HEALTH

Businesses to Biden

Executives from major US corporations are eagerly raising their hands at the front of class hoping to get called on by President Biden. The problem they think they can answer? How to speed up a vaccine rollout that is wayyyy behind schedule.

• New York State was set to run out of vaccine doses yesterday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. And just 67% of hospital staff (who are in the first priority tier) have received shots. 
• Elsewhere in the country, about half of the 38 million doses distributed to states are stuck in freezers.

A few notable hand-raisers

Walmart, which is already vaccinating healthcare workers in Arkansas and New Mexico, is expanding its vaccine efforts to seven additional states, Chicago, and Puerto Rico. Eventually, the nation’s largest retailer thinks it can dole out 10 million to 13 million doses a month. 

Over in Washington state, Starbucks, Microsoft, and Costco have all been tapped by Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to help distribute vaccines. And this week, Amazon implored the Biden administration to call upon its expertise for something a little more pressing than delivering a Ninja food processor in less than 12 hours. 

Private sector public sector 

Big retailers, working more closely with local governments, could be a missing link in the distribution effort’s 10,000-piece puzzle. “Their core businesses are already geared around serving millions of customers day in and day out. They have locations right across the country and...national distribution and logistics networks,” Neil Saunders, managing director of Global Data Retail, told the Washington Post.

It’s not just the big kids helping out, either. Carbon Health, a healthcare startup that just finished raising a Series C round, now powers the back-end tech for the City of Los Angeles’s entire vaccine program. 

Zoom out: The private sector has every incentive to help out the government. “Our economy will not recover, and we won’t be able to get people back into the office, until we have good penetration of the vaccines,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said.

STOCKS

GameStop Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

The army of amateur retail traders that fueled past rallies in stocks like Kodak and Hertz have a new favorite plaything: GameStop. 

Yesterday, the video game retailer’s stock shot up as much as 78%, triggering four separate trade stoppages so everyone could catch their breath.

The backstory: GameStop popped on investors’ radar after it added the cofounder of e-commerce pet brand Chewy to its board 10 days ago. Its stock surged 60% that day which, in turn, caught the eye of notorious short-seller Citron Research. 

Citron, which makes money if GameStop’s stock flops, released a video on Thursday outlining why it thinks GameStop is overvalued. “This is a failing mall-based retailer," the firm’s managing partner Andrew Left said in the video. Amateur traders took it as a challenge and promptly sent the stock soaring, racking up losses for anyone who holds a short position.

Bottom line: The amateur investors are winning for now—the stock is up 245% this month. But unless GameStop can prove its e-comm transformation is legit, they might not have the upperhand for long. 

HOUSING

Selling Sunsets on 2020

After ticking up 0.7% in December, US existing home sales in 2020 clocked in at their highest level in 14 years. What juiced the housing market last year? 

• Historically low borrowing costs: The 30-year fixed-rate home loan fell to 2.77% this week. It stood at 3.60% a year ago. 
• Coronavirus lockdowns: After months of being cooped up in an apartment with young kids, you weren’t the only one thinking, “I gotta get a bigger place.” 

Here’s the crazy part: Home sales could have been much higher—if only there were more homes to sell. 1.07 million homes were on the market at the end of December, 23% fewer than December 2019.

That’s pushing up prices

The median price on an existing home was $309,800 in December, 13% higher than a year earlier. When you look closely, you’ll see that the higher end of the market is doing most of the heavy lifting.

• Sales of homes <$100,000: down 15% annually
• $500,000–$750,000: up 65%
• $1,000,000+: up 94%

What these numbers show: If you made it through the pandemic unscathed, like many in the higher-income brackets did, you tried to level up your crib. 

SPONSORED BY CARIUMA

OOPS WE DID IT (TALKED ABOUT OUR LOVE FOR CARIUMA) AGAIN

Actually, we might have done it a few thousand times, but you know what they say...write about what you love. 

And what we love is raving about CARIUMA. 

Because these sustainable, super cool sneakers are intensely-comfortable, wildly-stylish, carbon-neutral, and—perhaps most importantly—they have the Brew stamp of approval. 

There’s no mystery why these environmentally-friendly, fashion-forward kicks had a 16k waitlist. CARIUMA IBIs are made with crazy comfortable bamboo knit, sugarcane, organic mamona oil, and cork — they even launched a brand new high top version. So your feet will be as snug as a stylish bug in a sustainably-made rug.

And nobody wants to be number 16,000 in line, so get your sustainable sneakers before they sell out again. 

Brew readers even get 15% off the world’s greatest sneaks.

Claim your CARIUMAS today.

TECH

Goodnight Loon

Google parent Alphabet is shutting down Loon, its ambitious attempt to bring wi-fi to remote areas via high-flying balloons. The reason: Big dreams need big budgets. Too big.

• The project’s leader, Alaistair Westgarth, explained in a blog post, “While we’ve found a number of willing partners along the way, we haven’t found a way to get the costs low enough to build a long-term, sustainable business.”

It was cool while it lasted: The tennis-court-sized balloons supplied internet service to an area 200x the range of a standard cell tower, with zero pretense of being pine trees. In 2017, Loon balloons restored wireless service to over 100,000 Puerto Ricans following Hurricane Maria.

Loon was part of Alphabet’s “Other Bets” segment, which incubated moonshot projects like self-driving car company Waymo and life sciences research organization Verily. “Other Bets” consistently records chunky operating losses.

Zoom out: CEO Sundar Pichai has been pruning financially risky projects in an attempt to pull the company’s gaze down from the clouds to its bottom line.

APPS

That’s a Lot of Sea Shanties

TikTok rose past Facebook to become the most time-consuming social media app in 2020. 

According to App Annie, users spent an average of 21.5 hours on TikTok per month, 325% more than last year. All of the top five social media platforms experienced an uptick from 2019–2020, but none as dramatic as TikTok’s. 

Consider: #Snailtok alone, a hashtag full of snail videos, has over 24.3 million views. (For the record, our favorite snail influencer is slimetownusa.)

TAXES

Tax Season 2021: Important Facts and Figures

This article is part of our ongoing series on taxes and the gig economy.

Deadlines: The IRS delayed the start of tax season till February 12. In a normal year, the IRS typically starts accepting and processing last year’s tax returns in late January, but…yeah. 

• We’re still on for the traditional April 15 tax filing deadline, which was extended until July last year. 

Stimulus payments: Many Americans received cash from the government last year (known as Economic Impact Payments) to blunt the economic crisis. This stimulus money is NOT subject to income taxes. 

• If you didn’t receive 100% of the stimulus money you were entitled to, you are eligible for the “recovery rebate credit,” which will either bump up your refund or reduce your tax obligations.

Refunds: Once you file your taxes electronically, you should expect to receive your refund via direct deposit within 21 days of the filing date, the IRS said. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Hank Aaron, baseball and civil rights icon, died at 86. 
• President Biden signed two executive orders aimed at helping out the most financially vulnerable Americans.
• Amazon is trying to stop a union vote at an Alabama warehouse that’s scheduled to begin next month. It would be Amazon’s first US union election in seven years. 
• The Japanese government denied a report that it had decided to cancel the Olympics this summer.
• No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film, has been delayed for the third time...to October 8.
• NBCUniversal is shutting down its NBCSN sports network. 

BREW'S BETS

These meats can’t be beat. ButcherBox™ delivers high-quality meat directly to your door. For a limited time, new members get 1 rack of St. Louis ribs, 1 pack of pulled pork, and 1 pack of bacon for free in your first box. Sign up today.*

Invest with all your business knowledge on Stash, the personal finance app that can make investing easy and affordable. Right now, Stash is giving a $5 bonus to Brew readers who make their first $5 deposit.** Cash in and start investing that market know-how.*

2021 creative trends: From inkscapes to eccentric animation, here are the design themes to look out for this year.

Weekend Conversation Starters: 

• This might get too heated, but cast iron skillets: necessary, or heavy and hard to clean?
• If your email sign-off were a song lyric, what would it be? I can show you the world, Morning Brew.
• Debate serif vs. sans serif after looking through these homogeneous brand logos. 

^{*This is sponsored advertising content}

GAMES

Brew Crossword: Sticky Situation

Today's clever Brew Crossword, written by the dynamic duo of Adam and Amanda Kallin, is related to current events...but we're not going to tell you how. Play it here to find out.

** A Note From Stash

*The Morning Brew is a paid partner of Stash. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments LLC, an SEC registered investment adviser. Investing involves risk and investments may lose value. For more information, please visit www.stash.com.

**Promotion is subject to Terms and Conditions. To be eligible to participate in this Promotion and receive the bonus, you must complete the following steps: (i) click through the link above, (ii) successfully open a Stash Invest Account (otherwise known as your personal portfolio) in good standing, (iii) link a funding account (e.g. an external bank account) to your new Stash Invest Account, AND (iv) initiate and complete a deposit of at least five dollars ($5.00) into your Stash Invest Account.