🧑🚀 Holy craft
SpaceX is going to the moon...Japan enters a recession; Alejandro Mayorkas impeached; Bitcoin hits $1 trillion; Nvidia becomes contagious; Putin endorses Biden; Pfizer settles $93M lawsuit; and more.
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IN THIS ISSUE
🤑 Bitcoin hits $1 trln market cap
🧑🚀 SpaceX is going to the moon
🇮🇩 Indonesian election results
On this day. On February 16, 1943, Fidel Castro became premier of Cuba and made the country into the the first western communist state.
IMPORTANT
📉 Japan enters a recession
Japan's economy has fallen to the world's fourth-largest, right behind Germany after two consecutive quarters of decline. Japan's nominal GDP dropped as response to a weaker yen and population decline.
Germany's economy also pulled back in the last quarter of the year, as well as Britain's economy in the same period. Japan's aging population, reluctance towards immigration, stagnant wages, poor immigration, and poor consumer spending are all contributing to slow economic growth. Japan's GDP growth is expected to slow to around 0.5% in 2024.
💰 Bezos saves $610 million
Jeff Bezos recently sold $2 billion worth of Amazon stock and benefited from Florida's tax laws, (which don't have state taxes) after moving from Seattle last year. This was a good move for Bezos, especially since Washington state introduced a 7% capital gains tax in 2022, which meant he saved $140 million in taxes just on the recent $2 billion sale.
He's planning to sell 50 million shares before January 31, 2025, which could be worth more than $8.7 billion, and he's likely to save at least $610 million in taxes on the entire sale over the next year.
🇷🇺 Putin endorses Biden
Vladimir Putin recently said he prefers Joe Biden over Donald Trump as the US president because he sees Biden as more experienced and predictable, (which would be better for Russia). This comes at a time when there are tensions between Democrats and Republicans over sending military aid to Ukraine.
Despite criticism that Trump has been too friendly with Putin, Putin said Russia will work with any US leader that the American people trust. He also brushed off concerns about Biden's age and mental health, calling them just part of a tough election campaign. However, he still criticized US policies towards Russia, saying they've been harmful and wrong.
FINANCE
Image courtesy of Reuters/Mike Blake
👾 Nvidia becomes contagious
AI stocks surged on Thursday after Nvidia, the world's leading AI chipmaker, disclosed stakes in them. Its largest investment, $147.3 million, was in Arm Holdings, a chip designer Nvidia previously tried to buy out.
Even though the deal fell flat, Nvidia's interest in Arm didn’t cease, and Arm's shares rose nearly 4% after the announcement. Other stakes include nearly $76 million in Recursion Pharmaceuticals, focusing on AI model training for drug discovery, and around $3.7 million in SoundHound AI, whose stock rose over 53%.
Fun fact: Nvidia's growing influence in the AI sector has made it the fourth most valuable company, surpassing Google, Amazon, and Meta, all of which have almost 4x the yearly profit compared to Nvidia.
🤑 Bitcoin hits $1 trln market cap
The total value invested in Bitcoin has just reached $1 trillion as its price surged to a 25-month high of US$52,079, a level not seen since November 2021. This surge has been fueled by big investments into U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
The price surge to $52,079 represents a 22% increase since the beginning of February, giving it a market cap of $1.013 trillion. Inflows into U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs totaled $1.64 billion in the week leading up to Wednesday, with recent trading sessions seeing inflows of $409 million.
BUSINESS
Image courtesy of NASA TV
🧑🚀 SpaceX is going to the moon
Thursday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a spacecraft to the moon will an historic landing planned for February 22. If successful, it would mark the first United States moon landing since the Apollo missions and the first commercial landing in over 50 years.
The rocket took off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, carrying a spacecraft called Nova-C lander, or Odysseus, made by Intuitive Machines under a contract with NASA. This is part of NASA's Artemis campaign, which aims to launch several robot missions to the moon every year under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program.
🧬 Pfizer settles $93M lawsuit
Pfizer just agreed to settle a $93 million antitrust lawsuit with distributors who accused them of colluding with Ranbaxy Laboratories to delay the release of generic versions of Lipitor (a cholesterol drug). Distributors alleged that Pfizer ‘unlawfully prolonged its patent rights’ over Lipitor by paying Ranbaxy to postpone the introduction of the generic version.
"The settlement provides 'immediate economic relief' to class members and avoids the risk of continued litigation, potential appeals, and no recovery," they said. "They said they will seek up to about $31 million in legal fees from the settlement fund," lawyers told Reuters. The settlement does not admit fault.
POLITICS
Image courtesy of Euro News
🇮🇩 Indonesian election results
Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, congratulated Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto on his apparent victory in the presidential election's single round. Prabowo's running mate, Jokowi's son, is setup to become Indonesia's youngest vice president ever.
The election was the world’s largest single day election, with over 200 million eligible voters, and with Prabowo claiming victory with almost 60% of popular vote according to unoffical sources. Official results are due by March 20, with the new leader taking office in October.
🇺🇸 Alejandro Mayorkas impeached
The U.S. House just voted to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, making him the first member of a US cabinet to face such charges in nearly 150 years.
The vote, (214-213 yea-to-nay), was a slap in the face for Mayorkas, who was accused of not only doing his job wrong, but for lying to Congress about the security of the border. President Biden called this unfair party politics, and since the Senate doesn't seem interested, these charges might just disappear.
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— Jacob
📚 Book of the Week
Note: I don’t recommend books that I haven’t read or that I would never read. The books I recommend are books I have already read or that I will eventually read.
Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson
Book Description:
Based on more than forty interviews with Steve Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in 21st century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.
Although Jobs cooperated with the author, he asked for no control over what was written. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.
Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.
Steve Jobs is the inspiration for the movie of the same name starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, and Jeff Daniels, directed by Danny Boyle with a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin.
As of Jan 31, 2024, (resulting from my Amazon.ca Associates account being terminated) I do not earn any affiliate commissons from the links below.
absolutely perfect!