Week of Jan 21, 2021 Weekly Recap & The Week Ahead
“The Market Can Remain Irrational Longer Than You Can Remain Solvent” — John Maynard Keynes
1. Gene-Editing Stocks Are Biotech’s New Cutting Edge — In October, two scientists won the Nobel Prize for their 2012 discovery and development of Crispr-Cas9. Now, the promise of that technology—effectively molecular scissors that can find and edit almost any part of a cell’s DNA—is causing shares of companies looking to commercialize gene-editing therapies to surge. Crispr-Cas9 is the second generation Crispr technology, which has the potential to alter specific portions of the genetic code in ways that could provide treatments for a number of inherited genetic disorders and many kinds of cancer. New Crispr technology is being commercialized at an incredibly rapid pace. Beam Therapeutics, which is developing a next-generation gene-editing tool called base editing, has seen its shares rise sixfold since its initial public offering in February 2020.
2. Biden Takes Office as 46th President & Issues First Round of Executive Orders — President Joe Biden signed 15 executive orders and two executive actions early last week on issues ranging from a mask mandate to rejoining the Paris climate accord. “I thought there’s no time to wait. To immediately address the pandemic, Biden signed an order mandating masks on federal property as well as on all planes, trains, and other transit systems between states. He also created a new office of White House Covid-19 response that reports directly to him.
As promised during the campaign, Biden lifted the controversial ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries that had been put in place by the Trump administration. He also ordered an end to construction of the Mexico-U.S. border wall and a moratorium on deportations.
He is also calling for an extension of the federal eviction moratorium through March 31 and freezing student loan payments on direct federal loans through Sept. 30.
In addition to rejoining the Paris climate accord, Biden took executive action to stop the U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization, reinstate rules limiting methane emissions, and revoke a permit for construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
3. Europe Mulling Stringent New Travel Bans as Virus Variants Keep Spreading — European Union leaders convene in a video summit to discuss ways to restrict travels into the region, as new, aggressive variants of the coronavirus threaten to overwhelm many countries’ health care systems. Most governments already require a recent negative test before allowing in foreign visitors, and France or the U.K. then require a second test within days of arrival. Countries such as France or the Netherlands have banned all incoming visitors from the U.K., save for essential travel, on account of the highly infectious new virus variant fast spreading in Britain.
4. Bitcoin Price Plunges — The world’s biggest cryptocurrency by market value dropped about 12% over the past day to just over $31,000 as of Friday morning. Janet Yellen, the nominee for Treasury Secretary in the Biden administration, did mention the risks of crime and fraud that Bitcoin poses in a hearing, but the selling pressure didn’t really coincide with her comments.
On a related note, Bank of America noted that the market has reached bubble territory ….
The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com:
