Market Mover #13

Last week featured a bunch of news on health, technology, politics, and stock market. Let’s dive into some events that occurred last week that shape the market this week & beyond.

Source: https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/350820-vector-news-icon

#Health:

• #Heatwave -> 🔥 💨, air quality is expected to decline throughout the week as high inland temperatures, wildfire smoke, and vehicle exhaust are affecting our air quality
• #CA2035 #ZeroEmission ⚡️🚗🚚, with the transportation sector being responsible for ~50% of CA carbon pollution, Gov Newsom uses the bill to further fight climate change and achieve reductions in greenhouse gases over 35% and an 80% improvement in oxides of nitrogen emissions from cars

#Politics:

• ⏰ 4 days until airline aids of the previous corona relief bill come to an end, many airlines are expected to initiate layoffs if there’s no extension. Pelosi’s bill is expected to be $2.4 trillion with support for airlines, restaurants, and other priorities that came to the surface following the last bill in mid-May. Bottom line: even though the government will be open with essential funding stretching to December 11th, the current state and size of Pelosi’s bill is expected to be DOA with Republicans, whom have repeatedly said they want to pass a smaller/slimmer bill

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/27/pelosi-believes-coronavirus-relief-deal-still-possible.html

• 🤑 #Bribery for another 4 years in the #WhiteHouse? President Trump pledged to send out $200 drug discount cards to older Americans, representing $6B in expenses. As the new drug pricing initiative is still in development, isn’t expected to have an initial impact on drug prices, and that Medicare, seniors, and tax payers would end up footing the bill. Bottom line: this seems to be a Hail Mary to generate good faith pre-election, but also a cigar from their own box for the older Americans whom would receive the coupons
• ⛪ Meet Amy Coney Barrett — The conservative polar opposite of recently passed #RBG. At 48 years, she was groomed for a Supreme Court position under Justice Antonin Scalia, she’s also a mother of 7 children, and deeply follows christianity as religion. Bottom line: if Amy were to be selected on the Supreme Court it may trigger a pullback of several landmark laws (e.g Roe vs Wade) that could swing towards a conservative decision
• 🧐 Little to no tax payments, as the taxes of President Trump finally came to the surface it highlights his ability to game the system for his gains. It’s well known that the US treats businesses more favorably with taxes than the average Joe. Bottom line: it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Trump is barely paying taxes. His questionable business expenses though, will most likely provide a red flag for IRS to audit him

#Tech:

• 🏡👩‍💻 60% of large Bay Area employers’ employees to #WFH, as part of a 2050 planning strategy to curb #greenhouse #gas #emissions and #trafficcongestion for businesses with 25+ employees. Bottom line: can’t these environmental goals be achieved by promoting public transit more rather than restricting large employers? Also, many employees live in small apartments or rooms which are not perfectly set up for remote work. It may be seen how this will affect productivity.
• 📮 #Postmates slows the bleeding to $105.2M for H1 2020 (from $239M in H1 2019) while doubling revenue from Q2 this year to $160M. Bottom line: Postmates seems to be getting into shape ahead of the merger with Uber
• 🍋🍎 Apple announced their new Watch 6, services, and 10th gen Ipad, as usual we witnessed iterations on existing products but now also the bundling of Apple services. The newest service addition is Apple Fitness which fits well with the Watch and dives deeper into the user’s health and exercise during #WFH. Bottom line: we expected more (hint: Iphone 12, new Macbook Pro)
• 📹 Amazon presents more hardware, more technology, and more security. Improved Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Luna, (game streaming) Fire TV, Ring (drone & car security), and updates to make Alexa learn, listen, and respond better. Bottom line: Amazon took their design up a notch to compete better with Facebook, Google, and Apple
• 🚀 Do you remember Transferwise? A European fintech valued at $5B showed £302.6M in revenue (+70%) and 8M customers (+33%) for it’s latest financial year. Bottom line: although not as buzzy as other fintechs Transferwise is growing steadily and is my preferred service for sending money to my home country (🇳🇱)

#Stock market:

• 📈 Stock market opens up, after the short rally last Friday this week seems to set up the road to recovery after last week saw several days of sell off. Projection: the stock market will end the week on similar highs before the sell-off of last week
• 🔮 This week we’ll see consumer confidence, (Tuesday) ADP employment report, (Wednesday) initial & continuous jobless claims, consumer spending, (Thursday) and unemployment rate numbers (Friday

#Zen moment:

🧘 Take some time to reflect on yourself for the past week and think of any mistake or feelings of fear you had. Mistakes are opportunities to learn and improve for the future.

If you have any questions or comments please reach out below. Views expressed are my own.