Congress’s Dirty Little Secret

Does Congress know something we don’t?? It looks like it. 🕵️‍♂️

Before COVID-19 fears struck the stock market, several congressmen used material insider information to sell stocks and avoid significant losses. It might surprise you to know that none of them got in any real trouble. 🤔 Ramifications only came for two Georgia congressmen who lost their seats. That has more to do with Georgia’s wild runoff election than insider trading, though. 

The COVID congress-versy is just the tip of the iceberg. Just a few weeks ago, Nancy Pelosi’s husband sold out of Big Tech stocks right before Congress began investigations and three congressmen were accused of breaking reporting procedures. 

Is this messed up?? Yeah. But some investors see an opportunity to make Congress’s gains their gains, too. The STOCK Act, passed in 2012 under the Obama administration, requires Congressmen (and their relatives) to file disclosures when buying or selling a stock. With this information, investors began to follow Congress’s trading strategies using websites like Capitol Trades or Quiver Quant.

What are the takeaways? Well, Congress is kinda rich. But in all sincerity, congressmen buy the dips. Some of the most popular stocks they bought this month included Google, Microsoft, JPMorgan, and Antero.

And yes, many sold the market high right before COVID messed things up… then they bought back at the lows. Typical. 🙄

Weeks after Walmart announced its 100% college tuition coverage for students, one of the company’s largest competitors followed suit.

Today, Target announced that it would begin covering costs of undergraduate and associates degrees, certificates, and other programs at more than “40 schools, colleges, and universities.” 

Target will partner with Guild Education to deliver access to online and in-person programs from schools like the University of Arizona and Morehouse College. The company will also provide options to pay for some graduate-level expenses. Disney, Discover, Chipotle, and Walmart also use Guild.

The company indicated it would invest $200M over the next four years to“eliminate student debt” for employees. 340,000 Target employees will be eligible. 🙌

Although Walmart and Chipotle got a first-mover advantage by announcing tuition programs before Target, it’s likely Target will still benefit from the draw of its program. As things get back to normal and enhanced unemployment benefits expire, retail companies will need to fill jobs. When that time comes, it’ll be one of the most competitive job markets for employers in over a decade. 🔥

$TGT closed up 0.33% today.

Ethereum just got promoted. 🥳 The second-largest blockchain network underwent a major upgrade this morning. The upgrade is expected to stabilize transaction fees and reduce Ether’s supply.

Ethereum’s London hard fork upgrade will bring a significant change in the form of five new Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). One of the new EIPs, EIP 1559, will remove some Ether from circulation. As anticipated, the market welcomed Etherum’s upgrade. 💚 Ether climbed on the bullish sentiment. Bitcoin and the rest of the market followed, also ending in the green. 

The upgrade will change how transaction fees work. Going forward, a portion of transactions made on the network will be burned instead of going to Ethereum miners. Burning Ether means taking some coins out of circulation—burnt tokens are sent to an unusable account. 

Coin burning permanently removes some coins from the network. With a reduced supply, tokens remaining in circulation become rarer and more valuable. In theory, that should push the price up. You know, the simple economics of supply and demand. 💁 📈

According to ultrasound.money, the fee cut has already eliminated $2M worth of Ether. Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin seemed optimistic, hailing London as a natural step towards Ethereum’s big overhaul in 2022. 

Miners, on the other hand, are not happy. EIP 1559 implementation will affect mining rewards. With the upgrade, miners receive reduced transaction fees. 

This is undoubtedly good news for the investors. Will Ether cross $3K soon?? Place your bets.

A month after an environmental activist shareholder seized three seats on Exxon Mobil’s board, the company is reportedly considering a net-zero carbon pledge. ♻️

The pledge would reduce Exxon’s “net carbon emissions to zero by 2050,” according to sources. The rumor comes as the oil and gas giant considers its future and what “life after oil “ might look like. The emissions pledge is one of a handful of proposals being reviewed by Exxon’s management as part of a realignment of the company’s strategy.

The company already plans to reduce emissions by roughly 30% in its oil and gas production biz. They’re hoping to do that by 2025.

In June, the company announced it would utilize a “performance-improvement program” to reduce its workforce by 10%. The plan is part of Exxon’s broader reorganization and cost-cutting, which will see Exxon cut 14,000 jobs worldwide by 2022. ✂️

$XOM is up 37.8% YTD.

You thought Spotify’s $100M check to Joe Rogan or Netflix paying $500M for Seinfeld was huge?? Consider this: ViacomCBS just dropped $900M to keep South Park going. 🤯 💰

ViacomCBS’s new deal with South Park‘s creators welcomes a number of new projects related to the show. Among them are 14 made-for-streaming movies on Viacom’s Paramount+ streaming service, not to mention six more South Park seasons to air on Comedy Central.

South Park, which lives on ViacomCBS’s Comedy Central network, has long-been one of the network’s strongest shows. The show has aired since August 1997, and its TV reruns are a lucrative line of income. According to a Los Angeles Times article, Viacom made hundreds of millions in 2019 by selling rerun rights on past episodes to other networks.

TV networks are looking a little different these days, though. They’re not down for the count, but cable viewership is dropping at the expense of streaming memberships—ViacomCBS’s expensive commitment looks like an effort to push Paramount+ using one of the network’s most successful franchises. ViacomCBS has roughly 42M subscribers across Paramount+ and other streaming services, including BET+ and Showtime.

$VIAC rose 7.12% today.