Marlboro man
Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em
Good morning, Cohiba connoisseurs. This is your Stock Market Rundown for September 29th, 2023. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dig in:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: BEYOND THE BURN 🚬
In the era of Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man, the cigarette industry was the pinnacle of cool. But when states sued Big Tobacco for billions in damages, cigarette vendors became public-health enemy number one.
Philip Morris, the world’s biggest tobacco company, owns classic lung-polluting brands like Marlboro, Virginia Slims, and Parliament. Now, they’re trying to modernize with “smoke free” offerings, which they tout as the safer way to get your nicotine fix.
Their star product is IQOS, a device that heats tobacco rather than burning it, which is (according to Philip Morris) less toxic. Unlike e-cigs, which heat up a cocktail of industrial liquid chemicals, IQOS heats up actual tobacco leaves. (No, they’re not organic… it’s not that virtuous.)
Doctors are as skeptical as an atheist in church, and critics worry that Philip Morris is “drastically misleading customers”. But the FDA gave the product its rubber-stamp, and now it’s time to introduce IQOS to Americans. (Smokers in Japan and Italy have been sucking on the devices for years.)
To prep for the launch, Philip Morris has hired an army of lobbyists to defend against pesky health regulators. Remember Juul? They went from megatrend to obliterated by a ban, because they spurred a smoking craze among minors.
Philip Morris is going to have to simultaneously defend their product against the public-health skeptics itching to block it… and the TikTok teens who can’t wait to smoke it.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
The bankruptcy estate of failed crypto exchange FTX is suing the parents of founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Mom and dad, both Stanford profs, got lavished with gifts including millions in cash and luxury properties in the Bahamas. I usually just get my parents a nice sweater and a box of chocolates for Christmas.
There’s no snow on the ground yet, but Amazon is prepping for the Christmas rush. They’ll hire 250,000 extra warehouse and delivery workers to make sure Santa’s sled is stocked. (If any elves want a salary bump, Amazon is offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000.)
Enjoy saving money on gas bills the next time you’re tooling around the Amalfi Coast in a rental car: Nissan, Renault, and Ford plan to sell only electric vehicles in Europe by 2030.
An Ohio podcast host who styles himself as the “Cashflow King” defrauded investors in an $11 million ponzi scheme. The self-proclaimed “real estate investing badass” stole their money and spent it on courtside season tickets to the Cavs. Hope he enjoys his new seat: a stainless-steel toilet in a jail cell.
That’s another week wrapped up, folks. Have yourselves a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you first thing Monday. Yours in capitalism, The Axe