Sober curious
Going booze free
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.
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
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