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Stocks finished Thursday little changed as the Trump administration creeps closer to the psychologically important 100 day mark on Saturday.

The Dow and S&P 500 held flat, while the Nasdaq climbed a bit into the green.

First up, the scoreboard:

• Dow: 20,983.78, +8.69, (+0.04%)
• S&P 500: 2,388.87, +1.39, (+0.06%)
• Nasdaq: 6,046.54, +21.34, (+0.36%)
• US 10-year yield: 2.293%, -0.018
• WTI crude oil: $49.10, -0.52, (-1.05%)

1. It looks like the US economy just ground to a halt. The Department of Commerce will publish its first estimate of US economic growth in the first quarter of 2017 on Friday, and it may show that the economy barely grew at all. The Atlanta Fed's widely followed GDPNow tracker fell to an all-time low of 0.2% for the first quarter, while economists surveyed by Bloomberg forecast gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 1%. 

2. The Mexican peso climbed after the Trump administration said that, actually, it isn't going to terminate NAFTA. The peso was up by about 1.3% around 7:30 a.m. ET, but retraced some of those gains later in the day.

3. Trump went on a raging tweetstorm against Democrats over negotiations to avoid a government shutdown. "I promise to rebuild our military and secure our border," the president tweeted. "Democrats want to shut down the government. Politics!" The current funding bill for the federal government expires Friday, and if a spending bill is not passed by then, parts of the federal government will shut down.

4. Durable goods orders rose by less than expected in March. Orders for things designed to last for three or more years rose by 0.7%, a third-straight monthly increase. Excluding volatile transportation orders, so-called core durable goods fell by 0.2%, dragged by lower orders for communications equipment and computers. 

5. Initial jobless claims, which count the number of people who applied for unemployment insurance for the first time, climbed by 14,000 to 257,000, above economists' expectations. "Breaking economy news. Unemployment claims higher and business new equipment orders turn sideways with decision-making apparently thrown into limbo as companies wait for signs that any of the myriad of proposals by the Trump administration will ever become law," Chris Rupkey, an economist at MUFG Union Bank, said in an email after the data crossed.

6. Oil tumbled after Libya ramped up production at 2 key oil fields. West Texas Intermediate crude oil traded down 1.1%, or $0.52, at $48.69 a barrel as of 12:51 p.m. ET after Libya announced it's restarting production at its Sharara and El Feel oil fields. The fields have a combined capacity of nearly 400,000 barrels per day, Reuters says. 

7. Bitcoin spiked to an all-time high. The cryptocurrency was up 2.9% at $1,330 a coin around 10:17 a.m. ET. 2017 has been a volatile year for bitcoin. It rallied more than 20% in the opening week before crashing 35% on word that China was going to begin to crack down on trading.

ADDITIONALLY:

Trump's super-rich cabinet is shaking up DC's housing market.

Trump's tough stance on Canada "boils down to political theater."

Here's how the "biggest tax cut in history" could impact stocks.

Traders are looking at a popular stock market measure all wrong.

Here's what doctors think about the updated Obamacare replacement plan.

The Trump tax plan will likely look totally different if it is actually passed.

TREASURY SECRETARY MNUCHIN: The "objective" of Trump's plan is a middle-class tax cut, but "I can't make any guarantees."

Trump said he wont "give billions" to Democrats in Obamacare funding to avoid a government shutdown. 

SEE ALSO: Legendary physicist Freeman Dyson talks about math, nuclear rockets, and astounding things about the universe

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A bitcoin advocate and trader based in Arizona was arrested last week by federal authorities, according to local reports. Reports from websites include Freedom’s Phoenix and Phoenix New Times indicate that Thomas Costanzo was arrested on 20th April for unlawful possession of ammunition stemming from a prior conviction. The arrest resulted from a home raid led by […]

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The post Litecoin Miner’s Support of Segwit Shows Evolution in Understanding appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

A mining chip vulnerability that could potentially be used to remotely shut off bitcoin mining machines was revealed yesterday – with a fix from the manufacturer following shortly after. Involving controversial mining chip manufacturer Bitmain, the issue is what some are calling a "backdoor" in the code that controls its hardware, offering the company a […]

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The price of bitcoin has hit a new all-time high, according to the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI).

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The post Bitcoin Mining: Is Antbleed a Bombshell, a Smear Campaign, or a Circus? appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Bitcoin is trading at a record high. The cryptocurrency is up 2.9% at $1,330 a coin as of 10:17 a.m. ET. 

2017 has been a volatile year for bitcoin. It rallied more than 20% in the opening week before crashing 35% on word that China was going to begin to crack down on trading.

The cryptocurrency rallied after China's largest bitcoin exchanges introduced a flat 0.2% fee on each transaction and blocked customer from withdrawing their coins form their trading accounts.

It pressed to its previous all-time high of 1327.19 on March 10, just hours before the US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the Winklevoss ETF, which sparked a 30% crash. The SEC also rejected the plans of another ETF.

The cryptocurrency has managed to shrug off concerns that developers would create a "hard fork" that would split the currency in two. 

However, bitcoin has gained momentum as of late as Japan's financial regulator said it's a legal payment method and Russia said it was looking into approving bitcoin in 2018. Additionally, the SEC said it would reconsider the Winklevoss ETF.

Bitcoin has been the top-performing currency every year since 2010, except for 2014. It's up 40% so far in 2017.

SEE ALSO: The first investor in Snapchat thinks each bitcoin could realistically be worth $500,000 by 2030 — Here's how

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It's fintech week here in New York City, thanks to collaborations between Empire Startups and FinXTech, and we sat down with someone who has her finger on the pulse of the industry.

Amy Nauiokas is the cofounder and president of Anthemis Group, a digital financial-services investment and advisory firm. Since the company's founding in 2010, it has invested in 42 firms, including the likes of Betterment, Trov, and Qover. It also hosts the annual Hacking Finance Retreat in the French Alps.

Nauiokas has a long résumé. Before founding Anthemis, she worked for the British-based bank Barclays, serving as the CEO of Barclays Stockbrokers. She got her start at the firm as the head of Barclays Capital's e-commerce division.

Business Insider recently met up with Nauiokas at Anthemis' Manhattan office to talk about what's going on in fintech, the types of financial-technology companies she likes to invest in, and career advice.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Frank Chaparro: What are some of the key things you are noticing in fintech?

Amy Nauiokas: There's often a sense of urgency about everything we are doing as investors and as financial-services professionals. But the reality is that we are at the very beginning of a very long game. And so one has to always take a bit of stock to really try to figure out, "What's our purpose here?," "Where are the real long-term opportunities?," and "How do we work our way to them?"

I do think we are seeing probably a more rational understanding of how these firms are priced and what we should be paying for certain deals. There's a significant amount of deal flow, a lot more. Year on year, we are up considerable on the number of financial-services technology deals, but the money that is being deployed is growing at a slower pace. And I have a couple theories for why this is happening.

Generally speaking, we are at the tail end of a period of exuberance, during which big firms just sort of piled on a bunch of, let's say, happy money. Firms were thinking, we have money, we have capital, we have to spend it.

Many of the larger financial institutions that bumped up early-stage investments in financial-technology companies in 2015 and 2016 have now realized that those are not the best investments for them, because it drove value up where value didn't exist. And they have also realized they don't have the skill sets and expertise to be early-stage investors. Writing those big checks makes sense, but not until later. So you're seeing a lot of those large financial investors shifting from series A to playing that series B game.

Chaparro: And has that been helping your firm?

Nauiokas: It helps us out. But it also helps the market out.

Chaparro: What's exciting you right now? What will shape or dominate the rest of the year?

Nauiokas: It isn't super sexy, but we continue to be excited about a certain amount of consolidation in the industry. That's something you're going to see, for sure, in the second half of 2017.

We are also excited about companies that look and feel like non-fintech firms. We call them "adjacency companies." When you get under the hood of these companies, however, you can appreciate that what they are doing is deeply financially market-structured.

So whether it's a company that has built an infrastructure for the financing of the solar-energy space or a company that has to do with the conservation of water — but its actual result is that they make a massive dent in the insurance of your home or property — these types of companies have applications in finance. In other words, underpinning their technology is something that can be used by firms and consumers in financial services.

And this really is a great reminder that financial services as a category isn't really something you can put a box around.

Chaparro: You have said you don't like to use the word "fintech" when describing what your firm does and that you're not a fan of the term. Why is that?

Nauiokas: We don't think it describes who we are and what we do. We fell into it because we felt it was too difficult to convince people there's some other way to talk about it that didn't involve a mouthful. My partner Sean tried something along the lines of "the coming transformational age of digitization of financial market services." That's not fun, either, so we stuck with "fintech."

Chaparro: What don't you like about "fintech" specifically?

Nauiokas: It's the suggestion that there is this new form of tech within the market. But what we are actually trying to do is digitally transform the entire market. And if we do our job properly, the concept of fintech won't exist, because the whole sector will be digitized. It will all be fintech.

Chaparro: Recently, Andy Stewart, a managing partner at Motive Partners, said that valuations for fintechs are frothy. Do you agree? Are companies just slapping on buzzwords such as AI and machine intelligence to bump up their valuations to unjustifiable levels?

Nauiokas: Our view has always been to steer clear of fintech word bingo. Just because it has one of the cool words attached to it doesn't mean that it is going to be the next billion-dollar opportunity.

This is probably the sector in which we see the most of that word bingo. And I think it's because there are a lot of players.

And from our perspective, when we are looking to invest in a company, we look for a number of things. First and foremost, we look at the people. Second, we look at the market. Third, we look at the product.

In the early stage, you may not have the product right. And that is OK. We encourage that sort of working around the details and a little bit of failure.

Chaparro: What makes the people aspect so important? Why isn't something like price more important?

Nauiokas: We can be aggressive at the right time with the right stakes when it comes to price. But I think for us, it starts and ends with people. And generally speaking, venture investors will say that. Right? That people are very important. It is all about the people. But at Anthemis, it is beyond "all about the people." Because it's almost exclusively about the people. We've been operating this way for a while.

Yes, a company needs a good market. That's one way we can cut through the clutter very early on. By cutting firms with no market, we get rid of the fluff. Once we are in that scope, it is all about finding the entrepreneurs who we believe in.

Entrepreneurs who have the wherewithal, the enthusiasm, the passion, the expertise, and the network to take those early-stage ideas down the path of success. And it's not always obvious, just because someone has years of experience, or fantastic people in their eco-system, or they have fantastic capital. It is the combination of all of those things, with the right attitude. And for us attitude is crucial.

Chaparro: What else do you look for in company founders?

Nauiokas: We have a tendency to like cofounders. We've learned from experience that two heads are typically better than one. And that's because the person who is good at presenting the big picture of the company, fundraising, and building a strategic future is not always the same person who is uber-focused on the details and the build of the company. So cofounders are actually quite nice because they complement each other.

We are lucky to have a wonderful team of experts who know how to look at the numbers and ask the right questions about them. But again, this type of work shouldn't be purely statistics-driven.

There was a study, for instance, on how can you correlate success in startup founders in fintech. What do the most successful fintech founders look like is what they were essentially trying to figure out. And strangely they came out with a statistic that suggested it was a 38-year-old white male. There was a correlation between success in a fintech and having a 38-year-old white male as your founder. Well, what's the data you put in to get that? You put in all the companies that exist. So if most of the companies that exist have 38-year-old white men as their founder, then of course they are also going to correlate as the ones that are the most successful. So stats can only go so far.

Chaparro: Let's focus on that. Last fall you outlined the reason why the financial-services space could 'become paralyzed by inertia and face existential crisis' if it continues to be run by white men in their 50s and 60s. Why is diversity important in the early stages of a financial-technology company?

People try to make a lot of excuses for a lack of diversity early on, but they're all very lazy excuses.

Nauiokas: You must have diversity in the early stage. And people try to make a lot of excuses for a lack of diversity early on, but they're all very lazy excuses. The reality is the only place a company's culture is going to start and end is at the beginning of that company. And it always starts with the founders.

So if you can't create an environment of founders and founding employees who are going to represent the company you want, then you are never going to get there. So you have to look at your own network and find what you are missing. So if you don't have a female or someone who has an international perspective or a person with a bio degree, but those perspectives matter to the firm or product you want to create, then it's never going to work out.

And the argument that it is difficult to find women is complete BS. Any bank will tell you that the No. 1 employee they lose the most money on is the mid-tier female they bring on when they are 22 who leaves in her mid to late 30s. These are women they spend a ton of money training, and a ton of money attracting and hiring. And then they lose them. And they lose them for many reasons. They're going to other sectors, other industries. So for us in the financial-services world to say we can't find women is ridiculous. They are out there.

We've done it here at Anthemis. Our staff is over 50% female. So we can say hand on heart that it is possible to build a diverse firm. We also have 13 different languages from, I think, 15 different countries, sitting all within our community here. But it wasn't without effort. You have to look for that.

When we invest in companies we ask the founder what their plan is for diversity. I had an interesting conversation with a company a couple weeks ago. They were presenting a wonderful concept in the credit-card space targeted at millennials. And the whole pitch went through. And at the end I said, "This sounds fantastic, but I just have one question. Do you plan to market this card to women?" And they looked at me like I had five heads. They were like, "Yes, of course, yeah we plan to do that." And I said, "Well, how to you plan to actually build a product and market that product, and distribute that product, to half of your audience with absolutely zero female perspective in your company?" They literally hadn't thought about it. And none of this is with malice. It's all about how we build a company for success.

Chaparro: What worries you as an investor?

Nauiokas: We are witnessing a massive shift. Never in our lifetime have we seen a move like this. This move into the digital age. And its effects are not being discussed in great detail. In the last few years we've talked a big game about the effects of digitization, but we haven't gotten to the heart of how we will address the impacts of digitization and how it will affect society as a whole. And this is something that needs to become relevant in the near term.

Technology has created much bigger pots of opportunity. So there should be enough for everybody. But right now it's being done among such a small percentage of the population that the rest of the world has yet to benefit. So we have the responsibility as digital leaders and digital stewards to figure out how we can move the world forward technologically without leaving behind so many people.

Chaparro: You mentioned earlier the increase of deal activity in Q1. Considering all this talk about political uncertainty, is this surprising do you? What is your explanation for this increase in activity with the uncertain backdrop?

Nauiokas: No, it's not surprising at all. We are going to continue to see significant deal activity in tech and financial technology. Because we are in the midst of that shift from industrial to digital that I mentioned and technology isn't going away. Opportunities to deploy tech services and products will only increase, because right now only a small percentage of people have access to the market. There is so much room to grow. Now does that mean I don't think there will be hiccups in the economy in the future? No, of course I don't think that. But we will see that deal flow in tech and fintech continue increase.

Chaparro: I was wondering if you could share some career advice for our readers.

Nauiokas: First and foremost, the power of the network is incredibly important. For women entrepreneurs and financial-services folks, in particular, there is now more of a desire to collaborate. If I'm honest, when I joined the Wall Street ranks, it was a very different time. There were very few female mentors, and female execs I could look to for leadership or counsel, and in a handful of those cases it was the exact opposite. They didn't want you to get in their way. I am thrilled that I have witnessed such a transformation of that attitude in the last 25 years. Because now everywhere you turn there is a women who is willing to step back, step sideways, step in, and pull you along with them. And women need to take advantage of this new environment.

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Trump's tax plan is out. Key details from the plan include lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% and reducing the number of personal income tax brackets from seven to three with rates of 35%, 25%, and 10%, respectively.   

Trump won't 'terminate' NAFTA. A statement from the White House said President Donald Trump told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that he won't "terminate" NAFTA, but that he is looking to renegotiate the trade deal, Reuters says. 

The Bank of Japan cuts its inflation forecast. The BOJ kept policy on hold, but said it sees inflation of 1.4% in 2017, down from its previous estimate of 1.5% and below its 2% target. The Japanese yen is weaker by 0.3% at 111.35 per dollar. 

The ECB meets. The European Central Bank is expected to keep policy on hold as the second round of France's presidential election looms on May 7. Traders will be on the lookout for any clues as to when the central bank might taper its bond-buying program. Ahead of the decision, the euro is little changed at 1.0895 against the dollar.

Bitcoin is threatening all-time highs. The cryptocurrency trades up 0.9% at $1306 a coin, holding just below its all-time high of $1327.19, which was set on March 10, the day the US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the Winklevoss ETF. 

Samsung posts its best quarterly profit in 3 years. The electronics giant shrugged off the Galaxy Note 7 debacle and posted an operating profit of 9.9 trillion won ($8.75 billion), its best in more than 3 years, Reuters says. 

Weight Watchers has a new CEO. Mindy Grossman, current chief executive of HSN, has been named CEO, Reuters says. Shares of Weight Watchers spiked as much as 13% in after-hours trade on Wednesday following the announcement.  

Stock markets around the world are mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.5%) paced the gains in Asia and Britain's FTSE (-0.6%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.1% at 2,385.

Earnings reporting is heavy. American Air, Domino's Pizza, Ford, and UPS are among the companies reporting ahead of the opening bell while Alphabet, Amazon, and GoPro highlight the names releasing their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is moderate. Durable orders and initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before pending home sales crosses the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is little changed at 2.30%.  

Join the conversation about this story »

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Trump's tax plan is out. Key details from the plan include lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% and reducing the number of personal income tax brackets from seven to three with rates of 35%, 25%, and 10%.   

Trump won't 'terminate' NAFTA. A statement from the White House said President Donald Trump told the leaders of Mexico and Canada that the he won't "terminate" NAFATA, but that he is looking to renegotiate the trade deal, Reuters says. 

The Bank of Japan cuts its inflation forecast. The BOJ kept policy on hold, but said it sees inflation of 1.4% in 2017, down from its previous estimate of 1.5% and below its 2% target. The Japanese yen is X at X per dollar. 

The ECB meets. The European Central Bank is expected to keep policy on hold as the second round of France's presidential election looms on May 7. Traders will be on the lookout for any clues as to when the central bank might taper its bond-buying program. Ahead of the decision, the euro is little changed at 1.0895 against the dollar.

Bitcoin is threatening all-time highs. The cryptocurrecny trades up 0.9% at $1306 a coin, holding just below its all-time high of $1327.19, which was set on March 10, the day the US Securities and Exchange Commission rejected the Winklevoss ETF. 

Samsung posts its best quarterly profit in 3 years. The electronics giant shrugged off the Galaxy Note 7 debacle and posted an operating profit of 9.9 trillion won ($8.75 billion), its best in more than 3 years, Reuters says. 

Weight Watchers has a new CEO. Mindy Grossman, current chief executive of HSN, has been named CEO, Reuters says. Shares of Weight Watchers spiked as much as 13% in after-hours trade on Wednesday following the announcement.  

Stock markets around the world are mixed. Hong Kong's Hang Seng (+0.5%) paced the gains in Asia and Britain's FTSE (-0.6%) lags in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open down 0.1% at 2,385.

Earnings reporting is heavy. American Air, Domino's Pizza, Ford, and UPS are among the companies reporting ahead of the opening bell while Alphabet, Amazon, an GoPro highlight the names releasing their quarterly results after markets close.

US economic data is moderate. Durable orders and initial claims will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before pending home sales crosses the wires at 10 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is X at X.  

Join the conversation about this story »

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