The Weekly Bull Report – December 20th, 2020 🗞

Welcome to the 133rd edition of The Weekly Bull Report.

About 21 million people entered full lockdown restrictions in London, southeast and eastern England and Wales today to curb the spread of a highly infectious new strain of COVID-19. Ouch.🔒

Looks like a US stimulus package will be reached today.💰

Wishing everybody a Merry Christmas. 🎅🤶🎄

Here’s a shortlist (light version) of the content we found interesting and informative over the past week…

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🤔 Interesting Articles & News:

ECONOMICS

• What’s wrong with the IPO process and how to fix it.
• Institutional investors’ BS — Decoded.
• Citi rapidly built one of the world’s best research departments. Was it built to last?
• The US labels Vietnam and Switzerland currency manipulators. 💵
• Reinventing Goldman Sachs.
• Goldman Sachs CEO expresses concern about market euphoria driven by small investors buying IPOs.

CULTURE

• The story of Dave Brubeck’s ‘Take Five. 🎹
• New Michelin stars give a boost to Spanish restaurants struggling with the coronavirus crisis.

SOCIETY

TECHNOLOGY

• DeepMind’s latest AI breakthrough could turbocharge drug discovery.
• GitHub CEO: We’re nuking all tracking ‘cookies’ and you should too (very smart move, let’s hope others follow).
• Everybody hates Facebook (many have been calling the end of FB for years. IBR is throwing its hat in the ring – 2021 will be very bumpy for all social media). 📉

MEDICINE & SCIENCE

• Forgetfulness may be a sign of brain efficiency.
• Your brain makes you a different person every day.🧠
• An avocado a day keeps your gut microbes happy. 🥑
• Aging, diet-induced obesity, and metabolic disease link explored in the new research (obesity is a massive epidemic).

CANNABIS & PSYCHEDELICS

• Effects and safety of Psilocybe cubensis and Panaeolus cyanescens magic mushroom extracts on endothelin-1-induced hypertrophy and cell injury in cardiomyocytes (Wuhan/M2BIO funded research).

SPORTS

• Giannis Antetokounmpo, Milwaukee Bucks reach five-year, $228M supermax extension. 🏀

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Would you wish you could read hand-picked news and topics that interest you and be sure they are legitimate and credible? Then download the NITL app now and start reading. 📰

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Noteworthy Stocks & Assets:

What moved in the markets last week:

U.S. Indices
Dow +0.4% to 30,179. S&P 500 +1.3% to 3,709. Nasdaq +3.1% to 12,756. Russell 2000 +3.2% to 1,973. CBOE Volatility Index -7.5% to 21.57.

S&P 500 Sectors
Consumer Staples +0.8%. Utilities +0.1%. Financials +0.1%. Telecom -0.5%. Healthcare +1.1%. Industrials +0.1%. Information Technology +3.2%. Materials +1.9%. Energy -4.3%. Consumer Discretionary +2.3%.

World Indices
London -0.3% to 6,529. France +0.4% to 5,528. Germany +3.9% to 13,631. Japan +0.4% to 26,763. China +1.4% to 3,395. Hong Kong 0.05% to 26,499. India +1.9% to 46,961.

Commodities and Bonds
Crude Oil WTI +5.4% to $49.06/bbl. Gold +2.4% to $1,887./oz. Natural Gas +4.5% to 2.708. Ten-Year Treasury Yield -0.6% to 137.74.

Forex and Cryptos
EUR/USD +1.21%. USD/JPY -0.67%. GBP/USD +2.23%. Bitcoin +22.8%. Litecoin +40.8%. Ethereum +15.4%. Ripple +13.3%.

Top Stock Gainers 📈
MingZhu Logistics Holdings (NASDAQ:YGMZ) +171%.
Arvinas Inc (NASDAQ:ARVN) +130%.
Curo Group Holdings (NYSE:CURO) +104%.
Prevail Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PRVL) +97%.
Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ:MARA) +96%.

Top Stock Losers 📉
Apartment Investment and Management Co (NYSE:AIV) -89% (Removed from S&P500).
Mesoblast (NASDAQ:MESO) -45%.
SolarWinds (NYSE:SWI) -40%.
CooTek (NYSE:CTK) -35%.
Triterras (NASDAQ:TRIT) -34%.

 

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🎯 Stocks On Our Radar:

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🏆 Quotes That Inspire Us:

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📖 Word Of The Week:

Ostracize v. Exclude (someone) from a society or group. “She felt ostracized by society.”

 

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❔ Did You Know: 

The world’s first “IPO” took place in 1602.

It was the Dutch East India Co., which had a royal charter that granted it a 20-year monopoly on spice trade with the East Indies.

The company’s de facto ticker was VOC, which was the acronym for its Dutch name (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie).

The merchants that ran VOC formed a limited liability company and sold an interest in the company to investors in exchange for a % of profit which was highly volatile because – well, it’s the frickin’ spice trade and there’s no guarantee the ship is making it across the Atlantic (twice).

At its peak, VOC was worth ~$8T in today’s money and things got really crazy in 1634 when VOC started bringing back tulips, precipitating one of history’s greatest bubbles.

 

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📚 Books We Are Reading:

1. The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz – Erik Larson
2. Acting With Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe – Deborah Gruenfeld
3. Square Haunting: Five Writers in London Between the Wars – Francesca Wade
4. Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity – Jamie Metzl
5. Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad – Gordon H. Chang

 

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🤣 One-Liners: 

“A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.”

 

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Our very best wishes for a brilliant upcoming week! 💪

Respectfully yours,

The IBR Team

 

Please send any news, comments, or stock ideas to jeff@internetbullreport.com and follow IBR on Twitter @IBullReport 

All content provided by Internet Bull Report is for informational and educational purposes only and is not meant to represent trade or investment recommendations.