Sober curious

Good morning, cocktail connoisseurs. This is your Stock Market Rundown for April 2nd, 2024. Thanks for joining me once again. Let’s dig in:

TODAY’S TOP STORY: MAKE MINE A MOCKTAIL

From beers at the sports bar to winding down with a glass of wine, alcohol is the center of many social customs. Maybe too many.

After all, alcohol is a carcinogen, and causes high blood pressure. According to the World Health Organization, no level of consumption is safe. What killjoys!

Maybe because of growing awareness of the risks, sales of non-alcoholic beers, wines, and spirits rose by nearly a third over the past year. 

Young consumers are leading the “sober curious” movement: people in their 20s and 30s are more likely than other groups to say they’re concerned about the health effects of alcohol. And 27% of Gen Z consumers say they never drink alcoholic beverages. So much for keg parties.

Major brands are introducing non-alcoholic versions of their top sellers. Your local grocery store might offer Corona Sunbrew or Heineken 0.0.  And multinational beverage behemoth Diageo has launched non-alcoholic versions of Guinness and Tanqueray gin. 

Modern alcohol alternatives borrow the branding of boozy versions, so you can feel cool while dodging a hangover. Like Liquid Death canned water, which recently raised money at a valuation of over a billion dollars. It’s a big seller at events and bars. 

That said, if you’re rather keep the buzz in your beverages, don’t worry: your faves aren’t being pushed off the shelves. While sales of non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirits have doubled, they’re still less than half a percent of all alcohol sales. I’ll get a Shirley Temple… on the rocks.

Did a friend forward this email to you? Sign up here.

SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?

• Electric vehicle company Fisker is being delisted. Founder Henrik Fisker’s previous attempt to build a car company failed, and now his second kick at the automotive can is headed for bankruptcy too. Maybe there are easier ways to make money than building automobiles?

• If you’re craving a change of scenery, it might be time to fire up Zillow and look for a deal: the median price of single-family homes in the US was the lowest in two and a half years. 

• Meet your new chauffeur: Elon Musk. Tesla is offering its customers a free trial of the “Full Self-Driving” feature.

• Some NFL games in the 2024 season will be appearing exclusively on paid streaming services. Be prepared for a text from your dad asking to borrow your Amazon Prime password before kickoff.

And that’s me clocking out for today, comrades; see you again bright and early tomorrow morning. Yours in capitalism, The Axe

Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed today’s Stock Market Rundown, the #1 thing you can do to help me out is forward it to a friend.