How far productivity has come in 10 years 2020 US Census edition …
“We were able to verify 65% of addresses using satellite imagery — a massive accomplishment for us,” said Census Bureau Geography Division Chief Deirdre Bishop during the briefing. “In 2010 we had to hire 150,000 people to verify 100% of the addresses in the field, this decade we will only have to hire about 40,000 employees around the nation to verify the remaining 35% of addresses.”
The FDA announced about 2 years ago that it “plans to begin a public dialogue about lowering nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes to non-addictive levels” . This is still ongoing through the comprehensive plan.
E-cigarettes (along with other alternatives) were meant to be a saviour of the industry.
Unfortunately there have been a series of deaths reported in the US linked to E-cigarettes, with 3 more over the weekend.
Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put out a statement advising the public to stop using these products while they investigate.
The ability of tobacco firms to keep their existing profit pools, built on years of price rises, is looking even less likely.
Altice are being very aggressive in the US mobile market.
Their new plan prices at $20/month for life unlimited everything (incl roaming and calls to 35 countries) for their existing cable customers and $30 month otherwise (for those near their 21-state footprint).
This is roughly half the cost of rivals.
You bring your own phone or buy one with 36 month zero financing.
US Mobile is very high margin for the incumbents AT&T and Verizon …
No time to read the interesting articles (posted on Snippet)? No problem. Just click the pocket button at the top of your browser to save it for later.
You can then see all your articles in the app, and they all get downloaded to be read offline (like in the tube on the way home).
It is very easy to use – you can then archive read articles, it gives you an estimate of how long each one takes to read etc.
Dr. Micahel Burry of Big Short fame is long Gamestop.
Nearly 60% of the stock is out on loan to shorts. Often this is a great set up for going long a stock if you believe things won’t be that bad.
He has written a letter to the board advocating a buyback in the face of short sellers. You can find it on this Market Folly link. There is also an interesting interview in Barrons with the man himself on the thesis.
NB Market Folly is a great site that tracks what big names in the US Hedge Fund world are up to.
Since 1995 the company shares have outperformed the S&P by 1.6x; and 4x in the last 3 years.
In that time they created and spun-off several public companies – Expedia, TripAdvisor, Match Group (owner of Tinder), ANGI Homeservices. The latter two IAC still holds >80% stakes in.
They continue to build and invest in new business like Vimeo (Online Video), DotDash (online publishing), Blue Crew (online recruitment) and the latest Turo (car sharing). In other words at the tech forefront.
The latest letter is here and each quarter you can find them here.
