Ever heard of the Mandela Effect? It’s a weird phenomenon where a large group of people collectively remember something differently from how it actually happened. There are a ton of strange examples:

• The term originated from the widespread but false belief that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the 1980s when he actually passed away in 2013.

• Many remember the Monopoly mascot having a monocle, but he never had one.

• Many Star Wars fans don't remember C-3PO having a silver leg in the original trilogy, but he does!

Unlike a video recorder that perfectly captures and replays events, our brains reconstruct memories each time we recall them. Every time we "retrieve" a memory, we may unintentionally alter it based on new experiences, emotions, or information. Over time, the memory can drift further from its original form.

Why is this important to know? Common knowledge isn’t necessarily truth.

Markets

Source: CoinGecko.com As of 4:43PM November 17, 2024

World news

Top news stories of the past week

1) Space - so hot right now: Companies focused on space exploration rallied hard this past week, in what some are calling the “Trump-Elon trade”. With Elon Musk, arguably the most important figure in the space industry, having the ear of the incoming President, many expect this market to accelerate. But will the whole market benefit, or will SpaceX get preferential treatment? TBD.

2) Crypto - also very hot right now: Bitcoin hit a fresh all-time-high of $93K this past week, driven by expectations that Trump’s previous pro-crypto attitude will help drive growth in this sector. Is this hype a bit strong? Maybe, it looked like a lot of investors started selling at $93K.

3) Jerome Powell says “chill out”: The head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell, said they aren’t in a hurry to keep cutting rates, noting that the economy is looking fairly strong. And markets….hated it! Risky assets like technology stocks and crypto in particular sold off. Rude of him.

Top WEIRD stories of the past week

1) Four people were arrested in LA for insurance fraud after claiming a bear attacked/damaged their cars, but it turns out it was just one of them in a bear suit. You missed Halloween, pal!

2) Remember when someone duct-taped a banana to a wall and called it art? Well, it’s been appraised at $1 million. I need to change careers.

3) In other banana-related news, apparently a Swedish politician has such a crippling phobia of them that she banned them from her offices. But has she tried chocolate chip banana bread?

Chart

You like charts? Graphs? Ya you do

How popular is ChatGPT? It took just five days to get to one million users. Sure Threads did it in fewer, but that’s a Facebook sub-app, so don’t count it.

Investment idea

What are we investing in?

Copying off the BIG DAWGS

Ever not study for a test then have to cheat? Me neither, but that’s what I’m doing today.

Here are the top three stocks the biggest hedge funds in the world are buying right now:

1. Meta

   • Up 60% this year

   • Worth $1.4 trillion

   • Making big moves in AI and augmented reality (cool vid on it)

1. Amazon

   • Up 35% this year

   • Worth $2.1 trillion

   • Still dominating in ecommerce and cloud computing

1. Nvidia

   • Up 195% this year (sheesh)

   • Worth $3.5 trillion (sheesh)

   • They have 88% market share of graphics cards

Want to know how to track this yourself? Check out HedgeFollow! There’s plenty of information you can get for free here about what the biggest and best-performing investors in the world are doing.

History

On this day…

…in 1993, Nirvana recorded their famous unplugged acoustic set with MTV. Here’s my favourite song from it. Crazy to see Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters lead) so young here.

Music

Banger of the week

Most important thing

Meme? Nah. Art.