19-year-olds will need to find a new hobby.
NFTs are the most recent victims of market correction, Pearson rejects £7bn, & regulators continue their struggle with Big Tech.
Good afternoon everyone! You look so good today :)) I hope you have a fun weekend ahead planned.
Daily quote —”Others can only respect you can much as you respect yourself. Your worth is decided by you.”
Startup
NFTs.
The NFT market halves. This reminds me of its quick rise exactly a year ago. The celebrity, the prices, the confusion. So the world spent $41bn on NFTs last year —making a joke out of the art market. Inexperienced investors involved last big, but I guess that is a given for anything.
Better technology and education on crypto and NFTs is coming during this correction. And as the infrastructure of the industry becomes more well-built and regulated, I know I’ll be looking into it more for serious long-term investment that’s for sure.
But maybe this is the time to buy now? ahahaha I think I’ll stick to my SP500 DCA (though I am open to suggestions ;))
VC was fast to mint unicorns in the NFT industry, and a lot of money has already exchanged hands. But I guess who cares about their money nowadays?…
I don’t think NFTs will go away or anything, I think after this market correction, time & space will allow it to settle at a reasonable level —as long as the next generation of 19-year-olds find a new hobby that is…
19-year-olds aside, I think people just got excited that the world was changing and everyone thought it would change much faster than it actually does. I think Covid really distorted people’s perception of the suddenness with which things can change. After experiencing the way they lived change so quickly, naturally people carried that into their investing sentiments.
It’s time to steady ourselves again. Life is returning back to “normal.” Hopefully we still remember how to live it that way.
Rejected.
So Pearson said £7bn was not enough. Actually, “significantly” so. Their board declined the takeover unanimously. After they rejected Apollo, FTSE 100 shares rose over 20%.
The value of Pearson’s equity sits at £4.9 billion, but in March of 2021, the company set out a “lifelong learning strategy,” which means that they are expected to take a digital-first approach, along with using a direct-to-consumer model. As a result, Pearson believed their future prospects were much larger than Apollo had posited.
Pearson has also been active with its own acquisitions, having recently taken over Credly—a digital accreditation group—and Faethm—a workforce artificial intelligence & analytics company.
I am excited to see the other steps they will take to modernise.
Seems it’s been rough for private equity attempting to acquire publicly traded UK businesses all around. All have been hoping to snatch something up while the UK stock market trades below other major centres.
Online ads.
Apparently Google and Meta had an online advertising deal which has now caught some attention. The deal was known as “Jedi Blue” and allowed the giants to reap larger profits.
The crackdown on Big Tech continues from all fronts, as US regulators are joined by Europe and the UK as well. It just seems unending. They’ve been continuously talking about new rules for years now. I can’t even keep track of all their ideas.
But where ads are placed is important. It can have a huge impact on competition and business, so the alleged activity could to be very damaging.
Google has > 90% of the UK’s search advertising market & Meta has > 50% of the UK’s display advertising market.
Larry Fink owns everything?
So technically, BlackRock does almost every kind of asset-management, so I guess they could make a plausible case for any action. They represent the demands of the market to such a degree that there is little room to make character judgements about them based on their individual moves. (and also, I guess if worse comes to worse: just fire a little guy!) But, hey, one team at BlackRock did decide the Ukraine invasion was the perfect opportunity to buy more Russian stocks :/
…and that is all for today!!
Thank you so much for keeping me company this week. If you got this far, I want you to know how grateful I am for you. I love writing these and it means the world to me that you took time out of your day to read what I have to say.
With love,
Angeline ❤️
Resources consulted:
Espinoza, Javier & Beioley, Kate. “EU and UK open antitrust probe into Google and Meta over online ads.” The Financial Times, March 11, 2022.
Kruppa, Miles & Criddle, Cristina & Bradshaw, Tim. “The great NFT sell-of: has the digital collectibles craze hit its peak?” The Financial Times, March 11, 2022.
Levine, Matt. “Soccer Tickets Are Sanctioned.” Money Stuff, Bloomberg Opinion, March 10, 2022.
Staton, Bethan & Massoudi, Arash & Provan, Sarah. “Pearson rejected £7bn takeover bid from Apollo.” The Financial Times, March 11, 2022.
Explore further:
NFTs
Agyemang, Emma. “HMRC’s NFT seizure ‘a warning’ to investors and tax cheats.” The Financial Times, February 14, 2022.
Murphy, Hannah. “What Silicon Valley sees in NFTs.” The Financial Times, February 11, 2022.
Murphy, Hannah & Oliver, Joshua. “How NFTs became a $40bn market in 2021.” The Financial Times, December 31, 2021.