Investment/Trends

The Deadly Origins of the Next Disruptive Technology

"So what does the e-cig market look like? It’s certainly changed in the past year. In April 2012, one of the big cigarette companies threw its hat in the ring. This was Lorillard, maker of Newport and other cigarette brands. They spent $135 million on the purchase of blu e-cigarettes. They’ve seen a lot of success with the brand. Sales have grown from $8 million in in the second quarter of 2012 to $57 million in the second quarter 2013. This is a gain of more than 600%. Lorillard claims they hold around 40% of the total e-cig market share. With big players acquiring companies, it is clear to me that e-cigs are not a fad. They are the real deal. And as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats." Continue reading →

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Cyprus-Style Wealth Confiscation Starting To Happen All Over The Globe

"Private pension funds were just raided by the government in Poland, and a 'bail-in' is being organized for one of the largest banks in Italy. Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. The precedent that was set in Cyprus is being used as a template for establishing bail-in procedures in New Zealand, Canada and all over Europe. It is only a matter of time before we see this exact same type of thing happen in the U.S. as well. From now on, anyone that keeps a large amount of money in any single bank account or retirement fund is being incredibly foolish. Let's take a look at a few of the examples of how Cyprus-style wealth confiscation is now moving forward all over the globe." Continue reading →

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A Tale of Two Giants: The Elephant and the Dragon

"China and India are developing countries with vast growth potential. However, amid a liquidity boom, they over-marketed their potential, and nurtured and enjoyed a bubble ride. Their governments felt lucky and hoped that they could grow out of all their problems. Of course, bubbles cover up problems for a time and make them bigger after. As the global liquidity boom unwinds, investors need a better story to stay in emerging markets. Too much money around was good enough before. Now China and India need to convince investors that they can revive growth without a global liquidity boom." Continue reading →

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Jim Rogers: China investment opportunities today

"Environmental: 'China is horribly polluted…they are spending staggering amounts of money trying to clean up the pollution.' 'For the next 20 or 30 years, huge amounts of money are going to be spent, and therefore, profits made…somebody’s going to make a lot of money cleaning it up.' Agriculture: 'The Chinese government is spending staggering amounts of money on agriculture. Mao Tse-tung ruined Chinese agriculture, and they know it.' Tourism: 'They've not been able to travel for a few hundred years. Now they can get passports very easily…now they can take money out of the country very easily. One billion three hundred million Chinese! Great opportunities in Chinese tourism.'" Continue reading →

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Dwolla CEO Ben Milne: Why charge 25 cents for an $11 million transaction

"Dwolla got its start from a simple idea: that credit card fees are too expensive for merchants and consumers. CEO and cofounder Ben Milne took his frustration really far, building an entirely new payment network to get around credit cards and PayPal. Rather than charge a percentage, Dwolla is free for transactions under $10 and just 25 cents for anything over that amount. Over a billion dollars has changed hands through Dwolla in 2013 alone, and the company has the backing of top investors including Union Square Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. Plus, why it's keeping its headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa." Continue reading →

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Jeffrey Tucker: Fun and Fascinating Bitcoin

"The emerging cryptographic monetary standard entirely bypasses the age of fiat money and the age of central banking. It takes money out of the realm of public policy and central planning and places it in the hands of the people actually using it. Of all the features of Bitcoin, this one is perhaps the most beautiful. It has emerged from within the social order and was not imposed from above. How long will it take before the full implications reveal themselves? It took email some 20 years to go from obscure to common. Digital phone technology needed about the same swath of time. Bitcoin, however, could be different. Information travels farther and faster than ever before." Continue reading →

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Once again the Winklevoss twins get beaten to launching their big idea

"Mark Zuckerberg beat the twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to the punch in launching Facebook. Now someone else seems to be stealing a march on their plan to launch an investment scheme for bitcoin. The Winklevii’s scheme, unlike SecondMarket’s, is for a public ETF traded on a major exchange open to retail investors. But the SEC may not approve it any time soon because it has yet to work out oodles of legal questions about the cryptocurrency. At a conference last week, the brothers were vague, telling attendees that regulators could set parameters on bitcoin 'over the next 6 to 12 months.'" Continue reading →

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Fund to Let Investors Bet on Price of Bitcoins

"The upstart stock exchange SecondMarket has made a name for itself allowing investors to buy shares of hot private companies like Twitter. Now that those companies are going public, SecondMarket is turning its attention to the next new thing — bitcoin. On Thursday, SecondMarket is expected to begin raising money for an investment fund — the first of its kind in the United States — that will hold only bitcoins, giving wealthy investors exposure to the trendy but controversial virtual currency. The fund, the Bitcoin Investment Trust, aims to provide a reliable and easy way to bet on the future price of bitcoin, a currency generally traded on unregulated, online exchanges based overseas." Continue reading →

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Media Seeks Answers To General Solicitation

"The SEC, on the same day it issued the final rules on general solicitation that become effective September 23, issued proposed rules that would substantially complicate the general solicitation process. We don’t know when and if the proposed rules will go into effect, but if they are adopted in the form in which they were proposed, they will substantially change the landscape in an unfavorable way for companies that want to generally solicit. In other words, the proposed rules are a take away, a retrenching of the statutory work that Congress did in the JOBS Act." Continue reading →

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Accredited investor – U.S. criteria – Wikipedia

"The federal securities laws define the term accredited investor in Rule 501 of Regulation D and as amended by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act as: [..] a natural person who has individual net worth, or joint net worth with the person's spouse, that exceeds $1 million at the time of the purchase, or has assets under management of $1 million or above, excluding the value of their primary residence; a natural person with income exceeding $200,000 in each of the two most recent years or joint income with a spouse exceeding $300,000 for those years and a reasonable expectation of the same income level in the current year; or [..]" Continue reading →

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