Axios Closer

March 11, 2021
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🔔 The dashboard: The S&P 500 closed up 1% to a record high. (The Nasdaq jumped 2.5%).
- Biggest decliner? General Electric (-7%) — its second day of steep losses.
- Biggest gainer? Mining company Freeport-McMoRan (+8%), as the sector moved higher.
Today's newsletter is 650 words, or a 2-minute read.
1 big thing: Rain on the SPAC parade
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
"SPAC" has become a pop culture buzzword, attracting your favorite celebrities, former politicos, Reddit traders and longtime investors — and now, increasing scrutiny, Axios Kia Kokalitcheva and I report.
Why it matters: Questions about whether updated rules are needed for SPACs are getting louder.
How it works: So-called "blank-check" firms go public and use the money they raise to buy a private company, which becomes publicly traded after the merger.
What's happening: An SEC advisory committee held a hearing today about SPACs. Questions largely focused on investor risks and whether additional protections are needed.
- Lawmakers are also feeling new pressure to keep SPACs on their radar, with some advocacy groups recently asking Congress for fixes to "tamp down pre-merger hype," among other things.
The other side: "You've had a lot of folks jump into the SPAC market thinking it's like a gold rush," Arjun Sethi, co-founder of venture firm Tribe Capital, tells Axios. (Yes, he has a SPAC).
- "But you don't want to have it regulated so hard, with a tight iron grip that you lock people out from being able to participate in the upside," Sethi says.
What to watch: The SEC warned against investing in SPACs solely because celebrities are involved or promoting them.
- A-Rod, R&B singer Ciara and rocker Sammy Hagar are a few big names joining SPAC boards — possibly making them that much more alluring.
2. Charted: Phenomena reality check


If you feel that you're being bombarded with fire takes about Clubhouse, NFTs and SPACs, that might be a sign you're Extremely Online, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.
Dig into the Axios/Survey Monkey poll ... Sign up for Felix's newsletter here.
P.S. ... Beeple's digital image — minted as a non-fungible token (NFT) sold for $69 million — in a Christie's auction, a record for digital artwork.
3. What's moving
🛍️ Shares of South Korean e-commerce company Coupang closed up 40% in its public market debut. (Reuters)
- It's the largest U.S. IPO since Uber — and the largest for a foreign company since Alibaba debuted in 2014.
💄Ulta CEO Mary Dillon is stepping down and will be succeeded by current executive Dave Kimbell — news that came alongside worse-than-expected sales results. Shares fell 9% in after-hours trading. (Bloomberg)
👀 Biden signed the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill ... Stimulus checks could come as soon as this weekend ... Aggregate U.S. household net worth rose to a record $130 trillion, per Fed data ... Nike says it will tie executive pay to the company's progress on diversity goals.
4. New (dismal) data on Black Hollywood
Chart via McKinsey report on Black representation in film and TV
Black-led films are underfunded, while Black and minority leads remain underrepresented across the industry, a new report from McKinsey shows.
Why it matters: It comes as Hollywood is increasingly under fire for being too white.
Other findings: Films with Black leads were distributed in 30% fewer international markets on average — yet they earned nearly the same global box-office sales as films with white leads in 2019.
- In the first 10 years of their career, Black actors get an average of six lead roles, while their white counterparts get nine.
- Black actors made up 4.7% of all roles on streaming TV shows in 2019 — much lower than their 13% share of the population — while white actors made up over 75%.
The bottom line: "The reshaping of the film and TV ecosystem will play a role in reshaping ideas on race — and the advancement of racial equity — in America and beyond," McKinsey researchers write.
5. 1 year later ... The start of the COVID "tsunami"
Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images
One year into the pandemic, Axios Re:Cap is looking back at the week of March 9, 2020 — when high-profile leaders were forced to make consequential choices that changed our lives and society.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital chief executive Steven Corwin says the medical center had four cases of COVID on March 8 of last year.
- By March 29, that number had jumped to 600.
Corwin tells Axios Re:Cap ... "We had people from our finance department that volunteered to go to the morgue. I mean, imagine being somebody who has a finance degree or an accounting degree, and now you're spending time in the morgue because people are dying."
🎧 Listen to the episode. Subscribe to Axios Re:Cap here for the entire series.
6. What they're saying
Photo: Justin Bieber's Instagram
"Crocs with socks is definitely the move."— Justin Bieber on his second collaboration with Crocs, which will be bundled with socks from his fashion line. (You may hate this. But Wall Street loves it. The stock got a Biebz bounce, closing up 6%).
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Catch up on the day's biggest business stories and look ahead to important trends. Led by Nathan Bomey.



