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refurbishedgray · 3 years

Text

Point of Contact

Reader x Tech. Maybe we get feisty and it’s reader x Crosshair, too. In this house, we like both.

Multi-part fic; probably NSFW; f!reader (she/her pronouns)

**Updates: I’ll tag you if you holler

Summary:

“No good ever comes to the Republic from Banking Clan business,” Hunter tells them, “Let’s get this done and get home, boys.”

Arriving on Scipio with the unhelpful directive of, “be discreet, but do whatever it takes,” the Bad Batch find themselves at the mercy of a stony representative whose allegiances lie with the best deal.

Or, the one where Tech and Crosshair think the reader is as intense as she is pretty.

**************************************

Part One

The office is too empty, too bright. The merciless glare of Scipio’s sun cuts across the room, gleaming unpleasantly from the gilded corners of all the fine furniture and glass. A corner office, inherited from an out-maneuvered relic of the past.

All light and no warmth, you think, not for the first time. Never any warmth. In your early years with the Banking Clan, being stationed here had felt suspiciously like a punishment you hadn’t deserved, a proving ground when you had already proven so much. These days, however, you’ve come to understand that the frigid peaks standing vigil beyond your window are a reminder of how far you have climbed.

Now, as you shift in your chair, the expensive Corellian leather barely squeaking beneath you, you squint past the harsh light filtering in from the floor to ceiling window at your back. It’s all pristine snow on those peaks. Icy. Easy to slip if the cold didn’t kill you first.

Yes, you had climbed and clawed your way up these proverbial mountains. And like the man who last haunted this office, it has left you with so very far to fall.

The early days had been simpler. Smile. Look pretty. Never forget what can be saved for later. You hadn’t forgotten. Beyond the pale blue sky, twinkling out of sight, are worlds fraught with battles, littered with unsuccessful or unlucky tacticians from two sides of a conflict that won’t ever be ended, not truly. You have always preferred to keep your strategizing corporate. Clean.

A frown drags at the corners of your mouth at the uncharacteristic foray into reminiscence of the…

The…

A phrase comes to mind and you allow yourself a small, private smile against the sunlight. The bad old days.

Since then, things have always been kept tidy.

Until now.

An unwanted spur of concern digs in behind your chest as your gaze turns from the window to sweep over the room. To your dismay, you realize why, and realize too clearly that the concern is not solely for yourself.

He should be here.

Things were less empty when he was around, a relic in his own right and your pride and joy and confidant. How proud you had been when you had been informed that you would require a bodyguard. “A mark of success if there ever was one,” you had told the few family members you kept in contact with, of which there were very few, upon being informed of the recommendation after your previous promotion. “Aren’t you proud?” you had wanted to ask. But you had not asked. Better not to make the query when the answer was always so heavy and obvious.

He had become your one and only friend. But he, too, is absent now, and upon permitting the observation, your office seems at once less empty and instead, guttingly, horribly hollow. Two rotations it’s been. Two rotations to give into the inconvenience of noticing.

No, no, you think. You had noticed. Admitting it, that is the phrase that would be more accurate, but if it makes you feel less or more weak, you find you cannot decipher the bitterness creeping up your tongue.

Rising from your seat, you at once miss the meager warmth provided by the leather as the cool office air licks at you. Once upon a time, you had comforted yourself with the promise that one day, you would get used to the cold here. It was one of the few lies you allotted yourself over the years. Crossing the office, the marble floors as white and frosted as the mountain peaks outside resounding crisply beneath your heels, you make your way to the small bar trolley tucked away in one corner. Your last guest, a senator with strong -- unsubtly strong -- ties to the Clan, had complimented your selection of fine whiskeys and other alcohols. You had not admitted then that you did not keep the bar stocked for the guests who were few and far between, but rather for yourself, to chase away the damnable chill in this place.

Your hand stills between decanters, your mind hesitating at the threatening burn that awaits your selection.

A bad habit.

You can imagine that peculiar modulated voice now. “Madam, the faces you make.”

Instead, you shun the alcohol and the ice that never thaws, yet still gets replaced each morning, now resting in a round chest, as gilded as everything else in this room, and reach for the Felucian pear juice. Duller, perhaps, but you don’t need anymore guilt on your conscience.

A sip, then two, settles a gnawing in your stomach you only notice once it passes.

Intolerable, you muse, downing what remains in the glass. The beverage is sweet, almost as sweet as the air outside is cold. Too quiet. Where are -

A rush of air and sliding metal breaks the silence. Glass in hand, your eyes narrow over the rim at the assistant who scuttles in. This one has been particularly insipid since her arrival. The daughter of someone marginally important, she is small and hunched shouldered -- she hasn’t learned, not like you did, and a part of you suspects she never will.

She stops just short of where the tile begins and as she does, your eyes track down her uniform to a pair of shoes that have never been polished. Stars help her.

In a quavering voice, she asks, “Madam?”

You raise a brow.

“We’ve received word. The transport with the troopers has requested permission to land. They’re on their way.”

You set the glass aside, gingerly, its bottom barely clacking against the tray atop the cart. Republic troopers. A battering ram when a scalpel is needed.

“Ah, the Senate’s grand favor,” you murmur.

“Yes, ma’am.”

So many years spent with watchful eyes on you has made you good at hiding your frustrations. You swallow a sigh before it ever rises and allow yourself a brief moment to thumb the crystalline edge of the glass. The senator had warned you.

Your voice is quiet as you instruct the girl, “Get out.”

She scurries gracelessly back through the door. It is an improvement; the last time she had squeaked pitifully before leaving. Perhaps you should have enjoyed the alcohol while you could. If this goes badly, all these nice things, all this luxury will be reassigned, a new name on the door. Such is the way of things -- you know the warnings well.

Until forty-eight hours ago, they had been going so smoothly. An unfamiliar voice at the back of your mind whispers at you. Had you gotten complacent? You never get complacent. You had been warned for star’s sake. Senator Clovis had been all too clear that vaults here on Scipio were being targeted. You had taken that to mean the transports would be targeted as well. Credits were valuable, gold was valuable, as were artifacts and treasures. The Clan stored it all.

But most valuable of all were and would always be secrets.

And secrets...you were very good at secrets. Finding them. Keeping them. Exposing them.

The hand on the glass tightens and through touch or through sound, you sense that just a little more pressure will splinter it. Gently, you lift your fingers.

You’ve got enough messes to clean up already.

…………….

Two of his brothers look unhappy. Hunter suspects he, too, looks unhappy. Only Crosshair remains unaffected, toothpick lolling from one corner of the man’s thin mouth to the other as he watches the sky shift from icy atmo to the very tips of craggy mountains.

“Looks cold,” rumbles Wrecker from his seat, thick legs kicking out miserably. “Nobody said it was gonna be cold.”

From the pilot’s chair, Tech glances at Hunter, sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. Now that Hunter can see him full-on, rather than that goggle-obscured side-profile of his, he realizes that he’d been right. Even Tech is unhappy with the assigned locale. Still, the man sniffs and turns back to navigating the gunship.

“It is Scipio,” says Tech.

“What’s that got to do with anything? Just sayin’, a little warning might’ve been nice.”

Crosshair shifts, the movement almost imperceptible, just enough that Hunter knows the sniper is asking for his attention. “I believe Hunter was preoccupied with warning us about the...what was it you called them, Hunter? Denizens?”

“The word does have an apt connotation for the Banking Clan,” Tech mutters. He gives Hunter another look, this one says that he’s no more excited about the prospect than Hunter has been.

Their mission brief had been a strange one. It wasn’t their usual brand of run-and-gun from the sound of things, but it was important to all the right people, and they needed guaranteed success. “Go to Scipio, meet the point of contact, establish the responsible party, recover the stolen data.” It was more or less all they had been told.

Hunter knows his frown is getting deeper, sinking into the lines on his face -- he can feel it pulling at his bandana, and he raises a hand to scrub it away.

“Who is this contact anyway?” asks Crosshair. “You never said.”

“Because I wasn’t told a name. We’re to meet with the, and I quote, ‘Principal Trades Specialist for the InterGalactic Banking Clan.’”

“Trades specialist?” Crosshair plucks his toothpick from between his teeth and for a moment, it takes Hunter longer than he would like to decipher the look on the man’s face. He doesn’t look unhappy...he looks intrigued. Crosshair replaces the toothpick, then says, “Sounds like a fancy way of saying ‘corporate spy.’”

“Head corporate spy,” Tech says, “If he’s - “

“She, from what I’m told,” corrects Hunter. His frown has yet to go anywhere, so he lets it stay, his hand falling to his lap.

Tech nods. “If she is based here on Scipio, we’re dealing with someone who needs to be watched closely. Some important players are based on this planet.”

Crosshair folds his arms. “Did the spy part give it away, Tech?”

“The Banking Clan part, actually,” Tech replies dryly, “We’ve dealt with spies before. The IGBC is something different. It is...new territory.”

“We’ve also dealt with new territory before.” At this, Hunter hears them all shift, their quick heartbeats settling into a familiar, all’s-well rhythm. His, too, follows. Just in time, it would seem, for the comms to squawk at them as the Marauder banks left and begins its final descent to the landing pad. He stands from the co-pilots seat, the faint tilt of the floor beneath him a familiar calm before the inevitable storm. He looks to Wrecker, who shakes his head, and then offers a grin.

“Might be fun. Never clobbered bad guys with snowballs before.”

There’s a snort from Tech and despite himself, Hunter smiles.

**************************************

Ten minutes later, they are suited up and disembarking into a cloud of snow flurries and ice crystals. The Banking Clan’s guards are as heavily armored as some of the Separatist patrols Hunter’s encountered. He scowls beneath his helmet. This should be a job for Jedi -- if the Jedi weren’t all dispatched to the war front.

Soldiers...they don’t deal with these sorts of people. Not well and not effectively. Too much bad blood between the Republic and profiteers like these.

He motions at his brothers to close ranks, their familiar presences a comforting reminder that this isn’t anything new, not really. It’s a mission like any other.

As the frosted cloud clears ahead of them, the guards, in their gilt armor and insulated cloaks, make way, too much way, Hunter thinks, for the clearance to be for a group of Republic troopers.

Then he sees her.

Half camouflaged by the swirling winds and clad in half a dozen shades of gray and silver, her shoulders draped in white fur, she stands waiting for them, her hands clasped serenely in front of her. She could be a diplomat, a Jedi even, if not for the gleam in her eye. It’s a cold thing, sharper and as frostbitten as this frozen world itself.

He’s not the only one to have noticed. Beside him, Hunter hears Crosshair draw in an appreciative breath so quiet no one without incredible senses would notice it. In his periphery, he catches an almost imperceptible twitch of Tech’s helmet as his brother spares him a questioning glance.

When the woman speaks, her voice is crisp, professional. “Clone Force 99, welcome.” She does not smile, but her eyes track to each of them, lingering too long, as though somehow looking past the armor to the men beneath. She introduces herself with a name that sounds too soft for the title she wears. Then, she gives them a crystalline smile. “But you may call me Trader, if you please.”

“Trader?” It is Wrecker who asks the question, finally distracted from the snow and ice. “Sounds like…”

Another smile, this one not quite as cool as the first. Amused, Hunter thinks, though how benign that amusement is, he can’t tell, and it makes his skin itch beneath his blacks. “Like traitor?” she hums. “I suppose it does, doesn’t it?”

She steps aside and gestures at them to follow. “With me, gentlemen. First, we’ve a meeting. Afterwards, we will take a tram to the vaults, then from there, speeders to the site of the incident.”

“‘Incident’ is an awful clean way to say ‘bloody heist,’” says Hunter as he moves to follow. Her gaze slides to him, her stride never slowing. Shoulder to shoulder with the woman, he has the uncomfortable instinct to slow his steps, to lag behind, as though if he isn’t careful, a blade might slide between his ribs on a blink. He pushes aside the urge, then asks, “How many people were lost?”

“Enough,” she replies. “One could even say too many.”

“But not you?”

“Must someone say something for you to believe they think it?”

Behind him, Crosshair snorts, but does not comment. Hunter lets the statement slide, though the itch he’d felt earlier is heating to a burn now. Together, she leads them through a set of gleaming durasteel doors into a foyer as stark as it is grand.

“Proceed through those doors.” She crooks a finger to their left. “Senator Amidala has requested a meeting in...eighteen minutes. I will join you shortly.”

Wrecker whistles, the sound too sharp to come from beneath his helmet, and Hunter glances back to see that the man has removed it, his one good eye roving the pristine interior. With a sigh, Hunter follows suit. It’s not exactly warm here, but out from the planet’s whipping winds, it’s close enough that even he can fool his sensitive skin into enjoying it. Soon, they are all unmasked. The woman - Trader - lingers long enough to observe them.

Her expression is...unreadable. There is no twinkle of bemusement in her eyes, not the first twitch of surprise. Normally, when the helmets come off, it gets at least some sort of reaction, gives him some kind of measure.

Now, the only read Hunter gets is the fact that he can’t get a read on her -- and that, he doesn’t like. There’s no trusting people who have become so numb.

Her gaze slips between Crosshair and Tech, where it lingers on the latter for seconds longer than it had the rest of them. Something in her frigid eyes warms, the ice of her expression cracking just enough that she might be pleased by what she sees. And Tech...for all his usual detachment, has no datapad to bury his nose in now, and he notices.

Hunter thinks the woman lets him notice.

His brother stands a little straighter, eyes flicking nervously to Hunter behind his goggles. Stumped, for lack of a better word. For once, flat out puzzled.

Then, without a word, Trader looks back to Hunter and inclines her head. “Stay warm, gentlemen. I will see you soon.”

She is gone behind a pair of adjacent doors without another word.

No sooner do they watch the durasteel whisper shut, than does Wrecker drive his arm into Tech’s side with a chuckle. Tech winces with a hiss and waves the man away.

“Heh, she likes you.”

“I hoped it was my imagination.” Crosshair’s lip curls, his eyes narrowing until he looks away, and Hunter wonders if they’ve been reflected back at him through the shine of Tech’s goggles.

Tech runs a hand over the back of his head. “What do you think, Hunter?”

“I think she’s Banking Clan, through and through. We’re not among friends here.”

“If we let her alone with Tech, things might get friendlier -”

“Wrecker.”

Hunter scowls. Another voice has echoed his own and he looks to see Crosshair, arms folded, rocking back on a foot to glare at the wampa-sized man.

Tech clears his throat. “Perhaps we should wait in the briefing room?”

His heart rate, harder to hear away from the tight confines of the Marauder, sounds schoolboy quick and Hunter wishes, not for the first time, that his brother was more inclined to find company in their off-duty hours than he was. Pretty faces were fine - Hunter himself was inclined to enjoy them - but something about the mask this one wore was dangerous.

Wrecker’s voice pulls him from his thoughts. “Did she say Senator Amidala was waiting?”

“She did. The commander warned us the Senate was at play here.”

“That’s not our usual playground though, is it?” Crosshair is still scowling, his arms folded more tightly now than they had been. All that characteristic suspicion exacerbated by annoyance that has set in and won’t leave him. It makes his eyes hard, his narrow features sharpened and cold beneath the glare of sunlight on durasteel.

Hunter shakes his head. “It’s not, but I feel better knowing Amidala’s behind us on this.”

“That makes one of us,” says Crosshair.

“Two,” Tech interrupts, his voice crisp; back to himself, Hunter realizes, his relief warm down to his fingertips, until he isn’t sure why he’d been worried in the first place.

“Three! I like Amidala.”

“We know, Wrecker.” Tech’s smile is gentle, even as he rolls his eyes. “The poster by your bed speaks for itself.”

Hunter’s gaze slides to his remaining brother, the smile that had spread turning crooked, then fading. “Crosshair?”

It’s always been an unsettling characteristic of Crosshair’s that his eyes, as brown as all of theirs, manage to be so very cold when the mood hits him. The look in them is not unlike what he had witnessed in the woman.

The observation tightens Hunter’s throat and he swallows it, turning away, and hopes not to notice it again.

#bad batch #star wars #tech x reader #crosshair x reader #multichapter #part one #the bad batch #bad batch tech #bad batch crosshair #decidedly not proofread #shitty art by me #blame no one else

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vapormaison · 5 years

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2019 Best Press 3/4: カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title by TANUKI

While for many vaporwave vinyl is doubtless equal parts collector’s item and audio source, I don’t want to lose sight of the goal of this blog here: developing a canon of the genre for high fidelity enjoyment. That said, when I come across something remarkable or noteworthy about a particular piece of wax, even if it is not a “purely audiophile” object, I want to make mention of it.

And TANUKI’s カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title wax release is not only noteworthy, but contends for hi-fi consideration despite it’s status as a picture disc.

But let’s back up slightly.

Going back to the previous thesis on why we buy records, sometimes you just want to own a vinyl just because. Just because you’re a collector trying to compile a discography on wax — or, better yet, just because you truly love the album art. For me, カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title (Double EP) was undoubtedly all of the three “just be-causes”.

A while back, I noticed that the LP was going into its 3rd press, and decided to snap up a copy because I like Tanuki, I like Lum, and because of those other just becauses. Unfortunately the only format available was not the pink vinyl, but the picture disc. As I’m sure is well-known (because audiophiles are very loud about things they dislike), picture-discs are a big no-no in the audiophile community. This is because while a beautiful objet d’art, a serious listening session of a picture disc release will usually produce greater amounts of surface noise than any other type of vinyl. You can, of course, with the right system, neutralize and mitigate this process slightly, but true-blue hi-fi heads pursuing that elusive muse of “pure sound” would never give a picture disc a second look.

I’m not one of those people.

Tangentially, I’ve heard whispers of ghosts of rumors from when I was living in Shenzen, China — that various record suppliers (small batch Makers) are working out manufacturing and material processes that minimize these issues on pic discs to create appealing records that cover all the bases: hi-fi suitability, collector oriented visual esoterica, and price. I should also admit I have no idea where those companies are in terms of R&D and/or producing these. I end up catching a lot of very fast talk from extremely motivated enthusiasts, but Chinese is still as elusive a language to me at times as “pure sound” can be. With that in mind, however, it’s logical to surmise that advances in technology will eventually render the differences between picture discs and traditional black wax undistinguishable. So long as the world isn’t destroyed in some cataclysmic climate disaster (very real possibility), or -- as we are watching evolve now: World War 3. My view is that it’d be pointless to dismiss the format out of hand when there are active attempts to innovate it as we speak.

That all said, I know what to expect when a contemporary, big-label picture disc plays. During my college days, I used to spin wax at the university radio station. One of the previous catalog managers had a fetish for this “collectible” format, and was convinced he was doing the station a favor by purchasing all these vinyls, noting a pre-supposed resale value later. I remember throwing these on the well-worn Technics SP-10 we had as our main turntable, and listening to the occasional scratch, frequent popping, and constant surface noise, that for the uninitiated (bless you), sounds like a sustained “cracking” in your Rice Krispies — or for those born in the analog age, CRTV static.

So when I sat down with the Tanuki picture disc, I had this laundry list of preconceptions and prejudices about the format. I thought that I could listen to a moderately scratchy record once or twice, keep it as more a visual boutique item and then eventually include in an article where I bemoan the poor quality of the genre’s releases.

But then, I actually listened.

And it sounded… well, I won’t get ahead of myself. Here’s the full review:

THE MUSIC

BABYBABYの夢 — is doubtless the reason why many of us have bought the EP from a sonic perspective —especially if the band-camp reviews are indicative of trends. I still maintain that this is the Mariya Takeuchi sample/remix work par excellence. Tanuki hits all the essential notes here, a genuine respect and love for the sound-staging of its original source, Yume No Tsuzuki. I still get echoes of the original arrangement in my system, (ever so slightly) with a bright and dance-infused collection of unique sounds — particularly in that delicious, wide mid-range — that flesh out the track into its own sort of masterpiece.

何がGoin' On — the curatorial and conspiratorial side of my brain tells me that Goin’ On will probably go down as one the under-appreciated vintage bangers of this era of future funk. I can envision hipsters two or three decades from now sussing out a neophyte with pretentious questions about this track’s pitch-shifted sample draws from. It has that sort of vibe that you know hits with a certain subset of electronica fans — rich & vibrant, making the tweeters on your system work out in all the best ways — it’s just great.

がんばれ — Tanuki is at his best when he gets playful with brass samples. I firmly believe that the titans in this genre each have their go-to piece in their best arrangement — like Dan Mason’s creative vocal array, or greyL’s manipulation of micro-samples. For Tanuki, it’s whenever her gets a horn — synthesized or otherwise, into his production workflow.

ファンクOFF — continues Tanuki’s magic act, taking another city pop track more iconic for its soulful electric guitar riff and turning it into the most slap-worthy single on this EP. I prefer it when Japanese pop samples are fundamentally re-imagined, although I can see how the perfectionist tweaking of someone like Yung Bae is more appealing for some. Tanuki is undoubtedly one of the innovators of this genre, and there’s no more solid evidence of that talent than this track.

腕の中でDancin’ — if I ended up hosting a sort of mythical vaporwave grammies or something like that, (I’m available, folks!) I would probably go off on a Ricky Gervais style rant on how artists aren’t in touch with “the people” (read: me) because all we really want are more remixes of Meiko Nakahara songs — who given her impact on City Pop should have way more play in this genre than she does. This one, like most of the Meiko mixes I’ve heard, is a banger with an absolute fire bass riff punctuated throughout.

Radiant Memories — this might be my first certified “hot take” in the publication (they’ll be many more, I imagine) — but as far as I’m concerned this is the superior Plastic Love edit. I’ll just leave my thoughts there, so they can soak in with a portion of the fanbase who split my reddit account on an open fire of downvotes for suggesting that other artists than Macross 82-99 (Praise be upon him!) are allowed to touch this song as well. While Macross’s mix is definitely the more up-temo of the two, and that for some is the very essence of the genre, this slightly down-mixed version is both the perfect conclusion for the EP and ideal antithesis.

THE LISTENING EXPERIENCE

Signal to Raise ratio on the following albums:

カタカナ・タイトル + Kanji Title: ~61.9db (1 db MoE)

Tron Legacy, Daft Punk: 58.4db

Love Trip, Takako Mamiya, Kitty Records Press: 65.8db

(ratings based on averages 5 minutes of sustained play on the testing unit, the machine actually complied this data on its preset, which is another fascinating part about this sort of vintage press-testing tech). The margin of error is because the machine, according to my mentor Dr. Juuso Ottala formerly of Harman International, informs me it was never meant to give accurate readings of picture discs, and to add about a dB of error margin.

One of the benefits of growing up in New England and, subsequently, New York, is that there are no shortage of heritage professional audio brand HQs in operation around a 200 mile radius from Manhattan to Boston. Off the top of my head, there’s Harman/Kardon, Boston Acoustics, Bose, NuMark, Marantz, and Rane headquarters within an hour’s drive from my two hometowns. Early on in my audiophile quest, I got my hands on some cool vintage gear — vinyl lathe testing equipment that has collected dust in both an old Harman technician’s storage unit, and now my parent’s basement. Over the holiday, I recently brought it out to do some surface noise testing on it to get a rough confirmation of what I was explaining in yesterday’s hi-fi guide. The innards of the machine looks eerily like a plinth-less linear tonearm and plate pair attached to a monitor. After making sure I’m not violating some kind of Harman International trade secret, I’ll post it on instagram.

Wanting to also get a firm idea on just how good my ear-test sounded, I grabbed another picture disc vinyl I had received as a gift a few years ago from my brother — the Tron Legacy OST. While I found the film passably enjoyable, my own preconceptions about pic discs, and a general exhaustion with french house — left me with no discernible desire to spin the thing. I hadn’t even broken the seal on the plastic wrap, so it seemed like as good as a blind test as any. I also grabbed what my ears tell me is a “good”, “heavy” press, a 1982 original dead-stock copy of Takako Mamiya’s Love Trip LP pressed by Kitty Records Japan. I’ve played it maybe a half dozen times since I bought it, so it’s as close to “new” 80s audiophile pop record as you can get. The Japanese are infamously anal about low SNR on their vinyl.

And, well, the results speak for themselves. The sweet spot for most black vinyl records is between 60-70db depending on age, weight, and a host of other frankly uncontrollable factors that aren’t worth getting into detail here, as I’d go on forever. The main takeaway here is that Neoncity’s and Tanuki’s record sat at the low end of the audiophile vinyl reference spectrum. Which in itself is a remarkable achievement for a pic disc. It’s worth taking a look at Tron Legacy, which just barely scratches 8db above a cassette tape, and 7db a Japanese vinyl from 1982.

This is all in an effort to say: damn, this is pretty good.

This also somewhat counters the usual “picture discs sound like shit” narrative that’s prevailed pretty consistently in the audiophile community. Tron Legacy? Yeah, that probably sounds like shit if I could bother to suffer through a listen. But whoever Hong-Kong based Neoncity is using actually makes “good” — if such a qualifier needs to be attached — image-pressed records. And that devotion to audio fidelity should be rewarded.

It might be time for me to re-asses picture discs on the whole, and that mind-expanding moment is something I owe to the fine folks at Neoncity.

#bestof2019 #bestpress

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marvel-daily-mantra · 3 years

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OMICRON ALERT'S ALL STOCK MARKET

Stocks are falling in early trading Monday, continuing a weak stretch as traders keep a wary eye on global increases in COVID-19 cases. Traders also got news over the weekend that a key U.S. senator wouldnt support President Joe Bidens $2 trillion domestic spending bill, putting its passage in doubt.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2%. The benchmark index is coming off its third losing week in the last four. Its still up more than 21% for the year. The Nasdaq lost 1.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell 1.4%. European and Asian markets were also lower.

Beijing Global stock markets and Wall Street futures tumbled Monday amid concern about the latest coronavirus variant and tighter Federal Reserve policy.

London and Frankfurt opened sharply lower. Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong also fell at the start of a trading week that will be shortened by Christmas. Benchmark U.S. oil fell by more than $3 per barrel.

The spread of the omicron variant has fueled fears that renewed curbs on business and travel might worsen supply chain disruptions and boost inflation.

Omicron threatens to be the Grinch to rob Christmas, Mizuho Banks Vishnu Varathan said in a report. The market prefers safety to nasty surprises.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London fell 1.7% to 7,143.60 and the DAX in Frankfurt lost 2.4% to 15,155.71. The CAC 40 in Paris sank 2% to 6,787.68.

On Wall Street, futures for the benchmark S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.5%.

On Friday, the S&P fell 1% as traders took money off the table after the Fed indicated it would fight inflation by speeding up the withdrawal of economic stimulus. The index is 2% below its all-time high and up 23% for the year.

The Dow lost 1.5% and the Nasdaq composite, dominated by tech stocks, slipped 0.1%.

In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index slid 1.1% to 3,593.60 after Chinas central bank trimmed a key interest rate. The bank cut its one-year Loan Prime Rate to 0.05% but left the five-year rate and its main policy rate unchanged.

The cut is a small step toward easing monetary policy without changing efforts to reduce debt in real estate, Larry Hu and Xinyu Ji of Macquarie said in a report. Beijing's use of multiple interest rates is confusing, substantially muting the signal" if only one is cut, they said.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo sank 2.1% to 27,937.81 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 1.9% to 22,744.86.

The Kospi in Seoul declined 1.8% to 2,963.00 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 retreated 0.2% to 7,292.20

India's Sensex opened down 2.3% at 55,811.05. New Zealand gained while Southeast Asian markets retreated.

Traders had bid up airlines, cruise lines and other travel-related stocks on hopes omicron's spread wouldn't trigger more travel controls.

Sentiment has turned as the United States and other governments warn omicron is more pervasive than expected, prompting travel restrictions in some areas and cancellations of public events.

The U.S. government warned Sunday of a possible surge of breakthrough infections as Americans travel for Christmas and the New Year holidays.

Last week, stocks briefly rallied but then fell after Fed officials said Wednesday they might accelerate the reduction of bond purchases that inject money into financial markets. That sets the stage for the Fed to begin to raise interest rates next year.

Also potentially weighing on sentiment, a U.S. senator said Sunday he wouldn't support President Joe Biden's $2 trillion infrastructure, social spending and climate plan. Joe Manchin's announcement possibly dooms the plan's chances in the evenly split Senate.

Inflation has been a growing concern throughout 2021. Higher raw materials costs and supply chain problems have been raising overall costs for businesses, which have increased prices on goods to offset the impact.

Consumers have so far absorbed those price increases, but they are facing persistent pressure from rising prices and that could prompt a pullback in spending.

In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude plunged $3.57 to $67.15 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.52 on Friday to $70.86. Brent crude, the price basis for international oils, sank $3.41 to $70.11 per barrel in London. It lost $1.50 the previous session to $73.52 per barrel.

The dollar declined to 113.41 yen from Friday's 113.70 yen. The euro gained to $1.1261 from $1.1251.

#stock market updates #omicron #hong kong #nasdaq

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afroavocadowitch · 3 years

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News reports and important tips on Point of Sale and POS System Equipment.

The U.S. government has the power and the responsibility to prevent corporations from becoming monopolies. According to the government, Facebook Inc. (FB) is becoming a social media monopoly.

In December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 46 states sued Facebook, accusing the firm of buying up competitors—chiefly WhatsApp and Instagram—to liquidate competition in the social media industry. The FTC antitrust lawsuit aims to force Facebook to unwind these two major acquisitions.

Facebook has since requested the lawsuits be dismissed, alleging they were merely part of “relentless criticism” of the company “for matters entirely unrelated to antitrust concerns.” The FTC and a group of states in April, however, asked a federal court to deny dropping the lawsuits, showcasing just how serious the government is in holding the Big Tech giant accountable. A ruling on the motion to dismiss the case isn’t expected until June.

If the lawsuits are not dismissed then, the government’s case against Facebook will take years to work its way through federal court, and any appeal could stretch on even longer. It’s not the only major antitrust lawsuit in the headlines: Google parent Alphabet is facing its own FTC action. Plus, with President Joe Biden’s nomination of Lina Khan to the FTC—someone who has been described as an “antitrust crusader”—it wouldn’t be surprising to see these cases, and those of other Big Tech companies, be vigorously pursued by the government.

Whatever the outcome, development in these cases will impact investors, the stock market and above all how we all use social media for years to come.

What Is an Antitrust Lawsuit?

Antitrust laws were created by Congress to preserve competition among businesses and prevent any one business from dominating a single industry and building a monopoly. When businesses compete and monopolies are restricted, companies have strong incentives to “operate efficiently, keep prices down and keep quality up,” according to the FTC.

Antitrust laws are the pillars that support capitalism in the United States. The first antitrust law, the Sherman Antitrust Act, was passed in 1890. Today, the Sherman Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Clayton Act work together to ensure fair competition across the economy. Here’s how antitrust responsibilities are divided between these three laws:

The Sherman Antitrust Act. This law prohibits groups of businesses from working together or merging to create a monopoly to control pricing in a single market.

The Federal Trade Commission Act. Passed in 1914, this law created the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as an independent government agency tasked with enforcing consumer protection and antitrust laws.

The Clayton Antitrust Act. Also passed in 1914, the Clayton Act regulates business activities and defines unethical business practices, including monopolies.

When a company is suspected of behavior that infringes on any one of these three laws, the federal government or state governments may file an antitrust lawsuit against the company.

Why Has the FTC Sued Facebook for Antitrust Violations?

The FTC has accused Facebook of breaking antitrust law by gobbling up many smaller social media startups and acquiring several large, well-established competitors, in what amounts to a concerted effort to build a social media monopoly.

There are numerous examples of Facebook buying smaller start-ups. Take Kustomer, which Facebook acquired in November 2020. Kustomer specializes in customer service tools and chatbots. Facebook described Kustomer—which was valued at over $1 billion in the acquisition, according to Pitchbook—as an asset to its “social commerce” initiative.

Facebook sees the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to expand its position as a shopping platform for small businesses, many of which were forced to close their physical locations due to shelter-in-places orders to stop the spread of the virus.

Kustomer previously worked directly with Facebook to integrate its chatbot capabilities into Facebook Messenger before Facebook purchased the company. Now, under Facebook’s increasingly broad umbrella, Kustomer won’t blaze its own trail of innovation. It has become just one more feature in Facebook’s “social commerce” behemoth.

Facebook has acquired over a dozen similar companies, including developer app Snaptu for $70 million in 2011; messaging company Beluga in 2011 for approximately $30 million, which became the predecessor for its Facebook Messenger app today; facial recognition company Face.com in 2012 for around $60 million; Onavo, a mobile analytics company in 2013 for $100 to $200 million, amongst others.

In late December 2020, the Washington Post reported that Facebook offered to license its code and user relationships to other companies, so they could create their own branded version of the social network. Regulators denied the offer, stating it didn’t do enough to actually address competition concerns.

Whatsapp, Instagram and the Facebook Antitrust Lawsuit

At the heart of the Facebook antitrust lawsuit are the company’s two biggest acquisitions: Instagram and Whatsapp. Not only did these deals increase Facebook’s size and hold over the social media space, but they also enabled the sharing of data among the largest social media platforms on earth.

Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 after it became clear that the photo-sharing platform would be a major competitor. It purchased Whatsapp in 2014 for $22 billion, the company’s largest acquisition to date. The FTC reviewed but did not block these acquisitions at the time.

These two giant acquisitions consolidated Facebook’s direct control over a vast portion of the social media landscape. While the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms appear to be separate social media sites to end users, in the background Facebook has established ever-closer data integration between the three platforms. And Facebook has been anything but transparent about how it is making use of the ocean of user data it gathers across the three platforms.

Among other objectives, the FTC’s lawsuit asks the court to force Facebook to reverse its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, leaving them as independent businesses that could compete with Facebook.

The Microsoft Antitrust Precedent

Facebook is hardly the first tech giant to be hit with a headline-generating antitrust lawsuit. One of the most notable precedents, the Microsoft antitrust case, shows how long, arduous and sometimes unsuccessful these lawsuits can prove to be.

In 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 state attorneys general claimed Microsoft was purposefully bundling free software on its dominant operating system that made it very challenging for competitors to succeed in the market. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates testified on Capitol Hill numerous times to defend his company, but federal courts ultimately ruled in April 2000 that Microsoft had violated the Sherman Act and needed to be broken up into two smaller companies.

In 2001, Microsoft won an appeal to the court ruling, which helped keep the company intact, although Microsoft settled certain other charges with the DOJ. The settlement agreement imposed restrictions on the company’s business practices—but did not restrict the features it could include with its operating system.

A recent high-profile antitrust case was more successful for the DOJ. In November 2020, the DOJ sued Visa to block its $5.3 billion acquisition of fintech firm Plaid, an online payments processing startup.

A statement from the DOJ categorized Visa as “a monopolist in online debit services,” stating it charges consumers and merchants billions of dollars each year to process online payments. The DOJ added that Plaid’s payment processing platform “could challenge Visa’s monopoly,” which is why it sued to block the acquisition. Visa and Plaid dropped their plans to merge after being served the lawsuit.

Google is also facing three antitrust lawsuits filed by the DOJ and three dozen states. The firm stands accused of using anti-competitive tactics, such as making it the default search engine on browsers and smartphones—Google pays Apple $12 billion a year to be the default search engine on the Apple iPhone—and dominating the digital advertising space. Google argues that consumers can change their browser settings at any time but “prefer” to use Google over other search engines.

Some Say Big Tech Is Too Powerful

Though the U.S. government is focusing on Facebook’s alleged ability to constrict competition, a broader perspective reveals how Big Tech has essentially become too big. Researchers have been sounding the alarm on the control of the dominant technology companies for years.

Jacques Fontanel, professor emeritus at the University of Grenoble-Alpes, has gone as far as categorizing GAFAM—Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft—as both “progress and danger for civilization.”

Fontanel argues that these companies have already become “quasi-monopolies” with a combined financial value of more than $4 trillion. The companies, he says, “are uncontrolled leaders at the heart of the new digital economy,” with enough political clout to avoid antitrust laws, skip out on corporate taxes by strategically locating key subsidiaries in low-tax countries and pose a threat through manipulation of public opinion, such as with the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

There’s also a flurry of ethical questions that continuously surround Big Tech companies. Though many of these companies market themselves as “free” to consumers, their profits depend chiefly on advertising and the collection of data on their users.

Big Tech’s Data Colonialism

Facebook’s advertising business comprised 99%—$21.2 billion—of its total revenue in the third quarter of 2020. What makes Facebook such a powerful advertising platform for marketers is the collection of user data—nearly two billion people use Facebook each month, which makes it a gold mine for marketers seeking brand visibility, lead generation and, ultimately, sales.

But while Facebook reaps enormous revenue from the practice, the users that power its profits don’t receive a penny. Some academics define the practice of personal data extraction for profit by big companies as “data colonialism.”

“Data relations enact a new form of data colonialism, normalizing the exploitation of human beings through data, just as historic colonialism appropriated territory and resources and ruled subjects for profit,” writes Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias, researchers from The London School of Economics and Political Science and the State University of New York at Oswego. “Data colonialism paves the way for a new stage of capitalism whose outlines we only glimpse: the capitalization of life without limit.”

Even if such arguments seem inaccessible, overdramatic or unfair, Big Tech executives themselves have voiced unease with the power their own platforms possess over society.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, publicly stated his concerns of Twitter’s power as a social platform after deciding to ban former President Donald Trump from the platform after the Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attack at the nation’s Capitol, due to safety concerns (Facebook also banned Trump from its platform).

Dorsey stated he believed it “was the right decision for Twitter” but added that it sets a dangerous precedence for individual or corporate power over public conversations.

Having to take these actions fragment the public conversation. They divide us. They limit the potential for clarification, redemption, and learning. And sets a precedent I feel is dangerous: the power an individual or corporation has over a part of the global public conversation.

— jack (@jack) January 14, 2021

European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, agreed. Merkel suggested social media companies choosing to remove Trump from their platforms violates his right to free speech, and governments should be regulating these companies, not the companies themselves.

Successful Antitrust Lawsuits: Good for Consumers, Bad for Investors?

When antitrust laws are effectively enforced, the FTC states there are numerous benefits for consumers.

Antitrust laws help cultivate and preserve a competitive marketplace for goods and services. Businesses will continue to fight for customers by keeping their services competitive, which often means pricing at or below a competitor’s price. A freely competitive market also means each company must struggle to remain relevant by continuously improving their services, providing increased quality for customers.

It’s hard to say if the antitrust lawsuits against Facebook and other Big Tech companies will be successful or how long the legal process might take. It’s also hard to say how investors would be impacted. Holders of shares of Facebook would likely gain valuable shares in newly public Instagram and WhatsApp, if the FTC prevailed in court.

If the government lost the case, Facebook could still be weakened by the outcome, like Microsoft two decades earlier. When Microsoft lost the initial case and was found to have broken antitrust laws, its stock price dropped 14%—and shares of MSFT didn’t recover for a decade and a half.

Facebook’s stock dropped nearly 2% after the antitrust lawsuits were filed in December. Some analysts point out the company is well-positioned to weather volatility since its portfolio is diversified and includes other emerging technology products, such as virtual reality.

There’s also the ongoing ethical debate about how Big Tech companies acquire, use and profit from your data. That debate won’t be settled for years to come. But if the antitrust lawsuit against Facebook proves one thing, it’s that—unlike Fontanel thinks—the DOJ at least has not given up on its mission of preventing the concentration of monopoly power in any one company.

More From Advisor

This article, What You Need To Know About The Facebook Antitrust Lawsuit, originally appeared on Forbes Advisor.

The above post was first provided here.

I trust that you found the article above of help and of interest. You can find similar content on our main site here: westtxpointofsale.com Please let me have your feedback in the comments section below. Let us know what topics we should write about for you in future.

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andrewdburton · 4 years

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Socially Responsible Investing: Is It Also More Profitable?

Since the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, the same question has come up over and over again:

“MMM, I see your point that index fund investing is the best option. But when you buy the index, you’re getting oil companies, factory farm slaughterhouses and a million other dirty stories.

How can I get the benefits of investing for early retirement without contributing to the decline of humanity?”

And in these nine years since then, the movement towards socially responsible investing has only grown. Public pension funds have started to “divest” from oil company stocks, and various social issues like human rights, child labor, climate change or corporate corruption have bubbled to the surface at different times.

And all of this has led to the exploding new field of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), and a growing array of new ways to do it.

So it seems that this is not just a passing trend – people just might be starting to care a bit more. And since capitalism is just an expression of human behavior, the nature of capitalism itself may be starting to change.

This leads us naturally to the question:

What can I do with my money to help fix the world? And even better, is there a way I can make money in the process of fixing it?

The answer is a good, solid “Probably.”

As long as you don’t get too hung up on getting every last detail perfect, because just like real life, investing is a haphazard and approximate and unpredictable thing. But by understanding the big picture, you can make slightly better decisions on average, which lead to slightly better results. And slightly better results, stacked up consistently over time, can lead to a much better life, or even a much better world.

This is true in all of the main areas we care about – personal wealth, fitness and health, even relationships and happiness. And while your money and investments are certainly not the most important thing in life, they are still worthy of a bit of easy and effective optimization.

So anyway, the first thing to understand with SRI is, “what problem am I trying to solve?”

The answer is, “You are trying to make your investing (especially index fund investing) have a better impact on the world.”

On its own, index fund investing is ridiculously simple. You just get an account at any brokerage like Vanguard, Etrade, Schwab or whatever, and dump all your money into one exchange-traded fund: VTI.

When you do this, you are buying a stake in 3500 companies at once(!), which is both impressive and overwhelming. How do you even know what you are holding?

Well, this is all public information, and easily available with a quick Google search. For example, here’s a list of the top 90 holdings in VTI (click for larger):

Top 90 holdings in Vanguard’s VTI Exchange Traded Fund

As you can see, the biggest chunk of money is allocated to today’s tech darlings, because this index fund is weighted according to market value, and these are the most valuable companies in the US today.

Through a convenient coincidence, the total value of the VTI fund happens to be just under $1 trillion dollars, which means you can just throw a decimal point after the ten billions digit of market value to get a percentage. In other words, about 4.7% of your money will go towards Apple stock, 4.4 towards Microsoft, and so on. Together, these top 90 companies are worth more than the remaining 3,540 companies combined, so these are what really drive your retirement account.

And within this list, you will see some of the usual suspects: Exxon and Chevron (oil), Philip Morris (tobacco), Raytheon and Lockheed (bombs), and so on.

But what about the less-usual suspects? For example, I happen to think that sugar, and especially sugar-packed beverages like Coke, is the biggest killer in the developed world – a major contributor to 2 million of the 2.8 million deaths each year in the US alone. Should I exclude that from my portfolio too?

And what about drug and insurance companies – aren’t they behind the political stalemate and high costs of the US healthcare system? Comcast funded some election disinformation campaigns here in my home town in the early 2010s, should I exclude them too? And if you’re part of a religion that is against charging interest on loans, or in favor of pasta and Pirate costumes, or against a spherical Earth, or any number of additional ornate rules, you may have still more preferences.

The higher your desire for perfection, the more difficult this exercise will become. However, if you are like me and you just want to get most of the desired result with minimal effort, you might simply have a look at the Vanguard fund called ESGV.

ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance”, and in practice it just means “We have tried to avoid some of the shittier companies according to some fairly simple rules.”

And the result is this:

Vanguard’s ESGV Exchange traded fund (ETF) – top 90 holdings

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s almost the same. In fact, the top five holdings – Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet (Google) and Netflix not far behind, collectively referred to as the FAANG stocks – are completely unchanged – and this means that there will be plenty of correlation between these funds.

It’s also the reason that the stock market as a whole has recovered so quickly from this COVID-era recession: small businesses like restaurants and hair salons have been destroyed by the shutdowns, but big companies that benefit from people staying at home and using computers and phones are making more money than ever. The stock market isn’t the whole economy, it’s just the publicly traded companies, which are the big ones.

But let’s look at the biggest differences between the normal index fund versus the social version.

The following large companies listed on the left are missing in the ESGV fund, in order of size. And to make up the difference, the stake in the companies on the right have been boosted up to take their place in your portfolio.

Main differences between VTI and ESGV (source: etfrc)

The omission of Berkshire Hathaway was a bit of a shocker, as it is run with solid ethical principles by Warren Buffet, one of the worlds most generous philanthropists. And in fact the modern day nerd-saint Bill Gates is on the Berkshire board of directors, another person whose work I follow and respect greatly.

(side note: Apparently the company fails on the “independent governance” category. And Buffet disputes this category, but in his characteristic way has decided to say, “Fuck it, I’ma just keep doing my own thing with my half-trillion dollar empire over here and you can have fun with your little committee” – I’m paraphrasing a bit but he totally did say that.)

Furthermore, both funds hold the factory meat king Tyson foods, while neither holds Roundup-happy Monsanto, because it was bought by the German conglomerate Bayer AG a while back. Nextera is a giant electric utility in the Southeastern US that claims to be the world’s largest generator of renewable energy. Some do-gooders are against nuclear power, while others (including me) think it’s the Bee’s Knees and we should keep advancing it. And all this just goes to show how nobody will agree 100% on what makes a good socially responsible fund.

But What About The Performance?

In the past, some investors were nervous about giving up oil companies in their portfolio, because while it was a dirty substance, it was also what made the world go round – which meant it was a cash cow.

Now, however, oil is on its way out as renewable energy and battery storage have crossed the cost parity threshold – meaning it’s cheaper to make power (and vehicles) that don’t use oil. In its place, technology is the new cash cow, and tech is heavily represented in the ESG funds. The result:

Traditional index fund (VTI) vs Socially Responsible equivalent (ESGV)

As you can see, the performance has been similar but the ESG fund has done significantly better in the (admittedly short) time since it was introduced at Vanguard.

Of course, we have no idea if this will continue, but the point is that at least our thesis is not a ridiculous one – environmentally sustainable companies do have an advantage, if the world gradually starts to care more about these things. And if you look at the share price of Tesla and other companies that surround it in electric transportation and energy storage, you will see that there are many trillions of dollars already lining up to benefit from this transition. And the very presence of so much investment money creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Tesla is now building or expanding five of the world’s largest factories on three continents simultaneously.

So What Should You Do? (and what I do myself)

My latest home-brewed ebike project – this one can reach 42MPH / 67km/hr!

First of all, it helps to remember a fundamental piece of economics: your spending dollars will probably have a much bigger impact than your investment dollars. This is because you are sending a direct message to the world rather than an indirect one:

When you buy a new gasoline-powered Subaru (or a tank of gas for your existing guzzler) or a steak at the grocery store, or a plane ticket, you are telling those company directly that consumers want more of these products, so they will produce more of them immediately.

When you buy shares in Exxon, you are only subtly raising the demand for those shares, which raises the average price, making it ever-so-slightly easier for Exxon to maybe issue more shares in the future. In other words, you are making it easier for them to access capital. But capital is only useful if there is demand for their products. And with oil there is a nearly constant surplus, which is why OPEC and other cartels need to work together to artificially restrict supply, just to keep prices up.

Plus, as a shareholder you are theoretically eligible to place votes and influence the future direction of companies – even companies that you don’t like. If you look up the field of “shareholder activism”, you’ll see this is a tradition that goes way back.

So I have tried to take a few simple steps on the consumer side myself, and I find it quite satisfying: Insulating the shit out of all of my properties, building a DIY solar electric array on one of them, and buying one electric car so far to eliminate local gas burning. And a few electric bikes including a super fast one I made myself.

Each one of these steps has provided a very high economic return, percentage-wise, but that still leaves a lot of money to account for, which brings us back to stock investing.

As someone who loves simplicity, I have done this:

Bought almost entirely VTI (or similar Vanguard funds) from 2000-2015

Started experimenting with Betterment in 2015, liked it, and have been adding a percentage of my ongoing savings to that account to that since then. (Note that Betterment now also offers a socially responsible portfolio option.)

Switched the dividend re-investing of my old Vanguard VTI over to Vanguard ESGV, to avoid “wash sales” in making the most of Betterment’s tax loss harvesting feature.

Bought some shares of Berkshire Hathaway separately, and also make a few sentimental investments in local businesses, including the MMM HQ Coworking space.

But you could choose to be more hardcore in your ESG/SRI investing:

Buy your own basket of stocks based on the index, but with different weighting based on your own values

Spend more money on other things that generate or save money (a bigger solar array on your house, better insulation, electric car, an ebike to reduce car trips, etc.)

Invest in local businesses of your choice, rental real estate, community solar projects, or other things which generate passive income – publicly traded stocks are just one of many ways to fund an early retirement!

Like most areas of life, investing is not something you have to do perfectly in order to succeed – even socially responsible investing. If you apply the 80/20 rule to get the big picture right, you have probably found the Sweet Spot and you can move on to the next area of life to optimize.

In the Comments: What is your own investment strategy? Have you thought at all about this ESG / SRI stuff? Did this article bring anything new to the table?

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2020/08/22/socially-responsible-investing/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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a-path-beyond84 · 7 years

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I think this article makes a bit too much of specific circumstances just after the trough of the worst recession since 1937. It references a mainstream economist worried about jobs, which was reasonable in 2010, but now the job market has more or less fully recovered.

Unemployment in May was down to just 4.3%, which outside of a brief period in 1999 and 2000 was the lowest on record since the 1960s. The number of unfilled positions has risen to record highs, nearly 6 million, higher than it was in December 2000 at the tail end of the tech boom. Wages are rising, and incomes for married couple households with two incomes have never been higher - if you and your working spouse earned $100,000 in 2015, then you were in the poorer half your demographic’s income distribution.

I understand that training people for new lines of work isn’t simple easy for them, but I think in a modern, developed economy that is probably unavoidable. Note that the author argues against free trade not only between other nations, but even within the United States itself. He’s right, but that’s not exactly a costless proposition. Free trade does provide increased competition, but it also reduces various input costs. It does not seem probably that economic activity would be higher with reduced trade opportunities.

In Capitalism, the availability of jobs is controlled by the whim of monopolies and large employers. History has clearly shown these companies will readily close down factories and offices in one area to open new ones where they can get cheaper labor.

This isn’t accurate. The vast majority of American jobs are created by small businesses, not large ones, the availability of jobs is driven by the business cycle.

The ability for a single employer to devastate a large region gives that employer the ability to control its economic life, and even its government.

Outside of small towns, this doesn’t appear to be true. It simply isn’t the case that a single large employer could devastate Texas or New York or even a moderately large city like Milwaukee. I agree it can be a problem for small rural towns a long way away from major cities, but is the solution really to prohibit free trade and business between individual cities?

The value of our currency is controlled by banks that charge usurious interest rates while creating special financial packages to enrich each other.

Usury is not related to the rate of interest (which may or may not be unjust) but the type of loan. A mutuum loan cannot licitly charge *any* interest (i.e. where the recourse for being paid back falls on the borrower alone). A commercial loan and a non-recourse mortgage are not properly understood as usury, whereas student loans and credit cards are, because the former are backed by a specific asset (those of the business or the home) whereas the others are backed by personal pledge alone.

Banks do control the value of currency, with the Fed setting the overall pace, but the value of currency has been relatively stable. Inflation has been low and positive for many years now, and some positive inflation might help with wage adjustment through money illusion (i.e. with 2% inflation, you can hold wages flat for 3 years and reduce your wage bill by 6% and avoid layoffs, since workers hate nominal wage cuts, 0% inflation might lead the employer to fire some employees rather than cut wages - see chart below which shows huge proportion of wage changes at exactly 0%).

Many people are forced to invest their retirement funds in that great gambling institution called the stock exchange.

People are not forced to do this, but rather choose to do so because returns in equities are highest. Would distributists make investing in stocks illegal? What investment would they choose to replace equities for retirement saving? Moreover, buying stocks is not gambling, but rather investing, taking ownership shares in businesses and receiving a share of the future profits through dividends and capital appreciation. Sure, stock prices go up and down (and are uncomfortably high right now), but if you invest over 40 years it’s difficult not to make a nice return as you buy in at both low and high periods.

Considering the recent great failures of our banks and markets, is it any wonder that even the large businesses are hoarding their assets?

This is an illusion that was admittedly a prominent concern back in 2010, the notion that big businesses were hoarding cash. All assets must be held/hoarded by someone. If large businesses put that capital to work, they would have to sell those assets to other entities, and those other entities would now be accused of hoarding assets. The growth in hoarded assets largely reflects an increase in government and corporate debt, which when purchased by businesses show up as assets. More here for a description of this phenomenon in detail.

That great boondoggle mislabeled as a “stimulus package” poured billions of borrowed dollars into the very banks that led us into our current crisis, leaving not only us, but our children and future generations of tax payers to cover the bill.

The stimulus package, ARRA, was separate from TARP, or the bank bailouts. The bank bailouts were actually capital investments by the federal government that, combined with the other bailouts (e.g. AIG and auto manufacturers), have reduced the government’s debt by nearly $100 billion as of 2017, as the government made a profit on its investments.

ARRA may have been unwise or unnecessary, and perhaps there are other costs of TARP (e.g. there might be an increase in moral hazard, the idea that banks might behave in a more risky manner if they expect a bailout), but future taxpayers were better off from TARP.

Imagine instead being economically independent. What if you owned your job, either independently or cooperatively, instead of a huge company?

People can always start their own businesses, or if they work for a public corporation they can buy stock (though I wouldn’t recommend it). Isn’t that a lot of risk to bear if your independent business fails? Wouldn’t it not only mean the loss of income, but also most of your assets as well?

Are we abolishing large corporations? What about people who don’t mind working for them, and who wouldn’t want their assets tied up in a business that might fail?

What if the goods and services you need for your daily life were produced locally by people who also owned their own jobs.

It depends. Diversification reduces risk. What if the local economy crashes? Can I move? Is free trade prohibited, or are there exceptions if the producers of what I need are no longer operating? One of the biggest problems of the Great Depression was that banks weren’t allowed to have branches throughout much of the country, so that it only took a few business failures to destroy a town’s banking system.

Imagine if the government was required to provide a stable currency.

I’m not convinced that 0% inflation is better than 1.5%-2.0%. This article merely asserts it as if it were a good thing rather than defends the claim.

Imagine if there were still dozens of car manufacturers across the country who worked together on innovating new technologies, instead of the “Big Three” who bought out their competition.

Is technological progress in the auto sector too slow? I’m actually quite amazed at the pace of progress in that sector. For example, a 2016 BMW 340i 6 speed sedan is about the same size as the 1998 BMW 540i sedan, it is more comfortable, has better technology, better sound system, is faster, gets better fuel economy, handles better, brakes sooner, is probably more reliable, and the 340i base price of $46,795 actually costs less than the 540i which was $55,678 - not adjusted for inflation either. It actually just costs less.

What about economies of scale? The R&D, for example, of dozens of small car manufacturers would have to be spread across a far lower number of cars, and what about free trade? What if the best cars are in New Hampshire? Can I buy them if I live in Texas, or do I have to make do with relatively mediocre Texas vehicles?

The overall national economy would be more stable because each local economy would be stable. The failure of one company would not have the ability to devastate an entire region. The common man would be economically free because he would own the means of producing his livelihood. This is what Distributism aims to achieve.

I see a lot of assertion and not a lot of demonstration. This is my problem with full-throated distributism. There’s a lot that needs to be fleshed out, and often times I see claims I feel have limited support, or for that matter are simply false (like the bank bailouts being a net cost to taxpayers). It really needs an Adam Smith or Karl Marx type character to come along and address these things.

My preference at this time is still to improve things at the margins for capitalism (especially with respect to debt and usury, cracking down on slave labor in foreign countries, etc.)

#distributism #economics #capitalism

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fix-printers-error · 6 years

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How To Print A Website

Hello friends, welcome to you on my blog. In this post of computer information today, so I request you to print the website? The world of internet is full of treasures of information. Such information will get you on the internet, which you will never have thought about. Today people ask their questions Google and Google in 2 minutes Provides a strong answer to questions.

Many times, we search for information about any projector for our studies on the internet and when we find that information on any website, then we can save it to our computer to read or use it later.

How to save a website's article

When you like an article on any website or that information is of your work, you save that information with the help of copy pest in your computer's MS word, but it also comes with many problems. For example, if the right click and copy option are disabled on the site you want to copy, then you will not be able to copy paste.

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ericvick · 4 years

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The Complete Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio

To invest like Warren Buffett, start with these stocks.

Famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway (ticker: BRK.A, BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett has become a living legend on Wall Street for his practical value investing style and his tremendously consistent track record throughout the decades. Generations of investors have emulated the “Oracle of Omaha.” Buffett started investing at age 11, and over the years he has turned a $114 investment into about $87 billion. This year has brought some problems for Berkshire’s portfolio, which saw its value plunge from $248 billion to $180 billion in the first quarter alone. The good news? The stock market has bounced back, and with it, so has Berkshire’s portfolio, which was worth more than $245 billion through Sept. 30. Here’s a look at the entire Berkshire Hathaway portfolio through the end of the third quarter, excluding two very small positions in index-tracking exchange-traded funds SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and Vanguard 500 Index Fund ETF (VOO).

AbbVie (ABBV)

AbbVie is one of the new positions the Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate entered into last quarter, as Buffett and his presumed stock-picking successors, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, began buying more heavily into the health care sector. With such a large portfolio, sector and industry allocation becomes very important, and thus far one of the themes for 2020 has been Berkshire’s wholesale abandonment of the troubled airline industry in favor of more health care and tech stocks. AbbVie, one of the largest drugmakers on earth, is a safe and steady bet, making a number of blockbuster drugs like autoimmune treatment Humira and leukemia treatment Imbruvica. As a so-called “dividend aristocrat,” ABBV has now raised its dividend payment annually for almost 50 straight years. The stock’s current dividend yield sits at more than 5%.

Holdings: 21.26 million shares Value of Berkshire’s holdings: $2.11 billion

Story continues

Amazon.com (AMZN)

By the time Berkshire invested in Amazon for the first time in 2019, the e-commerce and cloud computing giant was nearly 25 years old and valued at more than $1 trillion. The company generated 49% of all U.S. e-commerce sales in 2018, capturing 5% of market share in the U.S. retail sector along the way. Amazon is also the parent company of video game streaming platform Twitch, cloud services platform Amazon Web Services and grocery chain Whole Foods. Its Alexa-enabled smart speakers and TVs are becoming ubiquitous as well. AMZN stock is up about 380% in the past five years and up nearly 70% year to date through mid-November. Buffett likely wishes he owned more of AMZN, one of the portfolio’s standout performers during the pandemic.

Holdings: 533,300 shares Value: $1.7 billion

American Express Co. (AXP)

American Express is a global credit card, payments and travel company headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1850, American Express has been a Buffett holding since 1991. AXP stock initially struggled in the early days of the pandemic, with shares down about 30% year to date through early May as consumer spending fell. That said, Berkshire held through the pain, and shares have already regained the bulk of those losses. In previous annual letters to Berkshire shareholders, Buffett has remarked that American Express is one of Berkshire’s core holdings for the long haul, and AXP stock, which trades for about 17 times forward earnings, is the fourth-largest position in Berkshire’s portfolio. Buffett’s company owns 18.8% of American Express.

Holdings: 151.6 million shares Value: $17.1 billion

Apple (AAPL)

Best known for its popular MacBooks and iPhones, Apple is one of the largest publicly traded stocks on Wall Street, with a market cap around $2 trillion. Essentially a must-own stock for any massive fund — and also an extremely well-run and profitable company — Apple stock is far and away the largest single holding in Berkshire’s portfolio. Berkshire’s more than $115 billion stake in Apple amounts for about 46% of Berkshire’s total portfolio. Although Buffett’s conglomerate sold about $4.4 billion in AAPL shares last quarter, that’s peanuts compared to its total stake, and it was likely done simply to take some profits and rebalance.

Holdings: 964.7 million shares Value: $115.9 billion

Axalta Coating Systems (AXTA)

Axalta Coating Systems is the global leader in auto and industrial coatings, generating anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion in annual revenue. Axalta is also the fourth-largest producer of coatings in the world. Initially, the famously cyclical auto market was one of the hardest-hit areas in the pandemic, which reduced demand from original equipment manufacturers for AXTA’s coatings. Thankfully, demand has been quickly recovering, and shares are already up more than 100% from their 52-week lows. Although headquartered in Philadelphia, Axalta’s roots go back to Germany in 1866 when Herberts Gmbh began coating carriages before transitioning to automobiles. Berkshire has nearly a 10% stake in AXTA, and it trimmed its position very slightly last quarter, selling about 2% of its previous holdings.

Holdings: 23.4 million shares Value: $654 million

Bank of America Corp. (BAC)

With a market cap around $232 billion, Bank of America is the second-largest U.S. bank and is also Buffett’s second-largest public stock holding. Buffett acquired his stake in Bank of America in 2011 when he took a $5 billion stake in preferred BAC stock while the bank was struggling with liquidity. After teetering on the brink of collapse during the Great Recession, BAC is now a much lower-risk investment given its strong capital base. Shares are down more than 20% in 2020, but the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury’s unprecedented willingness to prop up the economy makes BAC a much less risky holding than it would be otherwise. One of Buffett’s defining characteristics as an investor has been his bullishness on the financial sector. And while Berkshire surprisingly slashed its exposure to several major bank stocks last quarter, BAC wasn’t one of them: Berkshire actually increased its position in Bank of America by about 9% last quarter.

Holdings: 1.03 billion shares Value: $27.7 billion

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK)

Bank of New York Mellon operates in more than 100 markets. The New York City-based bank has $38.6 trillion in assets under custody and $2 trillion in assets under management. Its two primary business lines are investment services and investment management. The company’s stock is down about 20% year to date as the pandemic and the rock-bottom interest rates that came with it have been a drag on the financial sector. Berkshire owns around 8.4% of all BK shares, which trade for less than nine times earnings. Like most of the other bank stocks Buffett owns, BK stock also pays a respectable dividend — yielding 3.2%.

Holdings: 74.3 million shares Value: $2.9 billion

Barrick Gold Corp. (GOLD)

In an uncharacteristic foray into the world’s favorite precious metal, Berkshire bought Canadian gold and copper miner Barrick Gold in the second quarter of 2020. Buffett is famously hostile toward gold, once saying when asked about its price prospects, “I have no views as to where it will be, but the one thing I can tell you is it won’t do anything between now and then except look at you.” Buffett’s point is that gold has no clear intrinsic value, and it doesn’t pay dividends or churn out earnings — it’s not a productive asset. The addition of Barrick Gold, although not a huge part of its portfolio, indicates Berkshire is treating its massive portfolio more like a traditional fund, and gold is a classic hedge against a struggling economy and weakening U.S. dollar.

Holdings: 12 million shares Value: $290 million

Biogen (BIIB)

Biogen is one of the handful of positions Berkshire Hathaway added to its sprawling portfolio in 2020. Biogen is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech. It’s not exactly an industry Buffett has been known for, but health care is a growing part of the portfolio this year. Although it’s a relatively small part of the Berkshire pie, this is likely a starter position that will be prone to grow over time. To be sure, Biogen isn’t expected to post blockbuster growth in the coming years, but it does trade for just eight times earnings and boasts an enviable pipeline, with several mid- to late-stage trials currently in the works. Biosimilars, known as biologic medical products, have been a bright spot at BIIB, and should continue to exhibit strength going forward.

Holdings: 643,022 shares Value: $157 million

Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)

Of the new additions to Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio in the third quarter, four were well-established global drugmakers worth between $140 billion and $210 billion with dividend yields of more than 2.5%. Bristol-Myers Squibb is one of the lucky four, and it’s also one of the more exciting of the four, growth-wise. BMY completed the acquisition of Celgene in 2019, doubling down on cancer treatments as it acquired Celgene’s blockbuster oncology treatment drug Revlimid, which was alone responsible for more than $3 billion in sales last quarter, up 10% year over year. Analysts expect earnings per share growth of roughly 17% in 2021 from BMY.

Holdings: 30 million shares Value: $1.8 billion

Charter Communications (CHTR)

Charter Communications is the second-largest cable TV provider in the U.S., and it’s the best pure-play option for investors who still see value in the traditional TV model. Facing stiff competition from streaming leaders such as Netflix (NFLX), Charter has a customer base of 16.2 million video customers, 28.6 million internet subscribers and 10.5 million phone subscribers. Charter primarily operates in New York, California, the Carolinas, Florida, Ohio and Texas. Despite fears over cord cutting, CHTR shares have added more than 34% year to date. Charter is currently the tenth-largest holding in Berkshire’s equity portfolio.

Holdings: 5.2 million shares Value: $3.4 billion

Coca-Cola Co. (KO)

Coca-Cola is the largest and most valuable soda brand in the world, capturing the top spot in both the global carbonated soft drink market and the U.S. market for decades now. Coca-Cola is a truly global company, generating the majority of its profits outside the U.S. Top brands include Coca-Cola Classic, Sprite, Fanta and Minute Maid. Buffett has been a longtime fan of Coca-Cola, first investing in the stock in 1987. Berkshire’s cost basis in KO stock is $1.28 billion, meaning its current $21 billion stake represents more than 1,500% in gains. Today, KO stock pays a 3.1% dividend yield. The third-largest position in the entire portfolio behind only Apple and Bank of America, Berkshire owns 9.3% of the company through its sizable stake.

Holdings: 400 million shares Value: $21 billion

DaVita (DVA)

DaVita is the U.S. leader in dialysis, operating more than 2,700 outpatient dialysis clinics and serving more than 200,000 patients domestically. In 2019, DaVita completed the sale of its DaVita Medical Group subsidiary to UnitedHealth Group (UNH) for $4.3 billion. DaVita has used the proceeds to pay down debt and aggressively increase share buybacks, leading to an impressive market-beating performance in the last year. Through mid-November, year-to-date gains stood around 42%. Despite that, DVA stock still trades at a forward earnings multiple of less than 14. Last quarter, Berkshire sold 2 million shares, or about 5%, of its stake in DaVita. Don’t take that as a sign Buffett has stopped believing, though: Among all the companies in its portfolio, Berkshire controls the largest percentage of DaVita’s outstanding stock, boasting a roughly 32.2% stake in the entire company.

Holdings: 36.1 million shares Value: $3.9 billion

General Motors Co. (GM)

General Motors is one of the world’s largest automakers, with sales of more than $115 billion in the last year. Yet another of Buffett’s holdings that looked shaky at best in the first quarter, the Oracle’s famous patience did him well, as he sat on his hands and waited out what has been a mere bump in the road for the auto industry. GM briefly dipped into the red in the second quarter, but it quickly emerged to post a more than $4 billion profit in the third quarter. GM is refocusing its business on trucks and SUVs and is also investing heavily in electric and autonomous vehicle technology, which seems savvy over the longer term. Berkshire boosted its stake by 5 million shares, or roughly 7%, last quarter.

Holdings: 80 million shares Value: $3.4 billion

Globe Life (GL)

Globe Life, which was known as Torchmark until it rebranded itself last August, is a life and supplemental health insurance company that focuses primarily on the low- to middle-income market. Globe Life is headquartered in McKinney, Texas, and has about 3,100 employees. Revenue grew 5% in 2019 and similar degrees of slow but steady growth are expected in 2020 and 2021 as well. Buffett likely appreciates the company’s stable earnings, solid balance sheet and free cash flow. In addition, its forward earnings multiple is less than 13. Berkshire owns a 6.1% stake in the company and left its position in GL unchanged last quarter.

Holdings: 6.4 million shares Value: $584 million

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

Johnson & Johnson is a global health care company that develops and markets pharmaceutical products, medical devices and consumer health products. The company’s leading brands include Band-Aid, Neutrogena, Splenda and Tylenol. JNJ stock trades at a reasonable 16 times forward earnings multiple. Why Berkshire’s exposure to a stock as stable and cash-rich as JNJ is so small is a mystery, but it is: This position makes up 0.02% of the financial giant’s stock portfolio. Johnson & Johnson could end up being a meaningful part of the solution to the pandemic; it’s committed to providing 100 million doses of its vaccine to the U.S. government at cost, should its candidate be approved while the pandemic is still raging. Its goal is to ramp up manufacturing activities to be able to produce 1 billion doses globally.

Holdings: 327,100 shares Value: $47 million

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

The only stock Buffett completely eliminated from Berkshire’s portfolio last quarter was warehouse membership chain Costco (COST). But JPMorgan Chase was the next-closest to being cast out, as Berkshire sold an incredible 95% of its JPM stake in the period. It’s arguably the most surprising move that was made last quarter, as Buffett is famously a fan of banks and Berkshire was content to increase its stake in Bank of America. The company rarely comments on the impetus behind such moves until months or years later, but it’s a tad disconcerting for JPM shareholders. In the meantime, JPMorgan is still the most valuable bank in the U.S., seems to be doing well and is run by Wall Street legend Jamie Dimon. It trades for less than 13 times forward earnings and pays a 3.1% dividend.

Holdings: 967,267 shares Value: $111 million

Kraft Heinz Co. (KHC)

Kraft Heinz is Berkshire’s fifth-largest equity holding. The 26.6% stake in the food giant is objectively huge and means the only company in its portfolio Berkshire has more voting control over is DaVita. Often even a 5% to 10% stake in a public company is enough to get a board seat, so Berkshire could exert quite a lot of sway over Kraft Heinz if it so desired. That said, as a passive and hands-off investor, taking an activist bent with KHC is unlikely to happen with Buffett. Still, perhaps the owner of the Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands could use some guidance; shares are trading for about one-third their all-time highs in 2017. KHC now pays a 5% dividend.

Holdings: 325.6 million shares Value: $10.2 billion

Kroger (KR)

Kroger is one of the newer stocks in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio, with the position initiated in the first quarter of 2020. Kroger is certainly the type of boring, low-tech company that Buffett might like to “buy and hold” for the long term. While grocery is indeed an industry experiencing steeper competition and a certain level of disruption, Kroger is well-positioned within the industry and does something Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger love: It pays a decent, sustainable dividend with room to grow. In fact, Kroger has a track record of boosting its payout, growing its quarterly dividend annually for the last 13 years. The stock currently yields a respectable 2.2%; Berkshire bought more KR in the third quarter, increasing its stake to 3.2%.

Holdings: 25 million shares Value: $821 million

Liberty Global (LBTYA, LBTYK)

Liberty Global has multiple share classes and Buffett is invested in both. Liberty is the largest cable TV operator in Europe, operating primarily in the U.K., Belgium and eastern Europe. LBTYA A-class shares have voting rights, but LBTYK C-class shares do not. As a result, the A-class shares trade at a slight premium, although both stocks are more or less sideways year to date. In the full context of Berkshire’s total holdings, this is a relatively small position that’s unlikely to move the needle for Berkshire’s own stock in any substantial way. Berkshire trimmed its stake in LBTYA by 6% in the third quarter.

Holdings: 18 million shares of LBTYA, 7.3 million shares of LBTYK Combined value: $579 million

Liberty Latin America (LILA, LILAK)

Liberty Latin America is another member of the Liberty Media family with multiple share classes. Liberty Latin America split off from its parent company in 2018 and is a pure play on the telecommunications business in Latin America and the Caribbean. The spinoff serves 7.6 million homes in the region, has 3.6 million mobile subscribers and generates annual revenue of $3.9 billion. Buffett holds both the A-class voting shares and the C-class nonvoting shares.

Holdings: 2.6 million shares of LILA, 1.4 million shares of LILAK Combined value: $47 million

Liberty Sirius XM Group (LSXMK, LSXMA)

Liberty Sirius XM Group Series C and A are tracking stocks representing Liberty Media’s equity stake in Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI). Series A shares have voting rights, whereas Series C shares do not. The tracking stocks represent a 71.2% ownership stake in Sirius XM, but they also hold more than $1 billion in debt of streaming leader Pandora Media and terrestrial radio leader iHeartMedia (IHRT). The tracking stocks trade at a deep discount to the value of their underlying assets, and Sirius XM has been aggressively buying back shares of its stock. Here, Berkshire’s holdings are more meaningful, topping $2 billion when combined. It also has meaningful ownership percentages in each company.

Holdings: 43.2 million shares of LSXMK, 14.9 million shares of LSXMA Combined value: $2.5 billion

Mastercard (MA)

Along with Visa (V) and American Express, Mastercard rounds out Buffett’s exposure to the three dominant forces in the global credit card business. The Mastercard network includes billions of customers and millions of merchants in more than 210 countries. Mastercard operates both the third-largest credit and debit networks by volume, according to The Nilson Report. Mastercard has the highest forward earnings multiple of the three credit card stocks, at 40. MA stock is up about 12% year to date, outperforming both Visa and American Express.

Holdings: 4.6 million shares Value: $1.5 billion

M&T Bank Corp. (MTB)

M&T Bank is a U.S. regional bank based in Buffalo, New York, that has more than $127 billion in total assets. M&T is relatively small compared with some of the other banks Buffett owns, barely cracking the Fortune 500 at 438. M&T primarily focuses on commercial and residential real estate, and it was one of only two banks in the S&P 500 not to lower its dividend during the 2008 financial crisis. M&T shares have been meaningfully hit by the pandemic in 2020, with shares down about 25% to date. Thankfully, this is a relatively small holding for Berkshire — and it just got smaller. Berkshire sold 35% of its stake in the third quarter.

Holdings: 2.9 million shares Value: $348 million

Merck (MRK)

Another large-cap drugmaker that Buffett bought in the third quarter was Merck, the Dow Jones Industrial Average component and roughly $200 billion health care giant. It’s not a particularly growth-oriented or sexy stock, with analysts expecting roughly 3% revenue growth in 2020 and 7% growth in 2021. Shares trade for about 17 times earnings and offer a 3.2% dividend, fitting in perfectly with Berkshire’s traditional value-oriented approach to stock picking. Despite overall low growth, there are some exciting parts to Merck’s drug lineup; Merck’s blockbuster Keytruda oncology treatment saw 21% year-over-year revenue growth in the third quarter.

Holdings: 22.4 million shares Value: $1.8 billion

Mondelez International (MDLZ)

Mondelez International is a U.S. food and beverage company headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois. Mondelez is composed of the international snack and food brands that once belonged to Kraft Foods prior to its 2012 spinoff of its North American grocery business. Mondelez has several billion-dollar international food brands, including Belvita, Chips Ahoy, Nabisco, Oreo and Ritz. Developed markets were solely responsible for Mondelez’s growth in the first three quarters of 2020; at roughly twice the size of its emerging-market segment, the 7.1% growth in developed markets more than offset the 7.2% decline in emerging markets. MDLZ stock has a 2.2% dividend and a reasonable forward earnings multiple of 20.

Holdings: 578,000 shares Value: $33 million

Moody’s Corp. (MCO)

Moody’s is a major U.S. credit rating agency, providing research, analytical tools and financial recommendations for investors worldwide. Moody’s was founded in 1900 and is headquartered in New York City. Moody’s Investors Services is the company’s credit rating agency that rates both the quality of the debt and the credit quality of corporate and government institutions. Moody’s Analytics offers a range of services and tools that allow investors to quantify and manage risk in global financial markets. MCO stock is up about 15% in the last year, pushing its forward earnings multiple to 26. As a staple of the U.S. financial services industry, this will likely continue to be a meaningful holding for Berkshire for years to come.

Holdings: 24.7 million shares Value: $6.8 billion

Pfizer (PFE)

The last of the large-cap drugmakers Buffett added to Berkshire’s portfolio in the third quarter was Pfizer, the $200 billion diversified pharmaceutical giant paying a 4.1% dividend. Investors might currently associate PFE with its promising COVID-19 vaccine, developed with German partner BioNTech (BNTX). Although this position is quite small in the context of the broader stock portfolio — it accounts for just 0.1% ownership of Pfizer, and an even smaller percentage of all Berkshire’s holdings — don’t be surprised if this “small” initial purchase is just a proverbial toe in the water, with gradual increases to the position to follow.

Holdings: 3.7 million shares Value: $133 million

PNC Financial Services Group (PNC)

PNC Financial Services is a U.S. regional bank headquartered in Pittsburgh and one of the largest U.S. banks by deposits. In addition to retail and business banking, the company also offers wealth and asset management services. Like the other bank stocks Buffett owns, PNC has a relatively attractive forward earnings multiple of 16.7 and a generous 3.6% dividend. The regional bank, like many others, has seen shares slide in 2020 as PNC stock is down around 18% year to date. Another financial stock Buffett sold off, Berkshire reduced its position by 64% last quarter.

Holdings: 1.9 million shares Value: $241 million

Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)

Procter & Gamble is a blue-chip U.S. consumer products company that produces beauty, grooming, health and home care, and baby and family care products. Leading brands include Pampers, Tide, Bounty, Charmin and Gillette. PG stock’s forward earnings multiple of 23 isn’t particularly impressive, but its 2.3% dividend and relatively recession-proof business make it a popular defensive play. As recently as 2016, Buffett had a $4.3 billion stake in PG stock.

Holdings: 315,400 shares Value: $45.1 million

RH (RH)

RH, the home furnishings retailer formerly known as Restoration Hardware, looked like an attractive investment as the year began, with analysts expecting explosive growth over the next five years and shares trading at a 1.3 price-earnings to growth ratio. That turned out to be true, with RH stock now up an incredible 102% year to date. First-quarter fears surrounding the cyclical economy and the troubled state of U.S. consumers turned out to be overblown, with EPS jumping about 30% year over year in the third quarter. Due to Berkshire’s massive size, it owns about 9% of RH’s entire company, but even that position is a relatively small percentage of Berkshire’s portfolio.

Holdings: 1.7 million shares Value: $737 million

Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI)

In addition to his stake in the Liberty Media Sirius XM tracking stock, Buffett also has a direct investment in Sirius XM. Sirius XM is a satellite radio operator that offers more than 140 channels of music and talk radio throughout the U.S. In early 2019, Sirius XM completed a $3 billion buyout of streaming radio leader Pandora Media, giving the company a large stake in both the streaming and satellite radio markets. Pandora has 58.6 million monthly active users, and Sirius XM has 30.5 million self-pay subscribers.

Holdings: 50 million shares Value: $320 million

Snowflake (SNOW)

In another sign that Berkshire is moving beyond its classic value investing philosophy, it actually bought a richly valued tech stock — and at the time of its initial public offering, no less. With IPOs often overpriced, Buffett has tended to bide his time before buying into positions in the past, but everything about Berkshire’s stake in this cloud-based data warehousing company shows Buffett’s successors are increasingly exercising more influence over portfolio decisions. Arguably the fairest criticism of Berkshire’s portfolio in years past was its willing underexposure to tech stocks, especially those with huge growth potential. Snowflake, which grew revenue 121% in its last quarter, falls into that category.

Holdings: 6.1 million shares Value: $1.6 billion

StoneCo (STNE)

StoneCo is a Brazilian financial technology company founded in 2012 that specializes in electronic payments. StoneCo had an IPO in October 2018, and now trades for almost three times its $24 IPO price. STNE has been one of the few growth stocks to grab Buffett’s attention, and despite the virus’ spread in Brazil this year, where the company has at least an 8% market share, the stock recently hit all-time highs and is up more than 70% in 2020.

Holdings: 14.2 million shares Value: $967 million

Store Capital Corp. (STOR)

Store Capital is a real estate investment trust that specializes in the acquisition, investment, ownership and management of single-tenant net-lease real estate. As a REIT, Store Capital is an excellent source of dividend income, yielding 4.5%. In addition, Store Capital has avoided disruption to its retail tenants by strategically avoiding businesses threatened by e-commerce disruption. Its long-term leases also provide more financial stability than other REITs. The pandemic was initially seen as a major threat to STOR’s previous occupation rate of 99.7%, even though 75% of its tenants had investment-grade credit quality to start the year. In May, STOR shares were down as much as 45% year to date, but as fear has abated and the outlook improves, STOR has erased the majority of those losses, although shares are still down 14% in 2020.

Holdings: 24.4 million shares Value: $773 million

Suncor Energy (SU)

Suncor is a Canadian oil exploration and production company that produces between 680,000 and 710,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Suncor’s production primarily comes from oil sands, but it also has a large conventional oil operation. In addition, Suncor has 460,000 barrels per day in refining capacity. SU shares are down more than 53% year to date as the global oil market slump drags on. Although exposure to Suncor is relatively limited as far as the Berkshire portfolio is concerned, SU’s swift fall still hasn’t been pretty.

Holdings: 19.2 million shares Value: $293 million

Synchrony Financial (SYF)

Like M&T, Synchrony Financial is a relatively small bank compared with some of the other banks that Buffett owns. Synchrony operates exclusively online with no physical branches. Synchrony specializes in private-label credit card partnerships with companies like Amazon and Lowe’s (LOW), and it was previously a subsidiary of GE Capital before being spun off in 2014. Like many other stocks, SYF has vigorously rebounded from its spring lows, with shares now up more than 140% from its earlier 2020 depths.

Holdings: 20.1 million shares Value: $598 million

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA)

After acquiring Allergan’s generic drug business back in 2015, Teva Pharmaceuticals is now one of the largest generic drug makers in the world. Teva stock was pounded in August 2017, dropping more than 40% in three days when the company reported a huge earnings miss and cut its guidance and dividend. Since that time, management has been on a cost-cutting spree and has prioritized getting the company’s debt levels under control. As a result, Teva’s forward earnings multiple is down to just 3.6, and analysts expect the company to return to modest revenue and operating profit growth in 2021.

Holdings: 43 million shares Value: $403 million

T-Mobile US (TMUS)

Another third-quarter addition to the Buffett portfolio was T-Mobile. Although not a particularly aggressive bet in terms of size — Berkshire’s initial stake amounts to just 0.2% of its entire portfolio — it’s aggressive in the sense that TMUS is the most growth-oriented and richly valued of the three major carriers. By the end of the third quarter, TMUS stock was already up more than 68% in 2020 alone, and shares have risen further since then. Of course, there’s a reason TMUS has rallied, and last quarter the company added more than 2 million customers, crossing the “100 million customer” milestone, and surpassing AT&T (T) to become the second-largest wireless carrier.

Holdings: 2.4 million shares Value: $314 million

United Parcel Service (UPS)

United Parcel Service provides air, sea, ground and rail logistics, freight and customs services. UPS has more than “495,000 employees connecting more than 220 nations.” It operates a fleet of 269 airplanes and 125,000 delivery vehicles that deliver an average of 21.9 million daily packages and documents. UPS has greatly benefited from the rise of e-commerce in the past 20 years — and especially the pandemic-driven rise in demand in 2020. UPS, which trades at 20 times forward earnings, is up more than 40% year to date, and it offers investors a 2.4% dividend.

Holdings: 59,400 shares Value: $9.9 million

U.S. Bancorp (USB)

U.S. Bancorp is the fifth-largest commercial bank in the U.S., with $495 billion in assets. U.S. Bancorp was founded in 1929 and is headquartered in Minneapolis. USB stock has been more than just a market laggard year to date, shedding about 27% as financials have gotten slaughtered. The stock’s forward earnings multiple of 13.9 alongside a dividend yield of 3.9% both look nice, but Buffett will be closely watching the company’s financials for weakness given USB is Berkshire’s seventh-largest equity holding.

Holdings: 149 million shares Value: $6.3 billion

Verisign (VRSN)

Verisign is a domain-name registration specialist headquartered in Reston, Virginia. Verisign provides internet security services, such as the denial of service protection, iDefense security intelligence services and managed domain-name security. With a gaudy forward earnings multiple of 33, VRSN stock isn’t the typical Buffett value stock. Buffett has always loved market leaders with strong business execution, two areas in which Verisign excels. VRSN stock is up more than 120% overall in the past five years. Berkshire’s $2.5 billion position is good for an 11.2% stake in the company.

Holdings: 12.8 million shares Value: $2.5 billion

Visa (V)

Buffett feels no need to pick a winner if he likes an entire industry. In 2018, Buffett said payments are a “huge deal” worldwide, and Berkshire has stakes in all the major credit card operators, as well as several smaller financial technology companies. Visa operates the largest electronic payments network in the world, including the world’s largest credit network by volume and the second-largest global debit network. Visa’s forward earnings multiple of around 31 isn’t particularly impressive, but the credit card giant reported 4% year-over-year payments volume growth in its September quarter.

Holdings: 10 million shares Value: $2.1 billion

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC)

Headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo has more than $1.9 trillion in assets. The bank has struggled with a series of legal and public relations issues in recent years stemming from overly aggressive marketing practices. Buffett has generally stuck with Wells Fargo through its dark times, although his patience is starting to wear thin; in the third quarter of 2020, Buffett slashed his stake in WFC by 46%. Fed restrictions on expansion, as well as what may be a far too conservative allocation for loan losses, has caused shares to crater this year; WFC is down by more than 50% to date.

Holdings: 127 million shares Value: $3.2 billion

Berkshire Hathaway’s complete portfolio:

— AbbVie (ABBV)

— Amazon.com (AMZN)

— American Express Co. (AXP)

— Apple (AAPL)

— Axalta Coating Systems (AXTA)

— Bank of America Corp. (BAC)

— Bank of New York Mellon Corp. (BK)

— Barrick Gold Corp. (GOLD)

— Biogen (BIIB)

— Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY)

— Charter Communications (CHTR)

— Coca-Cola Co. (KO)

— DaVita (DVA)

— General Motors Co. (GM)

— Globe Life (GL)

— Johnson & Johnson (JNJ)

— JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)

— Kraft Heinz Co. (KHC)

— Kroger (KR)

— Liberty Global (LBTYA, LBTYK)

— Liberty Latin America (LILA, LILAK)

— Liberty Sirius XM Group (LSXMK, LSXMA)

— Mastercard (MA)

— M&T Bank Corp. (MTB)

— Merck (MRK)

— Mondelez International (MDLZ)

— Moody’s Corp. (MCO)

— Pfizer (PFE)

— PNC Financial Services Group (PNC)

— Procter & Gamble Co. (PG)

— RH (RH)

— Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI)

— Snowflake (SNOW)

— StoneCo (STNE)

— Store Capital Corp. (STOR)

— Suncor Energy (SU)

— Synchrony Financial (SYF)

— Teva Pharmaceutical Industries (TEVA)

— T-Mobile Us (TMUS)

— United Parcel Service (UPS)

— U.S. Bancorp (USB)

— Verisign (VRSN)

— Visa (V)

— Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC)

#Berkshire #complete #Hathaway #Portfolio

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damonbation · 4 years

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Socially Responsible Investing: Is It Also More Profitable?

Since the Dawn of Mustachianism in 2011, the same question has come up over and over again:

“MMM, I see your point that index fund investing is the best option. But when you buy the index, you’re getting oil companies, factory farm slaughterhouses and a million other dirty stories.

How can I get the benefits of investing for early retirement without contributing to the decline of humanity?”

And all of this has led to the exploding new field of Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), and a growing array of new ways to do it.

This leads us naturally to the question:

What can I do with my money to help fix the world? And even better, is there a way I can make money in the process of fixing it?

The answer is a good, solid “Probably.”

So anyway, the first thing to understand with SRI is, “what problem am I trying to solve?”

The answer is, “You are trying to make your investing (especially index fund investing) have a better impact on the world.”

When you do this, you are buying a stake in 3500 companies at once(!), which is both impressive and overwhelming. How do you even know what you are holding?

Well, this is all public information, and easily available with a quick Google search. For example, here’s a list of the top 90 holdings in VTI (click for larger):

Top 90 holdings in Vanguard’s VTI Exchange Traded Fund

And within this list, you will see some of the usual suspects: Exxon and Chevron (oil), Philip Morris (tobacco), Raytheon and Lockheed (bombs), and so on.

ESG stands for “Environmental, Social and Governance”, and in practice it just means “We have tried to avoid some of the shittier companies according to some fairly simple rules.”

And the result is this:

Vanguard’s ESGV Exchange traded fund (ETF) – top 90 holdings

But let’s look at the biggest differences between the normal index fund versus the social version.

Main differences between VTI and ESGV (source: etfrc)

But What About The Performance?

Traditional index fund (VTI) vs Socially Responsible equivalent (ESGV)

As you can see, the performance has been similar but the ESG fund has done significantly better in the (admittedly short) time since it was introduced at Vanguard.

So What Should You Do? (and what I do myself)

My latest home-brewed ebike project – this one can reach 42MPH / 67km/hr!

Each one of these steps has provided a very high economic return, percentage-wise, but that still leaves a lot of money to account for, which brings us back to stock investing.

As someone who loves simplicity, I have done this:

Bought almost entirely VTI (or similar Vanguard funds) from 2000-2015

Switched the dividend re-investing of my old Vanguard VTI over to Vanguard ESGV, to avoid “wash sales” in making the most of Betterment’s tax loss harvesting feature.

Bought some shares of Berkshire Hathaway separately, and also make a few sentimental investments in local businesses, including the MMM HQ Coworking space.

But you could choose to be more hardcore in your ESG/SRI investing:

Buy your own basket of stocks based on the index, but with different weighting based on your own values

Spend more money on other things that generate or save money (a bigger solar array on your house, better insulation, electric car, an ebike to reduce car trips, etc.)

In the Comments: What is your own investment strategy? Have you thought at all about this ESG / SRI stuff? Did this article bring anything new to the table?

from Money 101 https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2020/08/22/socially-responsible-investing/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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meraenthusiast · 4 years

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Capital Gains Tax 101 For High Income Earners

Pros and Cons Of Capital Gains Tax

One of the most overlooked areas high-income professionals seem to miss when developing a financial plan involves TAXES.

Why? Because taxes are NO fun (unless you’re a CPA) and who wants to focus on an expense, right?

As a high income earner, your largest expense during your career is going to be income tax (active income).

This is the income that you trade your time for each day. Sounds like fun, right?

As a young doc fresh out of training and full of energy, we think, “Taxes? Who cares about taxes? I’m going to be a RICH doctor! I’ll make plenty of money to buy whatever I want and pay my taxes with no problemo!”

But what happens when we get a bit older and somewhat wiser? We start to think, “Taxes? Yeah, it’s something that maybe I should start to look at. I don’t really know much about them as my CPA has always done ’em for me. Maybe it’s time to take it upon myself to figure out that tax code thing.”

Want To Build Wealth?

If you want to build wealth, real wealth then listen up.

I don’t care at what point of your career you’re at now; but you have a choice to make.

Option #1 or #2?

Choose below:

Continue to work HARD for your money (trading time for it)

Have your money work HARD for you

Which is it?

Don’t worry. You’re not going to be graded as there is no right or wrong answer.

It all comes down to personal preference. If you want to work for another 30+ years and don’t mind residing in the 40+% tax bracket then, by all means, choose Option #1.

If you want to work SMARTER and not necessarily harder, then #2 is your choice.

It all boils down to how you handle your money and not just taxes.

Let’s dive in…

Assets vs Liabilities

I realize that we need to discuss the pros and cons of capital gains tax but stay with me while I make a few points first.

I think it was Robert Kiyosaki that said, “If you want to be rich, start spending your money on assets — things that make you money over time.”

Maybe it was Grant Cardone?

Doesn’t matter. The point is that what you spend your money on makes a BIG difference on your taxes.

How?

If you purchase an asset such as real estate, you can LOWER your taxes via depreciation.

You can’t do that when you purchase a new AMG. Sorry!

Let’s take a look at some things you should focus on investing in while others you should avoid.

The Best Assets For High-Income Earners

I’m BIG on trying to better myself both personally and professionally. One of my favorite past times is reading and listening to podcasts.

Here’s a list of some of my favorite assets that have paid off in the long run:

Books on personal finance, investing, real estate etc.

Conferences in my field of work (dental surgery)

Online courses

Real estate syndications

Index funds

Healthy food

The Worst Liabilities to Avoid

Just because you make a lot of money, it doesn’t give you a free pass to buy whatever you WANT when you’re serious about building wealth.

Consider avoiding:

The Doctor house

Every new tech gadget that hits the market

Expensive cars, boats, ATVs

High dollar clothes, watches, accessories, etc (items that make you LOOK rich even though you’re not)

When You “Can” Buy Liabilities

If you chose Option #2 above then remember, I want you to work smarter and not harder. Life’s too short.

Do I want you to have everything on the Liability list above? Yes, if you do too. But I want you to purchase them how the rich do and NOT the poor.

The key is to buy these liabilities with money you’ve made from your money (passive income), not your actual money (active income) yourself.

Does that make sense?

Here’s a video that explains it from Grant Cardone geared toward the high-income folks (rappers, ball players, doctors, etc)

youtube

He teaches that, “Instead of spending your money (active income) on Rollies, Pateks, Lambos, Richards and other BS, use your investment income to purchase instead.”

Make Your Money Work For You

Proverbs 21:20 – “The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.”

Unfortunately, most of the physicians and dentists I know only know how to make money treating patients.

They haven’t ever taken the time to learn how to make money work for them.

The #3 wealth lesson out of 7 in George Clason’s book, The Richest Man in Babylon, is to “make thy gold multiply.”

The point he’s trying to make is that we should treat each dollar as our own “worker” as it has the ability to produce other workers. We want them to multiply thus having THEM work hard and NOT us.

This reminds me of a quote from Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, “Money is my military, each dollar a soldier. I never send my money into battle unprepared and undefended. I send it to conquer and take currency prisoner and bring it back to me.”

Basically, every dollar is like a small seed that can we can plant and will eventually sprout more dollars.

This is the essence of having “money work for you.”

How Does This Lower My Taxes?

Now that we understand in order to work smarter and NOT harder, we must make our money work FOR us.

So how do we do this?

How does it help our taxes?

Great questions.

I want to help you do BOTH, free up your time and also lower your bill to Uncle Sam.

Think about all of the taxes you currently pay. I’m not talking about sales tax, property tax, occupancy tax or income tax.

I’m focusing more so on investments.

VTSAX

Let’s say you want to invest in a Vanguard Index fund such as the Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTSAX).

If this is outside of a retirement account, you’d have to pay income tax on your wages first, then invest. If you’re like most, in order to invest $1,000, then you’d have to make about $1,400 (40% tax bracket).

Once you start taking money out, you have to pay capital gains tax. There’s another tax.

Then when you exit this world, the government hits you again with an inheritance tax.

So if we’re taxed literally to death our entire lives, don’t you think it’s smart to want to try to do something about it now while we can still enjoy ourselves? I do.

Our main focus should be on purchasing assets now, during our working careers, that allow us to begin to build passive income to replace our expenses.

It’s the passive income that we should focus on as the IRS treats it differently than your active income. When I say differently, I mean that it’s taxed at a MUCH lower rate than what you’re used to.

Which brings us back to the subject of capital gains and the pros and cons of capital gains tax.

What is Capital Gain Tax?

According to Investopedia, a capital gain occurs when you sell an asset for more than you paid for it.

That means:

Capital Gain = Selling Price−Purchase Price

Just as the government wants a cut of your income, it also expects a cut when you realize a profit on your investments. That cut is the capital gains tax.

Didn’t I tell you that we were going to be taxed to death!

According to IRS.gov, almost everything you own and use for personal or investment purposes is a capital asset.

Examples include:

your home

personal-use items like household furnishings

stocks or bonds held as investments

How much these gains are taxed depends on how long you held the asset before selling.

What Is Short-Term Capital Gains Tax?

Short-term capital gains are taxed as though they are ordinary income.

What this means is any profits received from the sale of an asset you held for one year or less is taxed at your normal income tax rate.

What Is Long-Term Capital Gains Tax?

Long-term capital gains tax are based on profits received from the sale of an asset you held for more than a year.

Depending on your taxable income and filing status, the long-term capital gains tax rate is 0%, 15% or 20%.

The 2020 Capital Gains Tax Brackets

Long-Term Capital Gains Tax Rate Single Filers (Taxable Income) Married Filing Jointly Heads of Household Married Filing Separately 0% $0-$40,000 $0-$80,000 $0-$53,600 $0-$40,000 15% $40,000-$441,450 $80,000-$496,600 $53,600-$469,050 $40,000-$248,300 20% Over $441,550 Over $496,600 Over $469,050 Over $248,300

Image source – IRS.gov

From the chart above, most high income earners typically fall into the 15% or 20% categories.

Capital Gains Example

I like to play a game with my kids that involves picking stocks based on past values.

So for instance, I’d say, “Kids, here’s three different stocks. Which would you invest in ten years ago with $1,000?”

After they pick, I then reveal the current stock price. Some are HUGE wins and some aren’t. The point I’m trying to get across to them is that it’s nothing more than a guess.

So let’s play a different version of the game with you.

Let’s say you lucked up and bought 100 shares of Tesla stock (TSLA) at $20 each. You noticed less than a year after purchasing, your investment took off like a “rocket” and you wanted to sell.

But then you remembered reading this article regarding the pros and cons of capital gains tax and decided to hold off until just over a year.

Great news! You sold your original investment for $1,000 per share! Now let’s assume you fall into the 15% long-term capital gains tax category.

The table below summarizes how your gains are affected.

HOW CAPITAL GAINS AFFECT EARNINGS Bought 100 shares @ $20 $2,000 Sold 100 shares @ $1000 $100,000 Capital gain $98,000 Capital gain taxed @ 15% $14,700 Profit after tax $83,300

In the above example, you have to give $14,700 of your profit back to Uncle Sam. He’s going to get his, trust me.

But remember it could have been worse if you’d have followed your initial reaction and sold the stock less than a year after purchasing.

In that situation, your profit would have been taxed at your ordinary income tax rate (short term capital gains tax), which can be as high as 37% or $36,260.

Pros and Cons Of Capital Gains Tax

Whenever it comes to the subject of taxes, it’s always best to check with your CPA or real estate attorney.

Thus far, we’ve learned that:

Capital Gain = Selling Price − Purchase Price

A capital-gains tax is assessed when a capital asset is sold for profit.

Depending on an investor’s individual tax needs, many utilize strategic techniques for either taking a capital gain or loss.

It’s for this reason that capital gains taxes can have both pros and cons.

Pro – Tax deferment

One of the reasons I love being a real estate investor has to do with taxes. Specifically the deferment of those little critters. As a real estate investor, you don’t pay taxes on the equity gained until the year that the property sells (for a profit).

Likewise, an investor that purchases stocks, bonds or mutual funds doesn’t pay until either the assets are sold or a distribution is taken.

Think about your income tax. Uncle Sam wants it EVERY year. It’s gotten so large for us that we pay monthly just to be able to stomach it. 🙁

Con – Reduced profits

The IRS classifies a capital asset as basically everything you own for personal use or investment purposes.

As we’ve learned today, we’re taxed whenever these assets are sold for a profit.

The disadvantage of this tax is that it can reduce the overall profits realized from the sale of the asset.

Are You Ready To Learn More About Lowering Taxes?

Join the Passive Investors Circle today.

The post Capital Gains Tax 101 For High Income Earners appeared first on Debt Free Dr..

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#IFTTT #Debt Free Dr.

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vegas-glitz · 5 years

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Why The Stock Industry Will Before long Favor Price Investing All over again

http://topicsofnote.com/?p=4399&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr

Worth Investing is a famous expense technique which aids to discover top quality shares (by applying an approximation of the stocks' value) that are presently undervalued in the market. The value/price of each individual stock is primarily based on the functionality of the company as very well as a watch of its long term sustainable profitability (recognised as normalized return on fairness).

Given that the commencing of 2009, the international marketplaces have faced a monetary repression period. It was a interval of very low-curiosity fees as properly as possibility-encouragement that has led to a best time for growth investing. On top of that, the sector has awarded a shortage quality to practically all those firms that can mature in these an setting of restricted economic expansion prospects. Meanwhile, the marketplace has paid much less consideration to the classic price components, these as P/E (price tag-to-earnings) ratios and dividend yields. However, these components have supplied significant return premiums more than the long-time period.

Every little thing has its season and it is fully truthful to say, this has been a extended and chilly winter season for worth traders that are dedicated to the type. Undoubtedly immediately after the significant-traveling days of the tech bubble in the late 1990s, value has not been this out of favor.

It is extremely crucial to remember that the benefit/expansion cycles have a tendency to be imply-reverting. Furthermore, they have lasted involving 7 and 10 a long time from trough to peak on average. With the expansion style now in its ninth yr of relative out-efficiency, the recent stage of this cycle may well be drawing to a near. We may well quickly enter into an environment which the moment again favors benefit investing.

Just after the prevalence of this change in the sector, yesterday's laggards could turn out to be tomorrow's leaders. In addition, buyers may possibly want to be positioned appropriately. Although no person has any crystal ball that can explain to particularly when the cycle will flip. Having said that, there are even now some signs that a change could by now be taking place.

The followings are some of these indications:

1. A weakening U.S. dollar

It is significant to be aware that the worth indexes are skewed towards various current market segments, like previous tech, vitality, and industrials that derive substantial profits overseas. The U.S. dollar has been dropping worth, which may supply this sort of providers with an earnings tailwind.

2. Better U.S. fascination fees:

History demonstrates that value stocks have outperformed in a pervasive as very well as persistent method soon just after the initial level hike. Don't forget just one thing, it worth noting that the lift-off for the existing fee hike cycle transpired in December 2015.

3. Strengthening commodity marketplaces:

The value out-general performance is positively correlated with mounting commodity costs.

4. A restoration in the higher-yield bond markets:

The worth and U.S. large-yield spreads are inversely correlated. The spreads are at present falling, which is a signal that the worst could be guiding us.

It is achievable to understand a great deal about worth investing techniques with the assist of investment decision classes. Provided present day industry conditions, it appears prudent to keep exposure to the price-oriented investments concentrated on money from minimal-valuation...P/E multiples and dividends.

The 5 Main Inventory Investing Techniques for the Value Traders

The steady greenback charge averaging method set up is a person of the very best approaches to fairness ownership for various traders, with dividends reinvested into a small-price as well as a broadly diversified index. Some buyers prefer to select individual securities and then create a portfolio centered on the investigation of each and every selected firm.

Mr. Benjamin Graham (the father of worth investing) discovered five various types of popular inventory investing for do-it-you traders. These all 5 types could conceivably result in satisfactory or even far more than satisfactory returns. Mr. Benjamin Graham elaborated these 5 methods in his guide "The Clever Trader" for engaging portfolio administrators who desired to compound the capital.

1. The Typical Investing

This method refers to taking part or anticipating in the moves of the stock market as a complete, as reflected in the familiar "averages".

2. The Selective Trading

This strategy refers to buying out the problems which, less than 1 yr or above a period of 1 calendar year, will do far better in the market place as in contrast to the average shares.

3. Acquiring Low-cost and Providing Expensive

This method states that arrive into the stock industry when the prices as very well as sentiments are depressed and advertising out when charges and sentiments are exalted.

4. The Extensive-Pull Choice

This system refers to finding out companies that will prosper in excess of the yr, considerably far more than an ordinary company. These are also recognised as the "advancement shares.

5. The Deal Buys

This strategy indicates to decide on the securities that are currently offering considerably under their real/true benefit, as calculated by some moderately trustworthy methods.

Price investing is one particular of the famed and simple to use expenditure techniques. Mr. Benjamin Graham goes on to deal with some particular quandary that just about every energetic investor will confront in determining how to handle his/her portfolio. He reported, "No matter if an trader need to obtain at lower price tag and then offer at a greater price, or he/she ought to be material to hold some seem securities by thick and thin (topic only to periodic evaluation of their intrinsic deserves) is one particular of the numerous choices of policy which an trader must make for herself/himself.

The particular scenario and temperament right here may perhaps properly be the pinpointing aspects. An particular person near to small business affairs, who is applied to forming judgments as to the financial outlook and of acting on them, will be enthusiastic obviously to make identical judgments about the basic degree of inventory costs.

You can study a good deal far more about distinctive investment strategies and procedures through investment programs.

It would be reasonable to use the approach of obtain-lower and market-higher for this sort of traders. However, pros and rich folks who are not energetic in business can conveniently immunize their pondering from the impact of 12 months-to-calendar year fluctuations. The more appealing alternative for this team may be the less complicated a single of getting very carefully when the cash are readily available and laying chief pressure on the revenue return over the a long time.

Source by Umair Abbas

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mastcomm · 5 years

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It’s an Investment, Yes. But for One Day, It’s a Time Machine.

Fred Baumann stepped outside to look for the truck. It was nearing noon, which meant that collectors across the city would soon be heading to the Upper East Side on their lunch breaks.

It was the first day of baseball card season, and Mr. Baumann, one of the owners of Alex’s MVP Cards and Comics, still remembers the time a shipment was accidentally delivered to a nearby restaurant and sat undiscovered for a week, provoking a near meltdown for a small group of adult men.

Running one of the last sports-card stores in the city means constantly disappointing people. Most often it’s the guys who think the baseball cards collecting dust in their closets might be worth big money. Mr. Baumann gently deflates the expectations of about 20 would-be sellers every day, having to tell them that only about four cards from their childhoods are worth anything now.

“People think if it’s old, then it must be worth money,” Mr. Baumann said. “I try to explain it to them, but they just don’t stop talking. That’s the painful part.”

For most of the year, the baseball card market today is a highly esoteric and high-tech affair. But on the opening day of a new trading season, when baseball card companies like Topps release the new cards, the hobby becomes pure again. It’s the one moment that no one knows what any single card is worth, and collectors get to experience the simple pleasure of ripping open a pack of cards.

The Beckett Baseball Card Price Guide, started by a statistician in the 80s, first codified the price of trading cards. A 1909 Honus Wagner (shortstop, Pittsburgh Pirates) sold for $100,000 in 1988, and by the time independent grading agencies started to spring up in the ’90s, people were treating vintage cards like blue-chip stocks.

Memorabilia companies rushed to capitalize on the demand. They flooded the market with new products, and thus today almost none of them are worth much more than the cardboard they were printed on.

As a way to re-inject scarcity into the market, card companies came up with the concept of “hit cards.” These cards might feature embedded bits of memorabilia — a splinter of a player’s bat, say, or a swatch of a game-worn jersey.

True completists, then, must rely on baseball-card brokers to track them down. Mr. Baumann would prefer not to sell the few packs he has on hand to someone who’s just looking at them as an investment. At least not until the actual fans have had their chance to get their hands on some.

“I don’t want to have to explain to some kid that a guy I’ve never seen came in and cleaned me out,” he said. “Some of those kids might be 35 years old, but I still don’t want to have to break it to them.”

As it turned out, Mr. Baumann’s fears were unfounded. The cards arrived at the tail end of the lunch hour and no professional speculators showed up.

“I don’t know what any of this stuff is,” said 32-year-old Daniel Rocco of his two new jumbo boxes. “Beckett’s guide has nothing on these cards, so you have nothing to compare them to. It makes you feel like a kid again.”

The phone rang again, and Mr. Baumann picked it up.

“When you say old, what years are you talking about?” he asked. Then he said that he would have to pass on any cards from the ’90s unless they were the rookie cards of Derek Jeter or Ken Griffey Jr. The guy on the other end pleaded his case.

“They don’t listen,” Mr. Baumann said after hanging up. “They’re like 5-year-olds.”

Ralph Schneider is a typical customer. He already pays for two storage units to house his 50,000 baseball cards and probably shouldn’t be buying more of them at all; he can barely afford to keep up with the hobby on his teacher’s salary.

But the beginning of the baseball card season is his favorite day of the year.

“Teaching’s not an easy profession,” he said, “and big release days keep me going.”

A native of Marine Park, Brooklyn, his eventual goal is to collect every player who has ever played for his beloved minor-league Cyclones.

Mr. Schneider also runs a YouTube channel where he opens cards on camera, what is known as “breaking.” As he waited for Mr. Baumann to ring him up, the 24-year-old explained that he’ll start filming as soon as he gets home.

Videos of people breaking new packs of cards helps speculators set prices on the secondary market, because it lets them know who has already found what. But Mr. Schneider, who is also an aspiring actor and Frank Sinatra impersonator, just likes being on camera.

Before Mr. Baumann gave him his $4 in change, he pointed out to that $4 would also get Mr. Schneider another single pack of baseball cards.

The young collector paused, thought about it, accepted. The videos could wait, but he couldn’t. “This one’s just for me,” he said, tearing open the pack right at the counter.

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cryptoveins · 5 years

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Facebook: The Rise of a Giant and the Libra Cryptocurrency

Facebook has wrapped up almost 16 years of history. Founded in 2004 chiefly as a social network company, Facebook initially launched to connect Harvard University students together. The company’s first steps happened at a notorious historical moment, with the first iteration starting off in a Harvard dorm room.

Mission: Connecting the World The company’s initial mission sounded innocent enough, based on the idea of connecting people through a single platform. Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s founder, has mentioned in multiple variances. Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected In late 2019, Facebook counted almost 2.5 billion users worldwide, once again making it the largest social network. The connectivity and invitation algorithms expanded the number of users, leading to global network of people. In the early 2000s, Facebook arrived just as MySpace and other ways to connect online were unraveling. With the possibility of sharing multiple media, building a Facebook profile was immediately appealing.

The chief promise of Facebook is that its service is free, and always will be. Over the years, the company boosted its advertising revenues, while constant growth reflected on the market capitalization. Of course, the service did not go without revenues, as Facebook grew its ad outreach, harnessing algorithms to tailor content. And it was precisely that tailored content, personalized tools and timelines which increased engagement. Facebook allowed each user to tweak the relevance of their information, honing in on the most important news from their own perspective. Zuckerberg has remarked on this phenomenon with a direct explanation on how he sees news relevance. “A squirrel dying in front of your house may be more relevant to your interests right now than people dying in Africa,” Zuckerberg has mentioned. Facebook’s model is to apply this thinking to almost all news, in the end leading to constant engagement and user interest. Facebook Stock Success Facebook went public in 2012, when it had accrued over one billion users, a milestone for any company. The company debuted with 421 million shares, and was considered one of the biggest tech IPOs in history. After negotiating on a per-share range of between $28 and $38, Faccebook went public with a price of $26.81, sparking hopes for an ultra-growth valuation. But the months after the IPO were underwhelming, as prices on the open market slid to around $19. But in the years after that, FB stock became one of the stars in the new tech boom. Part of the FAANG group of companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), the shares were at the forefront of a new stock boom. Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) now trades at $221.32, reaching new price records after a successful 2019. After the slump in the fall of 2018, which created fears the US bull market could break, the stock went on to have another successful year, climbing out of the lows near $124. Combined with user growth, and an expansion of 20% on earnings per share year-on-year, Facebook keeps itself in the spotlight. Cambridge Analytica Scandal The Facebook stock price took off in earnest after 2016. But that was also the time when the influence of Facebook was being questioned. It was precisely the news-tailoring algorithms which were taken to talks. It turned out the business model of Facebook was not just centered around tailored advertising. It was also a monster data collector.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal pointed out that pattern. Facebook had accrued massive amounts of data, as well as experience in sifting through it. Users, at that point, were also comfortable with the platform and would provide a constant flow of all manners of data – including geolocation, news preference, and other types of information. At that point, Facebook contained multiple tools to tailor one’s account, and this also produced more data. In the end, it turned out Cambridge Analytica used the data to tweak news and stories, with accusations arising that this tailored campaign ended up swaying the US election results in 2016, which allowed Donald Trump to become President. The data collection happened at a time when regulations were lax on what could be done with user data. There was no explicit consent, and no regulation in place to make users realize that each one of their actions on Facebook generated data. The harvesting also happened based on a private effort, as Cambridge Analytica was hired to gather data for US Senator Ted Cruz. But the effect of data collection and tailored content spread much further, possibly contributing to a narrative that led to voting in favor of Brexit. The entire scope of the scandal was exposed in the spring of 2018, just in time to temporarily tank the FB stock price. The data collection was done through an innocent-looking app, which curated users’ digital footprint. But the app also collected and stored data, which were later used within the scope of political campaigns. The final count held that more than 78 million user profiles were affected, with the majority belonging to US-based accounts. Seemingly innocent data like birthdays, locations and a few other data points were used to create profiles, and tailor advertising and stories to those users. Those stories matched and, according to accusers, amplified certain political moods, which had nothing to do with news about squirrels or cute cat pictures. Zuckerberg’s public involvement increased in the spring of 2018. The company’s founder had to explain to a worldwide audience, and even apologize about its data handling practices. The company ended up paying a small fine of $653,000 for the trespass, which was specifically about not safeguarding user data. But the real scandal that affected Facebook was that the social network had the potential to boost certain phenomena. Fake news, believably-built stories produced in content farms in third-world countries, spread throughout the social network, leading countries like Germany to openly attack the platform’s potential for disseminating harmful content.

The social media giant was also accused of enabling foreign meddling in election results, and having a general potential in its very mechanisms to sway public opinion. And that potential has been realized with only a handful of the users. Despite calls to boycott Facebook, the social network still hosts billions of new accounts, from vastly different cultures, making it a global force. Based on the most recent news, the data harvesting has not stopped. Data Propria, a company founded in 2018, has reportedly been tasked with working on the US election cycle in 2020, with the aim to boost the chances of President Trump’s re-election. Facebook and Cryptocurrency It was during the biggest crypto boom that Facebook set entirely different priorities. Initially, Facebook had little to do with Bitcoin or crypto assets, only exercising caution and banning crypto-related ads in early 2018. At that point, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were going through their frenzy phase, and ads helped thinly concealed scams gather more users. Facebook moved in with an outright ban, which lasted for about a year. For a while, the blowout of the Cambridge Analytica scandal took the forefront for all Facebook efforts. Cryptocurrencies were, at that point, a relatively minor issue. The world of crypto was also going through a crunch, entering a two-year bear market that affected most assets. The entire 2018 was counted as a bad year in crypto, when the initial hype unraveled, and the promises of digital projects failed to materialize. Overall interest in crypto assets diminished, including a dissipation of social media groups and overall searches. Hence 2018 was not the ideal year for crypto interest, and Facebook stood on the sidelines. In the meantime, multiple crypto startups came up with the idea of combining a social media platform with a crypto-based coin or token. However, none of those projects had the resources to build a highly usable, popular platform. The biggest platform, Steemit, ended up firing most of its staff. The Steemit ecosystem also held an unfair advantage for early adopters, essentially becoming a pyramid scheme. Other similar projects failed to take off, lacking the resources and runaway funding, as the bear market diminished the potential of startups. Additionally, token-based projects lost their credibility, and Bitcoin became the leading field of speculation. All of those factors meant no big company wanted to touch crypto assets with any seriousness. Enter Stablecoins The biggest defect of crypto assets was their volatile price. Merchants soon found out Bitcoin was not the ideal tool for payments, as its price could be extremely volatile. Soon, the idea of stablecoins appeared – an asset that kept its valuation intuitive at $1. At the same time, those assets allowed for fast, borderless transfers of value. Reportedly, their chief idea was to collect actual funds in dollars, store them in bank accounts, then issue the respective token that matches the value. This initial idea was realized by Tether, Inc., one of the most notorious companies in the crypto space. Over the course of two years, Tether issued USDT tokens, claiming to reflect real interest in crypto investment. The growth of USDT supply also coincided with price booms for Bitcoin, leading skeptics to believe it was a direct effort to manipulate prices. But the idea of stablecoins picked up, and was expanded upon by new startups. It was precisely the flaws of Tether which built the new generation of stablecoins. Those projects required customer screening and de-anonymization before taking in dollars and issuing new tokens. Projects like TrueUSD, Paxos, and USDC by Circle also tried to be compliant with the latest regulations. Even the Winklevoss twins joined the stablecoin bandwagon. They are still supporting a relatively small stablecoin, Gemini USD (GUSD), mostly active on the Gemini exchange. The asset has shown that stablecoins can work even under the strict regulations of New York.

This model turned rather successful for the crypto space, ushering in new forms of trading and access for both retail investors and large-scale buyers. Stablecoins had an international outreach, and relied on public blockchains to deliver the tokens anywhere around the globe. In a world even more used to connectivity, stablecoins, especially USDT, were a lifeline. Those assets made it possible to acquire crypto coins and hold onto them without the price risk. Additionally, stablecoins offered a cheaper way to transfer funds worldwide, while avoiding some of the capital controls. A stablecoin can be sent in minutes, also serving as a form of fintech solution, while avoiding the waiting time for bank transfers. The utility of stablecoins was established at the time of relatively stagnant trading. Nevertheless, stablecoin projects appeared and started to spread through exchanges. When the bullish attitudes returned in 2019, the usability of stablecoins was even bigger, as they had already spread through exchanges. Enter Facebook’s Libra Facebook’s Libra project was announced in June 2019, just after a few months of significantly improving performance on the cryptocurrency markets. Around that time, the Cambridge Analytica scandal had blown over in its worst. So Facebook suddenly announced it would copy the stablecoin model, and introduce Libra, a digital coin complete with an ecosystem and a wallet. David Marcus was put at the helm of the project. Facebook, it turns out, had copied multiple ideas from the crypto space. Beyond the idea of an asset-backed stablecoin, Facebook also waited for more innovation in building networks. Facebook’s Libra, it became known, would not copy Bitcoin. Instead, it would resemble coins like TRON and EOS, which used a series of delegates to produce blocks. This approach is known as delegated proof-of-stake, and goes beyond mining and democratic staking. Instead, it allows big players to support a network and allocate resources. Facebook, with its big influence, went further. It enlisted 27 big companies to participate in the Libra Association. Among the listed were large telecoms, as well as VISA, MasterCard, and a handful of other payment processing companies. The announcement of Libra was initially greeted by the crypto market, unleashing a rally in most assets which lasted for a few months. It seemed Facebook, of all companies, would be the entity to spread the usage of digital assets into the mainstream. But instead, Facebook’s Libra opened a can of worms. Worldwide, regulators quickly recalled the big influence of Facebook, and its effect during the years of data gathering and targeted content. Almost immediately, Mark Zuckerberg had to visit Congress once again, and explain the case for Libra. Zuckerberg conceded that Libra would not launch without regulatory green light. …Some have suggested that we intend to circumvent regulators and regulations. We want to be clear: Facebook will not be launching the Libra payments system in any part of the world unless all U.S. regulators approve it. And we support Libra delaying its launch until it has fully addressed all U.S. regulatory concerns The initial plan was for Libra to launch in early 2020. But so far, there is little clarity on what regulators intend to do. Libra has been ready with a plan to base its value on a basket of global currencies, with a prevalence of the US dollar (50%), but also including the euro (18%), yen (14%), British pound (11%), and Singapore dollar (7%). Where is Libra Now? Libra has been running as a testnet token, inviting developers to add use cases. The Calibra wallet has been created, though it is useless without the mainnet token launch. According to David Marcus, the Libra project will aim to build a new protocol for money, and still sticks to its original purpose to give access to the unbanked. The Libra Association is still gathering new members, with no strict timeline on when they would become block producers. The entity has gained regulatory approval in the canton of Zug, Switzerland, thus making use of the regulatory climate in what has become known as “Crypto Valley.” When it comes to adoption, skepticism about Facebook’s data gathering has created a backlash. Facebook has spoken multiple times about the company having no direct guidance on the usage of Libra, and has promised it would not gather transaction data. Central banks in Europe and Asia have also spoken against Libra, suggesting it may lead to the formation of a grey economy and reduce financial transparency. So far, there has been no clarity on how funds would be transferred or exchanged for Libra tokens. It is possible Libra may be used within the Facebook ecosystem, including within the WhatsApp chat. Libra has the potential to reach millions of unbanked in almost all world regions, but the acceptance may be a lengthy process with many more regulatory hurdles. Technically, the Libra network will use gas to pay for transactions, building on the idea of the Ethereum network and even using the very name for the resource. Unlike TRON and EOS, the network will not be free. Additionally, the newly appointed Technical Steering Committee will oversee how Libra develops in the future.

The council of the Libra Association appoints an independent Technical Steering Committee to govern technical development for the Libra project. Meet the members: @diogomonica @JoeLallouz @ricoflan @nickgrossman @gc3tweets https://t.co/ytQj1NJKAf — Libra Dev (@LibraDev) January 17, 2020

The most optimistic news about Libra is that its development continues. And with crypto markets starting the year on a high note, there may be more demand for this digital asset. However, there is still no strict deadline for the launch. Do you think Facebook will have success with its Libra cryptocurrency? Add your thoughts below!

Images via Shutterstock, Twitter @LibraDev The post appeared first on Bitcoinist.com.

https://cryptoveins.com/facebook-the-rise-of-a-giant-and-the-libra-cryptocurrency/

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