SQ - SQ スクエア （）

Summary List Placement The pandemic hit the event marketing industry hard, with global revenue declining an estimated 15% to just under $72 billion in 2020. But in-person promotions are critical to big advertisers, and companies like HBO, Amazon, and IBM have already started returning to live event marketing as local governments ease travel and business restrictions. Ad agency Superfly created a pitch deck to advise companies on live events strategies during the pandemic. The agency works with companies like Disney, Facebook, Citi, and WarnerMedia, oversees brand sponsorships for outdoor music festivals Bonnaroo and Outside Lands, and recently created pop-ups celebrating the anniversaries of "Seinfeld" and "Friends." Superfly first created the deck in December to help CMOs who are asking when to resume in-person promotions and for proof of returns on their event budgets, said co-founder Rich Goodstone. Goodstone told Insider that around 60% of his agency's business concerns experiential marketing, or staging live events, and he's betting on a big comeback in the second half of 2021.

Square announced the deal back in March, saying that it expected to pay $297 million in a mix of cash and stock for an undisclosed majority ownership stake in Tidal, which Jay-Z and a group of other artists acquired for $56 million in 2015.

The Broader Markets Last Week – SPY closed slightly higher on the week but below its intra-week highs. The VIX closed higher on the week, up to 18.60 from 17. This Week – SPY options are pricing a 1.2% move (in either direction) for the upcoming week. That corresponds to about $412 as a bearish consensus and $422 as a bullish consensus . Expected Moves for This Week via Options AI : SPY 1.1% QQQ 1.6% IWM 2.2% QQQ vol (and expected move) is slightly less than last week with the earnings reports from Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL ), Facebook (NASDAQ: FB ), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN ), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT ) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL ) now out of the way. Options AI provides a free expected move calculator that allows you to compare expected moves on the same chart. Expected Moves For Companies Reporting Earnings Following one of the biggest weeks of the earnings season that saw much of FAANG report, this week sees some smaller cap in the news stocks like Draftkings (NASDAQ: DKNG ), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA ), AMC (NYSE: AMC ), Viacom (NASDAQ: VIAC ) and Rocket (NASDAQ: …

Up 300 percent in 2020, bitcoin is suddenly getting respect in the C-suite. Here's how PayPal, Square and the 48 other big companies on Forbes's third annual Blockchain 50 are outpacing their competition using bitcoin and the underlying blockchain

Tesla, Square, MicroStrategy and others hold Bitcoin, but who could be next to make the move?

Summary List Placement This is a preview of Digital Banking Ecosystem research report from Insider Intelligence. Purchase this report. Insider Intelligence offers even more fintech coverage with Banking Pro. Subscribe today to receive industry-changing finance news and analysis to your inbox. The banking industry is in the grips of an identity crisis. Leaders of the world's largest banks — such as Citi, BBVA, and Goldman Sachs — have begun describing themselves as technology companies with banking licenses. However, this description is still aspirational. Executing the vision will require billions of dollars in investments, the restructuring of teams, a reimagining of the entire banking technology stack, and the adoption of a far more customer-centric business view. The stakes of failing to transform are high: Accenture projects that 35% of all bank revenues could be at risk from more tech-savvy competitors like fintechs as soon as 2020 for incumbents that fail to up their game. As a result, a wave of digital transformation is now sweeping the banking industry, as incumbents shore up against consumer demand and competitive pressures.

Summary List Placement Stripe, the payment-processing fintech giant, has become one of the most anticipated and elusive IPOs in Silicon Valley. But still, the startup continues to raise massive rounds in private markets. On March 14, Stripe announced a $600 million Series H at a $95 billion valuation . It's one of the highest-valued private tech startups in history, surpassing SpaceX's current $72 billion valuation and Facebook's pre-IPO valuation of around $80 billion. All signs point toward an IPO, from its sky-high valuation to notable c-suite hires. In the last year, Stripe nabbed former GM exec Dhivya Suryadevara to serve as CFO and AWS' head of sales and business development, Mike Clayville, as its chief revenue officer. Stripe has also looked to expand globally, particularly in Europe, a market Suryadevara previously told Insider could be "as big, if not bigger" than its US footprint. Yet John and Patrick Collison, the brothers who co-founded Stripe in 2010 and have a collective net worth of $23 billion , have remained notoriously coy about a public markets debut.

A few months ago a trend started where well known businesses like Microstrategy, Square, and Tesla started adding bitcoin to their company balance sheets. Now a Canadian condominium company has decided to invest in bitcoin in order to replace some of the firm’s reserve fund with crypto. Thornton Place Condominium Corporation leveraged the cryptocurrency exchange […]

Guggenheim analyst Jeff Cantwell is bullish on Square Inc’s (NASDAQ: SQ ) purchase of Jay-Z’s Tidal, Barron’s reported Thursday. Latest Ratings … Full story available on Benzinga.com

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) prices were up 8.6% on Thursday to near $60,000 after Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) announced a new Cash App feature allowing users to instantly send bitcoin to other $cashtags for free. What Happened? On Wednesday, Cash App said its users can now instantly send bitcoin for free on their app. To promote the feature, the company also announced a new contest in which it's giving away $1 million in bitcoin to anyone who follows … Full story available on Benzinga.com

Twitter (TWTR) CEO Jack Dorsey is facing a shareholder derivative lawsuit alleging that he breached his fiduciary duties to the company by giving advertisers broad access to Twitter users’ private data, and by violating the company’s own privacy policy.

Tesla, PayPal, and Square, to name just a few, are trading in tighter correlation to the digital currency.

For Square, the (earnings) song may remain much the same, at least this time around. To that end, the Cash App, digital payments and, of course, bitcoin will be much in focus when the digital payments firm reports earnings after the bell on Tuesday (Feb. 23). The Street expects to see adjusted EPS grow to 25 […]

After thumbing its nose at Craig Wright, crypto exchange OKCoin announced it has joined the Cryptocurrency Open Patent Alliance (COPA).

What Happened: Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA ) and Square Inc (NYSE: SQ ) are already up over $5 billion on their Bitcoin investments. According to the data from Bitcoin Treasuries, the two companies have spent over $3 billion to acquire 151,919 BTC, which is now valued at over $8 billion. Why It Matters: Tesla bought 48,000 BTC for $1.5 billion and has recorded a gain of over 70% on its Bitcoin investment which now amounts to $2.5 billion. This return somewhat pales compared to MicroStrategy’s (NASDAQ: … Full story available on Benzinga.com