The last few days have been buzzing in the financial market.

Gamestop. AMC. Short squeeze.

Those words have trended on social media in the last few days. Here’s what's been going down.

THREAD

Gamestock, a video retailer, has had its share price go sky high in the last few days.

Why is this so?

There has been a tug of war between two parties.

Large companies known as hedge funds versus retail investors led by wallstreetbets, a group on Reddit.

The hedge funds and a few other players in the market had shorted the stock.

Shorting, in essence, is a bet that the price of a stock will dip.

So, you borrow the stock, sell it, buy it back at a lower price and then return it to the lender.

The hedge funds decided to short the stock because it has poor fundamentals.

It struggled for a while.

So you would expect the price to dip, right?

A small band of investors on Reddit wallstreetbet, however, were furious by this.

So, they decided to buy up the stock, which pushed the price high.

We all know no-one should profit from antisemitic hate speech right? Well, tell that to the @JewishChron.

In their media pack they advertise that they've run (at least) one event with Nigel Farage as a speaker. The JC is using their connection with an antisemite to make money.

Important bits first. The media pack has a 2020 calendar so it is probably just over a year old. Which means, all of our examples below bar one had been published when they tried to make money from an event with Nigel Farage. They knew what he had said and didn’t care.

You want one example? Here you go. The JC knew and even called him out on it. So why does their press pack, probably made just months after this and made to get people to advertise with them, show off their link to him?

What kind of advertisers do they want??

For anyone skim reading, let us make this very clear, using words from the Campaign Against Antisemitism. @antisemitism.

Ok, so now the attention-grabbing bits are done, lets dig deeper.

Is Nigel actually an antisemite, Geoffrey hears someone ask in terribly bad faith. Well, lets explore his history of antisemitism through the JC’s own articles!

I sense a few double standards present in the debate over Bidens’ historic Child Tax Credit proposal that would cut the child poverty rate by more than 40%.

My focus here is on a perhaps less obvious one but I think relevant: trust fund kids & the tax treatment of inheritances

Since the mid-1990s, as I’ll walk through, reducing the taxation of large inheritances has been a top, if not the top, tax policy priority of conservatives and Republicans.

In parallel, as I’ll also walk through, there has been a steady stream of research concluding that large inheritances reduce the work effort of wealthy heirs

Unless I’ve missed it, I’ve not sensed the type of concern about the work effects on wealthy heirs among conservative proponents of large tax-free inheritances, which we now see among some conservatives and Republican lawmakers around poor people and a larger Child Tax Credit

In 1997, as part of an agreement with Clinton, who secured wins to make health care more affordable for poor children and college tax credits, Gingrich won “reductions in capital gains and estate taxes that had been principal goals for the GOP.”

BTC has likely created more millionaires (10,000+?) and deca millionaires (1,000+?) than any company or startup in history. these are individual “retail” investors realizing these returns, not institutions, which may drive the Rise of Retail...

1) retail interest in speculative (high-risk/high-reward) investments will continue to sky rocket. BTC’s meteoric USD-denominated value climb sets a new benchmark. everyone is already chasing the next dragon.

2) more speculative public equity is being purchased by retail investors who are increasingly becoming key driver of public offering events (through SPACs, direct listings, and IPOs syndicated to retail investors. instead of a handful of “strong” institutional investors).

3) banks, exchanges, funds that make it easier for retail to participate in public offerings will benefit. imagine an online-only brokerage as the sole book runner on an IPO, syndicating only to their retail accounts. if it worked, every IPO may soon follow.

4) many of these speculative public companies will likely fail to perform over time, but all it takes is a handful delivering 10-100x returns to keep interest strong. the likely reaction will be diversification, which will further drive demand.

(1/14) The World Bank’s 2017 report titled ‘Precarious Drop’ pointed out how nearly 20 million Indian women were ‘missing’ from the workforce during 2004-2012.

(2/14) While media reports and headlines might have put the onus on women themselves, it is hard to ignore that there are many challenges that hinder women from rejoining the workforce post a career-break taken for several reasons, including childbirth.

(3/14) Out of those who manage to rejoin the workforce, many women eventually drop out in less than 6 months. This was due to “lack of awareness about inclusivity” in corporate offices in the ’90s, points out Dr Saundarya, someone who chose to be the solution to this problem.

(4/14) Having experienced all the challenges of a returning female professional, she founded Avtar in 2000, as a diversity and inclusion platform that helps women get a second shot at building their careers.

(5/14) And, recently, in November 2020, she expanded her focus through MyAvtar — a job portal for people from marginalised backgrounds, to include the LGBTQ+ community as well.

What is the difference between financial econometrics, econometrics and quantitative finance?
@GARP_Risk @CQFInstitute @SOActuaries

Financial Econometrics basically utilizes Financial Market Data to build mathematical and statistical financial models and later analyze the statistical significance and make predictions.

It is generally used by risk managers and economists to predict(forecast) and study the return market characteristics. GARCH models and other Time Series Models are used to study the pattern of Return Volatility Clusters, Tail Dependence Events, Covariances,

Heavy Tails Phenomenon, Serial Correlations, Mean Reversions, Random Walks, White Noise Disturbances, Risk Migrations, Contingent Claim Volatility Smiles, Probability of Defaults, Credit Rating Matrix Volatility, Value at Risk, Deviations from Normality and other prices of assets

Model Validation, Cross-Validation and Selection are also topics of interest that fall within the domain of Financial Econometrics. It is a field which is more dependent on Time Series (inter-temporal) Analysis using data spread over a lookback period.

1/11) Introducing https://t.co/dDuU0rsw1Y.

We are building a new #DeFi asset management protocol.

Ccommunity owned and community managed funds.

DeFi meets Wall Street Bets.

It's time to decentralize and democratize investment

https://t.co/exErPi5VRn

TLDR 👇

2/11)

The investment landscape has changed forever.

We are finally at zero interest rates. End of the road.

Traditional asset classes like bonds or equities don't have risk/adjusted positive outlooks anymore.

Inflation looms 💸💸

What can we do about it?

3/11

As @RaoulGMI says, only one asset class has outperformed this increase in the money supply.

#Bitcoin, and crypto assets are just getting started.

Asset Management TAM is > $100T while DeFi is just $40B and all crypto is ~$1T.

Huge opportunity ahead 🚀🚀

4/11

We want to give everyone access to this one-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Accreditation rules, access to secret deals and local jurisdiction have kept the best opportunities private.

@balajis said many times that Web 3.0 is going to turn the world into investors. We agree.

5/11
We need to give everyone a chance to participate.

Robinhood has made everyone aware of the risk of centralized platforms.

If you are not paying to use a platform, you are the product.

Thanks to #Ethereum and #DeFi, we can offer asset management that is trustless and open.

1/ Still lots of questions about #RaastBySBP and how it's different from current online transfer mechanisms. People keep insisting it's the same as current digital payment switches, but it's NOT in a huge way! Read on and share so there is clarity...

2/ #RaastbySBP is not an app or a consumer product of any sort. It is the backend infrastructure or plumbing that is connected to EVERYONE (Banks, Fintechs, EMIs, etc) that allows for service providers to build consumer or business service on top of it.

3/ @StateBank_Pak in collaboration w @KarandaazPK is implementing the first few of those services (called use cases) by using RAAST platform to connect government departments to individuals it needs to make payments to. Bulk CDC payments of dividends to shareholders is the first.

4/ Bulk BISP payments to women will follow and then more use cases will be built by private sector to enable P2P payments, Business to Consumer payments and Consumer to Business payments. That capability built into Raast will enable what was previously not possible.

5/ Let me explain by example. Raast allows payments like the following:
From: Khurram@UBL
To: Fee@Aitchison
Amount: Rs 40,000
Roll Number: 12345
Bill Number: 67890
Date/Time: Monday, 14 Jan, 2021

I am just dumbing it down, the actual APIs will be different & allow more context.

#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.

Anyone have any opinions on how self-insured employers consider innovative healthcare offerings to pass on to their employees?

As I understand it, by shouldering the financial risk, self-insured employers can curate a list of more relevant benefits ... (1/10)

... thereby avoiding paying out lofty insurance premiums for services that its employees don't use or want. There seems to be a long list of intangible benefits having to do with talent acquisition and retention, but I'd like to understand the cost equations more fully. (2/10)

In the context of multi-cancer screening, I'm skeptical that it could be cost-saving for small or medium-sized employers (<500 employees). Assuming a representative sample of the population, there are simply too few cancers and too many false positives w/ expensive ... (3/10)

... diagnostic follow-ups to bend the unit-economics in the right direction. Indeed, for larger self-insured employers, maybe on the order of thousands of employees, the dynamics may change. Each true positive is a chance to save on treatment cost and (possibly) to ... (4/10)

... extend life. However, employers won't likely be able to distinguish between true life-extension and lead-time bias without prospective, randomized studies, which are due out in the 2024-25 timeframe. Still, these likely will include interim endpoints only. (5/10)

An extensive yet super simple thread to understand the role of @RBI and how it uses 'Repo Rate' and 'Reverse Repo Rate' 👇🧵

You may bookmark this for further use.

#economy #RBI #financialliteracy

1. Let us first understand the role of Reserve Bank of India in managing the Indian economy.
There are two major elements of the Indian economy.

👉The Businesses:
They are the producers of the goods and services. Any business would be happy if it is growing and the prices of the goods and services sold are ever rising. They would be more interested in ‘Economic growth’.

👉 The Households: These are the people who are consumers and they spend the money to buy the goods and services which are sold by the businesses. Any consumer would be happy if the prices of the goods and services are low. Hence, they would be interested in ‘Less Inflation’.

2. As the prices of goods and services rise, there will be economic growth in nominal sense but then there will also be inflation which is perceived as a problem in developing countries like India.

The Review: GW 21 - A thread

Hi everyone, welcome to the latest edition of “The Review” where I reflect on the happenings of GW 21 with a look ahead to GW 22:

#FPL #FPLCommunity @OfficialFPL

(Data taken from @FFScout and @FFH_HQ with consent)

I’d like to share that the Fantasy5 had another winner and have now paid out £20k within 5 days! It’s free to enter, a lot of fun and potentially very rewarding. All you have to do is to pick 5 players who you think will beat their predicted

At this point, I’d also like to mention that I post about FPL on my Instagram too, so if you have an Instagram account, follow up here!

Q: In this section, I analyze the impact of Harry Kane’s loss on Spurs attack.

I know the sample size is small but what’s worth noting is that Spurs have created just ∼0.48 xG in the 130 minutes of football played since Harry Kane has been injured. The eye test seems...

... to back this up – Spurs look lethargic and out of ideas and hence it is no surprise that they haven’t created a single big chance since Kane’s injury. Son was playing more centrally and was Spurs’ most advanced player on the field v Brighton...

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.

On November 25th, Jack Dick-weed sold TWTR options for $4.8M

1/11
The House of Reps approving $2000 relief checks rather than $600 dollars. That’s a big deal. $2000 checks could ease the pain just long enough for millions of Americans to remember this is the good our government can do in moments like these. #velshi

2/11
The bipartisan bill was met by Mitch McConnell at the front door of the senate with the words "The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats' rich friends who don't need the help.” #velshi

3/11
The bipartisan bill for $2,000 checks was met by Mitch McConnell at the front door of the senate with the words, "The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of Democrats' rich friends who don't need the help.” #velshi

4/11
What is, indeed, “rich” is Mitch McConnell - estimated to be around the 9th wealthiest person in congress - and who makes $193,000/yr, talking about people’s “rich friends”.
#velshi

5/11
If you add $2,000 to the $1,200 checks that went out in March, that’s $3200 over 9 months. $11.85/day. Nobody’s getting rich off of that. #velshi

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:

Everything You Need To Know about Emergency Funds

A Thread 🧵👇

1/ Let’s understand the meaning of Emergency Fund, it is a fund that will help you at the time of financial crisis or unplanned scenarios. It is also known as contingency funds.

An Emergency Fund is the first step towards financial freedom.

2/ For example, when the Covid-19 hits many people lose their jobs which results in loss of financial support and people find difficulties buying basic necessities for themselves. So, having emergency funds helps you to sustain the period.

3/ Now the question arises, how to build an Emergency Fund?

An emergency fund cannot be built overnight but it can be done gradually. Firstly, you need to analyse your monthly expenses and then, you need to set aside a particular amount every month.

4/ Say, you have decided to have an emergency fund of ₹3 lakhs. In this case, you can set aside ₹45000 or ₹50000 every month to accumulate the corpus you need. It is fine to even cut down on your investments to build this amount.

21 Financial Resolutions for 2021 (and 20 Things We are Leaving in 2020):

21 resolutions for 2021

Spend less than you make, period

Work with an advisor to get a formal financial plan

Own the world: diversify within and between asset classes

Splurge, but only infrequently to maximize happiness

Read at least one book per month

Invest in your mind and skillset

Spend money in ways that increase happiness: charitable giving and time with loved ones

Automate every part of your financial life

Teach someone else about the power of saving and investing

Learn to savor and appreciate what you already have

Save at least 1% more than you did last year

Check out your credit report

Declutter: get rid of everything you don’t use or love

Make a (realistic) budget

Track your net worth

Make one extra mortgage payment

Create a “vision board” with your three top financial goals

Make bite-sized financial goals with rewards for completion

Choose experiences over stuff

Rebalance at least yearly

Have fun and buy things that matter to you - you can’t take any of your money with you!