An appearance by the executive of a publicly-traded company on CNBC or another business-related news channel can sometimes move the share price fast. If the show airs outside the trading hours, it can sometimes have less of an effect on the share price.
That raises the question of what kind of impact the upcoming Elon Musk appearance on “Saturday Night Live” might have not just on his company’s share price the following Monday, but also on cryptocurrency trading during the airing of the show.
What Happened: Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is set to appear as the host of “SNL” on May 8.
Musk will likely be careful about mentioning too many specifics about the electric vehicle company given the watchful eye of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The Tesla CEO could be featured in skits and parodies that look at electric vehicles, landing on the Moon or even the meme coin Dogecoin that Musk likes to promote on Twitter.
The electric vehicle car company reported first-quarter earnings earlier this week.
See Also: How to Buy Dogecoin (DOGE)
Why It’s Important: The show, which airs on NBC from Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), airs outside of the trading hours for Tesla shares. Depending on how Musk’s appearance is received or what is said about Tesla, shares could see a reaction on Monday, May 10, when the market resumes.
Cryptocurrency is much different as the market never sleeps and Dogecoin can be traded throughout the show.
If Musk mentions Dogecoin or a skit is done to discuss the meme coin, it is quite possible that the valuation could see a large spike.
Related Link: 5 Things You Might Not Know About Elon Musk
Owners and fans of Dogecoin rallied around April 20 as “Doge Day” in an attempt to put the spotlight on the cryptocurrency and get the price of the coin to key levels like $0.69 and $1. 
Both of those levels failed and with no new event in sight, the Doge community could rally around the appearance by Musk as an event to get Dogecoin trending and trading higher. 
A tweet from Musk saying “The Dogefather” and listing the “SNL” May 8 date sent Dogecoin up 8% on Wednesday. 
Price Action: Dogecoin is trading at $0.3293 at the time of writing. Tesla shares closed at $709.23 on Friday. 

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If someone had told Robert Fenwick-Smith at the beginning of 2020 that within the next 18 months he’d help take a business public through a special-purpose acquisition company, then start his own $50 million pre-SPAC fund, he’d have said they had lost touch with reality.
Fenwick-Smith, the founder of Boulder-based equity fund Aravaipa Ventures, had spent the previous 15 years investing in early-stage Colorado companies that focused on disruptive technology with global environmental impacts. He didn’t have much familiarity with SPACs.
But his fund was an early investor in the Loveland electric vehicle company Lightning eMotors. The opportunity arose to take the business public via SPAC. Fenwick found himself the interim chairman and chief financial officer for a company rapidly transitioning from private to public. When that process was complete, he launched Aravaipa’s second growth equity fund, targeting companies that can merge with a SPAC within 18 months.
“I have been drowning in SPACdom for the past nine months,” Fenwick-Smith said.

He’s not alone.
Seemingly overnight, SPACs, also known as blank-check companies, exploded in popularity as an alternative method for taking a company public rather than a traditional initial public offering. The number of new SPACs nationwide and the amount of money they raise has grown exponentially, from 59 SPACs raising $13.6 million in 2019 to 248 raising $83.3 billion in 2020 and 310 raising more than $100 billion so far in 2021, per SPACinsider.com. Growth really picked up at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, from 20 new SPACs in November 2020 to 109 in March 2021.
The stock prices of certain SPACs also skyrocketed from the initial SPAC value of $10 per share. The space company Virgin Galactic Holdings (NYSE: SPCE) hit a 52-week high of $62.80 in February. So did electric vehicle SPAC Churchill Capital Corp. IV (NYSE: CCIV), which climbed to $64.86. Nikola Corp., another electric vehicle company, (NYSE: NKLA) reached as high as $93.99 during its June 2020 zenith.
This trend also hit Boulder. Several local businesses or businesspeople have taken advantage of the financing option, including:
• Fenwick’s pre-SPAC Aravaipa Growth Equity Fund II.

• Brad Feld, founder of the Boulder tech incubator Foundry Group, is chairing the SPAC Crucible Acquisition Corp., which has one $225 million fund (NYSE: CRU) already launched and two more in preparation.
• The Los-Angeles-based private equity fund The Gores Group has launched one $345 million SPAC out of Boulder (NYSE: GMIIU) and is planning a second worth $400 million.
• And Boulder biotech company SomaLogic Inc. announced last month that it’s going public through the SPAC CM Life Science II (NYSE: CMIIU).
Near the end of February, though, the share prices of many SPACs retreated from their highs, highs they have yet to recover. And the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued new SPAC accounting guidance at the beginning of April that brought SPAC creation to a sudden halt: Only 10 new SPACs debuted that month in the U.S.
All of this has raised numerous questions: Are SPACs a bubble? Are they dangerous to the general investing public? Will they remain an effective way to take a company public? Through conversations with Boulder SPAC investors, corporate lawyers and executives of private companies going through the SPAC process, the answers, with few caveats, seem to be: no; no more so than any other public companies; and yes.
“[SPAC] is certainly a buzzword, but it’s also certainly more than buzzy,” said Matt Stamski, Boulder corporate partner at the law firm Faegre Drinker. “There’s more to it than that. I cut my teeth in the ’90s working in the dot-com bubble. There are various bubbles that have happened since then. I’m not sure this is a bubble. This is just a means to access the public markets that is less cumbersome than traditional methods.”
How do SPACs work?
For companies and investors, there are significant differences between the IPO and SPAC processes. During an initial public offering, a private company will use underwriters for its public offering, often large investment banks. Usually, the underwriters will determine the value of the IPO through analysis of the private company’s business fundamentals. Then, during the pre-marketing process, institutional investors and large private accredited investors have a chance to get in before the general public. Finally, on the offering day, the general investing public, also called retail investors, can trade the company’s stock. Many IPOs also include a lock-up period, usually 90 days, during which company insiders can’t sell their shares.
In a SPAC, venture capitalists effectively create a public shell company that has no operations — its only purpose is to find a private company to merge with and take public. All SPACs debut on the stock market at $10 per share. Investors can also buy warrants, which entitle them to buy more stock at a fixed price at a later date. When the SPAC finds a private company to take public, the SPAC’s shareholders vote whether to merge the companies. If approved, the SPAC will take on the name of the private company, and the stock ticker will change to reflect that.
SPACs offer several benefits to companies and investors that IPOs don’t. For investors, it’s obvious. The prices of major IPOs in the past year — $105 per share for DoorDash, $145 for AirBnB, $245 for Snowflake, $380 for Coinbase — are beyond the reach of many retail investors. SPACs let them get in at the ground level of a company for a mere $10 per share. Warrants offer additional value. SPACs also don’t have a lock-up period.
For companies, SPACs allow greater control over the process of going public than IPOs do. SomaLogic president Melody Harris said the company, which specializes in protein-based diagnostic tests, had considered going public for a long time before it agreed to merge with the SPAC CM Life Science II.
“The markets weren’t right, and the technology wasn’t ready,” Harris said of why the company waited until now.
SomaLogic didn’t even seek out a SPAC — the SPACs came to SomaLogic. The company was targeted specifically by CM Life Science II, which is led by investors Casdin Capital and Corvex Management. Casdin specializes exclusively in biotech and life-sciences investments; for SomaLogic, they were too good a partner to pass up.
“They bring expertise we don’t get through an IPO process,” Harris said. “The relationships Casdin has are invaluable to us. That deep, deep understanding of our business is just truly invaluable.”
SPACs also can offer private companies quicker access to public markets than IPOs. At Lightning eMotors, for example, the time from its merger agreement with the SPAC GigCapital3 (NYSE: GIK) to approval of the merger by shareholders was barely more than four months. When completed, it will give the company the capital it needs to scale its business.
“Every little company should only consider a SPAC merger if it needs to raise a material amount of cash,” Fenwick-Smith said. “That was our case at Lightning. We started to realize that to allow Lightning to realize its potential, it needed a lot of cash. It had a $150 million order backlog. When we started exploring IPO, private money, the alternatives, the SPAC merger option became obvious. We rapidly came to the conclusion that SPAC was the way to go.”
A SomaLogic employee works in one of the company’s labs. The company, which creates protein-based medical diagnostic tests, announced earlier this year it would go public through the SPAC CM Life Science II. (SomaLogic / Courtesy photo)
Do crazy SPAC prices mean anything?
While the share prices of many SPACs hover around the initial price of $10, the volatile performance of SPACs such as Virgin Galactic, Churchill Capital IV and Nikola drew much media attention, from coverage of price increases to concern-trolling about the danger SPACs posed to retail investors when prices came back down. Fenwick-Smith said much of that was driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of how SPACs are valued; Virgin was never worth $62, Churchill was never worth $64, Nikola was never worth $93.
“The press generally only covers the sensationalist part; the part that is visible in the market,” Fenwick-Smith said. “All SPAC mergers are fully valued at $10. When you see the market now talking about the decline in the prices, it’s bull—. They’re talking about a decline compared to unrealistic highs. The real metric is, how do current SPAC prices compare to the $10 fair value? That fair value can change over time as companies make progress or fail to make progress. The stupidity of the market is what drove prices insanely high.”
For investors involved in SPACs, the best option is often to ignore the irrationality of the stock market. Jim Lejeal, CEO of the Boulder SPAC Crucible Acquisition Corp., took two companies public through the traditional IPO process — one as founder, one as an angel investor — before joining Crucible.
“As a CFO of those companies, what I tried to do and tried to coach my teammates to do was to ignore the stock market because of the volatile nature of the market,” Lejeal said. “When you’re selling a value, what your stock price is trading at doesn’t really matter. As a public CFO in the past, I have tried to focus on my business venture and purpose and not focus on the stock market because it didn’t really affect my business. When Brad [Feld] and I started Crucible, at no time did we say anything about the market.”
What are the risks of SPACs?
For retail investors, the most hysterically hyped SPACs can present a risk; someone who’d bought Nikola at its $93.99 high would be holding a $12.12 bag as of this writing. The risk can come from traditional angles: the inherent irrationality of the stock market or the poor performance of a company. The latter factor can be exacerbated by the fact that many companies that go public via SPAC are pre-revenue or early revenue.SPAC leadership also takes on outsize importance.
“The market is sort of divided between professional teams and Tom, Dick and Harry who happen to have been able to raise a SPAC without any real track record,” Fenwick-Smith said.
For those “professional teams” such as Crucible, whose leaders have a decades-long track record of successfully taking companies public, that can be an advantage.
“You’re betting on the quality of the professionals that are running the entity, what their backgrounds are, your own opinion of whether you think they’ll do a good job,” Lejeal said.
For people who happen to invest in a SPAC with less-than-professional leadership, the results can be suboptimal. Nikola has become a cautionary tale. It debuted numerous electric-vehicle concepts for commercial uses and the consuming public. Amid the rapid rise of its stock price, it announced a partnership with General Motors that would have seen GM purchase an 11 percent stake in the company.
Less than two weeks later, the SEC was investigating Nikola for securities fraud: in a product demonstration video, a Nikola commercial truck that was supposedly driving on a road was found to have been simply rolling down a hill without onboard propulsion. The company’s founder and chairman resigned. The GM deal was scrapped. The second line of Nikola’s Wikipedia entry now reads, “The company has stated on several occasions that it intends to take some of its concept vehicles into production in the future.”
In addition to being potentially harmful to investors, the actions of companies such as Nikola frustrate legitimate SPAC operators.
“They told an out-and-out lie,” Fenwick-Smith said. “Any company who does that kind of (thing) deserves to be buried. It harms the whole industry. Lightning is today suffering because of Nikola’s dishonesty, and that makes me very angry.”
Robert Fenwick-Smith, founder of Aravaipa Ventures, stands on the factory floor of Lightning eMotors.

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Big banks have changed their attitude toward cryptocurrencies in recent years, going from dismissive to cautiously interested. But Wall Street still isn’t fully embracing digital currencies.
Cryptos are no longer condemned as a bizarre alternative investment, and even central banks around the world are considering issuing digital currencies. Bitcoin is trading at more than $50,000 per token and Dogecoin, which literally started as a joke, is now one of the largest digital currencies.
Last month, crypto trading platform Coinbase went public with a valuation of nearly $100 billion. This should have been a wake-up call for big banks, much as Netscape’s 1995 IPO was a Sputnik moment for the tech industry.

One reason banks are hesitant: Cryptocurrencies are still in regulation purgatory.
The US government, for example, can’t decide what they are. As currencies they face very little regulation. But as securities, such as stocks and other investments, they would face a different level of scrutiny.
In December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against crypto platform Ripple and its leadership for the alleged illegal selling of unregistered securities — in form of its cryptocurrency XRP — worth $1.3 billion.

The case, which is ongoing, suggests XRP is a security and not a currency, because otherwise securities law wouldn’t apply. Ripple rejects that label.
Cases like that, paired with the huge regulatory uncertainty for other big cryptocurrencies, make it hard to get involved for banks, which are regulated to the bone.
“Undoubtedly, the Ripple action was an example of the regulatory dark cloud that could potentially hang over cryptos other than Bitcoin or Ether,” Ashley Ebersole, a partner at law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and former SEC attorney, told CNN Business.
Bitcoin and Ether, the currency of Ethereum, are so large and decentralized at this point that no promotional efforts by individuals would make a difference to their trading, Ebersole added.
Regulatory uncertainty is scary for companies looking to jump on the crypto bandwagon. But eventually, banks will likely be able to get on board.
Goldman Sachs reportedly restarted its crypto trading desk in March and will soon offer its private wealth management clients ways to invest in cryptos.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said on the company’s earnings call in April that the rapid rise of cryptocurrencies signals that “there will be significant disruption and change in the way money moves around the world.”
“We need to operate within the current regulatory guidelines,” Solomon said during the earnings call. “For example, we cannot own Bitcoin or trade it as principal.”
Meanwhile, JPMorgan Co-President Daniel Pinto said that if crypto demand from clients keeps increasing and the asset class keeps growing and developing, banks can’t just sit on the sidelines.
Digital currencies should best be thought of as a new financial product banks are getting involved with, Ebersole said. “Does it require new and different financial control? Probably.”
To be sure, big Wall Street names have already made money on the most recent bout of crypto-mania. Goldman was the lead bank for Coinbase’s direct listing, for example, which means the company reaped the highest fees for their investment banking efforts.
Social media is a lifeline for Indians. And a threat for Modi
On most days, Network Capital, a business networking group with over 67,000 members on Facebook, focuses on providing its community with information on job vacancies, higher education, and careers.
Recently, however, the group has been flooded with posts from users looking for hospital beds, oxygen and medicines, as a devastating second wave of Covid-19 sweeps across India.
Members of the Facebook group, mostly Indian professionals, have responded swiftly to appeals for help, at times sharing extensive Google spreadsheets with details of medical suppliers and volunteer organizations.
With authorities struggling to provide adequate information, distressed patients and their families have turned to Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or LinkedIn, begging for help, my colleague Diksha Madhok reports from New Delhi.
But even as Indians turn to social media during one of the country’s darkest hours, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seems to be cracking down on the major platforms in an attempt to stifle dissent. Last month, Twitter removed several tweets about Covid-19 at the request of the Indian government, including some that were critical of the prime minister’s handling of the pandemic.
In a statement last week, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said it had asked Twitter, Facebook and others to remove around 100 posts by users it accused of spreading fake or misleading information.
New Delhi’s intervention has put the social media companies in a difficult position in one of their biggest markets, wedged between their users and a government that recently introduced new rules that could make them liable for not removing controversial posts.
Pratik Sinha, co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, said he does not buy the government’s explanation that it was going after fake news. “There are hundreds of thousands of posts with fake news on social media during the pandemic, why take down only these 100 and let the others stay,” he said.

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Healthcare technology company Privia Health made a strong debut on the Nasdaq exchange Thursday, with its stock soaring above $30 per share.

The company, which provides technology and services to physician practices, began trading Thursday and saw its share price jump during trading. The company’s stock closed at around $34.75 per share, about 50% above its $23 per share offering price, according to Yahoo.
Privia Health had priced 22.4 million shares at $23, with the aim of raising approximately $516 million. The new share price would boost that to $778.4 million.

The company could be valued at up to $1.97 billion, according to MarketWatch.
The gross proceeds of the offering to Privia Health, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and other expenses payable by Privia Health, are expected to be approximately $64.4 million. The company has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2.9 million shares of its common stock at the initial public offering price.
Privia Health’s shares trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “PRVA.”
The biggest winner from Privia’s IPO is its parent company, Brighton Health Group, which owns 79 million shares after offering. Based on the value of the shares at the closing price, that’s $2.75 billion. 
CEO Shawn Morris owns 4.1 million shares.
RELATED: Wellness brand Hims & Hers moving deeper into healthcare with Privia Health partnership
The physician enablement company plans to use the net proceeds from the offering primarily for general corporate purposes, including working capital, research and development, business development and capital expenditures, according to a press release. Privia Health may also use a portion of the net proceeds to acquire or invest in complementary businesses, technologies or other assets.
“We are looking at this as an opportunity to raise working capital to go out and support more doctors, take our model into new states, build new capabilities and grow the company,” Morris told Fierce Healthcare.
Privia Health joins a long and growing list of healthcare technology companies that have gone public in the past year, including Livongo, Phreesia, Health Catalyst, Change Healthcare, Progyny, Oak Street Health, One Medical, Accolade, Amwell, GoodRx and GoHealth.
Privia stands out from many tech-enabled healthcare companies testing the public market because it’s profitable. The company reported net income tripled to $31.2 million in 2020 from $8.2 million in 2019, according to its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
RELATED: Oak Street Health goes public with $328M offering
The company brought in revenue of $817 million in 2020, up 4% from $786 million in 2019. Privia also brought in $1.3 billion total practice collections in 2020.
Arlington, Virginia-based Privia is a national physician organization that partners with primary care and select specialist physician practices, health systems, payers and employers.
Privia’s footprint includes 2,700-plus healthcare providers who care for more than 3 million patients across six states and Washington, D.C., with a strong focus on primary care. Privia’s proprietary cloud-based technology platform and focus on physician-driven wellness help improve outcomes, lower healthcare costs and create healthier communities, according to the company.
Privia Health, founded in 2007, focuses on reducing physicians’ administrative burdens, accelerating the transition to value-based care and helping physicians adopt user-friendly technology to better engage patients. The company provides physicians with the tools, education and workflow to help them move to value-based care over time.
Physicians across the country face tremendous challenges in managing their practices. Care delivery platforms today are not set up to succeed in different reimbursement models as healthcare shifts to value-based care, according to the company in its S-1 filing. Physician practices also are under tremendous strain from the COVID-19 pandemic.
RELATED: Primary care is ripe for disruption. Here are the players trying to shake up the market
“With these issues in mind, Privia has been purpose-built to address a large market opportunity. Unlike peers who focus only on point solutions or narrow patient cohorts, we offer a national platform with hyper-localized solutions that meet the needs of physicians, patients and payers,” the company said in the SEC document.
Other companies in the space include Oak Street Health, which focuses on Medicare patients and went public in 2020; One Medical, which raised $245 million in its IPO a year ago; and Agilon Health, which helps primary care physician groups cap costs for their Medicare Advantage patients and raised around $1 billion in its IPO earlier this month. 
A unique point of difference with Privia Health is that the company is helping physicians transition to value-based care models “at scale,” Morris said.
“We have 2,700 providers, more than 600 care site locations, 3 million patients, and 700,000 of those are already in value-based arrangements and 68 different value-based care payment arrangements. We allow physicians to remove some of these administrative burdens they face every day and allow them to be successful in that transition to value-based care and not just the niche of Medicare Advantage,” he said.
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and JPMorgan are acting as joint lead bookrunning managers for the IPO.

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They say it takes two to tango, and likewise, there’s always two sides to every argument. With stocks, I find that there’s usually a valid perspective on the other end of the trade. For every good bullish thesis, there’s likely a solid bear argument. If you can’t see things from another perspective, it probably means more research is needed. After all, many of the great companies of yesteryear eventually fell. And many of today’s success stories overcame legitimate hurdles along the way.
However, while many counter-arguments are valid, some are just plain silly. This article is going to explore one of the silliest arguments right now against mobile-gaming platform Skillz (NYSE:SKLZ). But the point isn’t to poke fun. Rather, there’s an important lesson that will make all of us better investors.

Image source: Getty Images.

What does coffee have to do with gaming?
Once hailed as one of the greatest growth-stock stories of our time, Chinese coffee company Luckin Coffee was putting up incomprehensible growth numbers quarter after quarter. For example, in the third quarter of 2019, it reported revenue of $209 million, up a staggering 558% year over year. There was only one little problem: Not all sales were genuine. According to a complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), those third-quarter sales may have been inflated by 45%.
Luckin Coffee’s auditor at the time was Ernst & Young. Just hold onto that little tidbit for a moment.
Skillz has nothing to do with coffee. It’s a mobile-gaming platform that allows users to win money by competing against other players. The company generates revenue by taking a cut from the entry fees.

In its recent report, short seller Eagle Eye Research points out that Skillz offers bonus cash to incentivize users, which counts as an expense. However, this bonus cash is used to pay entry fees. But even when entry fees are paid with bonus cash, Skillz still takes a cut and counts it back as revenue. When you stop and think about it, that’s unusual.
As it turns out, Ernst & Young is the auditor for Skillz — the same auditor at the time of Luckin Coffee’s fraud.
This firm audits both Luckin Coffee and Skillz, and that’s one of the points Eagle Eye makes in its short report. The report asserts that Ernst & Young has been associated with fraudulent companies before. This appears to imply that Skillz is just the latest fraud propped up by an auditor with dubious credibility.

Image source: Getty Images.

Taking a step back
What Eagle Eye doesn’t mention is that Ernst & Young is also the auditor for many other public companies, including The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T, and Lockheed Martin. Should we question the financials of these titans simply because they share the same auditor as Luckin Coffee? I think even Eagle Eye would agree that would be … well, silly. 

Furthermore, let’s remember that auditors aren’t investigators. After all, some employees and executives at Luckin Coffee were very clever — not only were sales inflated, but it appears expenses were also inflated so they wouldn’t get caught. Ernst & Young can’t be expected to covertly traverse the entire Middle Kingdom trying to physically verify every Luckin Coffee transaction. A financial audit is based on the numbers auditors are given, and this is why the accounting firm says it’s not responsible for what happened. And I believe it’s reasonable to agree with Ernst & Young on this one.
Why it matters
Unfortunately, we investors don’t do nuance well. We tend to overstate our opinions to the point that we become extremists in our bullish or bearish outlooks.
I have a sneaking suspicion that bears latched onto this argument about Skillz’s auditor, and I also have a sneaking suspicion silly arguments like this cause Skillz bulls to throw away bearish perspectives entirely, which is also a mistake. It’s throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.
Eagle Eye actually does a great job of bringing the issue of bonus cash to the forefront. Looking into this, some might believe Skillz’s management is being sneaky or even doing something illegal — that goes too far, in my opinion. However, at least a portion of the company’s revenue comes from bonus cash, meaning it doesn’t represent the real money being deposited onto the platform. That’s an issue worth discussing, and I handle the possible implications in another article.

In the end, I believe we should all be looking for opinions that disagree with our own. It’s why I read the short reports on Skillz stock even though I own shares. If there’s validity to their arguments, I win, because now I understand the risks better than I did before. But if their arguments don’t hold water, I also win, because my conviction strengthens. 

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. We’re motley! Questioning an investing thesis — even one of our own — helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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In December 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit against … But eventually, banks will likely be able to get on board.

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The SEC has a number of applications for bitcoin ETFs to review.
NurPhoto/Getty Images
The SEC has started reviewing applications for bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which have yet to launch for trading in the US.
The regulator will consider bitcoin’s volatility and market maturity in rendering a decision whether or not to greenlight the products, experts say.
The SEC recently pushed back a decision on a bitcoin ETF until at least this summer.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Bitcoin’s fast-growing popularity, increasingly elevated profile in corporate America and swelling market capitalization above $1 trillion have retail and Wall Street investors alike questioning if and when a bitcoin exchange-traded fund can be traded in the US. Those questions are currently before the Securities and Exchange Commission which is being asked in at least nine applications for the green light to launch what could be the first cryptocurrency ETF in the country.But a decision may have to wait at least until mid-June. The SEC this week delayed rendering a decision on a bitcoin ETF from asset manager VanEck that, if cleared, would be listed by CBOE Global Markets. The Commission said it was “appropriate” to take more time for consideration.The arrival of a bitcoin ETF in 2021 would follow this month’s start of trading in shares of Coinbase, the first cryptocurrency exchange to go public, as well as expanding acceptance of bitcoin as payment methods by companies including electric vehicle maker Tesla. Meanwhile, investment bank JP Morgan is preparing to introduce its first bitcoin fund for wealthy clients.
These and other bitcoin developments may signal the increased likelihood that a bitcoin ETF will gain approval, but the SEC has rejected other attempts.
Institutions “are getting in from hedge funds on Wall Street to PayPal, to Venmo, to Visa. So [the SEC] can’t really ignore this because the market is deciding that they want to be involved,” Ian Balina, founder and CEO of Token Metrics, a data-driven cryptocurrency investment research platform, told Insider.
Here are three hurdles and tailwinds that experts say stand in front of the first US bitcoin ETF:

1) Bitcoin volatility
The world’s most widely traded digital asset is well-known for its wild price swings, with gains or losses of 10% during a session not uncommon.
“The SEC has a difficult job balancing the clearly overwhelming desire for the market to have access to BTC via an ETF versus the inherent volatility that the asset class has at this stage in its life cycle,” George McDonaugh, co-founder of digital asset investment firm KR1, told Insider. “Volatility would be one of the major considerations. Bitcoin is very scarce and comparatively still a very young asset class. The volatility should dampen over time but that might be long after the market loses patience waiting for [a bitcoin ETF].”
Price volatility has declined in recent weeks and such moves make bitcoin more appealing to institutions, according to JPMorgan.
Liquidity in the bitcoin market had also been a factor under consideration by the SEC.”I think it’s less of a concern now [than] in the early days … and a lot of that is tied to institutional players coming into and creating depth and breadth in the market,” Matteo Dante Perruccio, president international of Wave Financial, a US-regulated digital asset manager, told Insider. “If it’s 90% retail investors in an asset and you open it up to a bigger universe of retail investors, I think that’s a really hard decision to make as a regulator. But it helps you have substantive institutional investors trading and involved in investing in it.”

2) Market maturity”It’s fair to say if you look at the denials for the last several ETFs, you can see that there was concern among several of the commissioners that the bitcoin market was not sufficiently regulated and, in their view, was susceptible to manipulation,” and “when I say that I mean that manipulation would show up in prices,” Amy Doberman, a partner in the securities department at law firm WilmerHale, told Insider.”I think what you’re going to see with the pending requests for approval is an argument that the market is far more developed than it was four or five years ago and that there’s a lot more price discovery available than there was even just a few years ago so that there will be the ability to reference actual trades and sufficient information to develop accurate prices,” said Doberman.
3) What’s on the SEC’s plate
The US lags behind other countries in approving bitcoin ETFs, with Canada this year approving the first publicly traded bitcoin ETF in North America, the Purpose Bitcoin ETF, as well as ethereum ETFs. Brazilian regulators have reportedly approved two bitcoin ETFs.
“People underestimate the Canadian approval,” said Wave Financial’s Perruccio, characterizing as “close cousins” the SEC’s relationship with the Canadian securities regulator. “The regulators have got to be talking a lot and … you always feel more comfortable in company when you are making these bold decisions,” and Canada’s regulator is considered as well-respected, he said. For a US bitcoin ETF, “I feel like it’s inevitable. It’s no longer ‘if’ but ‘when’ and I think the question of when is probably in 2021. That’s my prediction,” said Perruccio.
While bitcoin ETF applications pile up, the SEC and its new chairman Gary Gensler have a range of other issues they are working on. Gensler, who was confirmed as chairman earlier this month, is seen by some bitcoin ETF proponents as a cryptocurrency advocate stemming in part from his teachings at MIT on the subject.

Gensler “will have to decide what he wants to prioritize,” said Doberman. He’s “obviously very knowledgeable about cryptocurrencies and hopefully will bring an additional level of sophistication and appreciation for the currency to the table,” she said.
During his confirmation hearing, Gensler said the SEC under his watch would review issues surrounding protection and fairness for retail investors in the backdrop of “gamification” on trading apps and platforms.
The agency is reportedly considering stricter rules to rein in projections made by special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, and reportedly has opened a preliminary investigation into leveraged trades at the Archegos Capital Management hedge fund that collapsed in March.
While he’s well-versed in the subject of cryptocurrencies, Gensler, who served as a chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission under the Obama administration, will not just wave through bitcoin ETFs applications without scrutiny, said Noah Hamman, CEO of AdvisorShares, a firm that offers actively managed exchange-traded funds through its AdvisorShares Trust.
Gensler will be in the role “of looking at the rules and regs and deciding if either, one, something fits or two, do the rules and regs need to be modified to allow it to fit because it makes sense and it’s the right thing to do,” said Hamman. AdvisorShares does not have a bitcoin ETF filing with the SEC.

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The SEC guidelines call into question whether warrants issued by blank check companies, such as Virgin Galactic, and DraftKings (NASDAQ:DKNG), …

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The pension disclosed the trades, among others, in a form it filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Nasdaq recently asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve new diversity rules. To avoid forced delisting, a firm must “diversify or explain”: either have a certain number of “diverse” directors or say why it does not. In its proposal, Nasdaq tips its hat to the social justice movement. But investors should be nervous. Rigorous scholarship, much of it by leading female economists, suggests that increasing board diversity—which Nasdaq’s rules will likely pressure firms to do—can actually lead to lower share prices. 
The rules aim at ensuring Nasdaq-listed firms with six or more directors have at least one self-identifying as female and another self-identifying as an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+. Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman says “there are many studies that indicate that having a more diverse board… improves the financial performance of a company.” But while Nasdaq’s 271-page proposal cites studies finding a positive link between board diversity and good corporate governance, it fails to cite a single well-respected academic study showing that board diversity of any kind leads to higher stock prices, the outcome investors actually care about.

Nasdaq’s lacking good sources
Nasdaq’s evidence consists almost entirely of studies by consulting and financial firms that show a correlation between the two. But correlation does not imply causation. Other factors, such as firm size or industry, could explain both higher returns and a more diverse board. To prove causation, one needs sophisticated statistical techniques to control for such omitted variables. The only causal “evidence” offered by Nasdaq, besides a cryptic claim made in an investment firm’s marketing materials, is a 2003 academic paper whose inadequate methodology was subsequently noted in a leading finance journal. 
Nasdaq cannot cite any high-quality study showing that board diversity boosts returns, because there appears to be none. In fact, there are many serious academic papers reporting the opposite result: diversifying boards can harm financial performance. Troublingly, Nasdaq disregards this evidence.

Consider a 2009 study of almost 2,000 U.S. firms by Renee Adams and Daniel Ferreira. Nasdaq repeatedly highlights its finding that boards with female directors have better attendance records and greater oversight over CEOs. But Nasdaq omits the paper’s bottom line: “the average effect of gender diversity on firm performance is negative.” Why? Greater gender diversity in boards may lead to over-monitoring of executives. The paper’s key finding is as troubling as Nasdaq skipping over evidence that fails to support the proposed changes.  

Several high-quality studies, none of which is mentioned in Nasdaq’s proposal, demonstrate that stock returns suffer when firms are pressured to hire new directors for diversity reasons. A 2012 paper by Kenneth Ahern and Amy Dittmar focuses on Norway’s 2003 gender quota law. It shows that the law caused an immediate 3.5% decrease in the stock prices of firms without female directors, along with lower stock prices at these firms over the next few years. The reason: firms were forced to replace more experienced male directors with less experienced female ones. 

Infrastructure:Biden builds solid infrastructure proposal, but hard questions remain on American Jobs Plan
Turning back to America, a recent working paper examines California’s 2018 gender quota law. The law required U.S.-listed firms with California headquarters to have at least one female director by the end of 2019, and at least one other by the end of 2021. Firms can avoid complying by paying modest fines. But California publicizes noncompliance to name and shame firms into diversifying. The law’s announcement caused stock prices of affected firms to drop by a market-adjusted 2.6%. The authors partially attribute the decrease to the costs associated with changing boards. Other papers report similar findings. 
True, these studies cannot conclusively prove that complying with Nasdaq’s proposed diversity target would harm investors. But they do raise a red flag. 
Diversifying boards does not mean better financial performance
Of course, Nasdaq could argue that its proposed rules do not actually require any changes to boards.  A firm always has the option of leaving the board unchanged and explaining why the board is insufficiently diverse. In an ideal world, Nasdaq’s rules would lead to changes in boards only when increasing diversity benefits investors. Otherwise, boards would remain unaffected. 
But is this rosy scenario likely? California’s experience suggests not. Like California’s gender quota law, Nasdaq’s diversify-or-explain rule is designed to name and shame. As a result, firms may be pressured to comply even when it harms financial performance. 
Crisis at the border:Biden thinks sending aid to Central America will solve our border problems. It won’t.

What’s more, Nasdaq also wants firms to disclose every director’s self-identified race, gender, and LGBTQ+ status. This information will help activists identify firms they consider to be insufficiently diverse, even if they satisfy Nasdaq’s diversity target. Thus firms complying with Nasdaq’s diversity rule may be cajoled into making even more board changes, potentially to investors’ detriment. 
Many wish to believe that diversifying boards improves financial performance. But wishing does not make it so. The best evidence, including a study Nasdaq itself cites, points in the opposite direction. If the SEC approves Nasdaq’s proposed rules, investors should be worried.  
Jesse Fried is the Dane Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

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Suspicious online platforms that offer trading opportunities are preying on those with less financial literacy

KARACHI:
The past few years have seen investment solutions available to the public at large go digital. Around the world, stockbrokers, mutual funds, cryptocurrency exchanges and other investment avenues have introduced a plethora of mobile applications and web portals to make trading even easier for the masses.
Customers these days have the option of investing in a diverse array of financial instruments through a click or a tap from the comfort of their own homes. But the advantages of technology are not amiss on predators and parallel to well regulated online services exists a world of shady digital investment portals.
Proliferating in huge numbers, such applications and services take advantage of misleading and deceptive marketing to target the financially illiterate or not sufficiently literate. By seemingly offering lucrative opportunities to invest in global stocks, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange, binary options, gold, metals and other commodities, and promising unbelievable returns, such apps have been conning naïve consumers out of huge sums of money.
They also offer simplified tutorials in local languages of different countries that encourage financial laymen to open an account and begin trading. In addition, they offer demo accounts with virtual non-redeemable money to seemingly help the user understand trading and entice them to invest their savings on the platform.
As we delve deep into the different kinds of frauds being carried out using online options, we look at a major scam being shilled hard on the unsuspecting masses that concerns forex and binary trading.
The world of forex, fraught with risk
According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), forex trading can be very risky and is not appropriate for all investors.
“It is common in most forex trading strategies to employ leverage. Leverage entails using a relatively small amount of capital to buy currency worth many times the value of that capital,” it warns. “Leverage magnifies minor fluctuations in currency markets in order to increase potential gains and losses. By using leverage to trade forex, an individual can risk losing all of their initial capital and may lose even more money than the amount of the initial capital.”
The SEC advises potential investors to first carefully consider their own financial situation, consult a financial adviser knowledgeable in forex trading and investigate any firms offering to trade forex before making any investment decisions.
“The only funds that you should put at risk when speculating in foreign currency are those that you can afford to lose entirely, and you should always be aware that certain strategies may result in your losing even more money than initial investment,” it cautions.
Detailing the risks further, the US financial watchdog stated that in forex trading, quoting conventions are not uniform. While many currencies are typically quoted against the US dollar (that is, one dollar purchases a specified amount of a foreign currency), there are no required uniform quoting conventions in the forex market. Both the Euro and the British pound, for example, may be quoted in the reverse, meaning that one British pound purchases a specified amount of US dollars (GBP/USD) and one euro purchases a specified amount of US dollars (EUR/USD).
Therefore, special attention needs to be paid to currency’s quoting convention and what an increase or decrease in a quote may mean for your trades.
In addition, the SEC directs investors to check with different firms and compare their charges as well as their services prior to investing in the forex market. At times, transaction costs can turn profitable trades into losing transactions hence investors need to be aware all the time while trading this instrument.
Moving over to frauds, it urges investors to be aware of get-rich-quick investment schemes that promise significant returns with minimal risk through forex trading.
It added that the lack of a central marketplace poses grave risks for forex investors.
Individual investors trade forex through individual financial institutions who take the opposite side of any transaction and because individual investors often do not have access to pricing information, it can be difficult for them to determine whether an offered price is fair or not.
Binary options: more gambling than trading
The SEC states that a binary option is a type of options contract in which the payout will depend entirely on the outcome of a yes/no proposition. The yes/no proposition typically relates to whether the price of a particular asset that underlies the binary option will rise above or fall below a specified amount.
For a layman, an individual bets on whether a security would rise or fall above a certain level at a specified time. Therefore, binary trading is more similar to gambling than an investment. Due to this reason, many first world countries have banned binary trading prompting platforms from offering their services in developing countries where financial literacy is lower.
The SEC admitted to have received numerous complaints of frauds associated with websites that offer an opportunity to buy or trade binary options through Internet-based trading platforms.
It added that a major complaint from consumers was that companies refused to credit customer accounts or reimburse funds to them. When customers attempt to withdraw their original deposit or the return they have been promised, the trading platforms allegedly cancel customers’ withdrawal requests, refuse to credit their accounts or ignore their telephone calls and emails.
In addition, identity theft is also a huge problem associated to binary trading. Certain platforms collect customer information and use them for criminal purposes. Finally, companies offering binary options also manipulate softwares to generate losing trades.
“Additionally, some binary options internet-based trading platforms may overstate the average return on investment by advertising a higher average return on investment than a customer should expect, given the payout structure,” it said.

 
A not-so-reliable trading partner
Lately, many investors have come forward and complained thata forex trading platform being advertised heavily online in Pakistan these days has conned them out of their money. Any Pakistani who uses social media or Youtube may have come across ads for one ‘OctaFX’.
According to forexbrokers.com, a website that monitors platforms offering forex brokerage, OctaFX, founded in 2011, is regulated in only one tier-2 jurisdiction (Cyprus), making it a high-risk broker for forex and Contract for Difference (CFD) trading. Customers are also served by the broker’s non-regulated offshore entity in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG). The website allots it a 59 rating out of 99 and terms it high-risk platform as it is not publicly traded and does not operate through a bank.
Adnan Jabbar, a doctor by profession, told The Express Tribune that platforms such as Octafx pump massive amount of money in campaigning and advertising on social media that it entices people to invest on one hand and on the other, it irritates the social media user by showing the same ad repeatedly. He recalled investigating OctaFX thoroughly while searching for options to invest his savings.
“I have experience of investing in stocks and a few other places so I also considered OctaFX as well,” he said. “However, I realised that a trustworthy platform does not need the high amount of marketing that this application is doing.”
He added that before pouring money into it, he resorted to investigate the platform thoroughly to protect himself from fraud. He added that platforms endorsed by the State Bank of Pakistan or registered by Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) were the most trusted ones for any Pakistan.
In this regard, he filed an information detail order and validity of the investment at the Pakistan Citizen Portal to know investment on OctaFX was safe. The query was forwarded to SECP through the Citizen Portal.
According to documents available with The Express Tribune, the SECP said “the subject complaint has been examined as per available record and laws administered by SECP.”
“In this regard, it is stated that as checked from database of companies registered with SECP, no company with the name and style of “OctaFx” as mentioned in the subject complaint is registered with SECP.” Therefore, it added, the activities of the said entity do not fall within the ambit of the Companies Act 2019 and regulatory purview of SECP. Moreover it appears to be a forex trading entity, which are regulated by the State Bank of Pakistan therefore the subject complaint is being forwarded for necessary action, if any, as per law.
Jabbar continued that every investment platform is considered safe in Pakistan as long as it is registered with the local regulator and the State Bank of Pakistan. Investment platforms deal with public money and registration with SBP and SECP would make it necessary for them to have an official office in Pakistan and also abide by the local laws to protect public money and interest. If an entity is not registered, then the platform is free to spend customers’ money wherever it wants without the knowledge of the customer. “It can rob or scam the investor and there is no law enforcement agency that can help him get his money back,” he said.
Due to large scale deceptive marketing campaign, financially illiterate people are blindfolded into making an account on OctaFX. He suggested Pakistanis to invest in a platform that fell in the legal framework of Pakistan citing that companies like OctaFX did not and still it had thousands of Pakistanis registered on its platform.
The controlling authority such as SECP is the watchdog that questions and investigates a company in case of wrongdoing or embezzling with customers’ money.
“Through further investigation, I found out that OctaFX was registered in Cyprus,” he said. “Cyprus is considered a tax haven and it occurred to me that this could be a shell corporation.”
He argued that if OctaFX was a good investment company then why was it not listed on any stock exchange or operated an office in US or UK, which are known to have stringent financial laws. Jabbar expressed firm opinion that such companies should be banned. “Anything which is not in the legal framework of Pakistan should be banned,” he said. “Companies like OctaFX are neither secure nor credible.”
He lamented that many famous youtubers of Pakistani origin were involved in active promotion of OctaFX without prior investigation. He opined that the company must have promised them a massive payout for such large-scale campaigns. According to him, what was worse than the campaign was that followers of these prominent youtubers were believing their word of mouth and pouring money into the platform without any investigation.
“At one point in time, the marketing strategy of the company seemed like a pyramid scheme which motivates people to invite others and generate revenue,” he said. He underlined that the majority of people who were investing in it were students looking for secure places to invest and the company was generating revenue and making profits at the cost of people’s money.
Another person who conducted an in depth analysis of such platforms told The Express Tribune that hundreds of such applications exist and their sole purpose is to con their customers off their money. He named a few more platforms including Alphaoption, Expertoption and Olymp Trade.
“These platforms spend excessive amounts on marketing and promise massive amounts of money to youtubers and influencers to promote their services,” he said.

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Chuck Schumer apparently isn’t progressive enough for today’s Democratic Party. Further proof can be found in the strange, fleeting tenure of Alex Oh as head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement division. 
It’s yet another example of how Democrats like Sen. Schumer who want to maintain strategic ties to the business community are being co-opted on matters large and small by the party’s Bolshevik fringe.
Oh isn’t the most high-profile or controversial person to work in the Biden administration. She seemed to check all right boxes to take a job running the SEC’s division that cracks down on investment scams: A Yale Law School grad; partner at prestigious white-shoe law firm Paul Weiss; some high-profile cases ­under her belt at a firm with a ton of Democratic Party connections.
No less than Schumer’s brother is a partner at Paul Weiss. The Senate majority leader is said to have championed Oh’s appointment and, to satisfy the woke, the Biden administration touted her as the first woman of color to hold the important job of busting Wall Street’s bad guys.
There was just one problem: In working for Paul Weiss, she and colleagues represented corporate clients. In recent days, one of those clients began to catch the attention of left-wing interest groups and Oh’s job was immediately in jeopardy.
That client was ExxonMobil, the oil and gas giant that is the very definition of evil, according to the Green New Deal-obsessed left. On April 22, the same day SEC Chair Gary Gensler named Oh enforcement chief, a nasty press release by a group called the “Revolving Door Project” suddenly appeared.
The “project” is known in mainstream media circles as a “good-government group,” which is often code for progressive activism. Oh, according to the organization’s press release, wasn’t an accomplished lawyer breaking the color barrier at the SEC but a corporate shill — or, as they put it, a “para­digmatic Wall Street attorney.”
Her allegedly nefarious activities include “representing the likes of UBS, Bank of America, ExxonMobil and Merck for over two decades.” The project described such work as “reinforcing a corrupt status quo in corporate America, in which the largest companies systematically evade democratic accountability.”
A little background on the people at the Revolving Door Project: It’s part of the well-funded and influential left-wing think tank, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, which has been pushing both the Biden administration and Congress leftward for some time on a host of issues from climate change to taxes.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is now catering to newly empowered lefties such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to prevent primary challenges for his Senate seat. Brigitte Stelzer
Getting on the group’s radar, as Oh did, put a progressive bullseye on her back. The group has the ear of Elizabeth Warren, AOC and every member of the left-wing Squad.
The old Chuck Schumer, who wined and dined with Wall Street and big law firms, would have easily beaten back the leftist mob. But with Schumer scrambling to appease the newly empowered lefties in his party (he’s said to be worried about a primary challenge from AOC for his Senate seat), Oh suddenly became roadkill.
The case in which Oh defended ExxonMobil involved a lawsuit brought by Indonesian villagers against the oil giant. Some villagers claim to be victims of rape, torture and murder at the hands of the country’s military regime in 1999 through 2001. ExxonMobil allegedly hired military members to guard its plants in the region.
The oil giant, through its lawyers, has contended the soldiers were under the control of the Indonesian government and were guarding the fields that the government owned. ExxonMobil also argues there isn’t enough evidence that the soldiers were even the same ones who tortured the plaintiffs — and even if such evidence existed, the men were not acting on ­orders from the company.
The case has bounced around the courts for close to 20 years, being dismissed before being reinstated in 2015 by federal Judge Royce Lamberth.

So why is Oh, one of a group of lawyers representing an oil company, forced to step down from a government position amid all this legal wrangling? Lamberth recently ordered Oh to produce evidence why she shouldn’t get sanctioned over the way Paul Weiss attorneys characterized the plaintiff’s attorneys during a deposition in the case.
The order was about to be seized upon by progressives as evidence she wasn’t fit for the job, I am told. (Lamberth is expected to provide more details in coming days). At bottom, the Biden people would have faced defending someone who worked for Big Oil even if, as one veteran white-collar attorney told me: “People get sanctioned for discovery conduct all the time.”
Oh couldn’t be reached for comment. In her resignation letter that I obtained, she wrote that after the ruling, she reached the conclusion that “I cannot address this development without it becoming an ­unwelcome distraction to the important work” of the SEC. 
Of course, maybe there’s something else at hand here and in Lamberth’s more detailed account of what Oh did that we all don’t know about, at least not yet. But no matter what Oh may or may not have done, the word from Washington is that this was also another example of the leftist cancel culture taking its pound of flesh. Something not even the powerful Chuck Schumer can prevent.

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BEIJING, China, May 01, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Li Auto Inc. (“Li Auto” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: LI), an innovator in China’s new energy vehicle market, today announced that the Company delivered 5,539 Li ONEs in April 2021, representing a 111.3% year-over-year increase and taking the cumulative deliveries to 51,715. It took the Company only 17 months to reach the milestone of the 50,000th delivery from the first delivery of Li ONE in December 2019, creating the fastest record among all new energy vehicle companies.
The Company had 73 retail stores covering 53 cities, and 143 servicing centers and Li Auto-authorized body and paint shops operating in 105 cities as of April 30, 2021. Going by the growing popularity of Li ONEs, Li Auto expects to capture an increasing share of the electric vehicle market with existing and new model launches down the road and will further strengthen its direct sales and servicing network.
About Li Auto Inc.
Li Auto Inc. is an innovator in China’s new energy vehicle market. The Company designs, develops, manufactures, and sells premium smart electric vehicles. Through innovations in product, technology, and business model, the Company provides families with safe, convenient, and refined products and services. Li Auto is a pioneer to successfully commercialize extended-range electric vehicles in China. Its first model, Li ONE, is a six-seat, large premium electric SUV equipped with a range extension system and cutting-edge smart vehicle solutions. The Company started volume production of Li ONE in November 2019 and delivered over 33,500 Li ONEs as of December 31, 2020. The Company leverages technology to create value for its users. It concentrates its in-house development efforts on its proprietary range extension system, next-generation electric vehicle technology, and smart vehicle solutions. Beyond Li ONE, the Company aims to expand its product line by developing new vehicles, including BEVs and EREVs, to target a broader consumer base.
For more information, please visit: http://ir.lixiang.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains statements that may constitute “forward-looking” statements pursuant to the “safe harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as “will,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “aims,” “future,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “estimates,” “likely to,” and similar statements. Li Auto may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its periodic reports to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in its annual report to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials, and in oral statements made by its officers, directors, or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about Li Auto’s beliefs, plans, and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: Li Auto’s strategies, future business development, and financial condition and results of operations; Li Auto’s limited operating history; risks associated with extended-range electric vehicles, Li Auto’s ability to develop, manufacture, and deliver vehicles of high quality and appeal to customers; Li Auto’s ability to generate positive cash flow and profits; product defects or any other failure of vehicles to perform as expected; Li Auto’s ability to compete successfully; Li Auto’s ability to build its brand and withstand negative publicity; cancellation of orders for Li Auto’s vehicles; Li Auto’s ability to develop new vehicles; and changes in consumer demand and government incentives, subsidies, or other favorable government policies. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Li Auto’s filings with the SEC. All information provided in this press release is as of the date of this press release, and Li Auto does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.
For investor and media inquiries, please contact:
Li Auto Inc.Investor RelationsEmail: [email protected]
The Piacente Group, Inc.Yang SongTel: +86-10-6508-0677Email: [email protected]
Brandi PiacenteTel: +1-212-481-2050Email: Li@tpg-ir.

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By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
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SEC Chairman Viraj Dayaratne

It is indeed early Christmas for the capital market in the form of new products and frameworks giving a wide choice for investing, deviating from the same old in a bid to entice new investors.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is forging ahead with a host of initiatives as never seen before such as crowd funding for equity/ debt and giving the go ahead for Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC).
“We have developed a framework to facilitate fund raising through online platforms such as crowdfunding which is soliciting small amounts of funds from multiple investors through a web-based platform or social networking site for a specific project, business venture etc. Currently, the possibility of introducing equity/debt crowdfunding and peer to peer lending through the E-Wallet which is expected to be introduced as part of the second phase of digitisation initiative are being evaluated jointly with the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) which will reduce the cost of capital and other intermediary cost involved,” Viraj Dayaratne, Chairman SEC told the Business Times in an interview on Tuesday.
A consultative meeting was held with the CSE and they will further study the initial concept paper prepared by the SEC and revert with their feedback for the same in order to take the initiative forward, he said.
In a bid to further broad-base listing requirements to facilitate new listings to the market, the SEC intends to enable listing of SPACs – with proper safeguards. A SPAC is a shell company set up by investors with the sole purpose of raising money through an IPO to eventually acquire another company. It has no existing operations or underlying business that is founded by one or a group of sponsors, being well-known entrepreneurs, private equity or industry experts with the objective of making one or more acquisitions.
“The policy for listing SPACs has been finalised and the CSE listing rules (including eligibility criteria for the SPAC and promoters etc will be amended accordingly to facilitate it,” Mr. Dayaratne added.
SPAC features are that only qualified investors are allowed to invest in them and SPAC shares will be traded in the Over The Counter (OTC) board, the IPO funds will be kept in a trust structure until the target firm is acquired and shareholder approval is required to carry out the target acquisition and exit mechanism will be provided for the shareholders who are not in agreement with the acquisition. A SPAC is required to conclude its first acquisition within a stated timeframe and in the event if a SPAC is unable to do so, the SPAC will be liquidated according to the provisions of the Company’s Act. The lock-in period for promoters and other safeguards will be introduced accordingly, Mr. Dayaratne added. “Upon acquisition, the SPAC will be merged with the target company in line with the Company’s Act provisions and the merged entity will operate as an ordinary listed entity at the CSE.”
Having successfully launched the first phase of the digitalisation initiative, the SEC and the CSE embarked on the second phase which has now reached near completion and will be launched this month. Under the soon to be launched second phase, new features such as use of CSE mobile application for Central Depository Systems (CDS) account opening for local companies and foreign individuals will be enabled.
Mr. Dayaratne added that new features such as the launch of CDS E-connect will enable viewing of CDS account information, viewing of balances, transaction history, free of charge monthly statement for the last six months, facility to request for reports, sending information requests to CDS/stockbroker, ability to give instructions to change CDS account details of the logged in user account, intra account transfer requests, access for brokers online trading apps, corporate action alerts such as dividends/rights and other corporate actions, access to research reports.
E-IPOs, E-Rights, E-Portal for online company registration, E-wallet (in order to bring in seamless transfer of funds between asset classes) will be introduced on top of features such as the “chat bot” feature that would be added to enhance the user experience and convenience by providing account opening assistance and investor portfolio information assistance.
He said the CDS account opening process for both foreign individuals and foreign companies are being digitised which would expedite the entry process by foreign investors to the Sri Lankan market.
As at last September when it was launched, there have been more than 20,000 new CDS accounts opened via the mobile app and 50,000 plus mobile app downloads. More than 90 per cent of the new CDS accounts have been opened via the new mobile app.

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It’s a done deal. Smith Robertson, a subsidiary of Agostini’s Ltd, has completed its acquisition of two other pharmaceutical companies—Oscar Francois Ltd and Intersol Ltd.
The Sunday Express was told by chair of Oscar Francois, Jacqueline Francois, that the acquisition was completed on April 15 and that a new chief executive, Peter Welch, was appointed to the company.
The deal, the Sunday Express understands, is worth over $100 million.

It makes Smith Robertson the country’s largest pharmaceutical-importing company in the country representing three pharmecutical companies with Covid-19 vaccines: AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson.
“Smith Robertson is a division of the Agostini Group. They purchased the manufacturing company, Intersol Ltd which owns the Diquez Brand as well as Oscar Francois Ltd which distributes human and vet medicines, household products, hair, skin and other personal care products and agriculture inputs,” Francois told the Sunday Express.
“A new CEO, Peter Welch was appointed and both my sister, Jasmine Winford, former CEO and me (former chairman) are here for six more weeks assisting with a smooth transition,” she said.
Welch is listed as a non-executive director of two Agostini subsidiaries, Smith Robertson and Vemco, in Agostini’s 2020 annual report and also as a director of Caribbean Distribution Partners Trinidad Ltd.
Agostini’s is listed on the T&T Stock Exchange as being majority owned by the Mouttet family and its chairman is Christian Mouttet.
By yesterday, there was no notice of completion on either the websites of the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) or the T&T Securities and Exchange Commission.
The last notice by Agostini on the TTSE’s site was on March 12, 2021 with the announcement of Joanna Banks as a director of the company.
Prior to that, it was a March 5, 2021 notice by the company’s corporate secretary, Nadia James-Reyes Tineo, advising shareholders of the sale and purchase agreement to acquire 100 per cent of the issued and outstanding shares of Oscar Francois and Intersol.
According to the March 5 notice, the deal was supposed to be closed by April 30.
A September 14, 2020 filing by Agostini’s disclosed that the company and its subsidiary, Smith Robertson & Company, had entered a share purchase agreement with the shareholders of the two companies on September 11, 2020.
Although a disclosure was made to the TTSEC, Agostini’s requested an exemption from the securities regulator with regard to the publication of the planned acquisition in two daily newspapers. That is in accordance with Section 64(2) of the Securities Act 2012.
Agostini’s gave three reasons for applying for the exemption:
•Smith Robertson and Oscar Francois are competitors and the acquisition, the approval of the Fair Trading Commission (FTC) was a condition precedent to closing and completion of the acquisition;

•As the parties are competitors, publication of the acquisition “has the potential to materially prejudice the parties existing relationships with its customers, distributors and suppliers”; and
•Agostini’s is a publicly traded company and publication in daily newspapers “may have a significant impact on its stock price”.
Following the March 5 public announcement of the acquisition, concern was raised about the size of the market share that Smith Robertson would control.
But Francois told the Sunday Express on Friday there were no issues with the acquisition and the deal was concluded on April 15.
The Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission (TTSEC) told the Sunday Express that “approval” from the TTSEC is not a requirement for an acquisition of this nature.
“However, the reporting issuer is required to make the relevant material change disclosures, pursuant to Section 64 of the Securities Act, 2012,” the TTSEC said.
Green light from FTC
In March, facing public concern over the acquisition, the Trinidad and Tobago Fair Trading Commission (FTC) said it took four months to evaluate the Smith Robertson acquisition before it granted approval.
The FTC’s executive director, Bevan Narinesingh, confirmed the Commission granted approval for Smith Robertson & Company Ltd to acquire Oscar Francois and Intersol.
“The process took approximately four months as the Commission had to be satisfied that the proposed merger transaction would not affect competition adversely or would not be detrimental to consumers or the economy,” said Narinesingh.
Narinesingh had said the Commission consulted various stakeholders in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry during the merger review process which included competitors of Smith Robertson.
“It should be noted that in all proposed merger transactions, which meet the relevant statutory thresholds and require the Commission’s prior approval pursuant to Part III Section 13 of the Fair Trading Act, the Commission has to be satisfied that the proposed merger transaction would not adversely affect competition or would not be detrimental to the consumer or the economy before the merger can be approved.
“The Commission requires comprehensive information to be disclosed by the parties proposing to merge and the Commission also conducts its own investigations, including but not limited to receiving information from market participants and also conducts detailed market analysis, in order to determine whether the merger transaction is likely to affect competition or be detrimental to the consumer of the economy.
“Even where, as in this case, the Commission approves a merger, the Commission continues to monitor the relevant market and is entitled to conduct further investigations in order to determine whether any enterprise is engaged in business activities which contravene the Fair Trading Act,” he had said.
Narinesingh told the Sunday Express last week that while they had approved the acquisition, he was unsure whether it had been completed.

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