🎙️ Behind Enemy Lines

🎶 Mortgage rates, oh how they climb, like a vine reaching for sky’s sublime. Seven percent, a lofty peak, causing homebuyers’ knees to grow weak.

From late 2023, they've seen no rest, surging higher, putting wallets to the test. With each tick upwards, a sigh and a groan.

Uncertainty looms, like clouds in the air. Changes to commissions, causing some scare. But fear not, dear reader, for knowledge is key. In this financial dance, we'll help you see.

— Matthew & Shawn

Here’s today’s rundown:

Today, we'll discuss the biggest stories in markets:

• Amazon goes undercover to gather intel

• Sweden’s stock market, the envy of Europe

This, and more, in just 5 minutes to read.

Chart of the Day

Together With Status Audio*

Your Search For Killer Sound Is Over

These headphones might look a little different. They should. Because they are a little different.

The Between 3ANC earbuds from Status Audio are the only wireless earbuds with three drivers, producing an unrivaled audiofile-level soundstage. In layman’s, they sound frickin’ incredible.

On top of that, they also lead the market in battery life (up to 12 hours) 🔋, water resistance 🛁, and active noise cancellation 🎧. With transparency mode, you can click into the real world anytime, too. Not for nothing, but they also have six mics (ensuring stellar virtual meeting audio).

This Brooklyn-based indie brand is bringing premium sound to everyday listeners. You in?

As a We Study Markets reader, get started with $20 cash back on your first order using INVESTORSPODCAST20.

*Sponsored content

In The News

🕵️ Amazon Goes Undercover to Gather Intel on Competitors

A company called Big River Services International, based in Seattle's Denny Triangle neighborhood, has been operating for nearly a decade, shipping a variety of goods like shoes, beach chairs, and Marvel T-shirts to customers across the U.S. 

The company sells about $1 million worth of goods annually through platforms like eBay, Shopify, Walmart, and Amazon under brand names like Rapid Cascade and Svea Bliss. While presenting itself as an independent e-commerce operation, Big River is actually a covert arm of something quite familiar to all of us: Amazon. 

The mission: Gather intelligence on competitors.

Behind enemy lines: Established as part of a 2015 initiative named "Project Curiosity," Big River uses its global sales to collect pricing, logistics, and other strategic information about rival e-commerce platforms. The data is then shared with Amazon to inform its business decisions. 

• Despite Amazon's claims of focusing solely on customer satisfaction and not paying attention to competitors, Big River's activities reveal Amazon's elaborate efforts to stay ahead in the ultra-competitive e-commerce market it has largely dominated for the better part of two decades.
  

• Big River team members even engaged with companies like FedEx, attending meetings under the guise of being Big River employees and not disclosing their affiliation with Amazon. Then Amazon brought back the information to improve its logistics. 

A big secret: The team behind Big River attended competitor conferences incognito, used non-Amazon email addresses, and took measures to keep their project secret within Amazon. Despite these efforts, there were oversights, like a glaring typo on the Big River website and team members listing Amazon as their employer on LinkedIn, compromising their cover.

Why it matters:

A few reasons. 

• Amazon is the largest U.S. e-commerce company, accounting for nearly 40% of all online goods sold in the U.S., according to research firm eMarketer.
  

• We also have to imagine other big companies doing undercover work in ways big and small. After all, U.S. capitalism can be brutal—firms look for any edge they can get.
  

• Companies can run into legal trouble for actions such as hiring a rival’s former employee to obtain trade secrets or hacking a rival. Misrepresenting themselves to competitors to gain proprietary information can lead to lawsuits on trade secret misappropriation.

While benchmarking and competitor research are common business practices, Big River's secretive operations raise ethical and legal questions. The team was instructed on how to respond if their activities were discovered. Amazon's internal lawyers reminded them not to disclose their connection to Amazon in their interactions with competitors. 

But at long last, a Wall Street Journal exclusive report this week has all but ended the undercover biz. 

Read more (WSJ)

More Headlines

📈 Wall Street says a Wall Street revival is finally here

🌳 A group of Central and South American countries plan to issue “Amazonia” bonds to protect rainforests

🤔 Why the 2024 stock market still looks a lot like 2023

👏 Time’s top 100 most influential people of 2024

💬 The White House wants to triple tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum

💼 The salary a single person needs to live comfortably in every U.S. state

🛑 Google terminates 28 employees after multi-city protests

🇸🇪 Sweden’s Stock Market Becomes The Envy Of Europe

Sweden has given the world much more than just Ikea, but we will be forever grateful for that contribution — yes, we love meatballs and DIY furniture as much as anyone.

As the FT reports, Sweden’s stock market is fast becoming “the envy of Europe,” specifically its Nasdaq Stockholm exchange.

• After years of European stock markets underperforming their peers across the pond in the U.S., countries like the UK and France have failed to attract new listings from high-profile and dynamic companies.

Gotta attract new listings: For stock exchanges, attracting IPOs, particularly for exciting big-name companies, is the lifeblood of their business.

• If you can’t attract the next big thing to list its stock on your exchange, you will lose clout and eventually fade, a lesson London has learned the hard way — one of the UK’s few internationally relevant and exciting tech companies, the computer chip designer Arm Limited, recently opted to IPO across the Atlantic.

Swedish success: A country of just over 10 million, Sweden has an entirely different experience than many of its European counterparts. Sweden’s markets are thriving, boosted by a dynamic investor base and even tempting foreign companies to list their stock.

• One market veteran told the FT that, adjusted for size, “Sweden now has the deepest capital markets in Europe.”

Why it matters:

In the past decade, over 500 companies have listed in Sweden, more than the total number of IPOs in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain — combined. With 765 listings, only the UK beats out Sweden. That’s impressive, to say the least.

While some of Sweden’s biggest companies, like Spotify and Oatly, have still opted for U.S. stock listings, the country has effectively retained smaller domestic businesses to an extent the rest of Europe hasn’t (around 90% of Sweden’s listings are for stocks worth less than $1 billion).

• That success attracts bankers, investors, wealth managers, and a range of other financial services to the country, boosting Sweden’s economy, helping Swedes accumulate wealth more effectively, and making it easier for Swedish businesses to raise capital.
  

• Buy-in from individual investors is a big driver of the success. Swedes have been loyal domestic stock buyers for years. Swedish households hold the highest proportion in Europe of their invested wealth in stocks.

Strong stock market performance has helped, too. Sweden has significantly outperformed UK indexes and broader European benchmarks in the past decade, gaining over 85% versus the Euro Stoxx 600 index’s 49% gain and London’s FTSE 100’s 17% gain.

Read more (Financial Times paywall)

Together With FinanceBuzz*

The Laziest Ways To Make Extra Cash

Feeling lazy but still want to earn some extra cash?

We've done our research and found some unusual (but legit) ways that people can stack their bank accounts without having to leave their house.

Some will help you save. Others will help you pad your wallet right away. If your bank account could use a boost but you don't want to start a second job, then these could be right for you.

*Sponsored content

Quick Poll

Yesterday, we asked: Should countries stop using coins as currency?

— One response: “The penny, yes, but not the others.” Another: “Why do we need physical currency at all?” A third added, “Few people under 30 carry money…everything is moving to digital…Apple Pay, Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, Crypto.”

— On the other end, respondents wrote things like, “Coins and their history remind us that money should have value.”

See you next time!

That's it for today on We Study Markets!

If you’re a sophisticated investor looking for more professional insights, check out We Study Markets Pro.

Enjoy reading this newsletter? Forward it to a friend.

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Use the promo code STOCKS15 at checkout for 15% off our popular course “How To Get Started With Stocks.”

Advertise with us.

Follow us on Twitter.

Keep an eye on your inbox for our newsletters on weekdays around 6pm EST and on weekends. If you have any feedback for us, simply respond to this email.

You can also leave your comments/suggestions/feedback anonymously here.