Stocks Fall Modestly in Slowest Day of 2021

Dow: -0.29% | Nasdaq: -0.05% | S&P: -0.10%

Catch Up Quick

• Consumers across the globe spent $900B more online in 2020 versus the prior two-year trend (Mastercard)

• GM shares ($GM) hit record on plans for electric Chevy Silverado pickup

• Biden is expected to give all U.S. adults access to vaccines by April 19th

• Morgan Stanley dumped $5B in Archegos stocks the night before massive fire sale → Credit Suisse lost $4.7B on the hedge fund meltdown

• Both Gamestop ($GME) and AMC ($AMC) are looking to raise capital via upcoming equity offerings

• Clubhouse launched in-app payments powered by Stripe allowing creators to monetize conversations

• The Supreme Court sided with Google in longstanding dispute with Oracle over API copyright claims

• The global cryptocurrency market capitalization hit a record $2T

• Beijing introduced the digital Yuan, its first government-sponsored cryptocurrency

• The U.S. may boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China

• Service sector sentiment surged to a record high in March

• Sarcos Robotics, a developer of robotic exoskeletons, agreed to go public at a $1.3B valuation via acquisition by Rotor Acquisition (SPAC)

Thought of the Day

• Recently, Twitter ($TWTR) confirmed consideration of a subscription model in an attempt to diversify revenues away from volatile third party advertisements

• Twitter isn’t alone here, among an exponential increase in content creation marketplaces, such as Patreon, Twitch, OnlyFans, Cameo, Clubhouse, and Substack (which powers this newsletter)

• Historically, the contract between users and tech enabled marketplaces / social networks has been → users provide content, platforms provide distribution 

• This new trend implies another layer → direct monetization for creators, allowing them to transcend ad-based revenue models by successfully monetizing user bases without the use of third party advertisements

• Previously, most big tech revenue models were binary → either 1) paid subscriptions that give users access to an entire content suite (Netflix) or 2) free platforms in which networking mathematics allow content suites to be ad-supported (Facebook) 

• However this next generation of internet startups has successfully landed a hybrid model

• Today, content is created by users (Facebook) and deployed across networks while monetized via a subscription (Netflix), lending access to recurring revenue / semi-predictable payments

The Bottom Line

• While a Patreon or Clubhouse might not seem like a direct competitor to a Facebook or Netflix, at the end of the day, these companies are all competing for the same finite resource → the attention span of consumers!

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