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Today's Agenda

It'll cost you.

Photographer: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images

You Can Go Home Again, Streaming Edition

Many young adults burn a lot of energy trying desperately not to become their parents, and then one day they yell BECAUSE I SAID SO at their kids and realize they lost the battle. Streaming TV is sort of that way.

Streaming started out all hip and cool. It was about "cutting the cord" — note the parental undertones — which meant being free to watch whatever you wanted without being tied to a cable-TV contract and having to endure boring ads like some Boomer. You could be your own person, finally, with nobody telling you what to watch. 

The reality of streaming has been less glamorous. Netflix and Amazon Prime have cool stuff, but they don't have everything. So you have to subscribe to more and more services, until suddenly your cord-cutting bill dwarfs your student-loan payment. "The streaming-TV subscription model is brand new and broken," writes Tara Lachapelle.

Enter Peacock, the new streaming service from Comcast Corp., a cable company. Due to launch in April, Peacock will offer the option to stream stuff for free, as long as you're willing to put up with some ads. It probably won't be alone; advertisers are looking for other ways to get a cut of the streaming action. Comcast is also talking about "bundling" content, Tara notes, further fulfilling a prediction she made back when Disney+ announced some bundling of its own. Ads, bundles of channels — it all starts to look like that cable television we tried so hard to escape. Read the whole thing.

Uncut Gem or 1,758-Carat Pig in a Poke? 

There's a surprise inside!

Source: Lucara Diamond Corp.

Long-named luxury conglomerate LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Dunkin' Donuts Tesla SE (all those names are real; please don't waste time checking) is very serious about getting into the jewelry business in a big way. We know this first because it's buying well-known jeweler Tiffany & Co. for $16 billion. We know it also because LVMH has paid some undisclosed sum for an absolutely humongous diamond it can't even see yet — a 1,758-carat pig in a poke. The diamond is still encased in carbon, as you can see in the photo above, so nobody knows the quality of the rock within.

But even if it's milky and weird, this is still a branding win for LVMH, writes Andrea Felsted. It plans to chop the diamond into smaller pieces for a limited line of jewelry. The fact that we're already talking about this means these pieces will fetch a high price and, more importantly, build buzz for LVMH. 

Maybe We're Overdoing the Trade-Deal Enthusiasm a Bit

Stocks have been steadily ascending to the moon ever since Oct. 11, when President Donald Trump announced he had a "phase one" trade deal with China. Now that the deal is finally here, traders that bought the rumor are also hungrily buying the news. A deal that is at best a welcome slight cooling of a still-hot trade war is priced more like the end of that war, writes Brooke Sutherland. This applies particularly to industrial stocks such as bellwether Fastenal Co., which depend on trade. It's up about 20% since Oct. 11, Brooke notes, but its results and outlook don't justify its 1,758-carat stock price. The same could be said for the whole industrial sector and maybe the whole stock market, to the extent it's pinning its hopes on this deal.

Telltale Charts

BlackRock Inc.'s climate-change manifesto makes good and sure the coal industry is doomed, writes Nathaniel Bullard

BlackRock also delivered the latest warning to small oil and gas companies that they need serious changes, including consolidation and cost-cutting, writes Liam Denning, with this cool chart by Elaine He

Further Reading

Working with Fiat Chrysler, Foxconn can prove Elon Musk wrong about its ability to make electric cars. — Tim Culpan 

Businesses say they're focusing on doing good, but offer no metrics to show it. — Chris Hughes 

Curbing methane emissions costs little and could make a huge difference to the climate. But energy companies are fighting it. — Fred Krupp 

The airline industry contributed to inequality by shutting down small-city hubs. It's time to fix that. — Conor Sen 

Treasury's decision to punt on 50- or 100-year bonds, issuing 20-year debt instead, is a boring, safe, and probably smart one. — Brian Chappatta 

The show "Superstore" is a window on the working class's job insecurity, low pay, and terrible hours. — Noah Smith 

Manchester United is the General Electric of soccer, and not in a good way. — Alex Webb 

ICYMI

Alan Dershowitz, Ken Starr join Trump's legal team.

Trump considers legalizing overseas bribery

Jack Dorsey asked Elon Musk how to fix Twitter.

Kickers

The crater lake in Taal Volcano in the Philippines is empty now. (h/t Ellen Kominers)

Some wolves have the ability to play fetch. (h/t Scott Kominers

Eating late may not be that bad for you. 

Human hibernation may be possible. 

Note: Please send diamonds and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net.

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