Neutral White Young-Adult Male
What do Drew Ortiz, Sora Tanaka, and Domino Abrams all have in common? This is a fun one.
Google GOOG 0.00%↑ search for “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes” and you just might find a picture of Drew Ortiz. Who is Drew Ortiz? As it turns out, he’s probably nobody! But at one point he was a writer with a byline and a presence on the Sports Illustrated website:
In this amazing Futurism article that is equal parts hilarious and depressing, Sports Illustrated, among other online publishing brands that are owned by Arena Group Holdings AREN 0.00%↑, allegedly allowed AI-generated content on its website that was attributed to writers who don’t actually exist:
But now that it's under the management of The Arena Group, parts of the magazine seem to have devolved into a Potemkin Village in which phony writers are cooked up out of thin air, outfitted with equally bogus biographies and expertise to win readers' trust, and used to pump out AI-generated buying guides that are monetized by affiliate links to products that provide a financial kickback when readers click them.
Articles created by robots and attributed to fake people with fake biographies and fake pictures. Sorta feels like there’s a word for that…
Anyway, a rep from Arena Group issued a statement that essentially put all of the blame on a third party. That hasn’t really mattered all that much and the fallout from the Futurism article has not been good for Arena Group. SI’s human writers are apparently mortified by this (I don’t blame them). Evidently so too is the market. The company’s stock, which is down about 90% from its 52-week high plummeted an additional 24% yesterday in response to the Futurism report:
Now full disclosure here; I get no joy out of the fact that one of the current executives at Arena Group was previously at PoopCorp TGNA 0.00%↑ and was involved in the decision to terminate employees who rejected Pfizer’s PFE 0.00%↑ magic science serum. Okay, maybe I kinda do get a small amount of amusement out of it.
All kidding aside, it is interesting seeing an AI headline hammer a stock for a change. I’m sure this is still somehow great for Nvidia NVDA 0.00%↑ - 😉
Buy Now Pay Latermaybe
We received some Black Friday shopping intel this week and these are some of the big takeaways that I think are worth considering:
At $9.8 billion, online Black Friday Spending was up 7.5% in the US from last year according to Adobe Analytics ADBE 0.00%↑
That number is actually significantly below the $16.4 billion estimate from Salesforce CRM 0.00%↑ - either way, these numbers are showing growth.
However, under the hood there are concerns. With a 19% increase over 2022, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services are apparently playing a larger role in holiday spending according to Affirm AFRM 0.00%↑
And a recent study of BNPL users indicates that PayPal PYPL 0.00%↑ has been the biggest
suckerlender with these types of products this year
More broadly on holiday shopping… according to Quantum Metric, average basket sizes are down 32% compared to last year. And various sources have indicated that the recurring theme this holiday season for consumers has been looking for deep discounts. Finally, per Reuters:
A survey by Klarna found nearly half of those surveyed worried that they would not be able to pay off credit card bills in full from holiday spending.
Altcoin Season
Can’t pay your credit card bill? No worries. It’s the season to be merry and it’s also the season to chase altcoins. Here are some of the one month returns on a few of the top 20 crypto altcoins by market cap:
Notably missing from this list of stellar 30 day performers is Litecoin ($LTC-USD) which at $70 is up about 1% over the last month. I still like this chart though and think the coin has quite a bit of catching up to do:
We’ve essentially been in a trading range since August. With the LTC block reward halving in the rear view mirror, I think we’re forming a nice base before the fireworks start. We didn’t touch LTC, but I talked quite a bit about a handful of altcoins this week with James Foord from the Pragmatic Investor podcast. I’ve been on this program several times and it’s always a lot of fun. Check it out below:
Speaking of altcoins, the latest altcoin to produce stupefying returns is the recently created “Charlie Munger” token $MUNGER-USD:
The coin, which is worth a microscopic fraction of a penny, has done millions of dollars in volume in less than 24 hours. Munger passed away yesterday at 99. It’s certainly no secret that he hated Bitcoin and all things crypto. I’m not surprised to see the grave dance from the degens. However, if you’d like to read a more appropriate tribute to Mr. Munger, check out this one from
:
Hope you guys are having a great week. Also, I’m not an AI bot so I don’t feel bad about reminding of the previously mentioned Heretic Speculator referral program! The more readers you bring into my MLM scheme, the more comped months you get as premium subs. It’s a low bar so have at it.
Disclaimer: I’m not an investment advisor. Also, Heretic Speculator is not actually a multi-level marketing scheme.