🍋 Airbnb Doesn't Want You to Party

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Good Morning! It’s been a rough year for Americans at the gas pump, but there might be some good news ahead of the holidays. Yesterday, oil prices fell to their lowest levels this year.

Unfortunately for New Yorkers though, it seems the only thing lower than gas prices is the amount of affordable rental options in the city. The average rent in Manhattan hit a new record at a whopping $5,200 last month.

TikTok had a rough week. The company got sued by Indiana’s attorney general for violating privacy laws. And Amazon launched TikTok’s editing format on its app.

Americans’ cash savings from the pandemic are dwindling, and real incomes are stagnating. At least many cities are making bus services free - Washington D.C. could be the next one to hop on board.

With the new year approaching, it’s time to set new goals. Seasoned hedge fund professional Rich Bello and his company Arootah are hosting a Goal-Setting Workshop in NYC on December 12 & 14 at 6pm. Sign up here and use code: OVERHEARDONWALLST25 for 25% off.

1. Story of the Day: Airbnb Hates Fun

If you're looking to ring in the New Year with a wild party, don’t count on booking an Airbnb. The company permanently banned parties this summer, and they’re not taking any chances ahead of the holidays.

So, if you're trying to book a single-night stay on New Year’s Eve, you're out of luck - the company banned all single-night bookings. And they're not taking any chances with new users either - they'll be flagged if they try to book short stays. The company tried similar measures during the Fourth of July and saw a 56% decrease in party incidents.

Airbnb parties were all the rage during the pandemic. Bars and clubs were closed, so party-goers used the platform to throw house parties instead. But hosts weren’t too thrilled about being left with a mess to clean up. And the company was sick of dealing with noise complaints from angry Karens in the neighborhood.

Takeaway: Companies like Airbnb have to tread carefully when it comes to balancing profits and protecting their brand. They're focusing on making sure hosts and neighbors are happy, even if it means sacrificing some short-term cash by banning parties. But in today's age of social media and instant viral fame, Airbnb is betting that its brand is worth more than a few extra bucks from wild parties. After all, no one wants to be front and center in the next "Airbnb Party House" TikTok.

If you are interested in modeling out Airbnb stock price, Daloopa is giving away Airbnb's detailed financial model to Short Squeez readers.

2. Markets Rundown

If you want access to Wall Street insider interviews, industry deep-dives, premium research/resources and weekly Knowledge Drop newsletter, check out our Insiders membership.

Stocks snapped out of a five-day losing streak on Thursday.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) NVIDIA ($NVDA) +7% after a strong day for the semiconductor industry.

• (+) Coinbase ($COIN) +4% as investors process the FTX fallout.

• (–) Curaleaf Holdings ($CURA) -12% after a rough day for cannabis stocks.

Private Dealmaking

• Einride, a self-driving truck manufacturer, raised $500 million

• HealthKart, a consumer nutrition platform, raised $135 million

• CoreWeave, a cloud specialized-solutions provider, raised $100 million

• GoBolt, a Canadian logistics and delivery startup, raised $75 million

• Runway ML, a video editing software company, raised $50 million

• Hunt Club, a recruiting platform for businesses, raised $40 million

A Message for Arootah: Goal Setting Season

With the new year approaching, it’s time to set new goals. Let’s be real… if it doesn’t get written, it doesn’t get done.

Seasoned hedge fund professional Rich Bello is here to help. Rich has more than 25 years of investing experience and co-founded Blue Ridge Capital, an industry-leading hedge fund that grew to more than $10B in AUM.

Rich has had an impressive career in finance but came from humble beginnings.

He found that he was able to achieve anything he put forward as a goal.

He’s used his decades of experience and success to develop a method that focuses on pragmatic strategies to stimulate growth, inspire peak performance, and strengthen accountability - The 10 Step Arootah Success Formula.

On December 12 & 14 at 6 pm, Rich and his company Arootah are hosting a Goal-Setting Workshop in NYC that will impart this method in a rapid-fire, 2-hour session. Participants can also participate virtually in four other sessions held throughout the week of December 12-16.

Sign up here and use code: OVERHEARDONWALLST25 for 25% off.

Top Reads

• The U.S. chip boom is just beginning (Axios)

• The GameStop turnaround promise is failing (YF)

• What’s behind the big tech layoffs? (BBC)

• Tech layoffs push H-1B visa workers into limbo (Axios)

• SEC issues new guidance requiring companies to disclose cryptocurrency risks (CNBC)

• Gen Z’s first Congressman finds DC rental market is tough (BB)

• Labor data is flashing warning signs (Axios)

• FTC files antitrust suit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion Activision Blizzard deal (YF)

• Management lessons from Elon’s Twitter (Saasy)

• Why aren’t Americans ditching big banks? (WSJ)

4. Book of the Day: The Whiteness of Wealth

Dorothy A. Brown became a tax lawyer to get away from race. As a young black girl growing up in the South Bronx, she’d seen how racism limited the lives of her family and neighbors.

Her law school classes offered a refreshing contrast: Tax law was about numbers, and the only color that mattered was green.

But when Brown sat down to prepare tax returns for her parents, she found something strange: James and Dottie Brown, a plumber and a nurse, seemed to be paying an unusually high percentage of their income in taxes.

When Brown became a law professor, she set out to understand why.

In The Whiteness of Wealth, Brown draws on decades of cross-disciplinary research to show that tax law isn’t as color-blind as she’d once believed.

She takes us into her adopted city of Atlanta, introducing us to families across the economic spectrum whose stories demonstrate how American tax law rewards the preferences and practices of white people while pushing black people further behind.

From attending college to getting married to buying a home, black Americans find themselves at a financial disadvantage compared to their white peers.

The results are an ever-increasing wealth gap and more black families shut out of the American dream.

“A system designed to build white wealth will ultimately not work to build black wealth.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• 9 of Warren Buffet’s best ideas and principles

• Why do we get more colds and flus in the winter?

• The difference between busy and non-busy people

• 24 things I wish I knew at 24

• It’s easy to take it easy

A Message from Daloopa: Update Models With 1-Click

Part of being a finance professional consists of being one of the world's best-paid data-entry professionals.

It's a pain—and a rite of passage—to build a financial model by painstakingly transcribing information from 10-Qs, 10-Ks, presentations, and transcripts. Or, at least, it was: Daloopa uses machine learning and human validation to automatically parse financial statements and other disclosures, creating a continuously-updated, detailed, and accurate model.

Thomas Li (CEO) puts it best: "Daloopa collects literally everything a company discloses."

Despite travel roaring back, Airbnb's stock is down nearly 50% this year.

If you are interested in modeling out where Airbnb goes from here, Daloopa is giving away Airbnb's detailed financial model to Short Squeez readers.

Download ABNB's model.

6. Daily Visual: Ad Growth Expected to Slow Further in 2023

Percentage change in advertising growth

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: The Magic of Rituals

"When people experience uncertainty and lack of control, they are more likely to see patterns or regularities where there are none.

These patterns can range from visual illusions (such as seeing faces in the clouds) to seeing causality in random events and forming conspiracy theories.

Under these circumstances people are also more likely to turn to ritualized behaviors.

This is known as the compensatory control model: We compensate for lack of control in one domain by seeking it in another.

Whether this sense of control is illusory is of little importance.

What matters is that ritual can be an efficient coping mechanism, and this is why those domains of life that involve high stakes and uncertain outcomes are rife with rituals."

Source: Nautilus

8. Memes of the Day

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