Written By: Nayan Bandaru, Junior Analyst, Technology
Alaska is Warmer than Texas???
Massive cold front along with snow and ice sweeps the southern United States
This week a massive winter storm descended on the southern United states and is causing crazy power issues for millions upon millions of people. It seems that the storm is going to continue for a few more days with ice and snow on the way. The largest issue from the storm is that the Texas power grid was not able to hold up to the demand of electricity and crashed. This means lots of parts in the state are currently without power or are doing things called rotating power outages, where it's 30-45 minutes of electricity for a part of a city which then shuts off and moves to a different part of the city. We should all be doing our part in conserving as much energy as possible to help out those who are in need at the moment.
What’s going on with Oil?
Oil prices surge to highs near the beginning of Covid
Over the weekend Oil prices (WTI) surged to highs of over $60 a barrel. Prices like that for oil haven’t been seen since the beginning of the pandemic. Part of the hike in price is due to the rising tensions in oil rich countries in the Middle East. Particularly the Houthi rebel group in Yemen mobilized on the Yemen government causing tensions to spike as if the rebel group attacks it could millions of lives in danger. On top of that the cold storms in the south combined with stimulus hype drove up the price of Oil.
Earnings this week
Keep an eye for some big gains
The earnings train continues this week with a bunch more companies to look out for. Two really big companies to take a look at are Walmart and Shopify. Wall street analysts are looking at Walmart to turn a higher profit per-share number than last quarter for the stock price to see a hike. Most of Walmart's 21% returns last year were during the early retake of the market after the beginning of the pandemic and the stock plateaued after late August. Shopify is a gem of a stock during the pandemic with many people taking the extra time on their hand to start some businesses and hobbies of their own. Shop within the last 2 weeks has seen a 34% stock price surge and last year in 2020 they grew over 200%. Shopify is a monster of a stock especially with their earnings predicted to be favorable once again, watch out for some big moves. Other large cap companies to keep an out for this week are CVS, Roku, Marriot, etc….
The Acquittal
Donald Trump was acquitted of his impeachment
Donald Trump was acquitted by a vote of 57-43 with 7 republicans joining 50 democrats to vote yes on his impeachment which fell 10 short of the 67 needed votes. Regardless Trump becomes the first president in history to be impeached by the House of Representative twice and acquitted by the Senate twice. Most of the republicans that voted no most likely did so as they would be afraid of stepping on Trump’s toes and going after him. Many also cited that the vote was one that was extremely uncomfortable and had no good outcome for anyone involved. That being said there were 6 more votes to impeach Donald Trump this time around than in 2020, marking that more of the Senate understood that the crimes he committed while in office were punishable by impeachment. Impeachment would have prevented Donald Trump from ever running for office again, which now is still a possibility in the air. The ability to mobilize a group of people to riot on the capital is a highly dangerous ability. Trump affected the markets by making them highly volatile all the time through social media. Will Biden be able to do the same thing through twitter or is the era of the POTUS stock movement over?
Sources
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/14/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-republican-vote/index.html
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/shop