Fintech Focus For January 5, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: Despite Congress passing a stimulus package providing funds for jobless benefits, vaccine distribution, stimulus checks and aid to businesses, the support could be too little, too late for many businesses.

"How do you expect these people to survive?" Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy, an internet celebrity, investor and entrepreneur said in a video. "How are restaurants going to survive? They are already on their last legs."

In response, Portnoy raised nearly $17 million for businesses affected by the pandemic measures.

The Barstool Fund is accepting contributions that go towards supporting small businesses like Michigan-based Premier Sports Center, an indoor sports facility.

“You got the facility there and it is crazy,” Portnoy said in a video interaction with the facility owner. “They want to whack you for taxes when you can’t even open the place.”

To keep the doors open, The Barstool Fund will help finance Premier Sports Center’s $62,000 tax bill. The facility has been out of commission since the pandemic started, and did not qualify for government assistance.

Source: Benzinga

One Big Thing In Fintech: The increasing regulatory scrutiny of Alibaba-affiliate and financial technology powerhouse Ant Group could be bad for the Chinese economy as well as China’s financial technology sector.

Source: CNBC

• Other Key Fintech Developments:
• CBOE has acquired BIDS trading.
• Oxygen secures a $17M Series A.
• Liquidity unlocked with Nth Round.
• Atom Finance on platform, growth.
• Square talks FinCEN implications.
• Instinet grows clearing, settlement.
• Citi offers in-app lending with Grab.

Watch Out For This: One of America's most senior government officials says the most 'credible' theory about the origin of coronavirus is that it escaped from a laboratory in China.

Matthew Pottinger, who is President Donald Trump's respected Deputy National Security Adviser, told politicians from around the world that even China's leaders now openly admit their previous claims that the virus originated in a Wuhan market are false.

Mr Pottinger said that the latest intelligence points to the virus leaking from the top-secret Wuhan Institute of Virology, 11 miles from the market, saying: 'There is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus.'

Source: Daily Mail

Interesting Reads:

• Airline losses likely to reach $35B.
• 2021 the year of UBI experiments.
• New lockdowns amid virus variant.
• Google employees forming union.
• Top five economic charts to watch.
• AWS tops $10B quarterly revenue.

Market Moving Headline: Wharton finance professor Jeremy Siegel is predicting Dow 35,000, but he warns Wall Street will have to cope with a near-term setback first.

“All you need is a few little disappointments when the market is going straight up,” he told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Monday. “There is a little bit of nervousness in front of tomorrow’s Georgia elections.”

It’s situation that could rattle investors.

Siegel believes the Georgia runoffs, which will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate, may go in favor of the Democrats. If this happens, he predicts it could spark a 5% to 10% pullback.

“On the prediction markets, the Republicans have fallen quite a bit back in the last weekend,” said Siegel. “If Democrats take both of them [seats], we will have a tax increase. We will have a corporate tax increase and capital gains increases.”

However, Siegel expects any pain to be temporary. He sees extra spending by a moderate, all-Democratic government and massive fiscal and monetary coronavirus aid offsetting tax increases.

“It’s all that liquidity that’s been provided in 2020,” the longtime bull added. “The Dow could easily tack on another 10% or 15% [in 2021].”

Source: CNBC