Sup, Zaid here. Welcome to “Money Minutes” the weekly newsletter about markets, corporate drama, and bad jokes. This newsletter is 1,300ish words and should take you 6.1 minutes to read. Writing this as I watch the Georgia vs Ohio State game, so apologies for any typos. PS: WHAT A GAME!
I have to come clean. One of my goals in 2022 was to publish a weekly newsletter. There are 52 weeks in a year. But I did not write 52 newsletter. I wrote two. FREAKIN TWO! So here I go again. Setting a goal of writing 50 newsletters in 2023. Published every Saturday (sometimes Sunday). Am I being too optimistic? Yea, probably. In today’s newsletter, recapping a wild 2022 and make some predictions for 2023
MARKET VIBE CHECK
YIKES! The vibes in 2022 weren’t great (unless you bought energy stocks, in which case, congrats. Please send me $10.). It was the worst year for stocks since 2008 (-39%). Anytime you are put in the same sentence as “2008” it’s a bad time.
But if you were feeling bad about your stock portfolio, go talk to your crypto friends. They ENVY you right now. The crypto market was WILD (see below for more). We are now in a brutal crypto winter, and things might get worse.
WHAT ABOUT REAL ESTATE?
*Today’s Money Minutes is brought to you by Fundrise*
I did make one good decision in 2022. Investing in real estate. Despite the current market environment, real estate is a great way to diversify, protect and grow your money. It’s no surprise that institutional investors allocate about 30% of their portfolio to private real estate.
I didn’t go out and drop $500k on a rental property. I don’t have that kind of money or time. I started off by investing $1,000 using Fundrise. Their team of professionals find the best real estate properties all over the country. They pool the money of their investors to buy these properties. Fundrise pays dividends from the rental income they collect and they take into account the appreciation of the properties in their portfolio. I still have a Roth IRA and 401k, but I’m using Fundrise as a way to dip my toes into investing real estate. It’s a long term investment for me.
STUFF THAT HAPPENED IN 2022, THAT YOU PROBABLY REMEMBER
🐦 Elon Buying Twitter for $44 Billion - This story has been in headlines since March. This has to go down as one of the WORST deals in history, right? (Russel Wilson’s contract might be 2nd). Here’s a 51 second video going over the timeline of this deal and all the drama
🥵 Inflation. Inflation. Inflation - Remember when Jerome Powell kept telling us in 2021 that inflation was “transitory.” Boy, was he wrong. We all got used to paying more for EVERYTHING in 2022 because of the highest inflation since the 1970s. Thankfully, inflation is FINALLY slowing down, but still too damn high.
😩 FTX Collapse - This is still fresh in everyone’s mind. The collapse happened in early November. It was fast. It was shocking. Sam Bankman-Fried went from crypto hero to crypto criminal. And he’s about to go on trial. This story is just getting started.
🎮 Microsoft Acquiring Activation - Back in January 2022, Microsoft announced they were buying Activation for $69 Billion (nice). But still no Call of Duty on GamePass just yet because the deal has not closed. Sony isn’t happy (obviously). Now the FTC is looking to block this deal. This is going to take some time.
🌙 Luna Collapse - The Luna collapse happened back in May and until the FTX stuff, this was the biggest collapse in crypto and what triggered the crypto winter we find ourselves in now. And similar to FTX, the collapse happened quick. People lost a lot of money. I bought some LUNA after it crashed. It did not go well…
🐭 Bob Iger back at CEO of Disney - Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney and arguable the GOAT, is back! He stepped down in 2020. The guy who took over to replace him, Bob Chapek, kinda sucked. Nobody, not even his own employees, liked Chapek. He was too much of a suit. So now he’s out, and Iger is BACK! I’ve been bullish on Disney for a while. Maybe Iger can get things turned around
STUFF THAT HAPPENED IN 2022, THAT YOU PROBABLY FORGOT
All these things happened THIS YEAR.
20 year old kid made $110M trading BBY stock - This still blows my mind. Some rich kid from USC borrowed $25 Million from his family. Instead of buying a PS5, he used that money to buy BBY stock and turned it into $110 Million. Hope he threw some awesome parties during the fall semester at USC.
Adam Neumann, the WeWork guy, gets $350 million - Adam is starting a new real estate company somehow convinced Andreessen Horowitz (one of the biggest VC firms in the world) to write him a $350 million check. His new company is ‘Flow’ which is like “WeWork for Apartments.” On a side note: WeWork is now worth less than $1 Billion
A couple in New York arrested for money laundered $4.5 BILLION of Bitcoin - Back in January of 2022, everyone was talking about was this couple from New York. The wife was a TikTok rapper and the husband was an investor. Now they are behind bars awaiting trial.
The guy who made Wordle sold it to New York Times for MILLIONS - Incredible timing. This man cashed in on a trend and walked away with enough money to retire. Does anyone still play Wordle? I need this man to manage my crypto portfolio.
Zuck’s metaverse selfie fail - The internet bullied Zuck so bad for this selfie and the Nintendo Wii looking graphics that he posted a follow up post with better graphics.
WHAT HAPPENS IN 2023?
Nobody has any clue what 2023 will look like for the markets. Go back and look at all the optimistic outlooks at the start of 2022. That didn’t work out. Now everyone is feeling down about 2023. I don’t know what will happen, but I’ll make some predictions so you can look back at them next year and laugh at me.
Market Trades Sideways: Get ready for a boring year in the stock market. The last 3 years have been like a roller coaster. 2023 is when the market takes a break and just stays flat. We’ll have some one-off random meme stock that goes parabolic, but the overall market will be flat
Zuck gets his revenge: Zuck is on a mission. He’s lost a lot of money in 2022. Meta stock is down bad, even when compared to other tech stocks. But 2023 is when Meta makes a comeback. Not because of the metaverse (I still think that’s too early for most people to care). Meta’s getting their core business figured out. Their ads are doing better after being destroyed by Apple’s privacy changes in 2021. I also think people will respect Zuck more after seeing how BAD Elon has done running Twitter. Bullish on Meta 📈
TikTok gets partially acquired by US based company: TikTok has been threatened with a ban in the US by the government before. I don’t think that will happen. But I do think TikTok will get partially acquired by a US company (Microsoft maybe?). I’m hoping that will be enough for TikTok to get the US Government off their backs
Thank you everyone for a fantastic 2022! For everyone that took the time to watch my content, read this newsletter, leaving a comment on one of my videos, I really appreciate it! The plan is to keep making dope content in 2023 and evolve as a content creator. I’m always open to ideas and suggestions, so please don’t hesitate to send me an email. Happy New Year!
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