The Weekend Rip: Dousing the Flame

/ Stocktwits

Tale of the Tape

Good evening and happy Father’s Day, team! We hope your weekend has offered time to recharge. 🔋

Futures for all four major indexes have bounced around in the red this weekend, which doesn’t look great. Here’s to hoping they move up by tomorrow morning!

Things don’t look much better over in crypto-land where the action never stops. Bitcoin is down over 2.5% since Friday’s close.

The Cboe Volatility Index had a hayday on Friday. 🤠 If the weakness ensues, who knows how high it’ll go. The $VIX spiked 16.6% on Friday. 

Besides the $VIX, commodity indexes were the only green in a sea of red on Friday. Grains, wheat, energy, coffee, and silver found some sauce in the rough.

Earnings are light this upcoming week. Still, we’ll see $PLUG, $WGO, and $NKE report. See more below.

And last week’s changes:

S&P 5004,166-1.93%
Nasdaq14,030–0.38%
Russell 20002,237-4.27%
Dow Jones34,290-3.43%

Collecting Coin

While traditional bank accounts are promising rock-bottom interest rates, some crypto companies are offering attractive yields. But those attractive yields, as always, come with a big asterisk. 🚨

Companies such as BlockFi, Nexo, and Celsius are selling the public on “crypto savings accounts.” In exchange for your crypto, these companies will kick back — in some cases — an interest rate that competes with even modest index fund returns. 📈

Adjacent to those companies in the blossoming world of DeFi, lending platforms such as Aave and Compound are offering a decentralized alternative. As of today, over $29.2 billion in funds are locked in DeFi lending platforms.

Both options carry some notable risks. Hackers could attack companies or exploit unaudited or vulnerable code on DeFi apps, resulting in total loss of capital. And unlike your bank paying 0.10% APY? You’re not insured by the FDIC or NCUA. 😩

But if you’re not afraid of the risks, you might be able to find the yields interesting in this wild west of finance. ✨

The Roblox Music Suit: Explained

Sandbox building game Roblox is being sued by the National Music Publishers’ Association for over $200 million in a copyright infringement suit filed on June 10. 

The suit alleges that Roblox allowed users to upload songs by popular artists such as Ed Sheeran and Imagine Dragons, which could then be played in the game. 💿🔊

The music business is a complicated one. There are many lines of income going to many different parties. You probably know well that when you listen to a song on Spotify, some of that money goes directly to the artist.

But another line of income is accrued and paid to songwriters through third-party organizations. And that’s where Roblox is in deep with the NMPA, who says the company did not obtain a license for the songs. 😲

If there’s no license, that probably means they’re not making payments, either. Roblox has likely skimped on millions in royalties, which should have been paid every time a song was played. 💸💸

It’s likely that Roblox will have to pony up for not moderating user-generated content and uploads more aggressively. However, the company is already building bridges with the industry. 

On Thursday, Roblox signed a “strategic agreement” with BMG which opens up the catalog of the “world’s fourth-biggest music company” for use on the platform.  👀

$RBLX was down 2.22% on Friday.

What Time Is It? Trading Time

The Cboe Volatility Index might have gained significant ground this week in volatile trading. However, its biggest gain might have been another piece of news.

On Tuesday, Cboe announced it would extend global trading hours for VIX and S&P 500 (SPX) options to “nearly 24 hours”, starting later this year.

The change would significantly change the hours during which Cboe traders could make money moves. Trading hours are currently 3am to 9:15am ET, but assuming that regulators approve the changes? Trading hours will run from 8:15pm to 9:15am ET.

That means a broader window of time for markets to react to what’s going on out there, which boils down to better price discovery.

The Week Ahead

Economic Calendar:

6/22 Existing Home Sales (10 AM ET)
6/24 Initial Claims (8:30 AM ET)
6/25 June Personal Income & Spending (8:30 AM ET)
6/25 PCE Prices (8:30 AM ET)

Here’s the full Economic Calendar provided by Briefing. 

Earnings Calendar:

Be sure to know when your stocks are reporting. Here’s the earnings calendar: 

Links That Don’t Suck

🔥This tech stock holds 74k BitcoinSV in treasury and is winning 30 blocks per day – Investor deck*

📊 Former Morgan Stanley Traders Have Made A Crypto Unicorn in Amber Group

🥵 Texas Residents Find Their Smart Thermostats Auto-Adjusting During Heatwave

🚗 Linus Tech Tips Reviews His “Midlife Crisis Car“, The Porsche Taycan 4S

🛍️ Amazon’s Annual Prime Day Starts At Midnight

⛽ Roadtripping In The Bay Area? Try The Food At The Gas Stations (Seriously)

💬 Slack Is Rolling Out A New Scheduled Send Feature

*this is a sponsored post