Fintech Focus For July 16, 2021

Quote To Start The Day: “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.”

Source: Epictetus

One Big Thing In Fintech: In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on July 15, Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell reiterated his uncertainty as to whether the Fed would proceed with the development of a central bank digital currency or CBDC.

Source: Block

Other Key Fintech Developments:

• Waystar looking to buy Patientco.
• Finance app Revolut taps $800M.
• Voyager posted record revenues.
• Dinie raises a $3.8M seed round.
• Uniswap eyeing Layer 2 protocol.
• Together Financial seeks an IPO.
• ProfitPay is acquiring PayCertify.
• Marcus campaigns mass market.
• Amex looks to financial planning.
• Bybit launches crypto spot trading.
• Volt acquires Australian Mortgage.
• JPMorgan, Abel Noser partner up.
• Play2Pay snags $13M in funding.
• Dorsey adds BTC Square division.
• Celsius, Horizon release zkAudit.
• Slide hones shopping experience.
• MX: Making data valuable assets.

Watch Out For This: BlackRock’s exchange-traded fund franchise, iShares, has reached more than $3 trillion in assets under management and growth is expected to accelerate over the coming decades.

Source: Markets Media

Interesting Reads:

• Drug price control and innovation.
• GM is launching charging service.
• China warns economic slowdown.
• CEOs talk more on inflation levels.
• Abodu raises for prebuilt housing.
• China crackdown cuts innovation.

Market Moving Headline: Over the past couple of sessions, on very slow tempo, equity indexes diverged, trading sideways to lower in the face of extremely poor breadth.

The push-pull and divergence come ahead of the options expiration (OPEX) cycle which starts on the third Friday of each month (July 16). Associated hedging forces make it so there’s more liquidity and less movement.

After OPEX, according to SpotGamma, “the market tends to experience its largest intraday volatility which corresponds to the reduction in large options positions, and the hedging associated with them.”

Source: Physik Invest