The strange impact of the stamp duty deadline
Corporate espionage, European stocks and corporate espionage.
Hello,
I was on the train to the airport last week and two blokes were sitting in front of me, on the beers and on their way to some house revival festival in Bognor Regis. They clearly had a big weekend ahead and so were fuelling up on some incredibly smelly food they’d presumably bought at Victoria.
Now, let’s be honest: the rules regarding eating food on a train are a grey area. Personally, I’m a no-hot-food absolutist. We just don’t need your burrito demonstrating the second law of thermodynamics all over the carriage, pal. I also think eggy stuff hot or cold is not really on. But these are rules I’ve essentially made up and for many, smells aren’t that bad and people should be left to crack on with their Happy Meal.
In that moment however, these lads were breaking some sort of immutable law that I had made up. I considered my options. Obviously number one was throwing them or their food out of the window but that had some fairly serious practical and legal risks. I wrote off asking politely for them to put it away in case they a) threw me out of the window or worse b) just said no and I’d have to go and sit back down. I could also have just moved carriage but then they’d have won (unbeknownst to them) and anyway, the train was really busy.
Then I had a really crazy thought, I could just do nothing and everything would probably be ok. Action in inaction. This resolve was subsequently tested when their mate turned up and cracked out his Burger King. But by that point I’d concluded I’m probably committing transgressions against multiple people’s value systems daily so best we all give each other a break. These were fundamentally good lads, if a bit hungry….unlike the guys on the plane who were playing music out loud and then were rude to the air steward when she asked them to stop. They need to get in the sea.
Anyway, when I got the train home I bought some (cold) food from M&S at Gatwick and made sure to eat on the platform so I didn’t risk falling foul of my own legal system.
Smell you later,
Hugo
Chief Olfactory Officer
The Business of Stuff
The Stuff
Broadcasters fined for colluding on freelance pay 💰 - the BBC, IMG, BT and ITV have been told to cough up £4.2million between them by the Competition and Markets Authority for sharing information about fees for camera operators and sound technicians. Whilst being the most persistent offender, Sky avoided any fines by dobbing itself in early doors.
Rippling accuses Deel of corporate espionage 🥸 - they are claiming in a lawsuit that the HR technology company had a mole within their organisation that they were able to catch with a clever honeypot involving a fake Slack channel. Amazon is already wondering whether this could form the basis of the next James Bond film - From Workday with Love.
Nike shares hit a five-year low 👟 - the company is being hit in multiple directions from low consumer confidence, expected tariffs on products made in China and the fact everyone is buying their trainers from Hoka anyway. Analysts are concerned performance will continue to deteriorate further as Nike is struggling to change up its product mix.
Alphabet is buying Wiz for $32bn 🛒 - everyone is very excited that some big M&A is happening. Wiz helps companies to manage cyber security between cloud providers which makes it a great acquisition for the owner of Google as they’ll be able to see exactly what AWS and Microsoft are up to in their clouds. Serious pile of wonga they’ve paid there but it’ll go straight on the balance sheet.
Abu Dhabi is sitting on a health data goldmine 🧬 - the Emirate has sequenced 802,000 genomes via their largest healthcare company M42. Almost three quarters of the local population has been mapped, making it a massively comprehensive dataset. As they look to move away from fossil fuels, they hope this will drive a number of breakthroughs in combating disease.
European stonks are back 📈 - the focus for retail investing has been largely in American companies over the past few years, some more grounded in real value than others (e.g. Gamestop). As Europe gears up to defend itself and the US market sinks in the face of tariffs, lots of money and memes are flying around on this side of the pond.
The Aardvark project will democratise AI weather forecasting ☔ - as much as it’s fun to complain about weather apps, we are blessed to have supercomputers that can do a pretty good job. Many parts of the world aren’t so lucky which the Aardvark project is looking to fix through an approach that uses far less computing power.
Removal companies are struggling to keep up with demand 📦 - thanks to the current stamp duty deadline there are more than 75,000 people currently trying to move home which is keeping lawyers and movers very busy. Luckily conveyancers are already incredibly efficient and responsive to change but we’ll have to see how the men with ven respond.
US to import millions of eggs to lower prices 🥚 - ah good old globalism, always there to balance supply with demand. Egg prices were a rallying point for the Trump campaign last year so now that he is in power he’s really not got an eggscuse and so has had to go egg cup in hand to Turkey and South Korea. Tomlettes all round!
Othello is the hottest show on Broadway 🎭 - with a stellar lineup of Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington it’s no wonder that what is already a cracking play is breaking records. Not cheap though, if you want to sit in the front fourteen rows it will cost you a cool $921. You’d be pretty close to Jake and Denzel though so it’s got a reasonable ROI.
Quote of the week
“Sure the fight was fixed. I fixed it with a right hand.” - George Foreman