Downward Docs

Hi, today we explore: (1) Why Dr Martens sales are slipping, (2) Dubai’s unprecedented deluge and (3) The state of AI’s capabilities. Good morning! Our new home, Sherwood News, is now 1 week old: check it out [here](. Today we're exploring: - Downward DOCS: Sales of Dr Martens are slipping. - Dubai deluge: The desert city’s downpour in context. - Deep learning: How do AI models fare on human tests? Have feedback for us? Just hit reply — we'd love to hear from you! TOGETHER WITH Downward DOCS Trading in iconic British bootmaker Dr Martens had to be temporarily halted yesterday, with shares slipping ~30% after the company tempered its sales outlook for 2025 and announced that Ije Nwokorie, an ex-Apple senior director, would take the helm in an effort to reboot the company’s [slumping fortunes](. The sole issue for DOCS isn’t hard to diagnose: they just aren’t selling enough shoes. Sales were down 12% in the latest quarter, with US revenues sliding 31% year-over-year after a rough winter for the brand as fewer shoppers picked up the chunky-soled leather boots over the all-important [Christmas period](. Activist investors, presumably unhappy with the stock’s ~85% drop since its early 2021 peak, have also been urging the company to undertake a strategic review. Designed by a pair of German doctors and perfected by a family-run British shoemaker, Docs had [humble beginnings]( as practical work boots that sold for £2 (~$5) a pair in 1960. Just over a decade later, however, the boots had worked their way into British subcultures like the ska and punk movements and soon stomped their way to cultural icon status. Collaborations with everyone from Warner Bros and hypebeast brand Supreme to Jean-Michel Basquiat have helped the brand stay relevant. But, the company is now also battling competition from sprawling value sites like Temu, which [DOCS has accused]( of infringing on its trademarks by manipulating Google searches to make lookalike items appear above its results. [Read this on the web instead]( Out of the blue sky Heavy thunderstorms sent the typically arid United Arab Emirates into chaos yesterday, with Dubai recording more than 5.59 inches (142 mm) of rain in just 24 hours since Monday night — the most in 75 years and equivalent to 1.5x the total seen in a typical year. The “[historic weather event]( caused flash flooding and wreaked havoc across Dubai’s motorways, metro stations, and malls, with hundreds of flights at Dubai International Airport temporarily grounded. Cloudbusting Scientists have laid some of the blame on climate change, the usual suspect for unusual weather, as the driving force behind the unprecedented storm: per [NASA]( for every 1°C rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold ~7% more moisture, leading to heavier rainfall in shorter periods, over smaller areas. However, several [news]( [outlets]( have also pointed towards cloud seeding — an operation that sees aircraft spray metal salt particles into clouds, inducing precipitation — as a culprit, which the UAE has been carrying out since the 1990s to improve water security and boost agriculture. While there is [debate]( about whether seeding could have an impact of this magnitude (the government is denying that the practice occurred in days preceding), the severity of flooding in the Gulf nation’s most populous city may be most strongly attributed to its lack of drainage and incapacity to deal with much rain at all — let alone a year’s worth in 24 hours. [Read this on the web instead]( [Sponsored by GraniteShares]( Your move... Sophisticated investors know that timing can be everything. Concentrated daily exposure to the moves of an individual stock can potentially yield investment returns — and GraniteShares’ suite of Short and Leveraged single stock ETFs* give experienced investors a way to do just that. GraniteShares offers two ETFs with automaker Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) as the underlying stock: - [TSLR aims to replicate +2X the daily variations]( of the common stock of TSLA. - [TSDD aims to replicate -2X the daily variations]( of its underlying stock TSLA. Accessible through a traditional brokerage account, these two ETFs enable high-conviction investors to magnify exposure to TSLA’s daily price moves in a single trade — with no margin calls. Explore the offering: [TSLR]( and [TSDD]( from GraniteShares. [Discover GraniteShares' offerings here]( The state of AI As AI has gone mainstream, companies haven’t been shy in deploying the technology — applying it to manual and repetitive tasks and even citing it as a reason for [mass layoffs](. But how does AI compare to humans on technical tasks? A new report, [Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index]( summarizes where the burgeoning technology is at. The headline is that recent breakthroughs have heralded an unprecedented improvement in the performance of AI models on benchmark tests. For a long time, AI has been able to tell what’s in a picture, even as websites ask us to endlessly prove we’re not a robot by clicking on images of [traffic lights or stop signs](. But now, AI is doing visual reasoning and math — seriously hard math. Indeed, the 2024 AI Index reports that models have gone from scoring less than 10% of the relative performance of humans to more than 90% in just 2 years in competition-level math. In more simple tasks, the AI models evaluated already outperform the relevant human benchmarks. The good news for anyone worried about losing their job is that AI researchers are increasingly concerned about running out of high-quality data to train their models, with some predicting that the available supply will be exhausted by [2026](. This shortage might force developers to depend increasingly on AI-generated, or 'synthetic', data for training new models. Adobe’s solution? Pay people [$3 a minute for videos of them touching things](. Related reading: [How ChatGPT broke the Turing test](. [Read this on the web instead]( More Data • Time to build? US homebuilding saw the biggest monthly drop since Covid hit, down ~15% [in March](. • The Olympic torch was lit yesterday and began its 3,100-mile relay, with the 2024 Paris Games now just 100 [days away](. • With a leverage factor of 2X and -2X respectively, TSLR and TSDD from GraniteShares are single stock ETFs* that give high-conviction investors concentrated exposure to Tesla common stock. Explore the [2x Long TSLA Daily ETF (TSLR)]( and [2x Short TSLA Daily ETF (TSDD)]( in more depth.** • Motorola is bringing back its [wood-paneled phone](. • The WNBA deals behind Caitlin Clark’s $76k salary that left many shocked [this week](. **This is sponsored content. Hi-Viz • Fast food items with the [most calories in the United States](. • Charting America’s [sleeping issues](. Off the charts: What are the busiest airports in the world? [Answer here](. Thanks for stopping by! 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