The Market Mover #4

A lot happened last week and will happen this week. Here’s a selection I made from some of the latest headlines.

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

Health:

• Florida now has more COVID-19 cases than New York while California has the most number of infections: 450,000, with renewed lockdowns in place hopefully California will start to recover. Hospitalizations seem to be leveling off after the new peak last Thursday
• Monday (aka today) a new Coronavirus aid package will be unveiled of ~$1 trillion, the package is expected to include $105 billion for schools, $16 billion in new testing money, and a new stimulus check although it seems this may change to a 70% of income check

Tech:

• Amazon thinking out of the box to reach its commitment to become net-zero carbon by 2040. In addition to reducing the weight of their boxes, Amazon now includes suggestions to reuse their boxes that increase functionality for family looking to get creative
• Industry new player disruption — Will Amazon eat car insurance? Amazon is dipping its toes more and more into insurance through its investment in Acko General Insurance. Starting with auto insurance in India, Amazon will eventually expand insurance offerings to coverage on health, flights and cabs
• Apple’s appstore business model is under fire, developers don’t appreciate the 70/30 split that turns into 85/15 in subsequent years as they believe Apple favors its own services and discriminates any developers wanting to distribute their services outside of the Apple appstore
• This Wednesday executives from Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google are set to testify on their competition in digital markets. Key topics discussed will be antitrust issues, content moderation, and allegations of anti-conservative bias

Stock market:

• Although futures pointed to a positive stock market opening, stocks opened mixed with earnings and will largely wait for news around the new Coronavirus stimulus package to find it’s course