Situational awareness: Apple just issued a rare earnings warning, citing economic deceleration "particularly in Greater China."
- "In fact, most of our revenue shortfall to our guidance, and over 100 percent of our year-over-year worldwide revenue decline, occurred in Greater China across iPhone, Mac and iPad," CEO Tim Cook wrote today.
- Go deeper: Axios' Ina Fried is updating this post as we speak.
1 big thing: When the sin industry doesn't pay
The sin industry may be shining during a renewed period of government leniency, but don't expect legal weed and sports gambling to emerge as major revenue sources for cash-starved states.
The big picture: "The expected stampede of states seeking to legalize [sports gambling] has parallels to the growing trend toward legalizing recreational marijuana, which 10 states have done and others are considering," the AP notes.
- "In Nevada, revenue from sports betting has accounted for roughly one half of 1 percent of the entire state budget."
- In New Jersey, the gaming industry took "$928 million worth of sports bets. ... The state received less than $8 million in tax revenue."
- "Even Rhode Island, which has the highest sports betting tax rate at 51 percent, estimates it will take in $23.5 million a year, or a quarter of 1 percent of the state’s budget."
- Legal weed in Colorado and Washington provides 2% and 1% of state revenue, respectively, the AP notes.
The bottom line: "Baye Larsen, who analyzes state finances at Moody’s, expects sports betting to account for a 'very, very small slice' of state revenue and will do little if anything to help cover their rising pension, Medicaid, education or infrastructure needs."
Go deeper:
Bonus: Pic du jour
A sign on the door of the National Museum of the American Indian states that the museum is closed due to the partial government shutdown.
2. What you missed
- Tesla missed Wall Street estimates by delivering 90,700 vehicles in the fourth quarter, and the company said it would slash the cost of all of its models by $2,000, a buffer for the reduced tax credit for electric vehicles that took effect this year. Go deeper.
- P.S. on Tesla: Per AP, Tesla “delivered over 245,000 electric cars and SUVs last year, nearly as many as all previous years combined.”
- Harry Reid called President Trump "amoral" and "the worst president we've ever had" in a profile by Mark Leibovich for the New York Times.
- Analysts overwhelmingly predict the historic bull run has at least one more year to go. Go deeper.
- Bakkt, a digital assets and Bitcoin futures platform, raised $182.5 million in first-round funding. Go deeper.
- Given all the data Facebook collects and its barrage of data controversies in 2018, expect the social network to be under a microscope this year. Go deeper.
3. 1 "snowman" thing
The early data from the historic New Year's flyby of a space object nicknamed "Ultima Thule," located about 4 billion miles from Earth, reveals that it's comprised of two joined spheres that are reddish in color, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
Why it matters: This is the first so-called "contact binary" ever studied closely by a spacecraft.
- Ultima Thule used to be two separate objects that are now bound together, according to NASA.
- It is located in a region of our solar system known as the Kuiper Belt and thought to be a time capsule dating back to the formation of the solar system itself about 4.6 billion years ago.