Coin News

The CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index set a new record on Sunday, rising nearly $500 to top $6,300 for the first time in history.

• Short sellers in major drugstore chains have earned $874 million this year, according to the financial-analytics firm S3 Partners. 
• They earned $100 million late Thursday as drugstore stocks fell on a report that retail-pharmacy giant CVS may buy insurer Aetna.
• The $66 billion deal would respond to the threat from Amazon, which was reportedly granted wholesale pharmacy licenses in at least 12 states on Thursday. 

CVS is reportedly considering buying Aetna for over $66 billion, in a deal that would address the looming threat from Amazon. 

Through a deal, the retail-pharmacy giant would increase the number of members in its pharmacy-benefit management business and strengthen its negotiating position with drugmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Shortly before this news on Thursday, the St. Louis Dispatch reported that Amazon gained approval for wholesale pharmacy licenses in at least 12 states. This served a new notice of Amazon's threat to investors in other drugstores, prompting a sell-off. 

According to the financial-analytics firm S3 Partners, shares of CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid and Diplomat Pharmacy fell 3.6% on average in late Thursday trading, and the losses continued on Friday. On Thursday, short sellers — traders who had bet against these stocks — about $100 million in mark-to-market profits in the hour and a half before the market close. Short sellers have earned $874 million in profits this year.

Short sales of drugstore stocks actually declined in the last month by $1.1 billion to $3.6 billion on Friday. But this could reverse shortly.

"With Amazon.com entering the retail pharmacy business, we can expect short selling to reverse course and increase in the near future and get closer to the $5 billion levels seen in late summer," said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of S3 Partners. 

SEE ALSO: The Wall Street analysts who called CVS's huge potential deal last month explain why it could 'realign' the entire industry

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: $6 TRILLION INVESTMENT CHIEF: Bitcoin is a bubble

[…]

The post Drunk the Crypto Kool-Aid? Get Ready for Bitcoin Vodka appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

• An International Monetary Fund report finds that high levels of household debt deepen and prolong recessions.
• US household debt is at pre-Great Recession levels.
• Household debt jumped by over $500 billion in the second quarter to $12.84 trillion.

A scary little statistic is buried beneath the US economy's apparent stability: Consumer-debt levels are now well above those seen before the Great Recession.

As of June, US households were more than half a trillion dollars deeper in debt than they were a year earlier, according to the latest figures from the Federal Reserve. Total household debt now totals $12.84 trillion — also, incidentally, about two-thirds of gross domestic product.

The proportion of overall debt that was delinquent in the second quarter was steady at 4.8%, but the New York Fed warned over transitions of credit-card balances into delinquency, which "ticked up notably."

Here's the thing: Unlike government debt, which can be rolled over continuously, consumer loans actually need to be paid back. And despite low official interest rates from the Federal Reserve, those often do not trickle down to financial products like credit cards and small-business loans.

Michael Lebowitz, the cofounder of the market-analysis firm 720 Global, says the US economy is already dangerously close to the edge.

"Most consumers, especially those in the bottom 80%, are tapped out," he told Business Insider. "They have borrowed about as much as they can. Servicing this debt will act like a wet towel on economic growth for years to come. Until wages can grow faster than our true costs of inflation, this problem will only worsen."

The International Monetary Fund devotes two chapters of its latest Global Financial Stability Report to the issue of household debt. It finds that, rather intuitively, high debt levels tend to make economic downturns deeper and more prolonged.

"Increases in household debt consistently [signal] higher risks when initial debt levels are already high," the IMF says.

Nonetheless, the results indicate that the threshold levels for household-debt increases being associated with negative macro outcomes start relatively low, at about 30% of GDP.

Clearly, America is already well past that point. As households become more indebted, the IMF says, future GDP growth and consumption decline and unemployment rises relative to their average values.

"Changes in household debt have a positive contemporaneous relationship to real GDP growth and a negative association with future real GDP growth," the report says.

Specifically, the IMF says a 5% increase in household debt to GDP over a three-year period leads to a 1.25% fall in real GDP growth three years into the future.

The following chart helps visualize the process by which this takes place:

"Housing busts and recessions preceded by larger run-ups in household debt tend to be more severe and protracted," the IMF said.

Is there a solution? If things reach a tipping point, yes, says the IMF — there's always debt forgiveness. Even creditors stand to benefit.

"We find that government policies can help prevent prolonged contractions in economic activity by addressing the problem of excessive household debt," the report said.

The IMF cites "bold household debt restructuring programs such as those implemented in the United States in the 1930s and in Iceland today" as historical precedents.

"Such policies can, therefore, help avert self-reinforcing cycles of household defaults, further house price declines, and additional contractions in output."

It's no coincidence that household debt soared across many countries right before the most recent global slump. The figures are rather startling: In the five years to 2007, the ratio of household debt to income rose by an average of 39 percentage points, to 138%, in advanced economies. In Denmark, Iceland, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Norway, debt peaked at more than 200% of household income, the IMF said.

In other words: We’ve seen this movie before.

SEE ALSO: Tens of millions of Americans are being left out of the economic recovery — and it's easier than ever to see who they are

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: A market warning, the big bitcoin debate and a deep dive on tech heavyweights

[…]

The post Bitcoin Cash Price Tops $500, Ethereum Price Rises 6% in Major Market Gains appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

[…]

The post BTC-e Users’ Funds Stuck in Limbo as Exchange Blames Third Party appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

• Smart beta is a rapidly growing area of the ETF market, as it allows providers to give an analytical slant to traditional fund indexing.
• OppenheimerFunds offers a suite of ETFs that use a proprietary revenue-weighting methodology.
• One of the firm's funds was recently named Smart Beta ETF of the Year by a trade publication.
• We spoke to Sharon French, the firm's head of beta solutions, about smart beta and the most pressing issues facing markets today.
• She doesn't buy arguments that the rise of ETFs has suppressed stock market volatility.

It's tough to stand out in the increasingly crowded exchange-traded fund industry.

New funds are launched every day as exchanges clamor to be the place where they're listed, all while investors flock in droves to the most appealing offerings.

Once designed to simply track indexes, the focus of ETFs has broadened considerably. There are funds that replicate specific investment strategies or styles, while some use advanced technology in order to assess stocks for possible inclusion.

Meanwhile, others seek to combine the passive approach of mirroring an index with a more active stockpicking approach — a strategy known as "smart beta." This particular area of ETFs is booming, as it allows providers to flex their analytical muscles, then overlay it onto a universe of companies. In an industry inundated with countless ideas, it's a way to offer something new, and investors have responded with great interest.

That's where OppenheimerFunds comes in. The fund provider has introduced a novel approach to the ETF world, by first selecting the components of a specific index, and then weighting them not by market cap — the most common method — but by revenue. The firm's suite of 10 sales-weighted ETFs have a combined market value of more than $2 billion.

In fact, the roughly $500 million Oppenheimer Ultra Dividend Revenue ETF (ticker: RDIV) was given the Smart Beta ETF of the Year award earlier in 2017 by Fund Action, an online publication that covers the space. The fund includes the S&P 900 index securities with the highest trailing 12-month dividend yield, and then weights them by sales.

Sharon French, the head of beta solutions at OppenheimerFunds and a pioneer of the revenue-weighted approach, spoke with Business Insider about her firm's efforts on the revenue-weighting front, and shared some details around the genesis of their award-winning fund. She also shared some thoughts on overall market conditions, and addresses one of the biggest criticisms of ETFs.

Here's what she had to say:

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Joe Ciolli: OppenheimerFunds has been a pioneer of the “revenue weighting” ETF strategy. Can you discuss how that came about, and why it's a good approach?

Sharon French: We’re the first and only firm to take this approach. It started back in 2008, and the first product was RWL (Oppenheimer Large Cap Revenue ETF), which revenue weighted the S&P 500. If you’re buying the S&P, you’re buying an index that, because of the market-weighted nature of it, has a propensity to get overly concentrated into a single stock or sector. That brings a lot of unintended risk to the strategy. This really is a much better long-term strategy that offers diversified exposure to the market, isn’t as influenced by stock price and is a truer reading of a company’s value.

This really is a much better long-term strategy that offers diversified exposure to the market, isn’t as influenced by stock price and is a truer reading of a company’s value.

When you backtest it, you find that it’s outperformed.

It’s an alternative weighting technique that really lowers the price-to-sales of your overall portfolio, which is very beneficial. Historically, low price-to-sales relative to market cap has been a better indicator of longer-term returns than other valuation measures.

Ciolli: What does the future hold for this revenue-weighting innovation?

French: We have a suite of 10 revenue-weighted funds, including those with large, mid, and small-cap focuses. We also have international, EM and global funds, as well as two with an ESG focus. And we have more revenue-weighted offerings scheduled for 2018.

Ciolli: Stepping back from your specific products and looking at the big picture — the bull market is looking unstoppable as it goes into its ninth year — how does that shape your approach to things in the ETF business?

French: Our view, based on certain key indicators that we follow very closely over time, is that this is an elongated US credit and business cycle that we believe will persist through the second half of 2017 and into 2018, with the caveat that risks are rising.

Most of the risks are centralized in the US and really not in other major economies. The focus in the US is really centered on the Fed.

The focus in the US is really centered on the Fed.

The US unemployment rate is low, wages are climbing and the dollar is weakening, so our question is: when will the Fed raise rates, and what kind of impact will that have? That’s really where we’re focused.

The Fed intends to reduce the size of its balance sheet, though it will likely be able to successfully navigate that process without issue. But the tightening monetary policy and the flattening yield curve must be considered in combination with elements like modest growth, heightened equity valuations and tighter credit spreads. They’re typically not consistent with some of the outsized valuations and returns we’re seeing in the market. Once that trigger event starts to happen, that’s when we’ll start to get more concerned.

We think international markets are likely to outperform the US, and many international economies are in a better part of the economic cycle. Equity valuations are generally more attractive there, and policies are more certain.

Ciolli: What do you make of the low-volatility environment? And how does it affect the approach of ETF providers such as yourself?

French: There are different factors — low volatility included — that perform better during different types of cycles. Specifically looking at low volatility, it typically does better during a slowdown or contraction. We really haven’t been in one. We believe that’s somewhere out in the future, but not any time in the very near term. During times like this, we’ve found that growth and momentum strategies have done better. We take the different stages of cycles into account when developing ETF products, and help clients arrange their portfolios accordingly.

Ciolli: What’s your approach to that sort of portfolio construction? Do you recommend people hold a blend of multiple factors?

French: We’re introducing single factors, simply because our clients vary in terms of their approaches. They like to use the building blocks to construct a portfolio, depending on the type of market we’re in. For example: Size and value tend to outperform during bull markets, while dividend and low-volatility do better during bear markets.

Size and value tend to outperform during bull markets, while dividend and low-volatility do better during bear markets.

Once you take a longer-term approach, you can either buy a multi-factor strategy off the shelf, or you can take what’s available today with single factors. We do strongly advise that, instead of picking one or two to time the market, that you construct them according to the market environment, and potentially a shift that’s either happened or is forthcoming.

Ciolli: As a smart beta provider, how do you respond to the active managers who have blamed low market volatility on the rise of ETFs?

French: To a large extent, I disagree that low volatility is being created by ETFs.

To a large extent, I disagree that low volatility is being created by ETFs.

There is no single resounding explanation to the lower levels of volatility we’ve seen recently. You will still see spikes in volatility due to market-related or economic events.

When you think about smart beta, it really combines a lot of the attractive benefits of the three main areas of investing: active, passive and alternatives. What I’m finding is that active managers are starting to appreciate that. I feel like it’s a tool for better risk management of the portfolio, and better risk-adjusted return at the end of the day.

Ciolli: What about your ESG offerings? How would you describe your approach there?

French: We consider incorporating elements of environmental, social and governance within our investment analysis as a fiduciary responsibility of ours, and it’s a key focus of our firm. It really starts with our fundamental active strategies, and then applying these elements to the process where it makes sense.

We did introduce, in different wrappers, two ESG funds, and purposely made them broad-based, utilizing both the domestic and global markets. We were getting a lot of client demand looking for ESG opportunities in both areas.

Overall, we have a very full research pipeline that we’re working through and sequencing which products we’ll offer next.

SEE ALSO: The stock market's robot revolution is here

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Is bitcoin a bubble or the future of everything?

[…]

The post Interview: Bitcoin Exchange Binance on China’s ICO Ban, Burning $1.5 Million in Tokens & More appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

• A growing number of firms are sounding the alarm on investor cash levels that have dropped near the lowest levels in history.
• Low cash levels are a threat to the ongoing equity bull rally, because it signals that investors are running out of money they can use to keep the market going higher.

The stock market has a cash problem.

As in, investors are running out of it, and the shortage could threaten the 8 1/2-year equity bull market that we've come to know and love.

It's a new reality facing investors of all types. While money market assets make up a record-low 17% of long-term funds, the cash balance of equity mutual funds also sits at an all-time low of 3.3%, according to data compiled by INTL FCStone.

And the firm doesn't mince words when discussing the increasingly dire situation.

"A decade of financial repression has turned cash into trash," the firm's macro strategist Vincent Deluard wrote in a recent client note. "There are a lot of fully-invested bears out there. There is not much sidelines cash left to push stocks higher."

Some of the market's very biggest lenders have also highlighted dwindling investor capital. On Morgan Stanley's earnings call on October 17, chief financial officer Jonathan Pruzan said that "we've seen cash in our clients' accounts at its lowest level."

Strategists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have repeatedly highlighted a similar development among their private clients. Cash for the group has dropped to a record low as a percentage of total assets, they wrote back in July. And while that could be interpreted as investor confidence, all the resolution in the world is meaningless if you don't have capital to spare.

A few weeks earlier, also in July, Citigroup said that institutional investors they surveyed were holding roughly 2.25% of assets under management in cash, the lowest since at least the start of the eight-year bull market.

All of this combined marks an interesting twist for a stock market landscape that's long been buoyed by the presence of money on the sidelines. Throughout the past couple years, bulls have cited that excess capital as waiting to flood back into stocks, pushing the market higher.

That argument holds less water now, and a red flag has been raised. After all, in 2000 and 2007, prior to bear market downturns, investors were confidently holding similarly low levels of cash.

It's worth noting, however, that not every Wall Street bank is sounding the alarm over low cash levels. Goldman Sachs has been a notable holdout over the past few months, even going as far as to cite "normal" cash holdings as a reason the bull market can continue for longer. Their data finds that investors seeking returns are holding cash levels that equal 3.3% of mutual fund assets, in line with recent history.

Goldman's differing outlook highlights the fact that there's no exact way to know how much cash is readily available for deployment across the entire stock market. For that reason, opinions will continue to differ over whether or not we're reaching a bearish tipping point.

But if the low-cash truthers out there are right, investors are going to have to sell if they want to free up money for other pursuits — or simply hold cash on the sideline. And that's when things could get dicey.

SEE ALSO: Here's how to protect yourself against a stock market 'fragility event'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: THE BOTTOM LINE: A market warning, the big bitcoin debate and a deep dive on tech heavyweights

[…]

The post Bitcoin Exchange Operator Sentenced to 16 Months in Prison for Money Laundering appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

• Fintech startup Bud has signed a deal with HSBC and raised £1.5 million from Investec and Sabadell Bank.
• CEO says Bud is in talks with 42 other banks around the world about possible deals.
• The two-year-old startup helps banks build new products and services in partnership with outside companies — something they will need to do under new "open banking" rules.

LONDON — Fintech startup Bud is just two years old and has just 23 staff but has managed to sign a deal with HSBC, one of the world's biggest banks.

Bud also recently raised £1.5 million from backers including investment bank Investec and Spain's Sabadell Bank. Bud's founder and CEO Ed Maslaveckas, 28, says the company is in talks with a further 42 banks around the world about possible partnerships.

How has a startup run by two twenty-somethings managed to get the ear of so many big, established banks?

"It's a lot of sleepless nights," Maslaveckas joked when he spoke to Business Insider this week.

"Ultimately, large organisations are very hierarchical," he said. "If you can make someone in a bank look good to their boss, you can continue that up the chain and eventually you get somewhere near the top. When you get in the room you're having some quite interesting conversations about interesting concepts and you figure out a way to work together. That's the process we've worked out now."

A playground for banks to build in

Bud has built a platform for banks to build products on that use other company's services. To understand what it does, you have to get your head around a concept called APIs. APIs are technical plug-ins that let you use a service provided by another company.

For example, if you're a bank that wants to let your customers transfer money internationally, you might want to partner with TransferWise. Rather than striking a complex deal, TransferWise just hand you the API kit and you can set it up yourself within your app.

If you imagine APIs a little like Lego building blocks, then Bud provides the Lego base plate. It provides a secure environment for banks to build on.

Raman Bhatia, HSBC's head of digital in the UK and Europe, said Bud's platform allows the bank to "test, learn and develop" new ideas and products.

Bud's cofounder and chief technical officer George Dunning, 27, said: "On the tech side, what did us a lot of favours was the fact that we built everything from the ground up.

"We have a completely full understanding of the end-to-end journey of every user, we can control that journey and we can tailor it however we see fit. When we were talking to the banks and they had a challenging technical question, we were prepared. If you get into those conversations and there's ever a question that you can't fully answer, then you've lost."

Maslaveckas said: "We're talking to people who've got a lot of compliance, a lot of people to go around. You've got to be very strategic and tactical."

Open banking: 'A seismic shift' for banks

Still, why would a bank the size of HSBC want to offer competitor's products? Surely it has its own suite of services?

The answer lies in something called "open banking." Regulators in the UK and Europe are pushing through new rules that require banks to share all the data they hold on customers with competitors if the customer wants them to. The idea is that this should help customers get the best deals.

Devin Kohli, Investec's cohead of Emerging Companies, said in a release announcing the investment in Bud that open banking represents "a seismic shift" for banking that Bud is helping corporates capitalise on.

We're trying to change the banking app from the place where you do your banking to the place where you get things done in your life

Maslaveckas admits that the open banking push, which comes into force in the UK in January, has helped Bud's pitching. But he says the appeal of Bud's product for big banks is greater than just that.

"With these big banks, OK, there are all the fintech players and that's interesting, but what they're more worried about is these big tech players coming into their market and stealing away their customers," he said.

"What is the thing they can do to create a defensive play? They already have access to financial data - how can you build on that? Connect that with some decision making process and then connect that with some other APIs to create these really nice experiences that haven't been built before. That's what our platform does."

HSBC, for example, is using Bud to build an app for its subsidiary First Direct that will trawl databases for the best broadband and energy deals, personalised for each customer.

"We're trying to change the banking app from the place where you do your banking to the place where you get things done in your life," Maslaveckas said.

Rather than just going to the bank when you need a mortgage, Bud could help banks build an app that lets customers search for houses, sell their own property, and get a mortgage all in one space, for example.

"We want to create one seamless experience," Maslaveckas said.

Dunning said: "We don't want to vie for people's attention — we believe the banking app is already somewhere that makes sense for the user to get things done. It's just lining things up properly."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: TOP STRATEGIST: Bitcoin will soar to $25,000 in 5 years

[…]

The post What Would Happen if Singapore Regulates Bitcoin? appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.