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President Donald Trump's plans for a tax on goods imported to the US has caused anxiety among small businesses around the country, and his strict stance on immigration and border control has immigrants and industries that rely on them worried as well.

Across the border, Trump's economic and immigration policies have triggered fear for the future of businesses and the workers they employ — not just about their jobs, but over the stability some of those communities have only recently reattained.

"Now we can't take anything for granted," Luis Diaz, a businessman in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, who has 17 years of experience and 200 employees in his charge, told Spanish newspaper El País.

Diaz fears losing up to 50% of his business if Trump follows through on plans to erect a border wall and redo or undo the NAFTA trade deal that binds Mexico, the US, and Canada.

In the 23 years since NAFTA went into effect, Ciudad Juarez has become a center of industry, as businesses and factories there pair up with counterparts in El Paso and supply consumers throughout the US.

Mexican workers flocked to Juarez's factories — called maquiladoras — for higher-paying jobs. Others migrated there for work as industries like agriculture were undercut by more capable and better subsidized American producers.

"People who had survived on little, tiny plots of land growing corn and beans and other kinds of staple crops, they could no longer survive by doing that, and so many of those people were displaced and they moved to the cities," Molly Molloy, a professor and librarian at New Mexico State University, told Business Insider in December.

"And the idea was that these folks would find work in the manufacturing sector and that the free-trade agreements would also sort of spur growth in the manufacturing sector," Molloy said.

International firms set up shop in Mexico, where labor was cheaper and regulations looser. Manufacturing, especially of goods like textiles, electronics, and auto parts, grew. (Incomes haven't seen a similar increase, and the proportion of Mexicans in poverty — about half — is mostly unchanged since the pre-NAFTA days.)

Currently, Mexico sends about 80% of its imports north, and this focus on the US as a trading partner has made Trump's proposal to slap a 20% tax on imports especially troublesome. But in Ciudad Juarez, where almost 70% of GDP comes from trade with the US, such a plan was more disturbing.

"There is worry; it is undeniable," Mario Hernandez, associate in charge of manufacturing for KPMG in Mexico, told El País.

Isaac Sanchez, an economics professor at the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez, told the Spanish newspaper that the effects of the restrictions on trade imposed by the Trump administration could vary. In a moderate scenario, Juarez's growth could fall to 4.1% this year from 6.3% last year. Foreign direct investment fell to $1.1 billion from $1.2 billion last year.

In an extreme scenario, GDP would contract 3.5% and foreign investment would fall to just $300 million — an outcome that would mean a recession in a city heavily reliant on capital flows.

In September, Mexico's central bank chief likened a potential Trump election victory to a hurricane hitting the country. With Trump now in the driver's seat, Hernandez echoed that sentiment: "The situation that confronts Juarez could end up being a perfect storm."

These concerns are not limited to Juarez.

In Tijuana, where maquiladoras predate NAFTA by three decades, Trump's plans have sent a wave of trepidation through businesses, many of which have reportedly put projects or other initiatives on hold.

Official numbers indicate over 200,000 jobs in Tijuana are directly linked to the cross-border economy, though other estimates put that figure more than twice as high.

Scrapping NAFTA could turn Tijuana into a "ghost town" as firms relocate to Asia, Alejandra Mier y Teran, who was born in Tijuana and now heads a local Chamber of Commerce in San Diego, told NPR.

While maquiladoras in Tijuana and Juarez rely on the permeability of the border for their goods to flow north, they also depend on the solidity of the frontier to keep their workers in place.

They "take advantage of cheap labor and less regulation on the Mexican side," Patrik Iber, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, told Business Insider in January.

In Juarez, Molloy said, jobs at maquiladora are highly prized, but the pay is relatively low, leading families in which both parents work to send their children into the workforce as soon as they're able, usually in their teens.

As a consequence, disrupting the manufacturing industry there could ripple through families and have an outsized social impact.

In Juarez, which was stricken by horrific drug-related violence between 2008 and 2012, this many mean an influx of people into the drug trade.

The city has long been a vital corridor for narcotics flowing north, and, Molloy told Business Insider, at times people in the city's drug trade have "earned at least as much as they could earn working in a factory."

Given that drug-related violence in the city has picked up in recent months, driven by cartels competing for control of the area, more people willing to work in the drug trade would almost certainly mean more people slain in the city as well.

"And historically, bad economic times in Mexico have corresponded with increased migration to the U.S. from desperate economic migrants," Iber said.

"At the moment, net migration with Mexico is near zero. But if Trump's policies force Mexico into a depression, we're likely to get more undocumented immigration to the U.S., not less."

SEE ALSO: Mexico says it 'will not accept' Trump's new immigration plans, and it could retaliate

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After starting Wednesday on strong footing, stocks dropped following the release of the latest Fed minutes.

All three major indices finished little changed for the day, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slightly in the red.

Still, for the ninth consecutive trading day, the Dow once again managed to claw its way to a fresh all-time high.

This marks the first time since January 1987 that the Dow made 9 new all-time highs in a row, according to Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial.

First up, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 20,774.02, +31.02, (+0.15%)
• S&P 500: 2,363.32, -2.06, (-0.09%)
• Nasdaq: 5,861.02, -4.95, (-0.09%)
• US 10-year yield: 2.422%, -0.007
• WTI Crude: $53.56 per barrel, -0.77, 1.42%

1. The Fed plans to raise rates "fairly soon" if the economy remains on track, according to minutes from the January 31/February 1 policy meeting released Wednesday. The Fed would like to see more progress towards its target of 2% inflation, and even more evidence that the labor market is improving.

2. Existing-home sales jumped to a 10-year high. Sales of existing condos, co-ops, townhomes, and single-family houses increased by 3.3%, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.69 million, the highest since February 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors.

3. Republicans face wrath at town-hall events. "I'm on Obamacare. If it wasn't for Obamacare, we wouldn't be able to afford insurance," said Chris Peterson, a farmer from Sen. Chuck Grassley's home state of Iowa. "Don't repeal Obamacare — improve it."

4. The Russian ruble tumbled against the US dollar. The petro-currency was down by 1.1% at 58.0443 per dollar in the late afternoon. Earlier, data showed that Russian retail sales fell by 2.3% year-over-year in January, better than forecasts.

5. President Donald Trump is considering adding two former employees of controversial mortgage lender OneWest to his administration, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. OneWest, which was purchased under the name IndyMac by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's investment firm, has been criticized by Democrats and advocacy groups for aggressive foreclosure processes following the financial crisis.

6. Bitcoin approached an all-time high. Buying early on in US trade has run bitcoin up 1.4%, or almost $16, to $1,123 a coin. Wednesday's bid has the cryptocurrency higher for a ninth straight session and threatening its all-time high of about $1,161.88. 

7. Papa John's tumbles after same-store sales miss big. The American pizza company announced fourth-quarter earnings that increased from last year and beat analysts expectations, however, same-store sales growth fell short. 

ADDITIONALLY:

The biggest ever corruption scandal you've never heard of.

Small business owners are excited about the US economy — and they're giving Trump the credit. 

Some of the biggest names in the hedge fund industry are planning to invest in a hot new fund.

McDonalds is slashing prices again to lure bargain customers.

Deutsche Bank is set to announce another big shake-up.

SEE ALSO: What 25 major world leaders and dictators looked like when they were young

Join the conversation about this story »

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After starting Wednesday on strong footing, stocks dropped following the release of the latest Fed minutes.

All three major indices finished little changed for the day, with the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq slightly in the red.

Still, for the ninth consecutive trading day, the Dow once again managed to claw its way to a fresh all-time high.

This marks the first time since January 1987 that the Dow made 9 new all-time highs in a row, according to Ryan Detrick, senior market strategist at LPL Financial.

First up, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 20,775.60, +32.60, (+0.16%)
• S&P 500: 2,362.82, -2.56, (-0.11%)
• Nasdaq: 5,860.63, -5.32, (-0.09%)
• US 10-year yield: 2.413%, -0.016
• WTI Crude: $53.59 per barrel, -0.74, 1.36%

1. The Fed plans to raise rates "fairly soon" if the economy remains on track, according to minutes from the January 31/February 1 policy meeting released Wednesday. The Fed would like to see more progress towards its target of 2% inflation, and even more evidence that the labor market is improving.

2. Existing-home sales jumped to a 10-year high. Sales of existing condos, co-ops, townhomes, and single-family houses increased by 3.3%, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.69 million, the highest since February 2007, according to the National Association of Realtors.

3. Republicans face wrath at town-hall events. "I'm on Obamacare. If it wasn't for Obamacare, we wouldn't be able to afford insurance," said Chris Peterson, a farmer from Sen. Chuck Grassley's home state of Iowa. "Don't repeal Obamacare — improve it."

4. The Russian ruble tumbled against the US dollar. The petro-currency was down by 1.1% at 58.0443 per dollar in the late afternoon. Earlier, data showed that Russian retail sales fell by 2.3% year-over-year in January, better than forecasts.

5. President Donald Trump is considering adding two former employees of controversial mortgage lender OneWest to his administration, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. OneWest, which was purchased under the name IndyMac by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's investment firm, has been criticized by Democrats and advocacy groups for aggressive foreclosure processes following the financial crisis.

6. Bitcoin approached an all-time high. Buying early on in US trade has run bitcoin up 1.4%, or almost $16, to $1,123 a coin. Wednesday's bid has the cryptocurrency higher for a ninth straight session and threatening its all-time high of about $1,161.88. 

7. Papa John's tumbles after same-store sales miss big. The American pizza company announced fourth-quarter earnings that increased from last year and beat analysts expectations, however, same-store sales growth fell short. 

ADDITIONALLY:

The biggest ever corruption scandal you've never heard of.

Small business owners are excited about the US economy — and they're giving Trump the credit. 

Some of the biggest names in the hedge fund industry are planning to invest in a hot new fund.

McDonalds is slashing prices again to lure bargain customers.

Deutsche Bank is set to announce another big shake-up.

SEE ALSO: What 25 major world leaders and dictators looked like when they were young

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: People are obsessed with this convenience store that's only in 6 states

[…]

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Money matters are complicated, and there's far more to finances than balancing a checkbook.

Fortunately, there are plenty of resources to turn to, from podcasts to books to personal finance gurus, that will teach you the basics and then some.

We've rounded up nine TED Talks — all between 10 and 20 minutes — that could alter the way you think about money, and how you choose to save, spend, and earn.

Check out the talks below:

This is an updated version of a post by Kathleen Elkins.

SEE ALSO: The 27 most important finance books ever written

DON'T MISS: 5 of the best documentaries about money on Netflix

Neha Narula: The future of money

"Money isn't anything objective," Neha Narula, a director of research at the Digital Currency Initiative, a part of the MIT Media Lab, says in her TED talk. Actually, the value of money is a "collective fiction" that citizens of the world have agreed upon.

Using modern cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin, we can take this concept a step further, Narula says, and redefine how we value, and ultimately exchange, money. Narula illustrates a world where we use "programmable money," effectively removing the responsibility and power from big institutions and returning it to the individual. 

David Burkus: Why you should know how much your coworkers get paid

In his talk at TEDxUniversityofNevada, David Burkus poses the question: "What would happen if we had total pay transparency?"

As a management researcher and the author of "Under New Management: How Leading Organizations Are Upending Business As Usual," Burkus has spent several years studying pay transparency and found that employees at companies that are open about salary tend be more engaged, work harder to improve, and are less likely to quit. At companies where salary is kept secret, employees generally feel they're being underpaid and discriminated against.

In this talk, Burkus presents compelling research to back up his claim that keeping salary secret within an organization could lead to what economists call a "total market failure."

Courtney Martin: The new American Dream

For the first time in US history, across all demographics, the majority of parents don't think their kids will be better of than they were, says journalist Courtney Martin in her talk.

Martin explores the new American Dream, where we're "not finding steady employment, not earning as much money, and not living in big fancy houses." But that doesn't really matter, she says, because the dream that treasures these marks of success isn't shared by everyone. 

By answering two key questions — how we should work and how we should live — Martin wonders if there's a smarter way to define "better off" and how we can arrive there.

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours.

Some of the biggest names in the investing world are backing a hot new hedge fund. 

Philippe Laffont, the founder of Coatue Management, Louis Bacon of Moore Capital, and Dan Loeb, founder of Third Point, are planning to invest in Ben Melkman's Light Sky Macro, a New York hedge fund which is set to launch March 1.

Elsewhere in hedge fund news, Carl Icahn just jumped into a $90 billion drug maker, and people are betting it'll be a takeover target. And here's the brutal presentation that an activist investor just published about Buffalo Wild Wings.

Infinite personalization is making us dumber, according to David Siegel, cofounder of $40 billion hedge fund Two Sigma.

On Wall Street, Deutsche Bank is set to announce another shakeup in its senior ranks. Dixit Joshi, who previously led the bank's fixed-income sales force as head of the institutional client group for debt, is expected to move to the role of group treasurer, according to people familiar with the matter.

And in deal news, Snapchat executives in New York were peppered with questions on Tuesday about competition from Facebook, user growth for the disappearing-message app, and accessibility in less developed markets as they pitched prospective investors on the company's shares.

In related news, Snapchat has a problem with Android, and it's causing investors to worry.

Unilever says it's reviewing its options just days after rejecting Kraft Heinz's surprise $143 billion takeover bid. And three banks just landed key roles on what could be the biggest IPO of all time.

In markets news, here's the unstoppable 35-year "golden age" for bonds in one clear Credit Suisse chart.  And one key measure shows the stock market hasn't been this expensive in 13 years.

President Donald Trump is considering adding two former employees of controversial mortgage lender OneWest to his administration, according to reports. Here's who would save the most money under Trump's proposed tax overhaul.

And here's how CEOs across America feel about Trump — and what they think he'll do to their businesses.

The Fed won't hike rates in March, but it still wants to keep Wall Street guessing, according to Business Insider's Pedro da Costa. 

Lastly, here's a rare look inside the $21 million "Princess" megayacht that has five cabins and a Jacuzzi.

Here are the top Wall Street headlines from the past 24 hour:

The biggest ever corruption scandal you’ve never heard of - A giant corruption scandal that started with Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht has now engulfed several Latin American governments. The total tally of known bribes totals in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Existing-home sales jump to a 10-year high - US existing-home sales in January rose more than expected to their highest level in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Realtors.

CITI EMEA CHIEF: Germany is a "favourite" for a post-Brexit HQ and 200 jobs could move - Citigroup is considering Frankfurt as a new European base for its markets and trading arm as part of its Brexit plan.

Oil slides on word non-OPEC members aren't cutting production as much as promised - Crude oil prices are lower on Wednesday as traders price in a projected expansion in US crude stockpiles and following comments made by Qatar's oil minister. 

Bitcoin is closing in on its all-time high - Buying early on in US trade has run bitcoin up 0.7%, or $7.50, to $1,115 a coin. Wednesday's bid has the cryptocurrency higher for a ninth straight session and threatening its all-time high of about $1,140. 

Switzerland's ABB says it uncovered $100 million South Korean fraud - Swiss engineering group ABB said it discovered what it called a "sophisticated criminal scheme" in its South Korean subsidiary on Wednesday, which it expects will result in a $100 million pretax charge.

A JPMorgan economist explains why small and midsized businesses are feeling optimistic - Following the recession, small and midsized businesses in America faced a slow and uncertain recovery.

Mark Cuban calls universal basic income "one of the worst possible responses" to robot automation - Economists predict that robotic automation and advances in artificial intelligence could lead to widespread job loss in the next few decades, but billionaire investor Mark Cuban doesn't think universal basic income is the solution.

The new Range Rover Velar is gunning for Audi and Porsche - Audi and Porsche, beware — Range Rover is coming for you.

SEE ALSO: The 27 most important finance books ever written

Join the conversation about this story »

Danish police are claiming to have developed software for tracing bitcoin transactions that has led to successful drug convictions, according to local reports. As reported by Berlingske, a new toolkit has reportedly enabled law enforcement officials in Denmark to press forward in cases involving the digital currency. The Danish National Police Cyber Crime Center (NC3) is said to […]

Source

Legislators in West Virgina want to make it a felony to launder money with bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Source

[…]

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[…]

The post Newsflash: Bitcoin Market Cap Hits $18 Billion appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Poland’s Financial Ombudsman has called on the country’s Ministry of Finance to regulate the cryptocurrency exchanges.

Source

[…]

The post It’s an Unclear Market for Baton Rouge’s First Bitcoin ATM appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Buying early on in US trade has run bitcoin up 0.7%, or $$7.50, to $1115 a coin. Wednesday's bid has the cryptocurrency higher for a ninth straight session and threatening its all-time high of about $1,140. 

The recent strength in bitcoin comes amid speculation the Securities and Exchange Commission will approve at least one of the three proposed bitcoin-focused exchange-traded funds despite analyst concerns that none will be approved.

Bitcoin has soared more than 40% since bottoming out on January 11 following word that China was going to begin cracking down on trading of the cryptocurrency. That rally has come despite news that China's largest exchanges would begin charging a flat fee of 0.2% on all transactions and that two of China's largest bitcoin exchanges were blocking withdrawals. 

For the year, bitcoin is up about 18%. 

SEE ALSO: We bought and sold bitcoin — here's how it works

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The post Bitfinex Targeted in “Severe” DDoS Attack Amid Bitcoin Price Surge appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Washington, DC-based non-profit research and advocacy group Coin Center has raised $1m from old and new supporters.

Source

Peer-to-peer bitcoin loan market Bitbond has raised a further $1.2m from a group of angel investors.

Source

Snapchat executives faced tough questions from investors in New York on Tuesday. Most of all: why is user growth slowing?

So far, Snap Inc. has been quick to blame the slowdown on shaky Android performance.

Executives at the roadshow in New York on Tuesday said Android phone users had problems accessing the Snapchat app, particularly in the fourth quarter. They said the company hopes to alleviate issues by developing on Apple's iOS platform and on Android simultaneously. 

The company had previously put greater focus on the version of its app for iPhones, the device used by the majority of its users. 

To boost its numbers, Snapchat acknowledges it will need to cater to Android users too.

"To continue growth in user engagement, we will need to prioritize development of our products to operate on smartphones with Android operating systems," the company said in its S-1 filing. "If we are unable to improve operability of our products on smartphones with Android operating systems, and those smartphones become more popular and fewer people use smartphones with iOS operating systems, our business could be seriously harmed."

During the second half of 2016, Snapchat's growth took a hit from the technical failures of its app. It added only six million new daily active users between July and September. The three months prior, Snapchat had added triple that, or 18 million users. That was a number on par with the first quarter of 2016 when the app added 20 million users. 

In its S-1 filing, Snap ascribed the problem to unspecified hiccups in new product launches:

"For example, in mid-2016, we launched several products and released multiple updates, which resulted in a number of technical issues that diminished the performance of our application," the company said in its risk factor section. "We believe these performance issues resulted in a reduction in growth of Daily Active Users in the latter part of the quarter ended September 30, 2016."

Snapchat didn't go into detail about exactly what the "technical issues" were, though it did not that the impact was more pronounced with users of Android devices.  Its CEO Evan Spiegel even took to Reddit to talk to Snapchat's Android users to see what the problems were. 

Snapchat's failure to maintain the Android ecosystem particularly hampers its international growth and ability to grow its DAUs in foreign markets. Already, the company's global reach is constrained because of the high bandwidth needed to use the app. Unlike Facebook and Google, there are no "lite" versions of the app that are designed for low network speeds. 

"Android penetration is often much higher in these countries compared to North America and Europe, so technical issues affecting Android devices have a disproportionate effect in these countries," the company said. 

Interesting timing

While the company may blame it on its own product updates that crippled its Android app, the timing of its growth slow down does match with when Instagram launched its Snapchat competitor: Stories. 

On August 2, Instagram created a near-clone of Snapchat's stories feature, which let users post images that disappear in less than 24 hours. According to TechCrunch, Snapchat influencers have already seen a drop-off in views on Snapchat as people start paying attention to Instagram's version.

One potential Snapchat investor who attended the roadshow briefing in New York told Bloomberg that the company tried to talk around its user growth issues. “Pointing to problems with Android is not addressing the elephant in the room, which is Instagram,” the investor told Bloomberg.

While Snapchat's slowdown did happen right as Instagram launched its own competitor, it's sticking by the "technical issues" excuse. Now investors will have to wait to see if this quarter's product updates — including Search to find people easier — bring people back to the app or if they've fled to Instagram for good.

SEE ALSO: INSIDE THE ROADSHOW: Snapchat just met with prospective investors in NYC and faced tough questions

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