3M is facing turbulence as the Trump administration meddles with its operations, making MMM stock unpopular among investors despite their products being involved in the fight against COVID-19.On April 2, the White House confirmed that it might adjust previous guidelines that discouraged non-health workers from wearing medical face masks. The new change will come as ‘guidance’ from the CDC. However, President Trump said that, for now, it would not be made mandatory. Medical-grade masks supplies are running low in the coronavirus hot spot areas. As a result of the current shortages, this new guidance is expected to affect the cloth and non-medical face coverings only. There is no surprise that such a situation may have its impact on 3M (NYSE: MMM) business as the company produces masks.The

Zoom (ZM) stock is falling continually in the past several days after ‘Zoom Bombing’ hackers attacked its video conferencing service but investors are confident the stock will rise in the long-term.The current uncertainties in the global markets due to the coronavirus pandemic have affected stocks differently. After many governments issued stay-at-home orders, Zoom Videos experienced a surge in activities as people strived to work from home. In that connection, Zoom Video Communications Inc (NASDAQ: ZM) stock used to enjoy the glow of a rising price.The share prices surged as a result of enthusiastic research reports coupled with insatiable demand among enterprises and consumers. But, in recent days, the one-time favorite of Main Street and Wall Street has encountered a massive backlash

President Donald Trump reversed his earlier decision to open the United States by April 10, 2020, and now he plans to reopen the country for business on April 30.On March 29, President Donald Trump reversed his earlier decision to open the United States by April 10, 2020. He has decided to extend national social-distancing guidelines to April 30. This initiative is aimed at keeping the forecasted coronavirus death toll in the U.S. from reaching catastrophic and worst-case scenario levels.In the past, President Trump wanted to reopen businesses in the U.S. by Easter despite the coronavirus situation. Nonetheless, the public health experts have warned that lifting these restrictions by Easter, April 12, may result in unnecessary death and economic damage. Trump had suggested that the

Currently, the United States has more confirmed cases than Italy and China but President Trump wants to open up the country in order to see business operations returning to normalcy.The massive and rapid spread of the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in economic downturns throughout the world. Currently, the United States has more confirmed cases than Italy and China. Thus, it is now the country with the biggest outbreak in the entire world and it’s clear that President Trump has what to say in this context.On March 27, the total number of cases in the U.S. surpassed 85,000 eclipsing China’s 81,782 and Italy’s 80,589, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The virus emerged in Wuhan, China, last December.Since that time, COVID-19 has spread to over 500,000 people in almost all

The United States Congress is working on a $2 trillion stimulus bill to mitigate financial hardships due to coronavirus, with Americans set to get up to $1,200 checks for that purpose.The U.S. Congress is currently pushing through a $2 trillion stimulus bill to mitigate the financial effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some Americans can expect to receive checks from the government to assist them to cope with the hard times during this coronavirus crisis.Official reports confirm that the payments will be $1,200 for individuals, which translates to $2,400 for the married couples who file income taxes jointly. It also includes $500 per child.But, there are specific qualifications that one must meet to become eligible for the money. Decisions will be made based on individuals’ adjusted gross

Nike reported quarterly earnings that have topped analysts’ expectations boosted by the company’s digital business and its success in North America. Nike stock is over 10% up today.On March 24, Nike Inc (NYSE: NKE) reported its earnings that topped analysts’ expectations, its stock reacted to the news. The quarterly earnings beat expectations due to a boost that came from the company’s digital business and significant growth in North America. These developments helped mitigate weakness in China as a result of rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic.Nike Stock Price Movement and Its SalesIts shares gained almost 9% in premarket trading March 25 morning. And now, at the time of writing, the price of Nike stock is growing. NKE is over 10% and is trading at $80.01.As the Dow Jones rebounded on

Uber stock is falling after the firm confirmed that it was suspending carpool services as a result of COVID-19 despite a rally in the tech stocks.On March 17, the shares of Uber Technologies Inc (NYSE: UBER) closed lower 6.8% to $18.91 per share. But, as the coronavirus hit the global markets, other tech stocks rebounded. In the case of Uber, the shares dropped after the firm confirmed that it was suspending carpool services as a result of COVID-19. Today the fall continues and Uber stock is now over 14% down. It is trading at $16.21.On the other hand, Lyft Inc (NASDAQ: LYFT) has fallen today by 9.97% to $16.80 per share after suspending its carpool service. These drops happened, although there was a broader market rally experienced after the White House announced its plans to dampen the

As the third Bitcoin halving event approaches, interest among investors seems to dwindle as BTC followed the price action of the traditional markets failing to act as a haven asset.Everyone in the crypto world is aware that the third Bitcoin halving event will take place sometime in May. According to several analysts, it could be the needed spark that will ignite a crypto bull market. Interestingly, others also say that it will drop the token’s inflation rate lower than central banks’ 2% target reference.After every 210,000 mined blocks on the Bitcoin blockchain, the token undergoes a halving. This time, the block rewards for the miners will get slashed from 12.5BTC to 6.25BTC. During its entire 11-year history, Bitcoin has encountered two halving events that happened in 2012 and 2016.BTC

Despite the many investments and acquisitions taking place in the Ethereum space, the ETH token followed Bitcoin’s lead into losing more than 10% of its value between March 7 and March 8.Over the weekend, the crypto markets suffered colossal losses that left many of the top tokens losing over 10% of their value. Bitcoin led this massive meltdown with nearly $30 billion erased from the crypto markets. On its part, Bitcoin lost almost 18% over the past two days resulting in a dismal performance for the rest of the crypt markets. Some of the hardest-hit losers include XRP, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash.The cause of this rapid sell-off was not immediately known, although some commentators blamed a wider spread stock market and commodity havoc in the wake of the spreading coronavirus. On

All technical indicators convinced commentators that Ripple’s XRP has taken on a bullish path after the Supreme Court of India reversed a bitcoin ban imposed by Reserve Bank of the country.Currently, Ripple‘s XRP is following a bullish path that has formed above the $0.2320 support zone. It attempted to break the $0.2380 resistance level, but it failed. For now, the XRP price has corrected lower below the $0.2350 handle and the 100-hourly simple moving average (SMA). A low has now formed near $0.2303, and the price seems to have taken another upward trend.It is trading around $0.2391 at the moment after breaking above the 100-hourly SMA. Additionally, there was a break above the 50% Fib retracement level of the previous decline from the $0.2381 high to $0.2303 low. The consolidated token

Robinhood online brokerage app crumbled on March 2 when the Dow Jones gained its most single-day points, leaving investors frustrated unable to take advantage of the market recovery.After the stock markets imploded last week due to the fears of the coronavirus spread, traders were ready on March 2 to cut some of those losses. However, that was not meant to be for all Robinhood investors. Robinhood, the brokerage platform, suffered a prolonged outage and was offline for a whole U.S. trading day.The outage prevented customers from executing trades as stocks rose after the rout experienced last week. The system-wide issue started as the markets opened, with investors unable to access their accounts. After around two hours, Robinhood Markets Inc. confirmed that the problem had been discovered,

The rapidly spreading coronavirus appears to have pulled down the global traditional investment markets with Bitcoin joining the fall, giving up its hypothetical store of value status. The current BTC price is around $8,600.Everything in every market is currently red. As the coronavirus epidemic continues to spread, the stock markets keep crumbling with bitcoin right behind them in a downward spiral. The S&P 500 and the Dow seemed to enter a correction on February 27, representing a 10% plunge from its recent highs.The Dow lost almost 1,200 points for its worst day, and the index seems poised to close out its worst week since October 2008. Japan has now declared a state of emergency, while Switzerland has banned any types of gatherings with 1,000 people. Officials have warned that the

Bitcoin price smashed the $9,500 support on February 25 after repeated tests and accelerated towards $9,100, marking the second day of losses amidst fears of the coronavirus spreading to more countries.Bitcoin price smashed the $9,500 support on February 25 after repeated tests and accelerated towards $9,100. That marked the second day of losses as global equities markets steeply corrected on the fears of the coronavirus spreading to more countries. As the price plunged violently, traders in the Bitcoin market liquidated $41 million in long positions within a few minutes.At the moment of writing, BTC price is $9.190.Currently, BTC price is still exploring the depth of the rabbit holes, with sellers’ confidence levels incredibly high. Last week’s support at $9,300 failed to stop the

The Cybertruck Owners Club has provided good evidence that as of February 18, Tesla has booked pre-orders for approximately 535,000 of these vehicles translating to 5,873 pre-orders daily. TSLA stock is in green.The Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock has been rising continuously since the start of the year, even earning Elon Musk billions within hours, as we published earlier. Musk is yet to update Cybertruck pre-orders since late November 2019, when they reached 250,000. However, the Cybertruck Owners Club has provided good evidence that as of February 18, Tesla has booked pre-orders for approximately 535,000 of the futuristic new electric vehicles.That represents an average of 5,873 pre-orders daily. Interestingly, the Cybertruck link has vanished from Tesla’s U.S. website. But, it is

Fundstrat’s Tom Lee said that the price of Bitcoin could surge to $500,000 in the long term, but he failed to mention the exact timeline for such a pie-in-the-sky target to be achieved.Bitcoin and its value have been a topic of discussion for many in recent years. Tom Lee, the head of research at the Fundstrat Global Advisors, said that the Bitcoin price could surge to half a million dollars in the long term. Nonetheless, he did not mention the exact timeline for such a pie-in-the-sky target.$500,000 Is Not a Pipe DreamDuring a new interview with Nasdaq, Tom Lee says that he still supports his opinion that the Bitcoin price will hit $40,000 before the Dow Jones hits 40,000. When asked if Bitcoin will rise to $500,000, he said that he believes a 4,900% increase is highly likely based on the

The production for the Bitcoin price movements after the halving has been updated. PlanB has explained how BTC price can reach $100,000 in 2021.Bitcoin price started by gaining considerably. A few days ago, the flagship token surged past the $10,000 level before correcting to settle in the upper $9,000s levels. That dip has made some commentators predict that the price will drop below the current yearly lows.But, the author of the most popularly-cited BTC price prediction models, PlanB, disagrees entirely with this prediction. Earlier on February 10, the analyst published an update of their price prediction for the coming several years. There is nothing bearish about it looking at that prediction.Bitcoin Price Will Hit $100,000 by End of 2021The optimistic model of predicting the BTC price

The next Ethereum system-wide upgrade, Eth 2.0, will not launch in Q2 2020 as scheduled, but developers are still confident that the original network parameters will deploy in 2020.The next Ethereum system-wide upgrade dubbed Ethereum 2.0 will be launched later than scheduled.In a particular Reddit discussion held on February 5, the Eth 2.0 team made several clarifications. The team said that the network would not launch until three clients can run testnets continuously for at least eight weeks. AMA participants included Eth 2.0 researchers Danny Ryan and Justin Drake together with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Drake wrote:“I have 95% confidence we will launch in 2020.”By description, Ethereum 2.0 appears as the next iteration of the world’s leading smart-contract blockchain.

Amazon joined Microsoft, Apple, and Google (Alphabet Inc) to rank among the wealthiest companies in the U.S. with a market cap of over one trillion dollars on February 4, 2020. Now it is a new member of the elite $1 trillion club.Amazon joined Microsoft, Apple, and Google’s parent Alphabet to tank among the wealthiest companies in the U.S. The other three entered the elite club for the first time in January 2020. All of them together make up the “Trillion Dollar Club.”Up to today, only these four American companies have managed to surpass the one trillion dollars threshold, making them rank among the most expensive companies worldwide. Globally, the list of trillion-dollar companies also features Saudi Aramco. Saudi Arabia’s national oil company has a market capitalization of almost $1.8

It is most likely that Bitcoin will gain from a rapid drop in Asian stock markets due to the coronavirus menace. Crypto analysts believe that the flagship token will gain soon. Apart from that, the halving event is fast-approaching. Bitcoin is less than 99 days away from its halving event. Most of the market commentators are bullish on its impact.Bitcoin price smashed the $9,600 hurdle for the first time since November 2019. Nonetheless, the weekend session was also dominated by significant consolidation between $9,200 and $9,600. Bitcoin currently has a market capitalization of $169.9 billion. Attempts to surge towards the $9,700 resistance succeeded in increasing selling pressure. Thus, the gains were contained within this range.Interestingly, the consolidation that currently dominates

After several years of failing to meet the excessively optimistic forecasts, Tesla Inc. delivered in 2019. The company continued its profitability streak in Q4. It earned around $105 million and generated $7.4 billion in revenue. That represents 56 cents a diluted share, compared with $140 million, or 78 cents a share, in the same year-ago period. These results beat expectations and sent shares flying in after-market trading on January 29.Most of the promises that the Chief Executive Elon Musk made were delivered last year. This development opens the company up to higher expectations and ambitions. Tesla also announced that productions of the Model Y had started this January in its Fremont, California factory, ahead of schedule.Shares shot up as high as 11.45% in the after-market trading.

Ever since cryptos came into existence a decade ago, a lot has changed in the financial world. Many crypto proponents suggested a while back that digital currencies will soon take over the world. They said that cryptos will eventually render fiat currencies obsolete. However, new studies show that cash is unlikely to disappear ‘anytime soon.’Although there is declining use of cash as a payment method and the cryptos are surging, Deutsche Bank is convinced that money is here to stay. The German multinational investment bank had previously proposed that cryptos will replace fiat by 2030. But now their sentiments have changed. Their latest report indicates that they believe cash will remain as a preferred payment method for a long time.Published on January 27, the Bank’s report said digital

Mastercard has been partnering with several other payment products and services providers aiming to grow its customer base throughout the world. In the latest news, Mastercard teamed up with SoFi, a digital personal finance company, on a lot of products and experiences. The new partnership will benefit SoFi’s almost one million customers, according to a press release from the companies.The new deal kicks off with the SoFi Money debit card, which is an offering that will exist on the Mastercard network exclusively. SoFi’s card will offer a new method for the users to spend their SoFi Money cash management accounts.According to official reports, this fee-free account will offer several beneficial features. Some of these features include peer-to-peer (P2P) functionality, reimbursements from

Ripple‘s partner MoneyGram, a leading payment provider, has continued to position itself among the leaders in cross-border crypto payments. After its major deal with Ripple for On-Demand Liquidity in 2019 worth $50 million, the company has now announced a new collaboration with Lulu Exchange.The exchange ranks among the most prominent crypto and non-banking finance providers in the United Arab Emirates region. Lulu has its headquarters in Abu Dhabi and operates more than 180 active branches.The new partnership aims to help Lulu’s mission to “digitize its money transfer business.” Additionally, the two parties will operate close together to create enhanced “consumer-centric capabilities.” The new development will support payments in both the Asian-Pacific and the Oman regions.In the new

Ethereum Classic (ETC) has had an exciting start of the year. ETC price has climbed and the token briefly made it to the top ten coins recently. At the time, the leaderboard was dominated by three bitcoins and two eths for several hours.This copy clone of Ethereum can be merged into Ethereum 2.0 in the same way as a new shard-like eth’s current Proof of Work (PoW) chain will be integrated. Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, publicly said that it is technically very possible. He added:“You can just use the same merger process to import the Ethereum Classic state that is planned for ETH. Then, the ETC execution environment code would enforce a different exchange rate vs beacon chain eth, based on the rate at the time of the merger (or some other pre-agreed formula). This is if you want

Gemini crypto exchange was founded by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. The company has announced that it has set up its in-house insurance company Nakamoto Limited that will protect its clients against any probable loss of coins stored in its offline vaults. Reportedly, the company has offered a possibly record-breaking $200 million coverage limit for Gemini Custody.Announced on January 16, the captive insurer will cover customers of the crypto cold storage service operated by Gemini Trust Company. Normally, most of the cold storage policies cover losses due to insider collusions and thefts. It also covers the destruction of private keys by natural calamities like earthquakes and floods.Cold storage is the practice of storing the cryptographic keys that control a cryptocurrency wallet

Advancement in technology has resulted in advanced strategies that criminals and terrorists use to pounce on innocent victims. Due to companies’ privacy policies, some manufacturers of the gadgets used by the crime perpetrators end up withholding crucial information to help perpetrators. One such company is Apple Inc.After the December 6, 2019, terrorist attack on a Florida Navy base, it emerged that the criminal used iPhones for part of his plans and communications. Since then, Apple is hesitant about unlocking the devices. Now, President Donald Trump has taken a shot at the tech giant calling them to ‘step up to the plate.’ The president wants the company to unlock all the iPhones used by the gunman.In a tweet on January 14, the President said that the U.S. government assists Apple on

Boeing released several internal messages with company employees expressing their unease with the 737 Max. They discussed the problems existing in the flight simulators used to train pilots on the new jetliner while attempting to avoid extensive regulatory scrutiny of the plane. One company pilot told their colleague in 2016:“This airplane is designed by clowns, who, in turn, are supervised by monkeys.”The company had already given the documents to lawmakers with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration investigating the Boeing 737 Max and how it was cleared to fly. The messages published on January 9 threaten to topple the company’s efforts to rebuild public trust in the 737 Max. These planes have remained grounded worldwide since March 2019 after the two deadly crashes.The MessagesThe

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has previously allowed several crypto derivatives products to enter the market. In that context, CME Group, which offers Bitcoin futures, plans to launch options on BTC futures on January 13, 2020.While responding to the growing interest in cryptos and customer demand for tools to manage Bitcoin exposure, CME Group decided to launch options on BTC futures. As we highlighted earlier, the firm officially confirmed this launch last November.All About OptionsCME Group has published a course on their site to teach all interested entities about the options services that they plan to offer. Their curriculum offers an overview of what investors must know to trade options. The course, dubbed ‘All About Options,’ is a compilation of

OKEx crypto exchange officially announced the launch of Bitcoin options trading for a chosen few clients. This has happened ahead of a public launch on January 9, 2020. In a December 26 press release, the third-largest crypto exchange by daily trading volume worldwide has confirmed that the new contract will be settled daily in Bitcoin.Increasing Hedging Strategies Options for OKEx TradersAn options contract is a popular derivative that lets traders hedge against asset price swings in all directions. It provides users with the opportunity to buy either a right to buy a call option or sell a put option of a particular asset at a constant ‘strike price’. The strike price is normally determined on or before the contract’s expiration date.Official reports from OKEx reveal that its Bitcoin

Tencent, the Chinese technology giant that operates the social media app WeChat, has announced that it is planning to develop a digital currency research group. This research group will have the responsibility of further advancing various blockchain technology research projects. According to fresh reports by iFeng, the company had released an official statement to its employees telling them that it is seeking someone to head the proposed research group.The yet-to-be-established digital currency research group will most probably focus on the further growth of Tencent in the digital currency payment arena by using blockchain technology. With this research group, the parent company will strive to study digital payment solutions to enhance its products in the industry.Additionally, the new