Around the world

It’s incredible how much fun you could get out of these as a kid. From rockin’ the baby to looping-the-loop, you wanted to learn all the tricks. Your folks probably told you to give the loops a rest, but walking the dog was usually a safe-bet 🤣

Even if you don’t have a yo-yo or a dog to walk, the health benefits of walking can’t be understated. Whether you already do it regularly or not, here are five easy tips to help you up your game. 

It’s way-oh-way-oh good for you ;)

(Love nostalgia? Play today’s trivia below for a chance to win a $25 Amazon eGift Card!)

Wow! 100K Stakers in our community. Thank you! We are on our way to achieving our mission — ‘better everything for the next wave of retirees’. Strength in numbers? You bet. Now let’s get our voices heard.

We’re inviting you to join our research panel* so you can share your thoughts, insights, experiences, and opinions. Participation is free and you can get started by completing the survey below.

In July of 2015, Amazon managed to overtake Walmart’s market cap, the first major milestone in terms of its ability to compete with the gold standard of corporate America. Perhaps most impressive about the achievement was Amazon doing so despite drawing around 20% of the revenue Walmart did at the time.

How did it manage this feat while still ten years away from overtaking Walmart in quarterly revenue? A long-term growth strategy that convinced big time investors that if they should be bullish on anything, it should be Amazon.

Those investments will pay dividends this month—both figuratively and literally—as Amazon’s Q4 revenue of $187.8 billion will outpace Walmart’s $180 billion, according to analysts.

Profit-wise, Amazon has been outflanking Walmart for the last six-or-so quarters, thanks in large part to its operational supremacy in digital web services and cloud storage, but also because its business is so diverse and involved in so many industries, it continues to attract new investors that see long-term upside.

As of last quarter, Amazon was raking in over $21 billion in net income, compared to Walmart’s $4.58 billion.

Everyone wants to look fit, but aside from the vanity play strength training is also a great way to maintain prospects of enjoyable longevity, according to Karl Knopf, a seniors’ fitness expert and consultant in Santa Cruz, California.

“People think that if I go out and golf once a week, that’s all the exercise I need,” but that’s not the case, he says. “Aerobic exercise is great, but you need some component of flexibility, strength training and balance. If you get stronger, your balance is going to improve. You’re going to be able to walk and do activities of daily living because you’ve built strength.”

Put another way, plenty of folks would love to spend every day of the week golfing during retirement, but Knopf’s point is that strength and balance training will help keep the body in reasonable shape for almost anything—including golf!

One of the key messages he conveys to his clients is the age-old wisdom of “use it or lose it.”

There’s no stopping father time, and according to Knopf, muscle mass will start diminishing much faster after 60 and be half gone by 75 if not actively engaged on a regular basis.

Cardio exercise is certainly important for heart health, but don’t forget to love the muscular system as well.

Cannabidiol (CBD) may be the future of painkillers and anxiety medications, given the almost perfect match between it and a cell receptor in human bodies called cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1), a protein that regulates pain, mood, appetite, and memory.

One major upside, according to experts, is that CBD isn’t tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in pot that gets you high, possibly eliminating one of the risks associated with prescribing medical marijuana.

Hundreds if not thousands of studies are underway to further understand the effects of both THC and CBD on the body, and to harness the good of each while mitigating the bad when it comes to medicine.

For example, THC binds to CB1 and “turns off” the pain function, whereas CBD “dims” it. This is important because the former is the type of neurological mechanism that can lead to addictive dependency, whereas the latter can be managed and controlled.

“The 2018 Farm Bill passage effectively opened a Pandora’s box of research challenges,” said Amar Chittiboyina, principal scientist and associate director of the National Center for Natural Products at the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy.

“CBD’s use proliferated across a wide spectrum, from pain management and recreational purposes to seemingly endless other applications. However, the fundamental question lies in understanding how CBD works on various targets and exerts its perceived effects at the molecular level,” commented Chittiboyina.

When Netflix ordered the Prince documentary in 2018 and hired Ezra Edelman to direct it, he was asked to provide six hours of content. He ended up delivering nine hours, plenty of which were reportedly controversial enough to stir up disapproval from the Prince estate.

After years of dispute, Netflix concluded the delivery of nine hours was a breach of contract, allowing the Prince estate to contest the release of the documentary, which it has now successfully done.

According to one representative of the estate, releasing the show would have done “generational harm to Prince,” saying the lack of sufficient fact-checking was too much for the estate to approve.

“The Prince Estate and Netflix have come to a mutual agreement that will allow the estate to develop and produce a new documentary featuring exclusive content from Prince’s archive,” Netflix told Variety on Feb. 6. “As a result, the Netflix documentary will not be released.”

We all had a few niche records back in the day, but many of the albums that wound up in your collection were the ones that simply sold more copies.

With today’s album trivia, we’re throwing it back to some of Billboard’s best-performing albums of the ’80s. Complete the game and earn a shot at a $25 Amazon eGift Card ;)

Winner will be notified tomorrow afternoon—keep an eye on your inbox!**

Have a great day ahead Staker!

Today’s issue written by Michael Cowan, Joey Cowan, and Maureen Norman.


*LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR RESEARCH PANEL HERE.

**SEE FULL STAKE TRIVIA CONTEST RULES HERE.