Meet 'Grok'

Elon Musk debuts ‘Grok’ AI bot to rival ChatGPT, House GOP pushes ahead with stopgap funding plan, the price of money is going up, Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile swells to a record $157 billion, and Kai-Fu Lee's AI startup hits Unicorn status in eight months…

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Market Briefing
November 06, 2023

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☕️ Good Morning.

The Fast Five → Elon Musk debuts ‘Grok’ AI bot to rival ChatGPT, House GOP pushes ahead with stopgap funding plan, the price of money is going up, Berkshire Hathaway’s cash pile swells to a record $157 billion, and Kai-Fu Lee's AI startup hits Unicorn status in eight months…

Here’s your 5-minute briefing for Monday:

BEFORE THE OPEN

As of market close 11/3/2023. Bitcoin as of 11/5/2023.

MARKETS:

  • U.S. equity futures remain flat after a strong week.

  • Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq all had their best week of the year.

  • Factors like oversold conditions, positive earnings, and lower bond yields boost market sentiment.

  • November is historically a strong month for the S&P 500.

  • Earnings season continues with updates from companies like Walt Disney, Wynn, MGM Resorts, Occidental Petroleum, and D.R. Horton.

  • Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials will speak in the coming days.

  • Investors are eager for clues about the Fed's future rate policy.

  • Fed Governor Lisa D. Cook scheduled to speak on Monday.

EARNINGS

What we’re watching this week:

  • Tuesday: Bumble (BMBL), D.R. Horton (DHI), KKR (KKR), Occidental Petroleum (OXY)

  • Wednesday: Arm Holdings (ARM), Walt Disney (DIS), AMC Entertainment (AMC), Twilio (TWLO)

  • Thursday: Tapestry (TPR)

  • Full earnings calendar here

NEWS BRIEFING

The prototype is in its first two months of training and is only available to a select group of users before a wider release. Musk is positioning xAI to compete with OpenAI, Inflection, Anthropic and others.

01.AI’s model outperforms Meta’s Llama 2 on certain metrics. Startup to offer open-source model; proprietary options later.

  • House GOP pushing ahead with stopgap funding plan, Johnson says (more)

  • Here’s where the jobs are for October 2023 — in one chart (more)

  • The price of money is going up, and it’s not only because of the Fed (more)

  • Bond traders on collision course with higher-for-longer mantra (more)

  • Oil nudges higher after Saudi Arabia, Russia stick to output cuts (more)

  • Wall Street’s top bosses descend on Hong Kong after deep job cuts (more)

  • South Korea to re-impose stock short-selling ban through June to 'level playing field' (more)

  • Studios give striking actors ‘last, best, and final offer’ (more)

  • GM is expected to invest $13 billion in U.S. facilities under new UAW deal (more)

  • Maersk cutting at least 10,000 jobs as shipping boom unravels (more)

  • BofA notifies customers of temporary industry-wide deposit delays (more)

  • Astra defaults on debt agreement, warns it may not be able to raise needed cash (more)

  • Berkshire Hathaway posts a 40% jump in operating earnings, cash pile swells to a record $157 billion (more)

  • Silicon Valley City wants to ease housing crisis with $150,000 cargo containers (more)

  • Washington Post appoints William Lewis as CEO; to reduce headcount by 10% (more)

  • Three hours were all a jury needed to convict Sam Bankman-Fried of fraud (more)

TOGETHER WITH RYSE

The Next Smart Home Staple

Where were you when Amazon acquired Ring for $1B? Or when Google bought Nest for a cool $3.2B?

Hopefully, you were invested in those promising startups. But for those that missed out, the next groundbreaking Smart Home innovation has arrived 一 RYSE.

Their automated window shade tech is now launching in Best Buy stores, and is poised to dominate the fast-growing Smart Shades market. They’ve also just launched a new investment round and their share price has already grown 25% from their last round!

The Smart Shades race is on, and RYSE is in pole position due to their:

Unmatched Features: RYSE has the only retrofit design to motorize existing window shades, and can be seamlessly controlled by voice, smartphone, or schedule.

Smart Price: Priced at $169 vs. competitors’ pricing of up to $1,000 per window, RYSE is uniquely positioned to bring luxury window shades to every home and business.

DEALFLOW

  • Bain close to buying consulting firm Guidehouse in $5B deal (more)

  • Houlihan Lokey in talks to buy placement agent Triago (more)

  • Gynesonics, a healthcare company focused on the development of minimally invasive solutions for symptomatic uterine fibroids, raised $42.5M in funding (more)

  • Matic, a technology company providing AI-driven indoor robots, raised $29.6M in funding (more)

  • Factor Capital Management, an investment firm, announced the launch and first close of its Factor Venture Capital Fund I with approximately $10M in commitments (more)

  • Ambercycle, a company providing molecular regeneration technology for the fashion industry, raised $5M in funding (more)

  • Pantheon Vision, an early-stage ophthalmic medical device company, raised $2.5M in Seed funding (more)

  • Precision Compounding Pharmacy, a technology-enabled compounding pharmacy company, received a seed investment from Right Side Capital Management (more)

  • TRAFiX, a provider of order and execution management software (“OEMS”) and FIX connectivity solutions, received a growth investment from Marlin Equity Partners (more)

  • Ratcliffe to invest extra $300 million on top of 25% stake in Manchester United (more)

  • SAS secures $1.2 billion from consortium led by Castlelake, Air France for restructuring (more)

  • Mainsail Partners invests in LinenMaster (more)

  • Stonepeak invests in AGP sustainable real assets (more)

  • Apollo invests in Modern Aviation (more)

  • Core Industrial Partners invests in Century Box (more)

M & A:

  • Telecom Italia approves network sale to KKR in €22 billion deal (more)

  • LVMH to buy eyewear brand favored by the Stars, LA-based eyewear maker Barton Perreira (more)

  • Cars.com buys D2C Media (more)

  • Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired The Shelby Group, a provider of digital procurement and optimization services (more)

  • SubjectWell, a patient access marketplace that connects patients with chronic health conditions to new care options, announced the acquisition of PatientCentra, an MD Connect, Inc. business (more)

  • Palladium Equity Partners acquired a majority stake in Source Logistics, a provider of value-added warehousing, distribution and fulfillment 3PL services to the consumer goods sector with a focus on Hispanic food and beverage brands (more)

  • Culligan buys Primo Water’s international businesses (more)

  • Leeds Equity-backed Exterro acquires Divebell (more)

  • RidgeLake purchases Gridiron Capital minority stake (more)

  • Canada's Davie completes purchase of Helsinki Shipyard from Russia's Algador (more)

  • EagleTree acquires MMGY (more)

  • Palladium buys Source Logistics (more)

  • Williams buys Cureton from Ares, Tailwater (more)

  • Brookfield Infrastructure partners acquires Cyxtera (more)

  • Iron Mountain purchases Regency Technologies (more)

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CRYPTO

  • Crypto now braced for a ‘massive’ $300B price earthquake following Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP surge (more)

  • What happens to Bitcoin price if spot ETF isn’t approved? (more)

  • Ethereum insider drops bombshell: ETH founders’ fraud bigger than FTX fraud (more)

BULLISH BITES

🤔 Silicon Valley billionaires say they're done buying up land for their utopian city

🚫 The workplace is becoming more political as Gen Z comes of age

😱 Dall-E 3 is so good it's stoking an artist revolt

✈️ Electric planes, once a fantasy, are beginning to take to the skies

😩 The fun things in life are giving us buyer’s remorse

DAILY SHARES

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