💰 Intuit's $7B Credit Karma splurge

You can do it, put your back Intuit... Intuit confirmed it's buying privately-held Credit Karma for $7.1B, its largest acquisition ever. Intuit's splurging on CK because it wants more of your financial data — that's crucial to how it makes $$$. FYI, Intuit spends millions of bucks trying to keep the tax system complex because it owns a whole lot of tax software:

• TurboTax: Intuit charges for certain tax situations when you use its filing service (and allegedly — along with H&R Block — hid its free filing page from showing up on Google).
• QuickBooks: Intuit's popular small biz accounting software makes money off monthly subscription fees.
• Mint: Intuit acquired the budget tracking tool in 2009 for $170M. Mint is free, but makes money off ads and product referrals (like an Amex cash back card that's perrrfect for the Chipotle over-spending habit Mint knows that you have).

We're calling it the "Data Double Dip"... Claaassic Triple D scenario, but with a Premium topping. TurboTax and QuickBooks make Intuit $$$ on premium services, while "free" services like Mint and CK earn by double-dipping into users' financial data:

• Targeted Ads: CK knows your credit/debt info, and Mint knows your spending habits — they can charge advertisers for highly targeted ads based on your financial situation.
• Referral Commissions: If you click on one of the Capital One card ads CK or Mint show you, they could get a finders fee (aka referral commission) if you sign up.

An everyone problem... Coronavirus. The World Health Organization hasn't declared it a global pandemic yet — that would mean uncontained global spread and large scale deaths. But 2 more countries are scrambling to control the infectious disease:

• South Korea: 231 new cases on Monday, bringing the total to 833. The highest level of national alert was issued there.
• Italy: Now the largest coronavirus outbreak outside of Asia — cases surged from 3 on Friday to over 219 on Monday. Over 50K people in 11 northern Italian towns are under quarantine.

Think of each country as a huge factory... a huge shopping mall, and a huge tour group. China's 3 economic "personas" have all been shuttered because of coronavirus. And that's affecting the whole world:

• China, The Factory: Companies like Apple, Nike, and Honda shut down Chinese factories and/or slow production. 94% of the Fortune 1000 companies are seeing coronavirus supply chain disruptions.
• China, The Mall: People in China are staying home to avoid catching/spreading the disease — that hurts Chinese consumer spending (Apple, McDonald's and Starbucks shuttered stores).
• China, The Tourist: China has over 1.4B people and an outsize impact on global tourism. Travel restrictions have hit the airline, hotel, and luxury retail industries outside China especially hard.

• Smoked: Juul pitches a version of its e-cig that will unlock only for users who are 21 or older
• Crypto-fy: Shopify has joined Facebook's cryptocurrency Libra Association, after eBay, Visa, and others ditched last year (whether Libra will ever become real is a big question)
• Snacky: Pepsi will buy Chinese online snack company, Be & Cheery (great name), for $705M — all part of Pepsi's quest to take over the world's food/beverage market
• Dudu: NBCUniversal is reportedly in talks to buy Walmart's Vudu video service (as a complement to its Peacock streaming service)

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• Earnings expected from Salesforce, Virgin Galactic, The RealReal, Revolve, Home Depot, Macy's, and SmileDirectClub

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