Lotto Luck

Hi, today we explore: (1) Hip-hop turning 50, (2) The Mega Millions jackpot is hitting an all-time high, (3) Energy stocks are still full of life. TOGETHER WITH Today's Topics Hello! Feeling old? Our first story on the hip-hop genre turning 50 may not help! Today we're exploring: - Happy birthday hip-hop: The country's favorite music genre is halfway to 100. - Feeling lucky: The Mega Millions is set for an all-time high. - Same energy: Energy companies are reporting weaker earnings, but the stocks are still flying high. Have feedback for us? Just hit reply — we'd love to hear from you! [Read this on the web instead]( If you needed a reason to throw a party this week, your excuse is ready-made as it's [hip-hop’s birthday](. Indeed, August 11th marks the 50th anniversary of the disco-rap genre — with celebrations including [free street concerts]( in NYC and a series of cultural events fronted by hip-hop’s very own [Ice-T](. To the hip, hip-hop, you don’t stop… In August 1973, a party in the Bronx saw [DJ Kool Herc]( pioneer the predecessor to modern-day hip-hop sampling: a technique of playing a vocal-less break from one record while queuing up the next percussion break on another turntable. Since then, hip-hop has moved from the underground to the mainstream. Off the back of trailblazers such as Jay-Z, Tupac, and Nas, hip-hop has hustled to become the most popular music genre in the US, with nearly [one third]( of Americans counting themselves as fans. In fact, according to [MRC Data]( 2021 saw R&B / hip-hop account for 28% of the total volume of music listened to globally. While hip-hop has mastered digital audio streaming, rock fans like to keep things a little more old school. If you zoom in on just physical albums, rock remains the largest genre by some distance — accounting for nearly 50% of all sales, more than triple the 15% that R&B / hip-hop recorded. Note from the editor: This is what we believe to be the only acceptable use of a pie chart: when it depicts something round (like a CD or vinyl)! Mega billions The jackpot for tomorrow’s Mega Millions draw is expected to stand at $1.55 billion, marking the third-largest lottery prize in US history and exceeding the current Mega Millions record of $1.537 billion that was set back in [October 2018](. The prize pot has been building since April and, if a winning ticket is drawn, the lucky player could be offered a $757.2 million lump-sum [cash option](. If it feels like lotto jackpots have been getting bigger recently, that’s because they have — there's been four $1 billion jackpots in 2023 so far, as many as all the [previous years combined](. Lotto luck Higher ticket prices and interest rates have played a big part in the jumbo jackpots, as did [changi]( the odds in 2019, with the likelihood of your Mega Millions ticket scooping you the jackpot going from 1 in 258.9 million to 1 in 302.6 million. This has meant that more than 115 days have passed since the last jackpot winner — though a lucky few did get richer after Friday’s draw, when seven $1 million prizes were handed out for matching 5 balls. The $1.55 billion prize pot would be the highest in Mega Millions history, around $13 million more than the jackpot collected by an anonymous player in South Carolina 5 years ago. Even so, you're more likely to hit the billion figure playing Mega Millions compared to Powerball, as we charted [in November]( — only two jackpots have met the threshold, compared to Mega Millions’ five. [Sponsored by monday.com]( Feeling the bloat Computers are meant to make our lives easier. But trying to flip between too many different tools often just leaves us experiencing tech bloat. Indeed, many workers estimate they could save 10+ hours a week with an [integrated platform]( for processes and tasks. Luckily, that platform already exists and it’s called [monday.com]( one place that centralizes workflows, tools and files into a single Work OS. From there, you can do anything you need to do to keep your organization moving — just in a really streamlined way. The [data shows]( that people value a less is more approach to tech. For instance: - Workers use an average of 10+ tools each month - 75% of knowledge workers think workflow automation should be a high priority - 84% of the same group think more streamlined tech can boost morale For order management to customer service, task tracking to time management, design to marketing, [monday.com]( can be the ultimate source of truth. Don’t wait for standards to slip — [start working smarter with monday.com](. [Build your organization's source of truth]( Last week was the busiest for second-quarter earnings [season]( and corporate America didn’t have much good news. Indeed, companies in the S&P 500 are currently on track to report the worst operating quarter since 2020, with data cited by the [Wall Street Journal]( revealing that earnings for the flagship S&P 500 Index are down 5.2% on this time last year. Same energy In 2022, energy was the bright spot in the market. Soaring oil prices may have hurt your wallet when you filled up your tank, but it was a [boom time for oil companies]( like ExxonMobil and Chevron. This year, the going isn’t quite so easy for the sector. ExxonMobil, for example, reported net income for the second quarter of $7.9 billion, less than half of the remarkable $17.9 billion it reported in the same quarter last [year](. Chevron, a smaller rival, also reported a leaner quarter, with a 28% decline in revenue. However, even if the earnings aren’t quite as ludicrous as they were last year, energy stocks as a whole have broadly held onto their gains — rising more than 60% since the start of 2022. Taking stock Beyond energy, the performance of America's stock market has been fairly underwhelming since Jan 2022. Industrials have been the second-best performer, with a modest 6% increase, and while the headlines have been dominated by AI — propelling Nvidia, Microsoft, Alphabet, Apple, Amazon, and Meta to add a total of $3.1 trillion in market cap this [year]( — the tech sector as a whole hasn't gained on 2022. Meanwhile, the real estate sector has been the hardest hit, grappling with fears of rising mortgage payments and empty office [spaces](. More Data • Greta Gerwig’s Barbie just became the first movie solely directed by a woman to gross over $1 billion at the [global box office]( currently ranking as the 45th highest-grossing movie of all time. • In one of the more ironic instances in the cacophony of return-to-office calls, Zoom is now asking workers to come in 2 days [a week](. • 10.5 is the [average number of tools]( a worker uses each month — but most believe they could save 10+ hours weekly by simply [streamlining their tech]( stack. Enter [monday.com]( a single, centralized product suite that is already helping 1400+ companies work smarter.** • Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway has [ended the latest quarter]( with a $147bn cash pile, just below the all-time high of $149bn the company had on its balance sheet in 2021. **This is sponsored content. Hi-Viz • Charting the [declining rate]( of twin births on the back of the annual Twins Days Festival in Twinsburg, Ohio. • A great viz deep dive on Singapore’s 1.4 million [migrant workforce](. Off the charts: A convention in Niagara Falls [last month]( saw more than 40 women gather to raise awareness for what previously popular female name, which topped the list of names back in the 1940s? [Answer below]. [Answer here](. Our sponsors keep this newsletter free to read. Thank you to [monday.com]( for sponsoring today's Chartr. Thanks for reading. See you on Wednesday. Have some [feedback](mailto:daily@chartr.co?subject=Feedback&body=Hi%2C%0A%0AI%20like%20the%20newsletters%2C%20but%20I%20had%20a%20thought%20for%20you...) or want to [sponsor]( this newsletter? Not a subscriber? Sign up for free below. [Subscribe]( Copyright © 2023 CHARTR LIMITED, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. 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