What's Interesting In Business News: Content, Coffee, Alternative Data, ESG, Algorithms, Traders, Equity Research, $AMZN, Kirkland, $FB, Design, Free Parking, Liquidnet, Icons, Podcasts, Paywalls
June 9, 2019 | Volume 12
Get this newsletter delivered to your email inbox. Click the subscribe button.
Content is still king in the music industry. Tough for Spotify’s margins.
The strong arm of the major labels
Coffee is great. Milk and sugar, not so much.
Coffee is the secret of health and happiness
42% of all asset managers believe the alpha edge they achieve by using alternative data lasts for at least four years.
Alternative Data Provides Significant and Sustainable Investing Edge
Most ESG ratings firms have been acquired by larger data and research firms.
ESG ratings are still nascent data offerings which many investment managers use to supplement but not drive investment decisions.
Still plenty of room for innovation in the space. Largely still greenfield.
ESG rating agencies fulfil the need for knowhow
Algorithms can’t consistently predict the stock market. What a surprise.
Computer Models Won’t Beat the Stock Market Any Time Soon
It’s not just the sell side traders who are slowly disappearing. Buy side traders are now being outsourced.
The Buy-Side Trader Is Latest Job to Be Outsourced as Costs Rise
What happens when you are the only sell side analyst bear? Angry colleagues, angry clients, threats, and ultimately job loss.
#Equityresearch is tough sometimes.
Lessons From a Rare Breed: Wall Street Bears
Amazon has a 77% market share of new book purchases online. Up from 71% last year.
Elliott Management to Buy Barnes & Noble in $475 Million Deal
WSJ profiles a JP Morgan sell side equity research analyst who made a good call on $GE. The reality is that despite the typical criticisms of sell side research, there are many good smart analysts who add real value to the investment managers.
GE’s Nemesis: An Eerily Prescient Bear
Kirkland partners make over $5 mm each and the firm is now the largest law firm in the world based on revenues.
It grew by working closely with private equity firms.
With $2 Trillion in dry powder, the PE industry has room for many large deals for the foreseeable future. And a great environment for Kirkland to continue its aggressive growth.
How a private equity boom fuelled the world’s biggest law firm
82% of shareholders ex-Zuckerberg votes to eliminate the dual class structure at $FB.
Since Zuckerberg controls the supervoting class of shares of Facebook, he can safely ignore shareholders. Forever.
Facebook Investors Vote for Change at Top. But They Can’t Win
Nice writeup on how to design forms. Too many products that we all use regularly have terrible forms.
Free street parking on the Upper West Side may be coming to an end this year. Lot's of debate still to come.
Nerves Fray at Community Board Meeting Over Resolution to End Free Curbside Parking
Liquidnet is slowly moving into the analyst and PM desktop space on the buy side.
$FDS and Bloomberg are taking notice I am sure.
Liquidnet continues acquisitions with capture of NLP analytics specialist
Curious about the origin of icons? The hamburger menu? Interesting writeup about the original icon designers at Xerox.
An oral history of the hamburger icon (from the people who were there)
Ads in podcasts grew to almost $500 mm last year. Up 53%.
The entire market is less than 1% of TV ad spend or digital ad spend. Plenty of room to grow.
Marketers Turn Up Podcast Advertising
Wired is launching "paywall sponsorship" which allows advertisers to increase the number of free stories users get in exchange for promotional placement.
One year into the paywall, Wired is testing letting advertisers unlock access for readers