Oct 28, 2021 Sign Up

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"Doing the work required to hold an opinion means you can argue against yourself better than others can."

Good morning! Supply chain issues are coming home with prices for everyday items 'bout to soar through the roof. If you are a wine-drinker, brace yourselves for a price hike. Demand for wine has increased during the pandemic, as Americans sheltered in place to avoid potential infection. As the demand for wine increased, the industry has been dealing with a severe drought and now supply chain issues on top of that. Coffee prices are also soaring - coffee futures increased more than 95% compared to the same time last year.

Today's sponsor, Polymarket, allows you to trade on real life events including if Facebook's new name will include the word "meta" in it.

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1. Story of the Day: McDonald's, A Tech Company?

If you haven't noticed already, McDonald's is getting techier by the day. Their fancy ordering kiosks have been filling locations globally and now they are looking to automate the drive-thru experience. It has entered into a strategic partnership with IBM in an effort to accelerate the development of automated drive-thru lanes.

Under the agreement, IBM will acquire McD Tech Labs, which has been working to develop, test and deploy an automated ordering system using artificial intelligence-enabled voice recognition. McD Tech Labs was created following the fast food chain's acquisition of Apprente in 2019. ~100 employees will leave McDonald's to work for IBM, as part of the deal.

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski announced in June that the AI technology was being piloted at around 10 drive-thrus in the Chicago area and that the system could fulfill customer orders with 85% accuracy with workers having to step in for approximately 1 in 5 orders.

McDonald's has no plans of becoming a tech company itself. Kempczinski said that McDonald's would not go into the business of competing with tech companies. "If we do acquisitions, it will be for a short period of time, bring it in-house, jumpstart it, turbo it and then spin it back out and find a partner who can kind of take that work and scale it for us."

Short Squeez Takeaway: The development and testing of new tech in restaurants has shown substantial benefits to customers and the restaurant crew experience. At this rate, it seems like it's only a matter of time before McDonald's can remove a majority of its workforce in restaurants.

Source: CNBC, Fox

2. Markets Rundown

• US stocks closed lower Wednesday, ending a string of gains for the equity benchmarks that have been mostly rising to all-time highs on the back of strong quarterly results from American companies.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Enphase Energy ($ENPH) +25% following the company's record revenue in third quarter.
• (+) F5 Networks ($FFIV) +6% following a strong earnings report.
• (–) Twitter ($TWTR) -11% after it reported a quarterly revenue miss and lowered its expectations for next year.

3. Top Reads

A Message from Polymarket: Facebook’s New Name?

Facebook is planning to change its company name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse. The goal of this new business plan is to shift the company’s focus to young adults and Generation-Z.

The name change is meant to signal the tech giant’s ambition to be known for more than social media. The rebrand would likely position the blue Facebook app as one of many products under a parent company overseeing groups like Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, and more. 

Facebook isn’t the first company to change its name. Google reorganized entirely under a holding company called Alphabet, partly to signal that it was no longer just a search engine.

Will “meta” be included in Facebook’s new name?

Polymarket traders are currently forecasting a 21% probability that Facebook’s new name will include meta. Will Zuckerburg add the word, or will he be more creative than that?

Trade now or follow the odds on Polymarket. Use code “OWS” to get reimbursed up to $100 on your first day of trading!

4. Book of the Day: The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy

The bestselling book identifies seven common traits that show up again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. Most of the truly wealthy in this country don't live in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue, they live next door. This new edition, the first since 1998, includes a new foreword for the twenty-first century by Dr. Thomas J. Stanley.

The personal finance book that will completely change the way you think about and manage your money.

5. Short Squeez Picks

• If you are looking to invest in VC, check out Sweater Ventures, the first VC for the retail investor
• Ten step to take when starting a new business
• Comparing yourself to other people is poison 

6. Daily Visual: Global Vaccine Imbalance
Share of Covid-19 vaccines given out by country/continent (as of Oct 25, 2021)

Source: Statista

7.  Daily Acumen: Availability Bias

"Our risk assessment is often skewed by availability bias.

Availability bias states that we often misjudge the frequency and magnitude of events partly due to ease of recall. Ease of recall suggests that if something is easily recalled in our memory, because of a recent event or a vivid narrative, it occurs with higher probability. Incorrect perceptions of risk causes poor decision making.

Examples:

Insurance: You are more likely to purchase insurance to protect against natural disasters right after they happen, rather than before they occur.

Climate change: Perceiving that the hot summer day is “caused by climate change” because you heard the phrase recently discussed, rather than remembering that temperature regularly fluctuates. (Climate change is about the general trend of warming throughout the globe, not individual days or even years.)"

Source: Fact of the Day 1

8. Memes of the Day

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