DOJ sues Google over its dominance in online advertising market (5 min read)
​
The US Justice Department filed its second antitrust lawsuit against Google that seeks to divest part of the company’s business as it dominates the online advertising market. Google’s advertising business has drawn criticism because it operates on multiple sides of the market, including the buying, selling, and an ad exchange, which gives them a unique advantage. However, Google has long denied its dominance in the online advertising market by pointing to market shares of competitors such as Facebook and Amazon.

Microsoft beats on earnings as cloud unit shows strong growth (2 min read)

Shares of Microsoft gained more than 5% in the after-market on Tuesday after the company reported quarterly earnings higher than analysts’ estimates. Although its total revenue grew by 2% year-over-year for the quarter, it's also the slowest rate since 2016. The segment with the strongest revenue growth was in the cloud services business. Microsoft stock is still close to being flat so far this year, even with the price moves in the after-market.

5 Numbers That Will Tell Us How the U.S. Economy Does This Year (5 min read)
​
The narratives between an imminent recession and a soft landing in the US are consistently switching every other day. Although it is impossible to know for sure, there are several economic numbers that can help indicate what will happen to the economy this year. The data to focus on are mortgage rates, inflation rate, unemployment rate, Fed Funds rate, and the dollar. This article discusses how these data points shape the economy and the ideal scenarios for each one.

NYSE investigates ‘technical issue’ that briefly halted stock trading (2 min read)
​
An unusual number of stocks were briefly halted for volatility on the NYSE through the open on Tuesday morning before resuming shortly after. It was somewhat similar to the “flash crash” in 2010, where the Dow plunged before dramatically rebounding due to high frequency trading. However, the recent halts on the NYSE were related to technical issues and the exchange said they are investigating the problem.

Cathie Wood’s ARKK Is Well on Way to One of Its Best Months Ever (2 min read)

The ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) has returned nearly 22% since the start of January, on track for its third strongest month ever. The buoyant mood in the global market that high inflation is over and the pace of rate hikes will slow have benefitted the speculative tech shares in ARKK, leading most to a surge in price. However, ARKK is still more than 75% from its record high in early 2021. Despite poor performance in the past two years, ARKK’s vision continues to attract fans and new assets.

Investors Are Flocking to Sustainable Infrastructure (2 min read)
​
Amid market uncertainty, investors have increasingly been allocating to sustainable infrastructure as a safe haven for long term growth. Sustainable assets such as renewable energy or carbon capturing are seen as a larger part of the future asset class. With concerns about Earth’s ability to support the human population and its economic activity, the need for these assets is more critical than ever. Funds in this category have grown in the past decade, but the last few years were shown to have increased exponentially.

That's it for today! You can reply to this email if you have any comments or feedback.

Thanks,
Thomas

No longer want to receive these emails? Click here to unsubscribe.