Top 10 U.S. stocks news in 2021

2021 is an extremely crazy year for Wall Street: in the context of quantitative easing, retail investors have staged air-squeeze battles, the Fed’s senior officials’ stock speculation has caused controversy, and cryptocurrency and energy prices have skyrocketed; and in terms of technological innovation, Apple The implementation of the New Privacy Policy made many Internet giants tremble, and Facebook directly changed its name to "Meta" and turned to the meta universe business. In the following, the Zhitong Finance APP will sort out the top ten news events affecting the U.S. stock market in 2021 for investors in detail .

1. Retail investors sought after the game station (GME.US), staged an epic air-squeeze battle

The game station squeeze event is the first major event in the first year of 2021. It is understood that Game Station is an American retailer selling video games, electronic products and game merchandise . At the beginning, Wall Street believed that this business model was likely to fail, and the share price of Game Station dropped from $50 in 2014 to $3 in 2020. However, a retail investor named "WallStreetBets" forum on Reddit does not think Gaming Station is a failed company. Therefore, these retail investors helped the company's stock price to recover to $20 by the end of 2020. This price increase successfully attracted the attention of Wall Street hedge funds and began their short-selling journey.

After being aware of Wall Street’s short-selling behavior, retail investors formulated a plan to buy and hold shares of Game Station in January to increase the stock price. The result was very satisfactory. Game Station’s stock price also broke the $480 mark in a short period of time. It rose more than 10 times and caused many short positions. On January 29, short-selling hedge funds suffered a major loss of US$19.75 billion. However, due to the uncontrollable margin risk caused by the stock price surge , many brokers including Robinhood can only prohibit investors from buying the stock on the grounds that the margin is insufficient, and this epic air-squeeze war comes to an end.

Analysis: Due to the ongoing pandemic, retail investors with ample cash have begun to flood social platforms, calling for the purchase of stocks of troubled companies. Past 1 years, there are dozens of Meme stocks soared on the market, but most stocks failed to sustain gains, including electronic business platform ContextLogic, Medical Insurance companies Clover Health and other retail stocks are down more than 7 percent this year. It can be seen that most of the Meme stocks that have been on fire by game stations are driven by market sentiment and are not supported by fundamentals. Therefore, many investors may experience huge losses due to late entry or slow selling.

2. The most tragic liquidation event in history: Bill Hwang's largest single-day loss in history

In late March 2021, the Archegos Capital Management fund of South Korean hedge fund Bill Hwang liquidated its positions, causing investment banks to liquidate its positions. The chain triggered Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to sell these at substantially lower prices in the bulk trading market. Stocks caused a series of Chinese concept stocks and American media stocks to plummet. During the week, Tencent Music fell by 40.51%, Baidu fell by 24.73%, GSX fell by 66.45%, and Vipshop fell by 35.01%.

In this incident, Bill Hwang hurled $19 billion in a single day, setting the "largest single-day loss in human history." Not only that, many well-known international firms have also been dragged down. Among them, the combined losses of Nomura Holdings and Credit Suisse are estimated to exceed 10 billion U.S. dollars, and many senior executives were forced to resign.

Analysis: It is understood that Bill Hwang has always been a highly leveraged player. His Archegos has grown from US$200 million in 2012 to US$15 billion in assets in just 8 years. Whether it is Bill Hwang, who has recently liquidated its position or the long-term capital company that collapsed vigorously in 1998, it is ultimately impossible to escape the fate of "the larger the base multiplied by zero is still zero" due to high leverage. Therefore, for ordinary investors, it is best to stay away from leverage, not to have a fluke, and to learn from the advice of top investors and the lessons of others, instead of waiting for such a tragedy to happen to yourself before reflecting.

3. Changes in Apple's privacy policy or promotes a new round of technological revolution?

In April of this year, in response to Facebook’s fierce opposition, Apple adopted the ATT by adjusting its privacy policy. All apps on the App Store must comply with this new policy, that is, App developers need to obtain user permission to track users or access them. The IDFA (Identifier for Advertising) of the device. In short, if the App wants to obtain and process the data of Apple users , it must obtain consent.

Approximately six months after the policy was announced, Snap (SNAP.US) hurt its advertising business due to Apple's iPhone adjustment of its privacy policy, and its third-quarter results fell short of expectations. Affected by this news, Facebook (FB.US), Twitter (TWTR.US) and other social media and digital advertising stocks plummeted after the market, and Snap plunged 22.5%. Digital advertising stocks were also hit. The Trade Desk (TTD.US) and Magnite (MGNI.US) both fell more than 5% in after-hours trading, and Liveramp (RAMP.US) fell more than 3%.

Analysis: Under Apple's new privacy policy, the Internet giants represented by Google and Amazon are not only unaffected, but they are considered to be the beneficiaries under the influence of Apple's ATT. The core difference here is that Facebook’s recommendation algorithm actually analyzes the collected user data and then pushes the corresponding content and advertisements, saving users the steps of active search and making users more "lazy". On the platforms of Google and Amazon, users must first express their needs to the website when looking for the content and products they want, whether through search or classification. Even if it is the effect of advertising that emphasizes conversion, in the context of strengthening data supervision and Apple's new privacy policy, the impact of recommendation-based and search-based is completely different.

In addition, the tightening of supervision is another detrimental factor to the recommendation algorithm. It is understood that Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen (Frances Haugen) once suggested that US lawmakers require Facebook and other technology companies to open the algorithm recommendation system to the outside, so that the outside world can better study the hate speech and harmfulness on the platform. How the content affects users. According to this trend, algorithm recommendations based on user information collection and processing will be resisted by more and more parties.

Under the game of technological development and stricter supervision, changes in the power structure among Internet giants have occurred unstoppably. After a long period of algorithm recommendation rule, some of them want to set off a renaissance in the tech world, and it seems that they are on the upper hand; while others who are under siege want to fast forward directly to the bottom. An industrial revolution, for example, Facebook’s choice is to simply abandon its efforts to solve the current predicament and instead bet on the distant future—meta universe.

4. Is the explosive "meta universe" a change of the times or a bubble?

Undoubtedly, this year is the year when Metaverse moved from concept to popularity. In March of this year, Roblox (RBLX.US), known as the first stock of Meta Universe, was officially listed in New York, USA; in October, the US social media giant Facebook (FB.US) announced that it was renamed "Meta" (Meta); recently , Microsoft, Apple, Tencent, Huawei , Adidas and other well-known domestic and foreign companies, or high-key marching into related industries or low-key layout.

Some people understand Metaverse as the "3D version of the Internet", while some people even see it as a "new round of technological revolution", but it cannot simply be understood as "a social gaming platform" in any case. In the ultimate state of Metaverse, it can bring development opportunities for the integration of games and social interactions, retail and e-commerce links, industrial Internet, etc., while improving the efficiency of life, industry, society, and technology iteration, while reducing human costs and resource costs , Time cost, transaction cost.

The reason why the meta-universe concept can explode in 2021 is that, on the one hand, the prevention and control of the epidemic has accelerated the virtualization of society and the rapid development of the "home economy"; on the other hand, online life has changed from the original short-term exceptional state to the normal state. More needs that cannot be achieved in the real society are turned to be met by online methods. At the same time, the high Internet penetration rate and the gradual development and iteration of key technologies such as VR/AR hardware, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and cloud computing also pave the way for 2021 to become the first year of the meta universe.

Analysis: Although Metaverse has pointed out the direction for the future of the Internet industry, there is also a big bubble in Metaverse. From the perspective of Metaverse’s own development, the existing market’s doubts about Metaverse mainly come from the immature and matching of the hardware conditions and network environment of the technology implementation. The key technologies for the construction of the ultimate Metaverse, such as computing power, platform, and network construction, still remain. It takes a long time to perfect. In addition, investors need to be wary of the inertia of capital seeking profit through the creation of new concepts, hype new outlets, and attracting new investments. While not underestimating the opportunities of 5-10 years, they should not overestimate the evolution and changes in 1-2 years.

5. In 2021, the space journey will earn enough attention. How many opportunities are there next year?

In July of this year, Richard Branson , the founder of Virgin Group and a wealthy British man , completed the first suborbital test flight on a Virgin Galactic aircraft. Branson has therefore become the world's first billionaire to enter the "edge of space" in his own aircraft. A few days later, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos flew into space on the Blue Origin "New Shepard" spacecraft, although the "space journey" only lasted 10 minutes. In September, Musk's SpaceX company directly sent four civilian passengers into space, becoming the world's first space tour group composed entirely of civilians. This month, Japanese tycoon Yusaku Maesawa and his assistant took the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station, starting a 12-day space travel.

With the rich personally entering the battle, not only a group of U.S. stocks space travel concept stocks have become popular, but behind this kind of enthusiasm for chasing after me has highlighted the fierce competition in the commercial space travel market. Thousands of people may enter space through the spacecraft of these private companies in the future. Space may be one of the most important economic and technological stories in the next decade.

Analysis: Bank of America predicts that by 2030, the growing space economy will become a $1.4 trillion market. We are entering an exciting new era in the aerospace industry, and it is expected that there will be more progress in the next few decades than in the entire human history.

Although it will take some time before space travel is commercialized on a large scale, it is the satellite industry that really sees profit prospects. According to the "Report on the State of the Satellite Industry in 2020" issued by the Satellite Industry Association of America, in 2019, the global aerospace economy totaled 366 billion U.S. dollars, of which the commercial satellite industry accounted for about 75%, and the total amount was about 271 billion U.S. dollars.

In terms of investment options, in addition to the familiar Virgin Galactic (SPCE.US), Blue Origin and Space X, other space concept stocks such as Astra Space (ASTR.US), Maxar Technologies (MAXR.US), Vector Acquisition (VACQ.US) and NavSight Holdings Inc (NSH.US) and other companies are very much to look forward to in 2022.

6. "Living for a long time" series: US officials have left their posts due to stock market turmoil

For the first time in the Fed's more than 100-year history, "two senior officials have announced their retirement due to the stock market storm" for the first time. It happened at the beginning of September. The Federal Reserve Banks of various regions announced the financial status of their chairpersons in 2020. People were surprised to find that the chairpersons actually ended up trading stocks in person. Although their transactions are legal and compliant, it is difficult for the public to believe that there is no potential conflict of interest because the central bank’s ultra-loose monetary policy implemented last year and the U.S. stock market is soaring .

So at the end of September, Dallas Fed President Kaplan announced his retirement plan and will leave on October 8. Meredith Black, currently the first vice chairman of the Dallas Federal Reserve, will postpone his retirement and serve as interim chairman. Earlier, Boston Fed Chairman Rosengren had just announced his retirement nine months early due to health reasons. Subsequently, it broke out that Richard Clarida, the vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, realized on February 27, 2020, a bond fund of 1 million to 5 million US dollars and bought a stock fund, which has been controversial in the market. In October, Prospect magazine disclosed Fed chairman Martin Weir 's stock accounts, which is directed in the Dow Jones Industrial Average selling large stocks fell sharply before.

In order to calm public anger and save market confidence in the Fed, the Fed issued new regulations when the president nominates the next chairman of the Fed: it will prohibit policymakers and other senior officials from buying individual stocks and bonds, and restrict their trading to only purchases. Diversified investment tools such as mutual funds. In addition, the new regulations also require senior Federal Reserve officials to disclose trading information within 30 days and notify securities that are still allowed to be traded 45 days in advance, and these securities must be held for more than one year and cannot be traded during the period of "increasing financial market pressure". fund.

After this period of stock market turmoil subsided for a while, another US government official drew controversy over stocks. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her husband have purchased call options on several technology stocks including Google (GOOGL.US), Roblox (RBLX.US) and Disney (DIS.US), with a transaction amount of up to Millions of dollars, the related transaction was carried out between December 17 and December 21. Pelosi has been criticized for similar transactions in the past, but she defended them. She said earlier this month that the United States is a "free market economy" market, and therefore, lawmakers "should be able to participate."

Analysis: Whether Fed officials can participate in market investment, I believe that the Fed's current attitude is very clear. In addition, US President Biden has also stated that all government agencies and officials, including independent agencies, should abide by the highest ethical standards, including avoiding any potential conflicts of interest. After all, every word and deed of a senior Federal Reserve official can affect the market. At the same time, because of his special status, it is quite easy to violate the principle of insider trading and bring adverse effects to ordinary investors.

7. "Repeated Epidemics" Debut in 2021 at the C position

If the key word in 2020 is "epidemic", then "epidemic recurrence" will be in C position in 2021. At the same time, the various new crown mutant strains that have appeared throughout the year are out of the circle. In July, the raging delta variant caused the Dow to plummet 2.1% on July 19, the second largest single-day drop this year. At the end of November, the rise of Omicron turned Thanksgiving into a stock market disaster. The three major stock indexes fell by more than 2%, and the 2.5% drop on November 26 was the biggest one-day drop for the Dow this year.

However, the recurrence of the epidemic is not all negative news. There are some exciting good news that have continuously boosted the enthusiasm of investors. The most impressive of these is the pre-market announcement by Pfizer on November 5th. Medicine news. According to reports, Pfizer announced the results of its research new crown oral drug Paxlovid. Interim analysis showed that the drug reduced the risk of hospitalization and death of high-risk new crown patients by 89%. On the same day, the Pfizer CEO boldly predicted that the US epidemic might end in January next year. The reason is that the Biden government requires companies with more than 100 employees to have employees vaccinated or screened weekly. This regulation will start on January 4 next year. Take effect. The latest news shows that Paxlovid has been approved by the FDA on December 22, becoming the first oral anti-coronavirus drug approved in the United States.

Analysis: According to S&P 500 data, since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in February 2020, each round of fluctuations in the U.S. stock market caused by the epidemic has been shorter than the previous one, which means that investors’ mentality in the face of the epidemic is also shorter. More and more robust. As shown in the figure, the market response time has been shortened from the initial 26 weeks to 3 weeks after the occurrence of Omicron. This is precisely because the market's uncertainty about the epidemic is decreasing. In addition, with the large-scale launch of new crown oral drugs and the continuous increase in vaccination rates, the investment environment in the US stock market will get better and better in 2022.

8. Global port congestion can go from this year to next year

So far, the level of port congestion in 2021 is unprecedented, which has severely affected the available capacity of container ships and bulk carriers and disrupted the global supply chain system. Port congestion has become a worldwide issue. In addition to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which have become "old news" from news, ports such as Piraeus Port in Greece , Savannah Port in the United States, Tanjong Palapas Port in Malaysia, and Port Klang in Malaysia have also joined the congestion.

The Suez Canal "broken" incident is the focus of the world for a while. In the early morning of March 23, the "Long Give" tried to enter the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal and encountered extreme weather such as sandstorms. The strong winds of up to 74 km/h caused the hull to lose control. Deviate from the main channel. The narrowest part of the Suez Canal is only about 300 meters wide, while the "Changci" has a total length of nearly 400 meters. The huge ship that ran aground in the canal caused two-way blockage of the channel, which directly affected the passage of more than 400 ships. In the end, after six consecutive days of hard work by all parties, the "Long Grant" successfully escaped on the 29th.

The congestion caused long queues of ships at the southern entrance (Red Sea) and northern entrance (Mediterranean) of the Suez Canal for a total of 6 days, but the impact of the congestion continued until the second quarter of this year. On March 26, three days after the Changci ran aground, the total number of waiting ships reached 169, of which bulk carriers and container ships were the most affected. On March 29, the stranded Long Ci was rescued. At this time, the number of waiting ships reached more than 300.

Except for the Suez Canal, the congestion in the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach in the West of the United States is still at the highest level in history. Since July 2021, the number of container ships waiting outside the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach has continued to rise sharply. A record number of ships are waiting to be unloaded. From handy container ships to ultra-large container ships, the anchorage is full, and some ships are forced to drift outside the port and wait.

There are currently about 75 ships still waiting, which is nearly 20% more than those waiting a month ago and nearly 100% more than two months ago. The congestion outside the port has not yet shown signs of relief. According to the latest data, the average waiting time for ships in the Port of Los Angeles has reached 14.6 days.

Analysis: So far this year, the new crown epidemic has had a significant impact on global shipping congestion. After the container industry almost stagnated last summer, suppressed consumer demand and stimulus expenditures implemented by some economies led to a rapid recovery in global container shipping demand, and ocean freight rates also soared.

With the end of Christmas and Chinese New Year, we may see a slowdown in demand in the new year, which may ease the congestion slightly, although there are still a large number of ships waiting, the backlog of ships may continue at least until 2022. Quarter. As the available capacity of ships decreases, container freight rates have climbed to record highs, and the current congestion conditions support this trend.

9. The electric car boom continues: Is it Tesla? Or the next Tesla?

2021 is the year of soaring U.S. electric vehicle industry. In terms of policy, in order to achieve emission reduction targets and promote the energy transition in the United States, the Biden administration is currently vigorously promoting the penetration rate of electric vehicles, and plans to account for 40% of total vehicle sales in the United States by 2030. After the "Rebuild Better" bill is passed in the Senate, the electric vehicle industry chain will receive a large amount of financial support from the US government. Many analysts believe that under the general trend of energy transition and the vigorous promotion of the Biden administration, the US auto industry will usher in major changes.

From the performance of individual stocks, Tesla must have a name this year. It is understood that after Tesla broke through the trillion U.S. dollar mark in October this year, Tesla's market value once soared to an all-time high of 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars. However, affected by news such as Musk's sale of stocks, its market value once fell below 10,000. 100 million US dollars, the stock price fell below 900 US dollars, and as Musk is close to completing the goal of selling 10% of the shares, Tesla's stock price has risen to more than 1,000 US dollars, and the market value has returned to 1 trillion US dollars. However, in addition to chasing Tesla, investors are still struggling to find the next Tesla. A large amount of money has poured into Rivian and Lucid Group, and neither of these two companies has generated substantial revenue. Among them, the market value of Rivian on the first day of listing rushed to nearly 100 billion U.S. dollars in one fell swoop, comparing the traditional car companies Ford Motor and General Motors, and directly pointed at the leader Tesla, and Lucid was also included in the Nasdaq 100 index at the end of the year. Among them, proved their strength.

Analysis: For investors, this political environment makes the electric vehicle industry more attractive. However, in terms of individual stock selection, Tesla's leading position is still unshakable, and compared with other electric new, the stock price performance is also supported by strong performance. Although the current market valuation is not cheap, If it is valued according to the software company, then the current valuation is reasonable. Compared with Rivian and Lucid, these two new electronics stocks in 2021 carry huge market expectations. How they can develop in 2022 can only rely on performance.

10. Inflation is helping energy prices skyrocket. If you buy it in 2021, you will earn it.

In the context of global inflation, energy prices in 2021 will also rise all the way. As the global economy enters a recovery period and developed countries continue to adopt large-scale fiscal and monetary stimulus policies, the prices of bulk commodities such as oil, coal, and metals have risen sharply, coupled with seasonal factors, abnormal energy supply, natural gas shortages in many countries, and price hikes , European and American energy dilemmas are particularly prominent. The soaring prices of natural gas, coal and electricity have pushed up inflation levels and inflation expectations in major economies.

As the man behind the wheel of energy, under the background of global economic recovery, WTI crude oil futures prices have risen by 57.89% this year, and Brent crude oil has also risen by 52.95%.

Strong demand is undoubtedly the basis for the increase in crude oil prices. During the peak period of crude oil prices from August to November, the increase was mainly driven by the gradual decline in inventory and the sharp increase in demand. As the land transportation of major countries in the world returned to the level before the new crown epidemic, and OPEC+ perfectly controlled the increase in global supply, global crude oil production accelerated destocking from August to November, and the price difference of refined oil cracking began to rise. Oil prices have brought a strong upward drive.

Analysis: Since 2016, the earnings of investors holding energy stocks are expected to outperform the market for the first time . The performance of the Standard & Poor's 500 Energy Index this year is 21 percentage points higher than that of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index , with the best-performing stock Devon Energy Corp (DVN.US) rising 167%.

In contrast, the performance of the S&P 500 Ex-Energy Index is 22 percentage points lower than that of the S&P 500 Energy Index. The S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index (S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index) has a return rate of about 77% so far this year, while the S&P/TSX Composite Index (S&P/TSX Composite Index) has a return rate of 21%.

Franklin Templeton , a subsidiary of Franklin, senior vice president of Bissett Investment Management and portfolio manager Les Stelmach said: "In the past seven years, do not hold energy stocks is sensible, but now is not the same, because investors face is Commodity prices have risen sharply."