Fintech Focus For December 29, 2020

Quote To Start The Day: “[T]his has actually been a phenomenal year for fixed income, and yields have plummeted, which is not all that phenomenal. But it has led to phenomenal returns for investors. But with yields now really at these very, very low levels across the curves and across the credit spectrum, investors are looking for opportunities for yield. And one of the ways to boost yield is of course to deploy a little bit of leverage ... The reason why we think this is an opportune environment to do that is because, from an economic standpoint, I think we're going to be in a more stable place in 2021. So we shouldn't have to worry about credit events.”

Source: Anastasia Amoroso

One Big Thing In Fintech: In September, the correlation between S&P 500 companies and bitcoin was near an all-time high. Now, more people think such companies will have bitcoin on their balance sheets by the end of next year, according to The Block's annual outlook survey.

Roughly a third, or 29.7%, said one to four of such companies will hold bitcoin, and only 2.7% said one or fewer companies will hold bitcoin. There are currently zero S&P 500 companies that hold bitcoin on their balance sheet. Square, which could be considered for S&P 500 inclusion next year, purchased $50M worth of bitcoin in October.

Source: Block

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• ‘Flash Boys’ and Robinhood clarity.
• Save launched new card features.
• InvestSuite taps funding its growth.
• NetEase to shutter its finance app.
• Liquidity for DeFi perpetual swaps.
• JPM plans to buy cxLoyalty Group.
• Fintech eToro plans for IPO, SPAC.
• Franklin Templeton founded Tango.
• Citi fintech marketplace unpacked.
• Current talking stimulus payments.
• Story: DeFi project gets disowned.
• 2020 is the year fintechs got more.
• Binance added Euro-style options.

Watch Out For This: Global investors are running from Chinese tech stocks in the wake of the government’s crackdown on Ant Group and Alibaba, two high-flying businesses founded by Ma Yun (Jack Ma) that were once hailed as paragons of China’s new tech elite.

Source: TechCrunch

Interesting Reads:

• The year the Fed changed forever.
• UPS, FedEx suspend guarantees.
• Cathie Wood buys back Ark option.
• California lockdown to be extended.
• No, you don’t have to pay back aid.
• Biden talking US national security.
• Stimulus payments will be delayed.

Market Moving Headline: Some of the year’s most expensive stocks encountered a wave of selling as investors moved to lock in gains in the last week of 2020.

Zoom Video Communications Inc. and DocuSign Inc., fell more than 6% on Monday. Both companies have seen their shares soar this year amid a surge in new users and are trading at more than 20 times next year’s projected sales. The average price to estimated sales multiple in the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 Stock Index is 4.6 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Among other notable decliners were digital-ad company Trade Desk Inc., which fell 11%, and data-mining company Palantir Technologies Inc., which suffered a 7.6% drop. DoorDash, the food-delivery company whose shares debuted earlier this month, sank 6.7%.

Source: Bloomberg