Tag: finance

Weedmaps, a popular website where users can learn about different strains of marijuana and locate local dispensaries, has agreed to go public by merging with Silver Spike Acquisition Corp. in a deal which values the webstie at approximately $1.5 billion, according to Reuters – which adds that it’s a “rare example of a business focused on the cannabis sector listing on a U.S. stock exchange.”

Companies which involve direct selling of marijuana, or which are ‘plant touching’ are unable to list shares in the Untied States. Weedmaps does neither.

“When you look at what we’re offering (to investors), there’s really not too much else like it,” said Chris Beals, CEO of Weedmaps parent, WM Holding Company.

The Irvine, California-based website was founded in 2008 by Doug Francis and Justin Hartfield, and offers marijuana dispensaries the ability to list their inventory in real time, while the site also hosts a review and ratings platform.

Weedmaps expects to receive gross proceeds of up to $575 million from the deal, in part from proceeds Silver Spike had raised and also through $325 million in a private investment in public equity, or PIPE, transaction. Investors in the PIPE include funds from the Federated Hermes Kaufmann Funds, Senvest Management LLC and AFV Partners.

Silver Spike shares were indicated up 8.8% at $11.41 in premarket trading. Reuters first reported news of the deal on Wednesday. –Reuters

The company is expected to deliver $160 million in revenue and has been profitable for its entire 12-year history, according to Beals.

The deal comes less than a week after US lawmakers in the House of Representatives voted to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level, which is expected to remain a symbolic vote unless Democrats regain the Senate in a January runoff election in Georgia. It’s the first time either chamber of Congress has voted to end the federal ban on marijuana since 1970, when it was listed as a “controlled substance.”

Meanwhile, 15 US states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use, while 30 states allow some form of medicinal use.

Silver Spike, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) raised $250 million in an August, 2019 Nasdaq IPO with a focus on buying within the cannabis sector.

“There was no better opportunity and no more dynamic company and story for us to consider a transaction with than with WMH,” said Gordon in an interview.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

One aspect of narcopaths (narcissistic sociopaths) that is important to remember is that they live in their own little world in which their desires and bizarre dysfunctions are normalized. They believe themselves superior to most people because they are predatory, and don’t suffer from annoying hang-ups like empathy and conscience. They generally tend to believe they have pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes the majority of the time. They think that you are a submissive idiot, and that when they bark an order, you will simply jump to attention because you “believe”.

Almost every aspect of the globalists and their behavior indicates they are a club or cult of narcopaths. Their obsessive need to control as well as to corrupt and destroy in order to get what they want is not an extension of mere greed, it is a deep-seated aspect of who they are as beings. It is a defining mechanism at the core of their character. They are real world monsters, like vampires attempting to blend into an unsuspecting population.

In their arrogance, then tend to expect they can drain the public dry at will without being resisted or exposed. The problem is, as soon as they start to feed and destroy they draw attention to themselves. Eventually, they will attract the suspicions of the public, along with some vampire hunters. Unless they find a way to hide a stake through the heart is inevitable.

I have been writing about the threats of globalism and the “reset” for many years now, and I have noted for some time two separate quandaries; one affecting the liberty movement and the other affecting the globalists:

1) First, criminals tend to brag about their crimes when they think that it’s too late for anyone to do anything about them. I predicted the globalists would be very open in revealing their agenda the moment they believed themselves “untouchable”. For the freedom loving public this suggests that in 2020 going into 2021 that the elites must think there is nothing that can be done to stop the machine; they are so blatant in their calls for the global “reset”, a cashless society, totalitarian lockdowns and a surveillance state that no one in their right mind can claim these notions are “conspiracy theory” anymore.

The fact is, the “conspiracy theorists” were RIGHT ALL ALONG, and now there is nothing anyone can say about it.

2) Second, I have also argued in the past that the globalist push for a “new world order” is a double edged sword that could very well end up annihilating them. As they attempt to initiate their reset agenda, they become more and more exposed; they can no longer lurk in the safety of the shadows and there is no going back once the process is started. Once the globalists become widely known, they must either swiftly take control through engineered chaos and collapse, or face retribution that could eliminate a cabal that took them centuries to build. Vampires must make the rest of the world a dark place before leaving the shadows, or they risk dying in the light of day.

There are two schools of thought in the liberty movement; one suggesting that the globalist agenda is fixed and unstoppable and that the best anyone can do is survive. The second suggests that the reset can be stopped and the globalists can be brought to justice. I stand in both camps.

There are aspects of the reset that are indeed fixed and that cannot be undone. For example, numerous national economies including the US are in the midst of a stagflationary collapse and there is nothing that can be done to reverse it. Perhaps a decade ago we could have changed course, but now it is too late. The pain can be reduced if people quickly end their dependency on the system and create localized trade networks of their own, but the economy as we know it right now is dead and it is not coming back anytime soon.

I do not see this, though, as a win for the elites. Crashing the economy is one thing, rebuilding it into the collectivist dystopia they desperately want is another. Everything depends on who rebuilds; maybe it will be them, maybe it will be us.

I am seeing some encouraging signs these days that the globalist reset is NOT a sure thing, and those that know my work know I have never been one for misplaced optimism. Specifically, the exploitation of the pandemic response as a means to ram through numerous draconian restrictions does not seem to be going exactly as the elites planned.

I have to look back at Event 201 to really gauge the state of the game, because what the elites planned and what has happened do not completely match up. For those not familiar, Event 201 was a type of “war game” held by globalists from the World Economic Forum and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The scenario? A pandemic outbreak of a coronavirus which would spread like wildfire and kill a predicted 65 million people. The simulation was held only a couple of months before the real thing happened at the start of 2020.

In the year since the outbreak, the globalists have attempted to enforce nearly every plan that was outlined during Event 201, including using social media to censor or restrict any news or information outside of the establishment approved narrative (Yes, narrative control was discussed at the event in great detail). Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum has consistently and excitedly applauded the pandemic crisis as a “perfect opportunity” to institute the “reset” that the globalists have been talking about for years.

Unfortunately for them, the virus has not been anywhere near as deadly as they appear to have hoped. With a death rate of well below 1% for anyone outside of a nursing home with preexisting conditions, the establishment has now been forced to pump up infection numbers as a means to terrorize the populace because the death numbers are not enough to convince people to willingly hand over their freedoms. The Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) for Covid 19 not counting nursing home deaths with preexisting conditions is only 0.26% of those infected.

There is a propaganda meme being passed around these days that tries to exaggerate the danger of death from Covid, and it goes a little something like this:

“Covid has killed more people that the Vietnam War and the Gulf Wars combined in a single year, therefore your freedoms are forfeit…”

This is an idiotic talking point but luckily no one is buying it.

Over 40% of Covid deaths are people that are already sick and on the verge of dying anyway (And no, refusing to wear masks is not the same as endorsing “death panels”, because a death panel is about socialists refusing treatment to people at risk because of their age. No one is suggesting that old people be refused treatment, and they always have the option of staying under quarantine if they fear they will become infected. They are already retired and receiving social security, perhaps if we are going to stimulate then the bailout money should go to those most at risk so that the rest of us can continue on with normal life?)

Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from diseases and illnesses including the flu, common colds and pneumonia, yet, the prospect of abandoning the Bill of Rights, submitting to economic shutdowns and wearing a muzzle on our faces wherever we go was never brought up before.

Why should we ask 99.7% of Americans or the world to accept medical tyranny just to make .26% of the population feel safe? People who question the mandates are called “selfish”, but even if I was one of the people susceptible to the virus, I would NEVER demand that 99% of the population bow to totalitarianism at the off chance that I might live a little while longer. Now THAT would be selfish.

As more and more studies and data are released, the mask mandates are also coming into question. Though Big Tech has sought to suppress or censor studies that run contrary to the mainstream narrative, this has only led more people to question the motivations of governments pushing the mandates. After all, the mainstream media keeps saying that we should “listen to the science”, but they ignore or censor the science. So, if the pandemic response is not based in science, then it must only be about control.

Many Americans are not as stupid as the elites think. They see the inconsistencies in the rhetoric and the data and they are increasingly prone to refuse to comply. This might be why the establishment is suddenly rushing out at least two Covid vaccines in the span of half a year; they have to get the vaccine phase of the Reset underway before too many people jump from the panic bandwagon.

The vaccine rush and the claims of effectiveness of 94% to 95% from Pfizer and Moderna are suspect. The average effectiveness of most vaccines is around 50% or less, and these are vaccines with hundreds of trials and years of usage. Somehow, Pfizer and Moderna were both able to produce a vaccine for a SARS type virus when multiple governments tried for over a decade to produce vaccines for SARS in China and were unsuccessful, and they were able to achieve 95% effectiveness?

Many people are not buying the vaccine story, and this is perhaps why the elites are jumping headlong into vaccination so fast. Consider this fact:

Numerous polls indicate that at least 1 in 3 Americans plan to refuse the Covid vaccine when it is released to the general public. 

60% of Americans have stated in polls that they will not take the vaccine unless it is proven to be at least 75% effective.

Here I think we have our explanation for the vaccination bonanza. The elites know that a third of Americans (and probably Europeans) will not take the vaccine regardless of any propaganda they dish out. They also know that 60% of Americans are unlikely to take the vaccine unless they can show an effectiveness rate of at least 75%. Neither Moderna nor Pfizer have actually produced any evidence that their vaccines are capable of prevented severe illness or death from Covid, so, their effectiveness rate is based on “projections” of success according to their minimal trials. Meaning, the effectiveness rate of 95% is completely arbitrary.

Why did they go with such a high number instead of a more realistic 50% to 60%? Because the polls say they need an epic effectiveness rate in order to convince Americans to take the vaccine. I think it is really as simple as that.

Americans are skeptical of the vaccines for a number of reasons. The reality that they are minimally tested and rushed out in less than a year is one reason . The fact that the government and the media have been caught censoring or lying about Covid data is another reason. People just don’t trust the elites, and who can blame them? Who would trust a cabal of psychopaths to inject them with an unknown viral cocktail? Maybe their intentions are not so pure?

The public is right to be suspicious. A former Pfizer vice president, Dr. Michael Yeadon among other medical professionals have recently warned that the vaccines have not been adequately tested and that there is a risk of “indefinite infertility” for women who take the current Covid vaccine due to damaging autoimmune response. In other words, the vaccine could make many women barren and unable to have children.

Maybe this is what Bill Gates meant when he stated in his Ted Talk that “vaccines and reproductive services” could help contribute to a reduction of the Earth’s population of 10% to 15% as a means to “stop global warming.

Why would Bill Gates mention vaccines in the same breath as “reproductive services” in reference to population reduction? Aren’t vaccines supposed to help people live longer? Well, the Pfizer VP’s warning about the Covid vaccine is ringing bells for me. Maybe the Covid vaccine won’t make you sick, or kill you. Maybe you will live a long life free of coronavirus, but you’ll find out a few years after taking the vaccine that you won’t ever be able to have kids.

Watch the movie ‘Children Of Men’ to get a sense of what the future might be like if the globalists get their way.

In the meantime, the elites are trying with everything they have to convince the public that they must abandon notions of civil liberties in the name of survival and “the greater good”.

They are already talking about how things will never go back to normal, and the changes being made today will stay in place for many years to come.

Governments are in the media right now claiming the vaccines “will not be mandatory”. This is a lie. At the same time they are putting mandates in place to require you to prove you are vaccinated in order to go to public places and even to go to work. Basically, you take the vaccine or you die from poverty. This is not a choice.

But, I see millions of Americans standing in opposition to this agenda. I see sheriffs and police across the country refusing to enforce the agenda, even in hard-left states like California. I see protests in lockdown states like Michigan, California and New York. I see mass protests in Europe.  I see the Reset scheme being exposed and the truth breaking into the mainstream.

I see something rising to the surface, and I smell that gunpowder scent of rebellion, and I like it.

I’m not pessimistic about the future. I know a crash is coming. I know a fight is coming. But right now what I see is a fight that can and will be won by those that respect the principles of freedom. The globalists may have overplayed their hand.

*  *  *

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Another day, another astoundingly exuberant bid for an IPO as AirBnB opened with one of the biggest pops ($146 vs $68 IPO) since 2008 seemingly confirming JPMorgan’s “market nirvana” argument. But, “on the other hand” – as CNBC might say – stimulus doubts and vaccine take-up uncertainty (as well as extremes in sentiment and positioning) leave the negative nattering naybobs askance.

ABNB ended below its opening print…

All of which provided yet another mixed picture with Small Cap stocks bid, big caps offered for sale, oil up strongly but bonds aggressively bid, gold up and bitcoin down, and Smart money not buying any of the excitement…

Source: Bloomberg

Just remember “you are not your Robinhood brokerage balance…”

Stocks were mixed after an early buying panic at the cash open, chopping around on various headlines of “hope” for stimulus and disappointing increases in curfews and lockdowns across the states…Small Caps outperformed and Dow lagged…

The Dow once again tested 30K and as hard as the algos tried, it tumbled to close below 30K…

Small Caps surge today took them to their highest relative to Nasdaq 100 since June…

Source: Bloomberg

FANG stocks were bid off the opening lows but faded after Europe closed…

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA had another epic day after collapsing in the pre-market, it was panic-bid all day – up 10% from the opening lows…

A lot of malarkey in Energy stocks today, ripped 4% higher at the open (3rd big opening squeeze in a row)…

Source: Bloomberg

Tail risk protection is bid…

Source: Bloomberg

And vol of vol (VVIX) is decoupling higher from VIX…

Source: Bloomberg

A super strong 30Y auction helped extend the gains in bond-land today, with 30Y now down around 10bps on the week…

Source: Bloomberg

30Y yields fell to their lowest in two weeks…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar was choppy around the ECB statement, but ended lower as EURUSD strengthened in seeming disappointment at Lagarde’s QE increase…

Source: Bloomberg

Even as the dollar faded, so did Yuan…

Source: Bloomberg

Yuan trading volume has exploded (the second-highest in data going back to 2014) as Bloomberg suggests one factor could be the looming reduction of yuan market-making banks: players will be under pressure to ramp up trading volumes to improve their year-end assessments.

Source: Bloomberg

Bitcoin was modestly lower on the day, bouncing back again after trading below $18000…

Source: Bloomberg

Gold managed to hold on to very small gains, after pump’n’dump-ing around the US cash equity open…

Brent Crude traded above $50 today for the first time since March and WTI spiked above $47.50 (but slipped back below $47 after settlement)…

Copper joined crude in the party…

Lifting Bloomberg’s Commodity Spot Index to 6 year highs (as The ECB adds to its ‘highly successful’ QE bond purchase scheme)…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, this whole charade has been one massive short-squeeze – the largest in history by far…

Source: Bloomberg

Authored by Alexander Pan via TheBrag.com,

Executive board member of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and CEO of Social Capital, Chamath Palihapitiya has said “fuck you” to every rich millennial on a trust fund attacking capitalism and claiming they’re socialists. 

Appearing on the All-In Podcast alongside Jason Calacanis, David Sacks, and David Friedberg, the quartet got to discussing trust fund kids claiming to be socialists, specifically naming a recent New York Times article titled ‘The Rich Kids Who Want to Tear Down Capitalism’ as highly misguided since capitalism is exactly how those rich kids got to where they are now.

Palihapitiya unleashed with a verbal beatdown to all those trust fund socialists.

“Who’s right is it to say that that [capitalism] was wrong and all of the people that are employed by it and live within that mechanism?” says Palihapitiya.

“All of a sudden 50,000 people virtue signal because they’re sitting in their warm homes in America telling everyone to fuck off, I find it kind of a joke.”

The venture capitalist then used his childhood of living in poverty to really hammer home his point against trust fund socialists.

“I would like you to go live where I was supposed to live before I immigrated,” continues Palihapitiya.

“Come to Sri Lanka, you live in an outhouse, you sit there, you squat to go to the bathroom, there’s no fucking three-ply bamboo press-free toilet paper.

“You literally clean yourself with your hand, you brush your teeth with coal, I remember we used to brush our teeth with fucking coal. We have a well for water.

“You have all these people in these situations where all we wanted was just a chance to run the race and the people that were born with the silver spoon in their mouth, who had the chance to run the race, turns around and tells guys like me ‘no you can’t’, that fucking infuriates me.”

Palihapitiya then signed off in the most straight-to-the-point way possible:

“Honestly, fuck you.”

If he had a handheld mic, he probably would’ve dropped it.

Chamath concluded his perspective by quoting Walter E Williams:

“Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man,” he said.

“Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”

Check out Palihapitiya ripping into trust fund socialists:

As we’ve previously explained, Sunspot Cycle 25 is likely underway and could be super active. Last week, one of the strongest solar explosions in a couple of years, measured as an M4.4-category eruption, was recorded. Now there’s a new warning, of an imminent geomagnetic storm. 

Readers in some northern parts of the U.S. could see Northern Lights, from Wednesday night through Friday, produced by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). 

“Geomagnetic Storm Watches are in effect from December 9th – 11th, 2020 due to anticipated CME effects,” read a statement on NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. 

“It’s coming. A coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading for Earth, and geomagnetic storms are possible when it arrives later today or tomorrow. NOAA forecasters expect the most intense disturbances to occur on Dec. 10th with peak storm levels near category G3. If that happens, auroras could be sighted in the USA in states as far south as, e.g., Illinois and Oregon,” said Spaceweather.com. 

If you’re curious, here’s how Northern Lights are produced. 

As forecast show, Sunspot Cycle 25 could result in a lot of solar activity over the coming years – allowing Northern Lights to light up the sky as charged particles from the sun strike the Earth’s atmosphere. 

Authored by Robert Madsen via AmericanThinker.com,

Texas claims that the presidential elections as held (and as directed by government officials outside the legislature) in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan all flagrantly violated their own election laws by materially weakening or doing away with security measures.  Further, according to the U.S. Constitution, the legislature (representing the citizens) of each state has absolute authority and responsibility for how presidential electors are chosen; the will of legislature being expressed through state law.

Texas claims that the violations of election law in these states created an environment where ballot fraud was enabled and likely to occur.  The lawsuit lists the violations of law in each of the defendant states and provides evidence of fraud (the number of ballots handled unconstitutionally) in each of the states sufficient to change the outcome of the ballot counts.

Pennsylvania

Facts:

1. Vote Tally: 3,445,548 for Biden and 3,363,951 for Trump – margin 81,597.

2. Requests for mail-in ballots 70% Democrats and 25% Republicans.

3. Mail-in ballots increased from 266,208 in 2016 to over 3,000,000 in 2020.

Violations of Election Law:

1. The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

2. PA supreme court changed existing deadline for receiving mail-in ballots from 8:00 PM on the day of election to 3 days after the election and adopted a presumption that non-postmarked ballots be considered as valid.

3. Election officials in Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties did not follow state law permitting poll-watchers to be present for the opening, counting, and recording of mail-in ballots.

4. The Secretary of State directed election officials to remove ballots before 7:00 AM on the day of election in order to “cure” defective mail-in ballots.  This was done only in Democrat majority counties.

5. Election officials did not segregate ballots received after 8:00 PM on election day breaking the promise made to the U.S. Supreme Court thus making it impossible to identify or remove those ballots.

Evidence of Fraud:

1. Ballots with no mailed date: 9,005 (no evidence they were sent to a voter)

2. Ballots returned on or before the mailed date: 58,221

3. Ballots returned one day after the mailed date: 51,200 (Perhaps not impossible, but highly unlikely for the average voter to receive a ballot, fill it out, place it in the mail and have it returned the next day.)

4. On Nov 2, the day before the election, PA reports that 2.7 million ballots had been sent out.  On Nov 4 that number had increased to 3.1 million — an increase of 400,000 mail-in ballots at election time with literally no reasonable chance of them being used by legitimate voters.

Georgia

Facts:

1. Vote Tally: 2,472,098 for Biden and 2,458,121 for Trump – margin 12,670.

2. Mail-in ballots: 65.32% for Biden and 34.68% for Trump.

3. Mail-in ballots increased from 213,033 in 2016 to 1,305,659 in 2020.

Violations of Election Law:

1. The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

2. The Secretary of State authorized opening and processing mail-in ballots up to three weeks before election day when the law prohibits that until after the polls open on election day.

3. The Secretary of State materially weakened the security requirements for ballot rejection based on signature verification or other missing information.

Evidence of Fraud:

1. Mail-in ballot rejection rate for missing or inaccurate information or for non-matching signatures decreased from 6.42% in 2016 to .36% in 2020.  Rejecting 2020 ballots at the same rate as 2016 would have resulted in a net gain of 25,587 votes for Trump – twice the number needed to overcome Biden’s count.  With a six-fold increase in the number of mail-in ballots, reason would indicate that the rejection rate would increase, or at least stay the same, with so many first-time mail-in ballots.

Michigan

Facts:

1. Vote Tally: 2,796,702 for Biden and 2,650,695 for Trump – margin 146,007.

2. In 2016 587,618 voters requested mail-in ballots.  In 2020 3.2 million votes were cast by mail-in ballot.

3. Democrats voted by mail at a rate approximately two times that of Republican voters.

Violations of Election Law:

1. The Secretary of State unilaterally abrogated signature verification requirements for mail-in ballots.

2. The Secretary of State sent out unsolicited ballots to all 7.7 million registered voters contrary to election law which requires a voter to request a mail-in ballot through a process that includes a signature to be matched with the voter registration.

3. The Secretary of State also allowed absentee ballots to be requested online without signature verification.

4. Local election officials in Wayne County — containing 322,925 more ballots for Biden than for Trump — opened and processed mail-in ballots without poll-watchers present.

5. Local election officials in Wayne County also ignored the strict election law requirements of placing a written statement or stamp on each ballot envelope indicating that the voter signature was in fact checked and verified with the signature on file with the state.

Evidence of Fraud:

1. 174,384 mail-in ballots in Wayne County had no valid registration number, indicating they likely resulted from election workers running the same ballots through the tabulator multiple times.

2. 71% of Wayne County Absent Voter Counting Boards were unbalanced, where the number of people who checked in did not match the number of ballots cast.

Wisconsin

Facts:

1. Vote Tally: 1,630,716 for Biden and 1,610,151 for Trump – margin 20,565.

2. Mail-in ballots increased from 146,932 in 2016 to 1,275,019 in 2020.

Violations of Election Law:

1. The Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) positioned hundreds of unmanned illegal drop boxes to collect absentee ballots.  (The use of any drop box, manned or unmanned, is directly prohibited by Wisconsin statute.  Any alternate mail-in ballot site “shall be staffed by the municipal clerk or the executive director of the board of election commissioners…”  “Ballots cast in contravention of the procedures specified in those provisions may not be included in the certified result of any election.”)

2. The WEC encouraged voters to unlawfully declare themselves “indefinitely confined” in order to avoid security measures like signature verification and photo ID requirements.  Nearly 216,000 voters said they were indefinitely confined in the 2020 election, nearly four times as many as in 2016.

3. Strict laws requiring mail-in voters to certify by signature including the signature of an adult witness were ignored or circumvented by election officials.

Evidence of Fraud:

1. One hundred thousand ballots were supposedly missing and directed to be “found” after election day.

Conclusion

Significant violations of election law that were put into place to protect against election fraud is sufficient to invalidate the results of the elections, apart from whatever evidence is able to be gathered in a short time to show actual numbers of fraudulent ballots.  Reason would indicate that there is a high number of fraudulent ballots that are impossible to identify, which is why the election laws pertaining to mail-in ballots were established to begin with.

There is no remedy to correct the Nov 3rd election because ballots that did not adhere to election law cannot be identified as separate from those that did.  An accurate count of legal ballots that were cast cannot be made.  Therefore, as directed in the Constitution, it falls to the legislature of each state to choose electors as has been done in the past.  Failing that, each state may determine not to submit any presidential electors.

The Texas lawsuit claims the odds of Biden overcoming Trump’s lead and winning any of the states after the point indicated was one in a quadrillion.  And therefore, the odds of winning all four was one in a quadrillion to the fourth power.  The lawsuit did not provide information on how that number was determined.  This may seem an exaggerated to some.  It is enough to state that the odds of winning any one of the states was highly unlikely and the odds of winning all four were extremely unlikely.  For example, if the odds of winning any one of the states was numerically much less extreme but still highly unlikely, say something like one in twenty, then the odds of doing that in all four states would be 1 in  160,000.  Twenty beans in a jar: 19 white and 1 black.  Reach in without looking and be lucky enough to pull out the one black bean.  Chances of doing that again is 1 in 400.  Clearly indicative of cheating if someone claims to have done that four times in a row.  As I said the statistical analysis behind the claim of odds of 1 in a 1,000,000,000,000 are not given so I cannot speak to that.  But even if the odds were orders of magnitude better than that, they were still astronomically small.  At any rate, the merits of the lawsuit do not depend on any certain level of odds of Biden overcoming a lead that had been established by 3:00 A.M. the day after election.

In a day and age where we’ve seen China crank out copies of all types of U.S. intellectual property, it shouldn’t be that big of a surprise to find out that online stock brokerage Robinhood is apparently leaking users to a new, Chinese-owned brokerage.

That brokerage, WeBull, has been founded by former Alibaba executive Wang Anquan and has upped its clients by about 10x this year. And it’s doing it using Robinhood’s model: “offering free stock trades with a slick online interface,” Bloomberg notes. WeBull is now preparing to do what China-based businesses do best: open up a funding round from U.S. investors. 

The company has had a “breakneck” expansion and is now attracting large groups of American traders who discuss platforms on online forums. It has also tried to make its links to the U.S. clear, in a day and age where China-based software is under more scrutiny than it ever has been. WeBull “stores user data locally, is subject to the same regulations as any other U.S. brokerage, and has an office right next to a Trump building on 40 Wall Street,” the BBG report notes.

It has also volunteered for a review by CIFUS, who decided in December than a review wasn’t necessary. 

Its founder, Wang Anquan, founded WeBull’s parent company in 2016 and has said his intentions were always to create a “global firm” – and that this would start with success in the U.S.  He was backed by Xiaomi founder Lei Jun and intentionally kept a low profile for the brokerage’s first few years. The company’s American CEO, Anthony Denier, said: “We’re in a really competitive space. Sometimes it’s better to not wake up the giants.”

Funds tied to Xiaomi own at least 14% of the company. Chinese private equity funds are also major holders of the name. 

The company’s users seem to be satisfied for the time being. The platform is being called a mix between Robinhood and Interactive Brokers – subject to less criticism that it is making trading into a “game” than Robinhood’s friendly UI draws. Denier said the “vision that we’ve had from the beginning [is] let’s not oversimplify and ‘gamify’ this.”

The brokerage continues to grow well from word of mouth and promotions that feature online influencers. Its typical client is in their 20s or 30s and has about $3,200 in their account, BBG notes. It sees about 850 incoming transfers a day from other brokerage accounts. Some traders switched over after Robinhood’s consistent outages this year. Some are also wooed by the fact that WeBull has live customer service via a hotline, where Robinhood doesn’t. 

“It’s more geared for a semi-seasoned stock trader,” one trader said, describing WeBull. She said she liked the app’s charts and its ability to simulate trades before they are placed. 

“It starts out where they kind of have both accounts. They might even execute on Robinhood and do research on Webull, but eventually we tend to win them over,” Denier concluded.

Two months after the Treasury announced that the US ended fiscal 2020 with a staggering, record $3.1 trillion budget deficit, more than triple the prior year’s $954 billion as a result outlays of $6.552 trillion, almost double the receipts of $3.420 trillion, today we learned that the US started off fiscal 2021 in “helicopter money” style, and in the first two months month of the (fiscal) year, the budget deficit was a whopping $429 billion, $86 billion more than the same two-month periof a year ago, and the biggest two-month deficit to start a fiscal year on record. That said, just for November, the deficit was $145.3 billion, somewhat better than the $200 billion expected deficit, and certainly an improvement to the $208.8BN deficit last November, and the $284BN deficit in October.

Specifically according to the Treasury, in November, government outlays were $364.8 billion, down $157f billion rom the $521.8 billion spent in October, and 15.9% less than the $434  billion the US spent last October…

… and while spending shrank in November, so did receipts which declined from the $237.7 billion received in October to $219.6 billion in November, and down -2.5% from the $225.5 billion received last November (the question of why anyone still pays taxes in a time of helicopter money, when the Fed simply purchases whatever debt the Treasury issues, remains).

The chart below shows the November and YTD (fiscal) 2021 breakdown between various receipts and outlays. It reveals that the bulk of the total $457BN in receipts came from Individual Income Taxes ($203BN) and from Social Security and Retirement payments ($202BN), while the biggest spending categories were Social Security ($185BN), National Defense ($134BN), Income Security ($130BN) and Health ($19BN). Net interest on public debt was “only” $62 billion, but this number can only grow.

Finally putting the October and November number in context, it was the largest two-month deficit to the start of a fiscal year on record.

By Lisa Pham, Bloomberg macro commentator and analyst

Short sellers won some high-profile victories this year with the collapse of payments firm Wirecard AG and hospital operator NMC Health Plc. But barring exceptions, 2020 is shaping up to be the worst year on record for some investors seeking to profit from share price declines.

They’re hopeful 2021 will be easier.

A monthly index of short-selling hedge funds is down 32% this year through October, according to data provider Hedge Fund Research. The performance is unlikely to have improved in November, given that European stocks posted their biggest-ever gain last month while the S&P 500 Index set a record.

The short funds index had its biggest ever monthly gain in March, when global markets plunged because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to HFR’s data going back to 2005. Still, returns were quickly wiped out when stock prices came surging back. Regulators in some countries banned short sales, governments stepped in with economic rescue packages and central banks flooded the markets with liquidity. The equity rally accelerated last month after drugmakers reported success in developing vaccines.

“The money flows into the market means fundamental shorts have been very challenging,” said Mark Hiley, founding partner of The Analyst Research LLP, which produces both long and short investment recommendations and has published notes on companies including Wirecard. “Despite the big selloff in March it was almost impossible to reposition and then in November the market took everyone by surprise despite the vaccine being expected at some point.”

It’s been particularly difficult for those who were bearish on Tesla Inc., a favorite of individual investors. The stock, the subject of a years-long battle between skeptics and believers in Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk’s vision, has soared almost 700% in 2020. The car company’s market value is approaching $620 billion, and it will crown the year by joining the S&P 500 on Dec. 21.

“It’s been painful, clearly,” veteran short seller Jim Chanos, who has been betting against Tesla for five years, said in a Bloomberg “Front Row” interview. Shorts borrow shares and sell them, hoping to buy them back at a lower price to return to the lender, pocketing the difference.

The biggest short bet in the biotech sector, U.S. vaccine developer Moderna, also punished bears. The shares are up more than 700% in 2020, with the company on the verge of winning regulatory approval for an inoculation against the novel coronavirus. Investors have pared back their short positions in the U.K.’s Ocado Group as demand for online grocery shopping has surged. In the U.S., personal styling company Stitch Fix Inc. has benefited from retail stores closing. The stock jumped 39% on Tuesday after the company reported better-than-expected quarterly results.

Of course, short sellers didn’t lack for choice, given plenty of companies were hard hit by the pandemic. Cinema operators Cineworld Group Plc and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., carriers Deutsche Lufthansa AG and American Airlines Group Inc. as well as department-store chain Macy’s Inc. have all slumped this year. So-called activist shorts like Carson Block won big on Wirecard’s insolvency and NMC’s collapse, while electric-truck developer Nikola Corp. is yet to recover following a short-seller report in September.

Still, November was brutal for short trading, with a strong rally in stocks that were previously at the bottom of the pile for the year, while erstwhile winners either “treaded water” or went down slightly, according to Barry Norris, who runs Argonaut Capital Partners LLP. The firm’s Absolute Return Fund, which goes both long and short, has returned 15% this year, though has declined 12% in the past month, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Some short sellers are hoping 2021 will be better, with Norris predicting the current market exuberance likely fading early in the new year. “A lot of these companies that have rallied a long way and in many cases have regained all their Covid losses are still in quite a big hole with pretty limited growth prospects, loads of cash burn, and not much scope for certainly to exceed investors’ expectations,” Norris said. “While in general this quarter will have been pretty difficult for all short sellers, I can see some great opportunities ahead in individual stocks.”

A 21-year-old online fraudster and troll, but who says that he legitimately supports President Trump, raked in about $7,000 in donations after setting up a GoFundMe in the name of a fake group called “Gay Voices for Trump”. 

The GoFundMe account has since been removed by the company and the multiple fake accounts that initially promoted were also removed from other platforms.

The man behind the hoax, identified in The New York Times as Josh Hall of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, had further manage to dupe the president himself with one of his many fake Twitter accounts which purported to be Trump family members: 

Last month, between tweets disputing his election loss, President Trump posted an article from a conservative website that said his sister Elizabeth Trump Grau had just joined Twitter to publicly back her brother’s fight to overturn the vote.

“Thank you Elizabeth,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “LOVE!”

But the Twitter account that prompted the article was not his sister’s. It was a fake profile run by Josh Hall, a 21-year-old food-delivery driver in Mechanicsburg, Pa.

Hall said the Times: “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. He actually thinks it’s his sister,'” He further described of his motives for the fake accounts: “There was no nefarious intention behind it. I was just trying to rally up MAGA supporters and have fun.”

The fake family accounts, which altogether had amassed over 150,000 followers, had also promoted the non-existent Gay Voices for Trump fundraising initiative – all of which Twitter has since removed. 

The Times reported that GoFundMe is still in possession of the money and will refund anyone in full who contacts the company.

Meanwhile various media outlets covering the online hoax are instead of upholding the fraudster as a thief or greedy individual just trying to cheat people out of money, actually seem to be lionizing him for embarrassing Trump.