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☆ Vanguard's decision to leave the world's biggest climate-finance group could impede Biden's plan to protect Americans' savings from the climate crisis
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Vanguard announced on Wednesday it's pulling out of an initiative to fight climate change. Biden previously proposed a plan to involve the financial sector in reaching net zero carbon emissions. As Insider previously reported, Biden last year released a report that focused on mitigating the financial risks climate change puts on people's retirements, pensions, savings, and more. However, Republicans have plans to increase oversight over Wall Street firms that are assessing climate change and prioritizing environmental, social and governance causes, known as ESG. Still, the world is making some progress toward fighting the financial risks of climate crisis.

☆ Why Silicon Valley is so hot on nuclear energy and what it means for the industry
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-02 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +13 min

Pallava Bagla | Corbis News | Getty ImagesVenture capitalists in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs are investing money in nuclear energy for the first time in history. This surge of private investment will be a positive for the industry, agrees John Parsons, an economist and lecturer at MIT. Nuclear energy is "a very complex science, and it's been supported by the federal government and at these national labs. In the 1960s and 1970s, large conglomerates constructed big nuclear power plants, and those projects often ran over budget. New generations of nuclear reactors will have different sizes, different coolants and different fuels, explained Matt Crozat, senior director of policy development at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

☆ Stocks, bonds, housing, crypto — JPMorgan worried consumers taking hits from everything simultaneously
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Jesse Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

The economic and market pressures hitting consumers are likely to show even greater impact in 2023, according to JPMorgan. "Consumers have mostly exhausted post-Covid excess savings and for the first time are getting hit by a broadening negative wealth effect from all assets simultaneously (e.g., housing, bonds, equities, alternative/private investments, crypto). The proverbial snowball should continue to gain momentum next year as consumers and corporates more meaningfully cut discretionary spending and capital investments," Lakos-Bujas said. The S & P 500 is down about 14% in 2022, even with a recent rally. Lakos-Bujas wrote that he expects S & P 500 to test its recent lows in the first half of 2023 before rebounding, if the Fed starts to change its course.

☆ India to sustain growth through more govt capital spending - finance minister
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW DELHI, Nov 30 (Reuters) - India will sustain its high growth rate through more government capital spending, the finance minister said in an interview at the Reuters NEXT conference on Wednesday, adding that she saw signs of a pick-up in private investments too. "We would continue to push capital expenditure, and that I’m saying even as I’m preparing for the next budget," Nirmala Sitharaman said. The states have shown extraordinary absorption capacity for taking the monies and spending on capital assets." She said the government sees the "capital expenditure route as one of those which can guarantee good growth". Reporting by Ira Duggal and Aftab Ahmed; Editing by Andrew HeavensOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ VCs give their unfiltered thoughts on 28 AI and big-data startups that had investors buzzing this year
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Matthew Lynley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

It's become one of the loudest and most crowded spaces as niche startups score big investments. Insider spoke with VCs to get their unfiltered thoughts on which startups were worth watching. The goal was to come to a consensus from investors of which startups they're watching most closely and why in an explosive landscape with dozens of companies. The investors spoke on condition of anonymity so they could talk more candidly about the startups, both those in their portfolios and competing firms, and descriptions are based off insights from multiple investors. Here's what investors are saying about 28 of the buzziest machine-learning and big-data startups, listed from least to most capital raised:

☆ Ron Baron runs the best mutual fund of the last five years — Here are his top picks
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Longtime investor Ron Baron's mutual fund has been the the biggest winner over the last five years as his top growth picks reaped outsized returns. The fund is focused on U.S. companies of any size with significant growth potential. The top holding of the fund by far is Elon Musk 's Tesla, with a 52% portfolio weighting at the end of the third quarter. Baron has been a longtime bull in Tesla . A relatively new holding Baron bought in 2019 is Iridium Communications , a long-time provider of satellite communications to specialized phones.

- Ray said he had secured $740 million in cryptocurrency, a "fraction" of what he hopes to recover during the bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried and his co-founders failed to identify wallets that might contain FTX assets, he added. - Record keeping was so lax that Ray said he was unable to compile a complete list of FTX employees. - The second silo is Alameda Research LLC, which Ray described as a crypto hedge fund owned by Bankman-Fried and Wang with assets of $13.46 billion. - The other silos were Ventures, which manages private investments and had around $2 billion in assets, and Dotcom, which owned non-U.S. exchanges with $2.25 billion in assets.

☆ Tiger Global, Coatue, and other hedge funds tried to upend venture capital. It backfired and now they're 'licking their wounds,' VCs say.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | Melia Russell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

New investments by Tiger Global and Coatue fell 60% and 67%, respectively, this year. "They're licking their wounds," said Nihal Mehta, a founding partner at Eniac Ventures, whose portfolio includes the marketing-tech startup Attentive, a crown jewel of Tiger Global and Coatue's portfolios. Speaking to founders, Mehta hears crossover funds come up less and less in conversation, and partners at some crossover funds tell him they're pulling back from new deals, though crossover funds haven't disappeared altogether. Crossover funds found themselves with billions of dollars in deployed capital and few exits in sight. Last month, Tiger Global and Coatue both revealed they are seeking to raise new funds earmarked for early-stage startup deals.

☆ IMF chief says rich countries alone can 'never close' the funding gap for climate change
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-07 | by ( Su-Lin Tan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

watch nowPublic aid and funding from governments of developed countries alone won't be enough to close the funding gap on climate change initiatives in developing countries, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva told CNBC. More private investments are needed to help developing countries to meet their climate change targets, said the managing director of the International Monetary Fund. Public aid and funding from governments of developed countries alone would not be enough to close the funding gap on climate change initiatives in developing countries. Stability in developing countries also secures trade between advanced and developing countries, Georgieva said. Disruptions in supply chains caused by climate change events could pose a bigger risk than the one posed by the pandemic, she added.

☆ COP27 climate summit: Here's what to watch
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Ella Nilsen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

Given countries’ current promises, Earth’s temperature will climb to between 2.1 and 2.9 degrees Celsius by 2100. “No country has a right to be delinquent,” US Climate Envoy John Kerry told reporters in October. It is likely loss and damage will have space on the official COP27 agenda this year. And US officials often stress they want to also unlock private investments to help countries transition to renewables and deal with climate effects. Getty ImagesCOP27 is intended to hold countries’ feet to the fire on fossil fuel emissions and gin up new ambition on the climate crisis.

☆ A CEO and activist investor who moved into micro caps after two decades picking stocks at BlackRock and Merrill Lynch told us his process for finding companies that can double their worth in 3 years
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Marley Jay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Kevin Rendino led big value funds for Merrill Lynch and BlackRock, but changed course. He's now an activist micro cap investor and CEO of turnaround firm 180 Degree Capital. Rendino spent 24 years at Merrill Lynch and then BlackRock, as an analyst and then as a portfolio manager. At different stages, he managed a large cap value fund for six years and oversaw an equity value team that ran 11 funds that held a combined $13 billion. The firm specializes in investing in micro cap companies and helping them turn their businesses around.

☆ How Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt helped write AI laws in Washington without publicly disclosing investments in AI start-ups
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Eamon Javers | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +18 min

'Conflict of interest'Schmidt's investment was just the first of a handful of direct investments he would make in AI start-up companies during his tenure as chairman of the AI commission. Altogether, Schmidt and entities connected to him made more than 50 investments in AI companies while he was chairman of the federal commission on AI. To Poulson, Schmidt was simply given too much power over federal AI policy. The new entity would continue the work of the congressionally created federal commission, with many of the same goals and much of the same staff. More than a dozen staffers from the federal commission followed Schmidt to the new private sector project.

☆ Billionaire hedge fund titan Seth Klarman reveals how he finds investments that meet his standards and his 2 favorite principles of investing
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( David Rubenstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

David Rubenstein: You and Warren Buffett, with whom you have often been compared, are probably the two best-known and successful value investors. What skills are required to be a successful value investor? Simon and Schuster: The basic practice of value investing is trying to buy dollars for 50 cents, sometimes 60 or70 cents — in effect, buying bargains. Early on in the 1920s and 1930s, Benjamin Graham wrote about value investing. In terms of the requirements to be a value investor, the skill set, first of all, people need to be patient and disciplined.

☆ The US is spending billions to boost chip manufacturing. Will it be enough?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-18 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

US-based fabs, or chip manufacturing plants, currently only account for 12% of the world’s modern semiconductor manufacturing capacity, according to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association trade group. Some 75% of the world’s modern chip manufacturing is now concentrated in East Asia – a majority of that in geopolitically-vulnerable Taiwan. Now, simply having the facilities already set up to produce or expand chip manufacturing gives Asia a big advantage. This is not yet the case in places like Arizona and Ohio, where plans to build massive chip manufacturing plants are already underway. If not, even the billions of dollars committed by the private and public sector may not be enough to reshore semiconductor manufacturing.

☆ India should pause rate hikes as growth fears loom - MPC's Varma
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-17 | by ( Swati Bhat | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

MUMBAI, Oct 17 (Reuters) - India's central bank should pause interest rate hikes, despite unacceptably high inflation, to avoid stalling a recovery in economic growth, monetary policy committee member Jayant Varma told Reuters on Monday. Varma, in his written MPC minutes, had said the country's economic growth outlook is "very fragile" and warned it could be "dangerous" to push the policy rate much higher. Varma said he would prefer the repo rate being held close to 6% for several quarters until inflation is stamped out. In his minutes, Varma had warned against using monetary policy to manage the fall in the currency, saying the external sector should be managed by other instruments. Further, raising the repo rate to ensure the interest rate differentials remain favourable for India was not a part of the MPC's mandate, particularly when there was lower risk of it causing imported inflation, he suggested.

☆ Singapore's digital wealth platform Endowus acquires HK'S Carret Private
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

SINGAPORE, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Singapore-based digital wealth advisor Endowus has acquired a majority stake in Hong Kong-based wealth manager and multi-family office Carret Private Investments Limited, it announced on Monday. With the acquisition, total assets under management of the Endowus group - comprising Endowus' licensed companies in Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as Carret Private - stands at over $4 billion across tens of thousands of clients as at the end of the first half this year. The group, through Carret Private’s minority shareholding, will also have a partnership with Singapore-based wealth advisor and multi-family office Lumen Capital Investors. Lumen is founded and led by Wilfried Kofmehl, former CEO of Bank Julius Baer Singapore. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Rae Wee; editing by Diane CraftOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ More giant rate hikes are coming as inflation stays at 4-decade highs. Here's what UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, says investors should own now.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Marley Jay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The latest inflation data makes it clear that more interest rate hikes are coming. UBS Global Wealth Management explains what investors should do as rates rise and the economy slows. After the government reported another 40-year high in year-over-year inflation, investors are even more confident that the Federal Reserve will implement another 75 basis-point hike in November, and do it again in December. For at least a little while, nothing is going to deter the Fed, according to Mark Haefele, the chief investment officer for UBS Global Wealth Management. "We expect the markets to remain volatile in the coming months, and we maintain our tilt toward value and defensives," Haefele wrote in a note to clients.

Companies Holding Company ADMIE IPTO SA FollowATHENS, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Power generation from renewables fully covered Greece's electricity demand over a few hours last week, for the first time in the history of the country's electricity system, its independent power transmission operator IPTO said. IPTO said on Monday that renewables accounted for 100% of the power generation for at least five hours last Friday, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours at 0800 GMT. "Record of optimism for the country's transition to clean energy, weaning off fossil fuels & ensuring our energy sufficiency," Green Tank tweeted. It plans to have 25 gigawatt of installed renewable energy capacity from about 10 gigawatt now but analysts say Athens might reach that target sooner. IPTO has been investing in expanding the country's power grid to boost power capacity and facilitate the penetration of solar, wind and hydroelectric energy.

☆ Vista Equity Partners is exploring a deal to take Compass private, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-05 | by ( Ben Bergman | Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Vista Equity Partners is exploring taking the real-estate brokerage private, sources say. A Compass rep said "no private-equity firm has contacted Compass expressing any interest in taking the company private." Vista Equity Partners is exploring a deal to take the residential real-estate brokerage Compass private, according to three people familiar with the discussions. The chief technology officer Joseph Sirosh, who left Microsoft to run Compass' tech operations, was let go shortly after the call. Vista has taken numerous tech companies private this year, including an $8.4 billion deal for the tax-software company Avalara and a $16.4 billion deal for Citrix.

☆ How Josh Harris, the owner of the 76ers and Devils, upset Apollo insiders with the time he spent on personal investments
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Casey Sullivan | Hayley Cuccinello | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

One former Apollo executive couldn't wrap his mind around how the firm got investors onboard with Harris' personal activities. One advisor to Harris' family office said there would be an internal conversation every year to ensure the proper expense allocations. Several former Apollo employees, however, said other Apollo executives were concerned about Harris' use of firm resources. Few if any sources Insider spoke with expected much to change in how private-equity executives managed their personal investments. The lawyer said that the documents often state that a firm's executives will dedicate "as much time as reasonably necessary" to managing their investments.

☆ The quiet success of Tecton, a $900 million startup, has turned rivals Snowflake and Databricks into co-investors — and fanned a fierce debate over the future of AI
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Matthew Lynley | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Tecton, which specializes in a technology called feature stores, was a more divisive subject among industry insiders. Both Databricks and Snowflake have invested heavily in real-time data pipelines, including in Tecton's latest funding round. But it was hardly alone among machine-learning startups in commanding a high valuation with nominal revenue. Many investors wondered whether Tecton's feature stores were "a feature, not a product," as Steve Jobs famously called Dropbox. That skepticism remains, and some insiders expect a roll-up of overvalued machine-learning startups that attack one piece of the workflow, including Tecton.

A real estate limited partnership (RELP) is a private investment that pools investors' funds to buy, develop, and sell properties. Cue the real estate limited partnership (RELP), which lets you pool your money with other investors to buy, lease, and ultimately sell buildings. A real estate limited partnership, or RELP, is a legal entity formed to invest in real estate ventures. "Limited partnerships exist for varying durations, from months to decades, based on the business plan with the target investments," says Tom Blake, founder of Flexible, a tech-enabled real estate company that offers bespoke real estate transactions. The bottom lineReal estate limited partnerships let investors pool their resources to buy and develop real estate.

See Insider's list of the best real estate investing apps»Channel-surfing these days will almost certainly lead you into some iteration of real estate, from realtors' million-dollar listings to DIY-ers house-flipping. Real estate crowdfundingReal estate crowdfunding is a strategy that allows enterprises to raise capital from large groups of individuals. Real estate investment trusts (REITs)If you want to wade into real estate, investing in a real estate investment trust (REIT) will provide exposure to the market without the time and cost commitment of buying your own property. Strategies for successful real estate investingWhatever form your real estate investment takes, certain strategies will stand you in good stead. Pure investment plays — which don't involve hands-on management from you — include real estate crowdfunding, investing in real estate limited partnerships, and buying into real estate investment trusts.

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