What I read today December 1st, 2020
Hard to believe it’s already December! What a year it’s been and even November alone was an insane month. It was one of the strongest months on record in credit markets. We had vaccine news, we had elections, we had mysterious assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. As much as I’d like a quiet month, I think 2020 might still have some curveballs to throw.
Deepmind, the Google research lab has come up with a way to accurately and reliably predict protein folding, a potential breakthrough for new drug discovery. ($)
COBOL, the code that underpins finance.
No one quite knows how much COBOL is out there, but estimates suggest there are as many as 240 billion lines of the code quietly powering many of the most crucial parts of our everyday lives. “The second most valuable asset in the United States — after oil — is the 240 billion lines of COBOL,” says Philip Teplitzky, who’s slung COBOL for decades for banks across the U.S.
Airbnb is going public at a reported $35 billion valuation, a dive into it’s S-1 filing.
Shortselling’s gone mainstream with coordinated attacks and research-for-hire.
This year’s biggest M&A deal is a big one for “data is the new oil”. ($)