The chips are down

Good morning. And our condolences to any Toronto Raptors fans who were still holding out hope the team would land Giannis Antetokounmpo in a trade (read: us). The two-time NBA MVP is taking his talents to South Beach in a blockbuster trade between the Milwaukee Bucks and Miami Heat. 

It never really made sense for Giannis to come to Toronto — especially after the team canned Masai Ujiri — but we were still holding out hope. Let’s just hope Scottie Barnes makes another leap this year. 

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

Markets: It was a down day for the markets yesterday as a tech sell-off spread (more on that below). It wasn’t all bad news, though, for Canada’s top stock index: shares of Quebec convenience store owner Alimentation Couche-Tard were up 11.7% after an earnings beat.

After a few months of the war in Iran being the main daily driving factor for the stock market, we’re finally back to normal: worrying about an AI bubble. 

Driving the news: A tech sell-off that began in the U.S. on Monday spread yesterday, dragging down stock markets across the globe. The most striking dip was in South Korea’s Kospi index — the world’s top-performing stock index this year — which tumbled 10%.

Zoom in: The bulk of Kospi’s losses stemmed from steep drops in SK’s two memory chip giants, Samsung and SK Hynix, which prior to Tuesday were up 175% and 331%, respectively. The rout was triggered by overvaluation fears, and compounded by other factors, like the growing number of retail investors borrowing money to buy stocks.

Why it matters: The systemic issue with Kospi’s rise this year is the same as with other indexes: it’s been driven entirely by AI-linked stocks. Opinions are split on whether this sell-off is a simple — even healthy — course correction for a chip sector that was running hot, or if it's yet another sign of an AI bubble waiting to burst. Either way, it’s clear volatile swings driven by AI jitters are the new norm and will continue for the foreseeable future—QH

Ontario First Nations get a piece of the nuclear build-out. The federal and Ontario governments are providing seven Ontario Indigenous communities with $700 million worth of loan guarantees to purchase equity in one of the four new reactors at the Darlington nuclear power plant. It’s the first-ever First Nations equity partnership in a Canadian nuclear reactor. (CBC News)

Meta unveils new smart glasses model. Meta’s new smart glasses have a starting price of US$299, around $80 less than the base price of its second-generation Meta Ray-Ban glasses. Notably, this pair is the first not to have Ray-Ban or Oakley branding, though they are still made in collaboration with Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica. Does that make them more or less cool? (CNBC)

Alleged perpetrator of Montreal shooting identified. Seth Scott Hatfield — a 25-year-old university student from Lethbridge, AB — was identified as the suspected shooter in an attack that resulted in the deaths of a police officer, a civilian, and himself in Montreal on Monday morning. Hatfield reportedly distributed a hate-filled “incel” manifesto before the shooting. (CTV News) 

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🤝 Meet Lori Nikkel. She’s the CEO of Second Harvest, a Canadian non-profit focused on reducing food waste across the country. Last year, the organization and its partners redistributed over 95 million lbs of food that would have been thrown out. We sat down with Lori to talk about Canada’s food waste problem, the myths behind best-before dates, and the logistics of rescuing 22 million pounds of potatoes. 

How did you land in this line of work at Second Harvest?

I came to my career very organically. I was a low-income single parent of three sons, and I had to figure out how to feed them. I was terrified, so I started a child nutrition program at my son's school. Eventually, they asked me to train people in different parts of the city to run child nutrition programs. It was mostly low-income moms — women who were being abused, women who were new to Canada — and they had all lost their confidence. From there, I'd heard of Second Harvest and went to check it out. Once I got there, I realized this was a great idea. 

Can you explain the differences between a best-before date and an expiration date and how that confusion can lead to food waste?

It is so much waste. One shocking finding was that 23% of avoidable food waste is based on arbitrary best-before dates. That’s over $12 billion a year. And they're about food quality, not safety. Only five foods actually expire. Baby formula, meal replacements like Ensure, and protein bars. The other two are prescription only, so don't worry about those unless your doctor tells you to. Everything else has a best-before date. 

In Canada, we're only regulated to put a best-before date on products with a 90-day shelf life or less — so think of anything perishable: meat, dairy, fresh items around the perimeter of the grocery store. Those dates are conservative and based on quality, not safety. Then you have all the shelf-stable products — pasta, dried beans, canned goods. They don't even require a best-before date. That stuff will outlast all of us.

What causes food to get thrown out on an individual level?

Most of this is actually happening across the supply chain, not in individual homes. About 17% happens at the household level — that's not nothing, but the majority is at the beginning of the chain: manufacturing, processing, and production. We overproduce food in Canada, partly because of climate unpredictability. You might grow more potatoes than you need because you could get pests that year, or any number of setbacks. So farmers overproduce to meet demand, and sometimes the market doesn't absorb all of it.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Read the full Q&A here.

After spending (some might say wasting) $77 billion on the Metaverse, Zuck is leaning into civilization's most reliable moneymaker: gambling. 

What happened: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly directed a team of engineers to build a new prediction markets app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi, according to The New York Times. 

Why it’s happening: Meta is looking to use its gigantic user base to break into a lucrative prediction market space, which, by some estimates, will be processing US$1 trillion in trades annually by 2030. 

Why it matters: With Meta already boasting nearly 3.6 billion daily users across its platforms (over 40% of the world's population), this new app will introduce an unprecedented number of people to prediction markets. 

Our take: Many of our online spaces are turning into casinos, encouraging us to bet on everything from a hockey game to the timing of a military strike in the Middle East. In Canada, we’re already seeing the repercussions: Calls to Ontario’s mental health hotline for gambling issues are up over 300% among young men since the province legalized online gambling in 2022.—LA

💵 12. CEOs who are now making over US$200 million a year, according to a new Wall Street Journal ranking. Overall, the median CEO pay at S&P 500 companies reached a new high of $18 million last year. One company, real estate investor Welltower, paid four different executives packages worth over $100 million.

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