Equity Market Volatility Continues

Catch Up Quick

• Coronavirus vaccine trial participants report exhaustion, fever, and headaches

• Major airlines announce mass layoffs as coronavirus aid expired yesterday

• Conventional funds saw net outflows of $15.9B for the week ended Sept 30th

• The Tokyo Stock Exchange shut down yesterday after a critical hardware glitch

• Goldman Sachs agreed to buy General Motors' credit card unit for ~$2.5B

• Tesla ($TSLA) delivered 139K vehicles in Q3 2020 while producing 145K

• Today = last chance to take our survey & enter to win a $50 Amazon Card

• President Trump tests positive for COVID-19, Biden tests negative

• The House passed a $2.2T Democratic coronavirus stimulus plan

• During September, the unemployment rate fell from 8.4% to 7.9%

• Airbnb aims to raise around $3B in its upcoming IPO

Thought of the Day

• As antitrust regulators keep a close eye on large technology companies, Google especially may be in big trouble

• While nearly all tech giants face strong Democratic criticism, Republicans tend to be a tad more lenient on the antitrust front

• In abbreviation, this is generally due to free speech (social media) & free market principals, among others

• However, Google has managed to achieve an unrivaled degree of bipartisan opposition

• Since it pulled out of the bidding process for the Pentagon's JEDI contract due to employee backlash, in which it could've hugely benefitted national defense efforts, the company has garnered strong Conservative opposition, leaving it in a tough spot within recent antitrust talks

• Furthermore, this past Wednesday, during Google's hardware reveal event, we saw a surprising change in strategy that few have discussed

• The company unveiled two 5G capable Pixel smart phones, one of which only $499 and the other featuring simply a larger battery & faster charging

• It also announced the replacement of its Smart Home speaker with the $99 Nest Audio, while boasting moves in the streaming realm with new Chromecast & Google TV offerings

Thought of the Day

• While Amazon and other technology incumbents have recently revealed new cutting edge technologies such as new A.I in IoT devices and autonomous flying home surveillance drones, Google, on the contrary, is appearing to shift its strategy towards affordability and value, potentially gravitating down market to hedge itself against disadvantageous governmental perception

Note → we aim to stay as distant as possible from politics with all occurring, but some topics (antitrust) are too deeply intertwined with our core areas of focus: financial markets & technology

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