Good morning. It's Friday the 13th, a completely regular day that, for some reason, we are really afraid of. Still, superstitions are fun…and of course very real…so we asked around the Brew office to learn about our colleagues' weirdest rituals. Feel free to adopt any that sync with your worldview. - Manny: "Friday the 13th is the only day I pour milk before cereal."
- Elizabeth: "I close my eyes during airplane takeoff until I hear the first 'ding' sound, which is my personal sign that we're in the clear."
- Max: "Whenever I put clean dishes away, I need to put the most recently used dish on the bottom so all the dishes get the same amount of turns and nobody feels left out."
—Neal Freyman, Matty Merritt, Max Knoblauch | | | |  | Nasdaq | 11,370.96 | | |  | S&P | 3,930.08 | | | | | Dow | 31,730.30 | | | | | 10-Year | 2.852% | | | | | Bitcoin | $28,342.30 | | | | | Robinhood | $10.60 | | | | *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 12:00am ET. Here's what these numbers mean. | - Markets: The Dow fell for a sixth straight day and the S&P is this close to a bear market, which would mean a 20% drawdown from its recent peak. Robinhood shares soared after-hours when a new filing revealed that Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire CEO of crypto exchange FTX, had taken a 7.6% stake in the company.
- Economy: The Fed chair is keeping his chair. Jerome Powell was confirmed by the Senate for a second four-year term, where he'll be tasked with bringing inflation down from 8.3%.
| | | | Dianna "Mick" McDougall, Photos: Getty Images The world's richest 500 people have lost more than $1 trillion in net worth this year, according to Bloomberg data. What happened: Because the ultrawealthy stash their riches in financial assets like stocks, their wealth is correlated with the market's performance. And while stocks usually go up…right now they're crashing. The fortunes of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg have each dropped by more than $50 billion as Big Tech shrinks to Medium Tech. Crypto moguls are also cutting butler staff on the heels of an epic wipeout across their industry. - Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong's net worth has plummeted 84% to $2.2 billion.
- Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, has watched his bank account dwindle from $96 billion to less than $12 billion.
The post-Covid hangover During the first two years of the pandemic, the worst thing that could happen to a billionaire was a storm delaying their hydrofoil sesh. As asset prices soared, billionaires added more than $5 trillion to their net worth between March 2020 and November 2021, a bigger increase than in the previous 14 years combined, according to Oxfam. - The richest 10 people got $1.3 billion wealthier each day.
- At the same time, nearly 100 million people were pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic, according to the World Bank.
But now, with stock and crypto prices tanking, it's been beneficial not to be tied up in the market. During this historic labor shortage, lower-wage employees have received bigger salary increases than their middle- or high-income peers. And that's translated to more bullishness from them around the economy overall. - In April, consumer confidence for higher income groups plummeted below that of lower income groups, which has remained relatively stable, according to BofA.
Do billionaires losing money…matter? Well, one spillover effect is that Elon Musk is still searching for partners to help him alleviate some of the financial risk from buying Twitter for $44 billion. Tesla, of which Musk owns 15.6%, has fallen more than 25% since he agreed to buy the bird app.—NF | | TOGETHER WITH THE MOTLEY FOOL | | … doesn't exist (yet). But short of fiddling with the space-time continuum, you won't find better stock guidance than Motley Fool Stock Advisor. How good is it, you ask? Well, since inception, their average stock picks have returned 375% [returns as of 5/4/2022]. That means their average pick has more than tripled the stock market's return for over a decade. The Motley Fool is offering 55%* off its top stock-picking service to new members who join right now. Why? Because they believe in helping people get smarter, happier, and richer—starting today. Sign up to get your picks. | | Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images  The baby formula shortage is getting worse. Hampered by product recalls and supply chain disruptions, the average out-of-stock rate for baby formula was 43% during the week that ended May 8, up from 31% in early April. Yesterday, the Biden administration unveiled a slew of measures to get more formula onto shelves, but experts say this shortage could still last months.
 Twitter makes changes ahead of Elon Musk's takeover. The company fired two senior executives, paused most hiring, and may rescind some job offers, all reportedly at the direction of CEO Parag Agrawal. One of the execs leaving, Kayvon Beykpour, had been with the company for seven years. He said Agrawal asked him to leave because the boss wanted "to take the team in a different direction."
 Finland to NATO: "We want in." Leaders of the Nordic country, which had traditionally maintained a "nonaligned" military posture, said they will apply for membership in the alliance "without delay." Why? Russia's invasion of Ukraine showed Europeans how precarious their security situation is. Six months ago, 20% of the Finnish public wanted to join NATO. Nearly 80% do now.
| | J. Michael Jones/Getty Images Remember when we all thought we'd never get our hands on another pork loin in spring of 2020? Well, a new House subcommittee report concluded that meatpacking companies exaggerated product shortages during the height of the pandemic to keep plants open and skirt Covid health guidelines. The report names Tyson, Smithfield, JBS, National Beef, Hormel, and other large meat producers that account for the majority of the US' beef and pork industry. And it's sausage-stuffed full of damning claims that, despite Covid spreading rapidly through plants and killing 269 employees during the first year of the pandemic, companies lobbied hard on Capitol Hill to prevent factory shutdowns. - According to the report, Tyson even drafted the executive order issued by former President Trump in April 2020 to keep plants open.
Big picture: An estimated 334,000 Covid cases across the country can be linked to meatpacking plants, and per capita infection rates doubled in counties with beef and pork facilities, according to research from the University of California at Davis. Meat producers shot back that they did their best to protect workers. The North American Meat Institute said the report "cherry picks data to support a narrative that is completely unrepresentative of the early days of an unprecedented national emergency."—MM | | EHT Collaboration For all the visual thinkers who can't picture what a black hole 4 million times more massive than the sun and 26,000 light-years away from Earth would look like without a photo: This should help! Released yesterday by Event Horizon Telescope's research team, this is the first photograph captured of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The black hole, named Sagittarius A*, has proven trickier to photograph than mom on a family vacation. To get the image, eight synchronized telescopes around the world had to coordinate "in a process similar to everyone shaking hands with everyone else in the room," according to an MIT astronomer. No need to fear, by the way: This black hole comes in peace. Apparently, Sagittarius A* is a gentle giant on a near-starvation diet of galactic material, equivalent to a human eating a single grain of rice over millions of years. Basically, it won't swallow everything we've ever known for a very long time. Zoom out: Aside from the photo making a very cool album cover for any indie band that claims it, this project also confirms Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. The black hole is exactly the size Einstein's equations dictate.—MK | | Stat: On Tuesday, the Washington Nationals tweeted a video promoting their partnership with terra, the crypto project whose algorithmic stablecoin collapsed in recent days. If you invested $10,000 in terra's sister crypto, luna, at the time of the tweet, you'd be left with about $3 yesterday. Quote: "When it rains, you open an umbrella." SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son, an investor known for his big bets on fast-growing but unprofitable tech companies, said it's time to start playing defense "since the world is in chaos." His company's vaunted Vision Fund posted a record $27 billion loss for the full year. Read: The esoteric social movement behind this cycle's most expensive House race. (Politico) Ask: Will the S&P 500 finish the year higher or lower than its current level?  Higher
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| | The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew's Weekly News Quiz has been compared to someone saying "nice haircut" instead of asking, "Did you get a haircut?" It's that satisfying. Ace the quiz. | | Viral video roundup: Make diverse realty your investing reality: You can invest in all kinds of commercial real estate on the RealtyMogul platform—even two non-traded REITs, the Income REIT and the Apartment Growth REIT. Sound gREIT? Get started here.* Make some extra $$: Whether you're looking for a new career, a part-time gig, or a summer job, Express Employment Professionals has the perfect position for you. Find job openings here.* *This is sponsored advertising content. | | - Rich Strike, the longshot Kentucky Derby winner, is passing on the Preakness Stakes.
- Congressional Democrats asked social media companies to preserve content depicting alleged war crimes posted on their platforms.
- North Korea reported its first Covid outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic. It's one of two countries that hasn't vaccinated any of its citizens.
- Manhattan apartment rents hit a record high for the third straight month in April.
| | | Name a part of the human body. Insert the name of another part of the human body in the middle of that word. You'll get a famous household goods brand. What is it? | | | ✢ A Note From The Motley Fool 55% discount based on list price of $199/year, only for eligible new members. All subscriptions will renew at the then current list price. | | | Written by Neal Freyman, Max Knoblauch, and Matty Merritt Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. WANT MORE BREW? Industry news, with a sense of humor → - Emerging Tech Brew: AI, crypto, space, autonomous vehicles, and more
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