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How One Man Lost $20 Billion In Two Days

April 11, 2021 1 Comment

Before he lost it all—all $20 billion—Bill Hwang was the greatest trader you’d never heard of. Then he lost it all in two days. Bloomberg reports:

Starting in 2013, he parlayed more than $200 million left over from his shuttered hedge fund into a mind-boggling fortune by betting on stocks. Had he folded his hand in early March and cashed in, Hwang, 57, would have stood out among the world’s billionaires… At its peak, Hwang’s wealth briefly eclipsed $30 billion…

Hwang used swaps, a type of derivative that gives an investor exposure to the gains or losses in an underlying asset without owning it directly. This concealed both his identity and the size of his positions. Even the firms that financed his investments couldn’t see the big picture. That’s why on Friday, March 26, when investors around the world learned that a company called Archegos had defaulted on loans used to build a staggering $100 billion portfolio, the first question was, “Who on earth is Bill Hwang?”

Because he was using borrowed money and levering up his bets fivefold, Hwang’s collapse left a trail of destruction. Banks dumped his holdings, savaging stock prices. Credit Suisse Group AG, one of Hwang’s lenders, lost $4.7 billion; several top executives, including the head of investment banking, have been forced out. Nomura Holdings Inc. faces a loss of about $2 billion… On March 25, when Hwang’s financiers were finally able to compare notes, it became clear that his trading strategy was strikingly simple. Archegos appears to have plowed most of the money it borrowed into a handful of stocks — ViacomCBS, GSX Techedu, and Shopify among them. This was no arbitrage on collateralized bundles of obscure financial contracts. Hwang invested the Tiger way, using deep fundamental analysis to find promising stocks, and he built a highly concentrated portfolio. The denizens of Reddit’s WallStreetBets day trading on Robinhood can do almost the same thing, riding such popular themes as cord cutting, virtual education, and online shopping. Only no brokerage will extend them anywhere near the amount of leverage billionaires get…

People familiar with Archegos say the firm steadily ramped up its leverage. Initially that meant about “2x,” or $1 million borrowed for every $1 million of capital. By late March the leverage was 5x or more. Raising money to invest in streaming made sense. Or so it seemed in the ViacomCBS C-suite. Instead, the stock tanked 9% on Tuesday and 23% on Wednesday. Hwang’s bets suddenly went haywire, jeopardizing his swap agreements…

Hwang, say people with swaps experience, likely had borrowed roughly $85 million for every $20 million, investing $100 and setting aside $5 to post margin as needed. But the massive portfolio had cratered so quickly that its losses blew through that small buffer as well as his capital.

The Best States for Entrepreneurs in 2021

January 14, 2021 Leave a Comment

Despite the events of the past year, 2021 is an ideal time to start a business, as the pandemic has caused people to flock to the online sphere. A study by The Pew Research Center reveals that 53% of Americans find the internet to be essential for them during the pandemic, while 34% find it “important, but not essential.” This statistic is proof that now is the time to build a company, as the increased internet traffic makes it easier to promote and advertise one’s goods or services.

Though current events make it a good idea to start a business venture, beginning entrepreneurs still need to put a lot of thought into how they want to build up their company. One of the most important things to consider, for instance, is where you’ll be basing your business. If you need some guidance in that department, read on, because we’ll be listing five of the best states to open a business in 2021.

California

Though California is notorious for having among the highest taxes in the country, it’s still a great place to start a company, be it a corporation or an LLC. For one, it’s filled with college towns where you’ll find plenty of talented people to hire. Plus, it’s a place where almost every type of business has an existing market, from restaurant businesses to entertainment companies. If you’re looking to start a technology business, then Silicon Valley is the place to be. There are tons of companies to learn from and experts to build a network with.

Texas

Texas has the country’s second-largest economy (next to California) and is the fourth highest in terms of the increase in small businesses, making it startup-friendly. The state also borders Mexico, giving business owners the option to hire bilingual staff. Finally, office rental fees and energy bills are considerably cheaper here than in the rest of the country, so fledgling businesses will have more resources to devote to growth.

Delaware

Delaware is an ideal state to open a business, given that it has no sales taxes. This applies whether the company is physically based in Delaware or outside. Plus, there are no corporate income taxes on goods or services. But what sets this state apart from the rest is its Chancery Court, a court dedicated to business entity cases. This makes it easier to enlist legal help and speeds up business-related court proceedings.

Florida

Next is Florida — a state that continually ranks among the most entrepreneur-friendly states in the country. And there’s a good reason for this. Entrepreneurs looking to start an LLC in the Florida have plenty to look forward to, such as a large and diverse pool of talent, excellent state infrastructure, and a rebounding economy. Key to the success of many Florida-based entrepreneurs is the business-friendly tax climate, too, as personal income is not taxed on the state level. This is especially beneficial for small entrepreneurs running LLCs or sole proprietorships. To add to that, Florida draws thousands of tourists yearly, providing more opportunities for you to make sales.

Nevada

Lastly, there’s Nevada, one of the most tax-friendly states in the country. It has no business income tax, franchise tax, gift tax, or personal income tax. This is because most of Nevada’s tax revenue comes from the casino and hospitality industries. This gives business owners the opportunity to devote most of their income to growing their company.

Those were five of the best states to start a business in 2021. Each one is beneficial to entrepreneurs in different ways, so make sure to do more research before making your decision. If you want to learn more, check out our List of the Most Tax-Friendly States article. It’ll give you an idea of how much your company will earn should you decide to start a business in a particular state.

U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession

April 29, 2020 Leave a Comment

The record-long U.S. economic expansion is over after almost 11 years, with what’s likely to be the deepest recession in at least eight decades now under way. The world’s largest economy shrank at a 4.8% annualized pace in the first quarter, the biggest slide since 2008 and the first contraction since 2014, as the need to fight the coronavirus forced businesses to close and consumers to stay home. Bloomberg reports:

The current quarter is likely to be far worse, with analysts expecting the economy to tumble by a record amount in data going back to the 1940s. Bloomberg Economics has projected a 37% annualized contraction, but UniCredit is the most bearish with a 65% estimate.

The first-quarter downturn, reported Wednesday by the Commerce Department, was led by the steepest drop in consumer spending since 1980 and the fastest decline in business investment in almost 11 years.

The worse-than-expected report reveals the wide-scale hit to U.S. output from Covid-19 and the subsequent freezing of economic activity.

“It’s kind of incredible when you think about the fact that the economy was running pretty much on a normal footing for over 80% of the first quarter,” Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities LLC, said on Bloomberg Radio.

U.S. stocks gained amid renewed hopes for a drug to fight the coronavirus, helping investors shrug off the GDP data. The dollar slipped and Treasury yields were lower.

Coronavirus: Worst Economic Crisis Since 1930s Depression, IMF says

April 9, 2020 Leave a Comment

The coronavirus pandemic will turn global economic growth “sharply negative” this year, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned. Kristalina Georgieva said the world faced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. BBC reports:

She forecast that 2021 would only see a partial recovery. Ms Georgieva, the IMF’s managing director, made her bleak assessment in remarks ahead of next week’s IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings. Emerging markets and developing countries would be the hardest hit, she said, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid. “Just three months ago, we expected positive per capita income growth in over 160 of our member countries in 2020,” she said. “Today, that number has been turned on its head: we now project that over 170 countries will experience negative per capita income growth this year.” She added: “In fact, we anticipate the worst economic fallout since the Great Depression.”

Ms Georgieva said that if the pandemic eased in the second half of 2020, the IMF expected to see a partial recovery next year. But she cautioned that the situation could also worsen. “I stress there is tremendous uncertainty about the outlook. It could get worse depending on many variable factors, including the duration of the pandemic,” she said.

Her comments came as the US reported that the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits had surged for the third week by 6.6 million, bringing the total over that period to more than 16 million Americans.

Federal Reserve Cuts Interest Rates to Zero

March 15, 2020 Leave a Comment

The Federal Reserve, saying “the coronavirus outbreak has harmed communities and disrupted economic activity in many countries, including the United States,” cut interest rates to essentially zero on Sunday and launched a massive $700 billion quantitative easing program to shelter the economy from the effects of the virus. CNBC reports:

The new fed funds rate, used as a benchmark both for short-term lending for financial institutions and as a peg to many consumer rates, will now be targeted at 0% to 0.25% down from a previous target range of 1% to 1.25%.

Facing highly disrupted financial markets, the Fed also slashed the rate of emergency lending at the discount window for banks by 125 basis points to 0.25%, and lengthened the term of loans to 90 days…

The quantitative easing will take the form of $500 billion of Treasurys and $200 billion of agency-backed mortgage securities. The Fed said the purchases will begin Monday with a $40 billion installment…

The Fed added in its statement that it “is prepared to use its full range of tools to support the flow of credit to households and businesses and thereby promote its maximum employment and price stability goals.”

Google Parent Company Alphabet Hits $1 Trillion Market Cap

January 17, 2020 Leave a Comment

Google parent-company Alphabet has hit $1 trillion in market capitalization, making it the fourth U.S. company to hit the milestone. CNBC reports:

Apple was the first to hit the market cap milestone in 2018. Then, Microsoft and Amazon followed. Apple and Microsoft are still valued at more than a trillion dollars while Amazon has since fallen below the mark.

Analysts are bullish on the company’s newly appointed CEO, Sundar Pichai. In a surprise announcement in December 2019, Alphabet founder Larry Page announced plans to step down as CEO, along with co-founder and president Sergey Brin.

Pichai had already been the CEO of Google, which includes all the company’s core businesses — including search, advertising, YouTube and Android — and generates substantially all its revenue and profits. But he reported to Page, who also oversaw other businesses making long-term bets on experimental technology like self-driving cars and package delivery drones. Now, he’s in charge of the whole conglomerate, although Page and Brin still have control over most of the company’s voting shares, giving them significant influence in major decisions.

For the First Time in History, the US Economy Has Started and Ended a Decade Without a Recession

December 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

As of December, the U.S. economy has expanded for a record 126 straight months, the longest time period in the country’s history according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Put another way, the U.S. has avoided a recession for an entire calendar decade for the first time ever. CNBC reports:

“It is unusual that this has been such a persistent recovery,” Michelle Meyer, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, told CNBC.

Economists cite a few reasons for why the expansion has lasted for so long. For one, the U.S. was coming from a low point at the end of the last decade. Much of the expansion over the past ten years has been spent recovering from the Great Recession…

Overall, economic expansions have started to last longer in the post-war period. The NBER, which keeps the official tally of recessions in the U.S., found expansions have lasted an average of 58.4 months from 1945 to 2009, compared to 35 months from 1919 to 1945. One reason for this, economists say, is that policymakers have gotten better at responding to changes in the economy while inflation has remained subdued…

Another reason economists say the expansion has lasted so long is that the memory of the crisis is still fresh in the minds of consumers and businesses, making them more risk-averse and alert to the next downturn.

College-Educated Workers Are Taking Over the American Factory Floor

December 9, 2019 Leave a Comment

American factories demand white-collar education for blue-collar work. New manufacturing jobs that require more advanced skills are driving up the education level of factory workers who in past generations could get by without higher education, an analysis of federal data by The Wall Street Journal found.

Within the next three years, American manufacturers are, for the first time, on track to employ more college graduates than workers with a high-school education or less, part of a shift toward automation that has increased factory output, opened the door to more women and reduced prospects for lower-skilled workers.

U.S. manufacturers have added more than a million jobs since the recession, with the growth going to men and women with degrees, the Journal analysis found. Over the same time, manufacturers employed fewer people with at most a high-school diploma.

Employment in manufacturing jobs that require the most complex problem-solving skills, such as industrial engineers, grew 10% between 2012 and 2018; jobs requiring the least declined 3%, the Journal analysis found…

Specialized job requirements have narrowed the path to the middle class that factory work once afforded. The new, more advanced manufacturing jobs pay more but don’t help workers who stopped schooling early. More than 40% of manufacturing workers have a college degree, up from 22% in 1991.

Looking ahead, investments in automation will continue to expand factory production with relatively fewer employees. Jobs that remain are expected to be increasingly filled by workers from colleges and technical schools, leaving high-school graduates and dropouts with fewer opportunities. Manufacturing workers laid-off in years past also will see fewer suitable openings.

Amazon Is Planning to Open Cashierless Supermarkets Next Year

November 20, 2019 Leave a Comment

Amazon.com is preparing to open Amazon Go supermarkets and pop-up stores, an expansion of the company’s cashierless ambitions that includes the possibility of licensing the technology to other retailers. Bloomberg reports:

The new store formats and licensing initiative could launch as soon as the first quarter of 2020, according to a person familiar with the project. Amazon is testing a supermarket equipped with Go technology in a 10,400-square-foot retail space in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

The Go expansion is the e-commerce giant’s latest attempt to compete in the $900 billion U.S. grocery industry and perhaps other areas of retail, as well. The company already operates the Whole Foods Market chain and last week confirmed plans to launch a separate supermarket brand, starting with a location in the upscale Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. Those stores will have human cashiers. The previously unreported plan to expand Go revives Amazon’s original vision of creating full-size grocery stores without checkout lines.

Amazon opened the first Go convenience store at its Seattle headquarters almost two years ago and now operates 21 locations around the U.S. It’s not clear how much money the company has lavished on the project, but some of the 1,000 or so people working on it were recently told their cumulative salaries have totaled more than $1 billion since the project got underway in 2012, the person said.

Workers Continue to Struggle Despite ‘Strong’ Jobs Reports

November 17, 2019 Leave a Comment

There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that America’s workers are being left behind. But now a group of researchers and economists have identified a key part of the problem — the kinds of jobs increasingly available to America’s workforce. And what they’ve found, as illustrated in a new U.S. Private Sector Job Quality Index (JQI), is troubling. The Hill reports:

Since 1990, the United States has been creating an overabundance of low-quality service jobs. In fact, 63 percent of the production and nonsupervisory jobs created over the past 30 years have been in low-wage and low-hour positions. That’s a marked contrast from the start of the 1990s, when almost half of these jobs (47 percent) were high-wage.

For more than a year, economists from Cornell University, the Coalition for a Prosperous America, the University of Missouri, Kansas City and the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity have been sifting through private sector jobs data to develop the JQI. And they’ve found that, in the past three decades, the U.S. economy has become increasingly dependent on jobs that offer fewer hours of work and at lower relative wages.

What exactly do these low-hour, low-wage positions look like? They could be one of the almost 15 million nonmanagement jobs in leisure and hospitality. These offer an average of 24.6 hours of work per week at $14.65 an hour. That’s $360 a week.  Or they could be one of 13.5 million retail jobs offering 30.3 hours a week at $16.73 an hour. That’s $506 weekly.  

There are now roughly 105 million production and nonsupervisory jobs in the U.S. That’s 83 percent of all private sector jobs. And more than half of them — 58 million — pay less than the average weekly U.S. wage of $793. Many of these jobs don’t offer health care or other benefits. These are the best jobs that many Americans can find and the most hours they can get. 

Stocks 10-Year Run Becomes Best Bull Market Ever: Up 468%

November 15, 2019 Leave a Comment

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The longest bull market in history is also the best ever. The current market boom, which started March 9, 2009, has enjoyed a whopping 468% gain for the S&P 500 through the first day of November, making this record-long bull run also the best-performing one since World War II, according to The Leuthold Group. CNBC reports: 

The S&P 500, which eked out a record closing high Thursday, has soared 472% in this epic run.

The bull market from 1949 to 1956 scored a 454% gain for the S&P 500, the second-biggest return in recent history, the firm said. The explosive bull run in the 1990s saw the S&P 500 rally 391%, while the bull market of 2002–2007 pulled off a 121% gain for the benchmark, according to The Leuthold Group.

More than 10 years off the financial crisis bottom, the market still hasn’t lost its momentum as it currently sits at its all-time high lifted by renewed hopes for a U.S.-China trade resolution.

Federal Deficit Hits $134 Billion in One Month

November 14, 2019 Leave a Comment

The federal deficit reached $134 billion in October, the first month of fiscal 2020, according to data the Treasury Department released Wednesday. The Hill reports: 

That figure is about 34 percent higher than last October, a sign of a steadily increasing gap between federal spending and revenue.

As a candidate, President Trump had promised to wipe out the nation’s deficit during his time in office, but deficits have only grown since his inauguration.

The Treasury estimated that the deficit for the 2020 fiscal year would surpass $1 trillion for the first time since 2012. The figure came in just below that milestone in fiscal 2019, hitting $984 billion.

Google to Offer Checking Accounts to Consumers

November 13, 2019 Leave a Comment

Google will soon offer checking accounts to consumers, becoming the latest Silicon Valley heavyweight to push into finance. The project, code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year with accounts run by Citigroup Inc. and a credit union at Stanford University, a tiny lender in Google’s backyard. The Wall Street Journal reports: 

Big tech companies see financial services as a way to get closer to users and glean valuable data. Apple Inc. introduced a credit card this summer. Amazon.com Inc. has talked to banks about offering checking accounts. Facebook Inc. is working on a digital currency it hopes will upend global payments…

Google is setting its sights fairly low. Checking accounts are a commoditized product, and people don’t switch very often. But they contain a treasure trove of information, including how much money people make, where they shop and what bills they pay.

The company will have to convince a public that is increasingly wary of how tech companies are using personal data that it can be trusted with people’s finances. Federal regulators are examining whether the user information Google gets from its search engine, home speakers, email service and other apps gives the company an unfair advantage over competitors, the Journal has reported.

Mr. Sengupta said Google wanted to bring value to consumers, banks and merchants, with services that could include loyalty programs, but it wouldn’t sell checking-account users’ financial data. The company said it doesn’t use Google Pay data for advertising purposes and doesn’t share that data with advertisers.

Fifty-eight percent of people recently surveyed by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. said they would trust financial products from Google. That was better than Apple and Facebook but worse than Amazon.

“If we can help more people do more stuff in a digital way online, it’s good for the internet and good for us,” Mr. Sengupta said.

Facebook Unites Payment Service Across Apps With Facebook Pay

November 12, 2019 Leave a Comment

Facebook Inc said on Tuesday it was launching Facebook Pay, a unified payment service through which users across its platforms including WhatsApp and Instagram can make payments without exiting the app. Reuters reports: 

The social network said the service would allow users to send money or make a payment with security options such as PIN or biometrics on their smartphones.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year the company is planning to unify the messaging infrastructure across its platforms.

He said the company would encrypt conversations on more of its messaging services and make them compatible as direct messaging was likely to dwarf discussion on the traditional, open platform of Facebook’s news feed in a few years.

Facebook said the new service will collect user information such as payment method, date, billing and contact details when a transaction is made and that it would use the data to show targeted advertisements to users.

Black Unemployment is at Record Low

November 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 128,000 in October, exceeding the estimate of 75,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.6%, in line with estimates, but remains around the lowest in 50 years. The unemployment rate for African Americans nudged down to a record low 5.4%. CNBC reports: 

The total employment level as measured in the household survey jumped to 158.5 million, also a new high.

The pace of average hourly earnings picked up a bit, rising 0.1% to a year-over-year 3% gain, also in line with estimates. The average work week was unchanged at 34.4 hours.

“This report is yet another sign that the economy is still strong right now and adds to a list of indicators that are looking optimistic of late,” said Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group. “The vigor of this labor market, along with a more positive housing market and solid Q3 GDP, should offer some welcome reassurance.”

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