Millions of Bets Flood in on 2024 US Election & Pharmacy Giants are Shrinking

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0:29Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why Joker 2 became one of the biggest flops in recent box office history. Then the Las Vegas sphere is getting a twin in Abu Dhabi. So I guess what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. It's Wednesday, October 16th. Let's ride.

0:51Kids, it is never too early to start thinking about next summer's internship. And those of you with full-time jobs might want to consider this one as well. Chain Street Capital, the quantitative trading firm where Sam Bankman Freed used to work, posted an opening for a research internship with a base salary of$250 ,000. As the Financial Times pointed out, that's more than the salary of the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The best part, no finance background required. It's just a plus. These roles come with an important caveat though, Neil. That is, this is only one part of the Jane Street total compensation, which includes an annual discretionary bonus as well.

1:35So God forbid that your comp was only$250 ,000. I mean, a pittance. What if, what I was thinking is what if you just end up doing classic internship things where it's like getting coffee, like sitting at your desk pretending to look busy, but you're making more than the prime minister of England along the way, annoying everyone. These are all the internship things that I did. I don't know about you, but. Yeah, I mean, basically. But if I was getting paid$250 ,000 a year, I would do them gladly. I mean, if you work anywhere at this firm, which is growing so fast, it's becoming a huge part of Wall Street.

2:07The average compensation for each employee is$900 ,000. See, it's a pittance. That's why you need that compensation. You need that extra bonus. And, yeah, I think if you do make it through an internship there, you do become prime minister of England. So it's actually a pretty nice little bonus right there. Now a word from our sponsor, Windy's. Neil, you ever have these mornings where you're running out the door and think, I'll grab something later, and then you realize it's already noon? Toby, yesterday morning, I left my house with two left shoes on. Of course, I forget to go have breakfast from time to time.

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3:13This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Betting on the NFL, so 2023. This year's hot new gambling arena is the presidential election. With more ways to wager on the outcome of the U.S. election than ever, money has been pouring into these so-called prediction markets.

3:53On Polymarket, a crypto-based platform that operates outside the U.S., bettors have placed$1.9 billion speculating on the future commander-in-chief. Kalshi, a U.S.-based platform that was given the green light to launch last week, has seen more than$12 million in trading volumes. In just a few days, it's been open for business. Proponents of election betting say it gives you a more accurate, up-to-date picture on a candidate's chances than traditional polling. But critics say speculating on election results with real money could interfere with the Democratic process. And until recently, those critics have been winning.

4:27This practice was mostly banned in the U.S. until an appeals court allowed it to proceed earlier this month. But now that the floodgates are open, prediction markets have begun to play a big role in perceptions of the race, and the picture is a confusing one. In the past week, prediction markets have shown former President Trump suddenly building a sizable lead over Kamala Harris. On Kalshi, for instance, Trump has a 55 % chance of winning compared to Harris's 45%. Traditional polls, meanwhile, show a dead heat. Nate Silver's model pegs the race at literally 50-50. Toby, what do prediction markets know that Nate Silver doesn't?

5:03Yeah, the big question is, are they more accurate? One argument is yes, they are more accurate because there is skin in the game. But on the other hand, you have people with deeper products or deeper pockets that could potentially manipulate the market. So where is this big delta in what some of the national polls are saying coming from versus what the prediction markets are saying? And I think polls are more of a thing where voters are telling you how they feel right now versus prediction markets are attempting to predict what's happening in the future. So that's one explanation of why one might say one thing and one might say another.

5:36Another thing too is prediction markets are a lot more agile. So they may be reacting to real-time events versus polls happen over a longer period of times. And so if like a debate performance goes well or goes poorly, that might shift the line. If a policy comes out that people like or don't like, that might shift it as well. So those are some of the ways that they differ prediction markets aren't perfect by any stretch either specifically polymarket in general because they don't have a maximum bet size so a couple whales can come in and really shift a line to uh one way or another based off what candidate those whales specifically want so they're not perfect but they are a little bit more agile and they're just another data point that you can kind of look at to see potentially where this election is heading yeah if you talk to Wall Streeters, economists, professors.

6:25They love prediction markets. It tells them a lot of insight. I mean, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, Harry Crane, told CNN, if you wanted a single best predictor, one source of information to know what's going on in the elections, it is the prediction market. And how do these things work? Well, think of it basically as a futures contract. If you were betting futures on a stock, it's very similar. You enter these election contracts, which are binary. You pay out$1 if the correct outcome is chosen and zero if you bet on the incorrect outcome. And so they function very similar to futures markets.

6:58And one way this can be useful to actual institutional investors, and that's where all of these platforms really want to get to. I mean, yes, we can have the average retail investor betting on the platform, but they're not putting in a lot of money. So these platforms aren't making any money. If they can get hedge funds, institutional investors on Wall Street, actually putting money into these areas, then they can start making money. And so they're trying to convince them to, and they're going to use this line of attack. They're going to say, look, you can hedge your bets way more on our platform in a very much more direct way than you can, say, if you would short the S &P 500.

7:32So say if you think Trump would be bad for your stock portfolio, then you can just wager on Trump in these election markets to hedge your bet in that sense. So we'll see if these newfound platforms can get more of these institutional investors, but it does seem like there's going to be a long way to go because they're perhaps too illiquid to get more pro-investors. I do think, though, that as we draw closer and closer to the election, we are going to see volume start to spike. I mean, Predictit's CEO did say that. He expects a tenfold increase as the election day actually grows closer. So something that we'll have to watch is just as volume ramps up, does that actually start swinging it more accurately or more efficiently.

8:15We're not, this is really the first election where prediction markets are part of the story in a big way. So I guess we will be able to see potentially which one has been more accurate throughout the lifetime. Is it the polls or is it actually these prediction markets where there is money on the line? So this is going to be like the first real experiment in that, like this prediction market. Yeah. And they've been, you know, they, they have been scandalous before in other countries in the world, like the UK, it's completely legal to bet on elections. And remember this summer during the UK elections, we talked about a lot of those betting scandals that happened over there.

8:49I mean, one guy, one candidate bet on, bet 8 ,000 pounds on himself to lose. And that, you know, raised a lot of hackles and we'll see what happens here as we get closer to the election. Quick pop quiz here. What is the worst performing stock in the S &P 500 this year? Neil, it is Walgreens Boots Alliance. Thank you, Neil. But when you hit rock bottom, There's only one way to go, and that is up. Yesterday, Walgreens announced its fourth quarter earnings, which topped estimates, sending its stock soaring 15%. But it wasn't just a 6 % beat on revenue that got investors looking on the bright side.

9:22The retail pharmacy giant is also closing 1 ,200 stores by 2027, approximately 10 % of its locations. Wait, what? Its stock soared on news it was closing stores? Yes, store closers led to investor ebullience because in investors' eyes, shuttering underperforming locations was one of the only ways to achieve the cost-cutting it was after. Walgreens has around 8 ,700 locations in the U.S., but about a quarter of those are unprofitable, according to the company. So, Neil, sometimes you've got to clear out the old to make way for the new. Is this the start of Walgreens' turnaround or another indicator of its struggles?

10:00Well, this has definitely been one of the themes we've talked about a lot on the show this year, which is retail pharmacies across the board getting squeezed in all directions. Walgreens is now cutting 14 percent of its stores. Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy last year and is now closing 800 stores. CVS announced two billion dollars in cost cutting and it is laying off 5000 workers. So these retailers are not doing well. And when I say getting squeezed on all sides, it means when you enter the pharmacy or when you enter these stores, there's two sections. There's the front part of the store where you buy candy and cereal and off-brand things, and then the back of the store where you get your prescription filled.

10:38And both of those have come under a lot of pressure. The front of the store has come under pressure from Costco, Dollar General, Target, and Walmart, which are eating away market share. And then in the back of the store where you get your prescription fills, they are facing more competition than ever from Amazon, which announced a big pharmacy initiative last week, which we can talk about. And they are complaining that they're getting fewer reimbursements from so-called pharmacy benefit managers, which are these middlemen of the pharmacy industry that negotiate between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the pharmacies.

11:10And they pay out these reimbursements. And Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid are complaining that they're not getting as much reimbursements as well. The FTC is on the case saying that this is the result of intense concentration in the pharmacy benefit manager sector. But yeah, this is just, these companies need to turn things around and they're doing that by closing underperforming locations. One big concern though is that people need pharmacies. All of these closures, all of these shutdowns that we were talking about push more people in rural communities into these so-called pharmacy deserts. Around half of US counties has a pharmacy desert and that is defined as a populated area 10 miles away from the closest retail pharmacy.

11:51that's according to the Journal of American Medical Association. So when you are looking at this grand scheme of things, when you are looking at Walgreens trying to target cutting costs of$1 billion, there is real impacts in the communities as well. But as you said, they're getting hit from all sides. So at a certain point, the only way to cut costs is to just get rid of these underperforming stores, even though it might affect the communities that they are open in. Yeah, so there is a gap in the market now where there's pharmacy deserts. And who is filling that? But of course, Amazon, which said on last Wednesday a week ago, it was expanding its national pharmacy network to nearly half of U.S.

12:29residents for same day delivery of prescriptions by the end of 2025. It's going into 20 more cities. So now you're going to be able to order half of the U.S. population is now going to be able to order medication on Amazon by, say, 4 p.m. And then get it delivered to your house by 10 p.m. So delivery logistics, online pharmacies are absolutely disrupting this industry. And it stems from a 2018 acquisition of PillPack. I remember that very well for nearly$1 billion where Amazon started to build its pharmacy business. And so that's growing. That's been slow to grow, but that's growing now in a big way while there's been retrenchment in Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid.

13:10So this is certainly a big trend to watch. There's an iconic scene in The Dark Knight where Heath Ledger's Joker lights a huge pile of cash on fire. And that's basically what happened to Joker Folet Adieu, the recently released sequel to 2019's hit Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. After two weekends at the box office, it's become clear that the second Joker film is having an even bigger collapse than Harvey Dent. Variety reported that the movie is on track to lose up to$200 million for its studio, Warner Brothers, marking one of the most epic flops of the superhero era. The main problem, it cost a lot and no one went to see it.

13:48The second Joker had a budget of$200 million, plus$100 million more in marketing spend. That includes$20 million for director Todd Phillips,$20 million for Joaquin Phoenix, and$12 million for Lady Gaga. because, hey, as the Joker said in The Dark Knight, if you're good at something, never do it for free. But with those kind of expenses, the film would need to top$450 million at the global box office to break even, according to Variety. And that is not going to happen, not even close. So far, the Joker sequel has grossed just$165 million globally, and it's expected to stall out at$210 million. Toby, this was very surprising considering the first Joker was a massive hit with$1 billion in ticket sales.

14:31What went wrong? Well, I'll tell you what went wrong. The movie stinks. People don't like it whatsoever. It has a 33 % on Rotten Tomatoes right now. CinemaScore gave it a D. It's just not that good of a movie. A lot of people are saying that they just overthought it. They turned it into a quasi-musical. There's multiple musical numbers throughout it. So everyone went there watching it and saying, what the heck is going on here? And you kind of have to take it as it goes because Todd Phillips, which is the director, took this big risk, made this very dark superhero film in the original Joker. And people loved that because it was a departure from kind of like the bubblegum pop that was Marvel.

15:10They wanted a darker, grimier Joker. And then this time he took another risk and made it a musical, introduced Lady Gaga to it. And people just really didn't like it. So I think it's just a case of maybe he got an unlimited budget. The first one did so well. Warner Bros. said, all right, we trust you. Do whatever you want with it. and maybe they went a little too far artistically. Yeah, it's just kind of crazy to see how far this fell from the original Joker, which was one of the most profitable superhero movies, I guess you can call it a superhero movie, ever made because that was budgeted as just$65 million compared to the$200 million that Joker 2 was.

15:45And that made over a billion dollars in the box office. So whenever you have a movie that made$1 billion at the box office, that is just basically a guarantee you're going to get a sequel. But the director, Todd Phillips, who we should note did old school and all three hangovers. So he has quite the reputation. Kind of did what many called kind of a middle finger to fans of the Joker by turning this into a musical and going away from what people liked about the first movie. So maybe now you can't just totally rubber stamp a sequel when something makes a billion dollars because it could flop hard and cost you$200 million on the back end.

16:21And the funniest part about this whole saga is that Joker 2 wasn't even the top clown movie at the box office. There's this movie called Terrifier 3, which is this sort of B-grade slasher film with a budget of just$2 million. That opened at number one in the North American box office, outgrossing Joker 2$18 million to just$7 million. So, I mean, there's some beautiful symmetry there that this B-grade movie is actually outperforming one of the biggest box offices or what should have been one of the biggest box office tentpoles this year. Up next, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is back.

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18:01When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th, and never miss a meme or milestone. all protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. After a six-year hiatus, the famed Victoria's Secret fashion show spread its wings once more last night. Its models returned to the runway for the first time since 2018, the first show since the brand hit pause on the event following widespread backlash connected to body positivity, the Me Too movement, and offensive comments from his chief marketing officer at the time.

18:49But it wasn't your same old VS fashion show. Yes, some familiar names like Tyra Banks and Adriana Lima made an appearance, but in search of a wider audience, the show was made available on Amazon Prime's streaming service, so you could easily shop the looks on Amazon in real time as the models did their thing. At its peak, the annual fashion show brought in 12.4 million viewers, but subsequently lost its cultural sway as it grappled with a few years of declining sales in an identity crisis. But new leadership, renewed interest from Gen Z, and a return of its most iconic media property has Victoria's Secret looking poised for a comeback.

19:26Yes, the Victoria's Secret fashion show is back and will reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love. And there you can see that they're trying to straddle the line between going back to their roots, which was a brand that people did adore, but also shedding some of the baggage that came with it while looking ahead and embracing new trends that younger consumers might like. And they have been improving their sales. They've grown sales over the past four quarters incrementally, but they still have a big hole to climb out of because they reached a peak of$7.5 billion in sales in February 2020.

20:00The next year, over the next year, that fell to$5.4 billion. And so they've only reached a peak maybe of$6.7 billion over the next several years. So they're trying to grow that back. But it does seem like there is a little more buzz about that brand. this particular brand, and they're trying to follow in the footsteps of other mall staples that have staged a comeback. Right. Gen Z loves old school fashion that they might have missed the boat on originally. I mean, just look at another Left 4 Dead millennial staple brand, mall brand as you called it, Abercrombie & Fitch. They have seen this massive comeback as Gen Z interest has revived in it.

20:35So Victoria's Secret is maybe trying to copy that playbook. Unfortunately, though, this morning I got up and checked some subreddits discussing what the fashion show was like. I actually had to go to bed, didn't watch it last night. And people were not impressed. These are some of the quotes that people wrote in the pop culture subreddit watching it. Awful looks, cheap looking wings, boring runway. Where's the fashion? Where's the glamour? This was the best they could do, really. All the clothes look outdated and cheap. So despite positioning itself well and despite trying to renew interest in it, if you are not creating fashion lines that your consumers are actually interested in, then it's never going to work that well.

21:12It's an interesting pairing, Amazon and Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret maybe wants to be a more elevated brand, and yet here are your models walking in a fashion show put on by Amazon where you can quickly click and buy on Amazon. There might be a little bit of dissonance there is that this is supposed to be an elevated, like higher fashion offering, and yet here you are on Amazon, which doesn't necessarily translate or feel like high fashion. So potentially they did really well. I'm sure they drove a lot of sales, but maybe they aren't toying that line as well as they have kind of in the years subsequently.

21:45And you saw some people with a disappointing perception of this fashion show that they brought back. Soon, when you say you're going to a show at the Sphere, you're going to have to identify which one because the number of spheres is doubling from one to two. Sphere Entertainment, which operates the futuristic venue in Las Vegas, announced it was opening another sphere halfway across the world in Abu Dhabi. No details yet on when construction will begin, but for Sphere CEO James Dolan, the owner of the Nixon Rangers, it's a sign his grand plan to blot the earth with spheres is starting to take shape, the shape of a sphere.

22:22The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, he said, and today's announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal. For Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Building a sphere is also part of a grand plan, that being to boost tourism to nearly 40 million visitors a year by 2030, up from 24 million last year. We don't know what type of entertainment is going to come to the sphere in Abu Dhabi, but if it's anything like the one in Las Vegas, it'll be heavy on the jam bands. Dead & Co. and Fish have both played stints at the Vegas sphere, along with U2 and the Eagles.

22:57Vegas also recently put on its first live sporting event, UFC 306. Toby, thoughts on the new location? Well, one thing that is interesting about this new location is it's technically a franchise. I mean, I tell you what, everything's a franchise or a reboot these days. But so it actually involved a franchise initiation free that Abu Dhabi paid to Sphere Entertainment, which is the parent company. They are, Abu Dhabi is on the hook for financing construction, paying that financing fee, but then they will also be on the hook for recurring fees to use Sphere content, to license its technology, to license its IP, because you can't exactly just queue up a YouTube video and put it across their screens.

23:37It does take proprietary technology. So that is the business model that James Dolan wants to advance here because the original Sphere costs$2.3 billion to construct. So he does not want to go down that construction rabbit hole. He'd rather just get that franchise initiation free, get those royalties on top of it, let Abu Dhabi assume most of the construction risk. So this is clearly the model that he wants to advance going forward. And this was not the first choice for the second sphere. They wanted to bring it to London, but Mayor Sadiq Khan there last year rejected the offer over concerns of how it would influence the surrounding area.