Axios PM

May 05, 2022
Good afternoon: Today's PM — edited by Justin Green — is 468 words, a 2-minute read.
⚡️ Vladimir Putin apologized today to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's false claim that Adolf Hitler had "Jewish blood," Axios from Tel Aviv author Barak Ravid reports.
1 big thing: Stock market bloodbath

Stocks had their worst day of the year today — led by a sell-off in areas of the economy that boomed during the pandemic, Axios Closer co-author Hope King reports.
- Big Tech — namely Apple — had a huge impact on the losses, as did Facebook parent company Meta, Amazon, Netflix, Google and Microsoft.
- E-commerce giants Etsy, eBay and Shopify spooked investors too when they cautioned growth would be slowing.
- "Roughly four in every 10 companies on the Nasdaq Composite Index have seen their market values cut in half from their 52-week highs," Bloomberg reports.
Between the lines: Supporting factors of last year’s stability, including the expectation that stay-at-home trends would continue, are gone now.
- So is easy money, with rates headed up.
Zoom out: Investment strategies have moved from "get rich quick" to "get rich slowly," Axios Capital author Felix Salmon reports.
- Retail investors aren't panicking and pulling their funds out of the market. They're just less enthusiastic about meme stocks and NFTs.
- Value investors are waking up: Berkshire Hathaway spent $51 billion buying stocks in the first quarter.
2. Housing reality: Cash buyers are king


It's now harder than ever to move from one home to another with the same value, Felix reports.
Between the lines: Not only will the new mortgage cost you a lot more than you're currently paying, but the proportion of homes being sold for cash is at the highest level we've seen since the post-crisis years.
3. Next press secretary

Karine Jean-Pierre will replace Jen Psaki as White House press secretary when Psaki leaves the job May 13, President Biden announced today.
- Jean-Pierre is currently the deputy press secretary and is a longtime Biden adviser.
Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman and first openly LGBTQ+ woman to hold the position.
4. 🎞️ Minion domination

The goggle-wearing Minions are expanding their sizable empire with "Minions: Rise of Gru," in theaters July 1, AP reports.
- The "Despicable Me" franchise (a fourth is due in 2024) and its "Minions" spinoffs already rank as the highest-grossing animated film franchise ever, with more than $3.7 billion in tickets sold worldwide.
That's a big reason why "Rise of Gru" (voiced by Steve Carell) was held back by Universal Pictures for the last two years during the pandemic.
- The Minions — a second-banana, scene-stealing horde of mostly incompetent but fiercely loyal henchmen — have in 12 years become a formidable force and a ubiquitous cultural presence.
The filmmakers tried to channel the spirit of the Jawas in "Star Wars" or the Oompa Loompas in "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory."
Sign up for Axios PM

Get Mike Allen’s afternoon take on the most important news of the day