Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft explodes as it attempted 1st landing on Moon's south pole
Bay Area Times
August 21, 2023
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Top stories today:
- Russia's spacecraft explodes as it attempted Moon landing
- China surprises by leaving 5-year rate steady at 4.2%
- Poll: 79% believe rate cuts only in 2024+
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
1. Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft explodes as it attempted 1st landing on Moon's south pole
India's Chandrayaan-3 will now attempt to be the 1st to land on the Moon's south pole on Wednesday
Read more: CNN.
2. China leaves 5-year rate steady at 4.2% but cuts shorter rates by 0.1%
0.15% cuts were expected by economists in most of these rates. - Reuters
Potential explanations for China keeping the 5-year rate steady:
Avoiding more CNY depreciation.
Allowing China's construction sector to continue to shrink, as it is currently at an unreasonable 30% of GDP, with retail housing seeing evidence of overinvestment.
Avoiding hurting banks’ profitability.
China's return on assets of privately-owned companies fell from 9% to 4%, matching those of state-owned firms
Read more: WSJ analysis on China's slowdown.
China's GDP as a share of U.S. GDP is also falling, to 67% in H2 2023
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4. Poll: 79% believe rate cuts only in 2024+, 50% say U.S. recession coming in 12 months
And only 33% are confident the Fed has conquered inflation, which is in line with the other two numbers:
5. Arm's draft IPO filing: revenue -1% YoY to $2.68B in FY23, even as it seeks $64B valuation
24x P/S (price-to-sales), vs 41x for NVIDIA.
$64B was the valuation used by Softbank to acquire 25% of Arm held by its own Vision Fund. - Taipei Times
6. Chart: how much S&P 500 rose after recent Michael Burry's bearish predictions
94% in stock puts: Michael Burry's Q2 portfolio was revealed to be composed of 51% in S&P 500 puts and 43% in NASDAQ puts. - Whalewisdom
It has been extremely hard to make money betting against U.S. stocks, other than in the 1930s
7. Interesting tweets, memes, and videos
8. Other headlines
AI
AI-created art not copyrightable, judge rules.
Index Ventures partners with Oracle to offer GPUs to startups.
UK to spend £100M in NVIDIA AI chips.
Books3, 190K book data set used by Meta, contained copyrighted work.
Tech
Instacart revenue +30% YoY to $1.4B in H1, valuation ~$10B.
EU's Digital Services Act kicks off Aug. 25.
Biden order could hit Chinese VCs run by U.S. persons.
Threads to launch web version this week.
Twitter deletes most images, links from before 2014.
Block feature could cease to exist.
Lamborghini's Lanzador EV concept appears slower than Tesla.
Biotech
Bob Nelsen on why he invested $100M's in anti-aging Altos Labs.
Covid booster: White House to urge Americans to get them.
Business
Current rates near neutral rate: Fed whisperer Timiraos.
SF: IKEA opens downtown store.
Crypto
FTX adjusts settlement proposal after U.S. Trustee objection.
NFT platform Regur to shut down after $50M fundraise.
U.S. politics
Trump to skip Wed debate for interview with Tucker Carlson.
Biden is who Trump seeks to debate.
Hunter Biden's lawyers vowed to put President Biden on stand.
No Labels “very likely” to launch ticket if Trump, Biden win nominations.
Meadows asks federal court to dismiss Georgia suit.
Told prosecutors not aware of Trump declassifying docs.
DeSantis steps up criticism of Trump in new interview.
GOP donors push for Trump alternative, potentially Youngkin.
World
Taiwan: U.S. “urge[s] Beijing to cease its military[,] economic pressure.”
Ukraine to get 61 F-16s from Netherlands, Denmark.
North Korea’s Kim directs cruise missile test as U.S., Korea drills begin.
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