ENTERTAINMENT

For AT&T, a Year of Self-Discovery

AT&T is preparing to spin off its entertainment business, WarnerMedia, and merge it with competitor Discovery, Bloomberg reported yesterday. 

What's included?

• WarnerMedia is home to storied brands including CNN, Cartoon Network, Warner Bros. film studios, and HBO, plus streaming service HBO Max, which celebrates its first birthday next week.
• Discovery Inc., in addition to its namesake TV channel, offers a variety of lifestyle and reality brands: Animal Planet, Oprah Winfrey Network, Food Network, TLC,  and HGTV...brands you can also catch on its three-month-old streaming platform, Discovery+.

If the deal pans out—and it could be announced as soon as today—that's a pretty compelling content catalogue to stand up against streaming heavyweights Netflix and Disney+, which boast 200+ million and 100+ million subscribers, respectively. Combined, WarnerMedia and Discovery would be worth $150 billion, the Financial Times estimates. 

It's a U-turn for AT&T

WarnerMedia was created just three years ago through AT&T's $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. The deal was overshadowed by a multiyear fight with the Department of Justice, which sued to block the acquisition on antitrust grounds, but lost. 

So why's AT&T changing course now?

CEO John Stankey, who assumed the top job last summer, has been offloading some of AT&T's less profitable divisions. The company is paying down hefty debt loads from recent acquisitions and, in an attempt to catch up to leading wireless providers Verizon and T-Mobile, making expensive investments in 5G and fiber optics. 

While AT&T has funneled resources into production for HBO Max, it's gotten rid of some other media assets.

• In December, AT&T sold anime streamer Crunchyroll to Sony. 
• In February, it reached a deal with TPG to spin off DirecTV operations.

Big picture: Owning distribution and content is tough, and a WarnerMedia-Discovery merger "would underscore the difficulty telecom companies like AT&T and Verizon...have had finding a payoff from their media operations," Bloomberg writes. Verizon recently sold its media assets to Apollo Global Management for $5 billion. 

TAXES

Tax Day Is Here

Congrats on completing the most confusing tax return of your life. Ready to talk about the potential changes for next year?

Something's going up 

For businesses...to pay for his ~$2 trillion infrastructure plan, President Biden proposed raising the corporate tax rate to 28%, though he recently said he's open to negotiating down to 25%.

For households...if you can't watch Succession because it hits too close to home, get ready to pay more. Biden proposed raising income taxes on individuals earning $400k/year to 39.6% and hitting capital gains at the same rate for individuals earning $1+ million/year. He's also proposed closing a "trust fund loophole" on large inheritances. 

Even if those measures pass, collecting taxes is another issue. The White House has also proposed sending $80 billion to the IRS to fund audits and recoup the estimated $1 trillion in taxes that doesn't get collected annually.

Zoom out: Democrats have a decent chance of pushing through some proposals, including raising taxes on corporations and income taxes on the wealthy. But capital gains and estate tax hikes could prove harder, Politico writes. 

COVID

Covid-19 Around the World

As many of you took the first steps into a new, maskless era in the US this weekend, other parts of the world made big Covid-related moves.

Europe: Starting today, people in England will be able to see what the inside of a pub looks like for the first time in months thanks to an easing of restrictions. And countries including Greece and Portugal are gradually opening their borders for the all-important summer tourist season. But at least in England, officials are worried about the growing prevalence of the highly transmissible B16172 variant first found in India.

Southeast Asia: Despite early successes at taming the coronavirus, Singapore and Taiwan are clamping down aggressively to combat new outbreaks. Singapore is sending most kids back to Zoom school this week, and Taiwan is limiting indoor social gatherings to five people. 

North America: The one-week average of new cases in the US hit its lowest level since June. Meanwhile, the Canadian government has started to discuss reopening the border with the US, which has been closed since March 2020.

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Investments Speak Louder Than Words

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E*TRADE makes it easy for you to integrate sustainable investing into parts (or all) of your portfolio. Whether you prefer to invest using Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) factors, or would rather have a portfolio built and managed for you, E*TRADE makes it easy to align your money with your values. 

So while it’s cool that you can make reusable grocery bags out of old t-shirts, you can do more by investing in sustainable industries like clean water and clean energy with E*TRADE.  

Learn how to get started here.

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GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: 63% of people who bought a home in the US last year made an offer without seeing the property, according to a survey by Redfin. That's the highest level in the survey's history dating to 2015. 

Quote: "The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what transpired today."

Gary Pruitt, the president and CEO of the Associated Press, commented on an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on Saturday that flattened the office building that was home to the AP's bureau and other news organizations.

Read: Why are non-alcoholic spirits so expensive? (InsideHook)

CALENDAR

The Week Ahead

Yes, that's ABBA. You'll see why we chose that pic in just a second...

Economic data: Is this wild housing market starting to cool down? We'll find out from a few reports this week, including housing starts on Tuesday and existing home sales on Friday. 

Earnings: Retail companies, it's your time to shine. Target, Walmart, Macy's, Home Depot, and Lowe's all report earnings this week. Expect to hear about the effects of the $1,400 stimulus checks and updates on mask guidance.

Everything else: 

• The Eurovision Song Competition begins on Tuesday. 
• Ford reveals its all-electric F-150, called Lightning, on Wednesday. 
• In sports, the PGA Championship starts on Thursday and the NBA playoffs tip off on Saturday. Sixers all the wayyyyyyyyyy.

BLACK WALL STREET

Did the “Democratization of Finance” Reach Black Investors?

We all know the story: Without much else to do in 2020, bored Americans turned to stock trading to fill the time. They were so enthusiastic, or bored, or both, that last year individual traders accounted for a larger share of market activity than at any time during the past 10 years. 

Here’s the lesser-known story: That surge in individual trading was led by more Black investors getting into the stock market.

In Part 1 of our series on Black Wall Street, 100 Years Later, we explore how the “Robinhood effect” of democratizing investing reached a population that had been historically excluded from the stock market. 

Read the piece here.

+ In addition to articles, we put together a TikTok series explaining what made Tulsa’s Greenwood district so important to the history of Black business in the US. Check out the first video here. 

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Microsoft’s board, prior to Bill Gates’s resignation in March 2020, wanted the cofounder to step down due to an affair he had with a Microsoft engineer, according to the WSJ.
• University of California schools will completely scrap SAT and ACT scores from their admissions and scholarship decisions.
• Starbucks and Publix joined the list of companies that have dropped in-store mask requirements for fully vaccinated customers. 
• George Soros's investment firm bought up shares in companies like Discovery and ViacomCBS that were sold off during the Archegos fiasco.
• Daniel Ek, cofounder and CEO of Spotify, said his bid to buy the London-based Arsenal soccer team was rejected. 

SPONSORED BY E*TRADE

Care about investing? Then invest in what you care about. E*TRADE can help align your investments with your principles and make it easy to build a portfolio. Learn more about sustainable investing with E*TRADE today. 

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BREW'S BETS

Data is beautiful: Indeed it is. You can find some awesome charts on the subreddit r/dataisbeautiful including 1) the relationship between political party and county size 2) a striking dogecoin stat and 3) time-lapse charts of global energy production by source.

Practical marketing tips: In our brand-new Workshop series, Marketing Brew is bringing in experts to help you effectively market on different platforms. First up? Pinterest. Sign up here for Wednesday's event.

Dive back into the week:

• Shallow dive: how to never lose at tic-tac-toe
• Medium dive: a year without karaoke
• Deep dive: Vanessa Bryant's speech in honor of her late husband and NBA Hall of Fame inductee, Kobe Bryant
• Cannonball: Kurt Vonnegut on the shape of stories

GAMES

Make a Name for Yourself

Can you guess the top three names for boys and girls in 2020? We'll give you the first letter to make it not-impossible.

Boys

1. L____
2. N____
3. O____

Girls

1. O____
2. E____
3. A____

ANSWER

Boys: 1) Liam 2) Noah 3) Oliver
Girls: 1) Olivia 2) Emma 3) Ava