Crumbs

• Chamath Palihapitiya — billionaire of the people. The FT saying, in a coded way, that this ex-Facebook executive is a crook (the comments are the best bit). You can see the original report here. It’s pretty damning, but only a fool would short a high short-interest stock in the current frothy market. Interestingly, Hindenberg have not taken a position. The short interest is only about 1%, so it’s one to watch.
• Crazy week:

Wall Street Week
Ethereum $ETH: +30%
Bitcoin $BTC: +14%
S&P 500 $SPY: +5%
Macerich $MAC: -17%
Tootsie Roll $TR: -21%
Bed Bath $BBBY: -25%
Nat. Beverage $FIZZ: -28%
Vol Index $VIX: -37%
New Concept $GBR: -39%
Express $EXPR: -48%
AMC $AMC: -48%
Koss $KOSS: -69%
GameStop $GME: -80%

— Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) February 5, 2021

• US SPACs, IPO capital raised…
  2013: $1 billion
  2014: $2 billion
  2015: $4 billion
  2016: $3 billion
  2017: $11 billion
  2018: $9 billion
  2019: $13 billion
  2020: $83 billion
  2021 YTD: $36 billion (a billion a day)

  — Charlie Bilello (@charliebilello) February 6, 2021

• Google is an amazing business. This is a great history of the company, and has a few choice quotes from people who didn’t believe that it was ever going to make money. Clearly, it did, and it is continuing to do so. However, it’s hard to see that it can continue it’s vertical ascent without someone eventually realizes that it has a vast market share and makes a vast amount of money. Governments have the power to sell monopolies, which they have over time immemorial, and also to regulate them and extract large rents from them. Of course, the smart people at the FAANG are perfectly aware of this, which is why they make sure they are hyperconnected to politicians in all countries (this is England).

How to profit from Biden’s Green Policies

This wonderful article by John Dizard explains that one of the biggest financial beneficiaries of new policies enacted by the incoming US administration are knackered electric utilities that generate power from coal. The point is that they will be paid to close, and given a very generous regulated return on new investment in green transmission and generation.

I did a quick scan on suitable stocks and came up with this list (which is not based on a lot of research):

• NI, NYSE, NiSource Inc.
• NEP, NYSE, NextEra Energy Partners LP
• AGR, NYSE, Avangrid Inc.
• DUK, NYSE, Duke Energy Corporation
• ALE, NYSE, ALLETE Inc.
• NEE, NYSE, NextEra Energy Inc.
• AEP, NasdaqGS, American Electric Power Company Inc.
• SO, NYSE, The Southern Company
• NRG, NYSE, NRG Energy Inc.

I have no idea whether this makes sense as an investing idea, but it is a great example of how the best laid plans can go horribly wrong.

Astroturf grows rapidly

This article explains how so many apparently “grass roots” campaigns are seeded and funded by billionaires and monopoly businesses. The article is mainly about the US experience, but it’s coming to your country very soon.

Maybe the Tullock Paradox is not really a paradox. Companies have woken up to the return they can get by perverting the democratic process and are spending serious money on it.