Happy Friday, it’s almost five o’clock. Hang in there. This week we have a lot to talk about, but first, I have to say time flies. With my daughter in college and a son almost there, I feel a little older. A client friend told me about a conversation he had on a milestone birthday. “Dad, I can’t believe I’m 65,” he said. “How do you think I feel?” His dad responded, “I have a son on social security.” Aren’t we always in our mid-thirties mentally? Time flies. (If you want it to slow down, try not drinking for a month, go on a diet, or go jogging.) When I was fresh out of Babson … [Read more...]
Archives for February 2021
Progressives Favor Monarchy over Democracy
Progressives in the Democratic Party are a reckless bunch, but their latest scheme to steal more from you and give it to their voters is truly idiotic. There’s no nicer way to put it. Earlier this week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer paraded out the most liberal group in his party and demanded the President forgive up to the $50,000 in student loan debt. Apparently, Schumer and Sen. Liz Warren have studied the issue and believe the President has the authority to single-handedly cancel student loan debt. Who knew Warren and Schumer favored monarchy over democracy? They want King … [Read more...]
Massive Cryptocurrency Hedge Fund Fraud
Joel Rosenblatt and Chris Dolmetsch report for Bloomberg on the case of Stefan He Qin, a cryptocurrency hedge fund founder who has admitted to $100 million in fraud. They write: The 24-year-old founder of Virgil Capital, which ran two cryptocurrency hedge funds, admitted to duping investors out of almost $100 million and using the money to support a lavish lifestyle. Stefan He Qin pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in New York and faces as much as 20 years in prison at his sentencing in May. Prosecutors said the Australian national stole investor money from Virgil Sigma Fund LP, a … [Read more...]
GameStop Helps Explain Robinhood’s Free Stock Trades
As I explained to you yesterday in Money 101: There’s a Reason Family Always Comes 1st, when something is free, you’re probably the product being sold. Sold to whom? Well, in the case of GameStop, for example, Robinhood sold high-speed traders customer order flow as reported in the WSJ back in December: Robinhood Financial LLC has agreed to pay $65 million to settle regulatory claims that it didn’t sufficiently disclose its business deals with high-speed trading firms, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday. The fine is a setback for the fast-growing company, which has helped … [Read more...]
Senate Tees Up Antitrust Legislation to Take on Big Tech
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is preparing a push for new antitrust legislation to take on Big Tech. Some scrutiny of Big Tech is needed, and antitrust seems like one of the better alternatives, but the left's instinct could be to go too far. Klobuchar and the President should try to attract Republican support on what should be an easy bipartisan win. Ryan Tracy reports for The Wall Street Journal: Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), the incoming head of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, will propose broad changes to U.S. antitrust laws Thursday as the newly Democratic-led Congress begins to press … [Read more...]
Money 101: There’s a Reason Family Always Comes 1st
Are you aligned with a money gathering business, or are you aligned with a money manager? The money-gathering business is all about bigness. They tell you all about how big they are when all you care about is, “how are you going to help me?” Welcome to the world where being big—whether it’s big tech or big money—makes you just a cog in the wheel. Where, for example, you sign up for Facebook or use Google for “free” and come to realize, “anything that’s free means I’m the product.” They’re selling you out. It’s no different from when money guys look to upsell you down the river. Look at the … [Read more...]
Mark Cuban’s Best and Worst Investment Advice
In a Q&A session on Reddit, Mark Cuban provided what may be his best investment advice and his worst in the same session. Mark Cuban’s Worst Investment Advice Speaking of GameStop Cuban said, "If you can afford to hold the stock, you hold. I don’t own it, but that’s what I would do,” Cuban wrote. The billionaire investor added that he has no doubt there are funds and big players who have shorted GameStop again, thinking they are smarter than everyone on WallStreetBets." If your investment thesis is to squeeze shorts to drive the shares to a price that is so far removed from any … [Read more...]
Your Retirement Planning Can Feel Like Catching an Airplane
Retirement planning is a lot like catching an airplane. You rush to get there then sit around and wait. When it comes to retirement planning there’s a rush to get there, to retirement. Your finances are all you think about. Do I have enough to retire? Should I work another couple of years? But then something funny happens. You find yourself retired. You do what you want to do and there’s not a whole lot of thinking about planning. Here’s a reminder to always stay focused on your savings. Action Line: Open an account with Fidelity and check that box for your financial security. Fidelity: … [Read more...]
This Is One of Tesla’s Largest Ever Safety Recalls
Tesla is about to undertake one of its largest-ever safety recalls. Rebecca Elliott reports for The Wall Street Journal: Tesla Inc. TSLA +4.77% is recalling roughly 135,000 Model S luxury sedans and Model X sport-utility vehicles over touch-screen failures, one of the electric-car maker’s largest-ever safety actions. The move comes after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requested a recall last month, saying the touch screen in some models can fail when a memory chip runs out of storage capacity, affecting functions such as defrosting, turn-signal functionality and driver … [Read more...]
Could Chevron and Exxon Merge?
Apparently, there was a discussion last year between the CEOs of Chevon and Exxon about merging the two massive oil companies. The WSJ reports: The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM +1.57% and Chevron Corp. CVX +0.76% spoke about combining the oil giants after the pandemic shook the world last year, according to people familiar with the talks, testing the waters for what could be one of the largest corporate mergers ever. Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth and Exxon CEO Darren Woods discussed a merger following the outbreak of the new coronavirus, which decimated oil and gas demand … [Read more...]