Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 3/22/24 – Taking a Breather
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“Don’t be afraid of failing. Don’t be afraid of making an ass of yourself. I do it all the time—and look what I got.” – William Shatner
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Everything tends to move faster these days- except in sports where time seems to stand still. Did you watch the last four minutes of any of yesterday’s games? While the NCAA tournament is only just tipping off, the first Masters in Augusta started on this date in 1934. Today, because of TV and ratings, they don’t start the tournament until April after the college basketball champion has been crowned.
The Masters may have only been pushed out by a few weeks relative to when it first started in the 1930s, but the NHL’s Stanley Cup Championship is almost a summer event. Like the Masters, the puck was also dropped on the first Stanley Cup hockey Championship series on this day in 1894. These days, the playoffs (second season) don’t even start until the second half of April and last year, the Vegas Golden Knights didn’t clinch the cup until June 13th!
The markets are still as fast as ever, but this morning is quiet in terms of data. There’s no economic data on the calendar, and after a flurry of earnings reports after the close yesterday, no reports are hitting the tapes. That leaves investors with the opportunity to think about the barrage of central bank decisions that were released around the world over the last four days and ponder the fact that despite all of it, the S&P 500 is on pace for its best week of the year. That, or you can just enjoy the basketball, complain about your busted bracket, and wonder what if the refs hadn’t blown the whistle on a phantom foul at the end of the Kansas-Samford game.
Not only is the S&P 500 on pace for its best week of the year, but the stock markets of major global economies have been rallying in unison. As shown in the snapshot from our Trend Analyzer below, the ETFs of the G7 countries are all heading into the last trading day of the week at overbought or ‘extreme’ overbought levels. They’re all sitting on comfortable YTD gains with Japan and Italy both up over 10% while the UK trails the pack with a gain of ‘only’ 2.5%. The last five trading days have seen a similar pattern play out. Five of the seven country ETFs are all up over 1% in the last week, Germany has eked out a gain of 0.51% and Kentucky France is down 0.31%.
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IPO Activity Slow to Recover
The talk of the day is the debut of Reddit (RDDT) on public markets. The stock priced at the top of its expected range, and at the intraday highs traded 70% above the IPO price of $34. While Reddit’s debut places some attention on new companies, overall IPO activity remains muted. In the chart below, we show the average monthly IPO issuance on a rolling 12-month basis in terms of both the number of companies and the $-value of those stocks. Following record issuance in the first couple of years of the pandemic, IPO activity has cratered to some of the lowest levels since the Financial Crisis. While there has been some recovery in IPO activity and Reddit (RDDT) puts IPOs back into the spotlight, there is still plenty of room to recover to levels observed over the past decade.
While not a perfect measure of recent IPOs, the Renaissance IPO ETF (IPO) seeks to track the space. Even though IPO activity has been weak, the ETF has been trending higher over the past year. With the most popular IPO in some time happening today, the IPO ETF has risen to 52-week highs right off extreme overbought levels.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 3/21/24 – A Flock of Doves
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“We live in a world defined by the rapid pace of technological change.” – Jerome Powell
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Since yesterday’s close, we’ve seen multiple important central bank decisions from around the world (all discussed in today’s Morning Lineup), and at the margin, they have all been more dovish than hawkish with the Swiss Central Bank even announcing an unexpected rate cut. This morning’s economic data has also been positive with all three reports (Philly Fed, initial jobless claims, and continuing claims) coming in slightly better than expected. These trends have been good enough to push equity futures near their highs of the morning after stocks around the world rallied overnight.
The positive reaction to yesterday’s Fed decision and subsequent press conference was largely tied to the fact that, despite February data showing that progress on inflation has stalled, Powell showed little concern that the trajectory has changed. Within the dot plots, uncertainty over the Fed’s inflation forecasts appears to be declining, which indicates that the committee is more confident that inflation is still moving towards its 2% target. While a May rate cut, at this point, is out of the question, the market is fine with that if the ultimate direction of rates is still lower.
Yesterday’s reaction to the announcement and subsequent press conference was a complete 180 versus January. Back then, stocks were lower heading into the announcement and only fell further once Powell started talking and essentially took a cut at yesterday’s meeting off the table. Just as we live in a world defined by a rapid pace of technological change, the way the market reacts to Powell Fed meetings may also be starting to shift.
Yesterday’s reaction to the statement (purple) also bucked the general long-term “Powell plunge” on Fed days since he became chair in 2018. As shown in the chart below, whether you look at his entire tenure as Fed chair or break it up into different slices during that period, Jerome Powell has not exactly been a stock market whisperer.
With a gain of 0.89% for the S&P 500 yesterday, it ranked as the 14th best single-day performance on a scheduled Fed Day of the 48 since Powell became the chair in March 2018. Not only that, but it was also the 8th best post-decision performance of his tenure. Ironically, all the other days where the S&P 500 had a better post-meeting reaction have occurred since December 2021, essentially when the Fed started to telegraph the most recent tightening cycle.
To further illustrate how the market tide towards Fed decisions has been shifting, while the post-meeting reaction in January was one of the more negative post-meeting reactions under Powell’s tenure, the two meetings before that in November and December, were greeted warmly by the market (6th and 7th best under Powell’s tenure) and looked very similar to yesterday’s post-meeting reaction. If rate hikes are out of the equation, investors are willing to be patient with the timeline of rate cuts.
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Yen Weakness Continues
Following Tuesday morning’s widely anticipated decision from the BoJ to end the era of negative interest rates, BoJ Governor Ueda reiterated his view that it was “important to keep conditions accommodative” due to his view that there is “still some distance for price expectations to hit 2%”. While the move out of negative rates was hawkish at the margin, it was also well-telegraphed in advance. Just as important, officials maintained their plans to keep policy easy. As a result of the actions and comments, the Japanese yen sold off on the news, and even though markets are closed for the Vernal Equinox today, it has continued to sell off in trading today. As shown in the chart below, the yen is once again testing the 152 level, an area where it has run into resistance multiple times in the last couple of years. The chart of the yen is starting to look a lot like a cup and handle formation which, from a technical perspective, is considered a positive pattern. This would imply that any breakout above the 152 resistance level would be followed by a weaker yen.
Taking a very long-term look at the yen, the roughly 152 resistance level has been in place for decades. The yen also weakened (rising price in the chart) towards those levels back in the late 1990s and late 1980s before rallying (falling in the chart). If the yen does manage to take out that 152 resistance level in the weeks/months ahead, there would be very little resistance between here and 200, and that would likely have some pretty major macro ramifications for capital flows in Japan and around the world.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 3/20/24 – Muted Breadth
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“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
Happy Fed Day! After opening lower and rallying throughout the trading day yesterday, futures are more contained this morning but indicated to open slightly higher on the day as traders await the latest policy decision from the FOMC. It may sound hard to believe with the S&P 500 closing at a record high yesterday, but given last week’s hotter-than-expected inflation data, the market seems to be more worried about some hawkish commentary from Powell. Therefore, if there is no change in his commentary from prior speeches in the last several weeks, that could pave the way for some further gains.
Overnight in Asia, Japanese markets were closed for the Vernal Equinox, but that didn’t stop the Yen from continuing its post-BoJ slide versus the dollar. Other indices in the region were mostly positive with China up 0.6% and back above its 200-DMA while Korea rallied over 1%. In central bank news, BoJ governor Ueda said that easy monetary policy will remain in place for the bank to reach its inflation target, while in China, the PBoC kept its one and five-year loan rates unchanged.
In Europe this morning, it’s been a mixed back with Germany trading up about 0.30% while France is down 0.5% with most other major countries somewhere in between. There was some good news on the inflation front as both German (PPI) and UK (CPI) data came in below forecasts, and this comes after comments yesterday from ECB Governor Kazaks who said he was comfortable with where the market was on rate cuts this year (three).
The S&P 500’s advance-decline (A/D) wasn’t particularly extreme yesterday, but relative to the last several weeks of subdued readings, it stood out. As shown below, at +269 yesterday’s A/D line was the largest single-day reading in just over a month (2/15). While strong daily breadth readings have been hard to come by lately, significantly weak daily breadth readings have been uncommon in recent weeks. Last Thursday’s daily reading of -281 was also the lowest single-day reading in over a month (since 2/13). As shown in the chart below, while these two daily readings were extreme relative to the last month, they hardly stand out from a long-term perspective. In fact, over the last five years, the S&P 500’s average daily breadth reading was +/-212, so readings in the 200s have hardly been extreme.
The fact that breadth has been subdued on both the upside and downside means that overall market breadth has remained on a solid footing. As shown in the chart below, just like the S&P 500, its cumulative A/D line also made a new high as of yesterday’s close.
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Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – If at First You Don’t Succeed
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“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” – William Jennings Bryan
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
It’s not a pretty morning for risk assets as two of the areas of the financial universe that had been the subject of the most investor enthusiasm – AI and crypto – are getting hacked this morning. In the AI space, after Jensen Huang’s keynote speech yesterday, investors are taking a sell-the-news reaction. Despite countless companies issuing press releases that they were “working”, “collaborating”, or “partnering” with Nvidia (NVDA), the stock is down just over 2% in the pre-market. The sell-the-news reaction also applies to Super Micro Computer (SMCI) which just announced that it was selling 2 million shares of stock. Based on yesterday’s closing price, that works out to $2 billion or just under 4% of the company’s market cap. In crypto, bitcoin is trading down over 6.4% in what would be its worst day in just over a year. Bitcoin is currently trading at just over $63,000, but overnight on one exchange (BitMex), it crashed down to $8,900 due to a large number of sell orders totaling $55.5 million. For an asset class that is worth over $1 trillion, a $55 million sell order causing a crash of that magnitude certainly doesn’t suggest a lot of liquidity.
On the economic calendar, Building Permits and Housing Starts were just released and both reports exceeded forecasts. Along with that, January’s reports were also revised higher. These better-than-expected housing numbers also follow yesterday’s better-than-expected homebuilder sentiment report.
For Williams Jennings Bryan, his destiny was clearly not to become President of the United States. Along with Henry Clay, Bryan is one of only two people to unsuccessfully run for President of the United States on the ticket of a major political party three different times (1986, 1900, and 1908). Do you know the other person? Benjamin Franklin (who it wasn’t) once said that “energy and persistence conquer all things” but for Bryan, his political career ended with “three strikes and you’re out”.
Like Bryan, the emerging markets ETF (EEM) is currently making its third attempt since the start of 2023 for a breakout above $42. There’s still time, but the last couple of days have seen the ETF’s momentum start to slow putting its ‘destiny’ of a move into the high 40s in question.
Whether or not EEM breaks above resistance will be dictated in large part by the performance of Chinese stocks which account for more than a quarter of the ETF’s holdings. Chinese stocks have been in a steady downtrend for most of the last year. For much of that period, the 50-day moving average acted as consistent resistance, but after breaking above that level after the Lunar New Year holiday, the Shanghai Composite made a beeline right for the 200-DMA. It successfully closed above that level on Monday for the first time since last August, but the ‘breakout’ didn’t last long. Last night, the Shanghai Composite fell over 0.75% and back below its 200-DMA. Unfortunately, the Shanghai Composite’s one-day above its 200-DMA wasn’t even long enough to qualify as a streak.
At 143 trading days, the Shanghai Composite’s streak of closes below its 200-DMA was the longest since November 2022 and the tenth time since China entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in late 2001 that it closed below the 200-DMA for six months or more. While the break above the 200-DMA may sound like a positive technical development, historically it hasn’t been. In the year that followed those nine prior streaks, the Shanghai Composite’s median performance was a gain of 4.0% with gains 56% of the time.
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Homebuilder Sentiment Back to Expansion
Earlier today, the National Association of Home Builders published its March reading on homebuilder sentiment. The headline index rose back above 50 and into expansionary territory. Albeit back in expansion, the index is only at the highest level since last July, and that is well below much of the past decade’s range.
The only sub-index of note was for future sales. This reading has risen month-over-month in four consecutive releases, which brings it up to match the June 2023 high.
On a regional basis, homebuilder sentiment is showing as much healthier in the Northeast and in the Midwest. While in the Northeast the index pulled back from a nearly two year high, the Midwest leaped 11 points month over month to the highest level since July 2022. That one month jump is tied for the fifth largest one month increase on record. The only larger recent increases were in June and July of 2020. As for the West and South, homebuilder sentiment rose and fell, respectively.
As homebuilder sentiment improves, the chart of the homebuilders, proxied by the iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB), remains in its long term uptrend. Currently, the group remains overbought in spite of recently pulling back from its highs.
Finally, we would note that although homebuilders have been mostly headed higher, on a relative basis versus the S&P 500 (SPY), ITB has weakened a bit. Taking the ratio of ITB versus SPY, the homebuilders have been on an impressive string of outperformance over the past few years. However, that ratio has made a couple of lower highs since the end of 2023. While that is not to say the longer term trend is reversing, it has at least pumped the brakes so far this year.
Bespoke’s Morning Lineup – 3/18/24 – Rebound
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“Though the people support the government; the government should not support the people.”- Grover Cleveland
Below is a snippet of commentary from today’s Morning Lineup. Start a two-week trial to Bespoke Premium to view the full report.
After a slow week for stocks last week, bulls are running this morning. Overnight, Japan surged 2.7% ahead of a BoJ rate decision tonight, and China rallied 1%. European stocks are only modestly positive in early trading even as the Nasdaq is indicated to open up well over 1% and the S&P 500 is higher by about 0.7%.
It’s going to be a busy week in terms of global monetary policy, including the Fed on Wednesday. The big event for today, though, is Nvidia’s Developer conference which kicks off today with a keynote speech from CEO Jensen Huang today right after the market closes.
Although it may not necessarily seem like it, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq have now both been down for two weeks in a row. In what bulls are hoping will ultimately end up being a pause that refreshes, nearly half of all sectors have moved out of overbought territory, including Technology which was down nearly 1% last week. The sector is still up nearly 7% on the year which puts it in the number five position in terms of year-to-date performance, trailing Energy, Communication Services, Financials, and Industrials.
We touched on this briefly last week, but it’s been a pretty good couple of weeks for commodity-related stocks, and the two leading sectors last week were Energy and Materials with gains of 3.8% and 1.6%, respectively. Both sectors are at or very near ‘extreme’ short-term overbought levels, but from a longer-term perspective, they’ve forged very different paths. As shown in the one-year charts below, while the Materials sector (XLB) has been hitting 52-week highs on a near-daily basis for the last few weeks, the Energy sector is only now starting to test its 52-week highs from last fall. Does the sector still have enough gas in the tank to push through?
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Bespoke’s Brunch Reads – 3/15/24
Welcome to Bespoke Brunch Reads — a linkfest of the favorite things we read over the past week. The links are mostly market-related, but there are some other interesting subjects covered as well. We hope you enjoy the food for thought as a supplement to the research we provide you during the week.
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On This Day in History:
Sláinte!: March 17th marks the death of St. Patrick. Born in Britain around the end of the 4th century, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders when he was in his teens and taken as a slave. He eventually escaped slavery and returned to his family, but then went back to Ireland as a Christian missionary where he helped convert the Irish to Catholicism while building churches, schools, and monasteries across the country. What began as a religious feast day in honor of St. Patrick has become a global celebration of Irish culture and heritage, symbolized by the color green and the three-leaved shamrock that St. Patrick used to explain the Holy Trinity. The first St. Patrick’s Day celebrations were actually in America, specifically when Irish soldiers serving in the English military marched through New York City in 1762. Today in Chicago, the city famously dyes its river green.
Economic Trends
These Kids Made Their Influencer Parents Wealthy. Will They See a Dime of That Money? (Cosmopolitan)
Growing up as a child influencer, Vanessa’s life was intertwined with her mother’s blog and social media ventures, with no financial compensation for her efforts. Despite contributing to her family’s income through brand deals and content creation, Vanessa discovered at 18 that she had no earnings set aside for her. This story discusses the “sharenting” industry, where children’s contributions to family vlogging businesses often go unrewarded. The only state that offers legal protection for child influencers’ earnings is Illinois. [Link]
A waste of time and money (Klement on Investing)
Following “finfluencers,” or financial influencers, might not be such a good idea if you’re taking their investment advice. According to one study, on average, investors following these finfluencers underperformed the market by 0.35% per month, translating to an annualized underperformance of 4.1%. While a minority of top-performing finfluencers outperformed the market significantly, a substantial portion exhibited “antiskill,” meaning their recommendations resulted in statistically significant negative returns. Interestingly, the study found that those with the most followers were more likely to offer poor advice, suggesting that popularity on social media platforms might not correlate with financial acumen. [Link]
YouTube TV Is Thriving in the Cable Replacement Space as a ‘One-Stop Shop’ for Consumers (Yahoo Entertainment)
YouTube has emerged as a formidable contender in the streaming landscape, surpassing major streamers like Netflix in total TV viewing share. With its YouTube TV subscription service, YouTube is also challenging traditional cable giants, boasting 8 million subscribers in 2023, nearly double that of its closest competitor, Hulu + Live TV. Importantly, YouTube has captured loyalty with Millennials and Gen Z as it offers its traditional creator channels alongside its TV options which inlcude live sports like the NFL Sunday Ticket package. With streaming services fighting over channels and popular names that often rotate in and out, viewers have become fed up with the number of services they need to pay for to get everything they want. [Link]
American Debt Stings Like Never Before in New Era for Households (Yahoo Finance)
US families, already strained by inflation, are now grappling with the cost of debt due to rising interest rates. This has led to higher delinquency rates and increased financial burdens. The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes have pushed up the cost of consumer borrowing, intensifying economic pressures on households. This situation affects consumer sentiment and may impact political dynamics, as financial stability becomes a crucial issue for Americans in this election year. The resumption of student loan payments after the pandemic-era pause is another stress point for those who can’t even fund a savings account because they are living paycheck to paycheck. [Link]
IKEA slashes prices on products as transportation and materials costs ease (USA Today)
IKEA is reducing prices on numerous products in various countries and plans further cuts in 2024, due to positive economic developments and cheaper raw materials. This strategy, aimed at making quality design more accessible, follows efforts to decrease operational costs and enhance efficiency. The initiative started in Europe, leading to increased customer numbers and sales. Ingka Group, IKEA’s largest store owner, is investing in these price reductions to adjust prices to pre-pandemic levels by the end of the next year. [Link]
Airlines Want to Stop ‘Travel Hack’ JSX From Luring Rich Flyers Away (Yahoo News)
JSX, a Dallas-based carrier, has revolutionized air travel for business travelers by offering the convenience of a chartered plane at near business class prices, thanks to creative use of regulatory loopholes that involves operating two companies that work together to schedule flights and sell tickets while avoiding the stringent safety and security requirements that apply to larger scheduled flights. JSX now operates nearly 35,000 flights over 48 routes and still maintains a strong safety record. It is also considering expansion into hybrid electric planes. JSX says that bigger airlines are trying to put it out of business as they struggle to recover corporate travelers from the pandemic. [Link]
AI & Technology
Why Walmart’s quick success in generative AI search should have Google worried (CNBC)
Walmart is using AI to transform its app into a comprehensive solution for event planning and therefore reducing the need for multiple online sources or reliance on search engines like Google. Walmart CEO Doug McMillon spoke about the search capability improvements within the retailer’s app thanks to generative AI, which helps customers find exactly what they are looking for more efficiently. Other companies are investing in the technology as well, like “Ask Instacart” which allows users to search by theme rather than specific items. Amazon and Shopify are other examples. This trend has begun to emerge amid Google’s own recent issues with Gemini. [Link]
Doctors using the Apple Vision Pro for surgery is now a thing (Quartz)
If people walking around town wearing the headset wasn’t unsettling enough, at London’s Cromwell Hospital, the $3,500 Apple Vision Pro played a crucial role in two spinal surgeries. The device wasn’t worn by the doctors but by a scrub nurse who utilized it to display virtual screens for selecting tools and tracking the surgery’s progress. This integration of VR technology in surgical procedures, developed in collaboration with eXeX for AI-driven surgical apps, is hailed as game-changing by the medical team. Apple’s Vision Pro is also being used for surgical planning, training, and medical education through apps like myMako, Fundamental Surgery, and Complete HeartX. [Link]
China using AI to run world’s largest high-speed railway system (Interesting Engineering)
China has the largest high-speed rail network in the world, spanning 45,000 kilometers. It’s now using AI. Managed from Beijing, the AI system boasts an accuracy level of 89% and significantly enhances the efficiency and safety of the rail network by processing vast amounts of data in real time, enabling maintenance teams to swiftly address any irregularities. This technological advancement has led to an 80% reduction in minor track faults and eliminated major track irregularity warnings, contributing to the high-speed rail’s status as the fastest in the world. As China aims to extend its high-speed rail to connect all cities with populations over 500,000, the use of AI in rail management will be even more important. [Link]
Health & Wellness
Experimental weight loss pill seems to be more potent than Ozempic (New Scientist)
Weight loss drugs have been a spark plug for stocks like Eli Lilly (LLY) and Novo Nordisk (NVO), the makers of Mounjaro, Zepbound, Ozempic, and Wegovy. Now, an experimental pill called Amycretin has shown promising early trial results, causing significant weight loss—13% over three months. That surpasses the effects of injectable treatments such as the aforementioned. Amycretin mimics both the GLP-1 and amylin hormones, potentially offering a more potent weight loss solution compared to the current options. However, its long-term effectiveness and safety remain to be fully evaluated. The pill form could be particularly appealing for those averse to injections. [Link]
Why the Y chromosome is vanishing and what this means for the future (The Week)
The Y chromosome, essential for determining male sex in humans, has lost the majority of its original genes over millions of years. Unlike the X chromosome, the Y chromosome lacks genetic recombination, which helps eliminate harmful mutations, leading to its rapid degradation. Researchers suggest that if the Y chromosome were to disappear, it could result in the extinction of humans or the emergence of new human species with different sex determination systems. Others say that the Y chromosome has developed characteristics to preserve its function. [Link]
‘Alarming’ rise in Americans with long Covid symptoms (The Guardian)
A CDC survey reveals that 6.8% of American adults are currently experiencing long-Covid symptoms. That’s a big increase and has sounded the alarm among “experts”. Following a major surge in infections, the majority of long Covid sufferers report a significant impact on daily activities. The rise in cases is now estimated at 17.6 million Americans. [Link]
No such thing as ‘long COVID,’ health agency says in shocking claim: ‘Unnecessary fear’ (New York Post)
Contrary to the last article, long Covid doesn’t exist at all. Researchers say that the term instills unnecessary fear and isn’t markedly different from post-viral symptoms of other illnesses like the flu. Their study surveyed over 5,000 individuals, finding no significant difference in the severity of post-viral symptoms between those who tested positive for COVID-19 and those who didn’t, or those who had the flu. The discrepancy between findings in these two articles demonstrates the need for further research into post-viral syndromes. [Link]
Environmental
Where Heat Pumps Win — And Where They Lose (Heatmap News)
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) found that heat pumps are a cost-effective option for roughly 65 million U.S. homes, or 60% of the country, even before accounting for subsidies. The study considers various factors including home types, local climates, and energy prices, and determined that heat pumps can lower greenhouse gas emissions immediately in all 48 contiguous US states. However, the up-front costs of high-efficiency heat pumps may be prohibitive for many, regardless of the possibility for long-term utility bill savings. Incentives and advancements in heat pump technology could make these systems more accessible and financially viable for a broader range of households. [Link]
It’s Official: America Is Experiencing a Solar Power Explosion Unmatched in History (Popular Mechanics)
The Solar Energy Industries Association reported that the US added 32.4 gigawatts of solar capacity in 2023, the most in a single year. It also represents 52% of all new energy capacity. This growth was propelled by the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean energy incentives and the completion of delayed projects. Texas and California led the expansion which is expected to continue. [Link]
Privacy & Security
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies (NYT)
Kenn Dahl experienced an unexpected 21% increase in his car insurance premium, despite being a careful driver with no accident history. Later he found out that it was because his LexisNexis report, which detailed every trip made in his Chevrolet Bolt over six months, including data on speeding, hard braking, and rapid accelerations, provided by General Motors. Automakers and data brokers collect driving data to offer personalized insurance rates. While some programs are voluntary and require driver consent, concerns have arisen about privacy, the clarity of consent, and the potential for increased insurance costs without explicit knowledge. [Link]
How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It (WSJ)
Despite previous signs of stability, including President Biden himself joining TikTok, behind-the-scenes efforts in Washington were aiming to either ban TikTok or force its sale due to concerns over its Chinese ownership and the perceived risks to national security. The proposed legislation, gaining momentum after concerns over TikTok videos related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, represents the most significant threat to TikTok’s operations in the US to date. TikTok has been mobilizing its user base to push back against the legislation, despite facing backlash from lawmakers for this approach. [Link]
Cities to Cities
Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies (NYT)
Kenn Dahl experienced an unexpected 21% increase in his car insurance premium, despite being a careful driver with no accident history. Later he found out that it was because his LexisNexis report, which detailed every trip made in his Chevrolet Bolt over six months, including data on speeding, hard braking, and rapid accelerations, provided by General Motors. Automakers and data brokers collect driving data to offer personalized insurance rates. While some programs are voluntary and require driver consent, concerns have arisen about privacy, the clarity of consent, and the potential for increased insurance costs without explicit knowledge. [Link]
How TikTok Was Blindsided by U.S. Bill That Could Ban It (WSJ)
Despite previous signs of stability, including President Biden himself joining TikTok, behind-the-scenes efforts in Washington were aiming to either ban TikTok or force its sale due to concerns over its Chinese ownership and the perceived risks to national security. The proposed legislation, gaining momentum after concerns over TikTok videos related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, represents the most significant threat to TikTok’s operations in the US to date. TikTok has been mobilizing its user base to push back against the legislation, despite facing backlash from lawmakers for this approach. [Link]
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The Bespoke Report — 3/15/24 — Inflation Pops, NVDA Drops
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