šš«£ Goldman Sees Profits Plummet 66%
Happy Wednesday all,
Iāve been getting a lot of questions from beginners about how to invest in the market - some of you reading are already experienced when it comes to investing, but for those that may not have an investment account at all, or donāt know what to invest in, or why they should be investing - Iāve been writing a script for a video that should take you from knowing completely nothing to starting your first investment. Look for it on YouTube in the coming week or two!
Our team has also been more active on our Patreon lately, and hereās a great article that Tim put together that I just set to go public on the State of Tesla. Every now and then weāll release articles from Patreon to this newsletter as a little bonus. Iāve also been toying with the idea of offering a $5 newsletter subscription that gets you access to these premium articles. Let me know if youād be interested in that by commenting or directly replying to this email, along with what type of premium content you would want to see in a paid subscription. The current version of Hump Days (Wednesdays and Sundays) will still remain free.
Enjoy this weekās Hump Days!
- Humphrey
Tweet of the Week
The Weekly Brief
Yellen Warns of U.S. Default Risk by Early June, Urges Debt Limit Hike (Reuters)
U.S. Treasury Secretary Warned that the United States will likely hit the $31.4T statutory debt limit on Jan. 19. She urged lawmakers to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling to āprotect the full faith and creditā of the United States. This has raised concerns bridging back to 2011 when the U.S. credit rating was briefly downgraded and years of forced domestic and military spending cuts followed.
Goldman Sachs Profit Plummets From Deal-Making Drought (WSJ)
Goldman Sachs reported sharply lower profit for Q4, hurt by a slowdown in deal-making. Quarterly profit was down 66% from a year ago. Goldman is more reliant on deal fees compared to JPM and Bank of America, which both have big consumer-banking arms.
Microsoft to Add ChatGPT to Azure Cloud Services āSoonā (Bloomberg)
Microsoft stated its intention to add OpenAIās ChatGPT bot to its cloud-based Azure service soon, building on an existing relationship between the two companies as Microsoft mulls taking a far larger stake in OpenAI. Microsoft is in discussion to invest as much as $10B in OpenAI, people familiar with its plans said last week.
Chart of the Week
After a scramble for workers coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. economy has shown signs of reversing course. In 2022, U.S. employers announced 13% more job cuts than they did the year before.
What Weāve Been Reading
Markets
Big U.S. Banks Continue to Add Jobs as Goldman Sachs Cuts Staff (Reuters)
General Catalyst, Spark in Talks to Back OpenAI Rival (The Information)
Microsoft to Expand ChatGPT Access as OpenAI Investment Rumors Swirl (Reuters)
Bitcoin Price Surges 24% as Crypto Retakes $1T Market Cap (Yahoo!)
Economy
Government
U.S., Allies Prepare Fresh Sanctions on Russian Oil Industry (WSJ)
Justice Department Considered but Rejected Role in Biden Documents Search (WSJ)