U.S. Equities Fall Amid Mixed Corporate Earnings & Delta Variant Concerns

Dow: +0.15% | Nasdaq: -0.70% | S&P: -0.33%

Catch Up Quick

• Jerome Powell (Chairman of The U.S Federal Reserve Bank) says cryptocurrencies have failed to become a payment mechanism and that they may be useless if the Fed launched a fully digital dollar → we’ve previously stated this is the most realistic full-scale crypto adoption case

• Private space company investment hit $4.5B in Q2 (Space Capita)

• Apple (AAPL) asked suppliers to increase iPhone production by up to 20% → Wall Street’s top-ranked Apple analyst raised their price target, citing double digit equity upside

• Netflix is officially planning to add video games to its streaming service in the next year → we explained this possibility last month

• Tesla (TSLA) has a powerwall backlog of 80K orders worth >$500M

• The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) warned Elon Musk that SpaceX’s massive Texas Starship launch tower has not completed its environmental review and is thus unapproved

• TikTok has become the first non-Facebook app to hit 3B global downloads (Sensor Tower) → was the most downloaded + highest grossing non-game app globally in the first half of 2021

• Boulder, Colorado topped U.S. News and World Report’s annual ranking of the best places to live in the U.S.

• Autonomous driving start-up Aurora revealed plans to go public through an $11B SPAC deal

• U.S. jobless claims fall to a new post-pandemic low of 360K

• Senate democrats rolled out a draft bill to federally legalize and decriminalize marijuana

• Dogecoin’s co-creator said he doesn’t plan on returning to crypto

• Discord, a San Francisco-based chat platform valued at $7B, agreed to buy Sentropy, a Palo Alto-based provider of A.I. software for detecting and removing online harassment

• Used car and truck rental prices rose 12% in June → current prices reflect an 88% increase from a year ago

Thought of the Day

• This past December, we wrote about the technological potential of Africa, as developing internet connectivity and cloud deployment infrastructure has facilitated access to software-enabled services from increasingly affordable devices such as mobile phones

• Jumia Technologies (JMIA), a vertically-integrated (meaning it owns its logistics network) online marketplace and payment provider remains an especially interesting name to watch with respect to the geography

• Down over 60% from its all-time high earlier this year as third world countries have sadly struggled to roll out vaccines amid spreading coronavirus variants, Wall Street is estimating 31% revenue growth for this year & a staggering 54% for the next year on top of that

• Additionally, driven by sky high birth rates over the past couple decades, many African countries have close to 50% of their entire population under the age of 15

• As this demographic ages in coming years, there will be a huge number of young, internet-savvy online shopping candidates in the region, especially if access to technology continues to increase at current rates

• Africa is physically opportune for eCommerce as well, given well-coordinated scale economics could help logistical entities efficiently move goods around the huge landmass → which has yet to be effectively done

• Lastly, rumors of Jumia wanting to spin out its own payments solution (JumiaPay) appear highly interesting in the context of McKinsey (and others notable firms) calling out Africa’s digital payment opportunity for years on end

• For investors looking to diversify geographic exposure, keep an eye on Jumia Technologies with a long-term lens!

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