For perspective $AZN is a $206B company. The UK has quite a lot of large corporations.

Respect.

Much of the $UPST selling last year had more to do with the macro environment— Wall Street punished Upstart for carrying loans on their balance sheet.

Now, the macro environment is improving and Upstart is removing / selling loans. That helped them get committed funding. They also added almost double the amount of partners and are showing gains in Auto and their artificial intelligence capabilities.

Management has a lot of skin in the game.

$UPST is up 16% today.

@eggplant made a great post about how "Less Than 1Y Performance is a Distraction". And I completely agree... with only one notable exception...

....When I make the 1 week global leaderboard 😄🥲😂

I love that Commonstock is all about long-term wealth building. 1 week and 1 month time frames are often just noise... BUT you also have to enjoy yourself along the way when you're on the long journey.

So pardon me while I take a:

tongue-in-cheek,

completely self-indulgent,

good-natured but ill-advised victory lap 🏃🏻 🫣 🤠

People complain about crypto being too correlated with stocks— they say this proves that it's not a hedge (for inflation, for liquidity crunches, etc).

But here's an example of a divergence between traditional assets and cryptocurrencies.

$BTC.X is up 10%, $ETH.X is up 7%, the S&P 500 is down -.24%

If Bitcoin and stocks continue to move in opposite directions in light of the geopolitical events going on right now, it strengthens the argument that Bitcoin is becoming its own thing.

Biden's sections would effectively freeze Russian central bank assets within the US, prohibiting Americans from doing business with Russia.

The crisis is directly influencing trading behavior.

Since Thursday, when the invasion by Russia began, transactions on centralized Bitcoin exchanges in both the Russian ruble and the Ukrainian hryvnia surged to their highest levels in months (source: Kaiko)

The Russian-Ukraine conflict is highlighting the #UseCases of borderless and censorship-resistant money.

The rise in crypto could also be the market becoming skeptical that the Fed will be able to raise interest rates, and pricing in fewer rate hikes in 2022.

Prices are driven by narrative in crypto, so don't underestimate the strength of the humanitarian case for bitcoin right now; the Ukraine government has raised more than $10 million in cryptocurrency donations as of Sunday.

I've been following the BlockFi saga since last year:

Yesterday it was announced that BlockFi would pay $100 million in fines to regulators for failing to register its BlockFi Interest Account lending product as a security (and misrepresenting the product’s risks.)

Current BlockFi Interest account holders will continue to earn interest on the funds they currently have in their BIA.

The $100 million fine is the largest penalty ever assessed in a crypto enforcement action.

From my perspective BlockFi is doing the same thing as banks— taking your deposits and lending it out. But regulators disagree.

Does this spell an end to BlockFi?

Selling Tesla at $1,205

($TSLA is at $1,026 today)

Quidel is a manufacturer of diagnostic healthcare products.

A lot of their products focus on infectious diseases.

Looking into it more.

This AMA with Brad Freeman was my favorite one yet:

https://commonstock.com/memo/eb9cd90b-a4a1-4037-b87f-8db472de4551 by @stockmarketnerd

Ouch on DocuSign this last month.

Well, ouch on most everything. But times like these are when it’s more important than ever to post a portfolio recap, as you will learn the most about yourself and the market when times are hard.

Favorite Trade Actually in November

(My Tesla Trade was on Oct. 31st, so for a trade actually in November, I choose Soluna Holdings)

For people who complain that Bitcoin is bad for the environment, look into what $SLNH is doing. They find renewable energy plants where 30% of their output goes to waste because it can't be stored. Soluna sets up Bitcoin mining rigs right next to the wind and solar plants and uses the cheap energy to mine Bitcoin.

https://commonstock.com/memo/dfa3f763-6e5b-4e6b-a054-d8e59f637063 by @pat_connolly