December 8: Sunday Funday #30
Articles, streams and books that caught our attention this week
Articles 📰
The UC Berkeley Project That Is the AI Industry’s Obsession
“Record labels have the Billboard Hot 100. College football has its playoff rankings. Artificial intelligence has a website, run by two university students, called Chatbot Arena… The ratings are aggregated onto a leaderboard where big Silicon Valley players like OpenAI, Google and Meta Platforms vie for supremacy with lesser-known startups from China and Europe.”
“I exist at the intersection of two worlds, management and artificial intelligence (AI), which are evolving at different paces. I’ve witnessed firsthand how generative AI tools can democratize access to knowledge, accelerate learning, and spark creativity in ways we never imagined possible… The “mind tax” is highest in the areas where the cognitive work is highest and least repeatable: strategy development. If I ask GenAI a question about how best we should scale and improve our volunteer engagement strategy worldwide, it will list at least eight bullet points.”
The incredible health benefits of drinking enough water
“Drinking enough water daily can help you lose weight and prevent kidney stones, according to an analysis led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). What’s more, adequate hydration can prevent migraines, headaches, and urinary tract infections (UTIs); and control diabetes, blood glucose levels, and low blood pressure. The team’s systematic review of 18 randomized controlled trials was published Nov. 25 in the journal JAMA Network Open.”
How refrigeration ruined fresh food
“Three-quarters of everything in the average American diet, she explains, passes through the cold chain—the network of warehouses, shipping containers, trucks, display cases, and domestic fridges that keep meat, milk, and more chilled on the journey from farm to fork. As consumers, we put a lot of faith in terms like “fresh” and “natural,” but artificial refrigeration has created a blind spot, says Twilley. We’ve gotten so good at preserving (and storing) food, she writes, that “we know more about how to lengthen an apple’s life span than a human’s,” and most of us don’t give that extraordinary process much thought at all.”
The Necktie Is Making an Office Comeback
“Neckties may never regain prepandemic levels of popularity, but sales data show signs of resurgence. After tumbling to $61.4 million in 2020, U.S. tie imports rebounded to $106 million by 2022, according to the most recent data from trade-tracking website Observatory of Economic Complexity… Several young men and women who don ties confirmed that half the fun is subverting an old symbol of masculine status. They relish tweaking the power tie by wearing it rebelliously or making it feminine.”
What’s up with all these food recalls?
What to make of the recent E. coli, salmonella and listeria outbreaks in the U.S. that led to food recalls of produce like carrots, cucumbers and even the slivered onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.
“Spanakopita is a beloved Greek pie filled with spinach and wrapped in shatteringly crisp phyllo. Depending on the recipe, the spinach can be boosted by herbs, alliums, cheese, and a variety of other add-ins. These baked eggs take those same winning flavors and reimagine them into a shakshuka-like breakfast.”
What We’re Streaming 📺📲
ACQ2 – How ARM Became The World’s Default Chip Architecture (with ARM CEO Rene Haas)
How I Built This with Guy Raz: Athletic Brewing Company-Bill Shufelt
The Reading List 📖📚
The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel (A Renée Ballard and Harry Bosch Novel, 6) by Michael Connelly
LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, and enlists a new volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: patrol officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.
Complex, satisfying, and full of dexterous twists, The Waiting demonstrates once more that “you can’t do better than Michael Connelly”.
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.
Cash Strapped Consumer - Companies poised to benefit as consumers stretch the disposable spending dollars they do have.
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.
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.
Cybersecurity - Companies that focus on protecting against the penetration of digital networks and the theft, ransom, corruption or destruction of data.
Data Privacy & Digital Identity - Companies providing the tools and services that verify authorized users and safeguard personal data privacy.
Digital Infrastructure & Connectivity -The buildout and upgrading of our Networks, Data Storage Facilities, and Equipment.
Digital Lifestyle - The companies behind our increasingly connected lives.
Digital Payments - This model focuses on companies benefitting from the accelerating structural adoption of digital payments and financial technology (FinTech).
EPS Diplomats - Profitable large capitalization companies proven to produce above-average EPS growth and provide investors with the benefit of multiple expansion.
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.
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.
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 above.