📅 On This Day
FTC Hits Facebook With $5 Billion Fine; Market Shrugs
On July 24, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission levied a then-record $5 billion penalty on Facebook for deceiving users about their control over personal data — the largest fine the agency had ever imposed on a technology company. Yet the stock barely moved. With $70 billion in annual revenue, investors had already priced in the settlement and deemed it survivable. The fine was historic; the company had simply grown larger than the consequences.
Sometimes a record-breaking penalty is just a rounding error on the income statement.
META — WisdomTree Industrial Metals Enhanced
🇺🇸 US
Source: Federal Trade Commission; The Wall Street Journal
📅 On This Day
FTC Hits Facebook With $5 Billion Fine; Market Shrugs
On July 24, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission levied a then-record $5 billion penalty on Facebook for deceiving users about their control over personal data — the largest fine the agency had ever imposed on a technology company. Yet the stock barely moved. With $70 billion in annual revenue, investors had already priced in the settlement and deemed it survivable. The fine was historic; the company had simply grown larger than the consequences.
Sometimes a record-breaking penalty is just a rounding error on the income statement.
META — Meta CDR (CAD Hedged)
🇺🇸 US
Source: Federal Trade Commission; The Wall Street Journal
📅 On This Day
FTC Hits Facebook With $5 Billion Fine; Market Shrugs
On July 24, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission levied a then-record $5 billion penalty on Facebook for deceiving users about their control over personal data — the largest fine the agency had ever imposed on a technology company. Yet the stock barely moved. With $70 billion in annual revenue, investors had already priced in the settlement and deemed it survivable. The fine was historic; the company had simply grown larger than the consequences.
Sometimes a record-breaking penalty is just a rounding error on the income statement.
META — Meta Platforms Inc.
🇺🇸 US
Source: Federal Trade Commission; The Wall Street Journal
🌍 Around the World
Hungary's Small Market Yields Big Dividend Names Worth Knowing
The Budapest Stock Exchange is compact but colorful — a handful of heavyweights including OTP Bank, energy major MOL, and pharmaceutical firm Richter Gedeon (founded 1901) account for the lion's share of the dividend stream. Then there is Zwack Unicum, a spirits brand with roots stretching back to the 18th century, lending the market an almost anachronistic charm. Foreign investors should note that Hungary's withholding tax on dividends runs commonly around 15%, as verified in 2026.
A market where a centuries-old bitters brand sits alongside a major bank is one worth a closer look.
🇭🇺 HU
Source: Budapest Stock Exchange; PwC Tax Summaries
🔥 Dividend Streak
ADM Kept Raising Its Dividend Through a Federal Price-Fixing Scandal
In the mid-1990s, Archer-Daniels-Midland orchestrated a global scheme to fix the price of lysine, exposed by an executive-turned-FBI-informant who secretly recorded more than 100 meetings. ADM paid a $100 million fine — the largest antitrust penalty in U.S. history at the time — and three executives went to federal prison. The dividend kept climbing regardless, a streak of consecutive annual increases stretching back to 1976 and still active as of 2025.
A long dividend streak tells you about financial discipline — not necessarily about the character of those writing the checks.
ADM — Admiral Group PLC
Source: Wikipedia – Lysine price-fixing conspiracy; The Washington Post
🔥 Dividend Streak
ADM Kept Raising Its Dividend Through a Federal Price-Fixing Scandal
In the mid-1990s, Archer-Daniels-Midland orchestrated a global scheme to fix the price of lysine, exposed by an executive-turned-FBI-informant who secretly recorded more than 100 meetings. ADM paid a $100 million fine — the largest antitrust penalty in U.S. history at the time — and three executives went to federal prison. The dividend kept climbing regardless, a streak of consecutive annual increases stretching back to 1976 and still active as of 2025.
A long dividend streak tells you about financial discipline — not necessarily about the character of those writing the checks.
ADM — Archer-Daniels-Midland Company
Source: Wikipedia – Lysine price-fixing conspiracy; The Washington Post
🔥 Dividend Streak
ADM Kept Raising Its Dividend Through a Federal Price-Fixing Scandal
In the mid-1990s, Archer-Daniels-Midland orchestrated a global scheme to fix the price of lysine, exposed by an executive-turned-FBI-informant who secretly recorded more than 100 meetings. ADM paid a $100 million fine — the largest antitrust penalty in U.S. history at the time — and three executives went to federal prison. The dividend kept climbing regardless, a streak of consecutive annual increases stretching back to 1976 and still active as of 2025.
A long dividend streak tells you about financial discipline — not necessarily about the character of those writing the checks.
ADM — Archer-Daniels-Midland Company
Source: Wikipedia – Lysine price-fixing conspiracy; The Washington Post
💡 Did You Know
Nutmeg's 32,000% Markup Once Bankrolled History's First Dividends
The spices that financed the VOC's early dividend payments were among the most valuable substances on earth. Nutmeg's markup from the Banda Islands to European markets reportedly reached roughly 32,000% — a 320-fold increase — while mace, the rare membrane surrounding the nutmeg seed, commanded even more. Pepper once functioned as money outright, with rents and ransoms settled in peppercorns. As sea routes multiplied and supply flooded markets, prices collapsed and spices quietly retired from currency.
Before yield percentages, there were peppercorns — and the math was even more extraordinary.
🇳🇱 NL
Source: EBSCO; Go2Tutors/Substack; Michael Krondl