Fintech Focus For February 8, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: Excessive determinism is almost always the biggest enemy of stability. This seeming contradiction is behind the concept of metastability which captures the mode of market functioning in the last years. Metastability is what seems stable, but is not — a stable waiting for something to happen. [An] avalanche is a good example of metastability to keep in mind — a totally innocuous event can trigger a cataclysmic event (e.g., a skier’s scream, or simply continued snowfall until the snow cover is so massive that its own weight triggers an avalanche).

Source: Aleksandar Kocic

One Big Thing In Fintech: Robinhood’s primary means of driving revenue is making very small amounts of money on individual trades at scale.

It does this by attracting large numbers of users using incentives such as “free” stocks and commission-free trading, retaining those users and encouraging trading activity via behavioral triggers in the app, and earning razor-thin margins on those trades through a process known as payment for order flow (PFOF).

Prior to Robinhood’s launch, getting started with investing could be difficult and time-consuming. With much of its revenue dependent on attracting large numbers of users, Robinhood had to lower the traditional barriers to entry in investing — and did so by challenging the status quo of the entire brokerage industry.

Source: CB Insights

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Bridge Mutual, AllianceBlock partner.
• Options platform Opyn raised $6.7M.
• CBOE plans to enter crypto markets.
• Is Koyfin the best for market analysis?
• N26 plans to double down on growth.
• Twitter CEO sets up own BTC node.
• Fintech’s democratization of finance.
• Crypto exchange Bitfinex pays Tether.
• Deutsche Bank’s looks to blockchain.
• Splitit taps a $150M Goldman facility.
• Unpacking SWIFT’s PBOC ventures.
• Winklevoss’ exchange eyes banking.
• Stash raises $125M for growth, tech.
• Finxflo to launch a token-based raise.
• BNY, Google Cloud partnered over AI.

Watch Out For This: Greta Thunberg accidentally shared a message showing she was getting told what to write on Twitter about the ongoing violent farmers’ revolt in India — sparking a police investigation and a political firestorm, according to reports.

Source: NY Post

Interesting Reads:

• 23andMe to go public through SPAC.
• Ebola case detected in eastern DRC.
• What’s DTCC? The story of clearing.
• Public tech companies are struggling.
• Bruce Springsteen to be in Jeep ads.
• Peloton to pump $100M into logistics.
• Opportunity in monetization, discovery.
• Bumble’s first date with public markets.
• Myanmar’s government eyes internet.
• Amazon warehouse workers eye vote.
• Citadel director talking stock volatility.
• Unpacked: Super Bowls and markets.

Market Moving Headline: In light of a v-pattern recovery, after a quick de-risking event, U.S. stock indexes are positioned for further upside, as high as the 100% price projection, which happens to be above $4,000.00, a primary target in the S&P 500.

Adding, this positive price action is happening in the context of bearish undercurrents, as evidenced by non-participatory speculative flows and delta, as well as a divergence in the DIX.

Since price pays, participants ought to discount the bearish undercurrents, and position themselves for upside.

Key Takeaways:

- V-pattern recovery suggests higher prices.

- Risks offset and funds looking to re-gross.

- Dip presented a favorable buy opportunity.

Next week, participants will want to pay attention to last Thursday’s $3,855.00 Virgin Point Of Control, or VPOC (i.e., the fairest price to do business in a prior session), and end-of-day spike, as well as the $3,840.00 HVNode.

In the best case, the S&P 500 backfills to repair some poor structures. In such a case, participants would look for responsive buying to surface at or above the $3,840.00 HVNode.

Source: Physik Invest