Financial Daily Dose 4.19.2021 | Top Story: Bitcoin Plummets In Correction Following Coinbase’s Public Debut

Because volatility’s the name of the game whenever we’re talking cryptos, it’s hard to be too shocked by the news that last week’s banner Coinbase public market debut gave way to a digital currency walkback this weekend that saw Bitcoin fall more than $10,000 from its $64k high last week - Bloomberg and Decrypt and WSJ and MarketWatch

The latest twist in the challenge to Alden Global’s bid for Tribune Publishing is the exit stage left of potential Bainum partner Hansjor Wyss from the pursuit of the newspaper group. The move reportedly “came about in recent days, after Mr. Wyss’s associates examined  the Tribune’s finances as part of the due diligence process” - NYTimes and Bloomberg and MarketWatch

All the talk of a new Roaring 20s just around the corner means that it’s “worth looking back more closely” at the first go around - NYTimes

Newfound SEC scrutiny of blank-check companies has investors “cooling to one of the hottest bets on Wall Street.” Let’s put some numbers to that: “Until last month, roughly five new SPACs hit the stock market every business day in 2021. In the past three weeks, 12 new SPACs have started trading” - WSJ and Bloomberg

The Times goes deeper into the recent union fight at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse to help us understand why some 70% of workers there chose to side with the company rather than with union organizers. Relatively high pay and immediately effective health insurance played a big role in encouraging that loyalty - NYTimes and Marketplace

Ant Group did a little scramble work this weekend to shoot down reports that it’s “exploring ways for founder Jack Ma to sell his stake and give up control as a means to ease pressure from the country’s regulators: - Bloomberg

The inside scoop on Citi’s Asia business restructuring, where it’s dialing back consumer banking operations in favor of a massive push into investment banking and trading operations there - WSJ and Bloomberg

Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture beat out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company and others for a $2.9 billion NASA contract to use its Starship rocket to “take astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface of the moon” - NYTimes and WSJ and Mashable and TechCrunch

How will all of the technologies that saw businesses through the worst of the pandemic transform the corporate world (and travel) after the lockdown days are over? Well, a redefinition of “necessary travel” is part of the equation now, no doubt - WSJ

And as for travel for pleasure—well, count Expedia CEO Peter Kern among those who are extremely bullish on the coming boom times for the travel industry - WSJ

The deets you need from the Department of Labor’s “first-ever guidance on employee retirement plans’ cybersecurity duties,” including a few areas that will likely rely on litigation to determine their scope – Law360

A joint state and federal effort in California to get some of its 40M homeless population into hotel rooms during the pandemic is providing real-life proof that a literal room of one’s own “is life changing to a degree that almost no other intervention can provide”  - NYTimes

Real-life screensaver? 31-minute installments of televised meditation? You could think hard about these questions. Or you could just let Disney+’s new “Earth Moods” wash over you and drink in the tranquility.  Your call - NYTimes

Stay safe,
MDR