June 8, 2021 Sign Up

By Overheard on Wall Street

"To be an over-achiever, you have to be an over-believer."

Good morning! SEC is also getting in on the meme stocks action, with what it does best... "monitoring" and maybe regulating them soon too. In some good news for the world, FDA approved a first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years, although there is still a lot of debate on whether it works or not.

If you haven't subscribed to Short Squeez yet, now is the time and this is the link.

1. Story of the Day: Bezos Takes Flight

Maybe the reason Jeff Bezos had been getting jacked all these years was because he was planning a space trip. Yesterday in an Instagram post, Jeff Bezos announced that he will be on the inaugural crewed flight of Blue Origin, his aerospace company. The trip is scheduled for launch on July 20th, 15 days after Bezos steps down as CEO. Bezos said: “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space." His brother, Mark Bezos, who is a co-founder of private equity firm, HighPost Capital, will also be joining. There is room for four others and one of them will come from a charity auction: currently 6,000 participants and bidding has reached $3.2 million.

The trip will last 10 minutes and will only go in suborbit (lower than a full orbit), where a rocket takes the craft above the Karman Line (62 miles above sea level, where "space" begins) before the capsule returns to ground in a parachute. Suborbital flights don't require lengthy amounts of training, since crew members are only weightless for a few minutes. Bezos & Co will train for three days before flying. (my scuba diving training was longer...)

Elon Musk's, SpaceX and Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, have also announced a number of trips to carry people to space. Richard Branson plans to join Virgin Galactic's 3rd crewed test flight later this year. SpaceX, meanwhile will go higher than both companies, and plans to carry passengers into orbit. Elon Musk has not detailed any set plans but has said in the past: "I would like to die on Mars—just not on impact."

Short Squeez Takeaway: SpaceX has been way more successful than Blue Origin when it comes to space travel, regularly launching its Falcon 9 rockets and taking astronauts to the International Space Station. It's also planning a trip to take billionaire, Yusaku Maezwa, on a trip to the moon. Recently SpaceX beat Blue Origin for a huge NASA contract to take astronauts back to the moon. This smells a lot like Jeff Bezos trying to one up Elon Musk, who has declared his life's mission to make life multi-planetary, not just take one 10 minute flight in sub-orbit.

2. Markets Rundown

• While tech stocks gained yesterday, S&P 500 and Dow dropped over inflation and new corporate minimum tax rate concerns
• All major cryptocurrencies dropped yesterday with Bitcoin going below $33k last night

Movers & Shakers

• (+) QTS ($QTS) +21% on announcement that Blackstone would take the data center operator private.
• (+) Oscar Health ($OSCR) +12% after reported its first results as a public company.
• (–) MoneyGram ($MGI) -9% on announcement of an at-the-market equity offering of up to $100 million.

3. Top Reads

4. Book of the Day: The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

The 2000 stock market crash. The 2008 housing crash. The 2020 Covid Pandemic. What do they all have in common? They’re all black swan events. In a nutshell, a black swan event is an unpredictable event that has huge consequences.

We blind ourselves from seeing these types of events happening because we are inaccurately forecasting the future based on the average of what’s happened in the past.

Taleb states that we can’t necessarily predict when these events will happen but that we can insure ourselves so they don’t have outsized negative consequences on our life or financial well-being.

For example, when the stock market nose-dived 30% at the onset of the pandemic, a hedge fund advised by Taleb posted a 4,000% return through previous purchases of cheap, out of the money put options (insurance that pays out when the market crashes). 

The author (Nassim Nicholas Taleb) is a mathematical statistician and former option trader who works on problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty. His book will completely change the way you look at the world.

5. Daily Visual: Buy Now Pay Later App Total Downloads

Source: Insider

6.  Daily Acumen: Brain Fog

Our brains are pretty fascinating. Some days we feel full of confidence and sharp as a tack and other days, we feel sluggish and lethargic. This lack of mental clarity is often referred to as brain fog. Below are 2 reasons why we experience brain fog and how to fix them.

Overstimulation: We live in a digital environment where attention is the currency. With thousands of advertisements being thrown at us, inevitably, your attention will be disbursed in every direction. Why not put your phone away for a bit and give yourself a break from all the tech.

Subconscious Disturbances: One of the best ways to stay focused is to prevent thinking about a million things in the first place. Say you have an assignment that’s due a month from now. You have some free days to work on it but you choose to keep pushing it back because you know you can do it later. Every time you push back the assignment, you’re not forgetting about the deadline, you’re just giving it to your subconscious to worry about. The more your subconscious has to worry about, the more scattered your thoughts become. Try not to procrastinate, just get it done.

7. Memes of the Day

Love Short Squeez? Share it with your friends!

Referral Link: shorturl.at/jpHR2