Fintech

The one speed bump advisors keep tripping over is that, well, people are funny about their money.

Cryptocurrencies were supposed to teach traditional financiers a thing or two about how to avoid collapses and crises. Yet it feels like we’re simply repeating history. Specifically, the messy hedge-fund humiliation captured in “When Genius Failed.”

A key source of US economic growth this year -- consumer spending -- is showing signs of losing steam, even before Wednesday’s round of Federal Reserve rate hikes kick in.

The better ARK performed, the more money flowed into its main ETF, ARKK. It used this money to buy more sci-fi ARKK stocks, pushing up the prices of its holdings. This created a vicious cycle that has now reversed.

A vague tweet by a founder of Three Arrows Capital, an influential hedge fund that has been liquidating crypto holdings as prices plummeted, is stirring fresh apprehension in an already shaken industry.

MicroStrategy Inc., ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund, Tesla Inc. and Twitter Inc. are what I’m watching to identify the ultimate capitulation point of this cycle.

Several avenues for diversifying cryptocurrency portfolios exist. Investors should weigh the costs and benefits of each of the following three methods.

Bitcoin plunged to the lowest in about 18 months after the freezing of withdrawals by the Celsius lending platform added to concern that systemic risk in the crypto ecosystem will accelerate the digital-asset market meltdown.

Madonna was right. That iPhone on which you may be reading this article is far less important to society than the materials – like steel and plastic – that were used to build it.

Wall Street is pounding the table on the next big thing in technology, predicting the metaverse could be a $13 trillion industry by the end of the decade.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether the marketing of the TerraUSD stablecoin before it crashed last month violated federal investor-protection regulations, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Elon Musk formally and forcefully revived his assertion that Twitter Inc. has a serious bot problem, and threatened to walk away from his deal to buy the company if the social network doesn’t do more to prove its users are real people.

The price of oil, as measured by the benchmark WTI index, could hit $150 this summer, according to Jeffrey Gundlach. That price may not be sustained, he said, “but the path of least resistance for oil prices is up.”

Most everyone knows that Bitcoin had a stellar two years when the pandemic broke out. But just about all of the coin’s gains since then have happened while US markets are closed.

What do you tell clients who suddenly find themselves receiving a large financial windfall?

Bitcoin rebounded after slumping along with stocks on Thursday, meeting resistance at the $30,000 level around which it’s been trading for the past month.

One of the most difficult challenges in finance is how to price crypto assets. Bonds pay interest. Stocks pay dividends. What exactly do crypto assets pay?

Thanks to the spectacular demise of TerraUSD, a cryptocurrency that promised to be always worth a dollar but was suddenly worth a lot less, the world is better acquainted with the term “stablecoin” — and aware of how unstable they can be.

Investors in Bitcoin and other digital assets have been pummeled recently by the longest losing streak since 2011.

Despite the massive selloff in equities this year and persistently high inflation, Dawn Fitzpatrick isn’t worried about a recession in the immediate future.

How can you put the “know, like, trust” element of relationship marketing to work for your business at scale?

The executive order signed by President Biden in March is clearly the first of several steps that will bring the IRS and regulators closer to your crypto wallet.

Cryptocurrencies are the exact opposite of a prudent investment: They’re volatile, have little practical use beyond speculation and crime, often get lost or stolen, and lack the real-world cash flows that underpin the values of stocks and bonds.

Bitcoin, which trades 24/7, has largely tended to move higher on weekends, and the coin hasn’t been posting any abnormal moves between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, which are the stock market’s US operating hours during the week.

Wall Street lenders are calling on the US government to hold off on launching a digital dollar, arguing that a virtual currency backed by the Federal Reserve risks draining hundreds of billions of dollars out of the banking system.

The following is a hypothetical and fictional account of how big tech can disrupt the wealth management industry. A back-to-client focus is discussed. reminiscent of how Apple’s Mac OS empowered users and supplanted predecessor operating systems.

So here we are: When investors aren't worried about inflation, they're worrying about recession. Tech companies are announcing hiring freezes and job cuts in growing numbers. Homebuilders are starting to talk about slowing demand and the supply of existing homes is rising. Walmart reported this week that it has excess inventories.

Bitcoin is nursing a 21% loss so far in May -- the worst monthly slump in a year -- following last week’s crypto sector turmoil over the collapse of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin, also known by its ticker UST, and Tether’s brief dip from its dollar peg.

Plan for long-term Inflation that will be fought aggressively by the Fed, higher policy rates, and slower economic growth, according to Raghuram Rajan.

It’s been a brutal stretch for retail traders. Stocks are approaching a bear market. A selloff wiped $200 billion off cryptocurrencies in a single day. And Morgan Stanley found that amateur investors who jumped into the market when lockdowns began in 2020 have lost all their gains.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in ephemeral wealth evaporated as the price of Bitcoin plunged to its lowest point since 2020, down more than 50% in about six months. The exchange Coinbase dropped to about a fifth of last year’s initial public offering price.

In 1995, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin asserted that a strong dollar is in the US national interest, a mantra repeated by each of his successors. They’re partially correct since the effects of the robust buck, which has soared this year, help some while harming others.

As markets slumped in unison on Thursday, traders pointed to the chaos in crypto as a focal point of their concern. Strategists are increasingly worried that small traders, already nursing losses from the meme stock craze, will be wiped out on their crypto holdings and sell everything else.

For all the benefits of the democratization of finance that gave the masses access to the markets on the cheap, the unavoidable downside is that it is impossible to ignore the market’s flailings any more. In olden times, you had to use a “telephone” to speak with a “human” broker to check on your portfolio, if you weren’t willing to wait for the “postal service” to deliver your monthly or quarterly statement.

Stock markets continued to sink following last week’s recession worries, fueled by the Federal Reserve’s rate decision and the threat to global growth from China’s continued Covid lockdowns. The fear could be seen across asset classes, as traders offloaded equities and other risk assets in favor of cash.

If you’ve been paying attention to prices of gold and gold mining stocks the last few weeks, you probably noticed that they go up when the stock market goes up, and they go down when the stock market goes down, limiting the usefulness of gold as a hedge. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

Does conducting your firm’s internal annual review have to cause annual stress, work overload, and a headache?

LinkedIn statistics show that members who include a professional photo receive 21x more profile views and up to 36x more messages.

You will wear a therapist hat on top of your wealth manager cap.

Warren Buffett has simple advice for investors as they stare down the worst inflation in decades: Invest in your own skills.

Here is the just released our 2022 T3/Inside Information Software Survey. It ranks, by market share, the leading software solutions in advisory-firm tech stacks in 35 different categories.