SpaceX called off the planned launch of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a classified spy satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office due to a sensor flagging high pressure in the second-stage booster. The launch is currently rescheduled for Saturday. Since June 2010, rockets from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 family have been launched 105 times.
Vaccinations are underway, but the distribution and storage are really complex logistically. The Pfizer vaccine has to be kept an ultrafrosty –70° Celsius. The vaccine requires large and expensive ($10,000 each) special storage freezers and complex shipping containers. Pfizer and Moderna both require their vaccines to be super cold. The reason is to protect molecular structure of the synthetic vaccines. Both vaccines are based on messenger RNA (mRNA). The mRNA carries instructions which enable human cells to build copies of the coronavirus spike protein. The protein enables our immune system to attack the coronavirus if it attacks. The super cold status prevents the vaccines from breaking down and becoming useless.
The big market news will be Tesla’s joining the S&P 500, the most widely tracked stock index. It will be the largest company by market value to ever join the S&P. Tesla’s inclusion will cause dozens of index funds which track the S&P to purchase tens of billions of dollars of stock at Friday’s closing price so they will be tracking the index as closely as possible. Nobody knows exactly what the volatility of Tesla shares will mean. Traders say the ripple is unpredictable. As of 4pm Friday, Tesla was at $695 with a market cap of an astounding $659 billion, an incredible run for 2020. This will also be a record year for IPOs with DoorDash, AirBnB and quite a few others. Next year may be equally hot. Roblox is planning to raise $1 billion with a valuation of $8 billion or more. Coinbase has announced it has filed for an IPO in 2021. This could be a big one also. Coinbase is a digital currency exchange and the most valuable American crypto company. The rise in Bitcoin and an IPO by Coinbase could signal the legitimacy of cryptocurrency. The IPO stocks are speculative. With interest rates at essentially zero, investors are looking for something they perceive having growth potential. Tech is certainly in that category, but the bubble could break as we saw in 2000.
Disclosure: I am a private investor in Roblox and Coinbase.
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