Fintech Focus For January 8, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: Elon Musk, the outspoken entrepreneur behind Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, is now the richest person on the planet.

A 4.8% rally in the electric carmaker’s share price Thursday boosted Musk past Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 wealthiest people.

“I want to be able to contribute as much as possible to the city on Mars,” Musk said. “That means just a lot of capital.”

Source: Al Jazeera

One Big Thing In Fintech: Fast-growing online brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc. just capped a blockbuster year, one that saw seemingly anyone ranging from college students to retirees transform into stock-market traders.

Now, the company has its sights set on another demographic: female customers. Attracting more women to Robinhood’s platform will be key to its growth, especially as the company aims to evolve beyond its retail trading roots.

Source: WSJ

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Financial data is shaping the future.
• Standard Chartered live on Cobalt.
• Bitfinex adds historical order book.
• BBVA shutting down its Simple app.
• The next frontier in digital banking.
• Amex looks to personal experience.
• Mettalex looking into yield farming.
• SoFi aiming to go public via SPAC.
• Coinbase climbs Apple’s App Store.
• Nasdaq leads options trading boom.

Watch Out For This: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer demanded that President Donald Trump’s cabinet immediately remove him from office and threatened a new drive to impeach him if they don’t act. Democrats, who already have a majority in the House, are set to take control of the Senate and presidency, paving the way for Biden to bring his legislative agenda to life and reshape the economy. While campaigning in Georgia before the runoff elections, he vowed that $2,000 stimulus checks would be sent out “immediately” if his party won the state.

Source: Bloomberg

Interesting Reads:

• Boeing pays $2.5B to resolve probe.
• Airfreight volume, prices strengthen.
• SPACs driving 2020 IPOs to records.
• Glia begins 2021 with a $78M round.
• No IPO. Roblox opts for direct listing.
• Learn about customer experiences.
• Hootsuite has acquired Sparkcentral.
• Biden team names new tech officials.

Market Moving Headline: Despite how unusual 2020 was, there are a few trends that persisted in 2020 and will likely continue into 2021.

- One of those is the popularity of inflows into ETFs. During 2020 a new record, of over $507 billion, flowed into U.S.-listed ETFs.
- Another consistent trend was the outflows from U.S. equity mutual funds.
- Index funds continued to gain market share from active funds.
Source: Nasdaq