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Today's big stories

Apple reportedly plans to get into the self-driving car business
Weed stocks aren't the only illicit substance with massive growth potential for investors – Read Now
Oil major Shell announced it’ll slash the value of its oil and gas assets

Self-Jiving Vehicles

What’s Going On Here?

According to reports earlier this week, Apple’s planning to wind down the windows, crank up its favorite bangers, and build self-driving cars using its own battery technology by 2024 (tweet this).

What Does This Mean?

Apple hasn’t officially announced its foray into self-driving cars yet, but the report alone was significant and reliable enough to capture analysts’ attention and push the company’s shares higher. It’s not exactly farfetched: Apple first started designing self-driving vehicles from scratch in 2014, even if it’s since pared back its ambitions to focus solely on the software. But if this report’s to be believed, the tech giant’s now either using that software system in an Apple-branded car or licensing it to other automakers for a pretty penny.

Why Should I Care?

The bigger picture: Join the ride.
A bunch of well-known car and tech companies are determined to launch successful self-driving vehicles, even if it is taking longer than investors were hoping. But of those, only Waymo’s – owned by Google-parent Alphabet – is in public use. It might not be that way for long, mind you: General Motors-owned Cruise started testing self-driving vehicles in San Francisco earlier this month, Amazon’s Zoox just unveiled its self-driving robotaxi, and Tesla said last weekend that its (admittedly not fully autonomous) driver-assistance system will be available in early 2021.

Zooming in: It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Central to Apple’s strategy is a new battery design that could massively reduce the cost of production and boost its cars’ range. And seeing as most electric vehicle batteries still trail internal combustion engines on pretty much every performance metric, that could be an essential differentiator – especially since self-driving vehicles are primarily expected to be used for long-distance trips.

You might also like: The four big ways Apple could stay relevant in a post-hardware world.

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2. Analyst Take

Psychedelics’ Growth Potential Will Blow Your Mind, Man

What’s Going On Here?

Some “shroom stocks” – companies working with psychedelic substances that could treat a host of psychiatric disorders – have seen their share prices rise over 700% this year.

They are, after all, in with a shot of disrupting the $70 billion mental healthcare market.

See, while medical cannabis treatments target the symptoms of mental illnesses, research suggests psychedelic substances could cure some of them altogether by rewiring the brain.

And that’s to say nothing of the major role psychedelics could play in treating the opioid addiction crisis in the US.

So that’s today’s Insight: how you can invest in the psychedelics space, as well as how their path to legalization could actually play out.

Read or listen to the Insight here

💪 Be ready to take on 2021

If this year’s proved anything, it’s that you never know what’s around the corner. But at least with Schwab, you’ll keep calm when markets are volatile.

Because let’s face it, we’re not out of the woods yet: volatility’s still likely as we head into 2021, with countries still dealing with the pandemic and new governments coming into play.

That’s why it’s useful to know you’ll have access to Schwab’s advanced trading platform, custom screeners, and free proprietary research that’ll help you identify your next smart move.

Learn More

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Embarrassing Leakage

What’s Going On Here?

All these pandemic-induced nerves are starting to get the best of Shell: the oil major announced on Monday it’d slash the value of its oil and gas assets by $4.5 billion.

What Does This Mean?

Shell’s “writedown” – its third in the last year – means its assets have fallen in value by $22 billion since January. That makes it one of the biggest losers among the oil majors, which between them have trimmed the value of their assets by $80 billion in the last five quarters.

With oil and gas businesses having become far less profitable since the pandemic crushed travel demand, most energy companies have increasingly started moving away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources. And if they haven't, they soon will be: oil companies are being forced by their investors to think green, which might be why Shell’s said it’ll give an update on its own long-term low-carbon plans in February.

Why Should I Care?

For markets: Lead and they will follow.
Sustainable investing encompasses a couple of different approaches: “impact” investing – where investors back companies actively trying to make the world better – and “exclusionary” investing, where investors avoid damaging industries altogether. Investment manager BlackRock, for one, is trying to up its game on the first of those, promising earlier this month to support more climate change-focused shareholder proposals. And since it manages $7 trillion worth of investments – the most in the world – that’s bound to make even the most eco-ambivalent businesses pay attention.

For you personally: Groupthink.
Truth is, it’s tricky for you to single-handedly influence a company’s behavior. For one thing, your stake probably isn’t big enough to make them take notice. And for another, you mightn’t have voting rights at all if you hold fractional shares or your investment platform doesn’t legally assign them to you. But don’t give up hope: there are funds out there which let you pool your money with other investors and push companies to do better on your behalf.

You might also like: How to make companies change with your investments.

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💬 Quote of the day

“Instant gratification is not soon enough.”

– Meryl Streep (an American actress and singer)

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🤜🤛 You’ve got a friend in Schwab

There may be plenty of ups and downs still to come in 2021, but Schwab helps you prepare for them all.

You’ll work with their trading specialists to explore new opportunities. You’ll team up with their options and futures specialists to build new strategies and put them into action. And you’ll unlock fresh and actionable perspectives with Schwab Live Daily.

And you can even get started with $0 online stock, ETF, and base options commissions, plus $0.65 per options contract. Get all of this and a Satisfaction Guarantee when you join Schwab today.

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📚 What we're reading

The smuggest man on Earth: a love story (Elle)
Best. Christmas present. Ever. (The Verge)
2020. What a year. (Buzzfeed)

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Finimize - 🚗 Apple runs Google off the road

Today's big stories

Self-Jiving Vehicles

What’s Going On Here?

What Does This Mean?

Why Should I Care?

Psychedelics’ Growth Potential Will Blow Your Mind, Man

💪 Be ready to take on 2021

Embarrassing Leakage

What’s Going On Here?

What Does This Mean?

Why Should I Care?

🤜🤛 You’ve got a friend in Schwab

Older messages

🤫 Don't worry about Tesla

🎄 SMIC's nightmare before Christmas

🤞 Let's try this again: EU destroys Big Tech

🚫 IPOs are canceled

😏 Disney’s catching Netflix fast

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