China’s Pig Futures Tumble on First Day

Live hog futures in China sank on their first trading day after an expected debut. The industry is seeking for a safeguard against wild swings. They were triggered by one of the worst animal disease outbreaks.

The Dalian Commodity Exchange contract slumped as much as 9% on Friday.

The product aims to provide a key hedging tool for hog breeders, after some two decades in the planning. This is for hog breeders who are recovering and expanding production. An African swine fever outbreak destroyed local herds and drove prices to a record.

The country accounts for almost half of global pork consumption and production with market value of about 2 trillion yuan ($310B). 

The meat in their diet and its implications for national food security is important for the Chinese people. Their government has acted upon modernizing hog production, improving quality and cutting costs. Accelerating the move was the African swine fever outbreak in 2018-19.

The virus wiped out small backyard pig farms, pushing a shift toward large-scale operations. They’re in a better position to trade the contract and manage their risks. 

The futures contract will help promote standardization of hog breeds in order to meet the exchange’s delivery rules and specifications. It will be the first product in China to allow deliveries of live animals.

Venture Capital Hits Record High in 2020 (United States)

Venture capital-backed companies in the U.S. raised almost $130 billion in 2019, CB Insight showed on Friday.

The investment total is up 14% from last year, while the number of deals is down 9% to 6,022. “Mega-rounds”, or deals that are $100 million or higher also hit a record amount. Additionally, a number with $63 billion raised in 318 deals.

They are seeing a ‘rich get richer’ phenomenon, said Anand Sanwal, CB Insights chief executive, in an email. That’s where successful, high momentum technology companies are vacuuming up most of the financing. 

 In a very early stage investment called seed stage, he said that data showed a big decline. He anticipated some of those firms that stand out to see “insatiable investor demand”. Moreover, with fewer competitors for the money.

The trend of big investments is unlikely to slow in 2021. Some venture capitalists say there’s a lot of capital chasing investments.

Quantum Metric, said it raised $200 million in its latest financing round, that values the company at over $1 billion. It (NASDAQ:QMCO)  is  a startup that provides customer analytics and improvement tools for online businesses.

Last year, many of the mega rounds were raised by tech companies as they were lifted by the pandemic. The coronavirus drove up remote work and e-commerce.