Finance

Retail sales rose 5.5%, better than the 5.2% increase forecast in a Reuters’ poll, while industrial production increased 7%, compared with estimates of 5% growth.
Fixed asset investment rose by 4.2%, more than the forecast of 3.2%.
Online retail sales of physical goods rose by 14.4% from a year ago during the first two months of the year.

High-rise residential and commercial buildings are being constructed near Dongyu Road, Qiantan, in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai, China, on March 15, 2024. 
Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

BEIJING —  China on Monday reported economic data for the first two months of the year that beat analysts’ expectations.
Retail sales rose 5.5%, better than the 5.2% increase forecast in a Reuters’ poll, while industrial production increased 7%, compared with estimates of 5% growth.

Fixed asset investment rose by 4.2%, more than the forecast of 3.2%.
The unemployment rate for cities was 5.3% in February.
Online retail sales of physical goods rose by 14.4% from a year ago during the first two months of the year.
Investment into real estate fell by 9% in the first two months of the year from a year ago. Investment in infrastructure rose by 6.3% while that in manufacturing increased by 9.4% during that time.
Economic figures for January and February are typically combined in China to smooth out variations from the Lunar New Year, which can fall in either month depending on the calendar year. It is the country’s biggest national holiday, in which factories and businesses remain closed for at least a week.

This year, the number of domestic tourist trips and revenue during the holiday grew compared with last year as well as pre-pandemic figures from 2019. But Nomura’s Chief China Economist Ting Lu pointed out that “average tourism spending per trip was still 9.5% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.”
Retail sales did not rebound from the pandemic as strongly as many had expected as consumers have grown uncertain about their future income.
New loans in February missed expectations and fell from the prior month, “even after adjusting for seasonality,” Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report Friday.
“The persistent weakness in property transactions and low consumer sentiment may continue to weigh on household borrowing,” the analysts said. “More monetary policy easing is needed.”
People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said earlier this month there was still room to cut the reserve requirement ratio, or the amount of cash banks need to have on hand.
Goldman expects 25 basis point cuts to that ratio in the second quarter of this year, as well as in the fourth quarter.
Real estate, which accounts for a significant part of household assets, has slumped over the last few years after Beijing’s crackdown on developers’ high reliance on debt for growth.
The average property price for 70 major Chinese cities fell by 4.5% in February from January on a seasonally adjusted, annualized basis, according to Goldman Sachs’ analysis using a weighted average of official figures.
That’s steeper than the 3.5% month-on-month drop in property prices in January, Goldman Sachs said.
“Our high frequency tracker suggests that 30-city new home transaction volume declined by 53.2% [year-on-year] in early March after adjusting to the lunar calendar basis,” the analysts said in a report.
Chinese authorities did not reveal significant new support for the massive real estate sector during an annual parliamentary meeting that ended last week.
Instead, Beijing emphasized the country’s focus on developing manufacturing and technological capabilities.
Data earlier this month showed China’s exports for January and February rose by 7.1% in U.S. dollar terms, beating expectations for a 1.9% increase.
Imports climbed by 3.5% during that time, also topping Reuters’ forecast for growth of 1.5%. More

Bitcoin may start to lose its reputation as a volatile asset.
According to Bitwise Asset Management’s Matt Hougan, the cryptocurrency’s wild price swings have come down substantially over the past decade.

“What’s driving the bitcoin market right now is a simple demand-supply imbalance,” the firm’s chief investment officer told CNBC’s “ETF Edge” on Monday. “We have this huge new source of demand from these ETFs, and we have supply that’s inelastic.”
On Jan. 11, the first bitcoin exchange-traded funds began trading. Since then, the asset is up more than 50%. Bitcoin hit an all-time high this week of just under $74,000.
Yet, Hougan acknowledges it may not be for everyone.
“It moves around a lot. Some people find it difficult to understand,” Hougan said.
While Bitwise is betting on bitcoin’s growth, ProShares has an ETF looking to profit from losses with its Short Bitcoin Strategy ETF. It’s down 42% so far this year and has plummeted almost 70% over the past year.

“To quote Mark Twain, ‘The reports of our death have been quite exaggerated,'” ProShares’ Simeon Hyman told CNBC. “We’re happy to be here, and we think we’re serving as a key alternative.”
Hyman, the firm’s global investment strategist, notes bitcoin’s historic strength has been going on a lot longer than the launch of the spot bitcoin ETFs.
“This is the month of the anniversary of the collapse of crypto-linked financial institutions. Last year, bitcoin was going up then, too,” Hyman said. “I think there are longer-term folks who are starting to come in for asset allocation and diversification purposes.”
Hyman’s ProShares also operates a long-bitcoin ETF: ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. It’s up 55% since Jan.1 and has gained 111% in the past year.
As of Friday evening, bitcoin is up 180% over the past 12 months.

Disclaimer More

It was not immediately clear what caused the drop in bitcoin, which trades 24 hours a day.
“I think it’s a healthy move. We’re removing some of the leverage that has built up in the system,” Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday.
Rapid rallies and steep drops have been a recurring feature of bitcoin’s history.

Bitcoin offices are seen in Istanbul, Turkey, on February 28, 2024. 
Umit Turhan Coskun | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin suffered a steep drop in overnight trading, showing that the world’s largest cryptocurrency hasn’t shaken its tendency for big drops despite continuing to gain acceptance within the mainstream financial world.
Data from Coin Metrics shows bitcoin was trading above $72,000 late Thursday night before falling to about $67,000 on Friday, a decline of roughly 7%.

Stock chart icon

Bitcoin fell sharply overnight after trading above $72,000 on Thursday.

It was not immediately clear what caused the drop in bitcoin, which trades 24 hours a day.
Bitcoin is still up about 57% year to date, and the overnight drop came from near record highs. The cryptocurrency has climbed over the past few months, in part due to anticipation and then demand from the new bitcoin ETFs that launched in the U.S. in January.
“I think it’s a healthy move. We’re removing some of the leverage that has built up in the system,” Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, adding that the selling pressure was likely coming from the options market.
Rapid rallies and steep drops have been a recurring feature of bitcoin’s history. In its previous bull market, bitcoin surged above $68,000 in November 2021 but was trading below the $20,000 mark roughly a year later.
Crypto optimists say that the volatility of the asset class should decline as bitcoin matures. The advent of the bitcoin ETFs, which makes it easier for a wider swath of investors to gain exposure to crypto, could in theory help reduce that volatility. More

Calls for a wealth tax on the world’s super-rich are once again gaining attention after U.S. President Joe Biden said he would impose a new “billionaire tax” on the country’s wealthiest if reelected in November.
Outlining his 2025 budget proposals on Monday, Biden took aim at the uber-affluent and reiterated plans for a 25% tax on Americans with a wealth of more than $100 million.

“No billionaire should pay a lower tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, a nurse,” he said Thursday.
The plans, previously outlined in the president’s 2024 budget, reignited a decades-old debate over how best to account for the wealth of the world’s richest.
The issue has taken on fresh significance this year, however, as governments globally look for new ways to plug dwindling public finances and tackle wealth inequality.

This is about the wealthy contributing more … the extremely wealthy contributing more and being proud to do that.

Phil White
retired business owner and member of Patriotic Millionaires

Last month, global finance ministers meeting for a G20 summit in Brazil said they were exploring plans for a global minimum tax on the world’s 3,000 billionaires to ensure the hypermobile super-rich 0.1% pay their fair share to society.
Such ideas even have the backing of some of the world’s wealthiest. In early 2024, a growing network of so-called Patriotic Millionaires signed an open letter to world leaders, calling for higher taxes for the wealthy. Among the 260 signatories were Disney heiress Abigail Disney and “Succession” star Brian Cox.

“This is about the wealthy contributing more to the society, the extremely wealthy contributing more and being proud to do that,” Phil White, retired business owner and Patriotic Millionaires co-signatory, told CNBC.
But experts are divided over the effectiveness of a wealth tax, and how achievable it is in reality.

What is a wealth tax?

A wealth tax is a “broad-based” tax on the value of all — or most — of the assets belonging to a wealthy individual or household, such as cash, property, vehicles, jewelry and other valuable items.
Unlike income tax, which is charged against annual earnings, and capital gains tax, which is imposed on profits accrued from the sale of an asset, a wealth tax is seen as a more holistic way of accounting for an individual’s total wealth.
Such taxes were once prominent in Europe, though implementation dwindled at the turn of the 21st century amid questions over their efficiency and a broader shift toward lower top-end tax rates.

Wealth taxes were once a prominent source of tax revenues in Europe, though implementation dwindled at the turn of the twenty-first century

As of 2024, Switzerland, Norway, Spain and are among the few countries to impose some form of wealth tax. But more countries are coming around to the idea. Colombia introduced a wealth tax in 2022, and the Scottish government is among others to have touted proposals.
According to Arun Advani, associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick, the most effective wealth tax policies are those that are targeted and specific.
“If you want a wealth tax that’s actually going to be effective at the top end … you typically want to start at quite a high threshold,” Advani said, noting that historically abandoned policies either came in too low or allowed too many exemptions to generate sufficient tax revenues.

A mass money exodus

Tax specialists note, however, that even well-designed wealth tax policies can be hard to enforce in practice, with questions arising over which assets should be taxed and who should be responsible for evaluating their value.  
Indeed, the potential for behavioral shifts is one of the top arguments leveled against wealth taxes. Critics point to the increased risk of a wealth exodus among the highly mobile super-rich, including to tax havens, which they say undermines original efforts to boost government coffers. 

Business owners are forced to leave the country. This is a great impact for a lot of people, me as well, and it’s not sustainable.

Tord Kolstad
founder and CEO of T. Kolstad Eiendom

“We certainly see individuals looking at other countries to see is, is if there was a wealth tax to be introduced would there be merit in moving?” said Christine Cairns, personal tax partner at PwC.
In 2022, when Norway increased its wealth tax on residents with assets above 20 million Norwegian kroner ($1.8 million), many flocked to Switzerland. Entrepreneur Tord Kolstad was one of approximately 70 super-wealthy Norwegians who made the move in 2023.
“They doubled this taxation from one day to another. This is the reason Norwegian business owners are forced to leave the country. This is a great impact for a lot of people, me as well, and it’s not sustainable in the long run,” Kolstad, founder and CEO of Norwegian property group T. Kolstad Eiendom, said.

Data suggests that wealth tax accounts for only a very small proportion of total tax revenues in the countries where it has been applied.

Researchers are divided on the risks of capital flight from a wealth tax, with some contending that cash outflows would be limited. But they do raise other concerns over the costs of such a policy and its ability to redistribute wealth. 
Data suggests that a wealth tax accounts for only a very small proportion of total tax revenues in the countries where it has been applied. Often those revenues have failed to increase much over time.
“There is more cost on the tax authority side, because they’ll definitely need to be doing additional valuations,” Advani said. “A different area of cost that you could be worried about is what does it do to, for example, incentives to invest.”

Addressing wealth inequality

Still, proponents argue that the revenues generated from a wealth tax could mark a major step in combatting the wealth gap.
Global wealth inequality has risen significantly over recent years, with the richest 1% bagging two-thirds of all new wealth created since 2020, according to Oxfam. The poorest 50% of the global population now own just 2% of total net wealth, while the richest 10% hold 76%. Of that, the wealthiest 1% own around two-thirds.
Under Biden’s proposals, a 25% tax on those with more than $100 million would raise $500 billion over 10 years to help fund benefits such as child care and paid parental leave. That would lift the average tax rate for America’s 1,000 billionaires from 8.2% and bring it in line with the 25% paid by average American workers, according to Biden.

Read more CNBC politics coverage

Even a 2% tax on the world’s 2,756 known billionaires could raise $250 billion per year, according to a 2023 report from the independent research lab EU Tax Observatory, which backs calls for a global wealth tax. A separate Oxfam report in 2023 suggested a 5% tax on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7 trillion annually — enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.
Groups like Patriotic Millionaires say that is part of their stated aims. A 2024 poll by Patriotic Millionaires found that more than half (58%) of millionaires from G20 countries back a 2% tax on wealth over $10 million. Three-quarters (74%) said they support higher taxes on the wealthy in general.
However, some question whether such calls could be a way for the world’s richest to safeguard against a more radical redistribution of wealth in the future.
“There are people who are talking you know, very seriously about the idea of libertarianism and saying there is a limit on total wealth that people should be allowed to have and sort of basically 100% tax above that level,” Advani said. More

Morgan Stanley promoted a tech executive in its wealth management division to become the bank’s first head of firm-wide Artificial Intelligence, CNBC has learned.
The bank is elevating Jeff McMillan, a veteran of the New York-based bank, to help guide its implementation of AI across the firm, according to a memo sent Thursday.
Morgan Stanley became the first major Wall Street firm to create a solution for employees based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, a project overseen by McMillan.

The Morgan Stanley digital sign is seen at the company’s Times Square headquarters in New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 12, 2016.
John Taggart | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Morgan Stanley promoted a tech executive in its wealth management division to become the bank’s first head of firm-wide artificial intelligence, CNBC has learned.
The bank is elevating Jeff McMillan, a veteran of the New York-based bank, to help guide its implementation of AI across the firm, according to a memo sent Thursday from co-presidents Andy Saperstein and Dan Simkowitz.

Last year, Morgan Stanley became the first major Wall Street firm to create a solution for employees based on OpenAI’s GPT-4, a project overseen by McMillan.
The move shows the rising importance of artificial intelligence in financial services, sparked by the meteoric rise of generative AI tools that create human-like responses to queries.
While Wall Street firms broadly pared back jobs last year, they competed to fill thousands of AI positions, poaching employees from one another.
In June, JPMorgan named Teresa Heitsenrether its chief data and analytics officer in charge of AI adoption. At Goldman Sachs, Chief Information Officer Marco Argenti is seen as the lead AI advocate.
Read the full Morgan Stanley memo announcing McMillan’s new role:

We are pleased to announce that Jeff McMillan has assumed a new position as Head of Firmwide Artificial Intelligence, co-reporting to us.
Jeff previously led Wealth Management’s Analytics, Data and Innovation organization where he played a key role in driving Wealth Management’s technological evolution, from our Modern Wealth Management platform to most recently our groundbreaking work with our exclusive partner, OpenAI.
In his new role, Jeff will coordinate across the Firm to ensure we have the appropriate AI strategy and governance in place. In doing so, he will partner with the business units and infrastructure areas to identify and prioritize AI opportunities; help position the Firm within the flow of AI development across the industry and ensure that Morgan Stanley continues to be a well-respected innovator in AI.
To execute on our AI strategy, Jeff will work closely Mike Pizzi, Head of U.S. Banks and Technology, Sid Visentini, Head of Firm Strategy and Katy Huberty, Head of Global Research. Katy and Jeff will co-chair the Firmwide AI Steering Group, comprised of business unit and infrastructure representatives.
Please join us in congratulating Jeff on his new role. More

Growth in China has been weighed down over the past year by a slump in the country’s traditional economic pillars of real estate, infrastructure and exports.
In response, Beijing has ramped up its efforts to bolster manufacturing and domestic tech in a bid to modernize its economy and remain globally competitive.

The Hong Kong observation wheel and the HSBC building in Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong.
Ucg | Universal Images Group | Getty Images

HSBC is “very positive” about the mid- to long-term outlook for the Chinese economy despite current headwinds, the British bank’s chief financial officer told CNBC.
Growth in China has been weighed down over the past year by a slump in the country’s traditional economic pillars of real estate, infrastructure and exports. This prompted Beijing to ramp up its efforts to bolster manufacturing and domestic tech in a bid to modernize its economy and remain globally competitive.

Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso on Wednesday, HSBC CFO Georges Elhedery said the lender — which is headquartered in London but does a lot of its business in Hong Kong and across the Asia-Pacific — was confident that the world’s second-largest economy would overcome its short-term headwinds.
“We’re looking at major economic transition, which is taking place, which gives us very strong grounds to be very positive about the medium- and long-term outlook,” Elhedery said.
He suggested that China’s economic maturity has reached such a stage that now is the “right time to transition into what more mature economies are.”
Elhedery characterized this maturity as being more heavily reliant on consumers, the services industry and high-value and sustainability-driven products, such as electric vehicles and batteries, aspirations he said were evidenced by the Chinese government’s recent massive push toward these sectors.

“That transition will mean that China will avoid falling in this middle income trap and be able to continue the growth pattern,” he added.

“Some of the Western economies have gone through those transitions in the past, [and] China is going through a transition today. That gives us a lot of positive outlook for the medium- to long-term for China.”
The more immediate economic challenges may last “a few quarters to a couple of years,” Elhedery said, but expressed confidence that China will be in a better position for the long run, as the country puts itself on a “materially better forward-looking track.”
HSBC missed its full-year 2023 pretax profit forecasts on the back of a $3 billion write-down on its 19% stake in China’s Bank of Communications, while the lender cut its overall exposure to Chinese commercial real estate by $4.6 billion year on year.
Yet, Elhedery on Thursday insisted that most of the challenges related to the ailing Chinese property market were “behind us,” even as he said the sector is not “out of the woods” so far.
“We think the trough of that sector is behind us. We think in our case, our exposure and our ECL (expected credit losses) covers the bulk of the charges behind us, but that still means there will be lingering effects as the sector continues to adjust, and we may continue to see some impact but not to the tune that we’ve seen last year on our credit charges,” he said. More

Women and Wealth Events
Your Money

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are set for a rematch in the 2024 general election.
Politics have become “increasingly more emotional,” said Moira McLachlan, senior investment strategist with AllianceBernstein’s wealth strategies group.
It’s important to stay invested during the 2024 election year and avoid making knee-jerk reactions, strategists said.

Video of former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden is played during a hearing by the Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 2022.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Investors’ emotions may run high in 2024, especially in the realm of politics as President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are poised for a rematch in this year’s election.
“Politics have become increasingly more emotional,” Moira McLachlan, senior investment strategist with AllianceBernstein’s wealth strategies group, said Wednesday at Financial Advisor Magazine’s Invest in Women conference in West Palm Beach, Florida.

However, investors should avoid knee-jerk reactions by setting and sticking to an investment plan, strategists said.
“It’s so important to stay invested, and you have to try to take the emotion out of investing” to keep from doing something “detrimental” to your goals, said Kristina Hooper, chief global market strategist at Invesco.

More from Women and Wealth:

Here’s a look at more coverage in CNBC’s Women & Wealth special report, where we explore ways women can increase income, save and make the most of opportunities.

Trying to time the stock market and predict its movements are largely a loser’s game. For example, over the past 30 years, the S&P 500 stock index had an 8% average annual return, according to a recent Wells Fargo Investment Institute analysis. Missing the 30 best days would have reduced average gains to 1.83%, for example, it found.
There are “a lot of geopolitical issues, a lot of things, that can spook us,” Hooper said.
Over the past four years, the world has witnessed a global pandemic and two wars, for example, said Jenny Johnson, president and CEO of Franklin Templeton.

It has taught investors they can’t predict what’s going to happen, she said.  
“So, diversify that portfolio,” Johnson added.
Whichever party wins the presidential contest, Republican or Democrat, history shows that the winner has hardly had a bearing on stock market returns, said McLachlan.
“We tend to think politics drives everything, but that’s certainly not the case,” she said. More

A shopkeeper’s son smashes a window, causing a crowd to gather. Its members tell the shopkeeper not to be angry: in fact, the broken window is a reason to celebrate, since it will create work for the glazier. In the story, the crowd envisions the work involved in repairing the window, but not that involved in everything else on which the shopkeeper could have spent his money—unseen possibilities that would have brought him greater happiness. The parable, written by Frédéric Bastiat, a 19th-century economist, sought to draw attention to a common form of argument, which has come to be known as the broken-window fallacy.If the window were to be broken today, the crowd might have a different reaction, especially if they were nimbys who oppose local construction. Their concern might be with the “embodied carbon” the shopkeeper’s son had released when breaking the window. The production of a pane of glass can require temperatures of more than 1,000°C. If the furnace is fuelled by, say, coal, the replacement window would carry a sizeable carbon cost. Similarly, the bricks, concrete and glass in a building are relics of past emissions. They are, the logic goes, lumps of embodied carbon.Conserving what already exists, rather than adding to the building stock, will avoid increasing these embodied emissions—or so NIMBYs often suggest. The argument is proving to be an effective one. On March 12th the EU passed a directive requiring buildings constructed after 2030 to produce zero emissions over their lifetime. The city of San Francisco directs would-be builders towards an “embodied-carbon-reduction-strategies checklist”, which starts with the suggestion that they should “build less, reuse more”. Last month the British government attempted to quash proposals from Marks & Spencer, a department store, that would involve rebuilding its flagship shop in London, on the grounds demolition would release 40,000 tonnes of embodied carbon.At their worst, such rulings are based on a warped logic. Greenhouse gases that have been released by the construction of an existing building will heat the planet whether the building becomes derelict, is refurbished or is knocked down. The emissions have been taken out of the world’s “carbon budget”, so treating them as a new debit means double counting. Even when avoiding this error, embodied emissions must be treated carefully. The right question to ask is a simpler one: is it worth using the remaining carbon budget to refurbish a building or is it better to knock it down?Choosing between these possibilities requires thinking about the unseen. It used to be said that construction emitted two types of emissions. As well as the embodied sort in concrete, glass and metal, there were operational ones from cooling, heating and providing electricity to residents. The extra embodied-carbon cost of refurbishing a building to make it more energy-efficient can be justified on the grounds of savings from lower operational-carbon costs. Around the world, buildings account for 39% of annual emissions, according to the World Green Building Council, a charity, of which 28 percentage points come from operational carbon.These two types of emissions might be enough for the architects designing an individual building. But when it comes to broader questions, economists ought also to consider how the placement of buildings affects the manner in which people work, shop and, especially, travel. The built environment shapes an economy, and therefore its emissions. In the same way as the emissions from foot-dragging over the green transition are in part the responsibility of climate-change deniers, so NIMBYs are in part responsible for the emissions of residents who are forced to live farther from their work in sprawling suburbs.To most NIMBYs, the residents who are prevented from living in new housing are an afterthought. Yet wherever else they live, they still have a carbon footprint, which would be lower if they could move to a city. Density lowers the per-person cost of public transport, and this reduces car use. It also means that more land elsewhere can be given over to nature. Research by Green Alliance, a pressure group, suggests that in Britain a policy of “demolish and densify”—replacing semi-detached housing near public transport with blocks of flats—would save substantial emissions over the 60-year lifespan of a typical building. Without such demolition, potential residents would typically have to move to the suburbs instead, saving money on rent but consuming more energy, even if the government succeeds in getting more drivers into electric vehicles. Although green infrastructure, pylons and wind turbines all come with embodied carbon, not building them comes with emissions, too, from the continued use of fossil fuels.Compromising on qualityDeciding such choices on a case-by-case basis makes little sense. Britain’s planning system, in which the government considers whether one particular department store will derail the national target to reach net-zero emissions, is especially foolish. The more sensible approach is to use a carbon price, rather than a central planner’s judgment. Putting a price on the remaining carbon budget that can be used for new physical infrastructure, as well as the services that people use in their homes, means that the true climate cost of each approach has to be taken into account. Under such a regime, energy-efficient homes close to public transport would be worth more. Those with less embodied carbon would be cheaper to build. Developers that demolished and densified would therefore often be rewarded with larger profits.Targeted subsidies, especially for research and development into construction materials, as well as minimum-efficiency standards, could bolster the impact of carbon pricing, speeding up the pace at which the built environment decarbonises. What will never work, however, is allowing the loudest voices to decide how to use land and ignoring the carbon emissions of their would-be neighbours once they are out of sight. ■Read more from Free exchange, our column on economics:An economist’s guide to the luxury-handbag market (Mar 7th)What do you do with 191bn frozen euros owned by Russia? (Feb 28th)Trump wants to whack Chinese firms. How badly could he hurt them? (Feb 22nd)For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in economics, finance and markets, sign up to Money Talks, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter More