Short thread on how DfE sneaked out a £250 million cut to school budgets in the middle of a pandemic and how it will impact the poorest and most vulnerable pupils

No publicity, no great public announcement as @educationgovuk cut £1/4 billion from its Pupil Premium budget

Pupil Premium (PP) is extra funding to help disadvantaged children & those living in poverty, it’s funding to help with levelling up & social mobility

Schools receive extra money for pupils claiming free school meals, it’s currently £935 for secondary & £1320 for primary

The funding was calculated based on the second annual school census which is in January, the first census being early October

This gives schools time to encourage FSM registration & check everything before the dataset is used

As of last Januarys census there were 1.44 million pupils registered to receive Free school meals

Then we had COVID

Despite the government’s furlough scheme & other support, we saw a huge increases in job insecurity and a rise in numbers claiming Universal credit

By October the number of pupils claiming free school meals had risen to over 1.6million

That’s an extra 200,000 pupils below the UC threshold & entitled to FSM

It seems highly likely the numbers continued to rise, especially with a 2 month lag between UC claims & eligibility

The British Railway Mania

How a disruptive technology created the biggest speculative bubble in the history of England

/THREAD/

1/ Railways were the most disruptive technology of the 19th century, known as the "railway age", transforming England from an agricultural to an industrialized nation.

2/ The development of railway infrastructure and locomotives started at the end of the 18th century but experienced immense growth after 1830.

3/ Hundreds of railway related bills were passed every year with proposed rails totaling 10,000 miles, a third of which was never built due to poor financial planning, competition, or fraud.

4/ In the mid-1840s, the Bank of England cut interest rates rendering government bonds unattractive, and investors more willing to rush in the railway investments.

A simple thread to understand relationship between US Dollar and Emerging Markets.

The relationship between the performance of Emerging Market stocks and the US Dollar is one of the tightest macro relationships that exists in investing.

1/15

The weekly return correlation between US Dollar and MSCI Emerging Market Index is -0.70 over last 10 years. Which means when US Dollar weakens, Emerging Market stocks rally and vice versa.

2/15

As seen in this chart, the MSCI EM Index and the MSCI World Index ratio and the US Dollar Index are negatively-correlated.

When US Dollar weakens, EM index outperform World Index and when US Dollar strengthens EM index underperform World index.

3/15

From 1995 to 2000, the USD appreciated over 30%, while the MSCI EM Index underperformed the MSCI World Index by over 15% annualised.

Then from 2001 to 2010, the U.S. dollar depreciated over 18% while the MSCI EM Index outperformed the MSCI World Index by 14% annualised.

4/15

Then from 2011 to 2020, the U.S. dollar appreciated over 30%, while the MSCI EM Index underperformed the MSCI World Index by 7% annualized.

Overall, from 1995 to 2020, this relationship has a correlation of -0.35.

5/15

The Great Reset is a massively funded, desperately ambitious, internationally coordinated project led by some of the biggest multinational corporations and financial institutions on the planet.

Devised and put in motion by 0.0001% of people, who honestly believe this world and society need somekind of reset. You might also be wondering what are we resetting from/to as this new firmware is desperately trying to upload itself by another tsunami of mainstreamed propaganda.

One of the most obvious reasons for pushed reset is the infinite expansion economic model reaching its limits and going bust, a fact admitted even by themselves.

However, the super wealthy apparently want to continue staying super wealthy and have no intention of abandoning their position at the top of the world.

Nature’s resources found on Earth are definitely limited in their absolute quantity thus excluding an idea of infinite extraction and wealth accumulation. But this is not their understanding of limited resources, you see.

10 Biggest Bank Robberies of All Time

Thieves made off with billions in these daring, historic heists.

A THREAD

10. The Dunbar Armored robbery

Stolen: $18.9 million

In 1997,6 men pulled off what remains the biggest cash heist in the history of the United States. The leader was Allen Pace, who turned out to be the worst "safety inspector" the Dunbar Armored trucking company ever employed.

Pace timed the security cameras at the Dunbar facility in Los Angeles so he could avoid them, and recruited five childhood friends to help him rob the vault. They broke in, assaulted two guards on their lunch breaks and loaded $18.9 million dollars into a U-Haul.

They almost got away with it — except one robber got sloppy and lent some of the stolen cash to a friend without removing the original cash straps.

9. The United California bank heist

Stolen: $30 million

In 1972, Amil Dinsio, a professional criminal from Ohio, assembled a gang of six robbers and flew them to California. They rented a town house and planned a heist on a bank where they had (mistakenly) heard President

Do you keep your gold assets in bank locker? You are probably paying some fees every year for your lockers.

Instead, what if you could get a locker for free?

What if I said banks would pay you to keep your gold assets safe?

Time for a thread. 👇👇👇

1/ The major issue with having gold in bank lockers is

- You pay hefty fees on an annual basis to the bank.
- The lockers aren't insured
- There's no real safety/security in case of theft or an unfortunate event.

Is there a work around?

Yes.

Enter "Gold Monetisation Scheme".

2/ GOI introduced the Gold Monetisation Scheme in 2015. The main objective was to cut down India's gold imports.

How it works:

You deposit your gold in bank.
They keep it safe for a fixed number of years.
You get it back as physical gold or cash on maturity.

3/ What should you do to be eligible?

You should take the gold you want to deposit to a Collection and Purity Testing Centre (CPTC). GOI has established over 300 CPTC's across India.

They will take your gold, evaluate its purity, and provide a receipt for the gold quantity.

4/ You take the receipt to your bank.

Create a gold monetisation scheme account in your bank.

Give them the receipt provided by PTC.

Your bank will then convert that receipt to a scheme certificate as part of your GMS account.

NESARA is the most ground breaking reformation to sweep not only the United States of America but the whole planet (thus GESARA) in its entire history. The act does away with the Federal Reserve Bank, the IRS, the shadow government, and much more.

You see so many people on Twitter saying

"Infosys ADR is up 5% today."

"ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank ADR ended highly positive today. Good move coming up for Banknifty."

Have you ever wondered what is ADR? You're not alone.

Time for a thread. 👇👇👇

1/ Back in the early 1900s, people were buying shares in foreign countries in the respective country's exchanges (many still do).

There are few issues with that:

- Complexity of the purchase
- Currency conversion issues
- Difficulty in transactions

and so on.

2/ JP Morgan saw this, and thought

"what if people could trade foreign companies

- in our country
- in our currency
- but without the companies having to list themselves here?"

ADR was born.

3/ ADR stands for American Depository Receipts.

It's like a share certificate, issued by a U.S depository bank (like CDSL here), but on a foreign company.

Usually one ADR unit represents one share of the foreign company.

4/ Here's how it works.

The depository bank buys the foreign company shares in the foreign exchange.

This depository bank holds the purchased shares as inventory.

It issues respective ADR for domestic trading.

The ADR is issued & traded in US Dollars.

THREAD AWS $AMZN
AMZN has 15Xed in 6 years (~$60bn->~$1tr). Along the way there have been many investor concerns, which have in hindsight been "can't see the forest for the trees" nitpicks: 1) AWS not profitable; 2) AWS price cuts; 3) Depr acctg; 4) Too much start up exposure.

First to establish valuation. I don’t think it is controversial to say that AWS is worth ~$1tr+ today annualizing nearly $50bn in revs this past Q, ~35% GAAP Op Margins growing ~30% in COVID times. In 2021, AWS will likely put up around ~$58BN in revenue (MSe).

While IaaS is not SaaS, applying even the lower end of Software universe multiples to this level of growth (not to mention profitability or any analysis of how great the business is) would get you to a $1trillion value: 16X EV/Sales ~$60bn in revs ~= $1tr.

And AWS is a lot more profitable than most software companies (today). On a P/E basis, this equates to ~60X 2021 GAAP EPS (assumes 20% Tax rate).
 
Looking back on it, it is funny to think about a few of the past AWS bear cases/worries:

1) AWS not profitable
AMZN first disclosed AWS financials on the 1Q15 print. Before AMZN disclosed AWS revs/EBIT, the consensus was the MORE unprofitable AWS was, the better it was for AMZN’s stock because it meant the retail business was even more profitable than people thought.

Our Targeted Income Grant Scheme (TIGS) offers desperately needed support to millions of business people who have been frozen out of Covid support, but … /

…it represents a beginning not an end. It’s an important first step in the right direction, but by no means delivers parity for those who find themselves unfairly excluded from help in these difficult times.

We will continue to fight for justice for all those who have fallen through the gaps.

A one-off TIGS grant will offer some groups desperately-needed help in the short-term, and allow the Treasury a little time to examine additional proposals in more detail /

If adopted by government, TIGS would be a huge step forward. But people are excluded from help for countless reasons, and we are happy to aid the Treasury in identifying solutions that reach everyone who needs support /

Want to know why Bill Gates has acquired 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S.? That's more than anyone.

Let's explore the aspects of the End Game plan.
Agenda 21

A

It's a beautiful Saturday on this Corona riddled planet. It's a good day to do the following:

1. Open your account statement and find out how much commissions you are paying. You'd be paying anywhere between 0.7% to 1.3% extra over direct plans.

1.5 You can download your statement on CAMS, KARVY, NSDL etc.

2. If you are one of those Robinhood Traders and you started mistakenly investing in mutual funds instead of trading mutual funds, commissions can kill you! A simple 1% difference in commissions can add over 10-15 years. This comparison has been done to death but once more.

3. Figure of if whoever sold you these things, be if your advisor or distributor are providing value equal those commissions or not. This is an incredibly hard thing to figure. You need to do deep research, understand money yourself and then ask your advisor/distributors

3.5 This is an incredibly hard thing to figure. You need to do deep research, understand money yourself and then ask your advisor/distributors the right questions. Beware these guys are prone to bullshitting. So, interrogate them as a cop would a criminal.

#JPM2021 @GenapSys My Highlights: I think it's fair to say I am more excited than most about this #NGS company, as I see them as an example of how to enter the market while keeping a small profile ($249M raised so far).

They now are aiming at 2021 to ship two new chips: 50MM read chip and 144MM sensor chip (not sure what the difference is between read/sensor).

They show a slide of price per Gb with #Illumina products as a reference, and their products now lined up, I think, for the first time with price per Gb info. Lowest will be the 144MM chip at ~$27/Gb.

As their technology is closer to the #IonTorrent than to the cycle-by-cycle SBS-based sequencing methods, they should have microindel errors in their profile. These look much better, almost null, than the S5 data they show in comparison.

The next slide, also about error rates, either for each base as the run progresses or sliced in GC% windows, has a lot of info, but difficult to read. I think the summary is that the @Genapsys profile shows a bit of microindel error but otherwise comparable to 100bp ILMN data.

1) We are short CleanSpark $CLSK. Our full report is now available at

2) CleanSpark $CLSK claims to be a clean energy software company which is "changing the face of energy markets globally." We think CleanSpark has habitually lied about its supposed customers and contracts, many of which we've found simply do not exist.

3) In August, $CLSK claimed "project deployments to be executed as part their exclusive [ILAL] agreement" to install microgrids for 252 homes in Valle Divino, Mexico. We visited Valle Divino and found an empty wasteland, emblematic of CleanSpark's promises to investors.

4) Similarly in January 2020, $CLSK touted a contract with Shoreline Schools, which analysts now estimate could lead to $3M in revenues. We simply asked Shoreline, whose rep told us that the plans contemplate just $300,000 worth of revenue, a mere 10% of these claims.

5) This is nothing new; $CLSK once claimed to have "designed a best in class microgrid solution" for Green Dragon, a cannabis operator. We again reached out to Green Dragon who told us, point blank, that no business was ever done and $CLSK fabricated it. We include those emails.

1/ THREAD: Long ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (IPA- Nasdaq)
$IPA is my largest holding since mid-2020, I haven't sold a share

This thread is just the peak of the iceberg as IPA has made such progress that highlighting all on a thread isn't possible, apologize for lots of omissions

2/ IPA is composed of 2 businesses:

The CRO (Contract Research Organization) and Talem Therapeutics.

Both the CRO and Talem are on fire. The CRO is growing at +50% with GM of 60% and Talem (drug discovery company) has several programs with some about to start Phase 1.

3/ Current Market CAP 315MCAD /250M USD
SO: ~16M
Rev run rate ~20M CAD- Growth 50%
Cash: 16M CAD

4/ Let’s start with the CRO. In the antibodies space, IPA is the ONLY CRO that offers a complete end-to-end service from concept to clinical trials

5/CRO's revenues are growing at 50%, with 60% gross margins (the CRO industry has ~12%margins), IPA has more than 70% of the top 20 pharma as clients, more than 500 total clients, EBITDA positive, $16m in cash and run rate revenues of ~ $20M for this fiscal year

How I Made $10,000 on Twitter in 3 Days.

Thread:

So you want a Twitter-based business?

It's fun.

Profitable.

And not even that hard.

Today we're going to go over the 15 tweets that allowed me to sell my product, Bow & Arrow.

Let's begin:

Let's say you want to launch a product.

Any product:

A community,

A coaching program,

A lead magnet,

A PDF,

A SaaS.

I believe most launches can be done in 15 tweets (2/day).

Let's go over them:

Tweet 1-5: Agitate The Problem

Show people:

-Where they are vs. where they could be
-Numbers showing how they're missing out
-A potential danger that is lurking to get them

Example of #2 (posted last year):

We want people to know that they have a need.

Most people don't know they have the problem you solve.

Make it abundantly clear that you're gonna solve it.

Now, we enter phase 2/3:

I think the reason people are fixated on the $2000 checks is because that's immediate in a way the other stuff in the bill isn't.

Minimum wage increase is great! But I expect employers and states to fight it tooth and nail. Utility assistance sounds great! But we all know the horror stories about how impossible it is to qualify for relief programs.

Most of us have seen direct checks from the IRS come in immediately and be used for stuff the next day. That's fast relief, which is what we need.

If you're working 40 hours at, say, $11 right now, the $15 minimum wage increase won't even show up for a week and when it does that's $160 more per week ($15*40 - $11*40).

That's not nothing! But it's not a RIGHT NOW check for $2000.

Folks need $2000 right now, hell, they need $20,000 right now--10 months of back pay. Maybe that's impossible, but it's not helpful to act like the people who need it don't care about the rest of the bill.

Voting on the first $ZIL governance proposal has just ended. The proposal has passed with a resounding YES, which means that the community has now agreed on the rules for future decision making.

Time to analyze, introspect and see how to make this better next time. A thread 👇

1/ 348 different wallets voted. It may appear to be low given that 25,304 were holding $gZIL before the voting started. But, if you compare with other projects, it is in fact quite high. The last voting on YAM had 4 participants, 177 on YFI, 91 on SUSHI, 30 on UNI and 8 on SNX.

2/ Since 1 $gZIL = 1 vote, the total number of $gZIL used for voting was around 26,694, while the total number of $gZIL captured in the snapshot was 130,481. This translates to around 21% $gZIL being used for voting. The largest voter had 2,479 while the smallest had 0.002 $gZIL.

3/ In order to better understand the voter diversity, we looked at their $gZIL holding. As you can see, only 1% of voters who hold less than 200 $gZILs voted. And generally speaking, it looks like the voting participation was high among those who hold larger number of $gZILs.

4/ As pointed out by @jdune23, one explanation for low participation among users in the smallest $gZIL holding group could be that most of them are staking via Moonlet or Atomic. There was no straightforward way for them to vote.