#53 Daily Financial News Round Up - Dec 23,2021
Market Snapshot
Dow Jones is up by 0.61%, S&P500 is up by 0.72%, and Nasdaq Composite is up by 0.91%.
How’s crypto-market?
Bitcoin is up by 4.11% in the last 24 hours to the price $50,662.19. XRP, Terra and Polygon are the top three traded cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours. The top 3 gainers are Aave, Internet Computer and Compound. The top 3 losers are ICON, Ren and Paxos Standard.
What news caught my attention?
Omicron variant concerns start to slow down the US economy. One of the early indicators is consumer spending. Consumer spending increased by 0.6% in November compared to 1.4% growth in October. Economists explain this decrease in growth as possibly being affected by consumers choosing to do their Christmas shopping in October instead of November due to supply chain choking concerns.
Covid-19 is about to get an endemic status in the US. Who knew that there was a difference between a pandemic and an endemic? And apparently, there is another term in the mix called an epidemic. Depending on the rate of a disease's spread and the degree of geographic spread, the World Health Organization makes the classification. When a disease's growth is exponential, it is called a pandemic. When it is present consistently but is geographically limited, it is endemic. Finally, if there is an unexpected increase in the number of cases in a region, it is classified as an epidemic.
Griddle maker Blackstone plans to go public via a $780 million SPAC deal. M&A activity in 2021 was a record-breaking high with a total value of around $5.7 trillion. M&A activity is likely to remain strong in 2022.
My Questions/Take-aways:
Covid-19 is here to stay like the flu. In the US, it is getting an endemic status.
M&A activity, IPO activity hit record levels in 2021 and 2022 is also likely to see intense activity.