🤝 Billionaire's Massive Stock Sell Off

📰 Industry News

• Temu spent $2 billion in 2023 on Facebook and Instagram ads, totalling 10% of Meta’s ad revenue last year. (New York Post)

• Matalan becomes the first major UK retailer to use a Gen-AI marketing tool, allowing automation and creation of product descriptions and text across its website. (Retail Week)

• Stripe Inc, the fintech that helps online merchants process customer payments, said volume surged 25% last year to more than $1 trillion. (Yahoo Finance)

• The UK’s ever-growing love for a sausage roll has seen bakery chain Greggs hit record profits in 2023, with total sales rising 19.6% to £1.8 billion YoY. The chain now has 2,300 stores across the UK. (UK Investor Magazine)

• Crypto-mania continues to surge, as bitcoin nears £57,000 ($73,000) as it hits another all-time record-high (The Guardian)

• Google is restricting its Gemini AI chatbot from answering election-related questions in countries where voting is taking place this year, limiting users from receiving political information through the bot. (The Guardian)

🗠 Billionaire’s Massive Stock Sell Off

Last week, rumours started to swirl around the internet causing fear of a potential U.S. financial downturn. These concerns were sparked by reports that several business tycoons had sold billions of dollars in their own companies' stocks.

Who’s Cashed Out? 

Jeff Bezos - Sold $8.5 billion in Amazon shares in February.

Mark Zuckerberg - The Meta founder offloaded $638 million shares in the firm.

Jamie Dimon - The CEO of JP Morgan sold $150 million in shares last week.

The Walton Family - The founders of Walmart sold $1.5 billion of the chain’s stock.

Vince McMahon - The WWE founder is said to be selling an additional $412 million worth of stock, after selling a further $700 million last November.

Leon Black - His first ever share layoff, offloaded $172.8 million in his equity firm Apollo Global Management.

Tench Coxe - Who has served on Nvidia’s board since 1993, sold $180m Nvidia shares at the start of the month.

Context Matters:

• Although these sales are true, their significance is debatable. For instance, Bezos has sold $10 billion in Amazon stock in 2020 and $8.8 billion in 2021, indicating that such large transactions are not unprecedented for him, or other billionaire founders for that matter.

• Many of the sales were planned months in advance, following SEC rules to avoid insider trading suspicions. This suggests the transactions might not be immediate reactions to market conditions.

The Bottom Line: The market has certainly seen better days and the recent spate of billionaire stock sell-offs has understandably ignited speculation about the health of the U.S. economy and the stock market. A US market crash would have significant ramifications for the global market.

While the sheer volume of sales is noteworthy, the context and motivations behind them suggest a less critical picture.

These transactions are complex, often with many factors at play underlining the complex relationship between personal financial strategies of business magnates and broader market perceptions.

✍️ The Acronyms Every Online Business Owner Should Know

Have you ever heard an acronym and don’t know what it means? We’ve all been there. New buzzwords are coming into the business vocabulary handbook almost daily, but from ROIs to KPIs, these are the acronyms every business owner should have a handle on.

1. CPA (Cost Per Action): A pricing model in advertising where you pay each time a user takes a specific action, like signing up or making a purchase.

2. CTA (Call To Action): A prompt on a website or in an advertisement that tells the user to take some specified action, such as "Buy Now" or "Subscribe."

3. CPC (Cost Per Click): The amount paid for each click on an advertisement, commonly used in digital marketing campaigns.

4. CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation): The process of enhancing a website or landing page to increase the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.

5. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): The practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

6. SEM (Search Engine Marketing): A form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages primarily through paid advertising.

7. ROI (Return on Investment): A measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment, calculated by dividing net profit by the cost of the investment.

8. SMM (Social Media Marketing): The use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.

9. KPI (Key Performance Indicator): A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

10. CRM (Customer Relationship Management): Strategies, technologies, and practices used by companies to manage and analyse customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.

11. UX (User Experience): The overall experience of a person using a product, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use.

12. UI (User Interface): The means by which the user and a computer system interact, particularly the use of input devices and software.

13. PPC (Pay Per Click): An internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, in which an advertiser pays a publisher when the ad is clicked.

14. CPM (Cost Per Mille): Also known as cost per thousand, it refers to the cost of 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage.

15. CTR (Click Through Rate): A a metric that measures the percentage of clicks on a link or advertisement compared to the number of times it was viewed, providing insight into its effectiveness.

16. B2B (Business to Business): A form of transaction between businesses, such as one involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer.

17. B2C (Business to Consumer): The process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services.

18. LTV (Lifetime Value): A way of measuring the total revenue a business can expect from a single customer throughout their entire relationship with the company.

19. GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation): A regulation in EU law on data protection and privacy in the European Union and the European Economic Area.

20. SAAS (Software as a Service): A software distribution model in which a third-party provider hosts applications and makes them available to customers over the Internet.

21. YoY (Year-over-Year): Refers to a method of evaluating financial performance by comparing a statistic for one period to the same period the previous year, often used to assess growth or performance trends.

22. YTD (Year-to-Date): Refers to the period from the beginning of the current year up to the current date, used to measure performance or track financial data within the same calendar year.

📷 TikTok Photo App To Rival Instagram

In an intriguing development that could reshape the social media landscape, ByteDance, the powerhouse behind TikTok, is reportedly on the verge of introducing a new photo-sharing platform, "TikTok Photos." This move signifies a direct challenge to Instagram, potentially altering the dynamics of online photo sharing.

• Hidden code within TikTok's Android app reveals plans for "TikTok Photos," aiming to establish a new domain for photo sharing and directly compete with Instagram.

• The new platform promises easy synchronisation of photo posts between TikTok and TikTok Photos, enhancing user experience and content sharing flexibility.

• Users of TikTok will be encouraged to share their photos on TikTok Photos through a pop-up message, with the system designed to sync public photos automatically to the new app.

The Bottom Line: By leveraging its massive customer base over over 1 billion users, TikTok is appearing to carve out a significant space in the photo-sharing sector, challenging Instagram's long-standing dominance. Although the launch date is unknown, it’s likely going to be sooner rather than later… so watch this space.