Robinhood Halts Buying In GameStop And AMC; Barstool's Portnoy Slams App: "They Should All Be In Jail"

 From Zero Hedge:

Update 0842 EST: Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy has weighed in on the restriction, stating "Either @RobinhoodApp allows free trading or it’s the end of Robinhood. Period."

He has also Tweeted: "And it turns out @RobinhoodApp is the biggest frauds of them all. “Democratizing finance for all” except when we manipulate the market cause too many ordinary people are getting rich."

He continued: "Somebody is going to have to explain to me in what world [Robinhood] and others literally trying to force a crash by closing the open market is fair? They should all be in jail."

--

One day after TD Ameritrade implemented unprecedented restrictions on trading in GME, AMC and other massive short squeezes, on Thursday morning reports are circulating on social media that Robinhood is no longer allowing GameStop or AMC share purchases.

"Robinhood Removes GameStop, AMC; Puts Notice On Pages Saying 'You Can Close Out Your Position On This Stock, But You Can Not Purchase Additional Shares'," Benzinga reported at about 0830 EST. 

The report was corroborated by additional sources shortly after 0830 EST.

Users are reporting the same on Twitter.

There are also scattered reports that the app has restricted BlackBerry. Users on social media are furious:

Developing...

Most Shorted Names Tumble After WallStreetBets Reddit Page Goes Private

 From Zero Hedge:

Update 645pm ET: And just like that the infamous r/WallStreetBets subreddit which destroyed at least one hedge funds. and even cost legendary trader Steve Cohen 10-15% in losses in January...

• COHEN'S POINT72 LOSES 10-15% AMID HEDGE FUND LOSSES THIS MONTH

... has "gone private", which means that only people who are invited can join.

The move comes just moments after we showed that today was an absolute record day for WSB, which had a whopping 800,000 people join it in one day, the equivalent of $1.1 billion in stimmy checks..

And since it will be that much more difficult to bring new entrants to the forum, it is hardly a surprise that the most shorted stocks which exploded in recent days, are suddenly tumbling with GME down almost $100 after hours on the news...

... and AMC is tumbling too.

So it is over? We doubt it: while the original subreddit may well have enough critical mass to continue its bull raids for the time being, it's only a matter of time before the members regroup and find a venue that welcomes them.

Maybe Parler?

To be sure, the "autists" are not happy, and have a simple message: "FUCK WALL STREET, FUCK THE SHORTS."

* *  *

Update 625pm ET: Until now, the only sure way to be shut down by a silicon valley tech titan was to be a conservative website or twitter account. Not anymore: as of this evening, the wrath of the tech giants has converged with that of the largest US hedge funds, and according to The Verge, Discord has banned the server of the r/WallStreetBets subreddit.

Discord told the Verge it did not ban the server for financial fraud (because there was none)  but rather because it continued to allow “hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings" which of course is not only laughable, but has become the generic excuse of Wall Street titans to shut down anyone they don't want "polluting" the internet airwaves which it now appears a handful of billionaires decide who can and who can't be on.

One wonders which hedge fund - Citadel or Point72 - made a quick call to the Discord board to make sure the massive short ramps cease.

Here is Discord’s full statement:

The server has been on our Trust & Safety team’s radar for some time due to occasional content that violates our Community Guidelines, including hate speech, glorifying violence, and spreading misinformation. Over the past few months, we have issued multiple warnings to the server admin.

Today, we decided to remove the server and its owner from Discord for continuing to allow hateful and discriminatory content after repeated warnings.

To be clear, we did not ban this server due to financial fraud related to GameStop or other stocks. Discord welcomes a broad variety of personal finance discussions, from investment clubs and day traders to college students and professional financial advisors. We are monitoring this situation and in the event there are allegations of illegal activities, we will cooperate with authorities as appropriate.

The question now is whether reddit will do the same to r/Wallstreetbets as it did to r/Donaldtrump and bans it and, if so, does it mean that any young enterprising trader is just as bad as the MAGArs in the eyes of the tech establishment.

* * *

Update 5:55pm ET: In a day when regulators, brokerages, and even the administration launched a full-court press to halt the marketwide short squeezes launched by Robinhood daytraders armed with stimmy checks and inspired by Reddit's forums - because a few hedge funds complained or were put out of business - Reddit's infamous WallStreetBets, the alleged origin of many of these bull raids, has published a response to the SEC. We present it without commentary.

"To the SEC retards in this sub: go fuck yourself. Why don't you start investigating why companies can shut down trading so their hedge fund buddies don't lose money. But when people lose money it's completely okay. Eat a dick," r/WallStreetBets said, which has already garnered 122k upvotes. 

Reddit users of r/WallStreetBets were apparently trashed all day by CNBC hosts and guests, with some calling average retail investors "unsophisticated." Well, if they were so "unsophisticated," then the question begs, how did a bunch of millennials on the Reddit forum unleash one of the biggest "mother of all short squeezes," and during the process, blow up multiple hedge funds who were overleveraged in Gamestop short positions. 

One Reddit user said, "SEC I have proof of malfeasance. A group of hedge funds shorted the ever-living fuck out of GME putting themselves in this position. What repercussions should they face? Or is it because they're somehow better than retail investors they shouldn't face any penalties? We. Like. The. Stock." 

"Hedge funds simply got cocky and made the incredibly idiotic move of reaching 140% shorts in a stock. If we hadn't seen that, someone else would and the result would be the same. Because that's obviously going to bite you in the ass. There's nothing coordinated or sophisticated about it. It's legit dumber than anything I've ever seen in this sub and I've been here a while," another Reddit user said. 

But, "what it?" Well, the following post by the so-called WSB chairman (with 190K followed), and which was liked by Elon Musk, reveals the thinking of what happens next...

* * *

Earlier:

Just hours after Jen Psaki informed the world that Joe Biden is closely tracking the turmoil in the most shorted stocks...

... The SEC released a statement Wednesday after-hours echoing Uncle Jone, that it too was closely following the insanity in the market.

"We are aware of and actively monitoring the on-going market volatility in the options and equities markets and, consistent with our mission to protect investors and maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, we are working with our fellow regulators to assess the situation and review the activities of regulated entities, financial intermediaries, and other market participants," Acting Chair Allison Herren Lee Pete Driscoll, Director, Division of Examinations Christian Sabella, Acting Director, Division of Trading and Markets wrote in a statement. 

While the SEC's did not mention individual company names, it was clear that the the was referring to the monster moves in the various most shorted names, including the extensively discussed explosions in Gamestop, AMC, BlackBerry Limited and countless other shorts which r/Wallstreetbets went after in hopes of forcing short squeezes.

GameStop's parabolic rise - which has become a poster child of all that is wrong with this bubble market - is a clear reminder of the Dot Com bubble insanity. Even fund manager Michael Burry who was long Gamestop, called the move "unnatural, insane, and dangerous."

Sure enough, in a hint of what may be coming, overnight William Galvin, Massachusetts' top securities regulator, said today that Gamestop trading could suggest something is "systemically wrong" with the market. Around midday, TD Ameritrade told clients that it would impose restrictions on certain trades involding GME, AMC and other stocks...

... ahead of what may be a marketwide halt in trading in these names as hedge funds come crying to mommy.

Already some industry watchers are speculating that it is only a matter of time before Reddit will be subpoenaed to explain how a bunch of teenagers destroyed a hedge fund.

Also earlier, the CEO of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman, suggest a halt to trading to allow big investors to "recalibrate their positions' to combat reddit users

Then again, the ramp may continue for a while because after being asked explicitly on at least two occasions, uberprinter Jerome Powell refused to answer questions related to Gamestop's parabolic rise, suggesting that the bubble is only going to get bigger.

While major online brokers were down, LevelX was up

 A new generation of traders has caused unprecedented volatility in stocks they like, such as GameStop (GME).  As reported by Market Watch, the flurry of activity caused many brokerages to fail, as explained here:

Disruptions were reported at several major retail brokerages Wednesday morning, following the speculative surge of interest in companies including GameStop GME, +105.73% and AMC Entertainment AMC, +170.77%, as well as a big drop in the major stock-market indexes including the S&P 500 SPX, -1.56%. The website Down detector reported disruptions to TD Ameritrade, Robinhood, E-trade, Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, Interactive Brokers and Vanguard, as well as the Reddit message board that has triggered much of the activity.[1]

LevelX was up the entire time, received no downtime or temporary service issues.  Customers were able to buy puts on all equities and short the stock, buy the stock, and other operations.  “Traders were able to trade the volatile markets we saw yesterday, on the LevelX app and on our Pro Trader platform,” said Christopher Infante, CEO of LevelX Capital LLC.  “We have received a lot of new business from disgruntled traders looking for a broker who is up all the time, even when the market is volatile.”

Strangely, there was also a massive internet outage across the East Coast yesterday, as reported by Verizon.

In the case of other online brokerages, this seems to be an ongoing issue, as these firms have struggled to provide necessary bandwidth for a growing customer base.

What’s clear is there is a macro demographic shift happening, a new generation of traders.  They are making their investments in companies like Gamestop $GME as a protest ‘against WallStreet’ and they succeeded, for now.  In a public statement on YouTube, Citron founder Andrew Left welcomed this new generation of traders, and explained them that 17 years ago, before Reddit, there was Citron.  

Will the situation with GameStop bring attention to stock trading as a form of activism?  Sustainable funds have used their dollars to further their causes for years, and it works.  Sustainable funds invest in companies that adhere to certain environmental rules but make money at the same time.

Visit www.levelx.com

Risk Disclosure

Trading of stocks and all other investment products involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. The value of stocks may fluctuate and as a result, clients may lose more than their original investment.

Private equity securities are speculative and illiquid and involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for every investor. The value of stocks may fluctuate and as a result, clients may lose more than their original investment.

---

[1] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/disruptions-reported-at-multiple-brokerages-as-gamestop-amc-surge-2021-01-27?siteid=yhoof2&yptr=yahoo

GameStopped

 From Zero Hedge:

The Urban Dictionary gets a new definition.

We Get Mail

Last month, we got an email from a subscriber who noticed some overlap between the stocks that he saw on r/WallStreetBets and our top names list. He noted that our site and WSB had both been bullish on AMD and Penn National Gaming (PENN), and predicted GameStop (GME) would soon end up our list: 

I’m seeing a direct correlation from some of the names on your list and the r/wallstreetbets

Subreddit: r/wallstreetbets

Names that pop up in there usually seem to appear on your list a day or two later.

Could you write a piece about why you think that is and why your top names might be affected by “meme stock” buying frenzy that happens in there?

For example. I predict GME will appear on your list by today’s close or possibly this week. They have been pumping GME hard and now that Ryan Cohen has upped his stake in the company it’s beginning to pay off for those that got in on it. I sadly did not.

Sadly, it didn't make our top names list either. We got that email on December 23rd; between then and Tuesday's close, GameStop was up another 619%. 

 

Let's talk about what's going on with GameStop, your clever idea to buy puts on it, and why it never made our top names. We'll close with possible consolation prize: a small cap with a parabolic chart that did make our top names. 

Striking Back At The Establishment

In a post earlier this month (The Establishment Strikes Back), we wrote about how the capital wing of establishment cracked down on Trump and his supporters. One motivation behind WallStreetBets' short squeeze/gamma squeeze is of course to make money. But another apparently is to strike back at the establishment. One cynical tweeter tied the two points neatly together: 

The Cohen he refers to there is Stephen A. Cohen, whose Point72 Asset Management, along with Citadel, had to pour additional billions into Melvin Capital as Melvin got GameStopped. 

WSB poster "Consygiere" expressed similar sentiments in a popular post on the board early Wednesday: 

This is not about $GME anymore, this is about setting terms straight:

Retail does not want to be manipulated anymore.

For decades Wall Street was manipulating securities, getting away with it, and blaming it on others. Through the media, bullshit target prices, naked short selling, or other forms of manipulation mentioned here (Kenneth, this one's for you). Citadel and many other MMs - don't misinterpret with Market Makers, we're talking about Market Manipulators here - got away with their dirty tactics to make shitload of money and screw people over. They finally got caught in their own game and tried everything to turn it around, but Shitron didn't work, the media didn't work, more aggressive selling didn't work. Now they're calling through some random crooks for regulations.

BULLSHIT. Regulation for what? Exchange of ideas? Our own Due Diligence? Winning against you in your own game? Yeah, in most cases your buddies at the SEC would gladly do so if you tell them anyway. This time though? People finally came to the realisation what the fuck you guys are doing over there. It was known by many since 2008 but people forgot quickly, and now is the time to remind them that you are no one else's friend but your crooked buddies.

What's Next For GameStop?

As I type this, it's already up another 100% in the pre-market. In the immortal words of WSB poster "SDBcop", "We can remain retards longer than they can stay solvent". 

So You're Thinking Of Buying Puts On It

That seems like a clever idea, right? The bubble's got to pop at some point, and by buying puts instead of just shorting GME like the morons at Melvin did, your downside risk will be limited to the cost of the puts. True, but have you checked the cost of puts on GameStop? On Tuesday, if you scanned for the optimal, or least expensive puts to hedge against a decline of up to 63% on GME over the next six months, you got this error message: 

This and the subsequent screen capture are via the Portfolio Armor iPhone app.

You got that error because the cost of hedging against a greater-than-63% decline in GME over that time frame was itself greater than 63% of position value. The smallest decline you could hedge against this way was a decline of >64%. 

And as you can see there, the cost of that hedge as a percentage of position value was a whopping 61.46%. 

Why GameStop Didn't Make Our Top Names

In a nutshell, the cost of the puts has been too high for us, throughout this parabolic move. Our system looks at the costs of out-of-the-market puts and calls on securities in part to gauge options market sentiment on them, and in part to make sure they can be cost-effectively hedged. All else equal, Redditors bidding up the price of OTM call options on GME was bullish with respect to our gauges of options market sentiment, but the rising cost of GME's OTM put options outweighed that for us. 

A Possible Consolation Prize: Bionano

 

Bionano's Saphyr optimal genome mapping system.

Each trading day, our system selects the ten names it estimates will perform best over the next six months. Usually, these include large cap stocks, but last month we picked up a couple of small caps, Nano Dimension (NNDM) on December 11th, and Ampio Pharmaceuticals (AMPE) on December 17th. By late December, both were up big, as we wrote at the time ("Big Gains From Small Names"). As of Tuesday's close, AMPE was down about 4.5% since it hit our top ten, but NNDM was up about 154%.

Our top names from December 11th (image via Portfolio Armor).

Last Thursday, another small cap name hit our top ten: Bionano Genomics (BNGO). Since then, it's up more than 47%.

 

 

Bionano popped up on our top ten again on Tuesday, suggesting the stock has more room to run. Unlike GME it can be cost-effectively hedged, so if you decide to buy it, consider hedging in case we end up being wrong about it. 

Private equity could face a reckoning as power shifts in Congress

 From Pitchbook:

After years of operating with minimal government intervention, the US private equity industry could face new regulatory scrutiny in 2021 and beyond.

Democrats now control both chambers of Congress and the White House, giving progressive lawmakers who have long criticized the PE industry their best chance yet to enact significant change.

Chief among those lawmakers is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the primary force behind the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, a comprehensive bill first introduced in 2019. The proposed legislation never left committee in a Senate controlled by Republicans. But Warren is now set to reintroduce her effort to regulate an industry she has derided for debt-heavy deals that can lead to layoffs, bankruptcies and other woes while exposing firms to few risks.

If passed, the bill would tax capital gains as regular income, ban dividends in the first two years a private equity firm owns a portfolio company, and hold firms responsible for debt and legal obligations incurred at portfolio companies under their ownership, among other outcomes.

"Senator Warren will continue her push to rein in the private equity industry this year," a Warren spokesperson told PitchBook. "And that includes holding these predatory companies accountable for lining the pockets of wealthy firms at the expense of struggling workers during the COVID-19 crisis, and wreaking havoc on low-income Americans at risk of losing their homes."

In terms of the pandemic's effect on private equity, the industry's top lobbying group takes the opposite view of Warren.

"Our nation is experiencing a serious economic downturn," said a spokesperson for the American Investment Council. "And now would be the worst time to pass legislation that will discourage investment in businesses and destroy jobs."

Indeed, any efforts to seriously reassess the role of private equity may have to wait. The newly blue Congress has several other high priorities, including efforts to pass another economic stimulus package and an infrastructure plan as well as holding a second impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump.

"I think the Biden administration has many catastrophes to contend with to move on PE in year one," said Eileen Appelbaum, a frequent private equity critic who has testified before Congress in support of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act. "Hopefully, there will be Congressional hearings to tee up financial reform in year two."

Not every member of Warren's party will be on board with her latest push. When the House held hearings in late 2019 to look at private equity's role in a string of retail bankruptcies, including Toys R Us, several Democrats voiced support for the industry's role in creating jobs in their districts.

One newly empowered lawmaker who could set his sights on private equity is Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was recently named chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Politico reported this week that Brown, a co-sponsor for Warren's bill, plans to hold public hearings to examine private equity's influence.

Appointees joining the Biden administration could also play a role in determining how private equity is regulated.

Last week, President Biden nominated Gary Gensler to lead the SEC. A former partner at Goldman Sachs and the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama administration, Gensler has since become known for clashes with big banks over their role in the global financial crisis. The expectation is Gensler, if confirmed, would be an aggressive advocate for Wall Street regulation.

Biden also tapped Rohit Chopra, a Warren disciple and commissioner of the FTC, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last year, Chopra lobbied Congress to require private equity firms to notify the FTC of smaller add-on deals, describing such firms as "vulture investors" and expressing concern about potential monopolies in the healthcare industry.

One shift that could have more immediate impact would be increased congressional funding for the IRS, which was gutted under the Trump administration. A renewed push by the agency to investigate investment funds and monitor fees could increase transparency about whether those dividends were used to either enrich executives or actually pay their LPs.

"That would achieve one of the important ends of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act," Appelbaum said.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has long railed against private equity, plans to renew her efforts to bring major changes to the industry. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Samsung Eyes New $10 Billion Texas Semiconductor Plant

From Zero Hedge:

It isn't just Silicon Valley CEOs and New York financial firms that are making the move to Texas.

Now, even Samsung is considering a $10 billion investment in the state to build an advanced chipmaking plant, according to Bloomberg. The company hopes that such a move could win it more U.S.-based clients and help it catch up with Taiwan Semiconductor.

Samsung is currently in discussions to potentially put a plant in Austin that would be "capable of fabricating chips as advanced as 3 nanometers in the future," the report says. Plans are still in preliminary stages. 

Such a plant would be expected to begin operations as early as 2023. 

The company is hoping to play on the U.S. government's continued hawkishness with China, which could encourage domestic production. The plant, if manufactured, would be the "first in the U.S. to use extreme ultraviolet lithography, the standard for next-generation silicon," Bloomberg wrote. Samsung would almost certainly have to negotiate incentives with President Joe Biden's administration to make the deal happen. 

Greg Roh, senior vice president at HMC Securities. commented: “If Samsung really wants to realize its goal to become the top chipmaker by 2030, it needs massive investment in the U.S. to catch up with TSMC. TSMC is likely to keep making progress in process nodes to 3nm at its Arizona plant and Samsung may do the same. One challenging task is to secure EUV equipment now, when Hynix and Micron are also seeking to purchase the machines".

The move could put Samsung "head-to-head" against rival Taiwan Semiconductor, which has its own plans to build a $12 billion plant in Arizona by 2024. Samsung has said it aims to be the biggest player in the semiconductor industry, with aims of investing $116 billion into its foundry and chip design over the next 10 years. 

Samsung purchased land in October next to its existing fab in Austin. The city's council held a meeting in December to discuss Samsung's request to rezone the land for industrial development. 

Samsung's chip division spent $26 billion on capex in 2020, but that largely supported the company's memory business, where Samsung has long dominated. 

Why is Bill Gates buying up farmland across America?

 From Natural News

(Natural News) The fourth richest person in the world and the top financier of the World Health Organization, Bill Gates, has silently become the biggest farmland owner in the United States. The man himself is the farthest thing from a farmer, however. He couldn’t even lift a bale of hay, let alone grip the two strands of bailing twine together with his bare hands.

Nevertheless, Gates now owns tens of thousands of acres of farmland across eighteen states. He owns the most farmland in Louisiana – a stunning 69,071-acre portfolio. As if this wasn’t enough, he owns another 47,927 acres in Arkansas, and 20,588 acres in Nebraska, and has a stake in a 25,750-acre swath of land on the west side of Phoenix, Arizona. So why is Bill Gates buying up farmland across America?

Bill Gates and the UN’s agricultural experiments

Bill Gate’s investment vehicle, Cascade Investments, has gone to great lengths to conceal his large farmland purchases, and have tried to cover their tracks with each monstrous deal. One of the deals was a $171 million acquisition concealed by an LLC with two employees in a metal-sided building down a dirt road off the Bayou Teche.

Bill Gates prides himself in philanthropy, so why would he be directing his personal investment vehicle to invest in farmland across the country and keep it a secret? In 2008, his personal foundation invested $306 million to direct the farming operations of small holder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation used the grant money to support high-yield, “sustainable” agriculture.

Ten years later, Bill launched Gates Ag One to advance these efforts. Now, Cascade Investments coordinates with a subsidiary, Cottonwood Ag Management, which is part of the Leading Harvest network, a nonprofit that promotes sustainable agriculture. The Harvest network now represents 2 million acres in 22 states and another 2 million acres across seven other countries. The Sustainable Agriculture Working Group is behind this transformation of agriculture and Bill Gates is one of the main investors. This 13-member group includes foreign investors looking to change food and crop production in the US, including: Ceres Partners, Hancock Natural Resources Group, The Rohaytn Group, and UBS Farmland Investors.

Is Gates preparing to control US farmers and dictate the direction of US farming in accordance with the United Nations? Is he preparing to launch experimental GMOs across hundreds of thousands of acres of US farmland, dictating the type of seeds and animal breeds that farmers use? It’s unclear whether his farmland is being used for conservation purposes or whether he intends to invite foreign influence and experimental genetic-altering technologies into the US agriculture space.

In Scotland, Bill Gates teamed up with the United Kingdom to develop “super crops” and to breed high-yield cows. The two entities invested $174 million into experimental breeding programs that aim to make cows produce more milk, make chickens lay more eggs, and make genetically modified crops better withstand disease. The experiments are intended to “help” 100 million African farmers so they can produce higher yields from their small-scale farming operations.

Do these international land grabs and globalist’s experiments coincide with the FDA’s efforts to shutdown raw milk farmers and the Bureau of Land Management’s war against independent ranchers?

Bill Gates and the rise of smart cities

Another reason Bill Gates is buying up land is to invest in upcoming smart cities. The land he owns just west of Phoenix is being developed into a new metropolis called Belmont. When it’s complete, it will boast 80,000 homes, 3,800 acres of industrial, office and retail space; 3,400 acres of open space; and 470 acres for public schools. The acreage is strategically located off Interstate 10 and will be accessible to Interstate 11 as well. The 40 square miles is projected to house 200,000 or more residents, who will undoubtedly be subjected to 24/7 surveillance and personal data harvesting in everything they do within the hyper-connected smart city. Bill Gate’s sardonic influence is part of a greater INFLUENCE that seeks to use Americans and their resources for international control and exploitation.

Sources include:

NewsPunch.com

Agriculture.com

Reuters.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

DAVOS: Are Institutional Investors Prepared for THE GREAT RESET?

 From SWFI 

A contingency of policymakers, near-monopolistic tech companies, and large corporate CEOs are pushing for The Great Reset agenda. According to the World Economic Forum’s page on The Great Reset, it says, “There is an urgent need for global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. To improve the state of the world, the World Economic Forum is starting The Great Reset initiative.”

The highly-anticipated Davos event will be held on January 25-29, 2021. The WEF is an influential conference of business leaders, activists, policymakers, institutional investors, and corporate CEOs.

In many instances, the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) upended markets, shifted political alliances, crushed small businesses, while expanding the balance sheet of Western central banks. Furthermore, the crisis has financially benefitted large tech companies like Amazon.com, Inc. and larger retailers vs. restaurants, the travel industry, smaller retail operations, and the live entertainment industry.

Will the WEF’s vision of the Great Reset happen or at least parts in the next decade?

Great Reset of Capitalism

In a June 3, 2020 post on COVID Action, Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of WEF, put out a statement saying, “COVID-19 lockdowns may be gradually easing, but anxiety about the world’s social and economic prospects is only intensifying. There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable.

To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.”

Decarbonization

With the COVID national lockdowns, the price of oil stumbled even further, thus institutional investors heavily allocated to oil companies like Chevron, ExxonMobil, or BP have faced hits in their equity portfolios, while listed large U.S. and select China tech companies witnessed market cap growth during 2020. The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance (AOA), a United Nations-convened alliance of large institutional investors, was established in 2019. The Alliance was initiated by Allianz, Caisse des Dépôts, La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ), Folksam Group, PensionDanmark, and SwissRe. Since then, Alecta, AMF, CalPERS, Nordea Life and Pension, Storebrand, and Zurich have joined as founding members. Net-zero carbon emissions will be a major theme being prodded by both policymakers and corporate CEOs. This trend is already happening on the institutional investor front, on investors plowing more capital into renewables such as wind, solar, hydrogen, and battery storage. Furthermore, electric vehicles were a popular sub-industry in 2020, witnessing rising share prices of Tesla, Inc., Nio, and other EV makers. Sovereign funds have already been major backers of EVs. For example, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is a major financial investor in Lucid Motors, while Mubadala Investment Company invested in Xpeng Motors.

Travel and Digital IDs

There is a mad scramble to build apps in regard to vaccine passports. Already governments and tech companies have been using contract-tracing apps and programs. Apple Inc (AAPL) and Google (parent company Alphabet) partnered to create a bluetooth-based system to notify users if they’d been exposed to COVID-19. According to the WEF website, “Denmark is creating a digital COVID-19 ‘vaccine passport’, to be rolled out in the first few months of 2021.” Vaccine documentation could be a requirement for people to enter a country via airplanes. In 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) disclosed it was working on an e-vaccination certificate, a “smart yellow card” or digital version of the yellow vaccine booklets used in many countries. However, there is pushback among privacy advocates on a digital ID system and putting medical records in the hands of governmental authorities and employers.

Source: https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/

Keywords: California Public Employees Retirement System.

Notes: “Davos Man” is a neologism referring to the global elite of wealthy (predominantly) men, whose members view themselves as completely “international”.