Shares of Insignia Systems, the advertising company specializing in in-store POS digital ad displays, went stratospheric yesterday. The stock climbed as high as 89% before ending the day up 61% thanks to a short squeeze. Granted this reddit post predicted that the stock would climb as high as $100, but the comments quickly point out that @boredbillionnaire is in fact just a bored bozo.

• Insignia had a great month. The stock gained over 200% a few weeks back when ISIG announced that they hired investment firm Chardan to help them seek “strategic alternatives” (read: mergers and acquisitions.)
• …But before that, they had a rough couple years. The company’s been unprofitable for 9 of the past 11 quarters (is that bad?) and its annual revenue is still playing catchup from what it was in 2018. They’re looking for strategic alternatives because the current strategy ain’t working.
• And there’s no guarantee that Chardan will dig them out of the hole they’re in. Short interest is high because many see the stock’s recovery as premature. High short interest plus recent spikes in value create the classic combo of populism and greed that produces a short squeeze.

Don’t. Just don’t. There are much better ways to spend the Christmas money your grandma gave you than to invest in $ISIG. Chardan might help them, but the stock’s already priced in the upside, so investing now would be a gamble considerably more reckless than the average gamble you take on the stock market. That is unless you’re @boredbillionaire.

^when rock stars were rock stars

One of the founding fathers of heavy metal is climbing aboard the digital crazy train. Rock legend Ozzy Osbourne is releasing a collection of NFT bats as an homage to the time he bit the head off a bat at a concert in 1982… that or how he started pandemic back in January 2020. The “CryptoBatz” collection consists of 9,666 pieces and were created by the Prince of Darkness himself.

• A unique feature of these NFTs is called “MutantBatz”, which allows Cryptobat owners to birth another NFT once the bat digitally bites another token in the owner’s wallet. Confusing, yes, but not as baffling as Kelly Osbourne’s British accent.
• Rolling Stone reports that NFT players such as Bored Ape Yacht Club and Cryptotoadz are involved in the project. Also, apparently Rolling Stone is still a thing that exists. They have a website and everything… who knew?
• It may not have actually happened, but hearing Motley Crue talk about Ozzy snorting ants will never not be amazing.

Interested buyers can access the presale via the Crytobatz Discord channel. As you formulate your digital currency and NFT strategy for 2022, I recommend taking a few minutes to listen to the first Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin records again, which are widely considered the first heavy metal albums, and appreciate what they started.

Tech giants may be in the crosshairs of antitrust regulators in 2022 after a number of calm years. The Biden administration has recently appointed anti-monopoly advocates to posts at the National Economic Council, the FTC, and the DoJ, signaling that a wave of regulatory bludgeoning may be on the horizon.

• M&A may be the hardest hit area, as new leadership at the FTC and Justice Department will be tasked with scrutinizing past and potential deals with renewed zeal, and a $500M budget boost.
• The FTC has sued to block Nvidia’s (NVDA) acquisition of Arm Ltd and has launched a probe of Meta’s (FB) intent to buy a VR fitness company called Supernatural. VR Fitness sounds like a great way to increase emergency room visits.
• Legislation is in the pipeline to revise Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and enact a Federal law based on California’s CCPA, both of which could have adverse impacts on tech platforms in the form of increased accountability for user actions.

Behemoths such as Meta, Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), and Microsoft (MSFT) will likely be increasing the expense budget for antitrust outside counsel in 2022. Investors have largely brushed off regulatory concerns in past years, but the day of reckoning may finally be near. Their saving grace however may just be the Biden administration’s track record of being completely and woefully ineffective at everything else. At least the new year is looking to be a good one for one group of people, and that’s tech industry lobbyists.

Other News Link Roundup

• You know what this Mountain Dew needs? Some alcohol to make it taste like sh*t (link)

• Congratulations, you’re 18.4% less likely to be able to afford a house (link)

• Omicron doing almost as well as Big Oil (link)

• The interest rate on some loans will change and it might cause the apocalypse (link)

• S&P 500 hits a record high after its 4-day bender… (link)

• The Nasdaq is projected to do something it hasn’t done since 2016… (link)

Same… via @andrealongchu