3 charts for you today:
It's cloudy, it's sunny
Stock markets had a bit of a wobble on Monday. After weeks of serene (mostly upward) sailing, US equities fell 1.6% (S&P 500 index) and European equities (STOXX 600 index) dropped more than 2% — their worst day of the year so far.
Headlines varied across the world as to what was to blame for the fall. Some blamed the surge in the Delta variant of COVID. Others blamed rising worries of inflation. Whatever it actually was that drove investors to sell on Monday, they had clearly forgotten it all by Tuesday as most markets around the world bounced back and resumed their relentless march upward.
Stranger than fiction
If you went back in time to the start of 2020 and told a stranger that US stocks would go up almost 35% over the next 18 months — they'd probably believe you. They probably wouldn't believe that sandwiched in between that time was a global pandemic, a recession and unemployment claims that were truly off the charts.
But that is of course what's happened.
Vaccine rollouts, a rebound in economic growth from the shortest recession in history and an enormous amount of stimulus from governments have all contributed to the tremendous run in equity markets this year — and private companies are keen to cash in while it's sunny. The flurry of IPOs just keeps coming. Trading app Robinhood, a bowling alley operator, food group Dole, elite membership club Soho House and many, many more companies are set to go public.
Space jam
By now you've probably seen that billionaires have been strapping themselves to giant rockets and sending themselves into space. Whether that's a good / fair / efficient / ethical use of their vast resources is certainly a debate worth having but — leaving that issue to one side — it's interesting to note just how different Bezos' and Branson's actual approach to getting to space is.
The Amazon founder's approach is probably a little more what you would expect of a short trip to space. Bezos jumped in a small capsule with 3 others, including the very cool 82-year-old Wally Funk, and blasted to space to more than 350,000ft above sea level in about 4 minutes. From there the passenger capsule detached itself from the rocket booster, and gently parachuted down to earth with the entire thrill ride over in about 10 minutes.
The Virgin Galactic approach was arguably a little more interesting. A "relatively" normal looking plane took off and gently climbed to around 50,000ft over the course of about 45 minutes, carrying a separate spaceship with it. That spaceship was then detached and its rocket fired, allowing it to climb to an apogee (peak altitude) of around 282,700ft. The spaceship then descended more slowly than the Blue Origin capsule, eventually landing like a conventional plane after about an hour of total flight time.
Tickets to space
On top of the ego boost and media coverage, both men are hoping to make a buck from their successful space flights. Bezos has announced that orders to fly to space were already nearing $100m while Virgin Galactic is hoping to start providing commercial space flights to paying customers in 2022.
Taylor Swift has topped Billboard's list of the highest paid music artists, raking in more than $23m last year in the US according to their estimates. It turns out that dropping 2 new albums and a re-release of an older album in one year is a good way to please your fanbase.
Billboard estimates that roughly half of Swift's music income came from streaming payouts — with another $10m from sales and $3.2m from publishing rights. Swift didn't make a dime from touring thanks to COVID restrictions, but that wasn't the case for everyone.
Queen of touring
Celine Dion may have only made an estimated $300k from streaming last year, but she more than made up for it with an enormous haul from touring. Dion squeezed in 23 shows before the corona curtain came down, equating to almost $50m in gross ticket sales — of which she took home $17m according to Billboard estimates. The Eagles similarly managed to squeeze in some shows, netting the classic group more than $11m for their efforts.
Check out the full list of music money makers at Billboard.
1) China has unveiled a maglev train that is reportedly capable of reaching speeds of up to 600 kmh (373 mph).
2) Floods in Chinese subways have claimed 12 lives just a few days after floods swept through Western Europe, where the death count is still unknown but could be as high as 200.
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