The Silver Banana goes to...

Market Snapshot

What's Ripe

Volatility (VIX) – There’s an old saying on the Street that goes “bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered.” It’s been a while, but for the bears, this was finally proven right again yesterday. A common bear favorite is the Volatility Index, or VIX, which is essentially a “fear gauge” for investors, and on a day like yesterday, fear reigned supreme, giving the VIX a 22% boost.

Cytokinetics ($CYTK) – Another saying everyone knows of course, is “when all else fails, gamble degenerately on biotech names.” Never has that wisdom been more true than yesterday. While Cytokinetics may be unfamiliar to you, it does in fact make revenue and it was a true diamond in the rough on Monday. The San Fran-based biopharma firm announced a new drug aimed at helping those with a certain genetic heart disease, leading to a monstrous gain of over 40%.

BioNTech ($BNTX) – Finally, some love for our friend BioNTech, the German biopharma company that teamed up with Pfizer to help save humanity. Gaining 4.8%, BioNTech announced an expansion of geography and disease-fighting capabilities all in one. The firm will be buying a production and R&D site from a subsidiary of Gilead, which the company will utilize to focus on new cancer research.

...on another note, the WSO Alpha portfolio was down only 0.5% yesterday. This qualifies as “ripe’ when the Nasdaq is down 1.1% and the S&P 500 is down 1.6%. See all 30+ holdings here.

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What's Rotten

Zoom Video ($ZM) – Despite the flood of misery received when someone sends you a meeting request, Zoom stock soared last year as the entire world relied on its technology. Now that the company is a certified big boy with a market cap over $100bn, it can buy up the smaller fish, which is exactly what it did. Zoom announced the acquisition of Five9, a provider of cloud customer management software. It’s unclear if the 2% drop yesterday was part of the down day or if traders didn’t like the acquisition.

Apple ($AAPL) – Now it’s time to scare you even more. With Monday’s sell off due to nervousness around the Delta variant, Apple received some unrelated bad press. Israeli tech firm NSO Groups Pegasus smartphone spyware, was able to hack into iPhones without users having to click a link. The group called the issue a “major blinking red five-alarm fire”, causing shares to drop 2.7%. Catch me in the Alaskan wilderness if you want to join me off the grid.

Simon Property Group ($SPG) – Malls have had it rough. First, this website called Amazon.com rendered them obsolete, then The Virus made everyone terrified to go outside or near each other. After that ‘Mike Tyson one-two combo’, the Delta variant is a real kick in the nuts. No one knows this better than mall REIT Simon Property group, who probably owns your local mall, and was beaten down 5.9% on the resurging virus fears.

Macro Monkey Says

Too Hot to Handle – It was a cold day on Wall Street, and the effects are starting to hit main street. Remember that virus which destroyed the economy in 2020? Well, in 2021, it makes for some eye-popping year-over-year growth statistics. No surprise there, but what is worth noting, is that we may be past peak economic growth in this recovery, as indicated by this WSJ survey of economists. The question on everyone’s mind now is if a slowdown will lead to a crash in equities, returning valuations to more sane levels.

Food for Thought:

No Tendies on Tiktok – Don’t worry, 12-year-old ‘fin-fluencers’ can still pump the latest shitcoin, they just can’t get paid for it. Chinese big tech firm Bytedance, the parent company of Tiktok (heard of it?), confirmed that paid promotions for cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, and credit cards, amongst others, have been axed from the platform. Other sites including Google UK have also been bringing down the hammer on *cough* scam artists *cough* "questionable" financial content. Hopefully this paves the road for less people to get absolutely ruined financially by age 25. Apes, I’m begging you, please don’t take advice from anyone that calls themselves a “guru”.

Meme Meditation

Wise Investor Says

“There is no single market secret to discover, no single correct way to trade the markets. Those seeking the one true answer to the markets haven’t even gotten as far as asking the right question, let alone getting the right answer.” - Jack Schwager

Happy Investing,

Patrick & The Daily Peel Team

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