Search and destroy

MARKETS

  • U.S. markets: Who's bringing the champagne? The S&P 500 closed at a record, briefly touching 2,900 for the first time ever. The Nasdaq also snagged a new high.
  • Trade: The Canadian foreign minister arrived in the U.S. to restart trade talks yesterday. The Trump administration has given Canada until Friday to cut a NAFTA deal, or else be left out.

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TECH

Trump's Next Target? Google.

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President Trump is accusing Google (-0.83%) of burying conservative voices and manipulating search results to favor anti-Trump stories.

How it went down yesterday morning:
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Trump didn’t hold back later in the day, telling reporters Google “better be careful.” He also said Facebook, Twitter, and Google are “treading on very, very troubled territory.” Even the White House's top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, got in on the action, saying the administration is "taking a look" at regulating Google.

So where did this come from?

It appears Trump got his ammo from a PJ Media article—"96 Percent of Google Search Results for ‘Trump' News Are From Liberal Media Outlets"—which Fox Business's Lou Dobbs covered Monday night. FWIW, PJ Media editor Paula Bolyard said the test yielding that 96% figure was "not scientific."

Zoom out: Trump has ramped up attacks on social media companies as they ramp up their own fight against misinformation and abuse on their platforms. Remember the Twitter "shadow banning" charge earlier this summer? And just last week, Trump said, "Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people."

He's got backup. Over the weekend, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy repeated accusations of anti-conservative bias and censorship.

  • "If this is where two-thirds of Americans are getting their news, it's not a fair process," McCarthy said (FYI, he calls for more "transparency," but hasn't yet suggested regulation).

What's Google saying?

In a statement: "Search is not used to set a political agenda and we don't bias our results toward any political ideology...We continually work to improve Google Search and we never rank search results to manipulate political sentiment."

And it's supported by some online search experts like WordStream senior data scientist Mark Irvine, who tells Bloomberg, "The Google search algorithm is a fairly agnostic and apathetic algorithm towards what people's political feelings are."

Interesting timing for an attack...

One week from today, Google, Facebook, and Twitter execs will appear on Capitol Hill to testify about election interference and censorship on their platforms.

Who's coming to D.C.? Heavy-hitters including Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

+ Oh, the good old days: Remember when Trump called Google one of America's "great companies"? That was just in July.

RETAIL

Try on This Pair of Retail Earnings

As earnings season wraps up, two retailers flexed their muscles yesterday. First up, Best Buy—which showed that people are still eager to splurge on TVs and high-end tech.

  • Same-store sales grew 6.2% in Q2, marking their sixth-straight quarterly gain, and online sales rose 10%.
  • Revenue grew 4.9% to $9.38 billion.

So why did investors sink the stock 5%? Execs said operating profits could take a hit in Q3 as Best Buy focuses on investing in its supply chain to ramp up delivery speeds.

Next up, the luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co...

...which topped estimates and raised its profit forecast.

  • Americas net sales (which are about half of total sales) grew 8%, plus Asia Pacific sales grew 28% in Q2.
  • Net earnings climbed 26% to $144.7 million.

What happened: Tiffany (+0.99%) has recently shifted to focus less on 10-carat princess cuts and more on accessible everyday jewels and high-end home decor that younger shoppers can afford.

+ While we're here: U.S. consumer confidence in August surged to its highest level since October 2000. TVs and diamond rings are flying off the shelves...

TRANSPORTATION

What Do You Think Of E-Scooters? Depends on Where You Live

Per new research from Populus...
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Remember: San Francisco's transportation agency is planning a pilot program that'll allow five companies to operate a max of 2,500 scooters in the city between them (1,250 for the first six months). SF is currently scooter-free.

And while we're here, let's do a late summer check-in on the e-scooter industry tidal wave:

  • Bird is now valued at $2 billion. Lime? $1.1 billion (it's only been around since January 2017).
  • Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi recently told the FT that the company is putting greater emphasis on e-bikes and e-scooters for short journeys. "Short-term financially, maybe it's not a win for us, but strategically long term we think that is exactly where we want to head."

MEDIA

How Original Is Original, Netflix?

Matthew Ball, media expert/former strategy head at Amazon Studios, says not very. More confused than Eleven from Stranger Things? Let's explore his thinking...

Netflix (+1.07%) has a wide definition of "original." It can mean "developed originals" or "acquired originals" (bought at a premium from a third-party studio), plus several more sub-definitions. And why does that matter? Because Netflix "brandishes the term ‘Original' as a weapon," Ball argues.

  • Netflix's expanded definition of "original" (and subsequent "original content" spend investors love to track) makes it harder to compare Netflix to the likes of HBO, Hulu, or Amazon.

So...when Netflix says it'll launch 700 total original series in 2018, and aims to allocate 50% of content spend to originals down the road, those numbers are "hard to compare and mostly meaningless," Ball says. Netflix's content spend is huge, but relative to HBO? Like comparing apples and Lannisters.

Bottom line: With semi-original hits like The Crown and Narcos lifting investor optimism and subscriber growth, Netflix's definition of "original" is worth billions. Changing it to match an industry standard would mean a worse fate than...really anyone on Black Mirror.

AUTOS

Some IPOs Look Better Than Others...

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Aston Martin, the high-end sports car brand known as the preferred ride of James Bond, is looking to go public.

X's and O's:

  • It'll list $1.3 billion of shares on the London Stock Exchange.
  • The value it's seeking? ~$6.4 billion...or roughly 21,500 2018 Aston Martin Vanquish S Coupes (MSRP: $298,000).

Zoom out: Aston Martin's copying a page out of fellow luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari, which listed shares in New York in 2015. Ferrari stock has more than doubled since it's been public.

EDUCATION

In the Pencil Industry, If You Ain’t First...You’re #2

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This week, we're celebrating Back to School Week with features on education. Today, we're learning more about the G.O.A.T. school supply: the pencil.

Andy Welfle might be the biggest pencil expert you'll ever come across. After all, he blogs about pencils and even co-hosts a pencil podcast (by day, he's a UX content strategist and writer at Adobe).

And since the most famous pencil is the #2...we asked Andy everything "#2" about pencils.

Second biggest competitor to pencils: "One hundred-dollar styluses from a trillion-dollar fruit company that only work on that company's $800 tablet computer."

Second most expensive pencil on the market: "I'm not even going to include mechanical pencils or vintage wooden pencils, which can run into the hundreds or thousands. According to CW Pencil's website, the second most expensive single, currently-manufactured pencil is the Fabula, a sustainable pencil made from 'recycled flowers, tea leaves and coffee grounds.' It's a big boy, ringing in at $7."

Second most significant innovation in the history of pencils: "I’ll say the eraser on the top is the #2 innovation, patented by Hyman Lipman in 1858. To this day, we celebrate the date of the patent, March 30, as International Pencil Day."

Second best use for pencils besides writing: "I think it makes for an extremely good prop when gesturing. Though admittedly I've used one more than once to stir a hot beverage."

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

  • BuzzFeed has launched a product review site called...what else? BuzzFeed Reviews.
  • A senior Facebook (-0.68%) engineer wrote a post on the company’s internal message board critical of the firm’s “political monoculture.”
  • Yum China (+3.86%) rejected a private buyout offer that valued the company at more than $17 billion.
  • Barnes & Noble (-3.64%) ex-CEO Demos Parneros is suing the company over his ouster last month.
  • Rotten Tomatoes revised its criteria for critics to include more females and minority voices.
  • The Thomson Reuters board approved a $9 billion stock buyback program. Shares rose 3.26% on the news.

BREAKROOM

BACK TO SCHOOL TIP
Spend syllabus week getting organized.

  • "Write down all important dates (test dates, project due dates, etc.) in your calendar or phone at the beginning of the semester," says one reader.
  • Another method? "Get a giant calendar and put it on your wall. When you can see important dates in advance rather than the day of, it will be much easier to prepare for them."

BACK TO SCHOOL TRIVIA
We got some help from our resident pencil guru, Andy, for today's trivia question. He notes that historic German firm Faber-Castell claims to be the largest pencil manufacturer in the world. If you had to guess, how many wood pencils does it make a year? Full credit for getting within 100 million of the answer.

(Answer located at bottom of newsletter)

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Breakroom Answers


Back To School Trivia
Over 2.3 billion

 

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