Last week was a big one for Altea, our private community for alternative investors.
Today, we’ve got:
Table of Contents
Does the Winnebago Index work?
There’s this theory that RV sales in the US are an indicator of the health of the economy overall. RVs are chunky discretionary purchases, so most people only buy a Winnebago when they’re fairly confident the future economy can support the outlay.
For its part, Winnebago is optimistic about growth.
So, I downloaded quarterly revenue per share for Winnebago and monthly Consumer confidence readings to see if the two were, in fact, related.
The data should show consumer confidence as a leading indicator for Winnebago revenue, which is reported for the three months prior.
It’s actually the opposite, with a correlation of -0.68.
Covid threw a spanner in the data set, but 2014 – 2020 should be clean, and the last two years should be useful too.
I don’t think there’s anything here. Am I missing something?
Caitlin Clark is already dominating the WNBA
And she hasn’t even been drafted yet.
Tickets for Indiana Fever (her presumptive home) games are $100 more expensive than games for any other team, including league champions Las Vegas Aces.
Opposing teams are pulling out all the stops marketing home games against the Fever.
The Phoenix Mercury are marketing their game against the Indiana Fever as “The GOAT vs. The Rook”—before Caitlin Clark has been drafted. pic.twitter.com/XhH8K789Nl
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) April 8, 2024
“The get-in price against Indiana is $109 on the Mercury website and $92 on StubHub, all before fees.”
There’s so much demand for her games that some opposing teams are finding bigger venues to accommodate all the “Clark Crazies” (god help me).
“The Aces picked the Fever for one of their handful of games in T-Mobile Arena.”
I’ve got no idea if this is going to last or how her generational talent will translate to the pros, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say she’s having a similar impact on the WNBA as another generational talent had on another up-and-coming pro sports league—Messi and the MLS.
“Messi’s entrance to the MLS is also increasing prices for other teams in the league: The average price of a game this season is $164, which is 124% more expensive than the $73 per seat cost in 2023, according to TickPick.”
Whether or not this is a good or sustainable thing for the business of women’s sports is up for debate. Both Tiger (PGA) and Messi (MLS) raised the profile of their leagues, but it’s hard to see the entire league prosper when most of the oxygen is sucked out of the air by one player.
SMEs are flocking to Dubai?
It’s from a super small base, but apparently, Dubai saw a 550% annual rise in global SMEs attracted to the emirate last year.
104 SMEs (European for SMB) moved to Dubai in 2023, up from, I guess like, 15 or 20 in 2022.
It’s a broad-based trend with companies coming from all over.
32 percent of the firms shifting to the emirate were from the Middle East and Eurasia, followed by Asian and Australian SMEs at 29 percent.
Latin America and Europe accounted for 26 percent of companies, while 13 percent attracted were from Africa.
It’s part of the emirate’s overall push toward building a sustainable economy divorced from fossil fuel revenue. You can see similar shifts in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
Speaking of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom faced a stunning setback this week as it reduced the length of its Neom wall city from 170km to 2.4km. The planners hope to fit a staggering 300,000 people in the downsized space.
It’s not all bad news for the Kingdom. Foreign direct investment (FDI) was up 17% YoY in the fourth quarter of 2023. Sportswashing is working.
The entire region is experiencing wild changes. Hopefully, the economic evolution will result in real changes in other parts of society.
Meanwhile in India
Last year, I predicted India and Saudi Arabia would be the two countries to watch through 2040.
So, how are things looking in India?
