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This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

A reckoning coming to the cryptocurrency markets, an “extinction-level event” that’s poised to wipe out 90 percent of the more than 1,800 coins and tokens that aren’t named bitcoin. That’s the prognostication of Xapo President Ted Rogers, anyway, who said that the impending altcoin bloodbath will provide discerning investors with an incredible opportunity to load

The post 90% of Cryptocurrency Market Facing ‘Extinction-Level Event’: Xapo President appeared first on CCN

A reckoning coming to the cryptocurrency markets, an “extinction-level event” that’s poised to wipe out 90 percent of the more than 1,800 coins and tokens that aren’t named bitcoin. That’s the prognostication of Xapo President Ted Rogers, anyway, who said that the impending altcoin bloodbath will provide discerning investors with an incredible opportunity to load

The post 90% of Cryptocurrency Market Facing ‘Extinction-Level Event’: Xapo President appeared first on CCN

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway raised its stake in Goldman Sachs by 21% to 13.2 million shares during the second quarter.
• Berkshire's initial position in the Wall Street bank stemmed from an investment during the financial crisis.
• Berkshire also added to its Apple position.

Warren Buffett added to his stockpile of Goldman Sachs shares during the second quarter. 

The investing legend's Berkshire Hathaway upped its stake in the investment bank by 21% to 13.2 million shares, according to a regulatory filing out Tuesday. It's total position in the firm is now worth more than $3 billion, assuming it has not sold any shares during Q3. 

Berkshire's position in Goldman began in the wake of the financial crisis when it invested $5 billion in preferred stock that paid a 10% dividend and were callable at any time at a 10% premium. It also received warrants to purchase up to $5 billion of Goldman common stock with a $115 strike price. 

In October of 2013, Berkshire received a handsome payday from the bank after exercising the warrants it bought during the financial crisis. The bank paid the conglomerate $2 billion in cash and gave it 13.1 million shares of stock. 

The 13-F released on Tuesday showed Berkshire raised its stake in Apple by 5% to 251 million shares. That stake is now worth $46.6 billion after Apple's market cap crossed the $1 trillion mark on August 3. 

Berkshire also upped its stakes in Southwest Airlines and Delta Air Lines by 19% apiece while trimming its stake in American Airlines by 3%.  

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• James Nessel, Deutsche Bank's co-head of US high yield trading, is leaving the German lender. 
• Nessel joined Deutsche two years ago from Citigroup. 
• It's the latest in a series of trader departures from Deutsche Bank. 

James Nessel, hired as Deutsche Bank's head of US high-yield trading two years ago, is leaving the bank, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 

Nessel resigned from the bank on Tuesday, the people said.

A Deutsche Bank spokesman declined to comment and Nessel could not be immediately reached for comment. 

Nessel, who joined Deutsche from Citigroup in 2016, marks the latest trader to leave the German lender, as CEO Christian Sewing looks to reduce the firm's reliance on fixed-income trading. In the second quarter, the bank reported a 17% decline in bond trading, compared to gains from US banks.

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• Global markets have stabilized after initial fears that Turkey's crisis would spread to other emerging economies or even Europe — but that does mean the danger is over. 
• Turkey plays a key geopolitical role as a NATO member that makes any threats to its stability even more important to its neighbors.
• Investors fear the crisis could spread to other vulnerable emerging states like South Africa and Argentina, while some European banks hold substantial exposure to Turkish assets.

Turkey’s deepening currency run, which some analysts worry may soon morph into a debt repayments crisis, has a good chance of affecting other key markets around the world for one key reason: the country’s political importance to the power struggle between the European Union and Russia is even greater than its economic might.

"Although Turkey is considered an emerging market economy, it’s still a NATO ally and some reports say that we have close to 50 nuclear weapons stored on their soil," said Chris Zacarelli, chief investment officer at Independent Investor Alliance, in a statement to reporters.

He added that Turkey had been moving away from the US politically, and had made overtures to Russia, China and Iran. 

"Since there doesn’t appear to be signs of contagion at this point – although Spanish, French and Italian banks are owed close to $140 billion by Turkish borrowers – it doesn’t seem like there is much to worry about, but these things can turn on a dime."

For Alistair George at  Edison Investments, Turkey serves as an "example of the effects of tighter US dollar funding conditions in combination with adverse geopolitical developments."

"Separated from the political angle, a Western-style refinancing and restructuring to resolve the excessively large inflation and current account deficit problems would appear to be a rational response to the problem," he writes in a blogpost.

"However, the antagonism between the Turkish administration and the US makes this scenario look far-fetched at present. We expect therefore the sense of crisis to persist until either the pressure on the economy forces concessions from Turkey or details of President Erdogan’s new alliances are forthcoming."

That means more potential contagion both to other large emerging markets that are current in fragile financial positions, like South Africa, Argentina and India, as well as into Europe via the exposure of Spanish and Italian banks to Turkey.

The market consensus is that the Turkish government’s response to the crisis thus far has been way too timid.

"Investors need to see serious economic measures and not political ones to prevent things getting completely out of control," said Hussein Sayed, chief market strategist at FXTM. "This includes an emergency interest rate hike by the central bank, imposing capital controls, fiscal reforms, securing a rescue package by the IMF or other lenders and ending the current diplomatic fight with Donald Trump. Until such steps are taken, investors will continue to selloff Turkish assets."

SEE ALSO: Turkey’s currency panic reveals a major downside of Trump’s ‘America First’ policy — and offers an early warning to the Fed

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Stocks rose Tuesday as investors turned from a currency crisis in Turkey to solid economic data and strong earnings. The dollar and Treasury yields extended gains.

Here's the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial average: 25,296.43 +108.73 (+0.43%)

S&P 500: 2,841.04 +19.11 (+0.68%)

Nasdaq Composite: 7,870.47 +50.77 (+0.65%)

1. After a sharp sell-off slashed more than a fifth of its value, Turkey's currency began to rebound. But structural issues behind the ailing economy and an escalating conflict between Washington and Ankara kept the lira near historic lows. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country would boycott US electronic goods to retaliate against sanctions the Trump administration imposed earlier this month.
2. Investors are still on edge with concerns the weakening lira could lead to economic turmoil in other emerging markets. Several currencies began to recover after weakening Monday. But the Indian rupee sold off for a second day, sliding past 70 per dollar to a record low.
3. In a sign that rising borrowing costs haven't curbed American demand for credit, household debt in the US climbed to a record $13.3 trillion in the second quarter. That's up $454 billion from a year ago and marks a 16th consecutive month of increases.
4. Cryptocurrencies spiraled to fresh 2018 lows. A broad sell-off has pressured the value of the digital currency market to below $200 billion for the first time this year. 
5. Earnings season rolls on. Home Depot beat Wall Street expectations after stronger-than-expected sales. Tapestry reported a 31% rise in revenue.

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• The US reports retail sales and new housing construction numbers.
• Walmart, Macy's, Cisco, and Tencent report earnings. 

SEE ALSO: Ethereum is down another 10% as the global crypto market goes into 'panic mode'

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Stocks rose Tuesday as investors turned from a currency crisis in Turkey to solid economic data and strong earnings. The dollar and Treasury yields extended gains.

Here's the scoreboard:

Dow Jones industrial average: 25,296.43 +108.73 (+0.43%)

S&P 500: 2,841.04 +19.11 (+0.68%)

Nasdaq Composite: 7,870.47 +50.77 (+0.65%)

1. After a sharp sell-off slashed more than a fifth of its value, Turkey's currency began to rebound. But structural issues behind the ailing economy and an escalating conflict between Washington and Ankara kept the lira near historic lows. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country would boycott US electronic goods to retaliate against sanctions the Trump administration imposed earlier this month.
2. Investors are still on edge with concerns the weakening lira could lead to economic turmoil in other emerging markets. Several currencies began to recover after weakening Monday. But the Indian rupee sold off for a second day, sliding past 70 per dollar to a record low.
3. In a sign that rising borrowing costs haven't curbed American demand for credit, household debt in the US climbed to a record $13.3 trillion in the second quarter. That's up $454 billion from a year ago and marks a 16th consecutive month of increases.
4. Cryptocurrencies spiraled to fresh 2018 lows. A broad sell-off has pressured the value of the digital currency market to below $200 billion for the first time this year. 
5. Earnings season rolls on. Home Depot beat Wall Street expectations after stronger-than-expected sales. Tapestry reported a 31% rise in revenue.

And a look at the upcoming economic calendar:

• The US reports retail sales and new housing construction numbers.
• Walmart, Macy's, Cisco, and Tencent report earnings. 

SEE ALSO: Ethereum is down another 10% as the global crypto market goes into 'panic mode'

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Bitcoin continues to extend its downward momentum on Tuesday, lately falling to its lowest trading since June this year. The BTC/USD today opened at 6250-fiat and started recording losses thereafter – during the early Asian trading session. The pair formed a bear pole in pursuance of a breakout towards the south, as we had predicted

The post Bitcoin Price Intraday Analysis: BTCUSD Falls to Lowest since June appeared first on CCN

• Canopy Growth, the world's largest marijuana company, is set to report earnings after the closing bell Tuesday.
• The stock has long been popular among millennials on Robinhood, and Tuesday was no exception.
• Follow CGC's stock price in real-time here. 

Canopy Growth — the world's largest marijuana company and the first to trade on the New York Stock Exchange — has been a wildly popular stock among millennial investors, and heading into the Canadian company's firs- quarter earnings report, that enthusiasm was only growing.

More than 26,000 investors on the stock-trading app Robinhood , which skews much younger than traditional brokerages, held the stock as of Tuesday afternoon. That's a 179% increase in holders since the stock first appeared on Robinhood's "Top 100" list in June. It's now the 42nd most-popular stock on the app.

Canopy soared earlier this year when Canada passed legislation legalizing marijuana throughout the country. However, it saw heavy selling Tuesday, down 7%, alongside its peers as the Ontario province delayed the launch of brick-and-mortar marijuana sales until April 2019.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg expect Canopy to report an adjusted loss of $0.11 a share on revenue of $26.33 million.

Shares of CGC have fallen by 12% this year. 

Read Business Insider's recent interview with the CEO of Canopy Growth here

SEE ALSO: The 'world's biggest legal-pot dealer' talks about taking his company public and the future of weed (CGC)

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

Welcome to Finance Insider, Business Insider's summary of the top stories of the past 24 hours. Sign up here to get the best of Business Insider delivered direct to your inbox.

'Tech trendiness' has spiked to the highest level in 15 years 

Anyone watching the stock market knows the tech sector is flying high in seemingly unstoppable fashion.

Contrarians have long called foul on this, blindly assuming that what goes up must surely come crashing down.

But that has been a long-running fool's errand. If you had dumped your tech shares at the first sign of overvaluation, you would have missed out on months — perhaps years — of massive returns.

Fortunately for those waiting for the ax to fall on tech, Jim Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at The Leuthold Group, has a tool meant to assess when that may happen. And based on his most recent findings, the next year may not be so pretty for the red-hot sector — and, by extension, the market at large.

Tinder's founders are suing Match Group and IAC, saying they've been ripped off 

A group of early Tinder employees, including cofounders Sean Rad, Justin Mateen, and Jonathan Badeen, announced on Tuesday that they had filed a lawsuit against InterActiveCorp and Match Group, the owners of Tinder.

They're alleging that IAC used a lowball valuation based on false information to reduce the value of stock options that early employees and founders held. The plaintiffs are seeking at least $2 billion.

The Tinder team received written contracts in 2014 outlining stock options as well as four dates they could exercise them, according to Tuesday's complaint.

But they allege that ahead of the first exercise date, in May 2017, IAC valued Tinder at $3 billion and merged it with Match, which "stripped away" the team's options in the fast-growing dating app, leaving them with less valuable Match options.

Elon Musk says he's hired Goldman Sachs to help take Tesla private 

Elon Musk hasn't been one to hide his disdain for Tesla skeptics on Wall Street.

But when it came time to hire bankers to advise him on taking the company private, the Tesla CEO enlisted a bank home to one of the most bearish Tesla analysts on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs' automotive analyst David Tamberrino has had a "sell" rating on the stock since February 2017.

Even Goldman's most optimistic scenario for Tesla doesn't even reach Musk's tweeted goal of $420.

Ethereum is down another 10% 

Ethereum's steep price fall continued on Tuesday as the entire cryptocurrency market continues to fall.

Ethereum is down just over 10% to $253.35 at 4.22 p.m. BST (11.22 a.m. ET). The current sell-off began on Monday, when Ethereum dropped to an 11-month low. Bloomberg reported that the slump was sparked by startups that had raised funding in ethereum through so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs) now cashing their holdings into traditional fiat money they can spend on development.

In markets news

• CREDIT SUISSE: Turkey's currency crisis is unlike many others in recent history, and there are 2 trades that could rake in profits

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NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• Reality Shares, the tiny asset manager known for its blockchain exchange-traded fund, is preparing to launch a $100 million cryptocurrency hedge fund.
• It joins a crowded market of over 300 such funds.

Even as the market for digital currencies sheds billion, corners of Wall Street are still hot on the burgeoning new asset class. 

Reality Shares, the tiny asset manager known for its blockchain-focused exchange-traded fund, is preparing to launch a $100 million cryptocurrency hedge fund. 

The California-based firm saw its assets under management increase by more than $100 million after its blockchain-ETF started trading earlier this year. Now, the firm is building out its new hedge fund, said a person familiar with the firm's plan. 

The fund, which will be capped at $100 million, already has a $25 million committed, according to the person. The multi-strat fund, which will be a mix of arbitrage, venture, and directional strategies, would join a crowded market of more than 366 digital asset-focused funds, according to research by Crypto Fund Research. 

2018 is on track to be a record year for crypto fund launches, according to the firm. Still, most are quite small. Only 28 manage more than $100 million. 

As for Reality Shares, the launch of a fund is part of a broader push into crypto, according to the person familiar with the firm's operations. 

At the same time, other traditional firms are getting more serious about the market for digital assets. Intercontinental Exchange announced the launch of its own crypto trading platform Bakkt, which the exchange-operators thinks will push digital assets into the mainstream. And Coinbase has lured a $20 billion hedge fund to its trading platform, as Business Insider previously reported. 

This is all despite a bear market, which has gripped the crypto market for much of 2018. At last check bitcoin, the largest digital currency, was trading close to a year-low of $6,000 a coin. In total, the market for digital currencies has shed more than $500 billion year-to-date.

See also: 

• NYSE owners' plan for a new crypto ecosystem has one detail that traders have been crying for — and it might reel in Wall Street 
• A former Goldman Sachs exec is joining a crypto-trading firm as it eyes a major global expansion

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How a Wall Street chief strategist's Costco shopping experience explains the biggest misconception about global trade

A district judge has slapped down an investor's effort to move a lawsuit against payments firm Ripple to a lower court.

• Elon Musk tweeted late Monday that he was "excited to work with Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs" in his plan to take Tesla private. 
• Goldman Sachs' analyst is one of the most bearish Tesla analysts on Wall Street, with a "sell" rating and $210 price target — 40% below where shares are trading.
• Companies generally favor banks whose analysts rate them favorably. 
• Musk is no stranger to hating Tesla bears, and interrupted two analysts with "sell" ratings on the company's first-quarter conference call. 
• Follow Tesla's stock price in real-time here. 

Elon Musk hasn't been one to hide his disdain for Tesla skeptics on Wall Street.

But when it came time to hire bankers to advise him on taking the company private, the Tesla CEO enlisted a bank home to one of the most bearish Tesla analysts on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs' automotive analyst David Tamberrino has had a "sell" rating on the stock since February 2017.

Even Goldman's most optimistic scenario for Tesla doesn't even reach Musk's tweeted goal of $420.

"Our current valuation framework looks at potential upside scenarios where Tesla achieves mass market volumes —in the 2 million to 3 million vehicle range in 2025, versus our base case forecast for approx. 800k," Tamberrino wrote earlier in August. "In those upside scenarios, we ascribe valuations (discounted back to early 2019) for the overall company that average to approx. $414 per share."

Despite the blue-sky scenario, his price target remained $210 — a 45% discount to where shares were trading at the time. "Of course, our base case valuation implies a much lower potential value per share for Tesla —given the slower growth rate and forecasted lower margin profile," he said.

The dichotomy isn't unusual for Wall Street. Most brokerages and banks have a research arm attached, which writes and disseminates reports on stocks in order to win trading business for the firm as clients decide to buy or sell based on the notes.

Technically, there is a "firewall" between these two businesses — and any business relationships are disclosed at the bottom of every research report — but human nature can still cloud decisions, a professor told Business Insider.

"Human nature being what it is, no CEO is likely to throw business to a bank whose analyst is negative on the CEO's company," Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, told Business Insider in a recent interview.

"There are examples of analysts reiterating 'buy' ratings 30 days before a company went under," he continued.

In addition, "sell" ratings are rare. The research firm FactSet said last year that only 6% of about 11,000 recommendations on stocks in the S&P 500 were sell (or equivalent), according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Here's what Goldman's disclosure looked like on its latest Tesla note, which was published on August 8:

Goldman Sachs has received compensation for investment banking services in the past 12 months: Tesla Inc.

Goldman Sachs expects to receive or intends to seek compensation for investment banking services in the next 3 months: Tesla Inc.

Goldman Sachs had an investment banking services client relationship during the past 12 months with: Tesla Inc.

Goldman Sachs had a non-securities services client relationship during the past 12 months with: Tesla Inc.

Goldman Sachs makes a market in the securities or derivatives thereof: Tesla Inc.

Still, the choice of Goldman Sachs is significant due to Musk's loudly voiced disdain for Wall Street skeptics. On an earnings call in May (one that he has since apologized for) he interrupted two analysts, calling their questions "boring" and "boneheaded."

His explanation on Twitter after the contentious call was that the "the 'dry' questions were not asked by investors, but rather by two sell-side analysts who were trying to justify their Tesla short thesis." He added: "They are actually on the *opposite* side of investors. HyperChange represented actual investors, so I switched to them."

Tesla surged to fresh highs last week after Musk's snap announcement of taking the company private, but had given up all of their gains by Tuesday, showing a lack of confidence from investors that the deal will actually get done. The stock is currently trading at $355 — 18% below the $420 price where Musk said he would take the company private.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

More on Tesla's proposal to go private:

• Meet the 3 Tesla board members set to decide on Elon Musk's go-private plan
• Tesla's dramatic stock rise and fall shows how skeptical investors are of Elon Musk's go-private plans (TSLA)
• Some of Tesla's board members were reportedly 'totally blindsided' by Elon Musk's tweet about going private 
• Tesla’s biggest bull on Wall Street says there's a big problem with taking Tesla private, and it has nothing to do with 'funding secured'

Now read:

• There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market
• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: 'A private life is a happy life': Here's what Wall Street is saying about Tesla's plan to leave the stock market

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

• Tesla is facing another lawsuit accusing CEO Elon Musk of manipulating the company's stock price.
• A complaint filed on Monday in US District Court in California alleges that some investors purchased Tesla stock "at artificially inflated prices and suffered significant losses and damages once the truth emerged" that Musk had not secured the funding necessary to convert Tesla into a private company for $420 per share, as he said on August 7.
• Tesla declined Business Insider's request for comment.

Tesla is facing another lawsuit accusing CEO Elon Musk of manipulating the company's stock price. The suit follows two lawsuits filed against the company last week by investors alleging securities fraud.

A complaint filed on Monday in US District Court in California alleges that some investors purchased Tesla stock "at artificially inflated prices and suffered significant losses and damages once the truth emerged" that Musk had not secured the funding necessary to convert Tesla into a private company for $420 per share, as he said on August 7.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said via Twitter.

"Investor support is confirmed. Only reason why this is not certain is that it’s contingent on a shareholder vote," he later said.

Tesla's share price surged after Musk's first tweet, rising by as much as 12%, to over $381, before settling at $379.57 when trading closed on August 7. But by the end of trading on August 9, it had fallen to $352.45 as reports emerged that the Securities and Exchange Commission made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. 

According to the lawsuit, "Musk’s tweets were an ill-conceived attempt to manipulate the stock price of Tesla upward in order to burn investors who had sold Tesla stock short," and, "had the desired effect of creating a massive one-day increase in the price of Tesla stock and causing short sellers large losses."

Tesla declined Business Insider's request for comment.

On Monday, Musk said in a statement that he used the phrase "funding secured" because he believed there was "no question" Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would provide funding for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company after a July 31 meeting with the fund's managing director.

But Musk didn't mention any legally-binding agreements that were in place at the time he sent the August 7 tweet and said he was in discussions with the Saudi fund and other investors, which suggested some sources of funding were not be settled before the tweet was sent.

On Tuesday, Tesla said its board of directors had formed a special committee to examine Musk's preference to take the company private.

SEE ALSO: Meet Grimes, the Canadian pop star who streams video games and is dating Elon Musk

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As anyone who has ever attempted to explain bitcoin to their parents can understand, one of the most challenging parts of convincing them of the utility of this technology is making the case that a person should be his or her own bank. Occasionally, though, an object lesson bites you in the, err, mustache. The

The post ‘Bitcoin is Stupid’ Author Gets a Lesson in the Value of Being Your Own Bank appeared first on CCN

High Times, which announced last week that it would accept bitcoin and ether for its coming IPO, said in an SEC filing Monday that this was an "error."

• Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund that oversees $150 billion in assets under management, bought $15.7 million worth of Alibaba shares during the second quarter, regulatory filings show.
• Alibaba is one of the stocks included in the "FAANG+BAT" basket.
• Watch Alibaba trade in real time here.

Bridgewater Associates, the $150 billion hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio, bought 84,629 shares of Alibaba in the second quarter, worth $15.7 million, according to regulatory documents filed Tuesday. A back of the envelope calculation shows the stake was established at an average price of $185.52. 

Alibaba is one of the market's most heavily traded tech stocks and part of the "FAANG+BAT" basket, which also includes Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Chinese tech giants Baidu and Tencent. 

Bridgewater's buying of Alibaba shouldn't come as a surprise. Last September, the hedge fund launched a big investment fund in China as it was granted rare access to trade in local financial markets. 

In a LinkedIn post from March, Dalio wrote that an escalating tit-for-tat trade war would be a reason to "worry." But this investment is a way for Dalio to gain exposure to China without having to worry about the impact of a trade war with China. That's because the e-commerce giant is responsible for about 85% of e-commerce sales in China — which helps provide insulation from the trade spat.

Alibaba shares gained 4% in the second quarter despite Trump’s tariff trade spat with China. However they slumped 7% since July as investors have begun to rotate out of the "FAANG+BAT" group. 

Dalio’s other new investments disclosed in the filing include a $31.3 million stake in Cummins, a $14.4 million stake in Walmart, and a 76% decrease in its Facebook holdings — now worth $9.37 million.

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• Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund that oversees $150 billion in assets under management, bought $15.7 million worth of Alibaba shares during the second quarter, regulatory filings show.
• Alibaba is one of the stocks included in the "FAANG+BAT" basket.
• Watch Alibaba trade in real time here.

Bridgewater Associates, the $150 billion hedge fund founded by Ray Dalio, bought 84,629 shares of Alibaba in the second quarter, worth $15.7 million, according to regulatory documents filed Tuesday. A back of the envelope calculation shows the stake was established at an average price of $185.52. 

Alibaba is one of the market's most heavily traded tech stocks and part of the "FAANG+BAT" basket, which also includes Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, and Chinese tech giants Baidu and Tencent. 

Bridgewater's buying of Alibaba shouldn't come as a surprise. Last September, the hedge fund launched a big investment fund in China as it was granted rare access to trade in local financial markets. 

In a LinkedIn post from March, Dalio wrote that an escalating tit-for-tat trade war would be a reason to "worry." But this investment is a way for Dalio to gain exposure to China without having to worry about the impact of a trade war with China. That's because the e-commerce giant is responsible for about 85% of e-commerce sales in China — which helps provide insulation from the trade spat.

Alibaba shares gained 4% in the second quarter despite Trump’s tariff trade spat with China. However they slumped 7% since July as investors have begun to rotate out of the "FAANG+BAT" group. 

Dalio’s other new investments disclosed in the filing include a $31.3 million stake in Cummins, a $14.4 million stake in Walmart, and a 76% decrease in its Facebook holdings — now worth $9.37 million.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Nic Carter, a well respected cryptocurrency researcher, has said that Bitcoin has surpassed the OTC gold market in settlement volumes, even amidst a 70 percent drop in its price. Bitcoin as a Better Medium of Exchange According to the clearing statistics of the London bullion market (LBMA), five major clearing members of the LPMCL including

The post Despite its 70% Price Drop, Bitcoin Surpassed Gold in Settlement Volume appeared first on CCN

• The collapse of the Turkish lira and the strong dollar have hit emerging market currencies globally.
• If the trend continues, countries may start to have trouble paying back dollar-denominated debts.
• Analysts say Argentina, Pakistan, South Africa, and Colombia are among those most at risk.

LONDON — The collapse of the Turkish lira against the dollar is the focus of global markets but emerging market currencies are getting hammered across the board and there are concerns that the issue could spiral from a currency crisis into a debt crisis.

The Indian rupee hit an all-time low against the dollar overnight, the South African rand has been diving, Argentina's central bank hiked rates by 5% on Monday to arrest the peso's decline, and Indonesia's government is meeting to discuss emergency measures to defend the sinking rupiah.

"EM [emerging market] currencies (judged by the Bloomberg EM currency basket) are now at their lowest nominal value in the past three years – below the level reached in early 2016 at the time of the commodity price fall and period of US$ strength," analysts Stuart Culverhouse and Hasnain Malik from emerging market specialist bank Exotix said in a note on Tuesday.

UBS and Credit Suisse have both flagged the danger that Turkey's currency crisis could spiral into a debt crisis. If this does happen, we could see similar issues in other emerging markets.

Many emerging markets loaded up on dollar-denominated debts when interest rates were low. But a combination of falling local currencies and a soaring US dollar mean those debts are getting more expensive to pay off.

Turkey's foreign currency debts across businesses, banks, and the government are at 55% of GDP, according to the Telegraph. The newspaper reports that The Institute of International Finance "thinks events in Turkey are just the start of a long and painful hangover for those emerging markets that drank deepest from this cup." The report warns that South Africa, Indonesia, and Columbia are most at risk.

David Jones, chief market strategist at Capital.com, said in an email: "Given that the memories of the far-reaching effects of the Greek crisis have not been forgotten, do not be surprised if we see cautious trading and further US dollar strength in the days ahead as investors decide that it is better to be safe and late to any recovery - rather than be too early and very wrong."

Exotix's Culverhouse and Malik say that emerging markets are currently suffering mainly from the "risk off" sentiment rather than a belief among investors that they share similar characteristics with Turkey. But the pair refers to a ranking they made in May showing which countries could be most at risk if sentiment does shift.

Here's the ranking:

The Exotix pair writes: "Most of the others in our sample (except India) are too small to pose wider systemic risks. But difficulties could lead to localised, country-specific problems, especially for those with pre-existing weaknesses."

Lale Akoner, a market strategist in BNY Mellon’s global investment strategy group, said on Tuesday: "In our view, Turkey is mostly the exception and not the rule, and not necessarily demonstrative of the larger EM complex.

"Nevertheless, what is largely an idiosyncratic risk for Turkey did feed into the negative sentiment towards EMs in general."

SEE ALSO: UBS: Turkey could be heading into a balance-of-payments crisis

DON'T MISS: India's rupee hits an all-time low as the Turkish lira crisis spills over to other currencies

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What a difference a few weeks can make. Just 21 days ago, the bitcoin price was trading above $8,400, riding what appeared to many to be the first wave of a new bull market. The bottom, the analysts said, was in. Now, midway through August, bitcoin is fighting just to hold above $6,000. The altcoin

The post Why the Cryptocurrency Bubble is Reminiscent of Hodling Amazon Stock: CoinShares CSO appeared first on CCN

What a difference a few weeks can make. Just 21 days ago, the bitcoin price was trading above $8,400, riding what appeared to many to be the first wave of a new bull market. The bottom, the analysts said, was in. Now, midway through August, bitcoin is fighting just to hold above $6,000. The altcoin

The post Why the Cryptocurrency Bubble is Reminiscent of Hodling Amazon Stock: CoinShares CSO appeared first on CCN

• The FBI reportedly sent a confidential email to banks Friday outlining a potential ATM security threat.
• The scheme is known as an "ATM cash-out."
• Hackers use malware to access machines, lift controls and access large sums of money.

The FBI is privately warning banks of a potential global hacking scheme that could be carried out through their ATMs.

The bureau sent a confidential alert to banks Friday to notify them individuals are planning a large-scale fraud scheme known as an "ATM cash-out," journalist Brian Krebs first reported on his cybersecurity news website. 

FBI spokesperson Lauren Hagee did not comment on the matter specifically, but sent Business Insider the following statement in response to questions about it:

"In furtherance of public-private partnerships, the FBI routinely advises private industry of various cyber threat indicators observed during the course of our investigations. This data is provided in order to help systems administrators guard against the actions of persistent cyber criminals."

In an ATM cashout scheme, hackers can use malware to access a bank or payment card processor and sometimes make fraudulent copies of cards by imprinting stolen card data on reusable magnetic strip cards.

Krebs said they can also manipulate account information and security settings to make large sums of money available for withdrawal.

"Just prior to executing on ATM cash-outs, the intruders will remove many fraud controls at the financial institution, such as maximum ATM withdrawal amounts and any limits on the number of customer ATM transactions daily," Krebs wrote.

SEE ALSO: 'Tech trendiness' has spiked to dangerous levels — here's why that could be signaling widespread market pain

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

This promoted article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

The market is down $25 billion from yesterday’s high of $219 billion, sliding to $193 at the time of writing. Altcoins have been hit hard with Ethereum down almost 18% overnight according to coinmarketcap.com and hitting lows not seen since August 2017, now trading at $264. Ripple is also at a yearly low, down 14.33%

The post Crypto Market Decline Aggravates as Ripple and Ethereum Hit Yearly Lows appeared first on CCN

The market is down $25 billion from yesterday’s high of $219 billion, sliding to $193 at the time of writing. Altcoins have been hit hard with Ethereum down almost 18% overnight according to coinmarketcap.com and hitting lows not seen since August 2017, now trading at $264. Ripple is also at a yearly low, down 14.33%

The post Crypto Market Decline Aggravates as Ripple and Ethereum Hit Yearly Lows appeared first on CCN

• Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at the Leuthold Group, has concocted a tool to assess whether tech stocks have gotten too trendy.
  
• He then applies that methodology to stock-market history, in order to find out what top-tier trendiness has historically meant for both tech and the broader market — and the results aren't exactly encouraging.

Anyone watching the stock market knows that the tech sector is flying high in seemingly unstoppable fashion.

Contrarians have long called foul on this, blindly assuming that what goes up must surely come crashing down at some point.

But that's been a long-running fool's errand. If you'd have dumped your tech shares at the first sign of overvaluation, you would've missed out on months — if not years — of massive returns.

Fortunately for those waiting for the axe to fall on tech, Jim Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group, has a tool for assessing when that might happen. And based on his most recent findings, the next year may not be so pretty for the red-hot sector — and, by extension, the market at large.

Paulsen has concocted a measure for assessing "trendiness," which he defines as the number of weeks the tech sector's relative total return has either outperformed or underperformed the S&P 500, on a trailing one-year basis. By his methodology, a "persistent trend" requires that the measure meets or exceeds the previous week's reading.

His findings are reflected in the chart below. As you can see, tech "trendiness" is at its highest level in 15 years, having spiked into its top quintile — an event that's happened infrequently over the years.

So what does that mean for the future of tech stocks? If history is any indication, the sector could be in for a rude awakening. Paulsen finds that, since 1990, top-quintile tech trendiness has resulted in 11% lower average returns, relative to the S&P 500. This divergence is reflected below.

Paulsen also finds that overextended tech trendiness whips up price swings, which can make losses worse during turbulent times.

"Once trendiness reaches the top quintile, the risk of future underperformance rises significantly," he wrote in a client note. "It also significantly increases relative return volatility."

As for the broader market, Paulsen finds that it too is adversely affected by immense tech trendiness. A top-quintile reading has been associated with a future average-annualized weekly return of only 2.74% for the S&P 500, which he notes is aberrantly low, relative to history.

Ultimately, however, Paulsen qualifies his findings with the assurance that top-tier tech trendiness is not necessarily a death knell for the sector, nor the broader market.

It simply implies that a repricing may be in order for both — which hasn't always meant a major, bone-rattling market meltdown. Still, he stresses caution for tech bulls still riding high off recent success.

"They possess considerable positive price momentum, have sexy stories, offer huge future growth prospects, and are immensely popular with most investors," he said. "It’s a difficult time to sell! Perhaps though, technology has trended into a sell signal? While still mighty comfortable, the trend may no longer be a friend!”

SEE ALSO: There’s a $1 trillion question hanging over stocks right now — and the answer could determine the ultimate fate of the market

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• Tesla's board of directors has formed a special committee to examine CEO Elon Musk's preference to take the company private, according to a statement on Tesla's website. 
• Three independent board members — Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, and Linda Johnson Rice — will sit on the special committee.
• While Musk has not yet presented the committee with a formal proposal to convert Tesla into a private company, he will need the committee's approval before Tesla can go private.

Tesla's board of directors has formed a special committee to examine CEO Elon Musk's preference to take the company private, according to a statement on Tesla's website. 

Three independent board members — Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm, and Linda Johnson Rice — will sit on the special committee. While Musk has not yet presented the committee with a formal proposal to convert Tesla into a private company, he will need the committee's approval before Tesla can go private.

The committee has secured the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP as its legal counsel and intends to use an independent financial advisor.

Last week, Musk expressed his desire to take Tesla private in a now-controversial tweet.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said via Twitter before issuing a formal statement on Tesla's website.

In that statement, Musk said taking the company private was "the best path forward." He said the pressures of being a public company created distractions and promoted short-term thinking that may not produce the best decisions in the long term.

Some were confused in the hours and days following the tweet, since Musk did not initially disclose who might provide the funding he mentioned.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. And on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

On Monday, Musk said in a statement that he used the phrase "funding secured" because he believed there was "no question" Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would provide funding for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company after a July 31 meeting with the fund's managing director. He made the announcement via Twitter, he said, because he wanted all Tesla investors to know about the possibility of Tesla going private at the same time.

Musk said he was in discussions with the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and other investors and planned to fund most of a potential take-private deal with equity rather than debt, since he does not want to increase Tesla's debt load.

Musk also estimated that about two-thirds of the shares owned by Tesla shareholders would roll over into shares of a private Tesla, were a deal to go through. In that case, he would not have to raise the over $70 billion that would be needed to buy out all current shareholders at $420 a share.

"Reports that more than $70B would be needed to take Tesla private dramatically overstate the actual capital raise needed," he said.

Musk said all relevant parties would be able to review a proposal before a decision was made about going private. He said a proposal would not be presented, however, until discussions with potential investors were finished.

The Saudi sovereign wealth fund first met with Musk early last year about taking Tesla private, Musk said, adding that they'd met multiple times. After the fund purchased about 5% of Tesla's shares, it requested another meeting with Musk, which Musk said took place July 31. Musk said that during this meeting the fund's managing director "strongly expressed his support" to contribute funding to take Tesla private.

Musk notified Tesla's board of directors of his desire to take Tesla private on August 2, he said.

Tesla's board released a statement on Wednesday morning that was very brief and offered few details other than news that Musk had met with the board last week to bring up the possibility of going private.

Tesla has been public since 2010, but Musk has previously said he would like to take Tesla private.

"I wish we could be private with Tesla," Musk said in an interview with Rolling Stone published in November. "It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company."

Musk has also said on multiple occasions that Tesla would become profitable by the end of this year and would not need to raise additional funds, despite its increased cash-burn rate in recent quarters.

At the end of June, Tesla said it achieved its goal of making 5,000 Model 3s in one week. Musk previously said that the company would hit that number by the end of 2017 and that sustaining such a production rate was critical for Tesla to become profitable.

Read Tesla's full comment below: 

Tesla, Inc. (the “Company”) announced today that its Board of Directors has formed a special committee comprised of three independent directors to act on behalf of the Company in connection with Elon Musk’s previously announced consideration of a transaction to take the Company private (the “Going Private Transaction”). The special committee has not yet received a formal proposal from Mr. Musk regarding any Going Private Transaction nor has it reached any conclusion as to the advisability or feasibility of such a transaction.

The special committee is composed of Brad Buss, Robyn Denholm and Linda Johnson Rice. The special committee has retained Latham & Watkins LLP as its legal counsel and intends to retain an independent financial advisor to assist in its review of a formal proposal once received. The Company has separately retained Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as its legal counsel in this matter. 

The special committee has the full power and authority of the Board of Directors to take any and all actions on behalf of the Board of Directors as it deems necessary to evaluate and negotiate a potential Going Private Transaction and alternatives to any transaction proposed by Mr. Musk. The special committee’s grant of authority provides that no Going Private Transaction will be consummated without the approval of the special committee. The special committee expects to provide a further update concerning the process associated with Mr. Musk’s proposal as soon as practicable.

No assurances can be given regarding the likelihood, terms and details of any proposal or potential Going Private Transaction, that any proposal made by Mr. Musk regarding a potential Going Private Transaction will be accepted by the special committee, that definitive documentation relating to any such Going Private Transaction will be executed or that such a transaction will be completed. 

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements in this announcement, including statements regarding a potential Going Private Transaction, are “forward-looking statements” that are subject to risks, uncertainties and contingencies. These risks, uncertainties and contingencies include, but are not limited to, the impact of the announcement of the formation of the special committee and review of a potential Going Private Transaction on the Company’s business and its ability to implement any potential Going Private Transaction.  Various important factors could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks identified in our SEC filings. 

This list of factors is not intended to be exhaustive. Such forward-looking statements only speak as of the date of this announcement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

Read more about Tesla possibly going private:

• 'It was, at best, hasty and naive, and, at worst, manipulative': Experts slam Elon Musk's confusing defense of why he tweeted 'funding secured'
• If the Saudis do help Elon Musk take Tesla private, the company could actually take over the world
• Elon Musk reveals what he meant by his 'funding secured' tweet
• Elon Musk's tweet about taking Tesla private might be ethically questionable, but it isn't morally wrong
• A couple of reasons Elon Musk could actually pull off his wild plan to take Tesla private
• Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet could cost Tesla millions, former SEC chairman says

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• Renaissance Technologies, a quant hedge fund that oversees $84 billion, bought up $479.5 million worth of Facebook between April 1 and June 30, regulatory filings show.
• The hedge fund was apparently "buying the dip" after the social network's scandal-ridden spring caused shares to plunge by 20% at the end of March. 
• Watch Facebook trade in real time here. 

Renaissance Technologies, the $80 billion hedge fund founded by Cold War code breaker James Simons, seems to think the worst for Facebook is over.

The hedge fund snapped up 2.47 million shares of the stock in the second quarter — at a valuation of $479.5 million — according to regulatory documents filed Tuesday. A back of the envelope calculation shows the stake was established at an average price of $194.13. 

Facebook has been one of the market’s top performing stocks in recent months, coming off the Cambridge Analytica data-privacy scandal. The stock rose 26% in the second quarter after tumbling 20% when the scandal first broke in late March.

Renaissance likely saw the brief lapse in stock price as a chance to "buy the dip" in the wake of the carnage at the end of the first quarter. That strategy has been wildly popular throughout the nine-year bull market.

It's possible Renaissance exited its position at some point during the first half of the third quarter. If it hasn't, it is likely underwater on the trade as shares are now near $180 apiece.  

Other new investments disclosed in the filing include a $706.9 million stake in Apple, a $191.3 million stake in Microsoft, and a 40% increase in its VMware holdings — now worth $777.4 million.

Now read:

• One dirty word keeps popping up as Wall Street weighs the next market crash — and it should strike fear into the hearts of investors everywhere

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk makes good on his promise to send David Einhorn 'a box of short shorts' after Tesla hurt the short-seller's performance

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

• The results of the Chartered Financial Analyst exams for 2018 will be released on Tuesday.
• Students who sat for levels I and II of the CFA exam in June 2018 are finding out their results today.
• Last year, just 43% of candidates passed Level I, while 47% passed Level II.
• Pass percentages will not be made public until August 28, when Level III results will also be released.
• The CFA is regarded as one of the most grueling exams in finance.

In June 2018, after countless hours of study, lots of late nights, and gallons of coffee, more than 100,000 aspiring financial analysts around the world sat for the notorious Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam.

The exam, which asks candidates questions on everything from financial modeling to the ethics of business, is considered to be one of the most grueling tests in the world, with less than 50% of people passing each year.

It is split into three levels — I, II, and III — and on Tuesday, candidates who sat for Levels I and II back in June find out their fates.

Students who took Levels I and II in 2018 were given access to their results beginning at 9 a.m. ET (2 p.m. BST). The CFA Institute, which administers the exams, gives students around the world access to their results at the same time. 

"Each candidate who sits for a CFA Program exam is provided with a "pass" or "did not pass" exam result as well as detailed information on their performance," the CFA Institute said on its website.

Generally speaking, pass rates increase on each ascending level, with Level I tending to flush out underprepared candidates.

Only about one in five people who start the CFA program make it through all three levels and successfully complete the other requirements to become a charter-holder.

While students of Levels I and II find out how they did on Tuesday, details of the exam's pass percentages will not be released until August 28, when information about performances on all three levels of the CFA will be made public. Last year, 43% of people sitting for Level I passed the exam, 47% passed Level II, and 54% succeeded at Level III.

Becoming a CFA charterholder is a huge leg up for anyone hoping to build a career in investment management. It's also a much cheaper credential than an MBA. A CFA costs around $2,500 in total, while an MBA can easily run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SEE ALSO: The CFA is the most brutal exam in the world of finance — here's what the questions look like

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

• The Turkish lira crisis is far from over.
• The country is potentially heading into a balance-of-payments crisis, according to UBS.
• President Tayyip Erdogan has made multiple speeches showing that he does not understand basic economics.
• Without a sharp rise in interest rates, which Erdogan opposes, Turkey may have to restrict cash withdrawals from banks or get a bailout from the IMF.
  
• Watch the Turkish lira trade in real time here.

The Turkish lira ticked up 6% Tuesday morning after the country's central bank increased the liquidity of Turkish banks by loosening their reserve requirements.

But the crisis is far from over.

The lira is down 43% against the US dollar this year. Unless President Tayyip Erdogan makes a major U-turn by ordering an increase in central bank interest rates, the lira — and Turkey's economy — is going nowhere fast.

That U-turn seems unlikely, analysts say, because of Erdogan's apparently irrational belief that high interest rates are "evil."

'The economy stands on the brink of a debt and currency crisis'

"A number of policy errors have led to Turkey's current predicament," Credit Suisse analysts Alexander Redman and Arun Sai told clients recently.

"The economy stands on the brink of a debt and currency crisis with only political will standing between resolution and a precipice, in our view. Turkish policy makers are left with unpalatable options including a sizeable emergency rate hike, the introduction of capital controls, a heavily conditional IMF bailout, or attempting to muddle through the uncertainty."

They continued: "As preventable crises go, Turkey's current episode is tough to eclipse." 

'Worse than Argentina'

It's "Worse than Argentina," according to Exotix Capital analysts Stuart Culverhouse and Hasnain Malik, referring to the hyperinflation that crippled that country earlier this year. Argentina is suffering from high inflation and a big budget deficit, brought on in part by the US dollar's relative strength against the weak peso. The Argentinian central bank has hiked rates to fight its crisis, all the way up to 45%.

But "Turkey’s currency crisis seems to be more pronounced than Argentina’s was in April 2018 and has produced the sharpest fall in EM currencies since Donald Trump was elected US President in November 2016," Culverhouse and Malik say.

It's also worse than the recession in Turkey started by the 2001 deficit payments crisis, according to Bank of America Merril Lynch's Ferhan Salman. "Gross external debt has reached US$466bn (Mar-2018, about 60% of GDP), surpassing the levels of the 2001 financial crisis. External debt rollover needs in the next 12 months are also high (US$180bn - about 22% of GDP)," he told clients. 

'We have been here before'

"We have been here before," says Russ Mould of AJ Bell, in terms of the 2001 crisis.

The immediate trigger for the collapse of the lira was US economic sanctions, mainly on steel and aluminum, imposed by President Donald Trump. But Turkey's currency — and thus its economy — was especially vulnerable because Erdogan has strongly held beliefs about the function of his central bank that most economists regard as irrational.

In basic terms, if you have high inflation then the central bank should increase interest rates to drive prices down again.

Turkey's inflation problem

In Turkey, inflation is currently running at 16%. (By contrast, it's about 2% in the UK and the US.) The Turkish central bank held its interest rates at 17.75% in July.

That spread between the two rates — about 2% — will not be enough to tempt Turks into depositing their cash in Turkish banks, analysts believe. Rather, Turkey needs to hike rates by 5 or 10 percentage points, to something like 25%, in order to create a "real" interest rate on cash above the rate of inflation.

Increased cash deposits would shore up the Turkish financial system, reduce the amount of cash in circulation, and bring inflation down. It would also increase the value of the lira, and stabilize Turkey's economy. The downside, of course, is that a reduction of cash in circulation would also trigger an increase in unemployment, something that Erdogan is no doubt keen to avoid.

Erdogan says some irrational things

So analysts are peering back through the archives to gauge the likelihood of Erdogan being persuaded to change his mind. Credit Suisse's Redmun and Sai found two quotes from Erdogan published in mid-May, in which the president expressed unorthodox views about economics.

At a meeting in Chatham House, London, Erdogan told attendees to "please learn" that low interest rates deliver low inflation, according to the Financial Times.

Also in May, Erdogan spoke to reporters at Bloomberg. He said:

“When the people fall into difficulties because of monetary policies, who are they going to hold accountable? They’ll hold the president accountable. Since they’ll ask the president about it, we have to give off the image of a president who’s influential on monetary policies."

He also confirmed that he was going to have a role setting interest rates himself, confirming his central bank's monetary independence was over.

'How can you invest in a country when the guy doesn’t believe in basic interest rate theory?'

And he told Bloomberg staff at a lunch that he was resolutely opposed to raising rates.

“How can you invest in a country when the guy doesn’t believe in basic interest rate theory?” The FT reported one attendee as saying. “Turkey almost looks uninvestible.”

Then in June, Erdogan made an infamous election speech to business leaders in Ankara, in which he said interest rates were "evil" (emphasis ours):

"If my people say continue on this path in the elections, I say I will emerge with victory in the fight against this curse of interest rates ... Because my belief is: interest rates are the mother and father of all evil."

Turkey could be heading into technical bankruptcy

Tilmann Kolb of UBS wrote in a note four days ago that Turkey could be headed into "a full-fledged balance-of-payments crisis." In plain English, that would mean Turkey's currency becomes so devalued it becomes unable to pay its debts or buy services from abroad — technical bankruptcy for the entire country.

"At this point, we are not sure if the policymakers have a detailed plan for coordination or disagree on the measures, or if communication and implementation are being blocked at the highest level," Kolb wrote. "Any of these is worrying given the urgent need to act, in our view."

He added: "The crisis looks likely to deepen at this point, and so does a further depreciation of the lira. We think the risks are skewed toward a further dollarization of the Turkish economy, and possibly a full-fledged balance-of-payments crisis, the introduction of capital controls, or an involvement of the IMF. While the window for a rebound of the lira has not fully closed, we continue to advise investors to reduce exposure to the currency."

SEE ALSO: The reason Turkey's economic collapse is so scary is that Iran, Russia, and Syria are waiting in the wings

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• The Turkish lira crisis is far from over.
• The country is potentially heading into a balance-of-payments crisis, according to UBS.
• President Tayyip Erdogan has made multiple speeches showing that he does not understand basic economics.
• Without a sharp rise in interest rates, which Erdogan opposes, Turkey may have to restrict cash withdrawals from banks or get a bailout from the IMF.
  
• Watch the Turkish lira trade in real time here.

The Turkish lira ticked up 6% Tuesday morning after the country's central bank increased the liquidity of Turkish banks by loosening their reserve requirements.

But the crisis is far from over.

The lira is down 43% against the US dollar this year. Unless President Tayyip Erdogan makes a major U-turn by ordering an increase in central bank interest rates, the lira — and Turkey's economy — is going nowhere fast.

That U-turn seems unlikely, analysts say, because of Erdogan's apparently irrational belief that high interest rates are "evil."

'The economy stands on the brink of a debt and currency crisis'

"A number of policy errors have led to Turkey's current predicament," Credit Suisse analysts Alexander Redman and Arun Sai told clients recently.

"The economy stands on the brink of a debt and currency crisis with only political will standing between resolution and a precipice, in our view. Turkish policy makers are left with unpalatable options including a sizeable emergency rate hike, the introduction of capital controls, a heavily conditional IMF bailout, or attempting to muddle through the uncertainty."

They continued: "As preventable crises go, Turkey's current episode is tough to eclipse." 

'Worse than Argentina'

It's "Worse than Argentina," according to Exotix Capital analysts Stuart Culverhouse and Hasnain Malik, referring to the hyperinflation that crippled that country earlier this year. Argentina is suffering from high inflation and a big budget deficit, brought on in part by the US dollar's relative strength against the weak peso. The Argentinian central bank has hiked rates to fight its crisis, all the way up to 45%.

But "Turkey’s currency crisis seems to be more pronounced than Argentina’s was in April 2018 and has produced the sharpest fall in EM currencies since Donald Trump was elected US President in November 2016," Culverhouse and Malik say.

It's also worse than the recession in Turkey started by the 2001 deficit payments crisis, according to Bank of America Merril Lynch's Ferhan Salman. "Gross external debt has reached US$466bn (Mar-2018, about 60% of GDP), surpassing the levels of the 2001 financial crisis. External debt rollover needs in the next 12 months are also high (US$180bn - about 22% of GDP)," he told clients. 

'We have been here before'

"We have been here before," says Russ Mould of AJ Bell, in terms of the 2001 crisis.

The immediate trigger for the collapse of the lira was US economic sanctions, mainly on steel and aluminum, imposed by President Donald Trump. But Turkey's currency — and thus its economy — was especially vulnerable because Erdogan has strongly held beliefs about the function of his central bank that most economists regard as irrational.

In basic terms, if you have high inflation then the central bank should increase interest rates to drive prices down again.

Turkey's inflation problem

In Turkey, inflation is currently running at 16%. (By contrast, it's about 2% in the UK and the US.) The Turkish central bank held its interest rates at 17.75% in July.

That spread between the two rates — about 2% — will not be enough to tempt Turks into depositing their cash in Turkish banks, analysts believe. Rather, Turkey needs to hike rates by 5 or 10 percentage points, to something like 25%, in order to create a "real" interest rate on cash above the rate of inflation.

Increased cash deposits would shore up the Turkish financial system, reduce the amount of cash in circulation, and bring inflation down. It would also increase the value of the lira, and stabilize Turkey's economy. The downside, of course, is that a reduction of cash in circulation would also trigger an increase in unemployment, something that Erdogan is no doubt keen to avoid.

Erdogan says some irrational things

So analysts are peering back through the archives to gauge the likelihood of Erdogan being persuaded to change his mind. Credit Suisse's Redmun and Sai found two quotes from Erdogan published in mid-May, in which the president expressed unorthodox views about economics.

At a meeting in Chatham House, London, Erdogan told attendees to "please learn" that low interest rates deliver low inflation, according to the Financial Times.

Also in May, Erdogan spoke to reporters at Bloomberg. He said:

“When the people fall into difficulties because of monetary policies, who are they going to hold accountable? They’ll hold the president accountable. Since they’ll ask the president about it, we have to give off the image of a president who’s influential on monetary policies."

He also confirmed that he was going to have a role setting interest rates himself, confirming his central bank's monetary independence was over.

'How can you invest in a country when the guy doesn’t believe in basic interest rate theory?'

And he told Bloomberg staff at a lunch that he was resolutely opposed to raising rates.

“How can you invest in a country when the guy doesn’t believe in basic interest rate theory?” The FT reported one attendee as saying. “Turkey almost looks uninvestible.”

Then in June, Erdogan made an infamous election speech to business leaders in Ankara, in which he said interest rates were "evil" (emphasis ours):

"If my people say continue on this path in the elections, I say I will emerge with victory in the fight against this curse of interest rates ... Because my belief is: interest rates are the mother and father of all evil."

Turkey could be heading into technical bankruptcy

Tilmann Kolb of UBS wrote in a note four days ago that Turkey could be headed into "a full-fledged balance-of-payments crisis." In plain English, that would mean Turkey's currency becomes so devalued it becomes unable to pay its debts or buy services from abroad — technical bankruptcy for the entire country.

"At this point, we are not sure if the policymakers have a detailed plan for coordination or disagree on the measures, or if communication and implementation are being blocked at the highest level," Kolb wrote. "Any of these is worrying given the urgent need to act, in our view."

He added: "The crisis looks likely to deepen at this point, and so does a further depreciation of the lira. We think the risks are skewed toward a further dollarization of the Turkish economy, and possibly a full-fledged balance-of-payments crisis, the introduction of capital controls, or an involvement of the IMF. While the window for a rebound of the lira has not fully closed, we continue to advise investors to reduce exposure to the currency."

SEE ALSO: The reason Turkey's economic collapse is so scary is that Iran, Russia, and Syria are waiting in the wings

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

In the past 24 hours, the crypto market has lost $23 billion, dropping from $217 billion to $194 billion, as major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin showed a lack of momentum. What Has Happened to the Market? Without any exception, every major cryptocurrency in the market has plunged in value on August 14. Ether, the native cryptocurrency

The post Bitcoin and Ether Lack Momentum as Crypto Market Falls Below $200 Billion appeared first on CCN

Bitcoin risks printing fresh 2018 low below the June low of $5,755, but will likely defend the support at $5,650 in the short-run.

Here is what you need to know. 

The Turkish lira has stabilized.The lira is up 4.5% at 6.5730 per dollar. It's still down 73% this year. 

The Indian rupee hits a record low. The rupee fell to 70.08 per dollar early Tuesday as Turkey's currency crisis spilled over into other emerging markets. 

UK unemployment rate sinks to lowest level in over 40 years. The unemployment rate in the UK hit 4% between April and June, making for the lowest print since comparable records began in the early 1970s — according to data released Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics.

Bitcoin slides below $6,000 as crypto sell-off continues. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, hit a low of $5,887 late Monday before paring its losses. 

Investors have turned complacent and are in danger of being sideswiped by a 'likely correction.' Morgan Stanley warns investors are pricing in the continuation of strong economic growth, but aren't paying up to hedge against a market downturn.

Elon Musk reveals he is working with Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake to help take Tesla private. "I’m excited to work with Silver Lake and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors, plus Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Munger, Tolles & Olson as legal advisors, on the proposal to take Tesla private," Tesla's CEO tweeted Monday evening. 

Carl Icahn has changed his mind on Cigna's $52 billion purchase of Express Scripts. The activist investor told CNBC that blocking the deal would be impossible and that "there’s no point in fighting just to fight."

Stock markets around the world are gaining ground. Japan's Nikkei (+2.28%) saw big gains in Asia and Germany's DAX (+0.23%) leads in Europe. The S&P 500 is set to open up 0.46% near 2,835.

Earnings reporting remains slow. Home Depot reports ahead of the opening bell.

US economic data trickles out. Import and export prices will cross the wires at 8:30 a.m. ET. The US 10-year yield is up 2 basis points at 2.90%. 

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Thailand’s Crime Suppression Division (CSD) has sought arrest warrants of six more people in an ongoing $24 million Bitcoin scam case. The law enforcement agency has confirmed that among the six wanted individuals, two are siblings of the famous Thai actor Jiratpisit Jaravijit. One of them is the elder brother of Jaravijit, Prinya Jaravijit, while

The post Thailand Police Seek More Arrests in $24 Million Bitcoin Fraud appeared first on CCN

• There is rising evidence that European Union workers are leaving the UK because of Brexit.
• The Office for National Statistics on Tuesday said that there were 86,000 fewer EU nationals in jobs in the UK than at the same time last year.
• This is the largest fall on record. 
• Workers from the A8 group of Eastern European nations are leaving at the fastest rate, the ONS said.
• While the ONS did not explicitly mention Brexit in its release, anti-Brexit campaign groups seized on the figures.

LONDON — Evidence is mounting that the United Kingdom's impending exit from the European Union is causing workers from EU countries to leave the country and return home.

On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics released its monthly snapshot of the UK jobs market, looking at the overall rate of employment and unemployment in the UK, as well as the growth of wages for workers.

The release, however, also included some startling figures about the number of EU nationals working in the UK, showing that workers from European Union countries are leaving the country at the fastest rate since the ONS started tracking such data.

Comparing the data period — April to June 2018 — with the same period last year, the ONS said that there were 86,000 fewer EU nationals in jobs in the UK. In total, 2.28 million EU nationals work in Britain.

86,000 out of 2.3 million may not seem a huge amount, but the ONS pointed out that it was "the largest annual fall since comparable records began in 1997.">

Here's the chart from the ONS, illustrating the size of the drop (the blue line shows EU nationals in the UK):

In particular, workers from the so-called A8 countries — Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia — are leaving the UK.

Matt Hughes, a senior statistician at the ONS said in a statement that there had been a "noticeable drop over the past year in the number of workers from the so-called ‘A8’ eastern European countries in particular." The number of A8 workers in the UK fell by 117,000.

These eight countries all joined the EU in 2004 and saw large numbers of citizens move to larger, more prosperous economies like Britain, France, and Germany.

Bulgarian and Romanian citizens, however, continue to come to the UK. "In contrast, the number of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals working in the UK has continued to increase reaching a record high of 391,000 in April to June 2018," the ONS said.

Although the ONS did not specifically mention Brexit in its release, anti-Brexit groups quickly blamed the fall in EU workers on the impending exit from the EU.

"These figures show that Brexodus continues as people pack their bags and leave the UK. This should worry everyone," a statement from Best for Britain said.

"These EU nationals nurse our sick, care for our grandparents and help make Britain a more productive and prosperous country, but the government is pulling up the drawbridge as thousands of EU citizens worry about their future."

While the number of EU nationals working in the UK is falling, the number of non-EU nationals continues to rise, the ONS noted. There were 74,000 more non-EU workers in the UK between April and June 2018, than during the same period last year.

SEE ALSO: Britain's unemployment rate has plunged to 4% — a level not seen in more than 40 years

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Residents in all 50 U.S. states can now use Square's Cash App to buy and sell bitcoin, the company has announced.

• The lira has stabilised on Tuesday morning after a dramatic decline over the last 9 days.
• Turkish President Erdogan has vowed action against "economic terrorists" and claimed the US is waging economic "war" against the country.
• The drop in the lira was sparked by US sanctions against Turkey, economic conditions in the country, and a strong dollar that is pulling foreign investment out of Turkey and back to the United States.

The Turkish lira has stabilised on Tuesday morning after over a week of big losses.

The lira rallied against the dollar on Tuesday morning from Monday's lows. The US dollar is down 5% against the lira to $6.53 at 9.35 a.m. BST (4.35 a.m. ET), retreating from a high of over $7.24 (in other words, an all-time low for the lira). The lira is still down over 45% against the dollar so far this year.

The drop is down to a perfect storm of fresh US sanctions against the country, economic conditions in Turkey, and a strong dollar that is pulling foreign investment out of Turkey and back to the United States.

The consequences of the strong dollar have reverberated through emerging markets, with Argentina, India, and others also seeing steep drops in the value of their currencies.

"The dollar is crushing everything in its path at the moment and this is not good for EM or global growth," Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst for Markets.com, said in an email on Tuesday morning.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday promised action against "economic terrorists" plotting to harm Turkey by spreading false rumours and vowing that they would feel the full force of the law, Reuters reported.

"There are economic terrorists on social media," Erdogan told ambassadors at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, adding that authorities are responding.

"They are truly a network of treason… We will not give them the time of day... We will make those spreading speculations pay the necessary price," he said.

Erdogan said rumours had been spread that Turkey would establish capital controls following the decline of the lira, which fell 18% on Friday alone. He said the Ministry of the Interior had located 346 social media accounts that were spreading a negative perception of the economy and promised legal action would be taken.

Bank analysts have warned that capital controls may be necessary to stabilise Turkey's currency if Erdogan continues to refuse to raise interest rates.

Investigations have also been launched from the prosecutor's office in Ankara and Istanbul into individuals suspected of being involved in actions that threaten the economy. Evidence of the accusations has not yet been disclosed.

Erdogan has accused the US of waging economic "war" against Turkey, The Independent reported. He said dollars, euros and gold are now "the bullets, cannonballs and missiles of the economic war being waged against our country."

Turkey will "start looking for new friends and allies" if Washington maintains its "misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical," he said, adding: "The most important thing is breaking the hands firing these weapons."

SEE ALSO: Turkey could solve its banking crisis with one simple mechanism — but Erdogan is ideologically against it

DON'T MISS: Turkey is blaming social media and 'fabricated news' for the collapse of its currency

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NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

• Britain's unemployment rate dropped to just 4% between April and June, the lowest level since the early 1970s.
• Economists polled in the run up to the release had expected an unemployment rate of 4.2%.
• After increasing sharply during the financial crisis, the UK's unemployment rate has been rapidly dropping for almost a decade.
• The number of people in work also increased over the three months from April to June, with 32.39 million people in work.

LONDON — The rate of unemployment in the UK fell to just 4% between April and June this year — the lowest level since comparable records began in the early 1970s — according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics, published on Tuesday morning.

The UK's unemployment rate, those not in work but who want a job, dropped from 4.2% over the previous three month period. Economists had expected the rate to remain at 4.2% level.

There were 1.36 million unemployed people in the UK over the three months, the ONS said, 65,000 fewer than in the previous data period.

More people were in work over the period, the ONS added, saying that there were 32.39 million people in the UK with jobs, an increase of 42,000.

"The number of people in work has continued to edge ahead, though the employment rate was unchanged on the quarter," senior ONS statistician Matt Hughes said in a statement.

"However, the number of vacancies is a new record high, while the unemployment rate is now at its lowest since the winter of 1974-75."

The high number of vacancies suggests that the number of Brits in employment could rise significantly in the near future.

After increasing sharply during the financial crisis, the UK's unemployment rate has been rapidly dropping for almost a decade, as the chart below illustrates:

While on the surface the data looks good, Ruth Gregory, a senior UK economist at Capital Economics, warned about the underlying cause of the drop.

"Admittedly, the ILO measure of unemployment fell by 65,000, pushing the unemployment rate down to 4.0% – its lowest since 1975 – but this reflected a jump in the number of people leaving the workforce," she said in an email.

The UK's unemployment rate may have beaten expectations, but forecasts proved too optimistic when it came to wages. Total earnings for British workers excluding bonuses rose by 2.7% as expected, but earnings including bonuses increased by just 2.4%, below forecasts.

"Average weekly earnings for employees in Great Britain in real terms (that is, adjusted for price inflation) increased by 0.4% excluding bonuses, and by 0.1% including bonuses, compared with a year earlier," the ONS said.

The pound initially spiked higher against the dollar on the data release, but quickly fell back, perhaps reflecting the weaker than expected wage growth. By 9.50 a.m. BST (4.50 a.m. ET), it was trading at $1.2775, a gain of just 0.09% on the day.

SEE ALSO: The Turkish lira has finally stabilised as Erdogan promises action against 'economic terrorists'

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NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Obviously a coin's price matters, but it's only one of several measures of a blockchain's value. Looking at them together gives you a fuller picture.

• The entire cryptocurrency market has lost 10% of its value in the last 24-hours.
• Bitcoin is below $6,000.
• Ethereum fell 17% on Monday and is down another 7% on Tuesday morning.
• You can follow live cryptocurrency prices on Markets Insider.

LONDON — Cryptocurrencies are in the red on Tuesday, with bitcoin leading the market lower after falling below $6,000 per token.

Bitcoin is down 4.5% to $5,975.21 at 8.18 a.m. BST (3.18 a.m. ET). Other major cryptocurrencies are suffering similar drops at the same time:

• Ethereum is down 7.3% to $263.09
• XRP is down 5.2% to $0.26
• Bitcoin Cash is down 7.9% to $489.91
• Stellar is down 7.8% to $0.20
• EOS is down 6.3% to $4.35
• Litecoin is down 10.1% to $50.82

The entire cryptocurrency market has been under pressure since late June when the US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on whether to approve a bitcoin ETF, a move that bitcoin bulls believe would have greatly increased the size of the market.

The current sell-off began on Monday, with ethereum falling to an 11-month low on the day. That slump comes as startups that raised funding in ethereum through so-called initial coin offerings cash out their holdings into traditional fiat money they can spend on development.

Hussein Sayed, the chief market strategist at FXTM, said in an email on Tuesday morning: "Cryptocurrency bulls also suffered a steep selloff yesterday with bitcoin falling below $6,000 for the first time since late June.

"The blame for this falls on the SEC as the U.S. regulator delayed a decision to create the first Bitcoin ETF. If an ETF doesn’t see the light in the coming weeks expect to see a further selloff, as it suggests regulators will continue to fight against bringing cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. A break below $5,770 will intensify selling pressure as it’s the only major support still standing."

The value of the entire cryptocurrency market has fallen by around 10% over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

The slump comes as emerging market currencies are selling off, spooked by last week's collapse of the lira against the dollar. Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst at Markets.com, said in an email that this coincidence "puts paid to the notion of cryptos as a safe haven play."

"Ultimately USD and US Treasury notes are the only real safe harbour," Wilson said.

SEE ALSO: Ethereum plunges to its lowest level in 11 months

DON'T MISS: Bitcoin dives after the SEC shoots down plans for another bitcoin ETF

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Stock trading is a 'monotheistic religion' — a JPMorgan chief strategist reveals the one thing that will keep the market soaring

• The entire cryptocurrency market has lost 10% of its value in the last 24-hours.
• Bitcoin is below $6,000.
• Ethereum fell 17% on Monday and is down another 7% on Tuesday morning.
• You can follow live cryptocurrency prices on Markets Insider.

LONDON — Cryptocurrencies are in the red on Tuesday, with bitcoin leading the market lower after falling below $6,000 per token.

Bitcoin is down 4.5% to $5,975.21 at 8.18 a.m. BST (3.18 a.m. ET). Other major cryptocurrencies are suffering similar drops at the same time:

• Ethereum is down 7.3% to $263.09
• XRP is down 5.2% to $0.26
• Bitcoin Cash is down 7.9% to $489.91
• Stellar is down 7.8% to $0.20
• EOS is down 6.3% to $4.35
• Litecoin is down 10.1% to $50.82

The entire cryptocurrency market has been under pressure since late June when the US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on whether to approve a bitcoin ETF, a move that bitcoin bulls believe would have greatly increased the size of the market.

The current sell-off began on Monday, with ethereum falling to an 11-month low on the day. That slump comes as startups that raised funding in ethereum through so-called initial coin offerings cash out their holdings into traditional fiat money they can spend on development.

Hussein Sayed, the chief market strategist at FXTM, said in an email on Tuesday morning: "Cryptocurrency bulls also suffered a steep selloff yesterday with bitcoin falling below $6,000 for the first time since late June.

"The blame for this falls on the SEC as the U.S. regulator delayed a decision to create the first Bitcoin ETF. If an ETF doesn’t see the light in the coming weeks expect to see a further selloff, as it suggests regulators will continue to fight against bringing cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. A break below $5,770 will intensify selling pressure as it’s the only major support still standing."

The value of the entire cryptocurrency market has fallen by around 10% over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

The slump comes as emerging market currencies are selling off, spooked by last week's collapse of the lira against the dollar. Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst at Markets.com, said in an email that this coincidence "puts paid to the notion of cryptos as a safe haven play."

"Ultimately USD and US Treasury notes are the only real safe harbour," Wilson said.

SEE ALSO: Ethereum plunges to its lowest level in 11 months

DON'T MISS: Bitcoin dives after the SEC shoots down plans for another bitcoin ETF

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Stock trading is a 'monotheistic religion' — a JPMorgan chief strategist reveals the one thing that will keep the market soaring

• The entire cryptocurrency market has lost 10% of its value in the last 24-hours.
• Bitcoin is below $6,000.
• Ethereum fell 17% on Monday and is down another 7% on Tuesday morning.
• You can follow live cryptocurrency prices on Markets Insider.

LONDON — Cryptocurrencies are in the red on Tuesday, with bitcoin leading the market lower after falling below $6,000 per token.

Bitcoin is down 4.5% to $5,975.21 at 8.18 a.m. BST (3.18 a.m. ET). Other major cryptocurrencies are suffering similar drops at the same time:

• Ethereum is down 7.3% to $263.09
• XRP is down 5.2% to $0.26
• Bitcoin Cash is down 7.9% to $489.91
• Stellar is down 7.8% to $0.20
• EOS is down 6.3% to $4.35
• Litecoin is down 10.1% to $50.82

The entire cryptocurrency market has been under pressure since late June when the US Securities and Exchange Commission delayed a decision on whether to approve a bitcoin ETF, a move that bitcoin bulls believe would have greatly increased the size of the market.

The current sell-off began on Monday, with ethereum falling to an 11-month low on the day. That slump comes as startups that raised funding in ethereum through so-called initial coin offerings cash out their holdings into traditional fiat money they can spend on development.

Hussein Sayed, the chief market strategist at FXTM, said in an email on Tuesday morning: "Cryptocurrency bulls also suffered a steep selloff yesterday with bitcoin falling below $6,000 for the first time since late June.

"The blame for this falls on the SEC as the U.S. regulator delayed a decision to create the first Bitcoin ETF. If an ETF doesn’t see the light in the coming weeks expect to see a further selloff, as it suggests regulators will continue to fight against bringing cryptocurrencies into the mainstream. A break below $5,770 will intensify selling pressure as it’s the only major support still standing."

The value of the entire cryptocurrency market has fallen by around 10% over the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.com.

The slump comes as emerging market currencies are selling off, spooked by last week's collapse of the lira against the dollar. Neil Wilson, the chief market analyst at Markets.com, said in an email that this coincidence "puts paid to the notion of cryptos as a safe haven play."

"Ultimately USD and US Treasury notes are the only real safe harbour," Wilson said.

SEE ALSO: Ethereum plunges to its lowest level in 11 months

DON'T MISS: Bitcoin dives after the SEC shoots down plans for another bitcoin ETF

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Stock trading is a 'monotheistic religion' — a JPMorgan chief strategist reveals the one thing that will keep the market soaring

Good morning! Here's what you need to know in markets on Tuesday.

1. Global markets got an update on China’s economy today via a triple-shot of key data releases: retail sales, industrial production and fixed asset investment. And the results whiffed across the board, as all three data prints missed expectations in July. According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), annual retail sales growth rose by 8.8% — down from 9% in the previous month and missing expectations of a 9.1% rise.

2. Asia share markets tried to regain their footing on Tuesday as tremors from the collapse of the Turkish lira ebbed a little and Wall Street proved resilient to the shockwaves. Japan's Nikkei appreciated more than 2.1% on the day, while Australia's ASX gained close to 0.8%. Chinese markets lost ground on the day after weaker than expected economic data.

3. Credit Suisse is splitting its international wealth-management unit into seven regions from four, in an ongoing push by Chief Executive Officer Tidjane Thiam to regionalize the bank, Bloomberg reported on Monday, citing people briefed on the matter. The seven regions are Latin America, Brazil, Western Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe, the report said.

4. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said US sanctions on his country are a "stab in the back." The US  imposed sanctions on Turkey this month after it refused to release a US pastor, leading Turkey's currency to plummet. 

5. Elon Musk said via Twitter Monday evening that he was working Goldman Sachs and Silver Lake as financial advisors on a proposal to take Tesla private. Musk also said that he was working with the law firms Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Munger and Tolles & Olson as legal advisors. Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

6. Separately, the rapper Azealia Banks claimed that she spent the weekend at Musk's house, setting social media ablaze. Banks told Business Insider she saw the Tesla CEO at home "scrounging for investors" after tweeting last week about plans to take Tesla private.

7. Activist investor Carl Icahn has reversed his position on US health insurer Cigna’s purchase of pharmaceutical subscription company Express Scripts. Last week, Icahn urged Cigna shareholders to vote against the $US52 billion dollar deal, and outlined plans to solicit proxy votes to build up enough to block the transaction. However, on Monday Icahn told CNBC he would no longer oppose the deal.

8. A bunch of millennials who use hot startups to manage their investments are getting whacked by Turkey's currency crisis. One of the most prominent victims of the crisis was the Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets exchange-traded fund (VWO), a basket of stocks located in China, South Africa, and other developing countries. With $90 billion in net assets, it's a bedrock emerging-market ETF. Its top investors include Betterment and Wealthfront, two of the most popular robo-advisors that help people get involved in the markets at a low cost. 

9. WPP is set to move out of its central London headquarters after 30 years, in another break with the past following the departure in April of founder and CEO Martin Sorrell from the world's largest advertising company. A person familiar with the situation said the company would stop leasing the small mews property which, despite its location in Farm Street in the upscale district of Mayfair, is one of the more low-key headquarters for a FTSE 100 company.

10. Mark Cuban is taking his Twitter profits and running. The investor and TV personality told CNBC on Monday that he has exited his stake in the social-media company because he "wanted to accumulate as much cash as possible."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

Less than two weeks after sharing Square’s cryptocurrency profits had doubled in the second quarter, the payments company made the long-awaited announcement on Twitter: users can now use Cash App to buy bitcoin in all fifty states. Red, white, and bitcoin. Now you can use Cash App to buy bitcoin in all 50 states. pic.twitter.com/D4fhVRz7WL

The post Square Cash Opens Bitcoin Buying and Selling in All 50 States appeared first on CCN

Down in the dumps while the cryptos are getting rekt? Quirky billionaire and long-time Bitcoin bull Tim Draper is here for you with what is apparently called a rap song. The song you have all been waiting for by Kelley James and me #bitcoin #bitcoinhustle. Free to share. #freedom https://t.co/VbPM5iM7yh https://t.co/VbPM5iM7yh — Tim Draper (@TimDraper) August 9, […]

Lightning nodes are making money – albeit not much – displaying the potential for a growing fee market on the layer two tech.

Bitcoin fell below $6,000 on Tuesday, a decline that brings the price of the world's largest cryptocurrency to within 2 percent of its 2018 low.

• Elon Musk's decision to tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private reportedly caught the company's own board of directors off-guard, The New York Times reported Monday night.
• That August 7 tweet caused Tesla's stock to skyrocket to $380 per share that day.
• In the days that followed, the SEC got involved, reportedly investigating Musk's online musings about taking the company private.
• The fallout from that tweet follows an extended run of public missteps by the Tesla CEO.

Elon Musk's decision to tweet that he was considering taking Tesla private reportedly caught some of the company's own board directors off guard, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Citing two people familiar with the internal response to Musk's August 7 tweet, The Times said the Tesla CEO had sent that tweet "with little forethought."

The decision to announce the plan, which Musk has since expanded upon, via Twitter "had not been cleared ahead of time with the company's board," The Times wrote.

The reported added that "some members of the board had been totally blindsided by Mr. Musk’s decision to air his plan on Twitter."

According to two unnamed people familiar with the fallout who talked to The Times about Musk's online musings, the Tesla CEO allegedly told an informal adviser that he posted on Twitter "impulsively," and said he was "not the kind of person who could hold things in," and admitted he "was angry at the company's critics."

The Securities and Exchange Commission has inquired about Musk's claims, which, if found to be untrue, could cause greater problems for Tesla chief executive.

Read more about Tesla possibly going private:

• Elon Musk reveals what he meant by his 'funding secured' tweet
• Elon Musk reveals new details about taking Tesla private, says he thought tweeting announcement was 'the right and fair thing to do'
• Elon Musk's tweet about taking Tesla private might be ethically questionable, but it isn't morally wrong
• A couple of reasons Elon Musk could actually pull off his wild plan to take Tesla private
• Elon Musk's 'funding secured' tweet could cost Tesla millions, former SEC chairman says

SEE ALSO: 'It was, at best, hasty and naive, and, at worst, manipulative': Experts slam Elon Musk's confusing defense of why he tweeted 'funding secured'

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: An early bitcoin investor explains what most people get wrong about the cryptocurrency

XRP, the world's third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, fell to its lowest price of 2018 on Tuesday.

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk released a statement on Monday in which he shed light on some of the questions raised last week by his statements about taking the company private.
• But Musk's explanation is incomplete and raises new questions, experts say.
• Musk's new statement doesn't back up his claim last week that he had "secured" funding to take Tesla private, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management, told Business Insider. 
• And Musk doesn't explain an estimate he makes about the amount of funding he'll have to raise to convert Tesla into a private company.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk released a statement on Monday in which he shed light on some of the questions raised last week by his statements about taking the company private. But Musk's explanation is incomplete and raises new questions, experts told Business Insider. 

Last week, Musk said he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 a share and implied that he had the funding to do so "secured," pending a shareholder vote. But, at the time, he didn't explain where that funding would come from. 

Musk said on Monday that he used the phrase "funding secured" in a tweet last week because he believed there was "no question" Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund would provide financing for a deal to convert Tesla into a private company after a July 31 meeting with the fund's managing director. 

Musk may have contradicted himself

But his attempt to provide clarity to investors and observers raises new problems, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, the senior associate dean for leadership studies at the Yale School of Management.

"It was, at best, hasty and naive, and, at worst, manipulative," he told Business Insider.

(Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at [email protected].)

While Musk expressed confidence in Monday's statement that the Saudi sovereign wealth fund was interested in helping Tesla go private, he didn't mention any legally-binding agreements that were in place at the time he sent his now-controversial tweet. And Musk said he is currently in discussions with the Saudi fund and other investors, which suggests some sources of funding may not be settled.

"He did not have the firm commitment that he said he did," Sonnenfeld said.

"While he's in talks, there's nothing certain until it's certain, and 'funding secured' and having productive talks are two different things," said James Rosener, a partner at the law firm Pepper Hamilton who specializes in private equity and corporate financing.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment about the potential disparity between Musk's "funding secured" tweet and his statement from Monday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. And on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

According to Sonnenfeld, Monday's statement doesn't lessen the chance that Musk receives some form of punishment from the SEC, in addition to lawsuits from shareholders, some of which have already been filed.

"It would be hard to imagine he isn't sanctioned, fined, reprimanded in some way for this misconduct," he said.

Musk's statement raises new questions

While the statement appeared to be damage control, according to Gregory Sichenzia, a founding partner at the law firm Sichenzia Ross Ference Kesner, it includes at least one statement that could open Musk to further scrutiny.

At one point, Musk estimates that about two-thirds of the shares owned by current Tesla shareholders would roll over into shares of a private Tesla, were a take-private deal to go through, reducing the total amount of money he would have to raise.

But Musk doesn't explain how he arrived at that estimate.

"How does he know that? How does anyone know that," Sichenzia said. "There's no way to know that, so why would you say it?"

Musk's statements may contradict the reason he wants to take the company private, Akshay Anand, an executive analyst for Kelley Blue Book, said. Last week, Musk said he wanted to take Tesla private in part because the pressures of being a public company have created distractions. But the questions raised by his conduct over the past week may create yet another distraction.

"Musk already has his hands completely full. He doesn't need distractions. The employees don't need distractions. Investors don't need distractions, and this has the potential to turn into one," Anand said.

SEE ALSO: 9 reasons you should buy Tesla's new Model 3 'Performance' car instead of the standard Model 3

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NOW WATCH: An early investor in Uber, Airbnb, and bitcoin explains why it's actually a good sign that no one is spending their crypto

Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance, has officially stated that the company does not charge 400 bitcoin ($2.5 million) to list cryptocurrencies on its platform. Legitimacy of the Claim Last week, cryptocurrency researcher Christopher Franko claimed that Binance, the world’s largest digital asset exchange, has been charging cryptocurrencies a listing fee of 400 BTC to … Continued

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The ethereum price  fell over 10 percent against the US Dollar at the start of this week, establishing fresh lows of 2018. The ETH/USD pair has been on a downward trend all this year, much like the other top coins including bitcoin, ripple, and litecoin. At the time of this writing, the pair has experienced

The post Ethereum Price Intraday Analysis: ETHUSD Drops to Yearly Lows appeared first on CCN

The ethereum price  fell over 10 percent against the US Dollar at the start of this week, establishing fresh lows of 2018. The ETH/USD pair has been on a downward trend all this year, much like the other top coins including bitcoin, ripple, and litecoin. At the time of this writing, the pair has experienced

The post Ethereum Price Intraday Analysis: ETHUSD Drops to Yearly Lows appeared first on CCN

The ethereum price  fell over 10 percent against the US Dollar at the start of this week, establishing fresh lows of 2018. The ETH/USD pair has been on a downward trend all this year, much like the other top coins including bitcoin, ripple, and litecoin. At the time of this writing, the pair has experienced

The post Ethereum Price Intraday Analysis: ETHUSD Drops to Yearly Lows appeared first on CCN