nowhere near the dominant Google Chrome, which has 65%. Though some may look back with fond nostalgia, Internet Explorer was often criticized for being slow, cumbersome, buggy and insecure. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Mortgage Rates Spiked 0.55% Last Week, The Fastest Rise For 35 Years The average interest rate on a fixed 30-year mortgage has hit 5.78% in the US, jumping 0.55% on the week before — which is the sharpest one-week rise since 1987. Cooling off The sharp upward movement, which has seen rates almost double in just 6-7 months, is a big deal when you account for the fact that house prices themselves are still near record highs. High prices, and now high(er) rates = a record drop in housing affordability. More expensive mortgages are likely to curb demand for houses, which in theory should take some of the heat out of the red-hot housing market. That said, rates in the US are still not particularly high relative to much of recent history. In 2000 they were up over 8%. In the late 80s they were 10-12%. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) A new report shows that the world's workers are still mega-stressed. 44% of employees surveyed experienced a lot of daily stress in the previous day of work, up from 31% in 2009. 2) The news that K-pop group BTS are to take time-off to focus on their own music wiped $1.7bn from the valuation of label HYBE in trading on Wednesday. 3) A Game of Thrones spin-off, focused on main character Jon Snow, is reportedly in early development. Producers will be hoping for better ratings than the final season of the main show. 4) An animated visualization of the most popular websites since 1993. 5) It's pride month! The latest data shows that LGBT identification in the US rose to 7.1% of the population last year, up from 5.6% the year before. 6) Want a deeper dive into business and investing news? Check out our friends at The Daily Upside. Written by a former investment banker, it’s a newsletter that delivers quality insights to make you smarter — sign up for free here. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Humble Lego Brick Is The Foundation Of A Remarkable Business This week iconic toymaker Lego announced its plan to build a new 1.7 million square-foot factory in Virginia, creating up to 1,800 jobs once complete. The Danish company plans to spend $1bn on the factory, which is an enormous investment for any company, let alone one that produces such a simple product. But selling a simple product, and doing it really, really well, has been the cornerstone of Lego's remarkable business model. Sales last year jumped 27%, a number that some cash-burning tech companies would have been happy with. All told Lego sold ~55bn Danish Kroner worth of plastic bricks in 2021, squeezing out a 31% margin on those sales thanks to the company's iconic brand and build quality, with a reported manufacturing error rate of just 18-in-a-million. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Reading Revival: Business Is Booming For Publisher Bloomsbury British publisher Bloomsbury, which was the publisher behind the Harry Potter series, revealed this week that sales were surging in May and that 2021 was its best ever year, with sales rising 24% to £230m. The success of one individual publisher is complemented by wider industry data — NPD BookScan estimates more than 825 million print books were sold in the US last year, up 9% on the year before. The fact that book sales got a bump during COVID, as we spent more of our free time at home, was perhaps expected — but it wasn't clear if the reading boom would last. It seems it has. Interestingly, social media platform TikTok has played its part, with communities cropping up to discuss the latest books on #BookTok — a hashtag which has 58.5 billion views associated with it according to the platform. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) What do American couples argue about most. 2) Airbnb is doling out a total of $10m to Airbnb hosts via a new OMG! Fund to build 100 of the craziest and most unique property ideas. 3) Kellogg has revealed plans to split up into 3 separate companies in a bid to give the company's shares a little more snap, crackle and pop. 4) In a survey of 150,000 people around the world, analytics firm Gallup found that negative emotions reached a record high last year. 5) High gas prices aren't leading to less driving... yet (chart). 6) The rise of the 3-pointer in the NBA in light of the Golden State Warriors' latest championship victory. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The US Still Spends A Lot More Than Peers On Pharmaceuticals This week a new study from Harvard Medical School researchers estimated that Medicare could save almost $4bn a year were it to purchase drugs and prescriptions from Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drug Company instead of the complex supply chain of private brokers and pharmacies that it currently sources from. Billionaire Mark Cuban launched the Cost Plus Drug Company in January this year, selling generic prescriptions direct to consumers with a fixed pricing structure of a 15% mark-up, a $3 dispensing fee and a $5 shipping fee, in a bid to disrupt the $350bn+ a year prescription-drug industry. America #1 The study showed that in some specific cases Medicare was being charged 800%+ more than what they could pay if they had gone direct or via Cuban's new company. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Border Crossing Data Shows Some Refugees Are Returning To Ukraine Data from the Ukrainian borders suggests that a substantial number of refugees that had previously fled Ukraine have now returned home — if only for a short trip. Data from the UN refugee agency, originally reported on by The Economist, reveals that the gap between the number of people leaving Ukraine and the number of people entering Ukraine has narrowed. Indeed, throughout the first two weeks of June roughly 30,000 people have entered Ukraine per day, mostly staying west where the fighting with Russia has been more muted, suggesting Ukrainians are eager to return home as soon as they can. Even with the number of returning refugees going up, there's still a net exodus of people leaving the country — although it's more of a trickle at 15,000-20,000 people per day compared to the hundreds of thousands that fled in the early days of the invasion. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Drowning In Debt: Beauty Group Revlon Has Filed For Bankruptcy Revlon, the beauty and cosmetics company first founded in 1932, has filed for bankruptcy. For years Revlon, which owns Elizabeth Arden and a number of fragrance lines (including Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera's brands), has struggled with a growing debt pile. From 2009-2015, Revlon mostly had that debt under control, ekeing out enough of a margin to cover the annual interest expense every year. But then Revlon acquired Elizabeth Arden in a bid to buy its way to growth. That meant taking on more debt, at a time when competition in the beauty space was intensifying. Revlon started to struggle. Having been reliant on physical distribution in malls and shops for years, Revlon suddenly had to compete with upstart brands such as Fenty Beauty (by Rihanna) or Kylie Cosmetics (by Kylie Jenner). These were digitally-native brands with huge followings that shipped straight to consumers. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) The Austrian capital, Vienna, is back on top of The Economist's annual list of the World's Most Liveable Cities. 2) Netflix has confirmed it is laying off another 300 employees, while also confirming that the ad-supported tier is in development. 3) A Japanese man has lost a USB stick with an entire city's personal details on it (data on more than 500,000 people). 4) Our friends at CB Insights have collated 29 pitch decks of startups that went on to become huge, including Airbnb, BuzzFeed and Facebook. 5) The senate has voted 65 to 33 to pass the bipartisan gun control bill, which incentivizes states to pass red flag laws and close certain loopholes. 6) A Web3 startup hired a Snoop Dogg impersonator to drum up hype for their company at the NFT NYC conference. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Do you know: 🌐 How NATO expanded to attack Russia? ⭐️ How much earned the highest paid TikTok star in 2021? ⌛️ How much time we've left according to the "Doomsday Clock"? All of this, and much more mindboggling stats on in Statista. 👉 @StatistaOfficial

Interest In The News Is Falling A new report from the Reuters Institute & Oxford University has found that interest in the news cycle has dropped. In the US the proportion of people who are "very" or "extremely" interested in news has fallen from 67% in 2015 to 47% last year — a trend that was also found in other countries such as the UK, Spain, Germany and Brazil. Why is this happening? There are a few potential explanations. One is just that we're all exhausted by the news cycle of the last few years which has featured highly polarized politics, a global pandemic, inflation and geopolitical tensions to name but a few stories. Another potential reason is more structural — that as news is increasingly digital it's actually easier to get disconnected from it, through choice or by algorithms that learn you're not that interested. Interestingly the proportion of people who actively avoid the news also rose to a new high of 42% of those surveyed in the US. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Cigarette Sale Have Fallen, But Big Tobacco Is Still Big Business Big tobacco is still big tobacco After 40+ years of declining cigarette sales and graphic public health warnings about the damage that smoking causes, it might be easy to think of big tobacco as a frail industry on its deathbed — it's anything but. In fact, even in the wake of falling sales, Altria has eked out record earnings over the last decade. The $12-13bn that it has presumably lost on the Juul deal is an enormous sum... but it's one that Altria can — quite easily — afford. It's racked up operating income of more than $10bn for the last 3 years in a row. Big tobacco is still just that... big. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

The Rapid Rise And Fall Of Juul Yesterday the FDA announced that Juul cannot sell its e-cigarettes in the US anymore — a huge blow for a company that was recently one of the most highly-valued startups in all of America. Juul was the brainchild of two graduate students of product design at Stanford who wanted to make cigarettes that were healthier, better smelling... and cooler. They succeeded. After launching in 2015 it took just a few short years for Juul's e-cigarette to hit the big time. Its USB-stick-looking vaporizer came in flavors like mango, creme and mint and teenagers loved them. By late 2017 they had 20% of the e-cigarette market. One year later they had over 70%. Juul seemed unstoppable, and big tobacco took notice. Juul Labs had been spun out of its parent company, and had notched a substantial valuation in private markets as its sales exploded. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) Volkswagen's boss believes the German giant can overtake Tesla in electric vehicle sales by 2025. We charted both companies relative progress until now in this chart. 2) A couple spent 2 years tracking the data on what choices made them sleep better or worse. 3) Ever wondered how images can get compressed 90%+, but still look the same? This video explains how it works. 4) Accounting firm Ernst & Young has been fined $100m after it came to light that nearly 50 employees had cheated on the ethics part of the CPA exam. 5) 51 people died in Texas after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer in soaring temperatures. The deaths came in the context of record high migrant encounters at the southwest land border. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Nike Is Still Struggling In China Nike is still having a tough time in China. In its latest set of results, Nike reported that sales in Greater China had fallen almost 20%, as COVID disruptions continue to play havoc on parts of the country's supply chain. That result, plus a cautious outlook for the coming quarter, sent Nike shares down 7% yesterday, wiping more than $11bn from the company's market cap. But Nike can't blame everything on COVID. Indeed, there is an increasing amount of evidence that Chinese consumers are starting to turn away from western apparel companies, towards homegrown brands like Anta, Li-Ning, and Xtep. Front Office Sports reports that for the year ending January 31, 2022, domestic Chinese brands saw sales grow by 17% while foreign brands saw sales decline by 24%. Endless growth in China is no longer a certainty for Nike and other western consumer brands — even if COVID and supply chain disruption is fully resolved. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

TikTok Is Hitting Revenue Milestones At Lightning Speed TikTok is on track to reel in $12bn in advertising revenue this year, according to new reports from people familiar with the company's financials. When compared to the established big players in digital ads, namely Google and Facebook, that's small potatoes — Google Search alone brought in almost $150bn last year, and Facebook did more than $110bn. But when you compare where TikTok is on its journey, having been founded in just 2016, the company's progress is remarkable. If those reports prove accurate, Tiktok will have broken the $10bn a year mark in just its sixth full year — a milestone that took Facebook more than a decade. YouTube took 14 years. Snapchat and Twitter? They're both barely halfway to that milestone. What's more remarkable is that TikTok's parent company, Bytedance, which owns a number of other social media and tech assets in China, is on an even steeper trajectory. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Medication Abortions Are Now The Majority Of Abortion In America Last Friday, about 5 minutes after we had hit send on our newsletter, a notification hit all of our phones: Roe v. Wade was being struck down. Over the weekend much of the focus was on the response and laws of individual states. Some had trigger laws already in place that effectively banned abortions immediately, while others have plans for similar laws — The Guardian has a helpful map on where abortion laws stand in each state. Medication abortions In years gone by images of abortion clinics have dominated media coverage of the issue — but surgical abortions are no longer the norm. In fact the majority (54%) of all abortions performed in the US in 2020 were medication abortions, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute. Approved for use for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy by the FDA, medication abortions are now often mailed to patients after an online or telehealth consultation. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

How to make $2,200+ monthly in Telegram? With zero experience and no content... Guys from Telega Masters show this in their blog. Now Telegram channels are like Bitcoin back in 2011. The trend is just getting started. For example, in December they had all ads slots sold out, and had to turn down new clients. They've made $2,200 having five channels only. Now they have 40+ channels. Hurry up, and don't miss the trend, because: ▪️Annual ROI is over 14x ▪️Payback period is 1-2 months ▪️Subscriber cost is still low (~$0.10) ▪️You don't have to create content by yourself These guys are willing to share their subscribers with you for free, and they've got 40+ channels on business, finance, edutainment, and other topics. You wish to go back to 2011 to buy Bitcoin? Or you prefer to keep your life as is, and miss out on this huge trend, thanks to which you could make $2-5k monthly? Subscribe to the channel now @TelegaMasters

More Data 1) The COVID shift — interesting county by county map of how Americans moved during the pandemic. 2) Our friends at The Pudding have a great interactive story on how artists earn on music streaming platforms. 3) It's everywhere: inflation in the Euro Zone has hit 8.6%, leaving the ECB likely to make its first rate hike for 11 years. 4) One for tennis fans (it is Wimbledon after all). Should players with big serves throw caution to the wind and hit two first serves? A data scientist simulated 1 million service games to find out. 5) Interesting survey data from Charles Schwab shows that 77% of Gen Z would invest in companies that align with their personal values, while only 60% of the Baby Boomer generation felt the same way. 6) A couple bought a home in Seattle only to find out that it would cost $27,000 to get access to the internet. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

After 50 Years Of Business Bed Bath & Beyond May Be Beyond Help Bed Bath & Beyond is ditching its CEO after another lacklustre quarter that saw the ailing retailer's sales drop by 25% relative to this time last year. After 3 years at the helm, the strategy of outgoing CEO Mark Tritton — who had focused on switching out branded goods for private-label products and cleaning up crowded stores — just hasn't worked. The once venerable retailer may not be bankrupt yet, but time is against the company, and investors don't appear to be holding much faith — the company's share price is down 68% this year and the market cap of the company is now just ~$400m, a tiny fraction of the $5-7bn in sales the company is likely to record this year. just ~$400m, a tiny fraction of the $5-7bn in sales the company is likely to record this year. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

US Stocks Have Had Their Worst Start To The Year For 50+ Years And it was one to forget for equity investors, as the flagship S&P 500 Index declined 20.6% in value, putting 2022 off to the worst start for 52 years, when the index fell 21% in 1970. Before that you have to go back to 1962 when stocks fell 23.5% in the first half of the year — a crash which became known as the Kennedy Slide. The stock market is not the economy, but investors do try to anticipate what's coming down the road — and JPMorgan analysts suggested a few weeks ago that the movement in stocks implies an 85% chance that the US economy does go into recession — and some high-profile investors already think we're in one. Trying to predict what stock markets do next is a notoriously humbling endeavour, but the historical data is reasonably optimistic. Of the 23 times that stocks have fallen in the first half of the year they've gone on to rise in the second half of the year on 12 occasions. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Netflix Just Need A Few More Global Hits Like Stranger Things Data out this week suggested that new Netflix subscribers were cancelling their subscriptions at higher rates than competitors — a rare thing for the streaming giant that has historically held onto its subscribers better than rivals. That's just the latest piece of bad news for Netflix, which has had a terrible year so far, and it heaps the pressure on the second part of Stranger Things 4 that's coming out today. Stranger Things 4 has become Netflix's most widely viewed show and has even catapulted the earlier seasons of Stranger Things into Netflix's global top 10 lists. In fact as of today each of the four series of the show have spent the last month or so inside the top 10 for English TV titles, as viewers catch up on previous seasons. A global mega-hit like Stranger Things is exactly what Netflix needs after the company announced that it had lost subscribers for the first time ever earlier this year. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

More Data 1) A hacker known only as ‘ChinaDan’ has advertised a whopping 23TB cache of data for sale on the dark web in a breach that could see around 1 billion citizens compromised. 2) How bad is inflation around the world? The FT have put together an interactive dashboard. 3) Hot dog hero Joey Chestnut put away more than 6 hot dogs per minute to ensure he was still top dog at Nathan’s latest annual July 4th eating contest. His 63 total dogs this year was impressive — but not quite the 76 he managed last year. 4) The Euro has slumped to its lowest level against USD in 20 years, leaving the currency close to dollar parity, as fears of a recession in Europe mount. 5) Boris Johnson's time as Prime Minister of the UK may be running out as two key ministers resigned within minutes of each other yesterday evening. 6) A Redditor has put together a handy heatmap of the most-common compound swearing insults deployed in the site’s comment sections (nsfw). 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Newspaper Publishers Are Still Shrinking, As News Moves Online The local press industry in the US is rapidly folding in on itself, with around two newspapers shutting a week according to a new report from Northwestern University. As media has shifted online, the industry has suffered. At the turn of the millennium the Bureau of Labor Statistics counted just under 200,000 employees at newspaper publishers in the US. Today it counts just 50,000. This decline was accelerated during the pandemic, leaving thousands of reporters, editors, and photographers out of work. At the current rate — with two publications shutting per week — the country is on course to lose over a third of its newspapers by 2025. News deserts The plight of the papers is being felt across the states, with roughly 7% of US counties now ‘news deserts’ — areas with no local news outlets — and 20% at risk of heading the same way. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

July 4th Celebration Often Cause A Sharp Rise In Wildfires A good Fourth of July celebration often isn't the same without a few fireworks (though you'll still never watch that video you recorded) — the pyrotechnics can sometimes come at a price to the natural surroundings, however. A 2020 study by Mietkiewicz et al., originally published in The Conversation, found that the number of human-caused wildfires often spikes in the days around July 4th, with the soaring figures often attributed to the widespread use of fireworks during the holiday. This regular uptick exacerbates the pre-existing issue of human-caused wildfires in the US. In fact nearly 85% of wildfires between 2000 and 2017 were caused by humans according to data cited by the National Park Service. Although fireworks are often the culprit around the 4th, other common human-sourced causes such as unattended campfires, burning materials and intentional acts of arson all contribute to a large number of wildfires. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Tesla Deliveries Fell Last Quarter, As Chinese Competitors Catch Up The electric vehicle maker reported that it had delivered just over 250,000 cars globally, an 18% drop on the effort from Q1 when the company had shipped more than 310,000. Like Nike, Tesla has been struggling with COVID restrictions at its factories. Tesla's Shanghai factory — known as the Giga Shanghai — had to close multiple times in the first quarter, and broader supply chain constraints like the computer chip shortage haven't helped either. Tesla's minor hiccup follows years of remarkable progress that made it the largest EV manufacturer in the world. But just as it struggles with its operations in China, it's also facing rising competition from within the country. Chinese rival BYD reported just this week that it sold 641,000 EVs in the first six months of this year, more than Tesla's 565,000, leading some to proclaim that Tesla has officially been dethroned as the world's largest EV maker. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐

Fish is the MOST DANGEROUS food in the 21st century??? Doctors and nutritionists say that fish must be in everyone's diet, because it has an incredible amount of essential nutrients. But research by scientists shows... (read more)

More Data 1) Funding for US tech startups is down 23%, the steepest investment slump since 2019. 2) The day of the year when the largest majority of the global population — either 93% or 99% depending on how strict your definition is — experiences sunlight at the same time (map here). 3) The US has a veterinarian shortage and it's only likely to get worse. One estimate suggests the US will be short 41,000 vets by 2030. 4) What does it take to become Commander in Chief? Axios charted the most common work experience of former US presidents. 5) How much money would you want to live your ideal life? An interesting study found that most people chose a relatively modest amount, somewhere between $1m and $10m. 6) An Airbus A380 flew 14 hours with a hole in its side. 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚛 | 𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚊 𝚂𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚢𝚝𝚎𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐