Articles, Streams, and Books
Things catching our attention we think you might enjoy. Carry on!
7 Weekend Reads
What We’re Streaming
The Reading List
7 Weekend Reads
How businesses are actually using generative AI
“It has been nearly a year since Openai released gpt-4, its most sophisticated artificial-intelligence model and the brain-of-sorts behind Chatgpt, its groundbreaking robot conversationalist. In that time the market capitalisation of America’s technology industry, broadly defined, has risen by half, creating $6trn in shareholder value. For some tech firms, growing revenue is starting to match sky-high share prices. On February 21st Nvidia, which designs chips used to train and run models like gpt-4, reported bumper fourth-quarter results, sending its market value towards $2trn. ai mania has also lifted the share prices of other tech giants, including Alphabet (Google’s corporate parent), Amazon and Microsoft, which are spending big on developing the technology.” Read more here
The Economy Is Doing Way Better Than Many Believe
“By nearly all economic measures, we're doing much better today than we were in the 1970s and 1980s—a time most nostalgic people revere as a great era.
In a recent article, economist Jeremy Horpedahl looked at generational wealth (all assets minus all debt) and how today's young people are faring compared to previous generations. His findings are surprising. After all the talk about how Millennials are the poorest or unluckiest generation yet, Horpedahl's data show them with dramatically more wealth than Gen Xers had at the same age. And this wealth continues to grow.” Read more here
America’s ten-year-old fentanyl epidemic is still getting worse
“It is testimony to the intractable nature of America’s fentanyl epidemic that officials measure progress not in falling numbers of deaths, but in a slowing rate of growth. After a decade of horrifying ascent, the administration of President Joe Biden points out, the yearly number of fatal overdoses appears at last to be slowing to a gentle climb (see chart 1). The figure for 2022 was just 5% higher than that of 2021. That still leaves fentanyl and other synthetic opioids like it killing some 75,000 people a year—more than double the figure of 2019. But in the fight against the deadliest narcotic in American history, that is what passes for success. The meager results are not for lack of effort.” Read more here
TikTok Is on the Decline
“Don’t look now, but after half a decade of transforming public life on an international scale, TikTok may finally be entering its flop era. The clues are there if you know where to look, even outside the millions of videos that have lapsed into total silence since Universal Music Group yanked its vast catalog from the app, including Taylor Swift, J Balvin, your favorite city pop pioneers, and so many others. The professed reason was to deny the app a chance to train artificial intelligence on commercial music without compensating artists—which, fair enough. Yet it’s not just the songs that have left these videos; it’s the entire audio altogether, leading to the loss of creator narration on both old and new TikToks. Then, there’s also the sharp slowdown in user growth over the past year…” Read more here
All the Top New Gadgets at MWC 2024
Mobile World Congress - or just MWC—isn’t one of our favorite trade shows just because it’s situated in the beautiful city of Barcelona during a seasonally appropriate time of year. (Cheap cava and tapas don’t have anything to do with it either.) No, this show is a favorite because it’s one of the easiest to navigate, and there’s always plenty of interesting, fun, or just plain crazy tech to scavenge through. This year, such bounty includes transparent laptops, bendable phones, a Barbie flip phone, and more. Here are the highlights.” Read more here
The secrets of successful listening
“Plenty of people think that good listening is about nodding your head or keeping eye contact. But that is not really listening, Mr Mullender argues. A good listener is always looking for facts, emotions and indications of the interlocutor’s values. And when it comes to a negotiation, people are looking for an outcome. The aim of listening is to ascertain what the other side is trying to achieve. Another important point to bear in mind is that, when you talk, you are not listening. “Every time you share an opinion, you give out information about yourself,” Mr Mullender says. In contrast, a good listener, by keeping quiet, gains an edge over his or her counterpart.” Read more here
5 Ways to Deal with the Microstresses Draining Your Energy
“Exhausted. Frayed. Languishing. Burned out. These are common words people use describe how they feel in their professional and personal lives. And it’s only getting worse. “Burnout is the primary driver pushing workers to look for relief in the forms of a new job, opportunities for advancement, more pay, and above all else, continued flexibility,” according to 2021 research from the Institute for Corporate Productivity, or i4cp. A staggering 67% of people surveyed at larger organizations (employing >1,000 people) cited burnout as the most significant driver of potential talent loss for their organizations.” Read more here
What We’re Streaming
The Reading List
Fans First: Change The Game, Break the Rules & Create an Unforgettable Experience Paperback by Jesse Cole
The Savannah Bananas should not exist. You can't name any of their players. They play in a 1920s-era ballpark with no ads or billboards. They play in kilts, stilts, and stilettos. They even have an all-grandma dance team: the Banana Nanas. Everything the Bananas do is unconventional. It shouldn’t work. And yet they sell out every game, have a waitlist in the thousands, ship merchandise around the globe, and entertain millions of followers on social media.
Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher
Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst by Robert Sapolsky
Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology by Chris Miller
Don’t be a stranger
Thanks for reading and if you have a suggestion for an article or book we should read, or a stream we should catch, email us at info@tematicaresearch.com. The same email works if you want to know more about our thematic and targeted exposure models listed below.
The strategies behind our Thematic Models:
Aging of the Population - Capturing the demographic wave of the aging population and the changing demands it brings with it.
Artificial Intelligence – Software, chips, and related companies that facilitate the collection and analysis of large data sets and autonomous generation of solutions given non-machine language prompts.
CHIPs Act – Capturing the reshoring of the US semiconductor industry and the $52.7 billion poised to be spent on semiconductor manufacturing.
Cloud Computing – Companies that provide hardware and services that enhance the cloud computing experience for users, such as co-location, security, and edge computing.
Consumer Inflation Fighters - Companies poised to benefit as consumers stretch the disposable spending dollars they do have.
Core Holdings – Companies that reflect economic activity and are large enough to not get pushed around by day-to-day market trends. Low-beta, large-cap names able to better withstand economic turmoil.
Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity -The buildout and upgrading of our Networks, Data Storage Facilities, and Equipment.
Data Privacy & Digital Identity - Companies providing the tools and services that verify authorized users and safeguard personal data privacy.
EPS Diplomats - Profitable large capitalization companies proven to produce above-average EPS growth and provide investors with the benefit of multiple expansions.
EV Transition - Capturing the transition to EVs and related infrastructure from combustion engine vehicles.
Guilty Pleasure – Companies that produce/provide food and drink products that consumers tend to enjoy regardless of the economic environment and potential long-term health hazards associated with excessive consumption.
Homebuilding & Materials – Ranging from homebuilders to key building product companies that serve the housing market, this model looks to capture the rising demand for housing, one that should benefit as the Fed returns monetary policy to more normalized levels.
Luxury Buying Boom - Tapping into aspirational buying and affluent buyers amid rising global wealth.
Market Hedge Model – This basket of daily reset swap-based broad market inverse ETFs protects in the face of market pullbacks, overbought market technicals, and other drivers of market volatility.
Nuclear Energy & Uranium – Companies that either build and maintain nuclear power plants or are involved in the production of uranium.
Precision Ag & Agri Science – Companies that look to address shrinking arable land by helping maximize crop yields utilizing technology, science, or both.
Rebuilding America - Turning the focused spending on rebuilding US infrastructure into revenue and profits.
Safety & Security – Targeted exposure to companies that provide goods and services primarily to the Defense and security sectors of the economy.
Space Economy – Companies that focus on the launch and operation of satellite networks.
The strategies behind our Dividend Income Models:
Monthly Dividend Model – Pretty much what the name says – this model invests in companies that pay monthly dividends to shareholders.
ETF Dividend Model – High-yielding ETFs that provide a range of exposures from domestic equities, international equities, emerging market equities, MLPS, and REITs.
ETF Enhanced Dividend Model – A group of high-yielding ETFs that utilize options to enhance yield through collecting option income.