L’affaire GameStop is all over but the shouting, at Ken Griffin in particular, and the Dan Loeb pontificating.
“The recent short squeeze in certain securities is nothing new,” Loeb wrote. “As targeted securities have started to come back to earth, wiping out fortunes on the way down as they did on the way up, we can see that this was a bubble no different than other manias over time, going back to the Dutch Tulip Bulb Mania in the 17th century. What is different today, however, is the rapidity of the rise and collapse of bubbles, fueled by retail trading platforms and social media. Large short interests were also an accelerant in this conflagration….”
“It is tempting to think that lower nets imply lower risk, but recent events are a stark reminder that leverage, in all its forms, is a double-edged sword,” Loeb said.
The short squeeze is no more. Shares have settled at around $50, not $1,000, so if you got in by mid-January you still did pretty well for yourself: not as well as Fidelity did, but much better than GameStop itself did. And that, combined with other recent events, can mean only one thing: We unfortunately have to talk about bitcoin again, again.
Bank of New York MellonCorp. , the nation’s oldest bank… said Thursday it will hold, transfer and issue bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of its asset-management clients…. “Digital assets are becoming part of the mainstream,” said Roman Regelman, chief executive of BNY Mellon’s asset-servicing and digital businesses.
Sigh.
“We’ve done a lot of the upfront thinking to consider how we might pay employees should they ask to be paid in bitcoin, how we might pay a vendor if they ask to be [paid] in bitcoin and whether we need to have bitcoin on our balance sheet should that happen,” [Twitter CFO Ned] Segal said. “It’s something we continue to study and look at, we want to be thoughtful about over time, but we haven’t made any changes yet.”
Say what you will about GameStop, but at least it’s not Ether. Can we please—PLEASE—talk about something else the r/WallStreetBets hordes and their acolytes might do with the GME winnings or good money thrown after bad in its wake? Anything at all?
Wall Street has found a combination even more faddish than blank-check companies and electric vehicles: Blank-check companies and Jetsons-style flying taxis.
Nope, we’ve changed our minds… ugh, it’s too late.
On Wednesday, electric air-taxi developer Archer announced a merger with Atlas Crest Investment, a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, led by billionaire investment banker Ken Moelis…. The SPAC frenzy of recent months has focused on electric vehicles as well as other “cool” startups such as space-tourism venture Virgin Galactic….
It is doubtful that the Uber-style air taxis that many backers have in mind can develop anytime soon. For one, these vehicles will need dedicated landing pads. Also, a joint analysis by Ford and the University of Michigan found that a fully loaded eVTOL vehicle reduces carbon emissions in trips above 62 miles, but ends up polluting more than gasoline cars if flown for under 22 miles. This limits the technology to the kind of airport-feeder traffic that United envisages.
We hate to go all Coop on you guys here, but seriously: This will end in tears, but almost certainly not in the flying cars we’ve been promised for 180 years.
Bitcoin to Come to America’s Oldest Bank, BNY Mellon [WSJ]
Twitter Has Studied Using Bitcoin, CFO Says [WSJ]
Next Stop for Electric-Vehicle SPAC Mania: the Jetsons [WSJ]
Citadel’s Ken Griffin Expected to Testify at House GameStop Hearing [Bloomberg]
Hedge fund honcho Dan Loeb of Third Point talks short selling madness [Fox Business]
Fidelity Cashes In Most of GameStop Stake [WSJ]
How GameStop missed out on capitalizing on the Reddit rally [Reuters]