Plus: Why stocks had a very not-good Friday April 25, 2022 Made in Canada IN THIS ISSUE 📉 Netflix nosedives 🌿 Low-cost kush 🐦 Banks back Elon’s Twitter takeover WHAT HAPPENED LAST WEEK Wealthsimple IMPORTANT Toronto tech firms raked in a record $1.87 billion in V.C. funding in Q1, according to a new report. That’s a very nice 59% YoY increase for Canada’s “quietly booming” tech hub, as the New York Times recently put it. But is the party coming to an end? Investors see signs that the money faucet could slow, mostly thanks to rising interest rates. INTERESTING The major Canadian and U.S. stock indicies bounced around all week before plummeting 1.5% or more Friday, as investors weighed strong earnings against the high likelihood of very serious tightening by some central banks. Rising interest rates have already jacked up home-buying costs, fuelling a major decline in speculative stocks. It’ll be interesting to see how much rate hikes affect markets more broadly — because it’s beginning to really happen. Netflix watched its stock drop an eye-dropping 36% on Wednesday after announcing it shed 200k subscribers last quarter and expects to lose 2 million more. Yikes. Why such a fall? The streamer has pumped out lots of low-brow schlock recently, for one. But the real problem may be that “Wall Street does not believe that this is a billion-subscriber business anymore,” Matthew Belloni, founding partner of Puck News, told TLDR. Netflix may roll out cheap, ad-supported plans. Maybe that will help it regain streaming supremacy? CNN+ will shut down weeks after launching, in yet more news of the bloody streaming wars. The cable network will have spent roughly US$9 million A DAY on the doomed streaming venture after it finishes its 33-day run. The winner? Quibi, which somehow looks less bad now. Elon Musk secured US$46.5 billion in financing for his big ole Twitter bear hug. He plans to borrow about half of that fantastic sum from Morgan Stanley and a few other big banks. The remaining $21 billion will come straight from pocket de Musk. It’s a lot to spend on a company that isn’t exactly profitable — not that profits seem to be the entire point anymore. THE FOMO INDEX IMPORTANT 😬 Vladimir Putin tests a really big nuclear-capable missile. Source 🏠 Ontario won’t ban blind property bidding, just in case you thought buyers might catch a break. Source 🏈 The NFL gets in on the VR revolution with QB simulator game “NFL Pro Era,” out this fall. Source 🚕 A Nova Scotia taxi driver who quietly bought stocks for decades donates $1.7M to hospital after his death. Source CRASH & BURN 🤑 TO THE MOON 🤦🏽‍♀️ Salesforce’s Marc Benioff decries inequality/corporate greed after earning, oh, US$7.3 billion. Source 📰 The New York Times taps an office-supply scion to be its next top editor. Source 🏀 Lakers legend Jerry West demands apology for “cruel” portrayal on HBO’s “Winning Time.” Can’t blame him. Source 🍁 This year’s brutally cold spring has one sweet, very-Canadian upside: a maple-syrup boom. Source WHO CARES WHAT’S UP THIS WEEK TUESDAY April 26 All your favourite monopolistic tech giants — Apple, Amazon, Meta — are expected to report quarterly earnings this week, beginning with Alphabet and Microsoft on Tuesday. Amid this year’s economic turmoil, tech companies that spit out a bunch of cash ( Apple, mainly) have fared pretty well, while ones that aren’t money machines (Meta) have struggled. Why? Because, with interest rates rising, investors want safe bets (i.e., companies that make money). And the tech sector has always been strong on growth, but weaker on cashflow. THURSDAY April 28 Paramount+, the jewel of the Paramount/ViacomCBS streaming crown (though currently only the sixth- or seventh-largest streaming service overall), will debut “The Offer,” a miniseries starring Miles Teller based (very) loosely on the tumultuous story of how “The Godfather” almost didn't get made. (And yes, this is a very streaming-heavy TLDR in case you haven’t already noticed!) THE BIG IMPORTANT STORY PRICES Weed Is Still (Relatively) Cheap! And Four Other Stories of Non-Inflation We’re all tired of hearing about how the cost of everything is going up and up. But there are some interesting items that have been fairly inflation-resistant. We picked five and unpacked the deeper meaning. 1. Weed Let’s start with a vice: in Canada, marijuana prices have slid 15% since January 2020. Which is a lot! So what gives? It’s a long story, but basically a bunch of money flowed into the weed industry, which led to an oversupply that pushed down prices. There was simply too much pot. And all this low-priced weed has left cannabis companies struggling, but has benefited savings-minded stoners. Interested to learn about the rest? Click here. — Steven Frank TOTALLY NONESSENTIAL GOOD READS 🌹 The Blockchain Bachelorette Behold, the world’s first crypto dating show | Vulture 🤖 The Future of the Web Is Marketing Copy Generated by Algorithms When robots start selling you products | Wired 🚐 I Lived the #VanLife. It Wasn’t Pretty. Don’t let the dreamy Insta pics fool you | The New York Times THE WISDOM OF TWITTER You mean Love is Blind doesn’t count as high art? THOUGHTS ON TODAY’S ISSUE? 🤑 Love it 🙂 Good 🙁 So so This week’s newsletter contributors: Sarah Rieger (staff news writer), Devin Gordon (writer), Jared Lindzon (writer), Jared Sullivan (senior editor), Steven Frank (senior editor), and Kat Angus (managing editor). Full disclosure: contributors to this newsletter own stock in Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. Correction: In last week issue, we referred to the Bored Ape Yacht Club as the Bored Apes Yacht Club. The “Ape” is singular. Sorry! Wealthsimple Media Inc. 80 Spadina Ave Suite 400 Toronto, ON, M5V 2J4 Replies to this email address are not monitored. Have questions? Visit our Help Centre or submit a request to our Client Support team. VIEW IN BROWSER PRIVACY POLICY UNSUBSCRIBE TLDR is offered by Wealthsimple Media Inc. and is for informational purposes only. Any views expressed are those of the individual author and/or of Wealthsimple Media Inc., not of Wealthsimple Financial Corp or any of its other subsidiaries or affiliates. The content in TLDR is not investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell assets or securities, nor any other kind of professional advice. TLDR is not a research report and should not serve as the basis for making investment decisions. Wealthsimple Media Inc. does not endorse any third-party views referenced in this content. 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