Weekly Bitpanda Market Recap #7 - Insights from the world of investing

News from the crypto world

Solana’s for the environment

Solana has made many headlines lately when the Proof of Stake-based blockchain project secured a place among the top cryptocurrencies. Its innovative elements allow fast transactions while keeping the network’s energy consumption at a minimum. According to a recent report by Solana, one transaction on its chain consumes about the same energy as two Google searches, translating to around 0.00051 kWh per transaction.

The end of high Ethereum gas fees?

Vitalik Buterin, one of the founders of smart contract-giant Ethereum has co-authored a recently-released Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), namely EIP-4488, that aims to lower the network’s gas fees significantly. If implemented, gas fees of Layer 2 scaling solutions can already be tuned down in the near future. Some argue that this is a short-term relief only, projecting that the long-term solution lies in sharding, brought in by Ethereum 2.0. 

News from the stock market

This week’s earnings reports:

• Salesforce (CRM): 30th of November

• CrowdStrike (CRWD): 1st of December

Stock market performance

The stock market leaves a relatively negative week behind, following concerns about Omicron, the newest COVID variant. Major US indices, such as the S&P500 and NASDAQ100 closed well in the red, while the European ones experienced an even-worse seven days. Investors seem to react quickly to news regarding the virus, and many await further details regarding the topic before adjusting their portfolios.

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, steps down

After having co-founded and led Twitter since 2015, Jack Dorsey announced that he’ll be leaving his position as CEO. According to him, “[it’s] finally time for me to leave”. This is his second resignation as CEO of Twitter, as he also had the role from 2006 until 2008. Jack wrote an email to the entire Twitter staff, explaining the reasons behind his decision which include how “being “founder-led” is severely limiting and a singlesignal point of failure.” Twitter’s stock price is slowly reacting to the news, many investors could expect movement following the event.

Omicron against the prices

Whether it’s this year’s Black Friday, or the newest virus variant, the stock market delivered a forgettable performance last week. Most of the highest-cap companies, such as Tesla (TSLA), Nvidia (NVDA), or Apple (AAPL) closed the period with multiple percentage points in the red, but smaller players also suffered similar losses. Despite the negative sentiment, there was a hero on the horizon: the biotechnology sector’s main players - such as Moderna (MRNA), BioNTech (BNTX), or Pfizer (PFE) - ended with outstanding results, most likely due to investors’ hope in prolonged vaccination, boosting not only resistance against the virus, but also the effect of the vaccines boosting the firms’ revenues. 

Disclaimer

This article does not constitute investment advice, nor is it an offer or invitation to purchase any digital assets. This article is for general purposes of information only and no representation or warranty, either expressed or implied, is made as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of this article or opinions contained herein. Bitpanda Stocks are contracts replicating an underlying stock or ETF. More information and the PRIIPs key information document (KID) are available at bitpanda.com.