What we’re reading (2/17)
“Paramount’s New Chance to Win Over Warner Bros. Discovery” (DealBook). “Warner Bros. Discovery just said that it would restart merger talks with Paramount, giving its suitor roughly a week to make its case to abandon its deal with Netflix.”
“If You Believe In Aliens, There’s An ETF For That” (Forbes). “Every mania spawns its own exchange-traded fund (ETF) — a financial piñata for investors to whack in hopes of candy falling out. So it was only a matter of time before someone decided the next ‘you-had-to-be-there’ trade wasn’t in AI, clean energy, or space tourism — but extraterrestrial life. Enter the Tuttle Capital UFO Disclosure ETF (ticker: UFOD), designed to help investors ‘position themselves for the possibility of government confirmation that it possesses non-human technology.’”
“Land Grab for Data Centers Is One More Obstacle To Much-Needed Housing” (Wall Street Journal). “Steve Alloy was preparing to develop 516 new homes in Bristow, Va., about five years ago when the home builder began noticing something odd. Much of the land surrounding his site wasn’t being acquired by housing developers. It was being snapped up by tech giants such as Microsoft and Google.”
“AI Won’t Automatically Make Legal Services Cheaper” (Lawfare). “Despite widespread predictions that artificial intelligence (AI) will transform legal services and expand access to justice, advanced AI will not, by default, help consumers achieve desired legal outcomes at lower costs. Three bottlenecks stand between AI capability advances and more accessible legal services.”
“Cathie Wood’s ARKK Takes Fresh Hit After Falling 50% Since Covid” (Bloomberg). “Years after Cathie Wood became the face of pandemic-era investing euphoria, her flagship fund is marking a difficult milestone. The ARK Innovation ETF (ticker ARKK) completed a 10-day losing streak earlier this month, its longest on record. Over the past half decade — a period that spans the latter part of the pandemic, the surge in interest rates and the market’s subsequent rebound — ARKK is down more than 50%, even as the Nasdaq 100 has seen gains of 80%.”
