24Feb2021 Pre-Market Commentary: Wall Street Heading For A Lower Open, DOW Futures Down 43 Points, WTI Crude Up To 62, Nasdaq Down At -0.1%, Bitcoin At 49,350

Here is the current market situation from CNN Money

European markets are higher today with shares in Germany leading the region. The DAX is up 0.73% while France’s CAC 40 is up 0.22% and London’s FTSE 100 is up 0.10%.

Iran To Receive $1 Billion In Oil Funds Previously Blocked By Sanctions

Iran said on Tuesday that South Korea had started to release the first US$1 billion of the US$7 billion Iranian oil funds blocked in Korean banks because of the U.S. sanctions on Tehran, but Seoul says that any transfer of the funds will be made only after consultations with the United States. After the United States pulled out from the so-called Iran nuclear deal in May 2018, it imposed sanctions on Tehran, specifically targeting its oil industry as a vital source of revenue. As a result, somewhere between US$7 billion and US$8 billion in oil

The Most Important Pipeline Youve Never Heard Of

[With] the Balkan Stream project, Bulgaria will become a regional strategic gas distribution centre and will guarantee the diversification of gas supply Boyko Borisov, Bulgarian PM The competition of the Balkan Stream (BS) extension to the Turk Stream pipeline has received little attention. This holds true strangely even in the countries through which it runs: Bulgaria and Serbia. Nevertheless, the pipeline has the potentiality to change the geopolitics of natural gas supply. How will South-Eastern Europe exploit

Iran Under Fire For Undeclared Nuclear Materials

The UN nuclear watchdog said on February 23 that it is “deeply concerned” that Iran secretly kept “undeclared nuclear material” at an “undeclared location” as the agency warned that Tehran continued to exceed “many limits” set by its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also confirmed in a pair of reports that Iran was already enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity, and that its enriched-uranium stockpile had reached 14 times the limit established by the 4-year-old Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action

Chinas Shale Boom Was Over Before It Began

China is caught up in a very delicate balance. Beijing is being forced to walk a very fine line to keep up with growing energy demand while also shoring up the countrys energy security, and all without compromising the entire worlds ability to decarbonize quickly enough to avoid catastrophic climate change. So far, it looks like Beijing is struggling–if not outright failing–to pull it off. Despite the blow that China received as the first country to struggle with the novel coronavirus pandemic, the country achieved the amazing

Biden Is About To Send The Electric Vehicle Revolution Into Overdrive

The first few months of Bidens administration have made one thing clear, the EV boom is just getting started. And it may be those who are already ahead of the curve that could be the biggest winners. Biden has already said climate change is the number one issue facing humanity… And now, hes signaled a major shift, stating he plans to replace the entire government vehicle fleet with electric vehicles. That includes 245,000 in various federal agencies 225,000 in the United States Postal Service and another

2 Stocks That Could Win Big In The Trillion Dollar Battery War

The entire world is about to run on batteries, which makes the next new battery innovation and the materials that go into it the best way to capitalize on the lucrative momentum of a multi-trillion-dollar energy transition. That lithium-ion battery that youve relied on for your smartphone has now gone way beyond consumer electronics. Its the feedstock for a lineup of rival EVs And for energy storage, things are blowing up on a global scale. Investment in the global energy transition hit a record $501.3 billion

FDA staff endorses J&J’s single-shot Covid vaccine for emergency use ” clearing way for third vaccine in U.S.

The FDA’s staff endorsed Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use, a critical step in bringing a third shot to the U.S. marketplace.

Lowe’s tops earnings estimates as same-store sales jump 28%, warns that some DIY trends could fade

Lowe’s said fourth-quarter same-store sales climbed 28.1%, as consumers spent money on home projects during the pandemic.

Quarantine-free travel may be one step closer with new travel industry app

A new app from the International Air Travel Association could mark the first step in resuming quarantine-free international travel.

5 things to know before the stock market opens Wednesday

U.S. stock futures rose on Wednesday, a day after Wall Street’s wild ride that saw the Nasdaq claw back nearly all of a nearly 4% loss..

Kia unveils 2022 Carnival as new SUV-inspired minivan with VIP lounge seating

Kia Motors is replacing its Sedona minivan with a new SUV-inspired model called the Carnival beginning in the second quarter of this year.

Crocs became a pandemic staple, but CEO Andrew Rees optimistic its new fans will stick around

Some have called Crocs the “it” shoe of the pandemic, as the clog became a closet staple for consumers seeking comfort.

Tiger Woods is ‘awake, responsive and recovering’ after car crash and emergency surgery

Golf superstar Tiger Woods was injured Tuesday in Los Angeles when his car crashed and rolled over, authorities said.

P&G CEO expects higher demand for cleaning products to outlast pandemic

“I think we’ve all gotten in habits of cleaning. We’ve got in the habit of the home being a bigger part of our life,” P&G CEO David Taylor told CNBC.

Premier League’s ‘most inclusive, accessible and sustainable stadium’ wins approval

A growing number of sporting arenas are integrating sustainable features into their design.

‘We got to do a better job’ vaccinating underserved communities, says Connecticut governor

Connecticut Governor Lamont explains why his state must “do a better job” when it comes to delivering Covid vaccines to underserved communities.

TikTok is cutting deals with pro sports leagues, and now men’s and women’s soccer clubs are signing on

The ByteDance-owned company will have a patch on the MLS Portland Timbers and its sister club, Thorns FC of the National Women’s Soccer League.

Lucid Motors ‘humbly’ embarks on the difficult task of mass producing its electric cars, CEO says

In a CNBC interview, Lucid Motors CEOÂ Peter Rawlinson acknowledged the company must get its luxury sedan into production to “truly drive” shareholder value.

Best Buy gives pandemic-related bonuses to employees amid company layoffs

The consumer electronics retailer has not said how many store employees will lose their jobs as part of a reorganization.

“You Killed The Little Guy!” – Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev Faces Off Against Dave Portnoy In Tense Interview

“You Killed The Little Guy!” – Robinhood’s Vlad Tenev Faces Off Against Dave Portnoy In Tense Interview

In a face-off sparked by a random Twitter exchange, Robinhood CEO and co-founder Vlad Tenev sat for an interview with Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy and was taken to task for Robinhood’s actions during the “meme” stock trading explosion that happened late last month, when shares of GME, AMC and other heavily shorted names exploded higher on a surge in retail interest galvanized by Reddit’s “WallStreetBets” forum.

Portnoy, who has emerged as one of Robinhood’s biggest critics in the aftermath of the trading chaos, didn’t go easy on Tenev – whom Portnoy has previously slammed as a “scumbag” and a “liar” – to explain exactly why he told the press that Robinhood wasn’t suffering from a “liquidity issue” after the brokerage, and other discount brokerages shut off trading in certain stocks. The decision stopped the crowdsourced short-squeeze in its tracks to the benefit of short-selling hedge funds..

In the …

Futures Rebound From Asia Rout, Bitcoin Back Over $51,000

Futures Rebound From Asia Rout, Bitcoin Back Over $51,000

Yesterday morning shortly after the initial liquidation puke which saw tech shares tumbles, we had some “words of comfort” for all those fearful that the Fed may hike rates in the coming months saying basically “relax, it won’t”… if for no other reason than global debt is set to surpass $360 trillion by 2030 and rates simply can’t rise, a point underscored as DB strategist Jim Reid who said “with debt so high and likely to go notably higher, it is likely that real yields will have to stay artificially low for a very long period of time. Any return to something close to long-term averages would have grave consequences for debt sustainability. The Fed would likely step in well before this point… Financial repression and QE will likely be alive and well for the rest of most of our careers.”

It took a few hours for this message to spread, and Powell’s soothing Day 1 testimony to Congress to hammer this point, before markets “unclenched” and realized that the Fed will indeed do nothing for the foreseeable futures, and as Bloomberg writes this morning, “the volatility in global bond and equity markets is easing today after Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s reassuring comments to the Senate Banking Committee yesterday. He signaled that the central bank is nowhere near pulling back its economic support measures, saying there was still a long w …

Microstrategy Buys Additional $1 Billion Bitcoins For $52,765 Average Price

Microstrategy Buys Additional $1 Billion Bitcoins For $52,765 Average Price

While it won’t be exactly news to those who followed Microstrategy’s latest convertible bond issuance whose “uses of funds” were quite explicitly stated, moments ago the “business intelligence company” which has since pivoted to a full-blown publicly traded bitcoin proxy announced that it had purchased an additional approximately 19,452 bitcoins for approximately $1.026 billion in cash at an average price of approximately $52,765 per bitcoin, inclusive of fees and expenses.

With this latest purchase, the Company now holds an aggregate of 90,531 bitcoins as of Feb 24, which were acquired at an aggregate purchase price of approximately $2.171 billion and an average purchase price of approximately $23,985 per bitcoin, inclusive of fees and expenses.

This means that the bulk of the purchases probably took place on Monday when Bitcoin was trading in that price range.

œThe Company remains focused on our two corporate strategies of growing our enterprise analytics software business and acquiring and holding bit …

Cathie Wood’s ARK Hit By Record Outflows, Sold Apple To Catch Falling Knife In Tesla Tuesday

Cathie Wood’s ARK Hit By Record Outflows, Sold Apple To Catch Falling Knife In Tesla Tuesday

We would be remiss to mention the turmoil that the NASDAQ has been under for the last couple of sessions without mentioning everyone’s favorite “visionary” tech investor, Cathie Wood at ARK Invest. With more than $50 billion in ETF AUM, up from $3.6 billion this time last year, Wood has been featured almost non-stop in financial media as the next revolutionary asset manager. She was even given the nickname “money tree” in South Korea. Here on Zero Hedge, we have been writing extensively about how the law of large(r) numbers could make life difficult for Wood’s ETFs heading into the new year.

But one thing Wood hasn’t had to deal with over the last 18 months during her meteoric rise has been a serious sell off in Tesla. And, over the last few sessions, Tesla – one of the main driving forces behind Wood’s investing “genius” – has fallen about $100, or about 10%. At the same time, Bitcoin – another asset with numerous ties to Wood’s portfolio and positions – fell more than 20% peak to trough.Â

Heading into Tuesday, the fund’s flagship ARKK ETF had already experienced its worst back-to-back fall since September 2020, according to Bloomberg. The ETF finished lower by another 3.3%, recovering some of its losses on Tuesday, after plunging almost 10% at the cash open. ARK’s Genomic Revolution and Ark Innovation funds had lost a combined $4.3 billion heading into Tuesday …

Covid lockdown: ‘My closed hair salons cost me £1,000 a day’

The hair and beauty industry is calling for a cut in VAT to help mend the sector’s finances.

Heathrow passenger numbers fall to 1970s’ levels

Covid “devastated” air travel in 2020, the UK’s largest airport says, as it sinks to a £2bn loss.

Cladding: Fire safety bill could leave leaseholders ‘bankrupt’

Campaigners are backing a rebellion by Tory MPs to ensure leaseholders are protected from extra costs.

What does Tata Consumer’s entry into Nifty50 imply?

A new outsider CEO, restructuring of operations and portfolio and new product launches amid the pandemic worked well to enable the stock to scale new heights.

Tech glitch at NSE: Sebi directs bourse to do root-cause analysis

œSebi was in constant touch with the NSE officials and continued to monitor the situation closely. NSE was also advised to keep the market participants updated with the evolving developments, Sebi said in a media statement.

When tech glitch made brokers revolt, seek more trading time

The glitch frustrated brokers, who demanded better guidelines and longer hours to to be able to square off their trades.

January 2021 Trucking Improved

Written by Steven Hansen

Headline data for the CASS Freight Index show that truck volumes show volumes grew month-over-month – and the year-over-year growth advanced further in positive territory. The American Trucking Association (ATA) index improved and now is in expansion.

: Mining stocks have surged in a struggling U.K. market ” and have 2 more tailwinds

Mining stocks have rallied as the global economy has recovered, and there are factors that could further lift the sector.

: Robinhood’s Tenev faced off with Dave Portnoy over GameStop saga

It’s hard to find two people who better epitomize the retail trading boom than Vlad Tenev, the co-CEO of the popular online broker Robinhood, and Dave Portnoy, the brash founder of Barstool Sports who took up investing as the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the sports world.

: HP to acquire peripherals maker HyperX for $425 million

The worldwide market for peripherals is expected to grow to $12.2 billion by 2024. Gaming accounts for 37% of the U.S. peripherals market, and 53% in China.