Huge 'Violent Rally' in February

MARKET MOVERS

• Metaverse real estate sales on the four major metaverse platforms reached $501 million in 2021, according to MetaMetric Solutions. Sales in January topped $85 million, the metaverse data provider said. It projects that at this pace sales could reach nearly $1 billion this year. BrandEssence Market Research found that the metaverse real estate market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 31% a year from 2022 to 2028.

• EV sales reached an 'Inflection Point’ with fast growth in China and Europe. In both, electric cars accounted for about 4% of new vehicle sales at the end of 2019, according to the presentation by Aleksandra O’Donovan. Last year, their proportion of all new car sales hit 15% in China and 20% in Europe. This inflection point happens when consumers get excited about electric cars.

• Bitcoin Network transaction volume surpasses AmEx, research shows. Bitcoin eclipsed $3 trillion in payment transactions last year, surpassing American Express and Discover, according to data from cryptocurrency investment firm NYDIG.

• Jaguar Land Rover gets a $670 million UK loan for electric cars. The five-year loan will help to boost JLR’s research, development, and export of battery-powered cars as part of the country’s Export Development Guarantee program. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is eager to build up a local battery-making industry as the UK prepares to ban sales of new gasoline and diesel cars in 2030. Read more here.

• iBuyer market share soars in 2021. iBuyer national market share of home purchases hit an all-time high of 1.3%. Around 70,000 houses in 2021. Opendoor consistently sold more houses each month, demonstrating an expanding operational capacity to repair and sell houses at scale. 2022 is all about profitability. Opendoor is approaching the scale it promised during its IPO. If its economics fall into line, the company is poised to be a significant force in real estate. Read more here.

• Block has completed its acquisition of buy now, pay later (BNPL) company Afterpay and also launched Square's first integration with Afterpay functionality, such that sellers using Square Online for e-commerce in the United States and Australia can now offer buyers the ability to buy now and pay in installments. The BNPL service is growing fastest among young Gen-Z and Millennials, who comprise 75% of BNPL users.

WHAT TO WATCH

• Get ready for a ‘violent rally’ in February, says Fundstrat’s Tom Lee. Lee said several contrarian signals have reached levels that suggested a strong buy signal. When institutional investors are cautious, retail basically priced in a bear market and sentiment’s worst in eight years, you could have a huge rally, Lee said. Recoveries from fast sell-offs are typically symmetric, meaning you should expect a violent rally.  Read more here.

• Microsoft-Activision deal to be reviewed by the FTC, a person familiar with the matter said, placing the fate of the roughly $75 billion deal in the hands of an agency whose leader has questioned acquisitions by powerful technology companies. The moves have increased uncertainty about which mergers will win approval and how long those approvals will take.

• Rental inflation may hit multi-decade highs of 5% or more this year: Inflation Insights' Omair Sharif. A pickup in building activity should, by sometime in 2023, help bring it back down into the 3% to 4% range that prevailed before the pandemic.

• AirBnb short-term rental market crash might happen soon, predicts Tina Tamboer of The Cromford Report. Essentially if we go into a recession, tourism is always the first one to go. If you're not growing because of job growth and you're not growing because of income growth and population growth and you are only growing in units because of tourists, that is a risk factor. Source(27:14)