$Grab Holdings (GRAB.US)$ $Altimeter Growth Corp (AGC.US)$ Grab's Q3 adjusted net sales stand at $429mn, 22% decline QoQ. Grab's Q3 revenue also declined 13% QoQ. This implies incentives to consumers declined 27% QoQ. It is a comfort to see that revenue is less sensitive to consumer incentives. A more worrying sign would be increasing adjusted net sales (or incentives) and declining revenue. Since incentives to consumers declined more than revenue, there isn't evidence suggesting an anomaly or discrepancy. Rather, the decline is more likely to stern from the business environment, which is what Grab has reminded investors about in Q2.
In Q2, Grab warned investors about potential severe COVID19-related mobility restrictions in Southeast Asia. During the period, Grab's full-year 2021 projection has considered the potential of partial and total lockdowns in various countries where the company operates as a consequence of COVID19's continued expansion. Grab's fear came true as COVID cases in SEA countries reached a new all-time high in Q3 due to the Delta variant. The Philippines reimposed lockdowns on Sept. 9, a day after announcing the lifting of stay-at-home orders for more than 13mn people. In August, Vietnam has also imposed a strict stay-at-home order in Ho Chi Minh City's southern suburbs and dispatched the army to assist quarantined citizens.
Therefore, it is no surprise that Grab attributed the decline in overall revenue to the lockdown, especially in Vietnam. This claim is accurate. By referring to Table 1, we can see that the decrease in revenue is mainly derived from its mobility segment. If we expand our analysis time period, we can observe that Grab's underperformance (drop in revenue) in 2021 is caused mainly by its mobility segment. Grab's Q2 mobility segment revenue, and total revenue dropped $27mn and $35mn QoQ, respectively. Grab's Q3 mobility segment revenue and total dropped $30mn and $23mn QoQ, respectively. The decline in the mobility segment coincides with increases in COVID19 cases across SEA (Figure 4). Therefore, Grab's claim that its decline in revenue is contributed by the lockdowns and travel restrictions across SEA.
Despite the drop in revenue, activities (GMV) on the company's platform actually increased 5% during the period. This may not seem like a big deal, but this statistic actually invalidated one of our previous hypotheses (maturing market). In Q2, Grab's GMV only increased 6.5% in spite of a 27% increase in incentives. This suggested that Grab's market is reaching maturity. However, Grab's GMV increased 4.1% (QoQ) in spite of a 27% (QoQ) decline in Q3. This means that Grab's GMV growth isn't fueled by incentives as much as initially thought.
Following Grab's narrative, monthly transacting users (MTU) also declined due to lockdowns. This is also expected. However, what was unexpected is GMV per MTU actually increased. This further proves that Grab indeed has a network effect where activities (GMV) of existing users increase. This is crucial to Grab's overall growth for several reasons:
It is unlikely for Grab to expand beyond SEA. This is because Grab, Uber, and DiDi (NYSE:DIDI) share equity with one another. Therefore, it is unlikely for them to compete with one another.
Due to the limited geographical expansion, it is clear that Grab has to upsell and cross-sell new products to the existing userbase to increase the revenue stream.
For these very reasons, Grab's increase in GMV and GMV per MTU is a positive takeaway. With UBER as comps, Grab has to grow at 35% CAGR on top of a fully recovered pre-pandemic mobility segment over the next five years. This feat is very challenging. Firstly, the majority of Grab's revenue is derived from its mobility segment. Based on the relationship between COVID19 cases and Grab's mobility segment (Figure 4 and Table 1), we expect Grab's Q4 mobility segment to be in between Q1's and Q2's, somewhere around $135mn. This figure only represents around 6.75% of the pre-pandemic level (approximately $2bn). Hence, there is still a very long way to go. Secondly, we don't expect food delivery to grow materially from here as we expect the need for food delivery to decrease when the economy reopens. Hence, food delivery is not expected to contribute to Grab's overall growth. Thirdly, financial service and enterprise & new initiatives' overall contribution to revenue is only marginal. Hence, it is difficult to justify Grab at its current $52bn valuation.
Moreover, investors will lose the $10 NAV safety net once the Grab-AGC merger is completed. This adds to investors' downside risks. In addition, the overall macroeconomy conditions add to the difficulty in investing in high-growth companies. High inflation erodes the value of future earnings, while any form of tapering or rate hikes will devalue Grab's intrinsic value.

$Block (SQ.US)$ is changing its corporate name to Block as the company continues to focus on developing blockchain tech solutions.
Shares rise 1.1% in after-hours trading.
There will be no organizational changes as Square, Cash App, TIDAL and TBD54566975 will continue to maintain their respective brands.
As a result of the name change, Square Crypto, a separate initiative of the company dedicated to advancing Bitcoin, will also change its name to Spiral.
The legal name "Square, Inc." is expected to be officially changed to "Block, Inc." on or about Dec. 10 of this year, and the company's NYSE ticker symbol "SQ" will not change at this time, the company says.
"Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same," Square Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey says.
Previously, (Nov. 29) Square's CEO Jack Dorsey steps down as CEO of Twitter.

I think it is notable that $Ford Motor (F.US)$ announced the plan to pay off high interest debt in and around the time $Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US)$ was about to go public. I would also point that the cost of paying off that debt should be immediately tax deductible to Ford. So I'm wondering if there is an added factor of tax planning going on where Ford gets a one time $billion interest expense deduction on the payoff of the debt. At the same time they sell some of their Rivian stake for what is obviously a big taxable gain.
Maybe I'm overthinking it or rationalizing. But I do think it likely Ford is wanting to have a tax plan on how to exit their Rivian stake. Ford has tax assets but I'm not sure those can all be used immediately or if Ford wants to use them all immediately.

$Rivian Automotive (RIVN.US)$ Looking eight years ahead Rivian is currently grossly undervalued.

$Ford Motor (F.US)$ should just reactivate the production line of the excellent Ford Fusion Energi plug in hybrid sedan with improvements to battery placement and formulation. there is a huge interest now in anything plug in hybrid.

Benchmark is pushing back against heavy negative sentiment on $Roku Inc (ROKU.US)$, reiterating its Buy rating and healthy price target following reaction to the company's second straight quarter of disappointing subscriber additions - and some channel checks on Roku's players.
"Sentiment remains extremely negative, with incremental pressure starting to come from the sell side, although we have a markedly different view on some of the information being filtered into the marketplace, especially around the outlook for media & entertainment (M&E) spend and, to a lesser extent, SVOD (subscription video on demand)," analyst Daniel Kurnos says.
Along with the $Alphabet-C (GOOG.US)$ carriage dispute headed for a "cliff" on Dec. 9, it marks an "ideal setup" for the stock, "especially since our channel checks indicate a much healthier in-stock level of Roku TVs at both Walmart and Best Buy than feared, while we think a Google-Roku resolution could be in the offing even if a temporary blackout occurs."
Management's lack of visibility into its own supply chain built a "perfect storm" in Q3, with the subscriber miss creating a credibility issue, Benchmark says.
It did check on inventory of 55-inch and 65-inch Roku-supporting TVs in weighing the supply logjam, however. Only about 10% of Best Buy stores were out of stock of a particular size (but never both), backfilling stock within 7-10 days. And only 15% of Walmart stores were out of more than two particular brand/size combinations of six unique units, and 50% were out of only one or less.
Overall it feels like Spring 2020 "when bears argued that Roku would see increasing competition and decreasing leverage in (third-party) negotiations," complete with a COVID spike. While Benchmark acknowledges competition is hotter, it thinks Roku will be a share gainer with upside to net adds both domestically and abroad, "plus total platform revenue outperformance leading to a similar upwards share move."
The firm has a price target of $525, currently implying 127% upside
Roku is among the many streaming-centric companies looking to make some sales progress with Black Friday deals.

$Pfizer (PFE.US)$ $Moderna (MRNA.US)$ $AstraZeneca (AZN.US)$ $Novavax (NVAX.US)$ $Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.US)$
Scientists in South Africa on Thursday identified a concerning new coronavirus variant, prompting several countries to quickly limit travel from the region.
In the past two days, scientists detected the B1.1.529 variant after observing an increase in infections in South Africa. So far, 22 positive cases have been identified in the country.
By Thursday evening, Britain had banned flights from South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia and Zimbabwe, starting at noon local time on Friday. No cases of the new variant have been detected in the U.K.
Direct flights from the six countries will be banned from midday on Friday until hotel quarantine is up and running from 4am on Sunday.
The six nations will be added to the country’s red list, which would require British travelers coming from those nations to quarantine on arrival.
Officials from Israel and Singapore had announced that they, too, would add the same countries to their red lists, along with Mozambique.
There is mounting concern among scientists over the ability of the B. 1.1.529 Sars-Cov-2 variant, first identified in Botswana, to evade the body's immune response and make it more transmissible due to its "very unusual constellation" of mutations.
Scientists are still unclear on how effective existing vaccines will be against the new variant, which displays mutations that might resist neutralization.
South Africa has requested an urgent sitting of a World Health Organization working group on virus evolution on Friday to discuss the new variant.

$Sono Group (SEV.US)$ are the future of transportation. SEV has developed this technology and has proven it in 4 years of real life testing. This company is a steal at the current market cap.

$ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK.US)$ I like ark’s theory, but it’s too indiscriminate in practice. What anybody sees in $Zillow-C (Z.US)$, for example, is beyond me. Just because they’re doing something new behind a computer screen doesn’t mean they’re creating value.
$Zoom Communications (ZM.US)$ $Tesla (TSLA.US)$

Famed investor Cathie Wood said Wednesday that her ARK Invest firm is testing a short portfolio that she characterizes as "ARK on steroids."
In terms of individual stocks, the founder and CEO of Ark Invest told CNBC that she backed $Zoom Communications (ZM.US)$ and $Tesla (TSLA.US)$.
She also described herself as a "net buyer" of $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$, saying she makes strategic investments in the cryptocurrency, even though she doubted the need to use it as an inflation hedge.
On the short fund in development, Wood reported that it's currently being tested internally for employees. The portfolio would short stocks in the "big benchmarks," particularly targeting "value traps."
"We think the benchmarks are where the big risks are longer-term, because they are filling up with value traps -- those companies that have done very well historically but are going to be disintermediated and disrupted by the massive amount of innovation that's taking place."
Wood estimated that the market has priced disruptive innovation at $10T to $15T over the next 10 years. However, she thinks the number will likely reach $200T.
"So it will go from a little more than 10% of global equity market caps to what we believe could be more than half," she predicted.
Specifically, Wood sees tremendous growth in disruptive innovation for DNA sequencing, robotics, energy storage, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.
On individual stocks, Wood recommended an investment in Zoom, saying the company has $4B in revenue in a market worth about $1.5T globally.
"So we think it has miles to go," she said.
Wood also continued to back $Tesla (TSLA.US)$, saying that recent stock sales by Elon Musk only represent an understandable need to pay taxes and diversify.
"Most of his net worth ... is in Tesla and SpaceX. I would bet that any financial adviser would say you have got to diversify," she said.
Wood has recently taken profits in some of her TSLA stake but she continued to praise Musk and the company's positioning for the next phase of innovation in the car industry.
"It really doesn't look like the Tesla has changed that much from a design -- it has from a technology point of view but not so much from a design point of view. And I think Elon and team are getting ready for this robo taxi world," she said.
Turning to the overall economy, Wood warned that the economy could be developing an "inventory problem," with companies over-purchasing products to try to keep up with perceived demand and stay ahead of supply chain bottlenecks.
Wood also repeated her belief that the economy's long-term trend is toward deflation rather than inflation, due to the downward pressure on prices that innovation will have.
Given her view on inflation, Wood doesn't view Bitcoin as a hedge against currency devaluation, as some others do. However, she sees it as "an important asset class" that offers protection "against confiscation of wealth other than inflation."
"We have been a net buyer and we pick our spots. Over time we pick our spots we do not buy on spikes," she said.
Wood has previously predicted that $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ would eventually hit $500,000.