Finimize - 🥱 PlayStations are not Sony’s priority

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Today's big stories

Sony’s planning to make its image sensors an essential part of the car industry
The altcoin market might’ve crashed, but here’s what to do till it comes surging back – Read Now
Costco posted better-than-expected quarterly results, putting its rivals to shame

EVolution

What’s Going On Here?

Sony announced plans to double down on its push into the EV and autonomous car sector last week.

What Does This Mean?

Sony already revealed its plans to dabble in the car business earlier this year when it launched its own EV division. But it went all in on the sector last week, saying it’s aiming to supply imaging sensors to 15 out of the 20 world’s biggest carmakers by 2025, who it argues will sell around 80% of all cars globally by then. This comes as the company looks to diversify the segment beyond smartphone camera parts for the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung. There’s no cheat code for the ambitious expansion though, which might be why it said it’s planning to spend about $7 billion over the next two years on improving and producing its sensors – nearly three times as much as it spent on the segment between 2015 and 2017.

Why Should I Care?

The bigger picture: You can’t carry a PS5.
Sony isn’t leaving its gaming segment by the roadside, mind you: the company said it was looking to buy up more game studios and add to a roster that already includes the creator of the Destiny franchise Bungie. It also told investors that it’ll be making a push into mobile and PC gaming, and aims to release nearly half of its new games on the formats by 2025 – a ballsy plan given how little the platforms currently make up of its business.

Zooming out: People need their Angry Birds fix.
Smart timing: a report out last week showed that the mobile gaming market grew around 21% a year from 2014 to 2021, compared to around just 8% for the console market. And that trend is set to continue this year, with mobile gaming expected to make up 61% of the entire gaming market – three times as much as PS5s, Xboxes, and the like.

You might also like: Why gaming stocks could 1UP the rest of the market.

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Analyst Take

How To Bide Your Time Until Altcoins Come Surging Back

By Jonathan Hobbs, Analyst

Early last year, you could’ve thrown a dart at a list of altcoins to make your picks, and you’d still have seen a handful of them double within the week.

That’s because altcoins – crypto investments other than bitcoin – were mostly going up in value versus bitcoin back then.

But for now at least, this so-called “altseason” is a distant memory, with most digital assets crashing in value versus the OG crypto.

And while the altcoin market is almost bound to bounce back eventually, it leaves you with a dilemma in the meantime: where to invest in the crypto market.

So that’s today’s Insight: what the altseason is exactly, and where the real crypto opportunity is in the meantime.

Read or listen to the Insight here

Hedging without the headache

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You can even combine many of those investment kits with Q.ai’s Portfolio Protection, which uses AI to predict risks and update your portfolio accordingly.

Check it out: Portfolio Protection helped the “Smarter Beta” Kit generate returns of nearly 5% in the first quarter of this year, even as market benchmarks fell between 4.5% and 4.9%.

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All displayed performance are hypothetical returns and do not include advisory fees or transaction costs . This information is being furnished solely for informational purposes ONLY. No representation is being made that any account will or is likely to achieve profits or losses similar to those shown.

No representation or warranty can be given with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the information, and is subject to upd ating, revision, and amendment. Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance returns. This material does not constitute an offer to buy or sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, any security. This does not constitute and must not be construed as investment advice.

Q.ai offers advisory services through Quantalytics Investment Advisors, LLC (“QIA”), a registered investment adviser. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients of QIA. Investing involves risk a nd possible loss of principal capital. Potential investors must rely upon their own examination of the merits and risks involved.

Merchant Of Fumes

What’s Going On Here?

Discount retailer Costco reported better-than expected results late last week.

What Does This Mean?

Investors came into Costco’s update with trepidation, not least because Walmart’s disappointing earnings update and bleak outlook highlighted just how much US shoppers have been cutting back. But Costco has a couple of advantages over its rival. For one, its average shopper earns a lot more, so they haven’t had to watch the pennies as much. And for another, the retailer has made a point of keeping its gas prices several cents below the national average. That’s not just driven traffic to its forecourts: analysts estimate that as many as half those customers end up buying other products in store. All this fell together nicely last quarter, helping Costco bring in $1 billion more revenue than expected and keeping the retailer on track for its first $200 billion financial year (tweet this).

Why Should I Care?

For markets: Business 101: make money.
So it breaks our heart to say that Costco’s shares still dropped after the announcement, which might have something to do with the fact that Costco’s profit margin – already lower than most of its rivals – fell last quarter. That means the company’s one step closer to crossing the line between making money and losing it, which is probably the wrong direction to go in. But Costco’s not taking this lying down: it said it’s increasing some product prices to try to offset the damage.

Zooming out: Cheaply does it.
Costco wasn’t the only discounter to report strong results last week, with Dollar General and Dollar Tree posting impressive quarterly results. They both pointed out that spending on nice-to-haves has been dropping off, and that food is making up a bigger proportion of Americans’ weekly shop. But a tight-fisted customer is their kind of customer, so they’re taking full advantage: they both have plans to open up new stores.

You might also like: Should you invest in Costco?

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💬 Quote of the day

“Unless we remember we cannot understand.”

– E. M. Forster (an English fiction writer)

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What’s next for the M&A market?

Businesses shook hands on a record amount of deals last year, both by volume and value.

But this year’s economy is shaky to say the least, so you might be wondering if they stand a chance of keeping up the momentum for the longer term.

Wonder no more: the trendspotters over at Affinity have used Affinity’s advanced relationship intelligence data to help you make the most of upcoming M&A trends.

Find out what’s coming next: read Affinity’s 2022 M&A Benchmark Report.

Read The Report

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🎯 On Our Radar

Tesla’s getting desperate. Workers can’t even leave the factories.
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Played Animal Crossing once? Congrats, you’re a gamer now.
When Louis met Nike. Inside one of Virgil Abloh’s final projects.
Bye, Ellen. Her show’s come to an end after nearly 20 years.

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🎉 Coming Up This Week

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📱 How To Hedge Against The Chip Shortage: 1pm, May 30th
♻️ How Green Bonds Can Fuel A Sustainable Future: 1pm, May 31st
🏆 Peer-To-Peer Vs. Crypto Exchanges: 5pm, May 31st
🎉 De-Mystifying Refi: 5pm, June 1st

💪 And Then After That…

🌿 How To Get The Green With Cannabis ETFs: 12pm, June 9th
🎮 How To Invest In Video Games: 5pm, June 9th
🌍 How And Where To Invest In Africa: 5pm, June 14th
🚀 Finimize NFT Fest: 12pm, 15th June
🤗 Investing In Metaverse Opportunities: 5pm, 23rd June
🏘 How To Diversify Your Crypto Investments Through Commercial Real Estate: 6pm, August 3rd
🏡 Tokenizing Real Estate: 6pm, September 13th

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Image credits: Daniel Flesher, seeshooteatrepeat, Benvenuto Cellini - Shutterstock and Sony | magicoven, Novikov Aleksey, bunbok - Shutterstock

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