What we’re reading (1/31)
“Melvin Capital Lost 53% in January, Hurt by GameStop and Other Bets” (Wall Street Journal). “Melvin Capital Management, the hedge fund that has borne the brunt of losses from the soaring stock prices of heavily shorted stocks recently, lost 53% on its investments in January, according to people familiar with the firm.”
“Silver Futures Jump 7% As Reddit Traders Try Their Squeeze Play With The Metal” (CNBC). “Futures contracts for silver surged higher on Sunday night as the Reddit-fueled boom in highly shorted stocks appears to be spilling over into the metals market.”
“What’s Next for Crypto Regulation” (DealBook). “[M]arkets and regulators have been here before. ‘The basic, overarching issue is that digital asset innovation has outpaced our regulatory framework,’ said Timothy Massad of Harvard, who is formerly the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and has written extensively about crypto asset oversight. ‘That’s not unusual. There’s always a tension between innovation and regulation.’”
“Facebook and Apple Are Beefing Over the Future of the Internet” (Wired). “On Thursday morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook gave a speech explaining his company’s upcoming privacy changes, which will ban apps from sharing iPhone user behavior with third parties unless users give explicit consent. And he made plain that these new policies were designed at least in part with Facebook in mind. Speaking as part of a conference convened for International Data Privacy Day, Cook excoriated the social media business model, which is based on monitoring people’s behavior in order to target ads to them.”
“What Do Consumers Want Now? P&G Bets On Beard Oil, Cleaners” (ABC News). “ Procter & Gamble is cleaning up during the pandemic. The company's sales were up last year, since it happens to make just about everything people needed while staying at home: Charmin toilet paper, Bounty paper towels and Tide laundry detergent. One new product came at the right time: Disinfectant spray Microban 24 was released in February 2020, just before U.S. lockdowns began and as people rushed to find cleaning products that could keep surfaces and door knobs germ-free.”
