Intersting thoughts

[NorthernStar]

Bozzie:

Business is booming in the solar industry. I sold a 7 figure project earlier this month and have another one on the table this week. If you went back 5 years ago in this market there were not any projects of this size. I get calls for people asking me to bid on projects that are $100 million and larger. We are just not big enough to take on something like that. There are 3 companies in Minnesota that are doing projects that size though. A business can invest in solar and get their money back in 3 to 6 years. The price of electricity is going up at a rate much faster than inflation across the country. Our largest provider in Minnesota just asked the PUC for a 20% rate increase over 3 years. I met with one of their executives for lunch and in public they say they want to go green. They want to build large solar arrays and wind farms to sell electricity to their customers. Privately they call solar the death spiral. Price of solar keeps coming down and price of electricity keeps going up. People buy their own solar system....fewer customers to support the grid and the price of electricity goes up....more buy solar.

People dont like change but the world is changing. They will have to start charging larger monthly fees. So the next step would be people cutting the cord and getting rid of the electric company all together. In southern states this will be easier because of the production curve is similar month to month. Northern states this will be more difficult. We produce so little in the winter months. Probably would need batteries and backup generator to make sure you have enough power. Battery technology is coming fast. Tesla has a good battery but not made for off grid and I cant buy Tesla. Genrac has a good generator and their stock has done well (but everything has done well).

I have both ENPH and SEDG. I will probably add more with the investment tax credit extended for two more years. I just see them having strong business for the next 3-5 years. You would have to be really screw it up with the amount of business they have available.

On the panel side of things. Jinko is the largest in the world. They make them in places other than China too. We had a 5 megawatt shipment and they came from Vietnam. They have a plant in Florida too. They make a good workhorse panel. The other thing they do for big projects is they dont miss shipment dates. If they agree to have panels their on June 1 they are there. Many of the competitors miss dates all of the time. For large projects they have the highest bankability score. They are another one to look at.

I am still working on the glass manufacturers. The only thing I have found requires an international account. Not sure how much of a pain that is to setup and fund.

I just think overall solar is still in diapers and there is a ton of upside growth still. I would put the solar stocks into the buy and forget portfolio for at least 5 years.

Hope that helped.

Northern Star

 

[Bozzie]

Amazing Info Northern star...tops..Thank you.
The" 5 years and forget it" is what I like doing.
We bought a broken down 20 acer farm..11 bids we won with a cash offer and the guaranty we'd keep one of their cows who's more of a pet.
It's a mess (SO much junk) but has solid house.. amazing south facing hillside with two gushing wells..Had the well test's yesterday 10 gallons a minute and 12 on the other for flows ... We're looking at it as a 5 year flip ... it'll be beautiful again some day and we believe worth a lot more

Anyone ever shopped tractors?..Overwhelming actually.

Global Market Comments December 22, 2020 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (A CHRISTMAS STORY), (MY FAVORITE SECRET ECONOMIC INDICATOR)

​ A Christmas Story When I was growing up in Los Angles during the fifties, the most exciting day of the year was when my dad took me to buy a Christmas tree.With its semi-desert climate, Southern California offered pine trees that were scraggly at best, and we didn’t want to chop down the view that we had. So the Southern Pacific Railroad made a big deal out of bringing trees down from much better endowed Oregon to supply local holiday revelers. You had to go down to the freight yard at Union Station on Alameda Street to pick them up. I remember a jolly Santa standing in a boxcar with trees piled high to the ceiling, pungent with seasonal evergreen smells, handing them out to crowds of eager, smiling buyers for a buck apiece. Watching great lumbering steam engines as big as houses whistling and belching smoke was enthralling. We took our prize home to be decorated by seven kids hyped on adrenalin, chugging eggnog. A half-century later, the Southern Pacific is gone, the steam engines are in museums, anyone going near a rail yard would be mugged or arrested for vagrancy, and Dad long ago passed away. Dried out trees at Target for $30 didn’t strike the right chord. So I bundled the kids into the SUV and drove to the Eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, on the Nevada side, US Forest Service tree-cutting permit in hand. Deep in the forest at 8,000 feet, the kids made the decision about which perfect ten-footer to take home. I personally chopped it down and dragged it along the ridge huffing and pugging all the way. I then tied it to the roof and drove us home. I netted three trees that day, one for each home, and one for my oldest daughter. I figure I saved myself $600 (the permits were $10 each). With any luck, these memories will last until the next century, long outlasting me. Now the story really comes full circle. I was in Portland, Oregon a few years ago, and had some free time to kill. So, I wandered across the river to the Oregon Rail Heritage Center. What do I see but Southern Pacific engine no. 4449, the exact same locomotive I marveled at in LA 60 years ago, all decked out in its glorious orange and red paint. It was like discovering a long lost family member. The 435-ton, 72-year-old behemoth was being rebuilt from the ground up by a dedicated team of similarly aged volunteers to serve as the city’s Christmas train in 2014. For the link to the museum, please click here. Union Pacific still maintains in running condition some of the largest steam engines ever built for historical and public relations purposes. One, the “Old 844” once steamed its way over the High Sierras to San Francisco on a nostalgia tour. The 120-ton behemoth was built during WWII to haul heavy loads of steel, ammunition, and armaments to California ports to fight the war against Japan. The 4-8-4-class engine could pull 26 passenger cars at 100 mph. When the engine passed, I felt the blast of heat of the boiler singe my face. No wonder people love these things! To watch the video, please click here and hit the “PLAY” arrow in the lower left-hand corner. Please excuse the shaky picture. I shot this with one hand while using my other hand to restrain my over-excited kids from running on to the tracks to touch the laboring beast. Merry Christmas John Thomas [h=2] Long Time No See, Old Friend[/h] ​ ​ ​

​ My Favorite Secret Economic Indicator It is the end of the school year at the University of California at Berkeley, and the unenviable task of moving my son, a senior, out of his hovel for the holidays fell to me.When I arrived, I was stunned to find nothing less than a war zone. Both sides of every street were lined with mountains of trash, the unwanted flotsam and jetsam cast aside by departing students. Computer desk, embarrassingly stained mattresses, broken lava lamps, and an assortment of heavily worn Ikea furniture were there for the taking. Newly arriving students were sifting through the piles looking for that reusable gem. Diminutive Chinese teenagers were seen pushing massive suitcases on wheels down the sidewalk on their way back to Shanghai, Beijing, and Hong Kong. The university attempted to bring order to the chaos by strategically placing dumpsters on every block, but they were rapidly filled to overflowing. It was all worth it because of the insight it gave me into one of my favorite, least-known leading economic indicators. When I picked up the truck at U-HAUL, the lot was absolutely packed with returned vehicles, and there were more parked on both sides of the streets. The booking agent told me there is a massive influx of people moving into California from the Midwest and the Northwest, with the result that lots all over the San Francisco Bay Area are filled to capacity. I love this company because in addition to providing a great service, they get the first indication of any changes to the migratory habits of Americans. The last time I saw this happen was after the dotcom bust when thousands of tech-savvy newly unemployed pulled up stakes in the foggy city and moved to Lake Tahoe to work in “the cloud.” Bottom line: California is enjoying a resurgence of hiring and new economic growth. This is what the stock market is seeing that you and I can’t. ​ [h=2] Want a Great Deal on a Used Lava Lamp?[/h]​ ​

Quote of the Day “This isn’t a choice between vanilla and chocolate, folks! It’s all rocky road: a few marshmallows to get you excited before the elections, but with a lot of nuts to ruin the aftermath,” said the ever insightful Bill Gross at PIMCO.

​

 

[Bozzie]

Man this is promising if you're invested in China


https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-global-economic-forecast-2050/

 

[Bozzie]

Up another 8 % today at 164.00..DNA storage validity got a big boost today.

https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=TWST

 

[CoachCB]

Man this is promising if you're invested in China


https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-global-economic-forecast-2050/

When you say 'invested in China', what exactly are you talking about?

 

[Bozzie]

Chinese equity or ETFs but long..it's been rough lately CB.
Again I'll take my chances on a growing middle class of 1.400 billion people ..I like companies serving all tiers of Chinese cities.
As much as the CCP would hate to admit it BABA is serving what state run companies could never do efficiently ..Infrastructure. In BABAs case less hard infrastructure and more logistical infrastructure.. the movement of goods without warehousing the goods like amazon. JD is more alined with amazons model and also fills logistics voids in China, some things as basic as cold warehousing ...Private enterprise is winning but more than that the CCP is dependent in a sense on western style free enterprise now.... It's a battle thought, I'm betting long on the"Opportunity cost" of inefficient state run companies losing over streamlined bottom line sensitive free enterprise in China.

Take a look at start run Chineses companies the default rates are alarming. Big trouble? BABA's Ma wasn't wrong in poking Chinese state run banks but it was a dumb move. Crushing actually..Again it's a lot of friction between the state and free enterprise in china, I've seen a lot of smart people dipping out of China recently..I think it's spring loaded but hasn't run yet.

https://www.china-briefing.com/news/chinas-city-tier-classification-defined/

Melt down style implosion in state run companies

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/20/china-bond-defaults-by-state-owned-firms-spark-concerns.html


Time moves fast fortunately and unfortunately 5 years is nothing for an investment in an equity...Apparently I'm old fashion in that way.

 

[CoachCB]

Thanks Boz. So, other than BABA, are there any companies to keep an eye on?

 

[Bozzie]

Happy holidays CB

DJ/ TENCENT/BAIDU/ NETEASE



https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/?symbol=MNKKQ

Watching this over the past few days..The liquidity and price have dropped some but this will pop again on any half way decent news.
Hoping for the low 20's as an entry here this week. Warning you could get nailed trading this it's being tracked by flippers (Day traders)

 

[Bozzie]

[FONT=Yahoo Sans Finance, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif]You are starting to see a lot of this sorta opinion on BABA...I'm holding.[/FONT]



[FONT=Yahoo Sans Finance, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif]"Since Tencent's forward p/e of 74x and JD's of 34.5x belies the notion there is a "China discount" for all Chinese stocks, let's refer to what is going on with BABA by a more appropriate name, the Alibaba discount. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]With a YoY earnings growth trajectory over 20% through 2022, an expected CAGR in the mid teens for the next 5 years, exceptional margins, and around $50B (US) on the balance sheet the question of whether the discount is justified on fundamental grounds has been asked and answered...................NO.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]So what gives? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The easy answer is Ma being in Beijing's crosshairs. But is that it? If internet regulation was the culprit why does JD sport a p/e almost twice BABA's (34.5x compared to 20.4x)? Not to mention the fact that BABA has always traded at a multiple far below other tech/retail giants. Is it concerns over accounting? Arguably not, seeing as BABA's reports are prepared by a respected international firm in a manner exactly the same as US companies. Plus, accounting concerns don't seem to apply to JD and Tencent, so.........[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Why the discount then? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]What I'm asking myself is..........does it matter? Cuz the reality is it's there. And there is no reason to believe it's going away. So as investors we all need to ask ourselves are we willing to put up with a stock that will always be grossly under valued? Are we willing to deal with a stock having no understanding of what the valuation will be from month to month because it is irrational? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Personally, I'm going to wait to see how the stock reacts to the next earnings report in Feb. If it can't get to a level around $280 by then AND HOLD THAT LEVEL, I'll be looking for a stock I can wrap my head around. Not one that I have no idea where it is going regardless of financial performance."[/FONT]

 

[Bozzie]

Best of..good one.

Global Market Comments
December 23, 2020
Fiat LuxFeatured Trade:(THE EIGHT WORST TRADES IN HISTORY)

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The Eight Worst Trades in History

As you are all well aware, I have long been a history buff. I am particularly fond of studying the history of my own avocation, trading, in the hope that the past errors of others will provide insights into the future.History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes.
So after decades of research on the topic, I thought I would provide you with a list of the eight worst trades in history. Some of these are subjective, some are judgment calls, but all are educational. And I do personally know many of the individuals involved.
Here they are for your edification, in no particular order. You will notice a constantly recurring theme of hubris.
1) Ron Wayne’s sales of 10% of Apple (AAPL) for $800 in 1976
Say you owned 10% of Apple (AAPL) and you sold it for $800 in 1976. What would that stake be worth today? Try $120 billion. That is the harsh reality that Ron Wayne, 86, faces every morning when he wakes up, one of the three original founders of the consumer electronics giant.
Ron first met Steve Jobs when he was a spritely 21-year-old marketing guy at Atari, the inventor of the hugely successful “Pong” video arcade game.
Ron dumped his shares when he became convinced that Steve Jobs’ reckless spending was going to drive the nascent startup into the ground and he wanted to protect his own assets in a future bankruptcy.
Co-founders Jobs and Steve Wozniak each kept their original 45% ownership. Today, Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powel Jobs, has a 0.5% ownership in Apple worth $4 billion, while the value of Woz’s share remains undisclosed.
Today, Ron is living off of a meager monthly Social Security check in remote Pahrump, Nevada, about as far out in the middle of nowhere as you can get where he can occasionally be seen playing the penny slots.

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2) AOL's 2001 Takeover of Time Warner
Seeking to gain dominance in the brave new online world, Gerald Levin pushed old-line cable TV and magazine conglomerate, Time Warner, to pay $164 billion to buy upstart America Online in 2001. AOL CEO, Steve Case, became chairman of the new entity. Blinded by greed, Levin was lured by the prospect of 130 million big-spending new customers.
It was not meant to be.
The wheels fell off almost immediately. The promised synergies never materialized. The Dotcom Crash vaporized AOL’s business the second the ink was dry. Then came a big recession and the Second Gulf War. By 2002, the value of the firm’s shares cratered from $226 billion to $20 billion.
The shareholders got wiped out, including “Mouth of the South” Ted Turner. That year, the firm announced a $99 billion loss as the goodwill from the merger was written off, the largest such loss in corporate history. Time Warner finally spun off AOL in 2009, ending the agony.
Steve Case walked away with billions and is now an active venture capitalist. Gerald Levin left a pauper and is occasionally seen as a forlorn guest on talk shows. The deal is widely perceived to be the worst corporate merger in history.

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Buy High, Sell Low?
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3) Bank of America's Purchase of Countrywide Savings in 2008
Bank of America’s CEO Ken Lewis thought he was getting the deal of the century picking up aggressive subprime lender, Countrywide Savings, for a bargain $4.1 billion, a “rare opportunity.”
As a result, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo pocketed several hundred million dollars. Then the financial system collapsed, and suddenly we learned about liar loans, zero money down, and robo-signing of loan documents.
Bank of America’s shares plunged by 95%, wiping out $500 billion in market capitalization. The deal saddled (BAC) with liability for Countrywide’s many sins, ultimately, paying out $40 billion in endless fines and settlements to aggrieved regulators and shareholders.
Ken Lewis was quickly put out to pasture, cashing in on an $83 million golden parachute, and is now working on his golf swing. Mozilo had to pay a number of out-of-court settlements, but was able to retain a substantial fortune, and is still walking around free.
The nicely tanned Mozilo is also working on his golf swing.

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4) The 1973 Sale of All Star Wars Licensing and Merchandising Rights by 20th Century Fox for Free
In 1973, my former neighbor George Lucas approached 20th Century Fox Studios with the idea for the blockbuster film, Star Wars. It was going to be his next film after American Graffiti which had been a big hit earlier that year.
While Lucas was set for a large raise for his directing services – from $150,000 for American Graffiti to potentially $500,000 for Star Wars – he had a different twist ending in mind. Instead of asking for the full $500,000 directing fee, he offered a discount: $350,000 off in return for the unlimited rights to merchandising and any sequels.
Fox executives agreed, figuring that the rights were worthless, and fearing that the timing might not be right for a science fiction film.
In hindsight, their decision seems ridiculously short-sighted.
Since 1977, the Star Wars franchise has generated about $27 billion in revenue, leaving George Lucas with a net worth of over $3 billion by 2012. In 2012, Disney paid Lucas an additional $4 billion to buy the rights to the franchise.
The initial budget for Star Wars was a pittance at $8 million, a big sum for an unproven film. So, saving $150,000 on production costs was no small matter, and Fox thought it was hedging its bets.
George once told me that he had a problem with depressed actors on the set while filming. Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher thought the plot was stupid and the costumes silly.
Today, it is George Lucas who is laughing all the way to the bank.

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$150,000 for What?
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5) Lehman Brothers Entry Into the Bond Derivatives Market in the 2000s
I hated the 2000s because it was clear that men with lesser intelligence were using other people’s money to hyper leverage their own personal net worth. The money wasn’t the point. The quantities of cash involved were so humongous they could never be spent. It was all about winning points in a game with the CEOs of the other big Wall Street institutions.
CEO Richard Fuld could have come out of central casting as a stereotypical bad guy. He even once offered me a job which I wisely turned down. Fuld took his firm’s leverage ratio up to 100 times in an extended reach for obscene profits. This meant that a 1% drop in the underlying securities would entirely wipe out its capital.
That’s exactly what happened, and 10,000 employees lost their jobs, sent packing with their cardboard boxes with no notice. It was a classic case of a company piling on more risk to compensate for the lack of experience and intelligence. This only ends one way.
Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS) drew the line at 40 times leverage and are still around today but just by the skin of their teeth, thanks to the TARP.
Fuld has spent much of the last five years ducking in and out of depositions in protracted litigation. Lehman issued public bonds only months before the final debacle, and how he has stayed out of jail has amazed me. Today he works as an independent consultant. On what I have no idea.

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Out of Central Casting​

6) The Manhasset Indians' Sale of Manhattan to the Dutch in 1626
Only a single original period document mentions anything about the purchase of Manhattan. This letter states that the island was bought from the Indians for 60 Dutch guilders worth of trade goods which would consist of axes, iron kettles, beads, and wool clothing.
No record exists of exactly what the mix was. Indians were notoriously shrewd traders and would not have been fooled by worthless trinkets.
The original letter outlining the deal is today kept at a museum in the Netherlands. It was written by a merchant, Pieter Schagen, to the directors of the West India Company (owners of New Netherlands) and is dated 5 November 1626.
He mentions that the settlers “have bought the island of Manhattes from the savages for a value of 60 guilders.” That’s it. It doesn’t say who purchased the island or from whom they purchased it, although it was probably the local Lenape tribe.
Historians often point out that North American Indians had a concept of land ownership different from that of the Europeans. The Indians regarded land, like air and water, as something you could use but not own or sell. It has been suggested that the Indians may have thought they were sharing, not selling.
It is anyone’s guess what Manhattan is worth today. Just my old two-bedroom 34th-floor apartment at 400 East 56th Street is now worth $2 million. Better think in the trillions.

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7) Napoleon's 1803 Sale of the Louisiana Purchase to the United States
Invading Europe is not cheap, as Napoleon found out, and he needed some quick cash to continue his conquests. What could be more convenient than unloading France’s American colonies to the newly founded United States for a tidy $7 million? A British naval blockade had made them all but inaccessible anyway.
What is amazing is that president Thomas Jefferson agreed to the deal without the authority to do so, lacking permission from Congress, and with no money. What lies beyond the Mississippi River then was unknown.
Many Americans hoped for a waterway across the continent while others thought dinosaurs might still roam there. Jefferson just took a flyer on it. It was up to the intrepid explorers, Lewis and Clark, to find out what we bought.
Sound familiar? Without his bold action, the middle 15 states of the country would still be speaking French, smoking Gitanes, and getting paid in Euros.
After Waterloo in 1815, the British tried to reverse the deal and claim the American Midwest for themselves. It took Andrew Jackson’s (see the $20 bill) surprise win at the Battle of New Orleans to solidify the US claim.
The value of the Louisiana Purchase today is incalculable. But half of a country that creates $17 trillion in GDP per year and is still growing would be worth quite a lot.

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Great General, Lousy Trader​

8) The John Thomas Family Sale of Nantucket Island in 1740
Yes, my own ancestors are to be included among the worst traders in history. My great X 12 grandfather, a pioneering venture capitalist investor of the day from England, managed to buy the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts from the Indians for three ax heads and a sheep in the mid-1600s. Barren, windswept, and distant, it was considered worthless.
Two generations later, my great X 10 grandfather decided to cut his risk and sell the land to local residents just ahead of the Revolutionary War. Some 17 of my ancestors fought in that war including the original John Thomas who served on George Washington’s staff at the harsh winter encampment at Valley Forge during 1777-78. Maybe that’s why I have an obsession about not wasting food?
By the early 19th century, a major whaling industry developed on Nantucket fueling the lamps of the world with smoke-free fuel. By then, our family name was “Coffin,” which is still abundantly found on the headstones of the island’s cemeteries.
One Coffin even saw his ship, the Essex, rammed by a whale and sunk in the Pacific in 1821. He was eaten by fellow crewmembers after spending 99 days adrift in an open lifeboat. Maybe that’s why I have an obsession about not wasting food?
In the 1840s, a young itinerant writer named Herman Melville visited Nantucket and heard the Essex story. He turned it into a massive novel about a mysterious rogue white whale, Moby Dick, which has been torturing English literature students ever since. Our family name, Coffin, is mentioned seven times in the book.
Nantucket is probably worth many tens of billions of dollars today as a playground for the rich and famous. Just a decent beachfront cottage there rents for $50,000 a week in the summer.
The 2015 Ron Howard film, The Heart of the Sea, is breathtaking. Just be happy you never worked on a 19th-century sailing ship.
Yes, it’s all true and documented.

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Hi Grandpa!​

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Quote of the Day

“It’s really dangerous to look for rationality in the market, so much of it is psychology…. Stocks will rotate from flawless to hopeless,” said Howard Marks of Oaktree Capital Management.

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[Bozzie]

I'd add this to the list of bad trades at least here.

http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=284463

 

[Bozzie]

Brutalized BABA down on china crack down 13%. 222.00

Not sure how you'd play this..I'll hold for now.

 

[Bozzie]

Same company it was in oct @ 318..The upside is only limited by the CCP.
In the end the CCP wants and needs Tech that can compete with the West..A lot of this is rhetoric IMO.
You're seeing a huge shift in retail to institutional holders...Wealth transfers happening today.
CCP meeting with BABA over ANT witch is good. I think the BABA spankings are done for a bit.

I'm holding, no panic here but that wasn't fun this AM although I saw the story last night on the times ticker and was worried....I'll buy a bit more over the next few days.

NYT

With Alibaba Investigation, China Gets Tougher on Tech


Jack Ma and other entrepreneurs prospered under Beijing’s laissez-faire attitude toward the business side of the internet. The dynamic is shifting as the companies have grown in power.

• Published Dec. 23, 2020Updated Dec. 24, 2020, 9:57 a.m. ET

阅读简体中文版閱讀繁體中文版

China’s internet giants came to dominate segments of the world’s No. 2 economy because Beijing’s authoritarian government largely looked the other way while they grew and grew.
Now the companies have the regulators’ full attention.
The country’s market watchdog said on Thursday that it had opened an investigation into whether the e-commerce group Alibaba had engaged in monopolistic practices, such as restricting vendors from selling merchandise on other platforms. Separately on Thursday, four Chinese financial regulatory agencies, including the central bank, said they would meet soon with Ant Group, Alibaba’s finance-focused sister company, to discuss new supervision.

The stepped-up scrutiny of Alibaba and Ant — the pillars of the business empire of Jack Ma, China’s most famous tycoon — coincides with efforts by the United States and European Union to curb the power of Western internet powerhouses such as Googleand Facebook. Frustration has been building for years in Washington and Brussels over the outsize influence that a few tech companies wield over commerce, speech and advertising across a vast swath of the globe.
China has produced its own crop of powerful internet titans, and they have been celebrated as icons of the nation’s technological advancement. The government kept a tight grip on what people read and said on these platforms. But the authorities were less responsive to concerns about the companies’ size and clout, even as the businesses reached deeper into the lives of ordinary peoplein China than the American internet giants have elsewhere.

Apart from Alibaba and Ant, China’s leading internet groups include JD.com and Pinduoduo in digital commerce; Tencent in gaming, social media and mobile payments; ByteDance in short-form entertainment; Didi Chuxing in ride hailing; and Meituan in food delivery. Some of them, like Alibaba, have shares that trade in New York or Hong Kong. Global venture capitalists and investors have made fortunes off their success.

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On Thursday, People’s Daily, the main newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, swiftly endorsed the inquiry into Alibaba in an article that appeared to be a sign of broader backing and coordination behind the move.
“This is an important step in strengthening antimonopoly oversight in the internet sphere,” the article said. “This will be beneficial to regulating an orderly sector and promoting the long-term healthy development of platforms.”
Alibaba’s New York-listed shares fell about 12 percent on Thursday.
Alibaba said that it would cooperate with regulators and that its businesses were operating normally in the meantime. Ant said that it would “seriously study and strictly comply with all regulatory requirements and commit full efforts to fulfill all related work.”
Frank Fine, the head of international antitrust and data privacy at DeHeng Law Offices, said that acting against big internet platforms in the United States, China and Europe will come with significant challenges.

“There’s going to be a certain reluctance to harm these very successful companies, which have huge ecosystems that are responsible for thousands of employees,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of pulling hair, pulling teeth, trying to figure out, ‘OK, we have to do something. What’s it going to be?’”

Beijing’s pushback against Big Tech erupted out into the open last month, when officials halted Ant’s long-awaited initial public offering just days before its shares had been expected to begin trading. The move came after Mr. Ma, who is by some counts China’s richest man, publicly accused Chinese regulators of being too obsessed with containing financial risk.​

Ant’s Alipay app has become an indispensable payment tool for hundreds of millions of people in China, but regulators have been wary of the company’s growing influence in small loans and credit products. The group’s I.P.O. had been on course to be the largest in history.
The week after the listing was delayed, China’s market regulator released proposed rules aimed at combating anticompetitive behavior by internet companies. The regulations covered practices including using a platform’s power to collect unnecessary data on users and locking users into specific platforms by making it hard for them to switch to others.
Business & Economy
Latest Updates

Updated Dec. 23, 2020, 8:59 a.m. ETDec. 23, 2020
Dec. 23, 2020

• Extension of federal jobless benefits may not prevent a brief lapse.
• Frustration rises at Britain’s ports over clearing a logjam of thousands of trucks.
• How the aid bill changes the food stamp program.

Alibaba is a Goliath by any measure in China. More than 750 million people — equivalent to over half of the country’s population — shopped on its platforms in the 12 months that ended in September. The group’s main marketplaces are Taobao, where merchants set up electronic stands to sell to customers, and Tmall, which caters to larger Chinese and global brands.
Unlike the United States, where antitrust laws are over a century old, China has had an antimonopoly law only since 2008. Before now, the most prominent antimonopoly cases in China had been brought against foreign companies such as the American chip maker Qualcomm, which paid a $975 million fine in 2015.
Earlier this month, China’s market regulator said that Alibaba and two other companies had violated the law by failing to report some recent acquisitions. The penalty was modest: a fine of around $75,000 for each company.

The new investigation could be a much bigger deal. China’s antimonopoly law allows for a maximum fine of 10 percent of a company’s sales from the previous year, which in Alibaba’s case would be billions of dollars.
In its brief statement announcing the inquiry on Thursday, the State Administration for Market Regulation named only one specific form of anticompetitive conduct by Alibaba that it would look into: exclusivity agreements, which in Chinese are described using a phrase that translates as “choose one of two.”
Large e-commerce sites in China have for years been accused of blocking merchants who sell on their platform from selling on others, particularly during big sales events such as Singles Day. One of Alibaba’s main rivals, JD.com, has fought the company in court over the practice.
Galanz, a Chinese appliance maker, made headlines last year when it accused Tmall of suppressing its products in the platform’s search results after the brand partnered with a rival e-commerce company, Pinduoduo. Tmall denied the accusations, according to news reports at the time.
Cutthroat practices of this sort have long been common on the Chinese internet. Tencent, for instance, will block people using its popular WeChat messaging service from directly opening links to Alibaba’s Taobao site — the equivalent of Facebook blocking links to Amazon within its Messenger app.
“On a very, very macro level, maybe it’s just because these companies are not competing globally,” said Rui Ma, an investor and China tech analyst. Because the Chinese internet giants are jostling for advantages mostly within a single market, “it seems like more of a zero-sum game,” she said.
Political insiders and investors in China have speculated for years that the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, might be tempted to move against Mr. Ma, worried that his influence was a growing affront to the Communist Party.

Two recent party leadership meetings hinted that Mr. Xi was considering action.
The Politburo, a council of the party’s top 25 officials that meets every month or so, called for stronger antimonopoly efforts when it met this month, though the official statement from the meeting did not specify any companies or sectors. That call was followed a few days later by an even clearer demand from the party leadership’s annual meeting on economic policy, which hinted that internet platform companies would face greater scrutiny.
Mr. Ma’s remarks railing against financial regulation, delivered at a conference in October in Shanghai, appear to have helped galvanize officials into putting Ant and Alibaba in their place.
“In Chinese culture, if you are a rich guy and you have very strong economic power and social influence, then you are politically dangerous and you need to keep a very low profile to be safe,” said Gary Liu, an independent economist in Shanghai.
People in China see Ant as a major beneficiary of the authorities’ cautious approach toward regulating internet finance. “But still, he was complaining,” Mr. Liu said of Mr. Ma. “In Chinese culture, that kind of person is not respected.”
Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher contributed reporting. Liu Yi and Lin Qiqing contributed research.

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[CoachCB]

I'm traveling to Florida today, just got off the plane and saw the BABA. Ooooof! I bought 7 more shares at $213.

 

[Bozzie]

I'm traveling to Florida today, just got off the plane and saw the BABA. Ooooof! I bought 7 more shares at $213.

Unreal and it's a deal.

Good move CB.. have fun a great time in Florida .

 

[Bozzie]

I'm traveling to Florida today, just got off the plane and saw the BABA. Ooooof! I bought 7 more shares at $213.

Nice move 233.00 up today nicely...I'm not too worried about BABA despite the headwinds.
Twist down big today...137 sold a good amount at 147.00 still wishing for a dump.
Bought a bit more AVDL on the dip +25 dollar on a take out eventually ..holding LLNW trading x2 and acting pathetic.
Holding DJ and Tencent...

Looking at northern stars recommends for after the 20th...

Not a lot of time for this these days..closing on a farm next week and gearing up.

Be well fellas

LISTEN TO TODAY'S PODCAST AVAILABLE AT 8AM ON: ​ ​ ​ Top News Record Highs​ ​ ​ Shutterstock​ ​ More stock records seem to be in store for today, with futures ahead by 0.5%, after the signing of a COVID relief bill that lifted reopening plays like cruise lines, airlines and casinos. Megacaps led the major averages on Monday, while nine of the 11 S&P sectors ended in the green amid continuing support for the Santa Claus rally. "The market right now is clearly foaming at the mouth," said Charlie McElligott, a market analyst with Nomura Securities, though the rapid gains seen this year are dividing some investors on how to proceed in 2021. The S&P 500 is up 15.6% for the year and the Dow has advanced 6.5%, while the Nasdaq has soared more than 43% despite the pandemic. The bears: Ominous parallels have been made between this market and the internet bubble, and a correction could at least be in the cards. Valuations are also stretched beyond memory with margin debt at records, while traditional stock metrics and fundamentals have gone out the window. Runaway shares for recent IPOs like DoorDash (NYSE:DASH), Airbnb (NASDAQ:ABNB) and Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) could additionally cause some alarm, especially when the companies aren't profitable and CEOs express bewilderment over their stock prices. The bulls: Assurance from the Fed that it will continue easy money policies, keeping markets stable and interest rates low. Retails investors, who have piled into the market this year, also seem to be a driving force for the market's upward trajectory. The contentious presidential election is now over and a national vaccine rollout further signals the start of an eventual return to normal. Does the old Warren Buffett maxim still hold true? "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." ​ Economy All aboard the $2,000 stimulus bandwagon?​ ​ The U.S. House of Representatives just passed a bill called the CASH Act of 2020 that would increase the amount of second stimulus checks from $600 to $2,000 after a call from President Trump to increase the payments. That puts him and Congressional Democrats on the same side of an issue, though it remains to be seen if Republicans in the Senate will follow suit. Strange times indeed. More about the bill: The CASH Act would also boost the amount awarded for each dependent to $2,000 (e.g. a family of four would get an $8,000 second stimulus check instead of a $2,400 payment). It would also include an additional amount for older children, elderly parents that have moved in, or anyone else that one supports and can claim as a dependent on upcoming tax returns. Moreover, the legislation retroactively amends the law authorizing the first round of stimulus checks (under the CARES Act) so that all dependents would qualify for the extra $500 payments allowed for children age 16 and younger. FAQ: Is the stimulus check taxable income and how will it effect my tax return? The direct payments will not factor into income-tax liability, and won't influence, offset or factor into the size of your refund. What will Senate Republicans do? The situation is fluid, so stay tuned for imminent developments. So far, there are some Republican senators who back higher stimulus checks like Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), while lawmakers could also be pressured by constituents who are struggling financially. President Trump is also behind the effort, which may be enough to trigger support for larger payments. The options: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn’t said whether the Senate would take up the House bill, make an attempt to vote on a different one that could increase direct payments or simply ignore the legislation. The silence could be interpreted as a lack of support for the House bill due to the price tag of the increased payments, which would cost $464B, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation. ​ Trending New rules to speed drone adoption​ ​ Federal officials have launched new drone rules that could help open the skies for widespread commercial deliveries, allowing operators to fly small drones over people and at night under certain conditions. The regulations will give the FAA and law enforcement a handle on what's actually flying around in the skies, requiring remote identification technology to pinpoint them from the ground. Meet the "Remote ID" standard: The new rules eliminate requirements that drones be connected to the internet to transmit location data, but they must broadcast remote ID messages via radio frequency broadcast (meaning they can be used in areas without internet access). Drone manufacturers will have 18 months to begin producing drones with Remote ID, and operators will have an additional year to provide Remote ID. Other rules: For at-night operations, drones must be equipped with anti-collision lights that can been see for three miles. They must also "not cause injury to a human being that is equivalent to or greater than the severity of injury caused by a transfer of 25 foot-pounds of kinetic energy upon impact from a rigid object" and "does not contain any exposed rotating parts that could lacerate human skin upon impact with a human being." Quote from FAA Administrator Steve Dickson: "The new rules make way for the further integration of drones into our airspace by addressing safety and security concerns. They get us closer to the day when we will more routinely see drone operations such as the delivery of packages." Stats: Drones represent the fastest-growing segment in the entire transportation sector, with currently over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certificated remote pilots. Some history: UPS (NYSE:UPS) won the government's first full approval to operate a drone delivery airline back in October 2019, while Alphabet's (GOOG, GOOGL) Wing became the first company to get certification for a single-pilot drone operation. This past summer, the FAA granted Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) permission for delivery trials, while Walmart (NYSE:WMT)jumped into the drone delivery race in September. ​ Aviation 737 MAX returns to U.S. skies​ ​ For the first time in 21 months, Boeing's (NYSE:BA) 737 MAX on Tuesday will fly paying passengers in the U.S. via an American Airlines (NASDAQ:AAL) flight that will depart Miami International Airport at 10:30 a.m. ET for New York's LaGuardia Airport. What happened: Two fatal crashes that killed 346 people and a scathing report from the U.S. Senate have left some customers skeptical of stepping back on board the jet, so carriers are allowing passengers to change their flights for free if they feel uncomfortable. With the passage of time, Americans are less familiar with the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes, but if they are made aware of those disasters, more than half say they would probably avoid the aircraft, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll. Outlook: It will soon be harder to avoid the plane. By the end of February, 91 daily American flights will be flown by the MAX, according to travel analytics firm Cirium, while United (NASDAQ:UAL), Southwest (NYSE:LUV) and Alaska Airlines (NYSE:ALK) will resume service in the first quarter. Brazilian carrier Gol, which operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet, was the first airline to relaunch the jets earlier this month. While the return of the MAX comes at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has thrust the aviation industry into its worst crisis, a recovery in air travel may benefit Boeing, as well as other industrial stocks. The 737 MAX planes, which are more fuel-efficient than previous models, are central to the plans of airlines around the world, with more than 3,000 of them on order. ​ Regulation Boom, boom, boom... ​ ​ Ant Group is going marching, not to get out of the rain, but to avoid a regulatory crackdown in China that seeks to rein in Jack Ma's online finance empire. Bloomberg reports that the company is planning to fold its financial operations into a holding company that could be regulated more like a bank, potentially crippling the growth of its most profitable units due to additional capital restrictions. Bigger picture: Any unit that will require a financial license would be moved into the holding company, including wealth management services, consumer lending, insurance, payments and MYbank, an online lender in which Ant is the largest shareholder. "This means China is still trying to encourage domestic consumption, and they need platforms like Ant to help with consumer loans," said Wang Zhen, a Shanghai-based analyst with UOB-Kay Hian Holdings. "The key is that consumer lending shouldn’t be over-leveraged." Backdrop: Ant was poised for a public listing in November that would have valued it at more than $300B. Regulators then intervened and scuttled world's largest IPO amid reports that founder Jack Ma criticized the Chinese government for tightening financial regulation. Beijing has also opened an antitrust probe into Alibaba for monopolistic practices. On the move: Shares of Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), which owns a third of Ant, appear to be getting some relief on the news, climbing 4% to $230/share in premarket trade. It follows a near 30% tumble since the stock hit a high of $319.32 at the end of October. ​ What else is happening... U.K. will likely approve AstraZeneca's (NASDAQ:AZN) coronavirus vaccine today. Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX) starts late-stage COVID-19 vaccine trial in U.S. Qualtrics files for IPO two years after sale to SAP (NYSE:SAP). Biden calls for modernizing cyber defenses after SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) breach. Travel rebound? JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) acquires major credit card rewards business.​ Today's Economic Calendar In Asia, Japan +2.7%. Hong Kong +1%. China -0.5%. India +0.6%. In Europe, at midday, London +2.2%. Paris +0.4%. Frankfurt +0.4%. Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.5%. S&P +0.5%. Nasdaq +0.5%. Crude +1.4% to $48.29. Gold +0.2% at $1883.20. Bitcoin -0.2% to $26809. Ten-year Treasury Yield +1 bps to 0.94%​ Today's Economic Calendar 8:55 Redbook Chain Store Sales 9:00 S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index 1:00 PM Results of $59B, 7-Year Note Auction Companies reporting earnings today »​

​

 

[CoachCB]

Boz - I added some ADVL this morning. I'm holding tight w/ BABA. There was an interesting article on BABA I read yesterday, re: the CCP cracking down on Chinese tech companies. I'm sure it will straighten out, but when? It's almost like when the CCP "cracks down" the stock moves - like when Elon Musk sends a tweet TSLA stock moves up or down.

 

[Bozzie]

ya..A lot of risk here with the CCP..feels like BABA wants to give the CCP some piece of the action witch they don't have right now...Going under the wing of the CCP/ cutting them in is actually what's going to happen with ANT..The ANT move this AM signaled the white flag from BABA in fighting the CCP IMO.

I'm looking beyond the noise today .. or at least trying.

ADVL...The best CEO out there today IMO.

 

[Bozzie]

Best of... good one for a giggle.

Global Market Comments December 29, 2020 Fiat Lux Featured Trade: (A COW-BASED ECONOMICS LESSON)

A Cow-Based Economics Lesson SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbor. COMMUNISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some watered-down milk. FASCISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk at an inflated price. NAZISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sends you to a concentration camp. BUREAUCRATISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away. TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income, but worry about your cholesterol level and blood pressure. ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND (VENTURE) CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at a non-tax treaty offshore bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an anonymous intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release. The public then buys your bull. You are lauded as a titan of free market capitalism. SURREALISM You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons. AN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow has dropped dead. PETA sues you and pickets your office. A FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads because you want three cows. And you have a fabulous time doing all this. The world is shocked. A JAPANESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called a Cowkimona and market it worldwide. Then your stock crashes. AN ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two really fine, stylish cows which cost a fortune, but you don't know where they are. You decide to have lunch with a fine bottle of Antinori and top it all off with a potent grappa and double espresso. A SWISS CORPORATION You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them. The US IRS launches a criminal investigation and arrests every Swiss banker when they go shopping in New York. A CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation. Then your stock crashes. AN INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them and feed them all your garbage. A BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Both are mad but drink great beer. AN IRAQI CORPORATION Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. No-one believes you, so they bomb the ** out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows, but at least you are now a Democracy. AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers at the barby to celebrate. A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION You have two cows. The one on the left looks very attractive. But no one cares because you are in New Zealand. ​ ​

Quote of the Day “Amazon isn’t happening to the book business. The future is happening to the book business,” said Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

​

 

[Bozzie]

LISTEN TO TODAY'S PODCAST AVAILABLE AT 8AM ON: ​ ​ ​ Top News Another vaccine approval​ ​ ​ Shutterstock​ ​ The coronavirus vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) has been authorized for emergency use in the U.K., which has ordered 100M doses of the shot (enough to vaccinate 50M people). The jab is expected to be rolled out next week and would be added to the Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE, BNTX) vaccine that has so far been given to 600,000 people in England. The approval could also accelerate the lifting of strict lockdowns implemented in parts of the country, according to Cabinet Secretary Michael Gove, which effectively canceled Christmas festivities for millions due a new coronavirus variant. AZN +2.6% premarket. Backdrop: Confusion initially surrounded trial data of the U.K. vaccine in November, which led to some criticism of AstraZeneca. When people were given a half dose, followed by a full measure at least a month after, there was an efficacy rate of 90%, but that fell to an efficacy of 62% when two full doses were given at least a month apart. When all the results were tabulated from the 11,636 participants, the average efficacy of the vaccine worked out to 70%. Reservations: Chief of the White House's Operation Warp Speed, Moncef Slaoui, and others in the U.S. have also expressed concern over the age groups in the trial, saying the 90% efficacy was only shown for the lowest risk group, which numbered 2,741 people below age 55. Advantages: The biggest benefits of the AstraZeneca/Oxford jab are price and storage. It doesn't need to be kept at ultra-low temperatures and will cost about $4 a dose, compared to the $20 per vial from Pfizer and $33 for Moderna's (NASDAQ:MRNA) vaccine. (16 comments) ​ Covid U.S. vaccinations far short of 'Warp Speed' target​ ​ With only two days remaining in 2020, the U.S. will likely fall short of its goal to vaccinate 20M Americans by the year's end. Operation Warp Speed planned to provide 40M doses (each vaccine requires two shots) between Pfizer-BioNTech (PFE, BNTX) and Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), but according to the latest figures from the CDC, just over 11.4M doses had been distributed since Dec. 13 and only about 2.1M had been administered (the large variance is partly due to a lag in reporting). What's going on? COVID-19 vaccine czar, Moncef Slaoui, acknowledged last week that the ramp-up of immunizations "is slower than we thought it would be," while U.S. Army Gen. Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for Operation Warp Speed, repeatedly apologized after some state officials reported cuts to their allocations. The launch of the federal government's partnership with major pharmacy chains like CVS (NYSE:CVS) and Walgreens (NASDAQ:WBA), which will be tasked with vaccinating long-term care residents, is also pending. Quotes: "I believe that as we get into January, we are going to see an increase in the momentum," Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN, saying that he hopes the push will be enough to "catch up to the projected pace that we had spoken about a month or two ago." "The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind, far behind," President-elect Joe Biden announced at a news briefing, adding his administration would "move heaven and earth" to accelerate distribution once he takes office on Jan. 20. Bigger picture: The situation is even more imperative after the U.S. confirmed the first case of a new and potentially more infectious strain of COVID-19 recently discovered in U.K. The individual is a male in his 20s, who does not have a travel history, and is currently in isolation in Elbert County, Colorado. (29 comments) ​ Sponsored By Yieldstreet Add Short Term Notes to Your Portfolio​ ​ ​ We believe that income-generating investment products should be open to everyone, not just to hedge funds and institutions. Yieldstreet’s Short Term Notes target annual yields of 3.5% - 4.5% with durations of just 3-6 months and minimums as low as $1,000​.​ ​Invest in Short Term Notes to earn interest at a rate typically higher than what most CDs currently offer. Over 245,000 members have already gained access to alternative investments through Yieldstreet. Expand your diversification with Yieldstreet today.​ Economy Stimulus commotion in the Senate​ ​ "Unless Republicans have a death wish, and it is also the right thing to do, they must approve the $2000 payments ASAP. $600 IS NOT ENOUGH!" President Trump tweeted after Mitch McConnell blocked an attempt from Senate Democrats to approve larger stimulus checks. Some drama: McConnell later introduced a bill that would boost the size of the checks to $2,000, repeal the Section 230 liability shield for social media companies and create a commission to study election issues. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to the legislation, saying if McConnell "tries loading up" the bill "with unrelated, partisan provisions that will do absolutely nothing to help struggling families across the country," larger direct payments would not become law. "Any move like this would be a blatant attempt to deprive Americans of a $2,000 survival check." Mixing in the defense bill: Sen. Bernie Sanders then followed through on his threat to delay a veto override of the National Defense Authorization Act if McConnell rejected an outright vote on the larger payments. Since the Senate needs unanimous support to move quickly on many issues, any one senator can grind activity to a halt. On the way: $600 stimulus payments already started going out last night, according to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, and if Congress approves the increase to $2,000, it will be added to the original sum. What to watch: Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, who are running in crucial Jan. 5 runoffs in Georgia, have also expressed support for bigger checks. The race will determine control of the Senate, and some see it as "the new November" in terms of election volatility risk. ​ Cryptocurrency Bitcoin: A look back at a breakthrough 2020​ ​ The year kicked off with Bitcoin (BTC-USD) above $7,000, and after a pullback in March due the coronavirus pandemic, the cryptocurrency didn't look back. Easy money policies: As people began to face quarantine and lockdowns, businesses went virtual and the cashless society thrived. Governments and central banks across the globe also began implementing unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy to slow the economic damage, but something else was happening in the crypto sphere. Inflation fears: While trillions of dollars were pumped into the economy, the supply of new Bitcoin being released into circulation began to shrink. In May, the Bitcoin network reached a key technical event - Bitcoin's third halving - where miners running the Bitcoin software saw their rewards reduced by half, yet the community was celebrating. They championed a decentralized digital asset, with a fixed supply, that was free from monetary inflation or government intervention. Availability: The summer of decentralized finance also took off, with billions of dollars being locked in DeFi projects, as people around the world began to lend, hedge or make structured bets using Ethereum smart contract powers without the need of any financial middlemen. By October, ****** (NASDAQ:PYPL) and Venmo rolled out buy, hold and sell services for various cryptocurrencies, making them more accessible to retail users. Institutional interest: Faced with a declining dollar, MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) CEO Michael Saylor became the face of companies looking to convert corporate treasuries into digital gold when the business intelligence firm bought $475M worth of Bitcoin (it later bought another $650M). Square (NYSE:SQ) followed up by buying $50M worth of Bitcoin, while institutional investors began supporting the crypto, including Fidelity, BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) and Citigroup (NYSE:C). All-time highs: After breaking through resistance at $20,000 in early December, Bitcoin kept going, taking out $25K, $26K, $27K and even $28K. In fact, Bitcoin has soared by nearly 300% in 2020, outperforming the combined gains of gold and the Dow Jones Industrial Average by a factor of 10. ​ Sponsored By Yieldstreet ​ Tech Third Point sends Intel a letter​ ​ Activist hedge fund Third Point, led by Daniel Loeb, is pushing Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) to explore strategic alternatives, including whether it should keep chip design and production under one roof, according to Reuters. Shares climbed as much as 6.1% to $49.95 on Tuesday, the most in more than eight months, giving the company a much-needed boost and a market value of more than $200B. The stock has fallen about 21% this year, compared with a 43% rise of the Nasdaq Composite. What does Loeb want? Amassing a nearly $1B stake in Intel, the activist is pushing for immediate action to boost the company’s position as a major provider of processor chips for PCs and data centers. Were it to gain traction, Third Point's drive for changes could lead to a big shakeup at Intel, which has been slow to respond to investor calls to outsource more of its manufacturing capacity. It could also lead to the unwinding of some of its acquisitions, like the $16.7B purchase of programmable chipmaker Altera in 2015. Bigger picture: Intel has lost its pole position in microprocessor manufacturing to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM) and Samsung Electronics (OTC:SSNLF). It's also losing market share in core PC and data centers to Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), while Nvidia is dominating computational models used in AI applications (a nascent market in which Intel has been largely absent). Intel customers, such as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) are additionally developing their own in-house silicon solutions and sending those designs to be manufactured abroad. Quote: "Without immediate change at Intel, we fear that America's access to leading-edge semiconductor supply will erode, forcing the U.S. to rely more heavily on a geopolitically unstable East Asia to power everything from PCs to data centers to critical infrastructure and more," Loeb wrote in the letter. Response from the company: "Intel welcomes input from all investors regarding enhanced shareholder value. In that spirit, we look forward to engaging with Third Point on their ideas towards that goal." ​ What else is happening... Stock futures rebound on latest vaccine optimism. Financial firms brace for Brexit's impact on trading on Jan. 4. Boeing (NYSE:BA) 737 MAX 'mostly full' on its return to U.S. skies. Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) loses copyright fight against virtual iPhone developer Corellium. Chinese regulators could take larger stakes of Ant Group and Alibaba (NYSE:BABA). ​ Today's Economic Calendar In Asia, Japan -0.5%. Hong Kong +2.2%. China +1.1%. India +0.3%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.2%. Paris +0.2%. Frankfurt +0.2%. Futures at 6:20, Dow +0.4%. S&P +0.4%. Nasdaq +0.4%. Crude +0.9% to $48.41. Gold +0.1% at $1884.10. Bitcoin +3.9% to $27808. Ten-year Treasury Yield +2 bps to 0.95%​ Today's Economic Calendar 7:00 MBA Mortgage Applications 8:30 International trade in goods (Advance) 8:30 Retail Inventories (Advance) 8:30 Wholesale Inventories (Advance) 9:45 Chicago PMI 10:00 Pending Home Sales 10:00 State Street Investor Confidence Index 10:30 EIA Petroleum Inventories 11:00 Survey of Business Uncertainty 3:00 PM Farm Prices​

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