Is the economy doing just fine?

• Economy appears to be doing just fine: The Commerce Department reported US gross domestic product grew 4.9% in the third quarter, the fastest economic growth since 2021 (Axios)
  

• Bitcoin futures are booming: Since launching its bitcoin futures product in 2017, The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has hit a record level of open interest in recent days, with 20,000 contracts, or effectively $3.4 billion in notional exposure (Axios)

• Good Meta: Theads, Meta’s competitor to Elon Musk’s X has hit “just under” 100 million monthly users since it was released in early July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday during his company’s quarterly earnings call. (Verge)
  

• Bad Meta: Shares in Meta Platforms (META) fell 3.7% after the company warned about weaker spending on advertisements outweighing forecast-beating sales and profits. (Barrons)
  

• Amazon beats: Amazon’s (AMZN) profit tripled to nearly $10 billion from July to September due to strong sales in its cloud-computing, advertising and retail units. The company’s revenue increased by 13% to $143.1 billion for Q3, beating Wall Street expectations. Shares rose 3%. (WSJ)
  

• Apple Watches banned: A US federal trade agency found that Apple (AAPL) violated the patent of Masimo (MASI) in a ruling that could lead to an import ban for models of the company’s smartwatch; Biden administration has 60 days to overrule the trade commission’s decision. (Reuters)
  

• Offer to take giant Hollywood agency private: Private-equity giant Silver Lake said it is working on a proposal to take private Endeavor Group Holdings (EDR), the owner of talent agencies WME and IMG. (Deadline)
  

• Deliveries shrink: UPS (UPS) cut its 2023 revenue forecast for the second straight quarter yesterday as delivery demand continued to soften ahead of the key holiday season; shares sank 5% to the lowest level in three years (Yahoo)
  

• Song fund restructuring: Hipgnosis (HPGSF) – the company that spent $2 billion for song assets by Neil Young, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc – is facing an uncertain future as 80% of its investors voted for major structural changes and rejected a proposal to sell off $440 million of its 65k-song catalog. (Variety)

• Killings in the U.S. are dropping at a historic rate. Will anyone notice? (Los Angeles Times)

• Inside ICE’s Database for Finding ‘Derogatory’ Online Speech (404 Media)

• Sodium batteries offer an alternative to tricky lithium (Economist)

• This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI (MIT Technology Review)

Gold has officially outperformed the S&P 500 this year

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