Tale of the Tape
Good evening, y’all! Happy Monday!!
The markets marched higher to start the week. 🥁 The Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.41%. The S&P 500 surged 0.99% while the Dow and Russell 2000 both turned up 0.54%.
Communications and tech cruised 1.8%, followed by real estate, energy, and consumer discretionary gaining ~1%. Utilities was the only negative sector— $XLU lost 0.20%.
Crypto cranked higher after its wild weekend. 🤠 Bitcoin almost broke above 40K while Ethereum lept ~25%.
Here’s the ETH.X daily chart:
Rumor has it Ray Dalio joined the Bitcoin bandwagon. Hear more on tonight’s episode of After Hours. 🌌
Roblox ripped another 8%. The stock has surged 37.5% since its May 10 earnings release. Sick drift. 🤙
Virgin Galactic took off. 🚀 $SPCE raced 27.62% during its second-heaviest volume day of all time. Here’s the daily chart showing today’s death-defying volume:
Beyond Meat gapped up and gained 10%. The fake meat maker received a Bernstein upgrade early this morning. 🌱
Here are the closing prints:
| S&P 500 | 4,197 | +0.99% |
| Nasdaq | 13,661 | +1.41% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,227 | +0.54% |
| Dow Jones | 34,393 | +0.54% |
Banning Bitcoin?
“Bitcoin’s greatest risk is its success.” —Billionaire investor Ray Dalio at CoinDesk’s 2021 Consensus conference.
Dalio’s pre-recorded conference interview was published today. The Bridgewater Associates Founder confessed he owns Bitcoin… he even prefers Bitcoin over bonds.
Dalio did share some concerns about crypto’s risks, though. The billionaire anticipates government involvement in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.💔 He said:
If it (Bitcoin) is successful, the government will try to kill it, and they have a lot of power to succeed.
Could international governments control/kill crypto?? Time will tell…
Airlines are Healing 🙏
Vaccines are flowing. COVID infection rates are falling. Domestic travel is sooooaring.
According to Bank of America’s weekly airline tracking service, domestic leisure flights are priced 4.4% higher now than in 2019. This is the first time leisure flight demand has topped 2019 levels since March 2020. 🥳
In April, US airlines also began hiring flight attendants and pilots for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Over the last month, United and American Airlines have reported a full recovery of leisure travel sales— United even reported summer bookings up 214% YoY.
An American Airlines spokeswoman said:
Hiring needs are due to natural attrition and greater utilization of our fleet of CRJ 700 and CRJ 900 aircraft this year.
Nature is healing. Is air travel healing too? 🤔
Green Mining in Texas 💚
We all want a sustainable crypto ecosystem. 💚 Here’s the latest development in green mining:
Compute North, an infrastructure solutions firm for crypto mining, partnered with Marathon Digital Holding (a digital asset technology company) to sustainably mine Bitcoin.
Marathon will house ~73,000 Bitcoin mining rigs in Compute North’s 300-megawatt Texas data center.
The best part? Marathon’s Texas operations are expected to be 70% carbon neutral!!
This is great news for crypto in spite of China’s crackdown and concerns over unsustainable mining. 😪
Earnings Round-Up
Lordstown Motors miserably missed on earnings, and reported no revenue. 😬 The EV maker will need to raise additional capital to complete its business plans.
Here are the stats:
EPS: ($0.72) vs ($0.25) est.
Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns said:
We secured a number of critical parts and equipment in advance, so we are still in a position to ramp the Endurance, but we do need additional capital to execute on our plans. We believe we have several opportunities to raise capital in various forms and have begun those discussions.
$RIDE declined 9.3% after hours. Oof.
PGA Championship
What an exciting weekend for the golf world. 🙌🏌
Phil The Thrill never ceases to amaze. Mickelson made history yesterday as he became the oldest golfer ever (age 50) to win a major championship.
Phil duked it out against Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen. Set at the gnarly Ocean Course of Kiawah Island, SC, Lefty ignited his round with a timely birdie hole-out at hole 5.
He brought home his sixth major championship, and it looked like a scene from a movie. 🥂 🏆 Congrats on the win, Phil!!
Earnings This Week
Be sure to know when your stocks report earnings. Here’s the earnings calendar.
Links That Don’t Suck
🔋 Swedish University Develops Lightweight Structural Battery Using Carbon Fiber
🎈 These Shoe Soles Are Made of Discarded Party Balloons
🔎 The Wuhan Lab Leak Question: A Disused Chinese Mine Takes Center Stage
🏘️ Did HGTV Ruin the Housing Market For Millennials?
💵 Points and Figures: Digital US Dollars
😂 Phil Mickelson’s Mom Is An All-Time Texter And Gave Some Excellent Mid-Round Advice Regarding His Sexy Calves
💭 Time to Retire the Word ‘Homeless’ and Opt for ‘Houseless’ or ‘Unhoused’ Instead?
