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The investor community witnessed one of the most unique and abstruse share price soarings in the stock market history in the last 3 days. Gamestop, an American retailer offering videogame, consumer electronics and various gaming instruments, saw its market capitalisation and share price increasing almost tenfold in a mater of days following unexpected retailer investor activities. The key question is how what catalysed such a dramatic change despite the company not offering any information to boost its share price?

The answer lies in the popular trading Reddit page Wallstreetbets, often targeting short sellers. The Gamestop’s bottom line is expected to record losses in 2021 as a result of gamers using digital software to purchase their videogames, rather than brick and mortar stores, triggered by the pandemic and global lockdowns. Therefore, it is not surprising that many investors have shorted the company’s stock. The core of the whole matter is that the amount of shorted Gamestop shared was relatively higher than the amount of actual Gamestop shares available at the market.

If you are not familiar with the term, there is an immense term to clarify what ‘shorting’ means to get a full picture of this story. In the simplest terms, the shorter borrows the security from its owner for a certain period amount of time and immediately sells it to another party. The short-seller is hoping that a stock price will go down so that he/she can go to the market to purchase the share for a lower price and give or pay it back to its first owner. In this case, the difference (delta in financial language) between the initially borrowed amount and eventually bought back amount is the profit made by the short-seller. Nevertheless, it is of the utmost importance to highlight that if the stock price goes up, the short-seller will note losses, as he must purchase the stock at a higher rate at the market and give it back to the previous owner.

As mentioned above, many investors and hedge funds had bet GameStop would lose substantial value, that is when large amounts of people on the Reddit forum decided to bought shares in the company.
The demand was so huge that it led GameStop share price to rise massively, ultimately forcing everyone who put a bet on the company’s dropping value to repurchase their shares. The market turmoil was also influenced by an Elon Musk’s tweet (of course), that further pushed GameStop’s share price.

What has been called “insane” and “never seen before” by gWall Street commentators and analyst, has led to the US Senate Banking Committee to plan to hold a hearing on the “current state of the stock market”. Wall Street has been in fact heavily criticised after the 2008-2009 financial crisis, so the reactions coming out of Wall Street have raised many eyebrows. On the one hand, Wall Street has been acting aggressively with “little repercussions” on its CEOs, on the other hand, it does not seem to care about “free market capitalism” when its very own affiliate firms and hedge funds are being attacked.

A rally of such manicures is leading to an increase in volatility. At the time of writing, shares in GameStop dived by as much as 55%, after a total rise of 700%. This has been caused by restrictions enacted by Wall Street giants against day-trading amateurs. Most brokerages firms, most notably Robinhood, are being accused of market manipulation since the restrictions imposed on GME and other companies caused a huge loss of money for many traders. The hedge funds who bet on GameStop share price to fall, have witnessed an unexpected massive reaction. The battle between WallStreet giants and amateurs is set to continue.

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Tech-City

If financial services are part of pre-Brexit London, post-Brexit London will be all about tech. East London Tech City, also known as the Silicon Roundabout (mimicking the famous Californian Valley), is an area located in the Islington and Hackney boroughs. It has gained prominence after the 2008 recession, due to many financial companies leaving the area, plummeting office rents, that ultimately attracted young technology start-ups. In the following years, both the government and the private sector, invested massively in the area, now packed with tech companies and university campuses.

From the Silicon Valley to the Silicon Roundabout

As if Covid-19 didn’t happen, London managed to attract almost £8 billion ($10.5 billion) in venture capital. Furthermore, the city has acquired more tech investment than other major EU capitals..combined. Almost half of the fundings came from non-Europeans investors, 36% of which were Northern Americans. Covid-19 apparently acted as an accelerator for this type of industry and more money is expected to flow to London. Tech workers are moving to the British capital by the thousands, as confirmed by a 10% increase in the number of tech employees looking for homes to rent in the capital between 2018-2019.

The new Silicon Valley?

The pandemic has speeded up the digital transformation of health and education sector so much, that the point of no return is long gone. London’s ever-growing tech sector can facilitate this process even more. Given that Silicon Valley is almost exclusively accessible to Big Tech names, London could become the new incubation centre for the tech giants of the future. The city has to attract fun and innovative and create the right infrastructure for them, however, competition from other cities is fierce.

Closing the gap

Whilst being too early to predict whether London will become the new Silicon Valley, it is certainly closing the gap with it. London has always been more conservative when it comes to entrepreneurship. However, to succeed in tech, companies have to be allowed to fail as many times as necessary before they win. After the financial crisis, Britain has rediscovered its entrepreneurial creativity, especially in terms of financial services. As mentioned above, Britain’s tech industry is undergoing a process of diversification, as more and more startups are operating in the food, healthcare, and education services.

UK Tech golden decade

IPO activity is set to bounce back this year. The UK currently has almost 140 potential unicorns and 80 unicorns, more than any other European country. Furthermore, the Treasury will release a review of listing rules to encourage UK tech companies to become public. Darktrace and Deliveroo are among those companies who are reportedly considering an IPO. This might be in fact the start of a golden UK Tech decade. With 47 universities, the advantages of doing business in English, and an unlimited pool of highly qualified workers, London is the place to be.

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Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp, a messaging and Voice over IP service, back in 2014 was either praised as its best business move ever or it raised many eyebrows, or both.

For instance, many questions were asked on whether Facebook was getting too powerful and was actively behaving to completely erase competition, something that other tech giants have been accused of during the years. Many lawsuits and court hearings followed, and the recent social media purge, in the aftermath of the riots at Capitol Hill, has resulted in more people thinking of Big Tech as being too powerful, ultimately leading users to question their approach to privacy and data protection.

A recent in-app WhatsApp notification raised even more awareness on how much data actually flows between the messaging app and Facebook. The pop-up notified that starting from February 8, the privacy policy will change and that users must accept the new terms, should they wish to continue using the service. The policy change will not allow users to opt-out of sharing data with Facebook, however, it must be said that actually, the messaging app has been sharing data of its 2+ billion users since 2016.

This is linked to Facebook’s aim at more integration across its range of app and products, and Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly reassured customers by stating that both Facebook and WhatsApp will not be able to access communication between profiles. Facebook’s CEO has committed to expanding end-to-end encryption offerings to protect consumer’s privacy, whilst affirming that they will collect information exclusively to improve, customise, and market their services. However, many users have decided to flee the messaging app and open profiles on other apps, especially Signal and Telegram.

Signal, part of the Signal Foundation is an encrypted messaging service, founded by Brian Acton. As well as being the co-founder of WhatsApp, he partnered up with Moxie Marlinspike, co-founder of the Signal Protocol to create an app which used to provide end-to-end encryption, ultimately used by another messaging app such as WhatsApp and Skype. This has resulted in many people to question: ‘what is the difference between Signal and WhatsApp?’ Essentially it is the fact that Signal, being a non-profit organisation, does not collect data. It is in fact funded by grants and private investors, such as Brian Acton, mentioned above, who donated $50 million to create the Foundation in 2018, which now runs the app.

As mentioned before, both services are using the same encryption technology. However, Facebook collect lots of information on its users, in which there is no way to opt-out anymore. Another substitute to WhatsApp might be Telegram, an instant messaging service, founded by Pavel Durov in 2013 and headquartered in London and Dubai. In a message sent to its users on January 12, the app thanked its 500 million active users, in light of 25 million users gained in the previous 72 hours. Telegram does not offer encrypted messaging by default, but instead, it offers it as an optional feature via “Secret Chats”.

Telegram has been heavily criticised since its debut, partially to the fact that it allows the creation of groups with up to 200,000 users, whilst Signal limits groups to one thousand users, and it has been reported about terrorist and criminal organisations using the app many times already. A feature that is peculiar to Telegram is its channels, that function as public broadcasts. Everyone can sign up to any public channel, and this is actually a great tool to send messages to a wide audience.

With Telegram’s rising numbers in users and Signal being currently the most downloaded app both on the AppStore and on Android’s PlayStore, is this the end of WhatsApp?

Probably not. Despite Elon Musk’s “Use Signal” tweet, many other CEOs defended the changes in WhatsApp, citing that a lot of misinformation revolves around it. Facebook is pushing towards more integration among its app for a reason. In fact, it plans to introduce further development in terms of e-commerce and WhatsApp will certainly play a major role in this. As of now, WhatsApp Pay, is only available in India, but it is set to take over the world very soon.

This might be a “Signal” that WhatsApp’s hegemony is only about to start.

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Shock, disgust and horror. This is how politicians, commentators, and journalists described the insurrection at Capitol Hill, as the events unfolded. However, the prevailing emotion was fear of a President who seemingly pushed his hardcore loyalists to stage an insurrection against the American Congress- the heart of the American Democracy. The condemnation came from across the entire political board, by most Republicans and Democrats alike. However, Democrats have taken the debate a few steps further, being now in the talks to remove President Trump by either triggering the 25th Amendment or by proceeding with impeachment.

Both acts will remove the acting President and ban him from running for office again, however, it seems unlikely that he will be removed, as Vice President Mike Pence is not really keen on invoking the 25th Amendment. It also requires two-thirds of Congress to vote for it, whilst in regards to impeachment, in which there is simply not enough time. President Trump, who recently confirmed that he will not attend Biden’s Inauguration- set to take place on January 20th- has confirmed his intention to keep on fighting once outside the White House.

The MAGA March that took place in Washington DC on January 6th, was culminated by Trump’s speech, later generating into a violent riot. As described by political analysts, this was the “perfect” and inevitable way to end his political career, filled with lies and incompetence. Trump has committed the error to fuel suspicions against the election and the American voting systems, pushing some of its followers to believe the conspiracies against him and that the entire system was rigged and votes were stolen from them.

The American elections were highly charged with emotions and many people raised questions about the safety of the voting systems, specifically the mail-in ballots. The President of the USA has the total right to investigate in matters of election fraud, however, the problem is that Trump has not been able to provide for evidence, therefore his allegations are simply not enough to overturn the results certified by the electoral college. Furthermore, he should not have made this as a matter of loyalty, by asking Mike Pence to not certify Biden’s victory. Not the Vice President, nor Congress have the power to do so.

Using emotionally charged words that had the effect of instigating his followers to attack Congress, preventing the government’s constitutional rights to certify the election, is deplorable. However, it is wrong to directly blame him for the insurrection that resulted in four deaths and dozens of officers injured, for he instigated it and not demanded it to happen. If blame were to be the case then some could say Obama is to blame for a rioter that shot six police officers in Ferguson after months of saying that the police is systemically racist. After months of normalising the ongoing riots last summer, it is ultimately time to hold the media responsible and the Democrats for the number of people who were injured and the $2billion cost in damages.

We can criticise Trump’s words and lies, but we should not forget that he didn’t actively promote an insurrection, instead, he told the rioters to back off and be peaceful and that he actually requested more law enforcement, something that actually was denied by DC’s Democrat Mayor. No words that have been given by Trump online are all worthy enough for him to see a temporal ban from all social media platforms. Alongside his so-called intentions to fight for what he believes is right, his so-called claims injustice in the recent elections to even his recent conspiracies against America, as expressed in his last video- all reasons are not worthy enough to say that President Trump deserves to have a total ban from social media. Again, he didn’t prove evidence and the fact that a lot of voters, from both sides of the spectrum, think the fraud actually happened, as Ted Cruz said in congress, is not enough evidence.

However, the total crusade that the Democrats, with the media’s complacency, have enacted for four years, blaming Trump for everything and describing all of his voters (75 million) essentially as backwards ignorant. In which, this was very wrong and very dangerous for the well being of American society. America, and the West at large, have to be able to keep on promoting freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of political views. If we do not do as such, we will end up tribalising the way we vote, when voting, on the contrary, must be detached from our political views, from our profession, from the way we decide to identify ourselves, from our ethnicities and so on.

One last thought on the role that Big Tech has in splitting our societies into groups, that have nothing in common if not just hate for each other. We have already seen our societies transition from acquiring news from traditional media outlets to do so on social media, from engaging in human-to-human exchange of thought to do so through virtual profiles. Social media has to keep on granting the freedom of thought and expression so dear and important in the West and stop banning people who simply do not comply to what these platforms allow (and I’m not talking about violence, of course). Censure is something that Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, etc. did and many other dictators are still doing. It has no place in the West.

Time to massively tax, regulate, or even better break Big Tech apart.

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The post America- The Tribalisation Of Politics And Big Tech appeared first on Relawding.

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The UK has left the EU in January 2020, and having secured a trade deal massively backed by MPs, it will end the transition period on the 31st of December at 11 pm GMT. After four years of negotiations with the single-market block of 27 members and debates that have left the country’s political scene scarred, the real challenge starts now. Britain, now free, sovereign, and smaller must be able to find a new place in a world dominated by large entities, such as the US, China, and the EU.

Britain seems to have clear ideas on what role it wants to play from now on: global Britain. The country has managed to sign 63 trade deals in record time, that essentially ensure vital continuity for businesses and pave the way for more ambitious deals in the future. With the recent addition of a trade deal with Turkey worth £18 billion, the UK has secured an astonishing £885 billion of trade. Whilst usually advocating for less government, the Conservative party must provide hefty investments for a wide range of industries, if it really wants to take advantage of the huge opportunities provided by Brexit.

Britain is still negotiating Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Australia and New Zealand and has signed a £20 billion Trade Continuity Agreement (TCA) with Canada, that will serve as a framework to build for a new tailor-made trade deal between the countries in 2021. Why am I mentioning these countries? Well, because there might be something more going on. For a few years, especially in 2020, some analysts and politicians have started using the term CANZUK, an acronym for the four countries, to describe a potential future common market area, that will essentially work like the deceased European Economic Community (ECC).

In the way it is described now, CANZUK will essentially be a supranational organisation that will facilitate free trade between four countries, without the grip of unelected technocrats, typical of the European Union. At present, it seems to be mostly supported by conservative right-wing parties, for instance, the Canadian Conservative Party leader Erin O’Toole has promised to make CANZUK a priority, whilst being described an “absurd fantasy” of Brexiteers by others. So what are the advantages of such organisations and what will be its role in the global arena?

First of all, it will be a union made of four very similar countries. Canada, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, that share a common language and a common political system. Furthermore, their societies are quite similar, they are all part of the Commonwealth (a political association), their Head of State is the same (HM Queen Elizabeth II) and they all have the same legal system (common law). Sharing such a high degree of similarities could be helpful in regards to further economic integration, which one of the major issues that the EU is facing.

All of these countries, plus the US, form the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, one of the most comprehensive espionage alliances in the world. This, alongside the advantages of an economic union, could make CANZUK the second most powerful geopolitical behind the EU and the fourth-largest economy. Due to a shared history and common values, with support from the United States, CANZUK could act as a strong opponent against what is perceived as a huge threat for the West: China.

Australia has experienced a very little publicised trade war with China, Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau has recently rejected calls to release Meng Wanzhou (Huawei’s CFO), and the UK u-turned on Huawei’s role in building its 5G network. At present, only New Zealand seems to be in good terms with China, something that is proving hard due to the Kiwis’ proximity to Australia, in both geographical and economic terms. Whilst the aforementioned countries are near, CANZUK members as a whole are not, however, this should not be a burden as we are moving to digital economies and transport is getting easier and faster.

CANZUK has attracted both critics and consent, the first usually point out that it would be senseless to try to build a union with very distant countries and with the UK being a considerably bigger economy, something that could lead to disparities and unbalanced relationships. Those who support CANZUK, however, highlight that three of these countries are in the top-15 global economies and how this union could represent a way to reinvigorate the Anglo-Saxon model of capitalism. CANZUK will have the largest landmass in the world, granting access to a huge supply of resources and it will cover around 140 million people. This could be the beginning of a very important player in the global arena.

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