Good Morning! It might be time to sell your cannabis stocks - Snoop Dogg says he’s done smoking. Bud Light's chief marketing officer is stepping down after a rough sales year. Mortgage rates are dropping for the third straight week after a wild climb. Apple's making iPhone-Android texting easier. Mom and pop shops are spending less on software, worrying Wall Street tech investors. And Walmart's CEO is predicting food deflation this holiday season. 

Today’s edition is brought to you by Hebbia that makes deal diligence 10x faster and more accurate.

_{SQUEEZ OF THE DAY}

Alexa, Sell My Car!

Amazon is making an entrance into the car market –  and will let Hyundai start selling cars on the platform. 

You’ll be able to shop based on model, trim, color – and you can even choose between financing options. Carvana, TrueCar, and CarMax stocks took a dip on the news.

And as part of the deal, Hyundai is featuring Amazon's Alexa in their cars, starting in 2025. It won’t be easy though. Selling vehicles online is a complex process involving trade-ins, financing, warranties and follow-up service.

Amazon's e-commerce growth might be flattening, but pivoting into the car lane could be a good spark.

Takeaway: We could be seeing a big change in how cars are sold. Most carmakers usually pass the keys to dealers who then pass them to you. But Hyundai's breaking the rules, trying to copy success from Carvana and Tesla’s playbook.

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

Stocks closed slightly higher as the rally took a breather.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Sonos ($SONO) +17% because the company plans job cuts, is pushing into headphones.

• (–) Walmart ($WMT) -8% because deflation is shaking things up for retailers.

• (–) Cisco ($CSCO) -9% after cutting full-year guidance.

Private Dealmaking

• Mars Inc. bought Hotel Chocolat, a British chocolatier, for $663 million

• Advent International bought myPOS, a payment services firm, for $500 million 

• Thoma Bravo bought EQS Group, a compliance firm, for around $434 million

• Forward, a medical clinic operator, raised $100 million

• Cytovale, a rapid diagnostics test maker for sepsis, for $84 million

• Fnality International, a blockchain payments firm, raised $84 million

For more PE & VC deals, subscribe to Buysiders.

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• Regulators defend new banking rules in Senate testimony (Axios)

• Goldman discusses bigger bonuses for top traders (Reuters)

• Ken Griffin says WFH may fuel corporate job cuts (BB)

• Goldman CEO predecessor Blankfein talks careers as analysts compete (Reuters)

• JPMorgan, Apollo reimagine wealth management with tokenization (Axios)

• Payments app war drags banks into discomfort zone (Reuters)

• Cathie Wood is still all-in on Bitcoin (YF)

• Citi begins layoffs in Jane Fraser’s overhaul (CNBC)

• Private equity pay gains to slow (WSJ)

• Goldman doesn’t see rate cut until Q4 2024 (YF)

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Why We Sleep

Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. Compared to the other basic drives in life—eating, drinking, and reproducing—the purpose of sleep remains more elusive.

Within the brain, sleep enriches a diversity of functions, including our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. It recalibrates our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space in which the brain melds past and present knowledge, inspiring creativity.

In this “compelling and utterly convincing” (The Sunday Times) book, preeminent neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker provides a revolutionary exploration of sleep, examining how it affects every aspect of our physical and mental well-being.

Charting the most cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs, and marshalling his decades of research and clinical practice, Walker explains how we can harness sleep to improve learning, mood and energy levels, regulate hormones, prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes, slow the effects of aging, and increase longevity. He also provides actionable steps towards getting a better night’s sleep every night.

“The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.”

_{ENLIGHTENMENT}

Short Squeez Picks

• Tips to master the art of spontaneous speaking

• 10 rules for building productive business relationships

• 4 must-read business books for 2024

• Decoding the millionaire mindset 

• Cathie Wood advice for young investors 

_{DAILY VISUAL}

Big Bank Cuts to Come

Change in stock price Oct 17, 2018 to Nov 15, 2023

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_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Stillness

“Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular.

There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations.

Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken. Most important, sleep. Besides being the greatest creative aphrodisiac, sleep also affects our every waking moment, dictates our social rhythm, and even mediates our negative moods.

Be as religious and disciplined about your sleep as you are about your work. We tend to wear our ability to get by on little sleep as some sort of badge of honor that validates our work ethic.

But what it really is, is a profound failure of self-respect and of priorities. What could possibly be more important than your health and your sanity, from which all else springs?”

Source: The Marginalian

_{MEME-A-PALOOZA}

Memes of the Day