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asset management

asset management big tech digital transformation Investing roboadvisor

·Nov. 25, 2019

Implications of Schwab’s $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade, and Tesla’s black swan truck

Well this morning started out as a bit of a bummer! See -- Charles Schwab to buy TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion all-stock deal. The $55 billion market cap Schwab is gobbling up the $22 billion TD Ameritrade at a slight premium. Matt Levine of Bloomberg has a great, cynical take on the question: Schwab lowering its trading commissions to zero is actually what wiped out $4 billion off TD's marketcap a few months ago. For Schwab, the revenue loss from trading was 7% of total, while for TD it was over 20%. Once Schwab dropped prices, TD started trading at a discount and became an acquisition target. You can see the share price drops reflected below in the beginning of October.

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asset management Crypto digital securities / STO Investing

·Dec. 17, 2021

Pioneering Crypto ETPs to $3B in assets in 3 years, with 21Shares CEO Hany Rashwan

In this conversation, we chat with Hany Rashwan – the founder of Amun and 21Shares. Hany built the company that put out the first physically backed crypto Exchange Traded Product (ETP). In simpler terms, he created a vehicle for people to buy crypto assets, such as Bitcoin or Ethereum, on the stock market. Alongside Cathie Wood of ARK, 21Shares recently submitted a Bitcoin ETF to the SEC. While he waits for the US to get on board, Hany's products are already offered all over Europe, with more than $3 billion under management.

More specifically, we touch on his early entrepreneurial mindset which lead him to building successful businesses, how currency devaluation in Egypt pushed him to create 21Shares, what an Exchange Traded Product (ETP) is and how it related to Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), the regulatory landscape for crypto-backed ETPs, and so so much more!

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asset management exchanges / cap mkts Investing

·Oct. 1, 2021

Robinhood’s order flow disrupting equities and crypto market structure, with Paul Rowady of Alphacution

In this conversation, we chat with Paul Rowady is the Founder and Director of Research for Alphacution Research Conservatory and a 30-year veteran of proprietary, hedge fund and capital markets research, trading and risk advisory initiatives. Alphacution is a digitally-oriented research and strategic advisory platform focused on modeling and benchmarking the impacts of technology on global financial markets and the businesses of trading, asset management and banking. This data-driven approach allows Alphacution to reverse-engineer the operational dynamics of these market actors to showcase the most vivid and impactful themes among the field of available research providers and platforms.

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asset management

·Oct. 13, 2023

Swift experiments with blockchain but may need a governance shift

Swift released results of new blockchain experiments, but in order to become industry standard for the technology, a shift may be needed.

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asset management Investing IPO / SPAC roboadvisor

·Jun. 1, 2021

The $2.2 billion Acorns SPAC and a $50 billion fintech roll-up strategy for public funds

This week, we cover these ideas:

The Acorns SPAC deal, including its valuation and detailed metrics
The growth levers and obstacles for point-solutions as they scale into the millions of users and hundred of millions of revenues
What a $50 billion fund should do to roll this stuff up

It is looking like a pretty good time to go consolidating individual financial product footprints. Leaving aside whether consolidated companies are good or bad for some particular reason, the simple observation is that there are just far too many point-solution brands out there. Too many to be left alone to operate. And now a number of them are going to be public, which means that a number of them are going to be up for sale.

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asset management covid pandemic fixed income macroeconomics small business

·Mar. 23, 2020

Why $2 trillion is barely enough for the coming unemployment spike, expected 20%+ GDP slow-down, and small business crunch

Another heavy week. It is hard to find the right, or even the interesting, thing to say. I look at why the $2 trillion in US bailouts may not even be enough to stave off the economic damage. In particular, I am alarmed by the large and fast rise of unemployment claims (higher than 2008 peak), estimates that GDP may fall by 20-30%, and the broad impact on small business. Small businesses have 27 days of cash on hand, and power half of our economies through both employment and output. So how do we meet this challenge? What strength should we draw on in the moment of doubt to become the artists of tomorrow?

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asset management covid pandemic ICO / IEO neobank roboadvisor small business venture capital

·Apr. 6, 2020

Why Fintech Venture Capital firms are not returning your calls and emails

We look at why venture capital investors are slowing down, and the dynamics of how their portfolios work under duress. We talk about the incentives of limited partners to derisk exposure, the implication that has on cash reserves, new deals, and fundraising. We also touch on how the various Fintech themes are responding to an increase in digital interaction while seeing fundamental economic challenges. Shrewd competitors will be able to consolidate their positions and gain share during the crisis, but that will have to come from the balance sheet, not intermittent growth equity checks.

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asset management decentralized finance digital lending music industry p2p & crowdfunding

·Oct. 9, 2020

Why Peer-to-Peer models fail against oligopoly, with Lending Club shutting down p2p platform, Seedrs/Crowdcube merging, and Morgan Stanley buying Eaton Vance for $7B

This week, we look at:

Lending Club, the peer-to-peer lending innovator, turning off peer-to-peer lending after having a bank in its pocket
Consolidation of the UK's largest crowdfunders, CrowdCube and Seedrs, and their limited economics
The scale of the Morgan Stanley and Eaton Vance deal, creating a $1.2 trillion asset manager
The struggle of peer-to-peer models more generally, and whether the blockchain movement can overcome the Prisoner's Dilemma

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