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Tesla lost one Twitter in market cap, Apple's valuation fell below $2T, Croatia adopted the euro, ByteDance cut hundreds of jobs in China, Japan is paying people to move out of Tokyo, The University of California invested in BREIT, and SpaceX raised $750M.

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Let's dive in.

Before The Bell

Markets

• US stocks slipped to kick off the new year as negative market sentiment continues to weigh on investors

• Tesla and Apple led the way and highlighted slowing demand, which stoked investor concerns about what lies ahead for the US economy w/ more rate hikes and how that'll impact growth stocks

  • Apple told suppliers to make fewer components for some of its products because of lower demand. It's stock decline pushed the firm's market cap below $2 trillion

  • Tesla fell after it delivered fewer vehicles than expected in Q4

• The pan-European Stoxx 600 rose 1.2% on optimistic manufacturing data

• Oil prices tumbled 4% on weak demand data from China

• The dollar index jumped 0.94% in its largest one-day rise in over two weeks

• On Wednesday, we'll receive the Fed's December meeting minutes and on Friday, the December job report

• It appears that Fed policy and recession concerns will continue to dictate how stocks and bonds perform this year

Earnings

• What we're watching this week:

  • Thursday: Walgreens Boots Alliance, Constellation Brands

• Full calendar here

Headline Roundup

• Apple's market cap fell below $2T for first time since March 2021 (RT)

• Kentucky may divest from Citigroup, JPMorgan, BlackRock and others over their 'boycott' of energy companies (RT)

• Croatia officially adopted the Euro currency (GU)

• Tech layoffs are happening faster than during the pandemic (WSJ)

• Tesla fell 12.2% yesterday after reporting disappointing Q4 delivery figures (WSJ)

• Southwest was sued for not providing refunds after canceled flights (RT)

• TikTok-owner ByteDance cut hundreds of jobs in China (RT)

• Chinese regulators approved a $1.5B capital plan for Jack Ma's Ant Group with a Hangzhou government-owned entity becoming the second-biggest shareholder (BBG)

• Swati Bhatia stepped down as head of Goldman Sachs' consumer bank (RT)

• Japan is offering families up to $7.6k / child to move out of Tokyo (CNBC)

• Cooper Morgenthau, ex-CFO of numerous SPACs, pleaded guilty to embezzling over $5M from the SPACs and losing it trading meme stocks and cryptocurrencies (RT)

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Deal Flow

M&A / Investments

• A unit of Tokyo Gas is in advanced talks to buy US natural gas producer Rockcliff Energy from Quantum Energy Partners for ~$4.6B, including debt (RT)

• Energy infrastructure firm Targa Resources will buy the remaining stake in its Grand Prix NGL Pipeline that it does not already own from Blackstone for $1.05B in cash (RT)

• PE firm Eurazeo will invest $425.6M to acquire 34% of share capital in BMS Group, a London-based independent specialty insurance/reinsurance broker (IJ)

• British cinema operator Cineworld will focus on a sale of the group as a whole rather than individual assets (RT)

VC

• SpaceX will raise $750M at a $137B valuation in a round led by a16z (CNBC)

• Nexus Circular, a recycling process startup for plastics, raised a $150M round led by Cox Enterprises (PRN)

• Apnimed, a sleep apnea drug developer, raised a $79.75M Series C extension led by Alpha Wave Ventures (BW)

• SirionLabs, an AI-powered contract lifecycle management platform, received $25M in funding from Brookfield Growth (BW)

• Retail analytics startup REM People received a $12M investment from Ethos (BW)

Debt

• Amazon secured an $8B unsecured loan to mature in 364 days to be used for general corporate purposes (RT)

Fundraising

• The University of California agreed to invest $4B in Blackstone’s BREIT which has faced heightened pressure from investors pulling cash (BBG)

• M33 Growth, a venture and growth stage investment firm, raised $340M for its third fund (PRN)

Crypto Corner

• SBF pled not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy, campaign finance law violations and money laundering; his trial is set for Oct. 2 of this year (WSJ)

• Bahamas regulator stuck to their $3.5B estimate of FTX assets currently held, despite FTX claims (RT)

• Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network agreed to let bitcoin miner Core Scientific shut over 37k crypto mining rigs that Celsius hasn’t been fully paying for (BBG)

• The Fed, FDIC and OCC warned banks should be more careful of risks of fraud, legal uncertainty and misleading disclosures by crypto firms (RT)

Exec's Picks

• Fortune published eight venture investors' predictions for top fintech trends in 2023 here.

• Jack Raines kicked off 2023 with a blog post on the psychological reasons that make investing so hard.

• Barry Ritholtz wrote a good piece on the need for more Freudenschaude in 2023, and less Schadenfreude (the German word for taking pleasure in others' failures).

The Hiring Block 💼

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