Oil’s Bumpy Ride

Last week, DiDi’s blockbuster IPO was destined to bring the ‘Uber of China’ into a new era. ✨ Unfortunately, China had second plans. 

Shortly after DiDi’s IPO (which raised over $4B), Beijing officials halted signups on DiDi’s ride-sharing app. The government also mandated the app’s removal from international app stores. 

For how long? We still don’t know, but at least as long as it takes for China to conduct DiDi’s “cybersecurity review.” The review comes as China reins in Big Tech conglomerates, especially ones listed on foreign stock exchanges.

As for the investors who decided to buy? They’ll hate to hear that Chinese officials asked DiDi to delay its IPO. Many investors will become bagholders. 😬

$DIDI tanked 19.5% today. 

OPEC+, its allies, and the oil market are on a roller coaster ride. 🎢

OPEC+’s stalemate plunged today’s oil prices. The organization’s deadlock between the UAE and Saudi Arabia reversed this week’s six-year crude highs. 😪

Last week, OPEC and its allies met to finalize a 2021 output policy—a proposal to return 400K barrels per day to the market from August until December… buut the UAE rejected the proposals, asking for a higher quota of barrels produced.

Discussions between the organization’s members are postponed indefinitely. OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said “The date of the next meeting will be decided in due course.” Meanwhile, UAE Minister of Energy Suhail Al Mazrouei commented: 

“For us, it wasn’t a good deal.” 

Lower supply = higher demand. So while light crude oil futures fell 2.38% today, if a deal isn’t reached soon we could be looking at $100/bbl oil in our future… 

The Federal Reserve is sure keeping an eagle eye on crypto. 👀 🦅 

According to media reports, Fed Chair Jerome Powell met Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and “Crypto Daddy” Christopher Giancarlo a few weeks ago. Powell’s calendar shows the meeting was held for 30 minutes on May 11. 

The burning question— what was discussed? They probably talked about the Fed and digital currency. The crypto market rode a roller coaster around that time as Armstrong tweeted about the meetings.  

Powell also virtually chatted with Giancarlo, the Former Chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Giancarlo recently joined BlockFi’s Board of Directors, and both regulators discussed the “Digital Dollar Project” for 30 minutes. 💰

The Fed’s curious about pros and cons of the digital dollar. Hopefully the meetings regulate crypto’s wildfire volatility. 🔥

Mid-sized companies are making money moves in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) space. 🤑

Usually, large cap pharma companies order smaller pharmas for takeout— take Gilead’s deal to buy Immunomedics. Gilead dropped over $21B. Large caps are slowing down on big deals, though. 

Companies like Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Horizon Therapeutics, and MorphoSys are starting to play. 😈 Mid caps made over $13B in M&A deals this year. That’s roughly on-par with large caps’ expenditures over the same period. 

Why, you ask? M&A ensures pharmas have products to sell. 💸 And if the deal flow is any indication, mid-sized pharma aspires for growth to make them more than mid-sized… 

NFT mania is very real and very record-breaking. 🏆

According to Reuters, the NFT market scaled to $2.5B in the first half of 2021. This time last year, NFT sales stood at just $13.7M. Ooof. 🥵

The report cited data from DappRadar and showed NFT interest reached new levels during Q1 2021. Since March, sales have totaled 10,000-20,000 NFTs per week— this includes February’s record-breaking $69M art sale. 🚀

The NFT market has swelled so much, some say it’ll burst. Are NFTs here to stay? Or is a bubble burst on its way?? Place your bets…