| | TOGETHER WITH |  | | | Good Monday morning. According to a new Wall Street Journal-NORC poll, much of the economic pessimism voiced on Wall Street in recent days is shared by Americans: 83% of respondents described the state of the economy as poor or not so good. On a happier note, 99% of people who saw Top Gun Maverick gave it a positive score on Rotten Tomatoes, proving Tom Cruise to be a safe haven commodity. |
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| • | | Apple will reportedly launch a headset within a year, the ripples could be as big as the iPhone's. | | | • | | AstraZeneca and a Japanese partner reported breakthrough results in a breast cancer trial. | | | • | | Enrollment for the CFA test has cratered, leaving some wondering what the point of the test was to begin with. | | | Please do not delete this text. |
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Apple's Mysterious New Headset is Only a Year Away |
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What will it take to convince hundreds of millions of 'regular' people to walk around — in their everyday lives — wearing a virtual reality headset? The world's largest tech company may soon have the answer. After changing the course of consumer products history with the iPod, then the iPhone, then the iPad, Apple is reportedly nearing the launch of its first augmented reality headset. Indeed, it takes an earth-shattering idea to move the needle for a company that made $379 billion in revenue last year. |
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Expanding Their Core Business |
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Apple protects its secrets better than most world governments. But we do know, thanks to sources who spoke to The New York Times, that the company plans to ship its first headset next year, entering a competitive landscape: |
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• | | According to research firm IDC, the VR market is dominated by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, which sold 10 million Quest 2 headsets last year for a 78% market share. Meta has 17,000 staff working on "metaverse" technology, backed by a $3 billion quarterly budget, but the Quest is mainly limited to the gaming niche. | |
• | | Apple, which sold 240 million iPhones last year, doesn't do niche. Citi analysts predict 1 billion people — equal to the number of iPhone users today — will use headsets by 2030, creating a $2 trillion market. An Apple-worthy market. | | |
Plan of Attack: Apple has signed up big-name Hollywood directors to make content for the device, including Spider-Man: No Way Home's Jon Favreau. But Apple did not become a $2.3 trillion megacorporation just to make ski goggles for watching Marvel re-runs.
Through its 2017 acquisition of Vrvana, Apple bought "pass through" technology that enables headset wearers to see the world around them with digital images laid over top — meaning everything from making payments to getting directions could one day be done hands-free. This has analysts dreaming of a commercial breakthrough on par with the iPhone. "There is a path that you won't need your phone and augmented reality glasses will evolve to be the next computing platform," Cristiano Amon, CEO of chip producer (and Apple and Meta supplier) Qualcomm, told the FT. |
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Astra/Daiichi Trial Significantly Raises Breast Cancer Survival Rate |
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Rare is a story this unequivocally positive. A "practice-changing" drug developed by AstraZeneca and Japanese pharma giant Daiichi Sankyo has produced trial results that could transform the treatment of late-stage breast cancer. Data showed the drug, called Enhertu, doubled progression-free survival rates (the length of time a tumor is either stable or shrinks) compared to traditional chemotherapy and could apply to a wider patient group than initially thought. |
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Enhertu is a drug that targets a protein called HER2, which helps some cancers grow. The drug acts as an antibody and blocks the protein, which can slow or stop tumor growth. It was thought this treatment class would only work for cancer types with a high concentration of HER2, but that's where this latest study — published in the New England Journal of Medicine — has oncologists feeling hopeful. Enhertu improved survival rates in patients with metastatic breast cancer categorized as "HER2-low," a type that represents roughly half of all late-stage breast cancer patients. Similar drugs have only proven effective against tumors that produce large amounts of the protein, leaving late-stage breast cancer patients to rely on arduous chemotherapy treatments. Ideally, no more: |
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• | | The study of 550 patients with low HER2 cancers found Enhertu kept their disease from worsening for an average of 10.1 months, nearly double the 5.4 months for patients treated with chemotherapy. | | • | | The overall survival of patients using Enhertu was an average 23.9 months, compared to 17.5 months among those receiving standard treatment. | | | "This is not only a breakthrough, it is practice-changing," Gilles Gallant, Daiichi's head of oncology development, told the Financial Times.
On the Fast Track: Enhertu is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for late-stage breast cancer patients with tumors showing high levels of HER2. And it already has a market case: outside of Japan, the drug made $426 million in sales last year. AZ and Daiichi plan to immediately seek approval from regulators worldwide to expand Enhertu as a treatment option to the new patient group, meaning it could be available in a matter of months. Good. |
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SPONSORED BY Bravo Sierra |
You Won't Want to Shower Without It |
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Peak summer is quickly approaching. So what does that mean? For starters, sweaty afternoons tending to the grill. Outdoor adventures with sand and dirt accumulating everywhere. Problems we all want to have, certainly — but not without the benefit of Bravo Sierra waiting in the shower. This all-in-one Sulfate-free Cleanser for hair, face, and body is the last thing you'll ever need to buy for your shower. Ask a current user, and they'll tell you Bravo Sierra leaves you smelling "magnificent." Easy of Use: We're talking 3-in-1, meaning you'll never have to agonize over the proper potion of products to buy that only a chemist could piece together. Value? Their extra large bar lasts for up to 45 showers, nearly twice as long as the competitors. Feel Good Purchase? Hand-crafted in Vermont, Bravo Sierra donates 5% of revenue to active duty service members, veterans, and their families. So yeah, you can feel good before you even step in the shower. Enriched with concout, shea butter, and oat flower — this Bravo Sierra bar won't dry you out even if you are bathing in the Mojave Desert. Check it out now, and everyone in your house will thank us later. |
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CFA Enrollment Cratered During the Pandemic, It Hasn't Rebounded |
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It's nicknamed the "hardest exam in finance" but a pandemic-induced drop in students has some wondering if the famous chartered financial analyst (CFA) test was ever worth the trouble. According to new figures, the program is failing to reach pre-pandemic enrollment levels for the third year in a row. A good question might be how do you spell relevant? |
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Passing Grade on a Failing Test |
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Qualifying as a CFA has been a career-defining achievement for many financial professionals since the test was introduced in 1963. You sign up, study for an average of 1,000 hours, and then take a grueling exam that only 41% of students passed in the last decade. Passing the test — administered by the global nonprofit CFA Institute — means winning a certificate that some, though certainly not all, Wall Street firms prize among job applicants. But the CFA was never a licensure exam. Someone could still take the much easier Series 7 test — administered by FINRA — and get a job in investment banking or trading. So when the pandemic crushed the number of people signing up for the CFA course, and the numbers failed to rebound, concerns about the program's relevancy grew louder: |
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• | | In the year to August 2019, 161,000 candidates globally took the first of the three CFA qualification exams, before falling to 74,000 in 2020 and 126,000 in 2021. Only 93,000 students have taken the level 1 exams in the 2022 fiscal year, which ends in three months, something the CFA Institute blames on continuing lockdowns in China. | | • | | "Demand is falling off a cliff," an anonymous CFA staff member told the Financial Times. "People today are turned off by studying for long hours for an exam with a low pass rate that is only valued by employers when they apply for a job, and is irrelevant thereafter." Since the introduction of online tests last year, the pass rate on level 1 exams has fallen to an abysmal 28%. | | | Take It From Someone Who Knows: "I realized when I was studying for the exams that I wasn't really learning the material; I was just learning how to pass a test," wrote Mauldin Economics investment strategist Jared Dillian, in a Bloomberg opinion column last year. "I honestly don't remember a single thing I learned from the CFA program." |
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Please do not delete this text. | Extra Upside | • | | New York lawmakers passed a bill that would force Amazon to disclosed production quotas to workers. | | | • | | China launched a mission to complete its very own space station. | | | • | | Fight Inflation With These Cash Back Cards. Pocket an easy $200 bonus with these high paying cash back credit cards. Plus, enjoy high ongoing cash back rates, no annual fee, or 0% interest until 2023. Start racking up huge cash back rewards. Learn more today. | | | Please do not delete this text. |
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| Written by Sean Craig and Brian Boyle. |
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