Mark Zuckerberg Quietly Buries the Metaverse
por Luc Olinga

The Street: Stock Market / 2023-03-02 15:2922
The CEO of social-media giant Meta has sworn by AI, popularized by the chatbot ChatGPT.

There will be no press release, no big announcement, as he would have to acknowledge that he was wrong.

But make no mistake: Mark Zuckerberg just buried the metaverse. The metaverse is dead. 

The metaverse was supposed to be the Next Big Thing for the social-media tycoon, who in 2021 went so far as to rename his empire -- created from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp -- as Meta Platforms. 

Simply put, the metaverse is an immersive virtual world in which we are supposed to interact with each other using specialized glasses and virtual-reality headsets. 

It was the future of technology, according to Zuckerberg, whom Tesla CEO Elon Musk dubbed "Zuck the Fourteenth" in an apparent nod to the French king Louis the XIV, famous for his hubris and excess.

Meta Creates a Top-Level AI Team
For those who doubted the company's devotion to the idea, Meta has invested billions of dollars in this massively hyped project -- to the chagrin of company shareholders.

In 2021 and 2022, Reality Labs, the division housing metaverse projects, recorded a cumulative loss of nearly $24 billion, including $13.7 billion just last year.

The losses will ease significantly in coming months because the metaverse is over.

Zuckerberg has just held the funeral by turning to the next big shiny thing, namely artificial intelligence.

"We're creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this area," Zuckerberg said in a Feb. 27 post on Facebook.

"We're starting by pulling together a lot of the teams working on generative AI across the company into one group focused on building delightful experiences around this technology. ...

"In the short term, we'll focus on building creative and expressive tools," he wrote. "Over the longer term, we'll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways."

The legacy of the metaverse remains because Meta will continue to develop remnants of this virtual world, such as headsets, but it will be more for a target audience, such as videogamers and the crypto world.

Credit to Zuckerberg: He spares himself humiliation by surreptitiously and deftly redirecting the attention of his critics to AI, which most experts consider a true technological revolution.

The uses for consumers and businesses are indisputable: ChatGPT, the most visible expression of the AI breakthrough, has completely changed internet search. Now, we'll get human-like responses to queries. For companies, repetitive and boring tasks can now be carried out efficiently using chatbots.

The Metaverse Was a Fling
We are also getting closer to AGI, or artificial general intelligence, which means highly autonomous systems that emulate and outperform humans at most economically valuable work. 

Basically, the paradigm shift expected since the internet revolution is here. Zuckerberg understands this and has immediately pivoted.

If he is not a pioneer as often as he was, the tech tycoon still reacts very quickly to new ideas and trends. He always adapts and gives the impression that he is immediately on the trail.

Zuckerberg knows how to capture the spirit of the times. This is his strength and it allows him today to bury the metaverse on the sly.

"About 80% of our investments - a little more -- go towards the core business, what we call our family of apps, so that's Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and the ads business associated with that. Then a little less than 20% of our investment goes towards Reality Labs," the CEO told The New York Times Dealbook conference last November.

Coincidence or not: on the same day Zuckerberg made this statement, the OpenAI startup unveiled the ChatGPT chatbot, which has completely convinced millions of consumers that AI is already part of their daily lives and will, in the future, almost dominate their interactions with tech.

From now on, don't talk about the metaverse to Zuckerberg anymore. 

It was an affair that lasted enough time for him to find a new conquest.

Enviado do meu Galaxy

Artificial intelligence is reaching behind newspaper paywalls
Economist/Business & Finance / 2023-03-02 15:336
Business | Big tech v the news
Publishers long accused tech firms of profiting from their content. Now they have a point
Mar 2nd 2023
There was big news in Canada last week—but if you were in Canada itself you may have missed it. On February 22nd it emerged that Google was blocking access to news content, in a five-week trial affecting about 4% of users in the country. The measure comes as Canada's Senate considers a bill that would force big internet companies to pay publishers for displaying links to their stories. Google says it may simply block them instead; Canada's government says the search engine's actions amount to intimidation.

It is the latest episode in a worldwide dispute between new media and old. News organisations, which in the past two decades have seen most of their advertising revenue disappear online, accuse search engines and social networks of profiting from content that is not theirs. Google and Facebook, which have come in for most of the flak, retort that they merely display links and a few lines of text, rather than articles themselves, and that by doing so they drive traffic to publishers (who in any case can opt out if they choose). Facebook estimates that it sends 1.9bn clicks a year to Canadian media, publicity it values at C$230m ($170m).

The online platforms' arguments have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Cheered on by their domestic press, governments in countries including Australia, Britain and Spain have passed or proposed laws aiming to squeeze money out of Silicon Valley and into local media companies. Australia's law, passed in 2021, prodded tech firms to make payments to Australian media reportedly worth about A$200m ($135m) in the scheme's first year.

To ward off similar legislation elsewhere, Google and Facebook have set up mechanisms for funnelling "support" to media companies. Google's "News Showcase" will spend about $1bn in 2020-23 on licensing content from more than 2,000 news organisations in more than 20 countries. Facebook's News Tab (in which The Economist has participated) does something similar, but has lately been scaled back. Unlike Google, Facebook can live without news, which makes up only 3% of what users see in their feed.

The laws have sometimes had the feel of a shakedown of the wealthy foreign tech firms by governments. But developments in the search business mean that the publishers' complaints seem increasingly justified. Search engines have been getting better at displaying information without referring visitors to external sources. Ask Google the size of Canada's population and it simply tells you that it was 38m in 2021 (followed by its usual list of suggested websites). About a quarter of desktop Google searches now end with no onward clicks, according to Semrush, an online marketing company.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to improve this capability dramatically. Google's AI helper, Bard, is still under wraps. But its rival, incorporated into Microsoft's Bing search engine, is already resolving queries. Ask the old Bing for a summary of Canada's last election results and it points to sites including CBC News and the Globe and Mail. Ask the new Bing and it gives a decent account by itself (along with footnoted links to sources). AI assistants can even reach behind paywalls. A user trying to find the New York Times's recipe for macaroni and cheese will be stopped by a demand for payment and subscription. But ask Bing's AI and it serves up a paraphrased version of the whole recipe, complete with a licking-lips emoji.

The search companies admit they are still finding their way with new technology, which is mostly not yet on general release. That is unlikely to satisfy publishers' lawyers. The chief counsel at one large media company argues that AI-search companies should be made to license the content they regurgitate, just as Spotify has to pay record labels to play their songs. AI's use of others' material is "the copyright question of our times", he says. For years the complaints of publishers against platforms have rung somewhat hollow. Now they have a real story on their hands. ■

To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Breaking news"

Business March 4th 2023
How the titans of tech investing are staying warm over the VC winter
Investors are going nuts for ChatGPT-ish artificial intelligence
Foreign investors are being snagged by India's tax net
Artificial intelligence is reaching behind newspaper paywalls
The uses and abuses of hype
Lessons from Novo Nordisk on the stampede for obesity drugs

From the March 4th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
Reuse this content
More from Business

Foreign investors are being snagged by India's tax net
Indian startups will suffer


The uses and abuses of hype
How excitement can help and hinder entrepreneurs


Lessons from Novo Nordisk on the stampede for obesity drugs
Dos and don'ts on how to handle a gold rush

Enviado do meu Galaxy

The uses and abuses of hype
Economist/Business & Finance / 2023-03-02 15:335
Business | Bartleby
How excitement can help and hinder entrepreneurs
Mar 2nd 2023
Hype and absurdity go together. As excitement about the next big thing builds, people fall over themselves to get on board. A year and a half ago, the metaverse was the future. Companies appointed chief metaverse officers, and futurologists burbled about web 3.0. The idea has not gone away. Colombia held its first court case in the metaverse last month (imagine a video game called Wii Justice and you get the picture). But the excitement has evaporated, at least for now. Microsoft disbanded its industrial metaverse team last month; the career prospects of chief metaverse officers are more virtual than even they would like.

Other technologies have suffered the same reversal. There was a point when it was deeply fashionable to rave about the blockchain, crypto and non-fungible tokens. Now the attention of users, investors and managers is firmly fixed on artificial intelligence (AI). Since ChatGPT, an AI chatbot, was made available to the public at the end of November, it has generated another wave of hype. Over 100m people have asked it to rewrite IKEA furniture instructions in iambic pentameter or something equally vital; venture-capital funds are pouring money into AI startups; established firms are rushing to explain how they will use the technology to do everything from customer service to coding.

Hype need not end in disappointment. Some technologies are less speculative than others; the metaverse is still largely notional, for example, whereas AI is an established field. Even when bubbles burst, they can leave world-changing companies behind. The hype cycle, popularised by Gartner, a consultancy, is real. In essence, it describes a period of uncontrolled enthusiasm for a new idea followed by a backlash.

That makes hype bittersweet for entrepreneurs. Excitement can help unlock funding and attract users. Some think of hype as a public good, vital in enabling new technologies to get going. But it can also lead to problems. The question is how to manage hype for the best.

An obvious temptation for entrepreneurs is to take advantage of the hype by making wild—even deceitful—promises. A paper from 2021 by Paul Momtaz of UCLA Anderson School of Management looked at the once-faddish field of initial coin offerings (icos), in which new cryptocurrencies are issued directly to the public. Mr Momtaz found that not only did issuers systematically overplay their tokens' prospects but that investors fell for it. Exaggerated claims raised more money in less time than accurate ones. ICOs are far less hyped these days, but the opportunity to trick investors apparently remains: over 100 new cryptocurrencies have been created that have ChatGPT in their name.

Wilful exaggeration might be a perfectly logical strategy if entrepreneurs are raising money once. But if they want to build a business, tap capital in repeated funding rounds or maintain a close relationship with investors and users, hype might become a liability. Some dangers are obvious: disappointment and damaged credibility if things do not turn out as well as promised. Other dangers are more subtle: being too associated with a specific technology can reduce the room that startups have to pivot to a new product or business model.

So hype calls for care. A recent paper by Danielle Logue of University of Technology Sydney and Matthew Grimes of Judge Business School looked at the different paths taken by a number of social-investment stockmarkets that were set up in 2013 as the buzz over impact investing grew. The authors contrast the glitzier approach of an exchange in London, which attracted high-profile endorsements, promised a financial revolution and subsequently collapsed, with its more successful Canadian peer, which has relied more on expert advice and incrementalism.

The pros and cons of hype have also been apparent in the short public life of ChatGPT. Hype helped make it the fastest-growing consumer technology in history. But the flaws in the technology now attract as much attention. Microsoft, which has integrated a souped-up version of the chatbot into its Bing search engine, has restricted access to the new version and set limits on how many questions users can ask it in a row (an idea well worth adopting in all meetings). As Mr Grimes points out, entrepreneurs who are pushing entirely new products are expected to distort reality without overinflating expectations. How they handle hype can help determine whether they can pull off this difficult balancing act. ■

Read more from Bartleby, our columnist on management and work:
Unshowy competence brings drawbacks as well as benefits (Feb 23rd)
Why it's time to get shot of coffee meetings at work (Feb 16th)
The pitfalls of loving your job a little too much (Feb 9th)

To stay on top of the biggest stories in business and technology, sign up to the Bottom Line, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "The uses and abuses of hype"

Business March 4th 2023
How the titans of tech investing are staying warm over the VC winter
Investors are going nuts for ChatGPT-ish artificial intelligence
Foreign investors are being snagged by India's tax net
Artificial intelligence is reaching behind newspaper paywalls
The uses and abuses of hype
Lessons from Novo Nordisk on the stampede for obesity drugs

From the March 4th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition
Reuse this content
More from Business

Foreign investors are being snagged by India's tax net
Indian startups will suffer


Artificial intelligence is reaching behind newspaper paywalls
Publishers long accused tech firms of profiting from their content. Now they have a point


Lessons from Novo Nordisk on the stampede for obesity drugs
Dos and don'ts on how to handle a gold rush

Enviado do meu Galaxy

New drugs could spell an end to the world's obesity epidemic | Leaders
The Economist Print edition / 2023-03-02 22:052
A new type of drug is generating excitement among the rich and the beautiful. Just a jab a week, and the weight falls off. Elon Musk swears by it; influencers sing its praises on TikTok; suddenly slimmer Hollywood starlets deny they have taken it. But the latest weight-loss drugs are no mere cosmetic enhancements. Their biggest beneficiaries will be not celebrities in Los Angeles or Miami but billions of ordinary people around the world whose weight has made them unhealthy.

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Treatments for weight loss have long ranged from the well-meaning and ineffective to the downright dodgy. The new class of drugs, called glp-1 receptor agonists, seems actually to work. Semaglutide, developed by Novo Nordisk, a Danish pharmaceutical firm, has been shown in clinical trials to lead to weight loss of about 15%. It is already being sold under the brand name Wegovy in America, Denmark and Norway and will soon be available in other countries; Ozempic, a lower-dose version, is a diabetes drug that is also being used "off label" for weight loss. A rival glp-1 drug, made by Eli Lilly, an American firm, is due to come on sale later this year and is more effective still. Analysts think the market for glp-1 drugs could reach $150bn by 2031, not far off the market for cancer drugs today. Some think they could become as common as beta blockers or statins.

The drugs could not have arrived at a better time. In 2020 two-fifths of the world's population were overweight or obese. By 2035, says the World Obesity Federation, an ngo, that figure could swell to more than half, with a staggering 4bn people overweight or obese. People everywhere are getting fatter. The populations putting on pounds the fastest are not in the rich West but in countries like Egypt, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

These trends are alarming because obesity causes a host of health problems, including diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, as well as dozens of illnesses such as stroke, gout and various cancers. Carrying extra weight made people more likely to die of covid-19. And then there is the misery that comes from the stigma associated with being fat, which affects children in schools and playgrounds most cruelly of all.

The consequences of obesity for the public purse and the wider economy are large. According to modelling by academics the annual cost to the world economy of excess weight could reach $4trn by 2035 (2.9% of global gdp, up from 2.2% in 2019). That includes both spending on health care and working time lost to illness and premature deaths tied to obesity.

The world's expanding waistlines are not a sign of the moral failure of the billions who are overweight, but the result of biology. The genes that were vital to helping humans survive winters and famine still help the body cling on to its weight today. The superabundance of hard-to-resist processed foods in recent decades has brought greater convenience and lower costs, but also triggered overeating just as lifestyles became more sedentary. Once the fat is on, the body fights any attempt to diet away more than a little of its total weight. Despite the $250bn that consumers around the world spent on dieting and weight loss last year, the battle to get slim was largely being lost.

The new obesity drugs arrived by serendipity, after treatments meant for diabetics were observed to cause weight loss. Semaglutide mimics the release of hormones that stimulate a feeling of fullness and reduce the appetite. They also switch off the powerful urge to eat that lurks inside the brain, waiting to ambush even the keenest dieter.

With the jabs already in high demand, investors are nearly as giddy as newly slim users. The market capitalisation of Novo Nordisk, the firm at the front of the gold rush, has doubled in two years, to $326bn, making it the second-most-valuable listed drugmaker in the world. Analysts expect half of obese Americans who seek help to be on glp-1 drugs by the turn of the decade. But, as with any new medicine that holds so much promise for so many, there are uncertainties. Two big ones will be safety and affordability.

Consider safety first. The newness of these drugs means that their long-term consequences are not yet known. For the lower-dose forms prescribed for diabetes, the side-effects, such as vomiting and diarrhoea, have been mild. But others could crop up as the drugs are used more widely and at higher doses. Animal studies have shown a higher incidence of thyroid cancer, and semaglutide is associated with a rare pancreatitis. Little is known about the effects of using them during or just before pregnancy. All this will require careful analysis through controlled longitudinal studies.

Understanding these risks will be important, because many patients who take the drugs may need them for the rest of their lives. As with ditching a diet, stopping a high dose of semaglutide is associated with much of the lost weight piling back on. Some people even gain more weight than they lost in the first place.

Another preoccupation for policymakers is cost. In America the bill for Wegovy runs at around $1,300 a month; for Ozempic about $900. Judged by such prices, lifelong prescriptions look forbiddingly expensive. The longer view, however, is more encouraging. In time, companies may strike deals with governments and health providers to cover the whole population, ensuring high volumes in return for low prices. The prospect of profits is already luring competition and spurring innovation. Amgen, AstraZeneca and Pfizer are all working on rival drugs; Novo Nordisk has a full pipeline of follow-on drugs. Further ahead still, patents will expire, enabling the development of lower-priced generics.

The shape of things to come
What to do in the meantime? Governments must ensure that those who most need the drugs get them, leaving those taking them for cosmetic purposes to pay out of their own pockets. The long-term effects must be carefully studied. States should keep pressing other anti-obesity measures, such as exercise, healthy eating and better food labelling, which may help prevent people from getting fat in the first place. But spare a moment to celebrate, too. These new drugs mean that the world's fight against flab may eventually be won. ■

For subscribers only: to see how we design each week's cover, sign up to our weekly Cover Story newsletter.

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Business | The world this week
The Economist Print edition / 2023-03-02 22:05

Goldman Sachs held an investors' day, its first in three years, amid grumbling from shareholders about the direction of the bank after a slump in profit last year. David Solomon, its chief executive, raised the possibility of selling parts of its lossmaking consumer services after it has finished scaling back the division. It has become clear "that we lacked certain competitive advantages" in the business, he said. Markets were left unimpressed by the presentation. Goldman's share price fell after the event.

Tesla held its first ever investor day, at which Elon Musk outlined part three of his "Master Plan" for the company. Senior executives also took part and said an electric car for the mass market was in the works, which is essential for Tesla's sales ambitions. But the lack of detail about the new model disappointed investors.

Tesla also confirmed that it is building its first factory in Mexico, in Monterrey. It is the latest carmaker to invest in making electric vehicles in Mexico; in February BMW said it would expand production and build a factory to assemble batteries. Mexico is benefiting from the huge green subsidies in America's Inflation Reduction Act, $34bn of which is earmarked for smoothing the supply chain for EVs.

The euro zone's annual inflation rate remained virtually unchanged in February at 8.5%, though the reading was higher than the 8.2% that economists had expected. Core inflation, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, increased to 5.6%. Inflation also rose in the currency bloc's two biggest economies, Germany and France, adding to pressure on the European Central Bank to continue raising interest rates.

A measure of factory activity in China grew at its fastest rate in a decade, suggesting that the economy is bouncing back from covid-19 lockdowns and other restrictions. The official purchasing managers' index for manufacturing registered 52.6 for February, up from 50.1 in January (a reading over 50 means manufacturing is growing). The news triggered a rally in Hong Kong's stockmarket.

America's three main stockmarkets declined in February. The S&P 500 was down by 2.6% and the NASDAQ composite by 1.1%. Both indices are still up for the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 4.2% in February; it has dropped by over 1% so far this year.

Sorting out the greenwashing
The European Commission announced that an agreement had been reached on its proposed standard for EU green bonds. Companies that want to promote their bonds as climate-friendly will have to ensure that the investments meet strict sustainability requirements. It is not yet clear what the penalties will be if companies' bonds don't meet the new standards.

Sweden's economy shrank by 0.9% in the last three months of 2022 compared with the previous quarter. The country is expected to fall into recession this year as soaring prices and higher interest rates knock consumer spending. House prices are falling sharply. Finland's economy did fall into recession in the fourth quarter, contracting by 0.6% after a 0.1% decline in the third quarter.

An accounting charge on stock-based compensation caused Zoom to report its first quarterly loss since 2018. The video-conference company's revenue grew by just 4%, year on year. A year earlier sales were still growing by 20%.


The share price of Beyond Meat fell back, having rallied after it produced better forecasts for the year than expected. Its stock is up by 38% since the start of 2023, even though revenue fell by 20% in the fourth quarter, year on year, and it made another net loss. Sales for the alternative-meat industry were butchered last year, in part because fake meat hasn't lived up to the hype of being as tasty as the real thing.

Ocado reported another big annual loss. Revenue from its online-groceries business in Britain fell. It had more customers but they put fewer items in their baskets: 46 on average, down from 52 in 2021.

International Airlines Group, the owner of British Airways, made its first annual operating profit since the start of the pandemic: €1.3bn ($1.4bn). Passenger revenue soared to €19.5bn from €5.8bn in 2021. IAG expects profit to climb.

Come fly with me
Cathay Pacific began giving away free return flights to Hong Kong to residents of South-East Asia as part of the city's campaign to lure back tourists after lockdown. The government is making 500,000 tickets available. Cathay is providing 80,000. Hong Kong's main airline has had a turbulent few years, from being ensnared in pro-democracy politics to coming close to collapse amid covid restrictions. But business is taking off again. Cathay flew 1m passengers in January, up by 4,000%, year on year.

Enviado do meu Galaxy

Entire Treasury Market Yields at Least 4%, Now Including 30-Year
Yahoo! Finance: Top Stories / 2023-03-02 17:3022


(Bloomberg) -- The US 30-year yield rose to the highest level since November Thursday, joining the rest of the Treasury market in offering investors a return of at least 4% after another batch of strong labor-market data.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Yields across the Treasury market climbed following an upward revision to the fourth-quarter unit-labor-costs growth rate. The 30-year yield rose as much as 9 basis points to 4.045%, up from a 2023 low of 3.5% in early February, and ended the day at around 4.03%.

While shorter-maturity yields have been spurred higher as traders raised forecasts for the peak Federal Reserve policy rate, longer-dated ones respond more to signs of sticky inflation. A jump in a gauge of US manufacturer prices Wednesday stoked fears that a forthcoming companion report on the services sector will remain buoyant and spark further selling.

"Another firm ISM services number on Friday will see higher yields across the curve," said Jack McIntyre, portfolio manager at Brandywine Global Investment Management. "As a long-duration investor, we are in a tough environment, but we see the backup in yields as an opportunity."

Treasury yields ticked higher earlier in the session along with rates on European bonds after inflation in the euro area slowed less than anticipated in February, while the core measure surged to a new record. The data reinforced expectations that the European Central Bank will have to push borrowing costs ever higher.

The US Treasury market has erased its January gains, which followed its worst year on record, with renewed bearish sentiment also spurred by robust Chinese economic data.

The 10-year note's yield traded above 4% for the first time since November on Wednesday and rose as high as 4.09% on Thursday.

Shorter-maturity yields, more sensitive to the eight increases in the Fed's policy rate over the past year, have exceeded the 4% threshold for varying amounts of time. The two-year yield has traded above that threshold since September and rose to a high of 4.94% on Thursday, a level last seen in July 2007.

The two-year remains the highest-yielding Treasury note or bond, reflecting expectations that the Fed's rate increases are sowing the seeds of an economic slowdown. Consistent with that, swap contracts referencing Fed meeting dates continue to price in roughly 50% odds that the central bank will lower its policy rate by a quarter point from the peak by the end of the year.

The Fed raised its policy rate most recently to a range of 4.5%-4.75% on Feb. 1. Traders expect the central bank will raise policy to a peak of around 5.5%, according to swaps that reference the Fed's September meeting.

With long-end yields now back above 4%, some on Wall Street say levels are appealing to build exposure as the prospect of a hard landing for the economy beckons. Priya Misra, global head of rates strategy at TD Securities, said she would "enter some more longs at 4%" in 10- and 30-year Treasuries, noting TD began recommending that trade when yields rose to 3.8%.

Long-dated yields at 4% "will look really cheap" once the Fed pushes unemployment higher and engineers a hard landing, Misra said on Bloomberg Television Thursday. Investors should still retain "some dry powder to keep adding" to the long end as yields could shoot higher to 4.25% in the near term, she said.

(Updates yield levels.)

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The Inverse Jim Cramer ETF Has Officially Arrived
por Tyler Durden

Zero Hedge / 2023-03-02 19:51145
The Inverse Jim Cramer ETF Has Officially Arrived
If you're active in the markets, it's almost a certainty that you've heard a joke about betting on the opposite of whatever non-stop-stock-picker Jim Cramer suggests to retail investors. 

Now, retail investors can do just that. There is a new pair of products coming to market this week called the Inverse Cramer Tracker ETF (ticker SJIM) and the Long Cramer Tracker ETF (LJIM) that will now allow investors to bet against (or with) the Mad Money host. 

The same group that brought you SARK, the inverse ARKK Fund ETF are the ones putting together the ETFs. The funds are the brain-child of Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management. 

"If he specifically says either buy, buy, buy a stock, then we're gonna go short that stock at the next practical moment," he recently told Bloomberg. "If he tells you he hates a stock or sell, sell, sell or something like that, then we're gonna go long that name again at the next kind of practical entry point."

The inverse fund "is an actively managed exchange traded fund that seeks to achieve its investment objective by engaging in transactions designed to perform the opposite of the return of the investments recommended by television personality Jim Cramer," the company said in a prospectus late last year. 


"Under normal circumstances, at least 80% of the Fund's investments is invested in the inverse of securities mentioned by Cramer," it says of its strategy. 

The filing continues:

The Fund's adviser monitors Cramer's stock selection recommendations throughout the trading day as publicly announced on Twitter or his television programs broadcast on CNBC, and sells those recommendations short or enters into derivatives transactions such as futures, options or swaps that produce a negative correlation to those recommendations.

The Fund's portfolio generally is comprised of 20 to 25 equity securities not recommended by Cramer. To the extent possible, the Fund's portfolio is equally weighted. The Fund may invest in securities with any market capitalization and in securities of issuers located in the United States and abroad.

Should Cramer recommend buying any of the securities in the Fund's portfolio, the Fund will dispose of those holdings. Should Cramer recommend selling any of the securities in the Fund's portfolio, the Fund will keep those holdings. If Cramer does not take any view on any of the securities in the Fund's portfolio, the adviser retains discretion to sell positions once profit or loss targets are met, or market conditions such as large swings in either direction necessitate a sale and replace them with securities that meet the criteria of the Fund's initial portfolio. Under normal circumstances, the Fund will hold positions no longer than a week.

As we said back in October, we're sure the new ETF will have no trouble attracting attention and investors. Also, as contrarians, we also can't help but wonder if this public acceptance of Cramer's uncanny ability to get things wrong is finally a reason to start looking at taking him seriously.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/02/2023 - 13:45

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Tesla Master Plan Draws Disappointed Reviews on Twitter
por Ellen Chang

The Street: Stock Market / 2023-03-02 20:1456
CEO Elon Musk provided few details about Tesla's future plans at its annual investor day on March 1.

Investors and owners of Tesla  (TSLA) - Get Free Report appeared disappointed with the company's "master plan" discussing the future of electric vehicles and a sustainable energy economy.

The long-awaited annual investor day on March 1 revealed few details about new models, when the Cybertruck would be produced and if Tesla is moving forward with a cheaper $25,000 model.

DONT MISS: Tesla Unveils New Vehicle Manufacturing Platform to Cut Costs by 50%

The electric vehicle maker said a new vehicle manufacturing platform would enable Tesla to cut costs by 50%, but details were not provided.

The goal is to offer low cost vehicles in order to reach the masses who still shy away from electric vehicles because of the often prohibitive prices.

In response, CEO Elon Musk tweeted, "Detailed whitepaper with calculations & assumptions to be released by Tesla shortly."

But fans and owners of Tesla's vehicles expressed their dismay at the scant details provided by Musk and the EV maker's executives. 

One person, named "Randeep," tweeted, "But why would they do that they got our hopes up so much for investors day most of us were expecting future cars or robo taxis I think even most of the analysts were expecting that that's why they increased the PT too.. this will affect the short run of tsla for sure."

Even long-time fans of Tesla were not impressed with the lack of new information given at investor day. Dmitriy Strunin remarked on the length of the  presentation that lasted four hours. Other companies such as Apple have usually spent only 60 to 90 minutes for their presentations.

"Im not gonna lie you guys need to consolidate the presentation," he tweeted. "Love the company and its people but that was just too drawn out and unnecessary in my opinion. I think it was overwhelming with detail."

Another person with a Twitter account of "NJ Citizen" suggested that Tesla emulate Apple's investor day presentations that are more concise.

The presentation drew the ire of many people, including Mark Pensarn.

"Whoever planned the format and withholding ANY news on the much anticipated new less expensive model , needs to be reprimanded," he tweeted. "This wasn't the exciting upbeat presentation we needed . The Info was Superb but delivery poor . Cost a lot of small investors a LOT !!. PR needed ."

Other people commented on Musk and the delivery of statements on the future of Tesla. Last October, Musk took Twitter, a social media platform, private in a $44 billion acquisition and has devoted much of this time and attention on the deal.

Brianna Wu, executive director of Rebellion Pac, tweeted, "I'm watching @elonmusk speak at the Tesla investor day," she tweeted. "It's so clear the train wreck of Twitter is having a massive psychological effect on him. He's clearly tired. His answers are completely incoherent. There's no vision here. He seems really unhappy."

Some Tesla fans reacted positively to the presentation. Brian Aroniss tweeted, "That is awesome. Great job everyone The stock went down because people were bored, mostly because they didn't understand what was being said, it was over their heads. I am stoked!"

Sybill Hill Carter,commended Tesla on its presentation. 

"Thank you for hours of information!" she tweeted. "As a long Tesla investor I needed to understand. Applaud the team, the upgrades to cut price on the end product and Tesla vision to a cleaner planet is continuous.

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Koch Industries appoints co-CEO from outside namesake family
Financial Times: Markets / 2023-03-02 20:266


Charles Koch, the billionaire who turned Koch Industries from a 300-person oil and ranching business into America's second-largest private company over half a century, has decided to share power with an executive from outside his family.

Dave Robertson, a veteran of nearly 30 years at the Wichita, Kansas-based group, is stepping up from the role of chief operating officer to be co-chief executive along with Charles Koch as part of a reshuffle, which the company said would ensure that it continued to "succeed well into the future". 

Charles Koch, aged 87 and with a fortune estimated by Bloomberg at $67bn, will continue as chair, a role he has held since 1967. His son, Chase, has played an increasingly visible role in the company and is adding the title of executive vice-president to his existing job leading an investment arm called Koch Disruptive Technologies.

"My role and responsibilities will continue as they have been," Charles Koch said in a statement, adding: "I believe altogether these changes will improve our ability to continually transform for the benefit of our company, our employees, our customers and people throughout society."

Koch Industries has 120,000 employees across 60 countries and annual revenues of $125bn, but it has also become well known for the political activism of its controlling family.

Charles and his brother David, who died in 2019, became leading funders of libertarian causes and Republican candidates, enraging many on the left for their backing of conservative judges and support for groups that denied the scientific consensus on climate change.

At the same time, they split from former US president Donald Trump on subjects including trade and gay marriage. Americans for Prosperity, the US donor network Charles Koch leads, recently indicated that it would oppose Trump's bid to secure re-election in 2024.

Koch Industries ranks second only to Cargill in Forbes' revenue-based ranking of private US companies. It remains a significant player in the energy refining and trading industries but has diversified to consumer products such as Brawny paper towels and investments in technologies including batteries for electric vehicles.

Robertson has already run several of Koch's largest operations since joining the company in 1984, including Flint Hills Resources, the refineries and pipelines business, and serves on the boards of subsidiaries including Georgia-Pacific, its paper products group. He will also add the title of vice-chair.

Last year he defended Koch's decision to maintain two glass factories in Russia even as other western companies were leaving the country after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "We will not walk away from our employees there or hand over these manufacturing facilities to the Russian government so it can operate and benefit from them," he said.

Koch later sold its business in Russia, Robertson said last July.

Jim Hannan, an executive vice-president who oversees operations including Georgia-Pacific and the Guardian Industries glass business, will succeed Robertson as the group's president and chief operating officer.

This story has been updated to clarify that Koch Industries has sold its business in Russia

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Ford Has Applied for a Patent That Will Freak Out People Who Miss Car Payments
por Jeffrey Quiggle

The Street: Stock Market / 2023-03-02 20:35

Owners of Ford vehicles could face the reality of a car or truck driving itself away if this patent application is accepted.

Ford Motor Company  (F) - Get Free Report has applied for a patent with a surprising new approach to repossessing vehicles.

It's a surprising, and somewhat dystopian idea.

The patent application involves a method for a car whose owner has missed payments to drive itself to a repo lot.

DON'T MISS: Apple Just Filed a Patent for a Potentially Revolutionary New IPhone 

The application, filed on Aug. 20, 2021 and currently still pending approval, first describes a feature that will lock an owner or lessee out of use of the car.

A message would be sent to an individual regarding delinquency of a payment.

"When an acknowledgment is not received within a reasonable period of time, the first computer may disable a functionality of a component of the vehicle or may place the vehicle in a lockout condition," the application says. 

It then describes a scenario in which the vehicle being repossessed has self-driving capability.

"The vehicle can be an autonomous vehicle and the repossession system computer may cooperate with the vehicle computer to autonomously move the vehicle from the premises of the owner to a location such as, for example, the premises of the repossession agency, the premises of the lending institution, and impound pound, or any other pre-designated location," the application explains.

The patent contains drawings illustrating how computer systems communicating with the car's computer would work.

"Ford files patent for system that could remotely repossess a car," tweeted Ars Technica.

Before taking the ultimate repossession step, other measures might be taken to incentivize the driver of the car to make payments.

"There would be several warnings from the vehicle before the system initiated a formal repossession," The Drive reported. "If these warnings were ignored, the car could begin to lose functionality ahead of a repo. The first lost functions would be minor inconveniences like 'cruise control, automated window controls, automated seat controls, and some components of the infotainment system (radio, global positioning system (GPS), MP3 player, etc.).'

"The next level is more serious, and includes the loss of things like 'the air conditioning system, a remote key fob, and an automated door lock/unlock system.' Likewise, an 'incessant and unpleasant sound' may be turned on 'every time the owner is present in the vehicle,'" according to The Drive. 

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