Tale of the Tape
Good evening, everyone, and Happy Friday! You finished another long week. 🎉
The four major indices got shredded. 😭 The Nasdaq held up best, but still fell 0.92%. Oof.
Bitcoin is back in the dog house. 🐶 $BTC.X traded 6.5% lower to $35,500. Ethereum gave up 8% to $2,200.
Commodities got some love after yesterday’s bloodbath. Soybeans rallied 4.8%, Corn climbed 4%, and lumber leapt 3%.
$CAI climbed 47%, $SWB soared 17%, and $SYKE spiked 30%.
All sectors slipped in today’s trading. 💔 Financials flopped 2.4% and energy erased 3%.
Here are the closing prints:
| S&P 500 | 4,166 | -1.31% |
| Nasdaq | 14,030 | –0.92% |
| Russell 2000 | 2,237 | -2.17% |
| Dow Jones | 33,290 | -1.58% |
Bye Bye, Victoria’s Secret 👋
In May, L Brands (the owner of Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works) announced a stock spinoff to list VS as a separate public company. The move comes as women say they prefer lingerie brands like Aerie or SavageFenty, claiming VS actually targets male audiences.
Victoria’s Secret is doing a branding switcheroo, too— the new ‘VS Collective’ will bring on a women-led board, including Megan Rapinoe and Priyanka Chopra Jonas. The new board intends to “build new, deeper relationships with all women.”
However, it’s unknown if they will be able to claw back market share from their competitors any time soon.
VS’ spinoff will be complete in August 2021. ‘Tis the year of inclusivity! ❤️ ✨
Cathie’s ARK
Everyone loooooves to talk about Cathie Wood.
ARK Invest’s Chief appreciated significant gains in 2020 thanks to exploding growth stocks and SPACs. 💥 ARK Invest’s AUM has more than doubled recently— Wood’s flagship $ARKK fund now manages over $20B in assets.
Lately, Wood’s having trouble meeting investors’ lofty expectations…
Only two of five actively-managed ETFs are trading up YTD. That would be the ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (+5.56%) and Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (+5%). $ARKF and $ARKQ lag the broader market: the S&P 500 is up 12.59% this year.
Cathie Wood and her colleagues are focusing on the “next five years.” They’re still bullish that innovation from growth players will help ARK outperform in the years ahead. 📈 ⏳
Time is on Wood’s side, but she has important decisions to make. After all, Goldman Sachs did say growth stocks will outperform this year.
PayPal Makes an Ultimatum
When you’re checking out, you mindlessly swipe your card. But beyond that swipe (or typing your card number online) is a series of complex events. 🧠 💰
Generally, credit card companies take a cut of each transaction. Then, the card issuer (Visa, Mastercard, etc) takes its own percentage. Some of that money goes back to you via rewards— about 2.9% + some change.
Starting today, merchants might actually lose with PayPal’s “proprietary services.” The payments giant announced plans to raise transaction fees to 3.49% plus 49 cents.
That’s about a 16% increase in transaction fees. RIP. On the other hand, $PYPL investors could have something to look forward to… assuming merchants don’t abandon PayPal.
$PYPL rose 1.89% today.
Listing Fever
Coinbase has always been slow to list. But that’s changing thanks to the launch of Coinbase’s Asset Hub. 🙌
Coinbase added seven new cryptos to its platform recently, including large-cap cryptos like Polkadot and Solana (blockchains dedicated to decentralized applications).
Polkadot and Solana were joined by a few new listings:
- Amp: a payments platform on the Ethereum Blockchain
- Chiliz: a blockchain for sports and entertainment fans
- Enzyme: a decentralized asset custodian platform for DeFi
- Keep Network: a network for storing private data on the Ethereum blockchain
- Gitcoin: a platform rewarding coders for open source projects and decentralized protocols, like web3
All coins are trading down steeply as the market contracts. 📉 The broader crypto market lost 6.4% today. 🤢
Links That Don’t Suck
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🏈 College Athletes Are Ready To Get Their Bag
🌵 West Risks Blackouts as Drought Reduces Hydroelectric Power
💣 Michael Burry Warns Retail Traders About the ‘Mother of All Crashes’
💡 China Growth Decouples From Credit, With Global Implications
🕵️♂️ UK’s ICO Warns Over ‘Big Data’ Surveillance Threat of Live Facial Recognition in Public
🌽 Goldman’s Currie Says “Buy Commodities Dip”
🎨 Ten Architecture Projects from Students at the Academy of Art University
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