Oct 26, 2021 Sign Up

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Good morning! Tesla officially hit a $1 trillion market cap for the first time after Hertz said Monday it would buy 100k electric vehicles. The deal, will bring in a reported $4.2 billion for Tesla, in the largest ever purchase of EVs. Cryptocurrency, Shiba Inu is soaring on reports that Coinbase might list it on its platform. Elon also recently confirmed that despite having a Shiba Inu dog, he doesn't own any Shiba currency. 

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1. Story of the Day: Buyside Goes Political

Buyside firms are pumping more money into politics. In the run up to the 2020 election, private equity and hedge funds accounted for over $625 million. It was the most this segment of the financial industry spent on lobbying and campaign contributions in a two-year campaign cycle. During the 2015-16 cycle, the amount was just over $500 million.

For everyone that was wondering, the study doesn’t include a breakdown of party affiliation or which candidates received the most money. 

The largest chunk ($547 million) went to contributions for candidates running for federal office, and the rest ($78 million), went to lobbying. Private equity spent $70 million of that, and hedge funds spent about $8.5 million.

Spending was more evenly split when it came to campaign contributions. More than $262 million came from those in the private equity sector, while over $285 million came from the hedge fund world.

Donors at Citadel, who spent $67 million, at Blackstone, $43 million, and at Susquehanna International, $30 million, accounted for the biggest spending on contributions to federal campaigns last cycle.

Short Squeez Takeaway: As Democrats in Congress aim to ramp up regulations on these sectors such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who recently reintroduced the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, which seeks to end the carried interest loophole that private equity firms have taken advantage of for years, we only expect political spending from buyside firms to increase.

Source: CNBC

2. Markets Rundown

• U.S. stock indexes closed at or near record highs on Monday, ahead of a busy week of earnings. Investors expect the prospect of slower growth to keep the Federal Reserve from tightening monetary policy too much in the future.
  

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Bakkt ($BKKT) +234% following reports that the newly public crypto firm would provide Mastercard with custodial services.
• (+) Tesla ($TSLA) +13% after reports that Hertz is ordering 100,000 vehicles to build an EV rental fleet by the end of 2022.
• (–) Pinterest ($PINS) -13% after PayPal responded to last week's reports that it was in talks to buy Pinterest but is not doing so at the moment.
  

3. Top Reads

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4. Book of the Day: The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century

The brilliant creator of NPR's Planet Money podcast and award-winning New Yorker staff writer explains our current economy: laying out its internal logic and revealing the transformative hope it offers for millions of people to thrive as they never have before.

Contrary to what you may have heard, the middle class is not dying and robots are not stealing our jobs. In fact, writes Adam Davidson—one of our leading public voices on economic issues—the twenty-first-century economic paradigm offers new ways of making money, fresh paths toward professional fulfillment, and unprecedented opportunities for curious, ambitious individuals to combine the things they love with their careers.

Davidson shows us how the twentieth-century economy of scale has given way in this century to an economy of passion. He makes clear, too, that though the adjustment has brought measures of dislocation, confusion, and even panic, these are most often the result of a lack of understanding.

The Passion Economy delineates the ground rules of the new economy, and armed with these, we begin to see how we can succeed in it according to its own terms—intimacy, insight, attention, automation, and, of course, passion. An indispensable road map and a refreshingly optimistic take on our economic future.

5. Short Squeez Picks

• Interested in alternative investments but don’t know where to start? Explore the world of investment options others aren’t talking about.
• How to be more curious
• How to build a new habit: strategy guide
  

6. Daily Visual: Lost Months of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Areas with the longest cumulative coronavirus lockdowns (in days)

Source: Statista

7.  Daily Acumen: Facts don't change our minds

“False beliefs can be useful in a social sense even if they are not useful in a factual sense. For lack of a better phrase, we might call this approach “factually false, but socially accurate.” When we have to choose between the two, people often select friends and family over facts.

Convincing someone to change their mind is really the process of convincing them to change their tribe. If they abandon their beliefs, they run the risk of losing social ties. You can’t expect someone to change their mind if you take away their community too. You have to give them somewhere to go. Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if loneliness is the outcome.

The way to change people’s minds is to become friends with them, to integrate them into your tribe, to bring them into your circle. Now, they can change their beliefs without the risk of being abandoned socially.

Facts don't change our minds. Friendship does.”

Source: James Clear

8. Memes of the Day

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