Thematic Reads: Week of October 28, 2019
Each week Team Tematica consumes a voracious amount of content as we look to stay on top of the latest data and mine it for tailwind and headwind signals for our 10 investment themes.
Aging of the Population
The global demographic shift towards a more senior population
- For Boomers Reframing Aging, Age-Proofing A Home Won’t Come Cheap (Kaiser Health News)
- Retail Innovation Is Not Just About Young Consumers (PYMNTS)
Cleaner Living
Growing demand for items that claim to be better for you and the planet:
- Our Top 10 Food Trends for 2020 (Whole Foods Market)
- Impossible Burger vs. beef: Which is better for the environment? (C|Net)
- Hold on to your honey buns: American vending machines are getting healthier (The Washington Post)
Digital Infrastructure
The Buildout and upgrading of our Networks, Data Storage Facilities, and Equipment
- 5G Is a Lot of Hype, But There Are Still Real Opportunities for Investors (Barron’s)
- Nearly all American classrooms can now connect to high-speed internet, effectively closing the “connectivity divide” (The Hechinger Report)
Business models designed to transform an entire industry and leap-frog over incumbents.
- 5G is coming. This Verizon partnership aims to show how it will disrupt manufacturing (CNN)
- Zamna raises $5M to automate airport security checks between agencies using blockchain (TechCrunch)
- Declining innovation funding threatens future economy (SSTI)
- Audi’s Ambitious Mixed-Reality Game Pushes the Limits of Branded VR (Adweek)
Digital Lifestyle
The increasingly digital landscape that now underpins the entire consumer experience.
- U.S. Bank to Slash Branch Jobs Nationwide in Digital Push (Bloomberg)
- AT&T Lays Out Price, Show Lineup for HBO Max (The Wall Street Journal)
- Sony To Shut Down PlayStation Vue TV Service, Refocus On Core Gaming Business (Deadline)
- Adobe forecasts $143B in US online sales this holiday season (Luxury Daily)
The products and services people will consume no matter the economic environment.
- The Red Meat Rethink (The Wall Street Journal)
- Record Halloween spending expected this year, says National Retail Federation (Confectionary News)
Those things that bridge the gap between want and ability at every socioeconomic level.
- LVMH needs Tiffany for US cultural diversification (Luxury Daily)
- The ‘Daigou’ Sellers Making Thousands By Buying Luxury Goods in the UK (Vice)
Consumers trading down when and where possible or looking to stretch the disposable dollars they do have.
- America’s Middle Class Is Addicted to a New Kind of Credit (Bloomberg)
- How the Student Debt Complex Is Crushing the Next Generation of Americans (Time)
- Who is in Canada’s middle class, and why some experts hate the term (Global News)
Areas around the world where rising disposable incomes are driving demand for a host of products and services.
- Mini-Loans Have Spurred a Business—And Debt—Boom in China – (Bloomberg Businessweek)
- Less Savings, More Debt: How Chinese Manage Money American-Style, in 17 Charts (The Wall Street Journal)
Reflecting the evolving needs across individual, cyber, corporate and homeland security.
- Adobe left millions of Creative Cloud user records exposed online (Digital Trends)
- Comcast fights Google’s encrypted-DNS plan but promises not to spy on users (Ars Technica)
- How Can Airlines Protect Their Customers and Data From Evolving Cyberthreats? (Security Intelligence)
What Else We Are Loving
Other reads, experiences, products, services and the like that we enjoyed so much this past week we just had to share
- There’s No Halloween Like a New York City Halloween (The New York Times)
